survival horror tactical espionage action and movies about doing some stuff before the sun rises.

[geebs]

After getting back from the Korean BBQ place, played some RE4, took a break, then played some RE4 for a while when the usual supects came over for poker, then watched "Before Sunrise". More on the last thing later. Playing through the game more, I'd say RE4 is about half survival horror and half tactical espionage action. I've mentioned how Metal Gear-ish it was before, especially with codec-like walkie talkie communication Leon has at times, but in the later levels is more evident. I mean, there are more than a few levels where you quickly sneak from position to position to snipe enemy positions. Also, there's a lot of emphasis on the "tactical". Your job is a lot easier if you lure enemies near exploding barrels and mines, or shoot parts of the environment to drop boulders or lanterns that erupt in a burst of flame on them to cut down their numbers or damage the stronger enemies. And positioning and knowing the proper weapons to use is a must. If you see them in a large group, toss a grenade, and/or get in a position where they can only attack you from one direction and through a bottleneck so you can take them on one on one. A good example was this part where I opened a door to a courtyard with a guard standing in front of a sort of guard house. I whip out ths sniper rifle, pop his head off, which alerts his comrades in the house. I quickly run up, open the door, toss a grenade in, then quickly switch to the shotgun and stand in the doorway and take out the survivors. Much better than just going in guns blazing.

It still has its share of scares though. I mean, you still have your share of freaky monsters and surprising traps. But it also pumps up the stress levels by having you cornered and having to fight you way out of enemies at all side. Or having to cover Ashley with your sniper rifle as she does some task in an area only she can get to while enemies rush and try to get her. Though the having to buy things does make you want to take more risks for more $$. Like there's this point where you can take two paths to a place, one is pretty open but you're running from an El Gigante (who looks exactly like a cave troll from LotR). The other is a maze full of the zombie villagers and a couple of chainsaw maniacs. Additionally, you can prolly choose to just run from El gigante, and miss a lot of the treasure on that path. If you're really gutsy, you can go down one path, clear it, then go down the other. Hell, I need the cash, so of course I'm going to do both and kill the giant thing, because he drops some serious bank. But there are more than a few optional fights that you can avoid if you don't want the money. But at what point do you not need the money?

I also got up to the first shooting gallery. I had trouble with it at first, because I was confused by the requirements. I thought I had to use the slow bolt-action to shoot the targets. It wasn't until playing it a few times that I realized I'm supposed to use the pistol to pop off the close targets, and then switch to the rifle when the tiny far away target shows up after hitting five in a row. And the part where you can use s shotgun/submachine gun instead, I thought it was gonna be a totally different shooting range emphasizing speed over accuracy. But I realized you use the accurate weapons to score the high points (as the tiny targets are worth a lot) and get the really high score, but you use the lots o lead weapons to make sure you hit every target to get the bonus prize. So I completed the first gallery so far and got all the bottlecaps. Though why they're called bottlecaps when they're like these mini-statuettes of the characters in the game mounted on bottle cap sized things, I don't know. I mean, I think the statuette part is more important than the bottlecap part. But I digress.

Enough RE talk. After having my fill for the night, I went ahead and watched the "Before Sunrise" DVD psyched_out lent me. It was a pretty cool movie. I'll put behind a cut so I don't spoil it for anyone else: It was interesting. Basically, boy meets girl on a train, they hit it off, but then he has to get off for his flight the next morning, but he doesn't want that to be it, so he asks her to get off with him and they can hang out until the next morning. Which she of course does. And most of the movie is just them hanging out and talking about various things. Well, and like connecting and stuff. But they don't end up living happily ever after at the end (well, if you're a optimist, you can say they do). He doesn't stay nor does she go with him, he gets on his bus to the airport, she gets on her train to paris. And its not like they start up this long distance thing. But its not like they want it to end after one night, so they promise to meet each other 6 months from now at that station. So the ending is very, well open-ended. Well, if you don't know about Before Sunset, and I know what happens in it, so i know how it turns out. But, just taking that movie by yourself, it could've gone so many ways. Maybe they did meet and it worked out and they lived happily ever after. Or it lost its appeal and their talk about relationships during that night ended up ringing true and they broke up. Or they just didn't show up, not wanting to ruin the magic of that night with a failing relationship afterwards.

Though, what's up with not exchanging addresses/phone numbers? Like, what if something happens and they can't make it? Though I guess without that, they're more motivated to just show up at the station. And it might tempt them to write a letter or make the couple of calls that would cause what they had to fizzle out. I dunno, I prolly woulda asked for her number, just in case, being the worry-wart that I am. Of course, I prolly wouldn't have been gutsy enough to ask her to get off the train and spend the night haningg out with me. Well, if I was in one of my "What the hell/not caring" phases I get in, where I just want to spite everyone who thinks I'd be too pussy to do something like that, I prolly would. And it would end up blowing up in my face like it usually does, but then at least I have a funny story to tell afterwards, so its not a complete loss. But wandering around a foreign city for like half a day sounds interesting, though not something I'd ever seek to do on my own.

Though one thing I found myself thinking about were those two guys doing the cow play. Do you think they were disappointed/pissed they didn't show up. Like maybe its not a big play, and the audience is usually sparse. So they didn't see them there and were all "those foreign bastards! We help them out and they can't even see our play." Though it seems like they spoiled the play for them anyways, so its not like they don't know what's gonna happen. And do you think he really like mailed a check for the bottle of wine to the bar owner after he got back?

Comments

[sstrickl.livejournal.com]

If I'm right, they're called bottlecaps because the bottle-cap looking mounts really are bottlecaps. I seem to remember there being bottles of drinks with collectable figurines affixed to the top while I was in Japan, but I could be wrong. There were others where the figurines were in bags which had holes through which the neck of the bottle was threaded, to which I ask "Why don't people just take the bags and leave the drinks?", but I guess a) it'd be fairly easy to notice someone doing that, at least if they try for multiple, and b) maybe people who want to collect those types of things just tend to be fairly honest as well. *shrug*

[psyched-out.livejournal.com]

i guess you haven't watched "before sunset" yet? they bring up the "god, we were so stupid, why didn't we at least give each other our addresses?" thing...