lost and never found
ryan karazija, low roar, death stranding, marvel snap, resident evil village
there’s a lot i want to say but sometimes i say too much. what is anything we do worth. what is time and how do we make it meaningful. alan moore believes we don’t go somewhere else or even reincarnate after death so much as we return to the beginning, reliving the same life over and over again, every time feeling like the first time. is the universe a giant rogue-like? who can say. here’s the news. be good.
Rest in Peace, Ryan Karazija
ryan karazija, founder and frontman of icelandic electronic outfit low roar, passed away late last month due to pneumonia-related complications. he was 40 years old.
low roar’s melancholy soundscapes became synonymous with kojima production’s equally somber death stranding after several of their songs appeared in the 2019 video game. director hideo kojima was reportedly introduced to their music while visiting reykjavík, a moment of serendipity that both gave his first game after leaving konami its signature sound and bolstered low roar’s popularity worldwide.
“[karazija’s] beautiful music and lyrics, sung in his haunting voice, have touched the lives of so many people all over the world, and will continue to do so,” the band’s official website eulogizes. “he was a kind and beautiful soul and our worlds are shattered by the loss of him. may we honor his memory through his art and hold him forever in his songs.”
thank you for everything you gave us, ryan, and for keeping me sane over these last few, difficult months. i hope you felt loved.
Hilarious Odin Bug Makes Marvel Snap a Griefer’s Paradise
i’m very much enjoying my time with marvel snap, the new marvel comics-based, mobile card game from fresh-faced dev second dinner studios. what’s even more entertaining, however, is how one of the cards can interact with itself and create a near-infinite, game-ruining loop. it’s perfect video game bullshit.
marvel snap matches play out in three separate lanes, each complete with their own unique rules depending on the random locations revealed over the course of the game. one such location, bar sinister, fills the lane with copies of whatever cards get played there. revealing two, three, or even four of the same card lends itself to a lot of silliness, but nothing is more hilarious than what happens when odin shows up.
odin, you see, performs an “on reveal” action that activates every other card’s “on reveal” action at the same location. put multiple odins in one place and what do you get? that’s right, a bunch of norse gods repeatedly activating each other’s “on reveal” actions, which only begets more “on reveal” activations, which in turn activate even more “on reveal” actions, and so on and so forth. the resulting animations, as seen above, take forever to complete, and all the other player can do is wait it out or, if they get really frustrated, retreat from the match entirely.
although second dinner has yet to address the odin bug (or maybe exploit is a better word, i’m not sure), the “known issues” section of the november 3 patch notes does acknowledge how certain cards can make turns take too long when played in a bar sinister lane. it’s only a matter of time before the devs patch it out, so until then, let’s all revel in the chaos of this ultimately innocuous prank and pray we don’t fall victim to its time-wasting potential ourselves.
Resident Evil Village DLC Introduces the Series’ Most Terrifying Monster Yet
resident evil is often only as scary as you allow it to be. like a bad horror movie, if you give yourself over to the experience, even tired zombie tropes and the shark-jumpingest moments can be creepy as hell. but the latest chapter in the bizarre resident evil storyline brought me face to face with the most frightening monster the series has ever produced, and it didn’t need any help from my end to send shivers down my spine.
last week, resident evil village got its first piece of substantial downloadable content in shadows of rose. the long-awaited follow-up focuses on rosemary winters, daughter of resident evil 7 and village protagonist ethan winters, as she attempts to rid herself of the magical fungus powers bestowed upon her by her parents’ cursed adventures (if you thought resident evil was weird before, the last two games really went off the deep end).
the details aren’t important, but eventually, rose arrives at resident evil village’s house beneviento, which for my money was the best part of the original game. primed for something cool and mindfuck-y, i solved the mansion’s contraptions and learned more about rose’s traumatic childhood. every now and then, the creepy mannequin ethan operated on during his village excursion popped up in strange places, spooking both me and rose as we ran from puzzle to puzzle sans weaponry.
the mannequin—modeled after rose’s mom mia—was unsettling, sure, though it didn’t really pose any danger. it just… stood there. looking creepy and lifeless. soon, it was time to leave. “well, this was fun,” i thought to myself, “i just figured there would be more to it than that.” but almost as if it sensed my disappointment, the game took a hard right turn into nightmare territory, plunging me into near-darkness before i could make my escape.
as rose got her bearings, i noticed hand-scrawled notes on the wall that hadn’t been there before. their words gave me goosebumps:
“let’s play statues!”
“it’s game over if they catch you.”
“don’t look away.”
i began following a map towards a fuse that would bring the elevator to life and stumbled upon the mannequin again. this time, however, its eyes were glowing. taking the previous advice to heart, i made sure to keep the game’s camera focused on the mia look-alike. i thought the challenge may have been over as i turned a corner, but no. once the mannequin was out of my eyesight, i heard its stiff, wooden joints come to life. it was moving. the damn thing turned the corner into the hallway i occupied and (thank god) came to a stop as soon as it met my gaze.
i paused the game, a deep dread forming in the pit of my stomach. it was almost like that moment in signs when joaquin phoenix first sees the aliens on television, only without the closet and the over-the-top freak out and the yelling at brazilian children to get out of the way. or maybe i felt like i did 20 years ago, sitting in a darkened theater with my cousin in a small city on california’s central coast, watching joaquin phoenix in signs and almost hyper-ventilating from second-hand terror. i don’t know, but that phrase is really cracking me up for some reason. it’s like i was joaquin phoenix in signs. i can’t stop saying it. joaquin phoenix in signs. sorry.
anyway, yeah. the rest of the story is pretty rote from there. after getting got a couple of times and then figuring out some tricks to avoid dying, i walked backwards through various rooms and found a fuse to power the elevator en route to safety, ducking and weaving past multiple mannequins along the way. but i won’t lie: i was freaked out the whole time. i can still hear the motherly monsters’ polished feet scraping against the mansion’s hardwood floor. forget the giant, tumor-covered bosses that’ve been a staple of the survival-horror series since it debuted 26 years ago; it’s these quiet moments that stick with me long after i’ve finished yet another resident evil game.
some may think the franchise’s best days are behind it, but capcom devs can still go hard when they want to.
Good Stuff You Should Check Out Elsewhere
The sound of Death Stranding and how Hideo Kojima selects the music for his games (Cian Maher, Eurogamer)
We scorn friction at our peril (Steven Nguyen Scaife, Unwinnable)
A conversation With Zophar of Zophar’s Domain (merritt k, Other Strangeness)
How A Short Hike captures the feeling of fall (Sarah Thwaites, Uppercut)
Memories of the PC Engine, from the people who made it sing (John Szczepaniak, Time Extension)
Moment of Zen
the sounds cemented down / circus of repeating clowns / just over and over a crown / chorus of repeating sounds / time to make the ugly lovely / time to make the lovely ugly / so I’m leaving / stopped in a lesson, shot down / sirens are ringing all around / time to make me into something / then time will turn me into nothing / so i’m leaving