AaaAAa! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity

I've been on a certain type of gaming kick the past while. Low narrative and high mechanics has been what I've been focusing on (fortunately, Steam has enabled this with a tonne of great deals). So when I heard about AaaaaaaAAaaaaaaaAaaAaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity I was interested.



The game itself is a unique concept. It's a basejumping game (which is this kind of activity) that plays like a first person flying game. I keep thinking Star Fox when I look at it though there aren't any enemies or plot to speak of. You just start on top of a building and throw yourself off. Apparently in the world of AaaAAaA!, reality is some Jeff Minter-esque acid trip with floating buildings and inexplicable catwalks and spinning iron I-beams. It makes things very convenient for basejumpers by providing a a crazy obstacle course towards the ground to anyone who jumps off a building. The objective is to make it to the ground or landing pad while racking up points which one gets by "kissing" and "hugging" buildings (approaching and staying close to buildings), hitting plates that are worth points, spray-painting certain buildings, and engaging spectators by giving them thumbs up or flipping them off, depending on whether they're fans or protesters. Mostly it's just falling stylishly, though.

There are about 80 levels in the game and they manage to do some cool stuff with a wide variety of difficulty. You start off pretty basically just plunging down linear corridors of buildings. As you go they make you weave around a lot more but also expect you keep up with the other score mechanics to reach certain point plateaus. At some of the more advanced levels you're diving through extremely narrow needle-eyes of obstacles while appropriately gesturing to spectators and spraypainting the right buildings. If you can't keep all of these things up you'll probably smash into a building which will either kill you straight out or send you flying out of control.

Honestly, I'd really like to be able to describe this game but between the crazy visuals and sound and sense of humor it kind of has to be seen at the very least to be understood (so here's a video). This game has really got its hooks in me. I like games that have simple mechanics but are able to do complicated and challenging things with them. If you're flying through some of the tougher levels, looking for the right route that will take you next to the most buildings with the most spectators and score plates you end up feeling your way though with a lot of instinct and twitch reactions to what lies beyond the next corner.

All the mechanics are enough to make this game worthwhile but the sense of humor really adds a level to the character of it. In addition to unlocking levels you can unlock videos which are mainly just preplayed levels with the WEIRDEST voiceover. The level of bizarreness of these reminded me of some of the cut-scenes from Amped 3. There's one titled "Grandma" which has a woman's voice describing how to make cookies, which is normal enough until she tells you to add your sons ashes to the mix and some male voice starts freaking out in the background. There's also a video that helps you meditate and another that I guess is supposed to be a failed take on the meditation one that has the narrator tell you that there's NO REASON to think that there are insects crawling all over your head and crawling into your nose and mouth. It's a super dark and bizarre sense of humor but it's played over the top enough to really work for me.

The game is $10. I think that's a hell of a deal for what you get here. Unfortunately it is such a specific style and type of game it really helps to know what you're getting into.

Speech From the Throne Commentary

Ahh. It's that time of year again when our political leaders stick their heads out of the ground and try to predict whether they're going to do anything for the next 12 months. That's right, it's time for Newfoundland's Speech from the Throne 2010 and I decided that I would break it down into bite sized pieces for the benefit of myself and my dear readers. Whoever you are.

Like any good throne speech, this one was a mix of government patting itself on the back and dropping little nuggets of information about what to expect from the year ahead. If you subscribe to the idea that they put all the big news up front this year is going to be about Child Care and Child Services. The key point in this section was an update that they are still working on the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. They gave some projects that the department would be working on including a new "Early Learning and Child Care Strategy" and addressing the lack of foster homes.

Rounding this section of the speech out they wove in updates on Newfoundland's Poverty Reduction Strategy, which has apparently raised us to only third poorest province, and reiterated that they're working to stop violence against women with the "Respect Women" campaign. They also want to update the Human Rights Code (that's right the one from the United Nations which is apparently law here) to be a little more modern. Seeing as it's from 1948 (made law in 1971) a review might be in order.

So the section is called "Caring For Our Children" and they used it as a mashup of children's issues, poverty issues, women's issues and a policy rewrite. Maybe they could have picked a better header. Regardless, it's good that they're still making progress on the new department and they've got some strategies ready for it when it's finished.

Next was a litany of development updates. Tenders are still being used to stimulate the economy to the tune of 1.3 billion last year. Experts in certain money related fields, ocean tech and R&D are being cultivated. Work continues on mining development, Lower/Upper Churchill, oil exploration and extension. There was also some talk of improving access to services like the ferry, online access to registering certain documents, and some talk of improving air service within the province. Not sure what improving air service really means. Here's hoping it translates to lower flight costs. Aside from the air service thing, nothing really boat rocking here, though, it is good to hear where they're going with attracting industry.

Students might be interested to hear that Grenfell Campus is going to get some more autonomy from Memorial's main body. There's also a series of programs mentioned that focus on extending access of youth, women and disabled individuals to job opportunities. The Youth Retention and Attraction Strategy was a big one which has so far included a new Minister responsible for youth engagement and resources for employers and job seekers alike (jobsinNL.ca).

The environment even got a nod (but not much more than that) with some talk of sustainability, the "Newfoundland and Labrador Green Fund" and the upcoming Environment Canada review of the Assessment Act. The content of this section was pretty underwhelming to me. Maybe next year, Earth.

That's pretty much it as far as I can read into it. They're still working on the tourism strategy and some areas of the province are getting new medical equipment and mental illness/addictions treatment options (though they usually do). Maybe you could call this expectedly reserved, or at least a very business like approach to development. The primary industries got the most attention, as they usually do, but there were some plans for developing industries of expertise and making them appeal to younger employees. The social development stuff also felt like more of the same but I also can't really fault them for sticking with it if there's still a lot of work to be done and not overestimating what they can do in the span of a year.

Until next year,
May Divine Providence guide you in your deliberation.

What's on Your Daily Dish?

I can't decide whether Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Dish is extremely hard working or just has the easiest job in the world. Not that I want to go in this way with my blog but the guy updates with quotes or links about once an hour on popular issues of the day. It's kind of the perfect mix of big name (I love me some of The Atlantic), instant content and interesting issues. These days I feel like I've still got to watch my blogging output rate on Facebook and Twitter so I don't annoy my friends with a spam of irrelevant information.

Also I'm really not feeling the design of this blog anymore. I've been learning python and CSS lately so I may take another crack at redesigning (or modifying an existing design).