Fairy Tale Spotlight: Receiver (Game Series)

The Receiver games are a lot of things to me. They mean different things to different people. Some people only partially like them. Others hate them outright. Many are offended. But there is no denying that something very important is happening when these two games are played.

The Receiver series are a collection of two PC-Only games. They are classified as First Person Shooters. However they are extremely nonstandard FPSs. Most FPS games give you a gun that occasionally needs to be reloaded, usually by pressing the "R" key. In the Receiver games, every conceivable action you would be able to take in real life, pertaining to the gun, is bound to a separate key on the keyboard.

What this means is that the act of reloading a gun involves pressing a large number of keys. Things often ignored in more mainstream FPSs are necessary to understand and enact in Receiver. For example, you have to manually push bullets into the magazine, but you have to holster the actual gun first so you have the free hand to do so. Guns holstered while the hammer is back and the safety is off could cause the gun to discharge into your foot if you don't take the proper precautions.

The game simulates these guns so flawlessly that, when a jam happens, it isn't because of a random programming script. It happens entirely because of the simulation. And you have to know what keys to press to fix those jams. There is even a key used to tap the magazine to get the bullet into the chamber in the case of a bad magazine spring.

The point of Receiver is so that you don't just hold and fire a gun. You have to form a relationship with that weapon inside and out. You have to respect it for the weapon that it is so that it will serve you best. It trains you, not only how to use a gun properly within a dangerous situation, but also how important calmness is when handing a firearm. And here we get into the story.

One of the reasons so many people hate the story of this game is because it boldly goes into how the main stream media hypnotizes people en mass. The game's story attempts to explain how people tend to get caught up in the forced narrative of the media and end up turning into pointless people with meaningless existences. Because the plot of the game tends to be thrown away as a right-winged conspiracy narrative, people tend to hate on it. But ironically, the story itself explains exactly why people feel they should hate on it. These people are perpetually asleep to reality, and any deviation from the narrative that they have been force fed should and will make them angry and ultimately turn away from it. The plot of this game is actually based on fact, and I admire the creator of the game for being bold enough to just say it outright.

In the game, you play as someone called a Receiver. You are trapped in a sort of limbo of repeating rooms and hallways while various mechanical devices such as gun turrets try and track you and kill you. You are tasked to find these cassette tapes strewn about that will assist you in "waking up." Once you have fully woken up, you will regain your independence as a human being and see the lies of the media for what they are.

But there are little "trap" tapes hidden about that you need to watch out for. These tapes unleash something simply called "the threat." Instead of explaining something that the Receiver needs to know, it will often break into some depressing or cynical narrative that is more likely to put you back to sleep. If this threat gains a foothold, you will be compelled to draw your weapon, turn it to your face, and pull the trigger.

If you think that the tape has a threat in it, you need to unload your weapon extremely fast. Which means you need to stay calm while you do it. And believe me, it can be very hard to do it quickly with some guns. Take the Single Action Army for example. The chamber doesn't even pop out for that gun. You have to carefully spin the chamber and pop every bullet out separately in a timely manner. Miss even one, and it might end up in your skull. This is why calmness is so important in the game. Moments like those demand it.

I entirely recommend this series, but I warn you that it is very hard at first. I was able to get the game working on a controller after painstakingly binding every necessary key to a button. It wasn't easy, but I did it. If you had to choose between the two games, go with Receiver 2. It is the killer app of the series. It's narrative is far clearer than the first which tended to lean towards extreme subtlety. The name of the game is stay calm and know your weapon. If you cannot do these two simultaneously, then this game will kill you over, and over, and over again... and you'll never wake up. You'll just be one of the masses of people... all going through an endless and meaningless loop. I'd hardly call that life really.

Thank you for reading my blog! Did you enjoy it? Either way, you can comment below, or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. You can also visit my website at www.tkwade.com. Check out my books! Thanks!

Fairy Tale Spotlight: Knack (Game Series)

So Knack is a video game for the PS4 that came out in 2013. It was followed up by a sequel in 2017. I dearly love them both. I won't spoil very much because I am more interested in talking about the main character and what he is in this series.

The series is all about adventure and the fighting of evil. A lot of the themes are extremely cliché but not in a bad way. It takes place in a advanced world where humans went from primitive to advanced in a short period of time after discovering ancient technology. Interestingly they are still suffering attacks from a race of goblins.

