A Walk Through London

Just a few pics taken during my walk from Westminster to the Globe Theater!

Tower Bridge!

Below Tower Bridge

I don't know what this place is, but I found it across from the Themes, and I like it. 

And it has a cool fountain.

s

A recreation of the ship formerly belonging to Sir Francis Drake.

Camden Market Fashion!

Once again, sorry for the long post gap. I've got a new computer, since returning from England, so I had to set things up, transfer pictures, and so forth. Camden market is a neighborhood in Soho, London, which is basically full of random market stalls, selling clothing, souvenirs, and just about everything else ever. I was only able to explore a small bit of the region, but what I did see was and alt fashion extravaganza!!

í

While I was there, I bought this dress! Isn't it pretty?

Ok, I cheated. This one's from Glastonbury, but I thought I'd put it in while we were talking about fashion.

The Tower of London

ROYALTY! MURDER! TORTURE! EXECUTION! AND SHINY THINGS!!! This is the Tower of London. Once a palace, then a prison, now a museum, this impressive compound is now open to the public and dripping with history!

Back in its day, the Tower of London was a prison for fancy convicts, not ordinary street criminals. Traitors, royalty, royal traitors, and so forth. Of course, it was still a prison. Rank doesn't mean much if your head's just been chopped off.

This is the gate through which new prisoners would be taken by boat. 

Inside the walls was a sort of citadel, which multiple buildings and even more tourists. 

The inside of the Traitor's Gate.

And of course, no tour of the Tower of London would be complete without those fancy hat guys!

This was in the armory exhibition. A robotic dragon made almost entirely out of Medieval weaponry. I don't know why it was there or where it came from, but I want one as a pet. Please, Mom? 

This is Perkin's Steam Gun. A steam-powered gun. Let that sink in for a minute. Epic, no?
It never caught on because of the whole little waiting-for-the-boiler thing, but it would make a pretty epic addition to a steampunky story, 

If I remember correctly, this is where the crown jewels are kept. I think. But then, that had a longer line. 

I totally thought this guy was a statue. And then he blinked.

Sights Along the Thames River

So, just how did I get from Westminster to the Tower of London? By a boat ride down the Thames! *epic geek out* Without further ado, here are some of the sights I saw along the river.

The Globe Theater. I'll get up a post of my full tour of that later on. 

Tower Bridge! *squee* So pretty!

Here was a fun bit of goings-on: since it was the Queen's birthday, there was a  gun salute (below) going on right where the boat normally docked. Therefore, we ended up on a tour boat in the middle of the Themes, by the Tower of London, while a gun salute was going on shore, air flyovers were going on overhead, and general pomp and circumstance abounded. Incredible!

Up next, my tour of the Tower itself!

DIY Birdcage Veil Tutorial

If I may begin this post with a bit of boasting, I'M GOING TO ENGLAND! *fangirl squeal* That's right, the setting of pretty much every steampunk book ever, and I get to go there for a family trip this June! I shall make sure to seek out vast quantities of awesomeness to post about.

I think this would also look quite nice in black, if one is going for a more Gothic effect.

In more immediate news, prom season is coming up, and I've been gleefully searching for lovely neovictorian dresses and accessories and such, and happened across this lovely tutorial by Trash to Couture. I think it would look quite splendid with a flowing ballgown, don't you agree?

Video Game Review: Alice: Madness Returns

I don't even know where to start with this--I think this game might be my new obsession. Even so, I'll try my best at giving this an unbiased critique. So, let's head down the rabbit hole and into this twisted re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland. Let the madness begin!

The cover art.

The Story:
Roughly ten years after whole Wonderland incident, Alice is grown up--and so is Wonderland. Driven mad by the death of her family in a fire, she has just returned to society after ten years of staring at a wall in a mental hospital. (The first game in this series, American McGee's Alice, takes place during her time in the asylum.) Just when she seems to be getting the hang of real life, she finds her madness returning, and, she soon discovers, Wonderland is not the cheerful place it used to be--and it's up to her to restore it.

