A Hodgepodge For A Disappointing Wednesday

I have no idea where my comics are. He says he sent them last Wednesday, they aren't here. Did he not send them, or is this a case of his handwriting being illegible again, or are they lost? I don't know. You'll know when I do.

So a week or two ago I had some questions about the Spider-Verse thing. The Internet has provided the answer to one of them. The Assemblage of Spider-Folk do have a cosmically powered Spider-Man in their midst. In fact, it's his universe they've established their base in, because the Morluns apparently are smart enough not to challenge him, after all. And yes, apparently he'd lose his powers if he left his home universe, so that explains not rounding up an army of them and sending them after the Morluns.

So, one mystery solved, at least.

This is an insubstantial post, so I will briefly discuss Silent Hill: Shattered Memories to give you more bang for your buck. I thought I talked about it briefly a few years ago, after watching an acquaintance of Alex' play it, but I can't find that post anywhere. So, oh well. A man's driving home in a snowstorm with his daughter when he loses control and crashes. When he awakens, his daughter is gone. He starts trying to find her, but her location keeps changing, there's another family living in his home. Oh, and sometimes the entire world seems to freeze over and become inhabited solely by monsters you have to avoid until you can reach whatever arbitrary place the game deems safe. This is broken up by sequences in a therapist's office, as he asks you questions.

Supposedly the game takes your responses and uses them to craft a game experience that will more effectively terrify you. I can't speak to that, since I think you'd have to play it through more than once to compare and contrast, and I didn't even beat it once. I will note that at one point the therapist said family was very important to me, immediately after I'd given an answer to a question that suggested strongly this is not the case. Who knows, maybe it's commentary on the American psychiatric industry.

I got frustrated with the monster portions almost immediately. I think it's because when that isn't going on, there doesn't seem to be anything to be scared of. You just walk around and investigate things that make you flashlight flicker or your cell phone give off static. Then the game flips a switch and now you have to be on guard constantly. I dreaded it, but more in a sense of resignation than actually being scared. Maybe I didn't care about him enough yet. OK, the real issue is I already know how the game ends, and that impacted my perspective. Anyway, I was thrown off the first time, because his daughter called and told him he couldn't fight, just run. I did that, but found out later I could have tried sneaking past them instead of running, and maybe they wouldn't have chased me. Would have been nice, considering this guy runs only slightly faster than Alan Wake did. And if they catch you, then it's time for an annoying button pressing quick-time thing to shake them off. Which got tedious fast when one latches on as fast as I shake another one off.