Knack is a golem that was created by one of the human's leading scientists. He is a core that magnetizes little funny-shaped blocks called relics to himself which creates his body. The more relics he finds, the bigger and stronger he gets. This provides the main game play loops which has him growing in size as a level progresses. Loads of fun really.

In his smallest state, Knack does not have enough relics to process communication. Once he picks up enough relics, he is able to get some mouth-work going and actually speak. He has a deep and booming, yet friendly voice. He is 100% loyal to the humans that created him. This loyalty, at no time, ever sways. He is truly their creation, and as the game says many times, he is alive. He is life. And the humans created that life.

Now one of the biggest complaints these games have from some of the very critical reviews [almost none of them liked these games] is that the game seems to be more about the humans (that you never play) while the main character (Knack) just does work for them. The critics seem to prefer the game show Knack as more of a deciding protagonist rather than a pet that can beat stuff up and lift big things. A lot of people hate this game because of this.

Here is the problem with the argument. Knack is a golem. He was created to serve the humans. He has no interest in anything other than that. He is also a genuinely nice person... to the humans. To their enemies, he has no qualms about crushing and killing them.

Knacks loyalty even extends to what some people might call absurd levels. Lucas is the golem's best friend. He is also a confused and often tortured teenager. Lucas is often known for making rash decisions that put people in jeopardy due to his immature ego. Despite kind of realizing this, Knack always remains faithful to Lucas even when it seems like it's the wrong thing to do. He does this because he can't help it. It's in his programming.

To make Knack feel like more of a humanized character might have pleased the critics, but it would have been wrong. It would not have shown golems in the correct light. As loving and faithful as Knack is... he is not human. He never will be. And yet, he is awesome to watch as he grows and beats the crap out of the bad guys... but the humans in the story are the real driving force, whether or not they be in the right. They are the ones really winning the battle. If they make the wrong decisions, so will Knack.

The fact that you play the golem who is bound by his human creators is likely what puts off the reviewers. They don't understand that the developers of these 2 games did it correctly. I applaud them for it. I am also very pleased that they made a sequel to a game that was panned from release. They even doubled down on the original message. They bothered, and the world is better for it. I whole-heartedly recommend the Knack series for its sense of adventure, lovable characters, and one of the best representations of a golem I have ever seen in fiction. Bravo.

Thank you for reading my blog! Did you enjoy it? Either way, you can comment below, or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. You can also visit my website at www.tkwade.com. Check out my books! Thanks!

Fairy Tale Spotlight: Golems

I feel like I sometimes don't dive into fairy tale aspects as much as I should. Part of the reason I end up talking about God, the bible, TV shows, games, and movies is because I kind of relate fairy tale lore to just about everything around me. It's a bit how I pinpointed an episode of Gotham with an old fairy tale called Bluebeard. Fairy lore is all around us, and for some reason, most people just shrug it off as meaningless fiction.

But I digress.

This is still a fairy tale blog, and I want to talk about golems today. I am not as interested in the origins of golems. I believe that come from Jewish folklore. Beings made out of clay and brought to life through magic. It is a very compelling ideal, especially when you consider the possibility that these were very early robotic prototypes. And I guess that's what a golem really is. It's artificial life.

But why clay? Clay is so... boring. Rocks are even more boring. The truth is that it can really be any sort of material. You mold it, give it a purpose, and then provide it with animation. How you do that can be any number of methods. We're not just talking raw magic here. It could be an electrical component as well. But whatever you do, it probably wont make it eternal. It should age and die like the rest of us once its source of animation runs out.

But during the time of this animation, it is essentially alive. Can it speak? Maybe. Did you give it that ability? Can it feel? Did you allow it to feel? Can it love? Did you allow it to love? A golem can actually be anything you want it to be. You simply have to imbue it with those specific attributes. And whatever attributes you give it are going to become a part of its core. Those things will be of the utmost importance to it. If you really want a golem to have the ability to love someone, it will love more than even you are capable of. It's like this because there is an intense focus there.

Is a golem really alive? What is life? Animation. The ability to think and choose one from the other. Yes, golems are alive, and they are even people. But there will never be human. They will never possess a soul. If they die, everything that they are is entirely in your hands. You can move them to another place or let them pass away into nothingness. That is your responsibility. This is because they are not a creation of God. They are a creation of man. So if they have a soul, you had to give them one of your own making.

