Quarantine Control #26: Explaining the Stories

We reached a bad milestone in the Coronavirus pandemic in the last week, not that anyone can blame you for not knowing about it. The world reached one million Coronavirus deaths, with at least one in five happening right in the United States. It’s the US in particular that’s spectacularly failed to respond to the threat on the federal level, and cases are rising in several states yet again, right in the lead-up to Election Day. There are unlikely to be as many lockdowns again thanks to the number of leaders listening to their anti-mask conspiracy theorist supporters or governors listening to their local business and Chamber of Commerce ghouls despite the risk to vulnerable people.

We’re so screwed. Thankfully, there’s entertainment to distract us, though only temporarily.

 

Joseph Daniels

It’s been a half a year now since we started this column and I’m having trouble coming up with a personal intro for my weekly contribution, so I’ll deliver a personal anecdote this week instead.

I have never owned a cat.  For someone who likes cats, that seems rather odd, doesn’t it?  Yeah, well, I’ve never had a pet cat.  But if I do adopt one, I might name her Chess.  I’ve always liked the power of a name, whether it’s interesting, exotic, or somehow meaningful to the one who carries that name.  Chess would just be Chess, though.  She’d be proud of her name but it wouldn’t have any deep significance to her beyond that.

I’ve also been thinking that it would be nice to own a bookstore.  Probably a used bookstore in a smaller town and I would sell used books on-line, too.  I’d basically be an on-line storefront with a physical location for locals to shop.  If the business does well enough that I can hire an employee or two to help, I’d set out the resumes on the desk and Chess would investigate them and if she paws at any of them, those resumes would be the ones I contact first.  Maybe they’d work out and I’d start them out part time at first before they get a full time shift.  From then on, whenever I’d need to look through resumes, I’d just get my Chess Hire Cat to go over them first.

 

explained (2018)
Source: Netflix
Episodes: 30

Lately I’ve been enjoying short documentary-type shows.  They’re good for listening to when eating or when playing games (like for the retrospective articles I’ve been working on).  Explained (stylized without the capital letter) lasts about twenty minutes per episode and is basically a tightly focused crash course on various topics, like the reasons why women are paid less and the mysteries of the female orgasm, to a brief look at the history of cricket and our usage of a specific punctuation mark.  There are episodes on eSports, K-Pop and the stock market, and in some of these episodes, they’re narrated by someone whom you might associate with them, like Carly Rae Jepsen for the episode on music and Kevin Smith for the episode on marijuana.

Something that’s interesting to me is that, before the global pandemic that barricaded us in our homes in 2020, season two of the show was released in 2019 and featured an episode speculating on how the next pandemic was going to behave.  The episode description even says “In this episode from 2019”, which I suspect may have been added during 2020.

 

The episode makes the prediction that a pandemic would kill 33 million people in six months.  Perhaps because we were warned about this sort of thing ahead of time, our efforts to contain Covid-19 have prevented the worldwide death toll from hitting that rather high number, although efforts to the contrary in the United States seem to be trying to undo everyone else’s hard work.  The episode also proposes an open air meat market known as a “wet market” in China as a possible vector for introducing a new pandemic into our population.  It just so happened that very soon after the episode aired, a Chinese market very much like what the episode suggested may have introduced Covid-19 into the human population.  At the time, no one could’ve known just how prophetic this episode would turn out to be.

In 2019 and 2020, special Explained miniseries were released, covering specific topics a little more in depth than a single episode could cover.  There are two that are particularly important for the year 2020.  In no particular order:

Coronavirus, explained (2020)
Source: Netflix
Episodes: 3

And

Whose Vote Counts, explained (2020)
Source: Netflix
Episodes: 3

In the opening minutes of Coronavirus, Explained, the show plays a clip of Donald Trump claiming no one knew that a pandemic was coming and then points out that in their 2019 season, they had tried to warn us that a pandemic was inevitable.  The first episode is an expansion of sorts of the original pandemic episode, framed around the reality of what happened with Covid-19, and then the next episode talks about vaccines and how they’re developed and tested, and the final episode is about how to cope with how our society has changed due to Covid-19.

Meanwhile, Whose Vote Counts, Explained, explores topics regarding how elections can be rigged and who gets affected the most.  Topics like voter suppression and gerrymandering are explored.  The first episode also implored everyone watching to register to vote if you aren’t already registered.  (Go to vox.com/vote right now for additional resources related to the miniseries and to voting in general.)  The third episode gets into math-related subjects, but not as complex as something like Benford’s Law from a few weeks ago.