The Gameplay:
A fairly standard mix of platforming and action combat. The combat is fairly straightforward, with the added twist of some basic strategy needing to be employed. Different enemies have different methods of defense and attack, which the player must keep an eye on to defeat them.
Much of the gameplay focuses on collectibles, including bottles, memories, and pig snouts (yeah, you read that right) which are technically optional, but needed to unlock story details, extra content, and weapons upgrades. There are some puzzles, none of which are exceedingly challenging on normal difficulty.

A screenshot from the Hatter's Domain.

How steampunk is it?:
It's pretty damn steampunk. Essentially, the world of gameplay is the mental construction of a delusional Victorian maid--resulting in a surreal blending of Victorian and fantasy elements. Most of the first level takes place in a floating factory constructed almost entirely from gears and teapots, so I was just about puking rainbows most of the way through. Other than that, the aesthetic touches on a lot of steampunk's sub-types and cousins, such as industrial, Gothic, Victoriental, and a twisted, creepy-doll-based form of Lolita.

The Good Stuff:
This game is art. Like, it needs to be in a museum. The scenery ranges from jaw-droppingly beautiful to utterly disturbing. It would take me pages and pages to describe the look of it, so I'll just cram this review with pretty pictures.
My compulsive character-analyzing self simply can't help but be impressed. With the entire game being a symbolic journey into into Alice's subconscious, the whole thing is basically one big character study, and creator American McGee clearly put a good deal of thought into her personality. Mental illness in fiction is usually reserved for psychotic villains, but Alice seems to be the exception--as far as I can tell, much research has been put into her condition(s).  Even so, her personality still holds remarkably true to Lewis Carrol's original character--Alice may have matured a little and developed a rather cynical attitude over the years, but glimpses of the strong-willed and curious character on which she was based still shines through. In fact, I'd say this is a more accurate character interpretation than the more famous Disney version.

Just another butt-kicking day in Wonderland...

The biggest thing, though, is just how badass (do pardon my recent overuse of that word, but it's absolutely necessary here) this game is. I spent a good portion of the game just playing around with the weapons instead of actually progressing. I mean seriously, a flaming hobby horse/war hammer that shakes the very earth when thrown upon the ground? That's the kind of thing that makes my day! Playing this legitimately gave me a massive boost in self-confidence. After taking out a couple dozen mechanical monsters with a single shot from an exploding teapot cannon, one feels capable of doing just about anything.

The Bad Stuff:
Most major game reviewers kept Madness Returns firmly in the average range, and, as much as I loved this game, I can see why it might not appeal to the hardcore gaming crowd. Other than the scenery, remarkably little changes throughout the forty-odd hours of gameplay. Many players have lamented the rather long length, and, as much as I enjoyed it, it was quite an endeavor. It's clear, at least, that the creators were aware of this--a lot of big scenes and even entire subplots were awkwardly compressed or hacked out. While the amount of cut material didn't really detract from the game, I really wish they would release some sort of extended version which would include more story depth and actual boss fights. From what I've been able to track down on the internet, a lot of that cut material looked pretty awesome.
The only flaw that seriously bugged me was the ridiculous number of technical issues. The computer I played this on is only a year or two old, but I still had to turn the graphics to near-minimal settings just to get it to play smoothly. Glitches abound, most of which impede progression in the game, such as platforms not moving when they should or invincible enemies. In order to get past them, one must restart the entire level. I was lucky enough that both glitches I encountered were fairly early on in their respective levels, but less fortunate players could face a good two to three hours of replaying just to get past one spot.

The Verdict:

Victorian London. LOOK AT THAT ATMOSPHERE! O.O SO EPIC!