For example, their soul could be similar to the embodiment of their knowledge and self-identity. Once they pass away, you could remove the part of them that contains this information and transfer it into either a new body or into a computer-based equivalent of Paradise. That is your choice. That's not really the golem's choice. They don't make the rules, they merely follow them.

It is very important to understand that golems are the creations of man just as man is the creation of God. God created us in a very specific way. He gave us the freedom of choice. We can do the same with a golem if we know how. But their fates are ultimately up to us. We decide those rules.

Most of the golems in lore are usually very robot like. They follow a series of programs and can only do things based on that programming. There is no deviation. This means that they are basically feral by nature. That doesn't mean we can't do it differently. It simply means that is what has been done so far. It is the way of the traditional golem. But it is important that you understand that the rules of making golems are only limited by how we construct them. Those are decisions we make.

The possibilities of golem creation extend as far as the imagination will let us go. It is dangerous, but it is also filled with possibilities. Something to think about.

More about golems in the next blog.

Thank you for reading my blog! Did you enjoy it? Either way, you can comment below, or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. You can also visit my website at www.tkwade.com. Check out my books! Thanks!

Fairy Tale Spotlight: Aggresive Retsuko

Aggressive Retsuko is a Netflix exclusive Japanese anime from 2016 that I recently watched 2 seasons of. It's actually been a bit. I got sidetracked and probably should have written this review a while back.

I don't know if I ever said this, but I am a huge fan of Disney's Zootopia. But the truth is, I pretty much am looking for anything with furry type characters in it. So Aggressive Retsuko hit my radar pretty hard. But I think the thing that fascinated me the most about it was that it was made by Sanrio. If you don't know who they are, these are the people who gave us Hello Kitty. Only with this new franchise... the content is intended for adults.

I know what you're thinking: A company that has catered to children suddenly wants to show they can make adults happy too. What this usually means is a bunch of cute animals saying crude things and talking about sex. Wait! Wait! No. This show is actually amazingly written and interesting. Wow.

No, seriously! The first episode had me hooked. By the third episode, it was like my own personal crack. I got addicted. I may have missed a few meals.

Aggressive Retsuko follows the story of a red panda named Retsuko as she navigates a hostile work environment as well as deal with the trials of being a young adult. She is adorable. She is so adorable. Also she takes out her stress by singing death metal karaoke. That's so cute.

Her boss Ton, portrayed as a fat pig, often treats her like crap. Wait, I know. It's a male chauvinist thing, right? Well... kinda? Like sorta? The thing about this show is... they tend to deliver you what you think are political tropes, but then they very evenly give you both sides of the story. So... even if you end up hating Ton for how he treats her, you kind of know where he's coming from. I mean... by the end of season 2 I actually kind of liked him.

It is really hard to predict anything in this show. Annoying character become endearing as time goes on. It is all a matter of learning more about them and why they act the way they do. They even went after snowflake millennials from a very compassionate angle while still fully acknowledging that they are a problem. But there was one character that threw me for a loop: Tadano the donkey.

Tadano is actually my favorite character in the whole series, and he doesn't even show up till season 2. I once had a friend like Tadano. His name was Roger. Roger believed that all our problems could be solved by creating an AI that could work for us while we worked towards a utopia where everyone relaxed and just did the things that made them happy. This is Tadano in a nutshell. The difference between Tadano and my former friend Roger was that Tadano was actually bothering to make it happen... and Roger was sorta... talking about it... a lot... and trying to get other people to do it for him. Tadano wins. Sorry, Roger.

At his heart, Tadano is 100% a nice and even wonderful person. He truly believed in a world where everyone could just be happy and create things. And he was making a honest push for it and could back it up with his own personal experience. In a way, he was already living that life for himself. And even if he was a bit misguided in the way he was doing this, there was no denying that he was a sweetheart. I don't want to spoil much more about his plot line, but I liked everything they did with him and his relationship with Retsuko.

I adored both seasons of this show. It is well written and extremely thoughtful. Nothing felt like they were trying too hard to separate themselves from their children roots. They just wanted to write a good story for adults to enjoy. It never goes too far in either direction and explains all points of views. Also Retsuko is so cute. God, she's cute.

