Scattered Thoughts 3
I finished reading Philip K. Dick’s A Maze of Death. It was a quick read. Fourteen people are sent to a planet for unknown purposes after requesting transfers for one reason or another. Not long after the final person arrives, one of their number is killed.
A Maze of Death is fairly standard PKD fare. He seems to have a tendency to throw a bunch of interesting ideas into the mix and – when he’s at his worst – not really develop them in a way that sustains that interest. Concepts are introduced and dropped within a few pages. For instance, in the story’s universe, the existence of god-like beings has been proven as a matter of course; characters pray to them and their prayers are listened to. The whole story reads like it was a first draft. In this novel, his characters bounce around aimlessly for a while as their number slowly dwindles. The ending is likely to leave readers feeling a bit cheated. I can’t recommend this one except to maybe the most die-hard PKD fans. At least it was readable? And by that I mean the pacing is decent.
I’ve been playing Alan Wake II. I re-visited the first game about a year ago in anticipation of playing the sequel. I still remember playing the original when it was new and thinking that it wasn’t the kind of horror that I like. More than a decade later, the original hasn’t aged well at all. It’s pretty obvious that the game suffered through development hell. Apparently for a long period of its development it was intended to be an open world game.
AW2 is better in many ways. I still can’t take Alan Wake’s narration seriously, so it’s nice that he’s not the only protagonist this time around. It’s hard to tell if Wake’s hack writing is intentionally bad, or if it’s meant to be spooky? The rest of the game’s writing is better, so maybe it’s a choice.
AW2 is heavily inspired by Twin Peaks, including the third season that originally aired in 2017. As a big Peaks-head, I’m happy to see it. Remedy has also tightly connected the world of Alan Wake with the world of Control. It’s not surprising, considering how well-received Control was.
I played on the normal difficulty setting for the first couple of hours. The first boss fight was reasonably challenging. But I quickly decided to switch down to “story mode” after encountering a wolf enemy for the first time. It moves way too fast and hits too hard for my terrible reflexes. I’m glad that story mode is an option, but it’s a missed opportunity to not have one level between it and “normal”. Sometimes it feels like developers have forgotten how to make games that are just the right amount of difficulty. Not too hard and not too easy. Ah well. Maybe I’m just getting older.
I’m enjoying AW2 enough to be excited to see where its narrative goes. It makes me wonder if they’re going to end it on another cliffhanger like the first game.
Widow’s Bay is a fun TV series. Easy to watch and offers a self-contained story. Each episode tackles a different horror trope. The humour is chuckle-worthy and not distracting. While season two has apparently been approved, people who are interested can rest-assured that there’s a decent ending to this season.