Level 3.

No, that's not the name of the game pictured above. Instead, it's how far I leveled up in Fragile Dreams before I decided to shit-can it from my collection. Why? It's quite simple, actually: the combat really, really sucked. Like, really. "Oh, but if you can muster enough strength to power through the combat parts, the rest of the game is a lot better," some might say to me. Sorry, but I shouldn't have to muster the strength to get through a game. If I'm not convinced I should even be holding the controller, it's a safe bet I shouldn't be. It's a shame, though, because everything besides the gameplay was working for me. The atmosphere was foreboding and desolate; the score hit all the right notes; the story had a lot of potential; and yet I traded it in after only about two hours of game time. Sad day.

OK, so, the combat. Not one aspect of it did anything for me. I started off with a stick, and I hit some dogs over the head with it. Fair enough. But then I hit some floating jellyfish with it. Then I found a bamboo sword and hit some dogs and jellyfish with it. Then my bamboo sword broke, so I switched back to the stick. Then it broke, as well. As it turns out, a broken stick was the last weapon I was able to wield before I gave up, and that doesn't sit right with me. Oh, well, I guess, because maneuvering around borderline-retarded enemy A.I. that have the worst dodging abilities known to man or computer didn't really make me want to find a better weapon. Take the dogs, for example. When you hit them, they automatically jump backwards, no matter where they are. So my main plan of attack was to always angle my swing towards a wall or object in the environment, that way when they jumped back, they didn't actually move. Instead of the dog leaping out of harm's way, it just backwards-dry-humped the wall while I beat it in the face. Not how I would like to go out, but I'm not a post-apocalyptic canine that appears into, and disappears from existence whenever a human being walks past me.

The way weapons break in Fragile Dreams is just about the stupidest thing on the planet. Apparently, there's no formula to follow or weapon HP to keep track of. Shit just breaks sometimes. And I can say from experience that my only two weapons (which sucked anyways) both broke shortly after about an hour of playing. If the developers wanted to force people to use different weapons, hey, I'm all for it. But they can't make it happen by random chance. Theoretically, then, it could break after the first time I used it. There's no strategy or brainpower needed to play along with that scenario; it's called shitty design. And compounding the brain-dead weapon system is the fact that it can be overly-cumbersome to aim and successfully hit enemies sometimes. If I press down on the nunchuk, I would normally expect my character to turn towards the camera. Oh, no. Not in Fragile Dreams. It works similarly to Silent Hill: Origins, only less-so. I had to maneuver the flashlight with the Wii-mote in order to face the enemy I wanted to hit, and it got obnoxious pretty quickly when I was whiffing half of the time, only to get hit for 50 damage from a fucking jellyfish. Why are there floating jellyfish? I don't know. And I didn't mention this before, but why are there person-less pants with blue flames instead of upper torsos laughing at me? I don't know, but whatever.

The main point I want to drive home here is that the first few hours in a game are arguably the most important. And with a game like Fragile Dreams, I was looking forward more to the adventuring aspects than the combat. What I found, however, was that the world made me want to push forward, but the game itself kept holding me back. It's one reason I can't stand most JRPGs, but I thought this one could have been different. Sure, it could have been, but the gameplay is sadly but surely stuck in the same boring and tedious level-grind mentality that plagues pretty much all the games I hate. So, in the end, hate wins out again. This is one giant victory for hate.


Read more...

John Marston is the anti-Niko Bellic.

Really, it's true. And it's a funny thing that Dan Houser wrote one of the absolute worst video game characters in history and also one of the best. I think Rockstar was trying to create a John Marston-type of character when they made GTA IV, but for whatever reason they failed miserably. The 2nd time was a charm, however, because Red Dead: Redemption accomplishes everything narratively that GTA IV tried to.

The first, and most glaring issue with Niko Bellic was his motivation. Namely, he had none. Why did he continue to murder, steal and be an all-out asshole in the face of his repeated lamenting of that lifestyle? Beats me. As far as I can tell, he's just a poorly-written dick. He came to America with the hope of starting fresh; killing was a part of his past, but he tired of it and wanted to be a better person. That's what we're supposed to believe, anyway. But as the story unfolded, I couldn't help but shake my head at the horrendous dialogue and situations Niko put himself in, and for no reason. The whole game is done a huge disservice by having the main character make absolutely no sense, and it's one - but not the only - reason I'll never bring it up as a high or even interesting point in gaming. It's just a big, sloppy mess.