Thank you for reading my blog! Did you enjoy it? Either way, you can comment below, or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. You can also visit my website at www.tkwade.com. Check out my books! Thanks!

Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Thing that Couldn't Die

[Some spoilers coming up.]

The Thing that Couldn't Die is a black and white movie from 1958 that I recently watched. I watch a lot of old movies. I usually regret it, but not this time. Not entirely. It was worth my time for the most part. Let me tell you why.

The filmmakers were real big in taking supernatural and occult phenomenon and happily making them the centerpiece of their movie. You had a woman with psychic powers who accidentally finds an old lost box buried in the ground by none other than Sir Francis Drake. The box included the head of a wizard from, what I believe was, the American colonial period. But get this: the head ain't dead.

The horror element of the film comes from how this magical head uses his powers to manipulate the poor people at a ranch to restore him to his former glory and then... be evil a lot, I guess. I mean it was very clear that he was evil. I'm just sure what his actual end game was.

He was also very persuasive. The wizard, who was called Gideon Drew, had hypnotic abilities and was fairly easily able to bring certain people into his allegiance. Once in his allegiance, their personalities would shift to a darker, more... uh... evil sort of theme. I mean... just so you know whose side they were on now. It certainly helped me.

The funny thing about who the wizard picked to hypnotize was that it was limited to either men with mental disorders... or women. Any women. Even nice, friendly, kind-hearted ones. Both were fantastically easy for him to control. Oh, and if you were a good girl who cared about people, prepare to drop all that and go full on bad girl. Drop that blue dress for a black one! This is how Gideon likes his women!

Speaking of women, this movie has some great moments of psudo-lesbianism. When the girls started to get afraid, they... um... just... sort of... started sleeping together. In fact, some of the lines they shared made them almost sound like a married couple. I don't know if this was intended but I was not complaining. This may have actually been the best part of the film!

Some aspects of the film were dumb. I won't tell you the specifics, but the wizard's weakness was a bit too overpowered. It was as if Superman's weakness was a spoon. Like Superman can do anything, but there are spoons everywhere so he's pretty much screwed wherever he goes. There's not much point to give someone power if they are too easily destroyed in fiction. Lessons learned.

Also the reason Gideon can't die felt a bit forced. Apparently the guys who beheaded him really hated him so much that they punished him by making him live forever with his head separated from his body. I mean... I know that sounds terrible and all... but it also opened up the entire plot of this movie with him trying to come back in the modern era. Wouldn't have killing him be better all around? You get your revenge and he doesn't come back. Can't let God have a go at him?

Wait, is this movie worth it? Actually yes. You should see it. Why? There was a scene where one girl asked the other girl when she was coming to bed. AS IN WITH HER! And I guess the movie is pretty entertaining all around despite all the nitpicking flaws it has. It was fun. And the wizard was genuinely creepy. No, really. He was. There is something about a disembodied head, moving his lips with no words coming out, as he somehow takes over the minds of helpless women. Yes. Yes, I liked this movie.

Thank you for reading my blog! Did you enjoy it? Either way, you can comment below, or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. You can also visit my website at www.tkwade.com. Check out my books! Thanks!

Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Mole People

The Mole People (1956) is a genuinely good movie with one very unfortunate flaw. Is it still worth seeing? Sure! I just want to put that one flaw into perspective so you can be ready for it. I won't be doing much spoiling. The flaw that I mentioned is a bit of a spoiler, but I feel I have to punish the naughty filmmakers who put it in the movie.

The movie out rightly assumed that the Biblical flood happened. This was actually the hook that got me interested. I was paying close attention to everything after that. Regardless of what really happened during the flood, the movie tells of a civilization that hid underground during the Great Flood and survived it. Although they did ended up trapped down there. This is another Hollow Earth type story, but I liked how it was crossed over with Biblical history.

The people living down there are worshipers of Ishtar and survive by limiting their numbers through means of sacrificing each other to their goddess. I found it really interesting that they did this. It reminds me of how the elites of the world want to cut down on the world population in order to better take control of us. Georgian Guide Stones anyone? No?

Oh, yes. And there were mole people. I guess it was a trend in the 50's to name your movie after the monster. They were pretty interesting too, but hardly a major part of the film (and honestly not even all that monstrous). The hidden city of Ishtar was far more interesting and the actual reason to watch the movie. With that, I think I have said enough. I don't want to spoil anything else. Just know it is very good and worth your time.

