enoch's rambles

enoch kim is a thing doer.

This is a best-effort rushed summary of the series of lawsuits filed by Warak against O2JAM Company and its representative director Jeong Sun-Kwon. I need to make the following disclaimers before diving in:

  • I am not good at speaking Korean and relied on MTL to read various documents.
  • I am not familiar with the intricacies of Korean law and can be best described as “a rubbernecker” when it comes to US law.
  • I am writing this about 12 hours after watching the video released by Warak summarizing his point of view and this summary is obviously biased towards his view.

Ok with that in mind:

Background

Warak is a Korean composer best known for his contributions to the Korean rhythm game series O2JAM, in particular its later mobile games O2JAM Analog and O2JAM U. His work covers a wide variety of genres ranging from electro to latin house and he's emerged as a fresh talent that legitimized the second era of O2JAM which even at the time had a reputation of being aged and retro.

Warak was first contracted to provide music to O2Jam in 2011 when it was published by Now Games. A few years later in 2014, Warak made the suggestion to management to not only cover classical music as is rhythm game tradition but to cover other older popular music and expand in variety. The Entertainer (Scott Joplin), Por Una Cabeza (Carlos Gardel), and Maria Elena (Lorenzo Barcelata) were chosen as trial pieces and subsequently released to the game with new arrangements by Warak. According to Warak, he afterwards received a call from a representative of Momo Media on behalf of representative director Jeong Sun-Kwon stating that Momo would like to pay half of the agreed upon commission fee due to the underperformance of these covers. Warak says he rejected this request and felt offended that they would request this after the commissioned work was already received and implemented into the games. According to the representative Jeong Sun-Kwon then countered with another proposal for Warak to submit a song for free as a make good for their longstanding relationship. This incensed Warak, he was offended that they would first claim his music was underperforming and not worth the agreed upon payment, and then proceed to ask for more music for free as “mends”. In the video he produced retelling the lawsuits from his perspective, Warak makes an aside that often for video game music it is not necessary for the music to be enjoyable on its own when its main purpose is to fit the theme and setting of the game. But as someone who was busting his ass to make music that both fit the agreed upon specifications of the game and would stand up on its own, this treatment was especially upsetting and this would greatly hurt his confidence in his work that point forward. Warak claims this incident left him emotionally distraught and depressed, causing a period of writer's block. He was afraid to seek medical treatment as he feared being medicated would forcefully stabilize his serotonin levels leaving him unable to properly access the emotional quality of his work. As a result there are no medical records to denote this period of distress.

A note on who owns O2JAM

Now Games was already the third company the O2JAM property had been transferred to. O2Jam was first created by O2Media before shutting down and being transferred to NowCom in 2008. NowCom created the popular Korean video livestreaming service afreecaTV (now Soop) and in order to focus on its newfound success spun off its game development division into a subsidiary called Now Games in 2011. Now Games then went independent in 2012 and was renamed Momo Media. Momo Media then shuttered in 2017, and the rights to O2Jam were transferred to a newly formed O2Jam Company in 2019. O2Jam Company was dissolved in 2025 and the rights were transferred to the newly formed Musicturbine. It should be noted that Now Games, Momo Media, O2Jam Company, and Musicturbine all share the same representative director, Jeong Sun-Kwon.

Discovering something amiss

Years later in 2019, Warak noticed that his music was used in a Korean arcade adaptation of Beat Saber, produced by Skonec (Beat Saber Arcade would end service in 2020 as Beat Games stopped issuing commercial licenses for Beat Saber around the same time they started selling DLC with major label content). He was shocked as he did not sign a contract with Skonec, and soon discovered his music was licensed to the game and a dozen other games like Pump it Up, EZ2AC, and Tapsonic Bold by O2Jam Company. The contract Warak signed in 2011 stipulated that he owns the copyright to the music provided to O2Jam and Now/Momo/O2 does not have the right to sublicense without his permission. Despite this being a contractual violation, Warak didn't pursue legal action at first because he understood crosslicensing and “collaborations” were common amongst rhythm games and were popular with players so he tabled it. The final straw was when he discovered O2Jam Company had registered his music in various audio fingerprinting programs like Youtube's ContentID and were receiving revenue from streaming services such as Youtube- something he states he did not pursue as he did not want to affect videos uploaded by O2JAM players on platforms such as Youtube. Not only was O2Jam Company making money off his work, they were making money in a way he specifically did not wish to do with O2JAM players in mind. After having his copyright infringed and having previously been humiliated by Jeong Sun-Kwon, Warak was prepared to go to court against O2Jam to reassert his rights and obtain damages from Jeong Sun-Kwon personally.