Explained feels like a slickly edited YouTube series, with its short episodes and its focus on one topic per episode.  It’s like a video essay or an official upload of Last Week Tonight which generally cuts out anything that isn’t the main story, and can serve as a concise and thorough introduction to a topic without making it seem like there’s a lot more that can be said.  You’re left with the feeling that you could stop now or look into the subject further if you’re really interested.

 

Geoffrey Barnes

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: The Fate of Atlantis
Source: PlayStation 4
Episodes One and a half (of three)

I had high expectations for the second downloadable expansion for Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. The first one, Legacy of the Hidden Blade, was fun, though it was a pity that the Eagle Bearer (Kassandra in my case) didn’t adopt any Assassin’s Creed-centric abilities like the Hidden Blade. It also took place in the game’s existing world. It’s for these reasons that I was looking forward to The Fate of Atlantis more, an expansion that veers away from Greek history and intro the majestic world Greek mythology, and occurs in an alternate universe with a trio of brand-new locations to explore. It starts out encouraging with introductions from the likes of Persephone and Hecate, and the world of Elysium looks beautiful.

It’s a shame the gameplay comes up short. The mission design represents the worst the Assassin’s Creed franchise has to offer, in which the player must constantly travel back and forth between the same locations to obtain specific items or find other NPCs. They’re missions that feel like they would be merely adequate for side quests, but are ill-fitting and eventually aggravating for main story quests. The battles are the same way, with damage sponge enemies that attack the player in groups, making for skirmishes that are less difficult and more prolonged to a ridiculous extent. The new powers the player can get are nice, but do little to mitigate the repetition.

I struggled to finish the first episode, and tapped out after getting halfway through the second one, where the Eagle Bearer visits Hades. I’ve read that the second episode is improved over the first, and that the third one is the shortest despite being unremarkable, so I might go back to it one day soon. But I don’t feel like doing it at the moment. Maybe by the end of the year.

Monster Hunter Stories (Demo)
Source: 3DS
Episodes: It’s a demo for a game

Monster Hunter Stories sadly went neglected outside Japan thanks to its release timing, despite arriving after the OK-selling Monster Hunter 4 and Generations, though it slightly predated the overwhelmingly successful World. It hit 3DS just before the Nintendo Switch launched in Japan, to be one of the last moderately successful third-party games on the system before Nintendo shifted their focus. But it took a while to make its way to the western world, well after the Switch launched.

It was neglected at the time it released, but I felt now was a good time to at least try it out the demo to see how it is, now that a sequel has been announced for Switch for a release next summer. Turns out, it’s not bad.

Stories is a turn-based RPG spinoff that stars cuter versions of the series’ monsters, and features a “Rider” protagonist that can be lightly customized at the start of its extremely Kids Anime story. The game was gunning for the Pokémon (and Yo-Kai Watch, I guess) audience, with battles featuring the Rider and one of their monsters — called “Monsties” here — fighting others. Other Monsties, however, aren’t captured in battle, but hatched from eggs taken from Monster Dens. I had an easier time getting into this compared to recent Pokémon games, a franchise I can no longer roll with thanks to my changing tastes. Stories’ rock paper scissors battle system is also fun.

I made the mistake of doing too many side quests early on, making the Rider and a couple of Monsties too over-leveled. The story-based battles were a cinch, and normal encounters became boring and rote after a bit — though a speed-up option exists to alleviate the latter. The more challenging fights surely await later in the main game.

It’s a fun game from what I was able to play. The demo is robust, which took about six hours for me to finish, and the save file can transfer over to the main game. I’m not certain that I’ll pick up a full copy and dig into it now because of other games I want to play first. I’m also holding out hope that it will be ported to Switch. The 3DS version is tolerable despite performance issues and light loading times, though it likely plays better on a New 3DS compared to the older model I’m still using. The mobile version really shimmers, but it lacks controller support and forces players to use virtual controls that are rarely a good substitute despite working better with non-reflex-based titles. There’s still time for Capcom to port it before the Switch version arrives sometime next summer, I’ll keep my fingers figuratively crossed.

 

This is going to depress you, but the pandemic will be around for a while longer. Stay safe, but try to avoid anyone who won’t read advice like this here and take it seriously. They’re bad people, and should feel bad. But they don’t and won’t.