nr

The New Generation of Animation hits up Vancouver
This new addition to the Spike & Mike family has received wide-acclaimed

    

Angela Espinoza

arlier this year, we were

treated to another annual visit

by Spike & Mike’s Sick and
Twisted Festival of Animation. Sick

and Twisted has become renowned for
showcasing animated shorts of varying

genres and ratings, maintaining a
heavy focus on some of the more
disgusting, disturbing, and raunchy
animations from around the world.
However, as much fun as a night of

vulgarity is, Craig “Spike” Decker and
Mike Gribble’s (1951 — 1994) original

vision was to honour the animated
works of obscure and established
talents. Some of the better-known
artists who got their start through the
festival include Mike Judge (Beavis
and Butt-Head), Craig McCracken

(The Powerpuff Girls), and Matt Stone

and Trey Parker (South Park).

From September 17 to 30,
Spike & Mike’s New Generation of
Animation Festival will be held at the
Rio Theatre on Commercial Drive,
where Sick and Twisted was held in
April. New Generation was helmed
back in February as something of
a replacement for the now-defunct

Classic Festival. Its purpose is to show

clips too sophisticated and/or clean
for Sick and Twisted, bringing the
festivals focus back down to a more
civilized level.

Decker’s reasoning behind New
Generation was brought on by the

numerous submissions he’d received
for Sick and Twisted that wouldn’t

fit the bill, but that were still “very
cool, insanely humorous and cutting
edge”. Decker’s goal was to reach an
audience that can appreciate the shorts
for what they are rather than their
shock value.

New Generation will be
presenting nineteen largely
international animations. Some of
the titles include “How to cope with
Death” (Spain), “KJFG Snake”
(Hungary), “Western Spaghetti”
(USA), and the Academy Award-
nominated “Oktapodi” (France). Both
vary in numerous styles, but unlike
Sick and Twisted, New Generation
doesn’t have a specific target crowd.
New Generation’s films are typically
rated PG (at best) so that a wider
audience can view the festival.

Although the festival is certainly
more highbrow than its cousin, this
shouldn’t scare away newcomers or
those out of this particular loop. Most,
if not all of the shorts being shown
have been touring festivals for years,
and are just as accepted now as they
originally were. New Generation
also aims to introduce, selecting
the best animations at present time
and exposing them, whether they be
typical American cartoons or avant-
garde stop-motion pieces

For more information on the
various Spike & Mike Festivals or the
Rio Theatre, check out their websites:

http://spikeandmike.com/
sitepages/festival .php

http://riotheatre.ca/

 

 

Pop Culture Purchase: Limbo

By Angela Espinoza,
Arts Reviewer

Limbo is a 2D side-scrolling puzzle-
platform game on the Xbox Live
Arcade that became available on
July 21. It can best be described as a

love child six years in the making for

Copenhagen, Denmark’s Playdead
Studios. Conceived by game director
Arnt Jensen, Playdead’s goal was
to take the most simplistic elements
of gaming and use them to create
something completely different.
Aside from its basic controls
(walking, jumping and grabbing),
Playdead took ‘simplistic’ to a new
level by leaving out any form of
text or communication in the game.
Players were to progress through
what Playdead dubbed “trial-and-
death”, meaning not only would the
player be dying dozens of times, but
they would have to rely on instincts
over what I call ‘gamer logic’ (e.g.
see enemy, shoot enemy — gun has
been provided). Minus taste and
smell, your senses are going to be
your only friends when playing
Limbo.

Possibly the best example of
an ‘art game’, you’ll often hear
of Limbo’s visuals as being eerie,
frightening, and stunning. Presented
entirely in black and white, your
only distinguishing factors between
what’s right beside you (black) and
what’s merely backdrop (white) are
the multiple shades of gray. As you
progress further, however, you’ll be
seeing a lot less gray, again requiring
you to rely heavily on sight and
sound. I can’t stress enough how
important sound is in this game —

partially because there’s so little of it.

Limbo contains no soundtrack, and
anything resembling music is usually
a violent, gruesome lie. Core sound
effects come from questionable
animal noises (forests and caves),
environments (dirt, grass, water,
metal), traps and deaths.

In terms of average gaming,
you’ll find the most amusing points
of Limbo to also be the most sadistic.
These include multiple ways of
dying, using corpses of various
characters for tasks, and getting your
foes to horrifically kill themselves.
Your own deaths fare no penalty, and

   

will be your only source of humor in
what is otherwise a very bleak and
disturbing game.

One of its most interesting
features has to be the lack of a
legitimate enemy. You’ll bump
into the occasional opponent, but
if your senses are your best friend,
than patience is your worst enemy.
Although there is no limit of lives,
the environments and how they
operate are going to provide plenty
of stress. Floating on crates in ponds
in basic forests switch to mastering
electricity and gravity in mechanical
nightmares. Unlike other games, you
aren’t given a surplus of time; you
have a split second, and you either
make it or you don’t.

Some complaints have come
from Limbo’s lack of a plot. It’s
very much like Portal in terms of
its Kafkaesque setting — but here,
you don’t have GLaDOS to provide
exposition. Limbo is a self-journey;
you’re alone, and between all and
any hardships, you are the only
threat. All Playdead have ever said
of its plot are that the protagonist is
on the edge of hell, searching for his
sister; at no point in the game will
you know any of that.

When discussing the symbolic
nature from its setting to its ending,
Limbo is by far an art project more
than a video game. If anything, it’s
an interactive German-expressionist
film. In what would otherwise be a
perfect game, the only outstanding
criticism is its cost (fifteen dollars)
verses its playtime (three to six
hours). When the only recurring
problem with a game is its price —
especially one as fascinating and
unique as Limbo — that should say
everything; Limbo is worth every
penny.

5/5