Fast-forward a couple of years and we have ourselves a masterpiece in Red Dead: Redemption. Is the game perfect? Not at all. Does it erase all the past mistakes of Houser's writing? I don't know about erasing them, but it sure as hell washes the bad taste out of my mouth (interesting fact: epic fail tastes like the ass-end of a chicken). John Marston is basically the same character as Niko Bellic, only with real motivations, a believable moral code, and a surrounding game world with much less disconnect between the player and the "reality" presented. All of those things combined to make a more engrossing experience, and also stop me from puking in my mouth a little once I finished the game. I was pretty grateful for that last part.

But why is Marston more believable? Well, the premise of his single-mindedness is simple: he had to track and kill people or his family would die. In the changing world of the early 20th century, the newly-formed U.S. government was totally fine with resorting to thuggery to get a job done, and Marston was the perfect pawn for their plan. And in a stroke of narrative genius, Houser made sure Marston never got too caught up in other people's problems. Sure, he helped out a lot of people and even felt bad for some of them, but he constantly reminded the people he was helping exactly why he was doing it. And there were some folks Marston absolutely hated, and it was during those moments that the player became privy to his darker side. Marston, at his own admission, wasn't a "literary person." He was, however, someone who tried to start a different life and got savagely pulled back into the one he already left. The difference between him and Bellic, in this regard, couldn't be any more stark.

There's a lot more about Red Dead: Redemption to talk about - and I've only scratched the surface in terms of Marston's character - but I'll save it for future posts. I think I'll just end by saying I have renewed faith in Rockstar as a developer, and for game writing in general. I think it might have a bright future after all.

Read more...

Red Dead has blurred the line between games and film

We all know by now that Rockstar Games "Red Dead Redemption" is out and enjoying universal acclaim from fans and critics so there's no point in reviewing this absolutely must buy title. The only thing I care to add at this point is that RDR will stand proudly beside the best western films that I have in my DVD collection. It is that damn good.

Last night as I finished a major section and started a new one, Rockstar very effectively blurred the line between Hollywood and the digital realm. Just thinking about it still gives me goosebumps. I've played for several hours now and former outlaw John Marsten has formed alliances, gained new enemies, and explored just one section of a frontier that's bigger than most open world games. All of the friends he has made, and all the work he has accomplished simply vanish as he must now venture deep into Mexico to bring his former partner in crime to justice. He is alone, acting only off a hunch, and the thought of completing his task and reuniting with his family seem nigh impossible at this juncture. The sun was setting over the red dusty cliffs and an explosive display of orange and purples filled the sky as I steered John and his horse into uncertain territory. Then this song started playing (hear below) and immersed me into the character and game world like no other has done before.................or will again.


Read more...

Splinter Cell: Conviction or; How Not to Write a Story.

I didn't read too much information about Splinter Cell: Conviction before playing it. I also didn't watch a lot of videos. The bit I knew really intrigued me: Sam learned his daughter's death might not have been an accident, and he heard some names floating around. The interrogation bit in the demo certainly led me to believe he was on a personal mission of vengeance. Right or wrong, he was going to get the information he needed, the way he needed to get it. The premise was instantly thought-provoking. With a story like that, there are multiple ways to go about exploring themes, such as moral ambiguity, blind rage and the consequences of it, and learning to let go and move on with your life. As you can probably guess by the title of this post, the kind folks at Ubisoft decided to shit all over themselves.

I'll just get right down to it, because, frankly, I'm really pissed at what they did to the story. If you don't want to know what it's about, then stop reading right now.