Suiting up

Before the lawsuit started in earnest, Warak and O2Jam Company entered mediation (or arbitration) in an attempt to bring both parties into a mutual understanding of the affair. But this was also a poor experience as Jeong Sun-Kwon clammed up and asserted as the commissioning entity it's fair that he share rights to the resulting work. The arbitration findings were unsatisfactory, the mediator ruled that O2Jam must pay damages to Warak and in turn Warak would drop the suit. Warak intended to cancel the contract and return all rights back to him so he proceeded with the suit. The first trial dragged on for two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic but eventually it was ruled that as O2Jam Company was a separate party not included in the initial contract with Now Games (which was now dissolved), they did not have the right to use any of Warak's music. However just because Jeong Sun-Kwon was the representative director of both companies did not make him personally liable for damages. In his video summarizing the lawsuits, Warak noted that he was inexperienced and the first lawyer he hired did not adequately advise him during this first suit and he was left to do much of the discovery himself, even having to personally contact Sandbox Network (the digital music distributor used by Momo/O2) to request revenue data and contract documents. Han Jeong-hyeon, the CEO EPID Games, a Korean game development studio known for the mobile games TrickCal and Paint Heroes which Warak wrote music for, introduced Warak to a second lawyer, Kim Seon-wook of the law firm Haemaru who advised on dismissing the first case and filing a second suit expanding the amount of damages based on lost revenue from licensing and streaming revenue. Unfortunately Warak lost the second case on the grounds of the commissioning contract being referred to as a “매절이라는 “, or a buyout, or lump sum contract. The appellate court took this to imply that the copyright is transferred for a set fee and this designation trumps any language within the contract in reference to rights ownership. Warak appealed this decision up to the Supreme Court despite knowing the chances of this ruling being overturned was slim, and they ultimately ruled this is a poor interpretation of “매절이라는 “. In some fields such as character illustrations, a 매절이라는 contract is commonly agreed to involve a transfer of copyright in exchange for a flat fee but really the term just refers to how the laborer is paid by the client and doesn't necessarily imply any transfer of copyright unless it an established tradition in the trade. Video game music on the other hand has a variety of use rights, including for soundtrack release, use in-game, public performance, etc, which are separate and negotiated case-by-case. So the fact that there was explicit language prohibiting the sublicensing of rights in the contract should've trumped any “layman understanding” of the term “매절이라는”.

Setting an example in the industry

In recorded music, rights are often structured in terms of rights to the recording and rights to the composition. A record label may own the rights to the recording but the artist usually retains the rights to the composition and beyond any flat rate paid for the recording they are paid residuals for the rights to the composition in any sale or licensing agreement for the recording. This is not tradition in rhythm games. Often songs are works for hire, and after paying a flat fee, a client company will assume ownership of the entire intellectual property of a song. This makes business dealings such as sublicensing to other games much easier for the client party but it also means artists are left out of the success of their own work, unable to earn residuals if their music blows up in popularity. It often also means an artist is unable to get any additional revenue from other uses of the song such as performances or music sales. This has slowly changed as companies such as SEGA offer license-back deals that allow artists to offer their commissioned works on digital music platforms but there are still companies like KONAMI and Musicturbine which either offer onerous terms that limit the ways artists can use their works for hire or will exploit other uses themselves by registering them on audio fingerprinting programs and digital music platforms. Warak is of course an outlier, his contract stipulated he retained the rights to his work. But how many other artists are out there with contracts similar to Warak but are afraid to speak about how their rights are being violated? In his video, Warak hopes that his suit sets and example and encourages artists to assert their rights both in contract negotiations and legal proceedings. He stresses that these lawsuits were not about the money, and indeed he states that personally contacted every studio that previously licensed works he produced for O2Jam to assure them they would not be parties in any legal proceedures and he was not perusing any company other than O2/Musicturbine for damages. He ended his video on an anecdote that he rerecorded and reproduced the track “Shining” for PLATiNA::LAB on his own dime despite the game only paying for a license to the original 2006 recording as a sign of gratitude for entering licensing agreements with him while the cases were ongoing and it was still ambiguous if he had the copyright to his work. He also states unambiguously that the use of his work in the recent Steam rerelease of O2Jam: The Beginning was unauthorized and they had no right to do so. The story is still not over, there is still one more case left to determine damages and remedies, I'll be sure to be back again to write more once that happens.

