Palm Springs | 911 Operator

Endless time loop or endless gameplay loop? How about both this week?

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Here's what I've been watching and playing over the last seven days...

MOVIES

Palm Springs

Movie summary: Nyles and Sarah find themselves stuck in a time loop and living the same day over and over again. They are drawn to each other, but certain revelations threaten their budding romance. (IMDb)

It's very tricky to write about Palm Springs without mentioning Groundhog Day, because they both feature time loops ensuring the film repeats the same actions over and over again.

The difference here is that there are multiple people looping and, rather than ending similarly to Groundhog Day, with everything apparently resolved, it's left somewhat open here as to what is going to happen to the characters next.

There's also the fact that Palm Springs is a surprisingly bleak movie, that gets really nihilistic at times and has a 'scientific' ending rather than something centred on character.

Unfortunately, that sense of nihilism really overpowers everything else in the movie and, despite there not being anything technically 'bad' about the movie, my overriding feeling towards it is one of apathy.

Andy Samberg's Nyles has been trapped in the time loop for years, possibly decades, by the time the movie starts and is very much of the world view that nothing matters.

Then Cristin Milioti's Sarah gets trapped and she quickly starts feeling the same way - with the two leads spending the majority of the time believing nothing matters, I eventually started agreeing with them.

There's still a lot of good stuff here to enjoy, with JK Simmons' Mike being a particular highlight, but I think the nihilistic tone, combined with an ambiguous ending, is probably why it hasn't even become a 'cult classic' in the years since release.

Palm Springs isn't a bad film at all - in fact, it's entirely competently put together and the performances are a perfect fit for what the story requires - but I doubt it'll be one that will live long in your memory. [6/10]

GAMES

911 Operator

Game summary: Answer incoming calls and react properly - give first aid instructions, advise, dispatch correct number of firemen / police / ambulances, or sometimes - just ignore the call. (Steam)

I really liked Dispatch; I really liked the parts of that game choosing which superheroes to send out to each incident; I was also very good at it because 911 Operator had been given away on Steam just before Dispatch was released.

Seriously, incidents will flash up on-screen that will require either police, fire or ambulance aid and it's up to you to make sure you allocate your resources properly.

The difference here to Dispatch isn't matching the right emergency service to an incident, as the game tells you what each one needs, but to pick the best units to respond and make sure that you have your units positioned and allocated well enough to stay on top of everything.

The extra layer that 911 Operator has are the emergency calls, where you have to deal with a pretty wide array of incidents which can have quite a different number of outcomes based on how you deal with it.

The visuals are pretty basic, as you can see above, but they serve their purpose to keep track of everything going on and the number of maps you can play on (seriously, the number of maps this game can generate is unreal) can vary quite a bit.

It's not the greatest game to look at though, and the sound design isn't much to write about either, but it does have that 'just one more go' feel to it, which I've found to be pretty rare for games these days, and have lost track of time multiple times while playing it.

911 Operator is somewhat limited in its scope, but it does what it sets out to do very well, proving to be very stressful (in a good way) and hugely addictive (also meant as a positive) - a definite recommend. [8/10]

Also currently playing: Batman: Arkham City, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Guardians of the Galaxy, Hitman: World of Assassination, Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020)

TV

I will be starting Star Wars: Rebels' final season on Friday, so expect to read about what I thought of at least some of the episodes next week.

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