So, it turns out his daughter is still alive, and she's initially being used as a bargaining chip to make Sam do some dirty work. Really? Because what that translated to was this game being just like every other Splinter Cell game ever made. The personal side of the story was totally squashed in favor of bland spy fiction theatrics, and that really made me mad. I was all ready to learn more about Sam's life beyond Third Echelon; maybe find out what his marriage was like or get to interact with a part of him that I've never seen before. Nope. "Hey, Sam, I know where your daughter is. But before you can reunite with her, go slink around breaking necks and figure out this conspiracy involving an attempted assassination of the President and EMP weapons smuggling with your former company." Ugh. Again, I ask, really? Sam's daughter goes from the center of his suffering to the backdrop for some boring crap about the President wanting to shut down Third Echelon. Since Lambert died, the new director apparently decided to take the spy group down a shadier path, and he wasn't very happy about the prospects of being out of a job. So he starts smuggling weapons into the country and conspires to kill the President and install the Vice President as their lackey. Basically. Oh, and apparently Lambert told Sam that his daughter was dead so that he would have the resolve to be a better Splinter Cell.

Getting bored yet? I am, and I'm having to use the brain power to write about this vapid shit. I can only imagine what the leisurely activity of reading it is making you feel. Anyways, Grimmsdotter knew the whole time, I guess, and decided to tell Sam about it so that he would help her take down the new Third Echelon director. OK, I'm done explaining. Who cares? I didn't, and I don't expect anyone else to, either. I only saw Sam's daughter, like, twice during the entire game. I'm telling you, she doesn't matter in the plot. Ubisoft could have replaced "they killed my daughter" with "they strangled my dog" and it would have had the same emotional impact to me. If it was the dog, there would at least be that heart-warming moment where Sam would have to bend over to pick up the puppy and be vociferously licked all over his face, while everyone looks at them, smiling and hugging as flowers bloom in the background and PETA guns down the bad guy in cold-blood. There could be the whole juxtaposition thing, with classical music playing while slow motion blood spray is going all over the place, slightly out of focus. What I got, instead, was the daughter "story", and my impatience with it almost sent me into an aimless, murderous rampage. What a fucking waste of time and effort.

It's really too bad, because there are elements in the game that do hearken back to the story that could have been. For whatever reason, the things that really worked, such as a flashback of robbers entering Sam's house as he's putting his daughter to bed; or a flashback to Iraq involving Sam and a war buddy, end up being one-shot deals in terms of the narrative structure. Overall, the game is nothing more than every Splinter Cell objective you've ever had to get through in the past. Why? Why did it have to be this way? Did they really want the story to be uninteresting and overly-elaborate? If they didn't, well, someone needs to ask Ubisoft if they can tell the difference between their ass and a hole in the ground. Read more...

Holy Shit, You Have a Nice Ass!!!!.......Ummm, Sorry Miss....

So, I promise this isn't just me cribbing from Kotaku's post about Lost Planet's female character models. I watched the Youtube clip they made available (which I will, as well, after the jump), and I couldn't help but think about Heavy Rain. Hah, not where you thought this was going, was it? Sucka!

First of all, I most certainly don't expect a game like Lost Planet 2 to depict females (or anyone, for that matter) in a realistic manner. I'm not a moron. However, it made me think about my time with Madison Paige while I was playing Heavy Rain. The first time I took control of her character, I felt uneasy and vulnerable. That feeling didn't last the entire game, but it started a train of thought that, oddly enough, has ended up here. I want a game with a female lead that portrays them as an actual person, dealing with very real, very personal problems. I guess I want to play as a female in this situation because in real life I'll never get to know, in any real way, what it's like to be in the shoes of the opposite sex. After all, one aspect of playing video games is role-playing and escape from reality, is it not? What better way to do so than strapping on a dress and experiencing things from a girl's perspective? Mind you, the ideas I have for this kind of character-driven game could actually be done with either a male or female lead, but it's the role-playing aspect that's getting a lot of value here.