Sources

God forbid me of all people to ignorantly cite 2020 as the beginning of the modern rave revival but I think it was Danny L Harle's album Harlecore that finally brought some mainstream ears to notice what's been happening since at least 2012 in circles online. Even this is a blatantly false sentence, producers like DJ Jedi never stopped producing new tunes in the intervening years. But mainstream music did not understand that early 90's rave ruled, a new generation learned that all on their own, and they were paying homage to the oldschool sound while bringing new concepts and ideas to the mix. This is what drove the admittedly arbitrary decision to cut how far back this mix digs to 2020. It just makes sense to me. Big round number, pandemic, Harlecore came out. (Also this is what led to Where Are You Now being the final track on the mix.) More than anything I wanted not just for new and old to sit together in the same mix, but to make it clear that the oldskool sound was coming from fresh new tracks. New voices like Masayoshi Iimori, Crayvxn, and SHERELLE are paying homage to the greats like Technohead, Acen, and Remo-con. In turn the old guard proves they can learn new tricks. I get it is a tic of mine to include IIDX into every mix of mine but I had to include Matt Silver in here as it is one of the freshest takes on hardstyle I've heard in years from someone who's been in the business for 30 years. I did my best to give a sample of everything under the sun, from jungle to tech dance to gabber to hardstyle to drum & bass. I hope it all blends together well.

Timestamps

00:00: https://youtu.be/Du1-6aAD8Fw 00:08: TORIENA – Supergabber 00:09: https://youtu.be/Eti6x19N9as 00:15: https://youtu.be/pbz4nNPFjG4 00:17: https://youtu.be/Vcp8iA2nxaM 00:26: https://youtu.be/Eti6x19N9as 00:33: https://youtu.be/nToOdpXYATs 00:38: https://youtu.be/pbz4nNPFjG4 00:43: https://youtu.be/nToOdpXYATs 00:51: https://youtu.be/UlMIP34TiGs 01:22: Technohead – I Wanna Be A Hippy (DJ TECHNORCH Remix) 02:32: Hommarju – Digital Bomb 03:58: Sample Junkie – Get Fucked (JAKAZiD Remix) 04:19: Technohead – I Wanna Be A Hippy (DJ TECHNORCH Remix) 05:19: 190BPM –>–>–> 05:41: –>–>–> 165BPM 05:41: snarewaves – Capsule Cowboy 05:52: SHERELLE – JUNGLE TEKNAH 07:02: Crayvxn – Only U 08:00: 2 Mello – LUV 2 LUV 08:35: Particle – Fall 2 Fast 10:33: Masayoshi Iimori, viwiv – Keygen Runaway 12:30: Graz – Numb 303 12:53: Coco Bryce – I Will Never Turn Away (FFF Remix) 14:02: Acen – Rings Around The Moon 15:11: Massive New Krew – BSCS 16:43: The Criminal Minds – De-Baptised by Dub (Sidestalker Mix (Spatts Re-Edit) 17:17: Carpainter – Rebellion On The Floor 19:02: Remo-con – Matt Silver -Extended Mix- 21:34: Riku – Acid Power 21:57: 3R2 – Warp 2 25:15: DJ X-Cess – Get Yourself Together 26:01: Graz – Numb 303 26:24: 2 Mello – LUV 2 LUV 26:48: Danny L Harle & DJ Danny – Where Are You Now 29:43: https://youtu.be/-Vr7kDlLUBk

Further Listening

For anyone interested in more beyond this mix, there are two massive revival compilations that came out this year that you should go to for further listening. The first is Moondance Together 2022, which I pulled a track from. This is a massive compilation, mostly new with a couple key reissues with a big emphasis on the oldskool breakbeat sound. What's most impressive is Dope Ammo really flexes his production here, having touched the vast majority of the tracks on the album. Next check out Hardcore Energy – Volume One. This label got first noticed for handling the digital issues for Acen's new material under Kniteforce and this is their big debut compilation. This also deals with breakbeat with some handbag thrown in. Something I'm Afraid Of, Brian, and Give Into The Rhythm are standout tracks.

