Is your journey really necessary?

Alright; updates.

I eagerly rushed through the final disc of Sandbaggers, and my unconditional infatuation with the series is now cemented. I'm going to watch the final three again, just basking. Any investigation online features two sorts of comments; the first are all evangelical praise shouting that this is easily the best televised espionage-themed show ever created. The second are questions. Are there more episodes? There must be more episodes. It can't end like that! WTF!!! Sandbaggers ends less on a cliffhanger so much as a moment that feels as if there are actually 20 minutes left in its finale. There aren't, of course; it's just over. Which does beg so many questions. Was it intentional? The number of episodes in season three is consistent with its predecessors. Presumably if the creator died, or went through the trouble of faking his own death, he would have had either bigger things to worry about than wrapping up his series, or nothing at all to worry about ever again, depending. There are small moments in the final few episodes that, to me, knowing that I was approaching the end, felt like quiet, barely perceptible farewells; sweeping statements of broad belief from characters not usually inclined to do so, etc, but I may have been seeing what I wanted. Roy Marsden is a phenomenal actor. He can hold his features absolutely rigid, and act only with his eyes, expressing a huge gamut of emotions and internal calculations. Once one becomes accustomed to it, the effect is positively mesmerizing.

Funny, because I first tried Sandbaggers years ago, and didn't make it past the third episode. I remember being impressed with its daring and willingness to risk major characters, and then capitalize ruthlessly on our preconceived notions of what a television series will and will not do with those characters, but was a bit driven away by its frequent decent into the language of its milieu. SIS, MI5, the PM, the Foreign Office, D-Int, D-Ops, C, etc. At first it seems more than you can take. But like the Wire, Sandbaggers never patronizes its viewers. There are no simple secretaries that have things they should already be well aware of patiently explained to them, hence you. There are no, "Previously on." You will learn what these things mean, and quickly, and soon you will forget that you ever struggled, so wrapped up you'll find yourself in the breakneck machinations of the great game. So. Fucking. Good.









Gaming has been light. There was a lot of Too Many Ninjas played, a lot of ninjas killed, a new personal record (of 146), achieved rather ironically while I was talking to my mother on the telephone. (We were already past the 1.5 hour mark, and I hate the telephone with a passion. I know, I know.) Though I feel I may make more strips for it at some point, I also feel quite good about moving on. It's not a sensation that I get very often in gaming. Far more frequent is shelving a game to come back to later, where it joins the list of other great games that I love and intend to return to.

My lunch-break game is Das Überleben Dem Großen Sprung. Google translation: The survival of the Great Leap. Accurate. Weird game. Likely to invoke nausea or vertigo in the sensitive. I'll come back to it.

Otherwise, not much. Most of June I was on a vacation from N. But that ended. Today I was kicking ass. Three of the newest episodes, with comments. (Not sure of the entertainment value of the following, but you wouldn't believe the amount of dying that went into clearing these levels, so I'm a bit, erm, prideful? Sounds weird, but it's 3 in the damn morning. Besides, when has entertainment value ever determined anything on a blog for Christ's sake?)

Episode 25


Deepfreeze [remake]
Ridiculously fun. Those gentle curves essentially act as runways, and your little n goes flying. Figure out a strategy for one side, reverse and repeat, and you're done.


Aux terminal
Now we're getting a bit more involved. Still, you can pick your path, and those gauss turrets aren't too bad once you get the hang of them. At least not in this level, anyway. One of the cool things with N is just when you think a type of enemy isn't that big of a deal, you come across a level that makes it a huge pain the ass again. Thanks, N.


Leap of faith
Super fun. Coasting along pretty smoothly up till...


Rocket run
Actually, this isn't too bad. Rockets take some getting used to (or getting reacquainted with, as the case may be), but this is just a matter of speed, repetition, and a strategy for the center room. Mine was bounce in, hit the exit switch, drop back down, bounce in again, hit the door switch, and run like hell for home. Takes a couple dozen tries. Easy!


Slippery slope
This is the one that stopped me dead, and made me fucking hate gauss turrets. It's that one down below. It took me fucking forever to get the rhythm of the staircase without getting shot in the ass, and the first time I finally made it into the rocket room below I panicked, got blown up, managed to freeze my Mac while going to bed (sometimes I'll just minimize N to try to get around its progression thingy) and had to do the whole episode again. Luckily, the second big attempt went much better. Got the stairs (after another 20-50 deaths), and cleared the rocket room first try, no problem.

