Local Multiplayer, Subversive Pop, and Queer Turmoil
Hey y’all! I’ve been busy the last few months, but I’m back with some more takes (varying in freshness) about some recent releases — this time in games, music, AND movies.
Super Mario Party (Switch)
Mario Party. The great unifier and divider. Nations have risen and fallen according to its arbitrary whims… and it’s finally on Switch.
I never actually got into Mario Party until my college roommates forced me into it… and at that point, we were up to Mario Party 8, so there are a handful of Marios I’ve never partied with. All this is just to say that I’m certainly no expert on the series, and I’ve been craving a release to call my own since I was introduced to the world of gold mushrooms, warp pipes, and dramatically inconsistent playable character variety.
The game’s boards each have a traditional (free-for-all semi-linear) mode where RNG reigns supreme and a cooperative versus (2v2 free-roam) mode where teammates share dice rolls and can split up and act more strategically and intentionally. The characters all come with different dice they can choose to roll, and you can get more characters (‘allies’) to roll even more dice, completely breaking the game if you get too many allies too quickly. But, outside of that, the available modes and character dice mechanics strike a really solid balance between strategy and pure luck, a balance that’s integral to the Mario Party brand of starting shouting matches between loved ones.
Oh, and there’s a full co-op mode that my mom loved because of the reduced stakes. The only screaming in that mode tends to revolve around coordinating who’s paddling on which side of the raft.
The game feels a bit light at four boards, but DLC (maps, characters, dice… anything! we are so hungry) seems inevitable. We maintain our everlasting vigil over the Birdo votive candles until an official announcement.
Diablo 3 — Eternal Collection
On the topic of couch-multiplayer Switch games, I’ve been playing Diablo for the first time in a handful of years with my roommate thanks to its recent Switch release. It’s still the immaculate picture of an endless positive feedback loop, quickly teleporting around the world or diving through rifts chasing the telltale high-pitched dinging of valuable loot drops.
Though the endgame (where you see what legendaries or set pieces drop and then use whatever corresponding skill is made tremendously overpowered by your new equipments’ effects) has the gameplay loop that is at the core of Diablo’s appeal to hardcore players, I, for whatever reason, much prefer the leveling experience of receiving new skills and abilities every 10 or so minutes and constantly switching up your skill build to try out different gameplay styles. It’s my first time with the recently-released necromancer class, and while its witch doctor-lite minion skills aren’t exactly my thing, using corpses as a currency for one of its skill categories adds a layer of complexity to the class that’s really satisfying and visually impressive when you’re able to pull it all together.
Diablo 3 doesn’t quite have the sheer breadth of content that ARPG competitor Path of Exile has amassed from its constant updates, but what it does have is meticulously polished, incredibly satisfying gameplay… and it’s on Switch. Hard to compete with that.
To be honest, I’m still considering it a crime that resident morally-bankrupt and stunningly apathetic witch Adria is relegated to a throwaway sub-boss position instead of, like, the entire focus of the final act, but I’m starting to get over it now that it’s been four and a half years.
BEA1991 V4
V4 is a quietly-released ‘stand-alone’ single that almost slipped past me (grateful for Spotify’s release radar). I discovered her EP Songs of 2k11 late last year, and it’s some of my favorite alt-pop ever (listen to Eidolon to start).
V4 is a spectacularly varied R&B pop bop that showcases BEA1991’s deliberate subversion of traditional song structure and narrative. BEA1991’s deep voice fits in alongside its soprano choral intro, deep bassline, and bright synth beats in a way that’s nothing short of addictive. It messes with tradition production in ways that make me wild — every instrument loop featured in the song is catchy-as-hell and deployed in inconsistent and exciting ways that could have entire songs built around them alone. This all adds up to a track that makes me very excited for her upcoming full-length release.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018)
I saw Boy Erased a few nights ago in theaters and I felt like I failed to connect with it despite my personal investment in its content and themes. Instead, I wanted to talk a little about a different movie that really impacted me on the same topic from earlier this year that I feel like was comparatively underhyped and overlooked.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post tells a fairly similar story: Cameron, a girl in her late-teens is sent to a conversion camp by her aunt, where the kids are given some degree of freedom but the camp is isolated out in the woods in upstate New York, limiting their contact to others and ability to leave. Spoiling the plot too dramatically would be hard, since there are few story revelations that look great on paper. There’s no heart-to-heart between Cameron and her aunt that sent her to camp, no major declarations of how sure any character is of their sexuality, no scene where the doctor and reverend running the camp are chewed out and realize the error of their ways.
Instead, The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a quiet character study of Cameron and her friends as she comes face-to-face with examples of how religion often doesn’t have clear-cut answers to specific questions. Each person has different interpretations of doctrine, and when that person is in charge of a camp of teenagers looking for answers to the same questions they can cause serious harm during the most sensitive times in a young LGBTQ person’s life. However, what I really liked about the movie was how the people working at camps like this do not have the answers and the harm they are inflicting is coming from a place of personal uncertainty rather than outright hate.
This movie was very powerful to me because it seemed to encapsulate a general compassion for its characters — even those employed at the camp Cameron goes to. Though it explores the ways religion can alienate and shame, it also showcases a kind of appreciation for the unifying power of religion.
In The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Cameron does a lot of observing, letting the quiet serenity of the landscape contrast with her inner turmoil. Chloe Grace Moretz’ performance explores how heteronormative expectations on young adults can damage queer kids in a way that really resonated with me. Moretz, aided by the script and fittingly emotive directing, invokes the inherent rebelliousness that comes with being a queer kid in the suburbs, and how you’re seen as subversive even without actively trying to subvert anything at all. When it comes down to it, Moretz’ performance is really what reminded me of my own struggles figuring out who I wanted to be and how to (or how not to) reconciliate queerness with a religious upbringing, and I feel really grateful that there’s a movie out there that is able to encapsulate some of those feelings I felt trying to figure myself out in my late teens.
That’s all I got for now! I’m about to start working on my end-of-year lists, so pray for me.