Special Thanks

Thank you jab50yen for inviting me to Funny Rave. I got my one mix out this year! I need to work on making that two mixes an year. Thank you Eden_GT for the visuals. Hearing that someone was just gonna do viz for the first 6 minutes of my set made me raise my brows but this is the best 6 7 minutes anyone could ask for. It's kinetic, energetic and brilliantly transitions between each setpiece. Set visuals use “Gradient Flower” by VPaltoDance: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/NdyBzG Thank you to the Ecchiparty and Mecha Yuri crews for being my first homes. Thank you Jaime Page for providing a platform for the first EDM Ediot. You can delete it now, it's terrible. Thank you to Eric David Morris for giving birth to EDM. This now marks ten years of me mixing music. Thank you for listening.

I'm really quite stupid.

I've been told that I'm a smart kid but as far as I'm concerned I'm a dumb guy who makes rash decisions driven by spite and what's in front of me more than thinking about the long term. I say this upfront not to beat on myself but to say, this is not written from the perspective of a know-it-all educating the public. I'm just a dumb guy scared of the world I live in. I think a lot of us are just scared, dumb guys. And I'm just trying to take stock of all that I know to take a second to think.

I know the police were created to serve the wealthy.

Yeah I dunno man, all that “protect and serve” stuff seems like nice PR to me. The earliest organization that resembles modern policing in America were the slave watches, first formerly organized in South Carolina in 1704. And like it sounds, their express purpose was to round up escaped slaves and terrorize slaves to scare them into conformity. So the subjugation of black populations is built into the foundation of the police force in America. But of course it's not just about black people. It could've been anything valuable to the wealthy class that held power in the South. It's just that black slaves happened to be the most valuable property of the upper class. Jump forward a century and police forces are being used to silence labor organizers like during the Haymarket Riots in 1886. A bomb was thrown at police trying to subdue the protests, leaving seven policemen and four workers dead by the end. But what is often left out in the retelling of the Haymarket Riots is that the reason workers had organized for protests on that day was because a couple days ago a peaceful march in support of the eight hour workweek (which was already the law of the land but was blatantly unenforced) was silenced by the Chicago Police who opened fired and killed several protesters. And this keeps happening in history. 1934, a union strike of dockworkers is attacked by San Francisco police and the National Guard in what becomes known as Bloody Thursday. 1979, San Francisco police retaliate at protests and riots sparked by anger when Harvey Milk's (the first openly gay American mayor) murderer, Dan White, is found guilty of voluntary manslaughter instead, by clubbing protesters and deliberately destroying the legendary gay bar Elephant Walk in what becomes known as the White Nights. Twice, once in 1874 and again in 1988, cries for the city to do something about the employed and the homeless were met with clubbings and beatdowns. In a chilling flash to the present, many officers concealed their badge numbers with tape.

I know the police force was engineered to retain power and protect it.

As protests form around the country- even around the world, it becomes clear that many would be peaceful demonstrations have been escalated by the police.

In a shocking big dick move, the SBA doxxed the daughter of NY mayor Bill de Blasio after he made the most cowardly “both sides” statement about the NYPD car running into protestors pictured above. I guess even that wasn't enough for the unions Oh I guess that brings me to the unions. Police unions are the most powerful labor organizations in the country. Congratulations, except you're helping cops kill us by protecting them as much as possible. Unions help bad cops get back on the job. They are on the frontlines of obscuring the misdeeds of cops from the public eye as much as possible, leading to “gypsy cops” that can shuffle around from department to department because their misconduct gets erased. Remember how mad people were about how long it took Derek Chauvin to be arrested and questioned? Oftentimes delays between police misconduct and questioning is built right into labor contracts, so that offending officers can take a few days to “get their story straight”, a privilege rarely given to civilians and fought for by unions. Protect and serve the public? Fuck you, got mine. Police unions are engineered to protect cops-bad or good from any retribution and they will fight to the teeth for their survival. And because so...

I know police reforms have so far done little.