Episode 26


Haste
Actually, these levels are looking pretty easy, on average. No wonder I cleared 3 episodes tonight. Haste is moving fast, and bouncing carefully. Super fun. Passed on the first try, which is very rare.


Claustro
Murder. I finally managed to get all the switches and sent two drones down the exit hall, forcing me to wait for them to come back out so I could enter. My heart was in my throat at that point, I wanted to move on so badly.


Stick the landing
Another wide open, huge jumping, fast moving, completely exciting level. It killed me a lot, once while I teetered on that tiny opening above the wide open exit, which made me scream, but mostly this level was a blast. N does this all the time. I got all those coins, but decided to get the switches first after getting the coins and then dying over and over. The coins are the easy part. Also, this is one of those weird symmetrical levels where you pick a direction to do it and seem unable or unwilling to do it reversed, even though it's no more difficult. Odd.


Constructive
This one was a pain, but it's kind enough to give you that top level to prepare for the next one down with the drones, which is considerate. The bottom level took some getting used to, and the exit chamber is always nail-bitingly tense, being so close with just one thing between you and the exit. Those zap drones with the antennae... I don't understand how I can have evaded them thousands of times, and yet their tracing pattern still feels somewhat random. Basically, if a level's got one, it's completely different every run. Which at least keeps it from getting boring.


Industrial zone 4
Unlike the chaingun drones, which just pummel you into the ground relentlessly. Basically, if you're in the open and you hear their little VrrRR, you're about to get smashed. I've tried just ignoring them and flying around like a maniac (like with the homing turrets) and it just doesn't work. This level killed me a hell of a lot. Actually, the drones are so fucking deadly that once you go inside to get the switches you hardly even notice the gauss turrets (although at this point I may have just been avoiding them so often that I was starting to do it automatically, which is kind of cool). Also, starting this level over and over by jumping right past that drone was really exciting and fun, and made me feel like a fucking bad-ass. I wasn't able to get all of the switches inside in one go around before the drones entered, so I'd have to flee, grab some coins, and wait for them to leave. The strangest thing in N is when you have to wait for something. I found myself thinking what a different game it would have been if the designers had stuck with their original concept of a stealth game, before they realized it's more fun to just kamikaze everything every single second forever. Ahhh.

Episode 27


Isthmus
By this point I was on a roll, and was trying to keep my momentum up. Which didn't really work, because this level killed the hell out of me. One of the rare N levels featuring a shortcut, which I didn't take because climbing a shaft of mines arranged like that is ridiculously fucking hard. I took the longer route, and Bob's your uncle.


Outpost
Another hair puller. Getting the switches at the bottom releases those two extra homing zap drones, which come down and make that shaft super tricky (dozens of deaths), and then the homing turret mine room took me a while to find a path. The secret? Slide, fall, slide, fall, run! And don't get blown up. Which you will. It sucks.


Flightpath
A vacation. Another first try clear. Really nice after the constrained spaces of the previous. Bouncy. You can see time was becoming something of a concern here, though.


Suicide mission
And back to nightmare. Those laser drones are funny. If it's just one it can be sometimes not that bad. Two, though, combined with those incredibly frustrating circle platforms, which fuck with your jump trajectories... ugh. I was hitting my suicide key constantly (if your start gets messed up there's no point in trying to get back on track). I even tried going up the wall on the right as a shortcut, which worked sometimes, but kept getting killed either by the lasers, the gauss turret, or falling off those damn circles. I ended up going the longer route from my first couple dozen attempts. Took at least 4 finish-line kills before I finally managed to squeeze by. I hate this level.


Agonizing [remake]
A three parter! Survive the shaft, maneuver through the thwumps over and over, back down the shaft, and then the rocket pillar death chamber. I was getting frustrated with the shaft and thwumps, so I mastered the rocket room, without having the door open, which meant that by the time I cleared the first two sections the third was a piece of cake. The path is to climb the left wall, hit the spring, and suicide fall into the doorway. Pretty fun when it's closed, really fun when it's open. The suicide clear is such an N kind of concept.

That's it, folks. I'm a ninja. You didn't know?