all week i have been rewatching the same Conner O'Malley videos on YouTube. in particular, one video compilation from early 2019 named the Howard Schultz tapes. in it, O'Malley appears shirtless, at various active dumpsites (or construction sites). with workers often busy in the background, O'Malley (also wearing a new era Deadpool cap with 'Howard Schultz 2020' graffiti'd across in red marker pen) begins aggressively and manically (and very loudly) pleading to - and demanding Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz to run for president.
O'Malley appears sweaty, unhinged, sometimes in a Master Chief helmet. he screams completely normal things like "we want medicare for dogs" ,"if we put a starbucks to Kabul the war in the Afghan will be over", and "please send me and my family a monthly envelope of pills". he declares himself, in an extremely murderous growl, a "slut for schultz" as he pounds his chest like Marky Mark in Fear. he laughs like a starving hyena. gradually, over the course of the videos, he appears more and more frantic; he becomes dirtier and dirtier. at one point he is covered in medical equipment. various oozing, bleeding/burn wounds start appearing on his face (these get bigger and smaller, change what side of his face they're on before eventually settling to cover 2/3s of his upper face).
it is a harrowing depiction of a deranged persona desperately seeking validation. it is basically just unfiltered social media comments. but O'Malley turns it into performance art.
eventually, his pleas turn more aggressively sexual. he talks about fucking his boomer friends in a Buick Enclave. he's gagging, awaiting these instructions from Howard Schultz that we, the viewer, presume will never come. then they do, through a forced kidnapping by Starbucks employees. they drag him off into a van and the videos escalate and begin to more vividly resemble Guantanamo Bay esque torture vids as they violently deprogram this avid Schultz devotee.
Eventually they dump O'Malley outside a mall, and the final few minutes of the video are of him walking around in a visible haze, trying to convince random mall shoppers that he is, in fact, normal. a nice normal person. he was weird, but Howard made him normal.
i describe this video in detail for this review because basically the complete lack of chill going on there is the exact same lack of chill going on in Dead Space.
you can't go longer than three minutes without triggering a combat encounter in this game, and triggering a combat encounter is always met with music and sounds that signify that this is THE SINGLE MOST DRAMATIC FUCKING THING in the world. every THREE minutes the game is like this. it can't ever just CHILL. well, there are a couple of moments where the gravity is turned off in an area and you're encouraged to maybe solve a puzzle, but even these moments ARE INFILTRATED with enemies. and all the enemies are gross and loud and like screaming in your FACE aarrrGGH.
most of your weapons are industrial tools. they're loud and clanky. my fave weapon, the ripper blades, sounds like broken glass being mixed in a demonic nine inch nails branded blender. every level in this game is some mix of oozing organic tissue, scattered human limbs, sleek sci-fi surfaces and razor sharp jagged metallic textures that make you feel like you'll need a tetanus shot after playing the game. and they're all lit like a halloween scare room. flickering lights and heavy shadows disguising god's abominations in every corner. graffiti is everywhere, over every surface, even though living people are not. you get the feeling you missed all the cool, demonic orgy action.
although i love that sense of isolation. there are like five speaking characters in this whole game and a handful of suicidal/homicidal NPSs you occasionally encounter. with all this isolation, death and suicide, on top all of JUMP SCARE COMBAT ENCOUNTERS, playing this game alone in my room for four nights (in the middle of a state-wide pandemic lockdown) was a weird trip.
but it's not a bleak game. it's not a power fantasy either. but with all the mining equipment and general atmosphere of feeling like a labourer (every mission is just you taking orders), i found Dead Space captured what my average work week feels like really well. every chapter a new day; every new day met with that cj "aww here we go again" energy (especially heightened by the game's seamlessly directed lack of cuts and cutscenes). isaac's whole existence is to work. he gets no time to chill until the end, and even then, spoilers, not really. the stress and the demons don't just melt away. you get a few minutes to yourself and then plunge right back into the meat grinder.
this one made me appreciate dead space 2 less because this feels like a purer distillation of its core concepts and ideas. would like to play the third one now though, mostly to see if its running theme of women as betrayers is broken, even if I feel dead space'd out and didn't like the combat in the hour of 3 that i played a year ago.