But wait. That flaw. There is something really stupid in this movie and it happens within the very last 10 seconds of the film. Remember my last blog about AHP? It happens in this movie and it is incredibly stupid. It doesn't ruin the film, but it does knock a solid star off of it. It was dumb and they shouldn't have done it.

The Mole People is a genuinely interesting and enjoyable movie throughout. The characters are acted out well enough. I enjoyed it and recommend it to anyone who likes good 50's adventure films, Biblical and prehistory references, and realistic fairy lore. Enjoy!

Thank you for reading my blog! Did you enjoy it? Either way, you can comment below, or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. You can also visit my website at www.tkwade.com. Check out my books! Thanks!

Fairy Tale Spotlight: AHP (Alternate History Protection)

The unknown branch of the movie industry: AHP. The ridiculous obsessive compulsive agency known as Alternate History Protection. Is it real? It might as well be. I've seen the signs.

We don't have as much of a problem with this today as we used to, but there are still some sad people out there who can't wrap their minds around an alternate history. It has to do with the idea that fiction is separate from reality. We can enjoy it knowing well that it doesn't really exist. But there is a compulsion in people to overthink based on the reality they presently reside in.

Still don't know what I am talking about? Let me throw a scenario at you. There are a lot of old and quite wonderful films where adventurers journey into an uncharted land. They find ancient civilizations that still exist. If not that then they just find something we thought was lost but ultimately still resides somewhere deep underground. It is a formula that has been proven to create a wondrous sense of adventure. We all love to make those vicarious journeys.

Usually these stories end with there being some sort of proof obtained. It could be a great treasure or a human or living creature from this long lost world. If the heroes were to bring them out into the world, history would be changed forever. The whole world would now know that there is great and wonderful things hidden away. Alas... in comes the AHP.

Generally what happens is that, at the last moment, the proof is lost somehow. The treasure is somehow lost or the living entity is killed in some sort of contrived way such as an unexpected earthquake. There is a reason why this is happening and it has to do with what AHP is: Alternate History Protection.

The idea of it is that if the heroes actually come out of the adventure with solid evidence that the amazing place existed, it would break continuity which what actually happens in real life. The story could easily be called fake and unrealistic. For those sitting in the theater, we are all yearning for the truth to come out, but we are not allowed to have it because it would get mismatched with the world around us. This is often why the rug gets pulled from under our feet right at the end of these movies. I get the feeling even the writers want it, to some extent, but then here comes the AHP to ruin everybody's fun.

Of course, there is no real agency out there called the AHP. This phenomenon is more a matter of obsessive compulsiveness. Apparently they forget that they are making fiction. Alternate history is not a bad thing, but they don't want to upset us or something. It's stupid. It can ruin a pretty awesome movie too.

There was also a similar thing in old sitcoms. I remember as a kid that there always seemed to be a struggle with sitcom characters to make it big-time. Either strike it rich or achieve their dreams, and there were a lot of episodes where they would come close only to lose out at the last moment. A sitcom character striking it rich may not have altered history, but it is in the similar vein of obsessively crushing aspects of the story for whatever reason. Everyone has to sit in the same box, because coming out of that box would be too hard to fathom.

Well, I fathom alternate histories and entire universes quite easily. It's pretty exciting. I live to imagine new things and wonder what could be or even what could have been. What's so wrong with that? Would people really reject a movie because it told a story inaccurate to what history had to offer? Well, possibly... but it's still stupid.

There was a game in 2013 called Ryse: Son of Rome. It is an alternate history where Rome was not actually conquered but survived until the present day. It is entirely wrong, but damn was it a fun game. The game was not a huge success though. I don't think it was so much for the story as it was for the game play (which I had no problem with, by the way). The game defies history and I think it is better for it.

I think my main problem with AHP is the cynicism it can cause. The message AHP really delivers is that there really is no hope. We're stuck in an endless loop of disappointment. Why not try showing us what the human spirit can really do? We went to the moon, didn't we? If the AHP had their way, all the spaceships would come tumbling down at the last moment. How is that a good thing? How about we get some wins once in a while... and not worry so much about continuity? It's fiction... and with enough effort... fiction becomes reality.

Thank you for reading my blog! Did you enjoy it? Either way, you can comment below, or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. You can also visit my website at www.tkwade.com. Check out my books! Thanks!