When I said personal problems, I didn't mean when it's that time of the month. I meant playing a very adult drama, where, perhaps, the main character is a rape victim who has to come to terms with what happened to her. The game could be about that character having to learn all over again how to interact with other people without freaking the fuck out and shutting down emotionally. It could be a mix of genres, with some horror aspects due to the traumatizing nature of the crime perpetrated against her. Drama could come from her meeting a guy, and getting to play through the steps necessary to form an interpersonal relationship with someone. I don't want a dating sim, where the goal is to get whoever to kiss you or like your outfit or whatever. I'm talking about adult relationships here. Something that would resonate with me, having been through a serious relationship before that ended up not working out. It's interesting stuff to think about, especially when I look back at the history of games. There's really not much out there when it comes to concepts like this. Be it technological constraints, creative ineptness, or just a lack of interest, these kinds of subjects haven't been treated correctly, and, in my opinion, need to be properly handled in this medium for games to be looked at as a true art form. But that's just how I see it. Or, we could just have some more space pirates showing tits and ass. Hurray for tits and ass!!




Read more...

Well, Now I'm Just Creeped Right Out.

I think I just experienced the first real "should I be doing this?" moment in my game playing history (with qualifiers, if asked). So I'm playing Heavy Rain, and I take control of Madison Paige for the first time. She wakes up in the middle of the night, apparently after falling asleep on the couch. The t.v. is still on, which I turn off. I have her look at her watch, and it's almost 3am. She seems frustrated at the late hour, so I figure she could use some freshening up. I start walking around the apartment looking for the bathroom, and I find it soon enough. But once I enter it, my mood changes from curious to thoroughly disturbed. I've never played anything like this before, and that includes Indigo Prophecy or any other narrative-driven game.

Once inside the bathroom, I head straight for the sink. I turn it on, and she splashes water on her face. Mission accomplished so far.

I want to quickly digress to make a side point. The Uncanny Valley is a very real thing, and it's no more evident than with Heavy Rain. Everything looks so authentic and genuinely impressive that it's the little things that stand out. For example, as Madison goes to the sink to splash water on her face, she turns the faucet on and water comes out. So far so good, but when she cups her hands and motions toward her face, the water disappears. Nothing actually splashes her, and her hands don't make contact with her face. Things like that are instantly noticeable when everything else is so incredibly detailed. I'd venture to say this could be the best-looking game I've ever played as far as believable, real-world environments and characters go, but it's evident that true photo-realism is still a little ways off. However, the strides that have been made toward that goal are immense, and such efforts will only get better with time.

Anyways, back to the reason for this entry: me being creeped out. After splashing the water on Madison's face, I look around the bathroom, and move her towards the toilet. I've had two other characters use the bathroom so far, so why not her? Well, that was the first wrong move. As she was sitting down on the toilet, the camera switched angles multiple times, and some of them were wide shots of her sitting. It felt invasive and weird to watch her, and I wished I had skipped that action almost immediately. But once that was over, I had her walk around the other side of the bathroom near the shower. She has a big-ass shower, by the way. Three nozzles in a row, even. So I decide to have her take a shower, and that's when I started really feeling like I was doing something inappropriate and sleazy. For starters, there are two contextual actions: moving the analog stick up, or down. When moved up, Madison takes her shirt off. When moved down, she takes her underwear off. Then she immediately walks into the shower and turns it on. There are gratuitous close-up shots of her breasts and ass, and multiple camera angles from which the show continues. It goes on for what seems like forever, and once she's finished, I had to manually put her clothes back on again. I wasn't sure at first the reason I felt so uneasy about this. After all, I've seen hundreds of movies with this exact same scene before, and I'm not sexually repressed, so what's the big deal?

The big deal is agency. I had to take her clothes off and get her to take a shower, and I sat there and watched while she did it. It felt like a huge, huge invasion of privacy, and also manipulative. It was exactly like all those movie scenes I've watched, but with one big difference. I actually felt like I was preying on her in some strange way; like she just didn't know I was watching her every move. This brings up a very unique situation for me, and it's one that I wish more games were capable of handling. Heavy Rain doesn't feel anything like the countless fantasy or role-playing games I've played in the past. All those games had stories and dramatic character arcs, but none of them ever made me feel like I was watching and interacting with someone else's life. Heavy Rain does that for each character, and with Madison Paige, for the first time in a game I felt like I shouldn't be doing what I was doing. If she knew about it, she would be horrified.