Often in the aftermath of police violence the topic of “police reforms” is brought up and difficulties encountered with having reforms enacted, but you don't hear often discussions of whether or not the reforms that have managed to pass have worked. Like bodycams. There was a lot of talk about bodycams after the shooting of Michael Brown with advocates claiming that wide use would dissuade officers from using excessive force or that at the very least they'd be caught on camera and would result in swifter justice. But six years later results are a wash. A study focusing on the Orlando PD found that officers that wore body cams were 53% less likely to use force and have 65% less civilian complaints levied at them. Meanwhile a study in Washington DC resulted in little difference in the use of force between those who wore body cams and those who didn't. As for whether bodycams brought an increase in justice, they don't seem to have brought any more convictions than before bodycams were in wide use. What about procedural reform? After the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, the Obama Administration laid out a large list of recommended reforms to proceedings like embracing “a guardian mindset to build public trust and legitimacy”, “initiating positive nonenforcement activities to engage communities that typically have high rates of investigative and enforcement involvement with government agencies”, and having “comprehensive policies on the use of force that include training, investigations, prosecutions, data collection, and information sharing.” The reforms were enacted in Minneapolis and after almost $5 million they clearly didn't work. None of these reforms solved the underlying foundation of the police force that encourages officers to retain power and serve the upper class before the public.

I know people have been suffering for too long.

Let's count the numbers. It's been an year since federal charges were dropped for the police officer that killed Eric Garner. Six years since Eric Garner died from a chokehold while unarmed, gasping “I can't breathe.” It's been four years since Philando Castile was shot and killed in his car by an officer who allegedly thought Castile was reaching for a gun. There was no gun. Three years since the officer that killed him was acquited. There was a dash cam. It didn't matter. Also six years ago, Tamir Rice was twelve years old when he was shot to death by a police officer that thought he was reaching for a gun. It was an airsoft. The officer was not charged. Also six years ago, Michael Brown was eighteen years old when he was shot twelve times by a police officer. The police officer that killed Michael Brown was not charged. Seven years ago, the Black Lives Matter movement was founded following the acquittal of the watchman that killed Trayvon Martin. Trayvon was seventeen. There is no national database of police violence. But one database has recorded at least 1000 deaths a year by the hands of police since its inception in 2013. In 2015, almost 20% of those killed were unarmed. 2018 was the most violent year by 1143. Black people made up 24% of those killings despite comprising 13% of the population. 52 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The FBI considered him a radical and closely surveiled him as a national threat.

380 years ago the Virginia General Court sentenced a black man to slavery for the first time.

An incredibly long diatribe of my struggles moving back to Linux

I'll say right off the bat that Windows is the not the ideal OS. I recently set out to put a Linux distro back on my laptop after growing frustrated with my Windows install, mostly stemming from the GTX 1050/Optimus setup on my Asus FX53D. GeForce drivers have been incredibly buggy, Photoshop and other Creative Cloud software would crash multiple times an hour after switching back and forth between the Game Ready and Creator Ready driver lines. Also even when it is “inactive” the 1050 seems to stay engaged at all times even though the iGPU is supposed to be the main composite, so battery life is often little more than an hour which is too low even for a gaming laptop. Obviously there's nothing on the open source side that could replace the Creative Cloud suite so I'm stuck with the Windows install but the general instability with Optimus was enough for me. After several years I was going back to the Linux desktop.

Read more...

People Read Series, Not Authors

Even with a beloved series it is monumentally hard to get readers to read other works by the same artist. I thought with Honey Come Chatka there'd be a built in audience because of how monumentally popular bkub's Pop Team Epic is but that's simply not true. Honey Come Chatka's peak popularity on Mangadex was sirlorence's first upload at ~1500 views and immediately went off a cliff to the ~250-700 range. And this is true across the board. Friends will know I've become obsessed with Mousou Telepathy and have started reading her first series, My Alien Days. Both are scanlated by Helvetica Scans and while Mousou readership has grown to 25k views per page, MAD peaked at its first chapter of 14k views and dropped to the 400 range since reaching the post-paperback publication chapters. Really, ain't this true of all art in general? The sophomore slump, the one hit wonder, the viral hit. We're conditioned to think that when we find success, it is because others are attracted to our vision, when that's really not true at all. It feels more correct to say that we are used as vessels to bring different concepts and ideas to life, and they have a life outside of our own. The only problem is art doesn't need a salary to maintain life, but artists do.

2018! Thank the lord it’s all over. Coming out of 2017, there was a sense that the worst had passed, surely the next year couldn’t be as bad, right?

...Right? I don’t think I’m the only one whose 2018 was filled with anxiety and a general sense of dread that we won’t make it to another generation. And the continued farce in the White House, the ongoing rise of right nationalism across the world, and the age-old gripe of “the numbers say everything’s on the up but I’ve got no money!” didn’t help matters. But there was reason to celebrate in 2018. The raucous celebration and camaraderie of CEO was a highlight of my year and the love and support of new and old friends was what i needed to keep going.

