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      <h5><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">//<a href="../../../index.html"><font color="#7C420E">loonygames</font></a>://<a href="../index.html"><font color="#7C420E">issue 
        2.10</font></a>://<a href="index.html"><font color="#7C420E">pixel obscura</font></a>://<a href="index.php"><font color="#7C420E">1</font></a>, 
        2, <a href="index3.php"><font color="#7C420E">3</font></a></font></b></h5>
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          <td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="100%"> <font color="#000000" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> 
             </font> <p><webdog><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2" color="#0022A8"><b><font color="#693A0C">What's 
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  Josh Vasquez on <b>Omikron: The Nomad Soul</b>.</font></p>
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                      <p><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000FF"><i><font color="#904C10" size="2">Pixel 
                        Obscura: </font><font color="#904C10" size="4"><br>
                        <font size="3">Saturn's in Retrograde</font></font></i></font></b><br>
                      <div align="right"> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">By 

                        <a href="mailto:citizen21@hotmail.com">Josh Vasquez</a></font></div>
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                    <h5 align="right"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#00025E">Vol. 
                      2, Issue 10&nbsp; <br>
                      February 1, 2000&nbsp; </font></b></h5>
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              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><loonystart></font>
             
              </p>
              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Near the 
                beginning of the film, one of the characters, reading out of a 
                tattered astrology book, tells the others that Saturn is in retrograde 
                and must therefore be considered an evil influence on the workings 
                of the universe. It is a sign, like the watch hanging from a tree 
                driven through by a nail the viewer glimpses minutes before the 
                killing starts, a symbol of the unseen, unknowable forces that 
                constantly threaten to overwhelm us all. <i>The Texas Chainsaw 
                Massacre</i>, by situating a disturbingly tactile evil within 
                the mundane space of a summer day, made horror films dangerously 
                real.</font></p>
              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The next 
                step came with the wave of Italian cannibal movies in the 1970&#146;s 
                that focused on realistically trying to portray atrocity, the 
                &#147;art&#148; of these films being one of camouflage. Perhaps 
                the best example of this obsession with &#147;objectively&#148; 
                presenting nightmare is Ruggero Deodato&#146;s<i> Cannibal Holocaust</i> 
                (1979), a work that wonderfully summed up the genre&#146;s bizarre 
                self-awareness by centering the story around an academic&#146;s 
                journey into the Amazon to find the remains of a Western film 
                crew that was devoured by cannibals. In many ways, <i>Cannibal 
                Holocaust </i>is the direct precursor to another far more recent 
                horror work that tries to completely hide its structure within 
                a blur of fuzzy, washed out chaos, <i>The Blair Witch Project</i>.</font></p>
              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Daniel 
                Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez&#146;s film (a piece that has taken 
                on a resonance that these two slightly foolish guys probably couldn&#146;t 
                have planned) is a ground breaking horror work because, as Michael 
                Atkinson writes, it&#146;s &#147;a radical act, withholding information 
                and contriving to be without control over its own visual narrative.&#148; 
                What we are witnessing while watching <i>Blair Witch </i>is footage 
                from the front lines of the breakdown of the rational universe. 
                News is that now <i>Blair Witch</i> is going to get the video 
                game treatment from the gang at Terminal Reality, and although 
                the idea of a game based on the film leaves me feeling very wary, 
                after watching the brilliant cinematics for the company&#146;s 
                most recent game <b>Nocturne</b> I am sure that if anyone can 
                pull it off, Terminal Reality can.</font></p>
              <p align="left"></p>
              <p align="left"></p>
              <p align="left"><font size="2"><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">&#147;I 
                am the bloody top of the food chain&#148; - Nocturne</font></i></font></p>
              <p align="left"></p>
              <p align="left"></p>
              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The opening 
                of <b>Nocturne</b> is one of the finest video game pieces that 
                I have watched during my time at loonygames, ranking up there, 
                in my estimation, with <a href="../../1.26/pixel/index.html"><b>Fallout 
                2</b></a> and <a href="../../2.2/pixel/index.html"><b>Wipeout 
                III</b></a> as an example of the heights of artistic achievement 
                that this fledgling medium can attain. <b>Nocturne</b> takes the 
                tradition of realist horror and sculpts it quite eloquently to 
                video game dimensions.</font></p>
              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">As the 
                scene opens, two policemen search through a field of tall grass, 
                the cut of their uniforms indicating that we are watching newsreel 
                footage taken years ago, perhaps in the 1920&#146;s or 30&#146;s. 
                Suddenly a struggle breaks out, and the camera is shoved away...cut 
                to a woman&#146;s body lying covered by spider web laced dirt 
                and patches of forest shadow. It seems that the strange earth 
                is giving up her hoarded dead as we see a frantically cataloged 
                series of blood impatterned bodies lying scattered across a curiously 
                empty landscape. And night is falling.</font></p>
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              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></loonystart></font></p>
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<p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2">Credits: Illustration 
  &copy; 2000 Dan Zalkus. Pixel Obscura is &copy; 2000 Josh Vasequez. All other 
  content is &copy; 2000 loonyboi productions. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited, 
  so don't do it, or we'll cut you in twain.</font></i></p>
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