There were other reasons for my unsettled nerves, though. As I said, it was almost 3am, and all the lights in her apartment were either off or very dim, and her waking up the way she did made me apprehensive about....something. Also, I tried putting some clothes on her besides basically a bra and panties, but I couldn't. I was forced to have her walk around a disturbing environment in what I deemed a vulnerable state, and I wasn't happy about it. Now, bear in mind that the opening scene of the game entails a man waking up and taking a shower (if you so choose, which I did). I felt none of the emotions I was experiencing with Madison, and for good reason. The character in the beginning of the game seems at peace with himself and his surroundings. Everything is nice and bright, almost idyllic. There's a beautiful back yard that's accessed by an awesome balcony, and I was able to have him lazily walk out and stare out at the nice, sunny morning. When I had him take a shower, there was nudity, but it was relatively quick and it just felt natural. He's in the shower, so he's naked. No big deal. But as I watched Madison take hers, the shots lingered, and I also had much more agency with her character. Couple that with the uneasiness of the surroundings and it's easy to understand the difference between the two scenes.

All these feelings came about before Madison started seeing things. As I sat her down to flip through a magazine, she suddenly looked up and became startled. Did something move? I wasn't sure, but I decided to have her walk around a bit. Once she made it to the other side of the apartment, I turned her around, and the fridge was open. I had literally just closed it, so I immediately wanted to get the hell out of the apartment. I tried to put some clothes on her but there was no option for it. Again, the vulnerable state of a woman by herself when something seems off started freaking me out. There wasn't anything really happening at this point; it was all just in my head. And to those who would say that I shouldn't be feeling like that because a woman can take care of herself, give me a fucking break. There are factual differences between men and women, and there are times when a woman is more vulnerable than a man would be in the same situation. This was one of those situations, and I didn't like it. Anyways, like I said, I've never played a game that presented me with something like this before, and I was really conflicted over how the overall scene made me feel. It was almost like I was the person stalking her, while at the same time acting on her behalf. I'm pretty sure the confusion was on purpose, and it definitely set the desired mood for what was to follow.

And this, my friends, is the nearly untapped potential of gaming. Agency can elicit all types of emotions, but up 'til now it's only given me a very narrow spectrum of samples to choose from. Heavy Rain looks to be significantly broadening the scope of what a game can be, despite some shortcomings I've noticed with certain characters. The voice-acting is really hit-or-miss, depending on who's talking. But when it's good, it's damn good. My hope, though, is for it to continue poking around inside my head, looking for different responses than I'm used to giving to a video game. And even if it can't sustain itself for the duration, moments like tonight will stay with me for a long, long time.

Read more...

And Now, For Something Completely Different.

Going directly from Bioshock 2 to Heavy Rain is jarring. Both games seem to have clear purposes, but their implementations couldn't be any different. One is philosophical in nature and hits on what it means to be part of human society, and the other is, in part, about a family tragedy. Bioshock makes you think, while Heavy Rain makes you feel.

I only played for a couple of hours, but the most startling thing about Heavy Rain so far is its capacity to move me. The game starts as everyone's morning usually does: getting out of bed. Only it's not a cut scene. I used the right analog stick to manually rise out of bed, go to the bathroom, take a shower and get dressed. From there, I went downstairs and drank a cup of coffee before the wife and kids got home from shopping. One of them was having his birthday party later in the afternoon, and the gameplay consisted of getting some things ready for the party. After that was done, I went outside and had some fun playing in the backyard with the kids. This might sound boring to some, but it was an epiphany for me. The emotional strings are going to be pulled tightly with this game. Never have I projected my wants and desires so fully onto a digital world, and that was only within the first fifteen minutes. The only reason it's not revolutionary is because Quantic Dream tried the same kinds of visual tricks and gameplay with Indigo Prophecy, but the emotional impact was nowhere near as profound as the opening of Heavy Rain was for me. So, evolutionary seems to fit a lot better. The one thing that was noticeable for me right away, though, is the sometimes-awkward voice acting. The line delivery isn't always good, which is odd for a game that thrives on believability in terms of characters. But it's not nearly enough to really pull me out of the moment, at least so far.