Oh! And the freaking games! The music, the radio, the movies, the art and entertainment that brought real joy! Say anything else, but 2018 was a great year to stay tuned to pop culture. Don’t think too hard about the ranking of things, if you ask me what my favorite 10 things were tomorrow this whole list would probably change.

10. 10 Things That Scare Me: Brooke Gladstone [Podcast: WNYC Studios]

Brooke’s anxieties are our collective id. 10 Things That Scare Me had the genius format of short interviews getting quick to the point of what people fear the most but it didn’t elevate to this list until Brooke Gladstone’s episode. Her stories of confronting her unbridled need to control the uncontrollable, and her constant battle against her inner imposter syndrome make not just great radio, but a pure distillation of the anxieties of the times. It is simply jaw dropping how raw this interview is and how visceral the imagery provided by Brooke and the accompanying sound design feels. A real bang to end the new year.

9. Crazy Rich Asians [Film: Jon M. Chu/Warner Bros. Pictures]

I want to clear the air and say this is not an asian film. This is especially not a SIngaporean film and to bill it so brings out the film’s absence of real Singaporean representation. No, this is an Asian American film. For Asian Americans. And to see one come out of a major Hollywood studio brings tears of joy to my heart. Maybe I didn’t grow up in a rich clan that throws out fuck you money like it’s confetti but there’s so much that mirrors my story on screen that I’ve seldom seen before. The war between my and older generations, the expectation to continue traditions, and a disdain for what is thought of as western society are all conflicts I’ve seen in my own experiences and though they may have been portrayed in other ways in other movies, none of them felt like they were speaking directly to me, the Asian American who struggles to navigate those two identities. (I wrote a review here.)

8. Serial Season 3 [Podcast: This American Life]

Leave it to who else but Sarah Koenig to craft the most comprehensive view into the American justice system. Given the dark and terrible circumstances the podcast delves into it would’ve been easy for this season to become intolerably gloomy, like an even longer Deer Hunter– suffer porn is a term I’ve heard about a lot of true crime shows that started in Serial’s shadow. But Serial’s third season is structured like an anthology, giving you funny, bewildering, righteous moments between the gloom. It’s not afraid to laugh at the absurdity of the infernal contraption it attempts to disect and it’s not content with giving listeners only one side of the story. This is the best Serial’s ever been, even better than the blockbuster first season.

7. Sorry to Bother You [Film: Boots Riley/Annapurna]

If Jordan Peele shocked everyone last year with his first film, Get Out, then Boots Riley blew us away with Sorry to Bother You. What a terrific debut that is also one of the best surprises of the year. No other film this year dared to get as weird as this one and we’re all the better for it. This film’s mind keeps darting around to different concepts: is racism inherent to society or is it the powerful’s way of keeping the poor white man content with his place? WIll the growing power of tech companies really make our lives better or is this just Sharecropping 2.0? And when we are ready to unionize and stand up for our livelihood, will we stand against the power of corporate? It’s a dizzying amount of concepts that the movie juggles like a pro with inventive visuals and raunchy humor.

6. Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides [Album: SOPHIE]

This is the Sophie album I’ve been waiting for. Fully elevated from the PC Music trappings, Sophie’s first original album is truly something brand new, while still being a full-armed embrace of all that is pop and kitch. Whole New World/Pretend World is the finale track to end all finale tracks. A fearless mix of noise, pop, bass, and punk that will be this year’s Meishi Smile moment, it is impossible to remove from my mind.

5. Onrush [Game: Codemasters EVO]

I shouldn’t enjoy this game this much. The lag, the bad matchmaking, the dripfeed of content, and the fact that you can’t play casual matches and ranked at the same time should be enough to infuriate me and make me quit. But Onrush is too fucking good and I keep coming back for more. Did you ever want DOTA and Overwatch blended into a Burnout game? Maybe not, but doesn’t that sound so fucking cool? Good news, because Onrush is that game and it is so fucking cool. Forget racing to the finish, Onrush puts in a team of tricked out rides and lets you go nuts on a stampede of fodder and the opposing team of suckers. Onrush whisks me back to endless nights of payload TF2 and Gun Game in Counter-Strike. It’s the trappings of the best competitive games but with none of the toxicity, or seriousness. And the Ninja Tune soundtrack is like the best festival you’ve ever been in, with pumping drum & bass and good old rock and roll. It’s here to have a good time and it wants you on the ride. Why would you pass up on the offer?