To begin with, a few things to clear up. Alice: Madness Returns is a horror game--sort of. If you were expecting an Amnesia-esque experience of sheer terror, you might be dissapointed/relieved. Even playing alone in the dark with headphones, I wasn't really scared. If you've never played scary games before, this could serve as your gateway into that realm, as it will likely do for me in the long run. Excluding a few gory moments, the horror of Alice: Madness Returns is mostly quite subtle, more creepy than terrifying. Being the kind of horror that one must think about for a bit to be afraid of, this might be one of the few scary games out there that's likely to be more effective adults than kids.
That being said, this is most certainly not a kid's game, although the big letter M on the box doesn't seem to deter all those twelve-year-olds who insist on announcing their age on the internet. The story, style, and gameplay cater mostly to the older teen emo/goth crowd. I don't want to sound like a prude who insists that kids can't play video games, but really, I think the themes would have fairly little meaning to younger players. The scares of the game are real-life things, like mental illness and the stigmas it carries, child abuse and how easily it goes unnoticed, and, at its core, the strange and often painful process of growing up.
That in itself is what makes Alice: Madness Returns as haunting as it is fun. I could really just write about this game for days on end--it's the kind of thing that sticks in one's head long after it's done. So be prepared for a lot more posts about this series; I don't think I could get it out of my head, even if I wanted to.

Book Review: The Agency: The Body at the Tower

Please pardon the copyright infringement, as I found it
necessary to include cover art in this review.

I picked up this book not realizing that it was somewhere (though I'm still not sure where--would it really have been too much effort for the publishers to put numbers on the damn books?) in Y.S. Lee's  The Agency series, so this review might not turn out as positive as it otherwise would, due to the fact that wasn't always sure what the heck was going on. The story centers around the life of a young detective, Mary Quinn, who works for a detective agency in Victorian London, kind of like a female Sherlock Holmes.

The Story: When a construction worker falls--or, perhaps, is pushed--from St. Steven's Tower, Mary Quinn, disguised as a laborer, is dispatched to investigate. But before long, she finds herself entangled in the mystery not only intellectually, but also personally.

The Good Stuff: The historical details. The author's descriptions are brilliant--portraying a thorough, all-senses-included view of the setting without interfering with the story itself. Reading this book is about as close to walking the streets of Victorian London as a modern person can get without a time machine.

The Bad Stuff: This didn't really feel like a mystery to me. The heroine spends more time thinking about her personal life than she does about the murder she's supposedly trying to solve, and she's never really in legitimate danger until the last ten pages or so. I also think I could have connected more with the characters. The point of view quite frequently shifted with no warning, and the supporting cast was so large that I had a hard time remembering which one was which. Keeping track of James, Jones, and Jenkins was hardly an easy task.

The Overall: In spite of how long the Bad Stuff list for this is, I rather liked it. I probably wouldn't recommend it for readers who don't have any particular interest in Victorian London, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that most of the readers of this blog do. I intend to read at least the first book in the series, once I figure out which one that is.

A Unique Photographic View of London

I have this thing for old buildings, especially abandoned and dilapidated ones, so I was completely geeking out over Derelict London, a photographic collection by Paul Talling. It really shows a different, much grittier side of London from the usual tourist sites, featuring factories, crumbling cemeteries (including, if I'm not mistaken, the one after which the band Abney Park was named), abandoned houses, and all kinds of things that make for an intriguing view of Victorian and modern London. Out of respect of copyrights, I cannot post any pictures here, but you can find all manner of them at Talling's official site.

Fish and Chips Recipe

With Victorian London being the center of the Industrial Revolution, as well as the setting for a large number of novels and films, England and steampunk have always been closely connected. In honor of the Olympic games being held in London, I'll post this recipe for fish and chips. These are baked, and are therefore more healthy but less authentic, although it could easily be adapted into a fried meal.

Ingredients: Fish (Cod works best)
                  A small amount of flour
                  A couple eggs
                  Breadcrumbs
                  Red Potatoes
                  Olive oil
                  Malt Vinegar

1. To prepare the fish, dredge it in flour, and then coat it with eggs and breadcrumbs. Bake on a greased pan at 400 degrees Fahrenheit until flaky.

2. To make the chips, slice the potatoes into wedges and coat them in olive oil. Bake until browned.

3. Serve the fish and chips together, topped with a little salt and a lot of malt vinegar.