Giglamps rambles

Coming back for another dip into Pools today, with some shots from Chapter 0. Where chapter 6 lost me a bit with its sudden shift to a more chaotic atmosphere, this epilogue/prologue/is there a word for something that feels like it serves both purposes at once? really delivered the goods with building upon the particular atmosphere of the earlier parts of the game - it's eerie, beautiful, tense, unmooring, melancholy, and there are ducks. The ducks are essential. The environment design in this maze is superb and there were a few more moments that reminded me a bit of Silent Hill 4; particularly the opening in the train station, the illogical exterior of the block of flats and the spinning contraption, which looks a bit like the big metal effort in the pool of blood at the end. Ah, memories... (I mean SH4 has a lot to offer, and I will readily go to bat for it, but the final boss fight technically puts you under a time constraint and anyone who knows me can attest just how much I fu...

There's a bundle of blog posts waiting in the wings but I still have a million other things going on and trying to find the files I need to finish them up during little pockets of downtime is proving difficult; it's a sod of a situation but rest assured, there will be footage of local waterfowl doing aquatic bird stuff sometime soon. For today though, we're having a look at Pools, and a fraction of the 805 screenshots I took during my first playthrough (this is after trimming the numbers back 'n' all - it has a very appealing aesthetic!) It has a compelling atmosphere, both beautiful and eerie in equal measure, and the mazes are superbly satisfying to explore. When you get a feel for how everything connects, what passageway leads where and you find somewhere you haven't previously been, reaching a new area feels really rewarding, especially in the moments when you walk into the more grand rooms that almost feel like ancient temples in how they're laid...