4. Pop Team Epic [Anime: King Records/Kamikaze Douga]

Pop Team Epic was a collective mindtrip. When given the task of adapting something as ephemeral and slippery as the original 4koma cartoons, Kamikaze Douga made the right choice of setting aside the text and harnessing the wild, anarchist spirit of the comics. There is no one defining moment of Pop Team Epic. You ask different people and they might cite the insane pop-up performance by AC-bu, others the trip to an unfinished fantasy anime, or the absolutely jaw-dropping finale that I dare not reveal here where any description I could make of it would do it no justice. Defining Pop Team Epic by one moment is a fool’s errand as the show is a kaleidoscope of different artists and energies that have collectively revealed their balls in the name of paying tribute to Pop Team Epic’s maniacal soul. Is it funny? Does it make sense? These are not the right questions to ask, as Pop Team Epicis simply a sight to behold.

3. Deltarune Chapter One [Game Demo?/Toby Fox]

Is it too early to put this on any year-end list? Maybe, but the thought of having to wait longer to give Deltarune the praise it deserves is unthinkable. The three hours I spent in Deltarune were some of the most magical moments this year and represents Toby Fox at his peak. The music is emotionally arresting when they’re not busy being the sickest jamz of the year. Ralsei, Susie, and the gang took no time at all becoming some of this year’s most beloved characters. And the mystery of lies ahead for Deltarune is unbearable. It kills me to think it’ll be years before I can set foot in this world again. If that’s not the highest praise for what is ostensibly a demo, I don’t know what is.

2. Tetris Effect [Game: Enhance/Monstars/Resonair]

It's the greatest show on Earth and you're the conductor. Tetris Effect is proof that you can make something far greater than the sum of its parts because when you get right down to it some cool VR viz, cheesily earnest trance, and a 34 year old puzzle system should not become one of the greatest games of the year. But it all works so spectacularly in tandem with each other. The Tetris is therapeutic, almost instinctual, and the VR assists in opening up yourself to emotionally resonate with the visual and music. There’s nothing for hesitation to hold onto, the game invites you to jump in and embrace its soul. The final level in Journey, Metamorphosis, is one this year’s most unforgettable moments. It’s the culmination of the game’s themes of unity and love and as corny as it sounds you can’t help but let the game overtake you.

1. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse [Film: Bob Persichetti/Peter Ramsey/Rodney Rothman/Sony Imageworks]

If not the best Spider-Man film, the most Spider-Man film. In some ways, Spider-Verse picks up where Sam Raimi left off in that it is a celebration of every fantastical, timeless, and plain weird aspect about the original comic-books Spider-Man leapt off from. The film revels in the dizzying multi-verse of Spider-Man, the ridiculous captioned sound effects, and the improbably death-defying action. It is unafraid to proclaim it’s love for Spider-Man, from minute one with a bold seal of approval from the Comics Code Authority to minute 117 with its gut-busting post-credits sequence. Spider-Verse also feels like a continuation in the Lord-Miller mythos, a duo who made their name in turning kitsch commercialism into meaningful expressions of humanity. There’s a thru-line you can follow from 21 Jump Street to The Lego Movie to here and each one has been a testament that you can make great movies out of seemingly suspect ideas if you put your heart into it. But amongst all that, Spider-Verse feels something wholly its own- a meditation on the expectations that are thrust upon black youth, a celebration of diversity, a prayer in the faith of every person’s capacity for heroism. And that is all ignoring what people really go to see superhero movies for- the action! The jaw-dropping animation, with its rhythmic keyframes and intricate details is enough to make up for the ticket value, even if the movie had nothing to say. And the score by Daniel Pemberton is the best I’ve heard all year- to the point I actually went out of my way to purchase the soundtrack. It’s an eclectic blend of surf rock, orchestral, and TURNTABLISM! Flawlessly supporting the action while not being afraid to be bold and bring attention to itself. Every part of this movie is firing on all cylinders I can’t think of anything I didn’t actively love about it. It’s not just my favorite movie of the year, it is my favorite piece of media I’ve experienced all year and was a great cap off to 2018.