Anteplitude says things!

So I was reading some Silent Hill forums, because those guys are much more dedicated to digging up info on the new movie coming out than I could ever be (and man, I am not letting myself get excited for this one. I hope if it’s bad it’s at least as hilariously bad as the first one). It was kind of like going back in time to when I still used Deviant Art. So much weeabo going on and fandom for games I’ve long since grown out of. Not to say that they aren’t some amazing games, but the more I go back and look at them, the less I like them.

Anyway, minor spoiler alert for some of the series and somewhat major spoiler alert for Shattered Memories.

Now, Silent Hill, being a survival horror game, had some terrible, awkward controls. That’s how we liked it back in the day. Everyone used those god-awful controls from Alone in The Dark practically all the way up until Resident Evil 4. So yeah, they weren’t fun. They were WORK, so when the new game in the series is basically a point and click adventure with no health items or game over screens, with the added bonus of being based on the game that started the series, people are going to flip. People on these forums are saying this game is “spoon-fed” to players and they leave the player with nothing to figure out on their own-story wise.

Well, I wouldn’t necessarily say that. It’s interactive media. I’d call it just as interactive as any other Silent Hill game. It’s just less of a game and more of an interactive story. As for things being spelled out; yeah, the big twist was spelled out. It’s spelled out in every Silent Hill game. As for leaving things open to figure out on your own, I’d say that this is the hardest of any of the games to wrap your head around because all you can really come up with are theories. The majority of the game doesn’t actually happen. There are only a few things we can say for sure based on the story, and the rest is like trying to analyze somebody, I dunno, that you’re stalking? Since the rest of the series has concrete events, people were able to construct all sorts of facts and timelines of everything. Even if you tried that with Shattered Memories, you wouldn’t be able to call them anything but theories.

Also, since the game is so different from the rest, yet generally well-received, some of these guys are actually worried that this could hurt the series. Well, considering it’s the first great game they’ve put out in this series in, like, YEARS, that can’t be too bad, right? Personally, I think this one would be hard to top. Like, really hard to top. They can’t even make anything like it anymore because they already used that twist. It almost would have been better for Konami to produce a series of games and release the twist at the end. Especially since the format of Shattered Memories is pretty much made exclusively for story telling, they probably won’t even bother reusing the engine.

Anyway, have you ever started writing something and stopped caring, like, halfway through? Yeah.

People with really strong opinions tend to get on my nerves. They belittle your opinions as if they are completely and totally invalid and it’s kinda hurtful. Example: a lot of older men are getting into that new My Little Pony cartoon. I said I didn’t get it and I got jumped on because somebody considered it just wrong that I didn’t understand why grown men would like something created to market cheap plastic toys to young girls. Apparently I’m closed-minded for not really understanding it. Funny thing is, the subject of movies came up and I whined about how my boyfriend ordered Tangled and it was several days late and as quickly as I mentioned it, the same guy just flat out said all Disney is shit.

So me liking something made for a very wide audience is totally wrong, too. Liking anything from that company is. Yeah, it’s a big, nasty company out for nothing but money, but that company bought some real talent, especially in Disney Animation (and I guess they own Pixar now, too. Whole different bag there, though). What can I say? I’m a faggot and I like Allen Menken. Tangled was marketed as a slapstick-y, goofy, Dreamworks movie with raised eyebrows and all, and they even went as far as rendering out new scenes just for the commercials that weren’t actually in the movie, but it was actually a lot like the Disney musicals from the early 90s, and those were good! I’m so sick of what animation has become. Even Pixar is losing it. Something good comes out this millennium, I get excited for it, but oops, all of Disney is shit. I dunno. It’s kind of hurtful when people shit on your opinions like that.

I dunno. I had to bitch about it, even if this person reads it. This probably isn’t even the right place for this, but it’s really all I have right now.

So I figured I might as well get an old iPad for cheap while they were still around. Honestly, the size doesn’t bother me, and if I’m developing for it, I want my stuff to be able to run on the original anyway. The 16 gig version was out of stock everywhere except for this one Wal-Mart, so I went there.

After waiting around for like, 15 minutes trying to find somebody in the electronics section, I was able to find two managers who were discussing where they can cut back (seriously). They ran off to find the key or whatever, and 5 minutes later they were back with the electronics section person.

It was then I noticed that the “iPad 16GB wifi” was priced at $529 after $100 off. I told them that was wrong and I was going to check the website quick, and I showed them the price the website said. They claimed the website was “always cheaper” and I asked “$130 cheaper?” and they were like “yes”. I asked them to ring it up to see how much it was, because I was convinced somebody made a pricing mistake on the sticker, and they resisted. They wouldn’t even unlock the case until I told them “Ok, I will buy it at $530”. It occurred to me that this was why they were the only people who had it in stock. Either people saw the insane price and decided not to buy it, or they wanted to and they couldn’t get past the initial argument.

So anyway, she rung it up and, surprise, it was $399, and I was like “Oh wow! Look at that! I’m saving $230!”. Then I asked if I could ring it up on two different cards because I didn’t have enough credit and I didn’t want to spend all of my cash before FWA, but they fucked that up and it all went on my card, so my options were get a refund in 2-3 days and buy it again, tying up even more of my money, or just dealing with it. So I dealt with it.

Seriously, the whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth. They argued with me, and the managers I had to grab (because nobody else was around) acted like it was a huge inconvenience that they had to help customers (which, by the way, they’ll have to get used to if they really intend to downsize even more). So yeah, fuck Wal-Mart and their useless employees.