O'Malley appears sweaty, unhinged, sometimes in a Master Chief helmet. he screams completely normal things like "we want medicare for dogs" ,"if we put a starbucks to Kabul the war in the Afghan will be over", and "please send me and my family a monthly envelope of pills". he declares himself, in an extremely murderous growl, a "slut for schultz" as he pounds his chest like Marky Mark in Fear. he laughs like a starving hyena. gradually, over the course of the videos, he appears more and more frantic; he becomes dirtier and dirtier. at one point he is covered in medical equipment. various oozing, bleeding/burn wounds start appearing on his face (these get bigger and smaller, change what side of his face they're on before eventually settling to cover 2/3s of his upper face).
it is a harrowing depiction of a deranged persona desperately seeking validation. it is basically just unfiltered social media comments. but O'Malley turns it into performance art.
eventually, his pleas turn more aggressively sexual. he talks about fucking his boomer friends in a Buick Enclave. he's gagging, awaiting these instructions from Howard Schultz that we, the viewer, presume will never come. then they do, through a forced kidnapping by Starbucks employees. they drag him off into a van and the videos escalate and begin to more vividly resemble Guantanamo Bay esque torture vids as they violently deprogram this avid Schultz devotee.
Eventually they dump O'Malley outside a mall, and the final few minutes of the video are of him walking around in a visible haze, trying to convince random mall shoppers that he is, in fact, normal. a nice normal person. he was weird, but Howard made him normal.
i describe this video in detail for this review because basically the complete lack of chill going on there is the exact same lack of chill going on in Dead Space.
you can't go longer than three minutes without triggering a combat encounter in this game, and triggering a combat encounter is always met with music and sounds that signify that this is THE SINGLE MOST DRAMATIC FUCKING THING in the world. every THREE minutes the game is like this. it can't ever just CHILL. well, there are a couple of moments where the gravity is turned off in an area and you're encouraged to maybe solve a puzzle, but even these moments ARE INFILTRATED with enemies. and all the enemies are gross and loud and like screaming in your FACE aarrrGGH.
most of your weapons are industrial tools. they're loud and clanky. my fave weapon, the ripper blades, sounds like broken glass being mixed in a demonic nine inch nails branded blender. every level in this game is some mix of oozing organic tissue, scattered human limbs, sleek sci-fi surfaces and razor sharp jagged metallic textures that make you feel like you'll need a tetanus shot after playing the game. and they're all lit like a halloween scare room. flickering lights and heavy shadows disguising god's abominations in every corner. graffiti is everywhere, over every surface, even though living people are not. you get the feeling you missed all the cool, demonic orgy action.
although i love that sense of isolation. there are like five speaking characters in this whole game and a handful of suicidal/homicidal NPSs you occasionally encounter. with all this isolation, death and suicide, on top all of JUMP SCARE COMBAT ENCOUNTERS, playing this game alone in my room for four nights (in the middle of a state-wide pandemic lockdown) was a weird trip.
but it's not a bleak game. it's not a power fantasy either. but with all the mining equipment and general atmosphere of feeling like a labourer (every mission is just you taking orders), i found Dead Space captured what my average work week feels like really well. every chapter a new day; every new day met with that cj "aww here we go again" energy (especially heightened by the game's seamlessly directed lack of cuts and cutscenes). isaac's whole existence is to work. he gets no time to chill until the end, and even then, spoilers, not really. the stress and the demons don't just melt away. you get a few minutes to yourself and then plunge right back into the meat grinder.
this one made me appreciate dead space 2 less because this feels like a purer distillation of its core concepts and ideas. would like to play the third one now though, mostly to see if its running theme of women as betrayers is broken, even if I feel dead space'd out and didn't like the combat in the hour of 3 that i played a year ago.