After a bit of foreshadowing involving telling my son that death is something that just happens even if we don't want it to, I got the feeling everything was just too perfect. This family is everything I now want in life, but Heavy Rain being a thriller about a serial killer, I was waiting for the other ball to drop. And drop, it did. Once tragedy hit, I found myself in control of a completely different character. For the moment, I'll just say that all the characters I've played as so far have their own immediate draws to them. It's late and I need some sleep, so I'll save more of my impressions for later. But holy hell, this game is impressive. It's looking like my 2-plus years of waiting won't be for naught.

Read more...

Re-Surfacing.

Before I played Bioshock 2, I wasn't sure if sequelizing a masterpiece was a good idea. I couldn't think of any ways to substantially improve the experience, and rather than bring the series down by adding a second, lesser game, I was of the opinion that Bioshock should have stood as the lone entry in the franchise. While my opinion has changed, I still maintain that the tale was already told to my satisfaction the first time around. That being said, Bioshock 2 came relatively close to equaling the magic of the original. Story and gameplay contrivances brought it down a bit, but overall it was rewarding and thought-provoking to see the same Rapture with different ideals making the wheels turn. And it helped that the ending was much, much better.

I was actually going to knock the game for the pacing of its narrative, but it's deceptively simple. For the first 3/4ths of the game, there is precious little in the way of revealed plot points. Mostly, all that is given up is incidental happenings from a wide cast of characters that have no sway in the proceedings. Sofia Lamb, of course, has a lot of preaching to do, and she gets her point across rather well. I'll get into her ideology in a minute, but she's like Andrew Ryan in the sense that they both have no problem giving you an ear-full of why their ideas are so fantastically brilliant and yours are so full of shit. One of the biggest draws to the series for me is listening to these so-called leaders spout their crap about bettering society and our species, while experiencing first-hand just how bad a job they're doing. I mean, seriously. Delusions of grandeur can be quite amusing to observe, but there comes a point when you just want to sit people like Lamb and Ryan down and tell them that the world isn't as black-and-white as they see it. But I'm digressing a little too early; my original point was that the lack of narrative for around 15 hours was disturbing, to say the least. But once it kicked in, it really kicked in. I was also more than a little alarmed at that fact, because I figured way too much was going to be crammed into the end and it would feel slapped-on. Thankfully, I was wrong. Maybe the implementation was still flawed, but the narrative itself wasn't very complicated. Not in a bad way, mind you. There were only a small handful of people to come into contact with, and their roles were pretty straight-forward. Despite my earlier, misguided belief, 2K Marin didn't try to replicate the same character reversal from Bioshock. Instead, they focused more on showing people for who they were - or who they thought they were.

Take Sofia Lamb, for example. She despises everything about "the self", and makes the distinction between intelligence and consciousness. I agree that intelligence doesn't necessitate consciousness in the way she defined it, but it's ridiculous to say that being self-aware is the worst thing that could happen to us. It's an oft-used visual, but would she rather humans were more like Lemmings? It's in being self-aware that we're able to find meaning in life, and seeing her version of utopia serves only as confirmation of that fact. Ironically, Lamb stated that Ryan's vision brought about a sort of religious following, which she detested. Oh, really? That would be nothing like the cult following you accrued by drilling into their heads the ultimate value of being part of a collective, right? This is what I meant when I said the game focused on showing people for who they thought they were. Being self-aware, in some cases, can cause you to ignore reason and logic in the pursuit of personal happiness. Such is the case with Lamb. Her happiness had to do with "curing" society's ills at any cost - even her own daughter's life. She said she would never be able to forgive herself for it, but it was obviously a sacrifice she was willing to make. I guess it's not much of a stretch for her, though, since she was already using her daughter as a tool to further her own cause.

Speaking of Eleanor, the final bits of the game with her in it were a vast improvement on the original game's ending. Bioshock ended with the standard video game boss encounter, and I really hated that. This time, though, 2K Marin addressed that flaw and made the experience much more aligned with the narrative instead of actively working against it. Also, the Little Sister sequence took me by total surprise. It was great to see the world through the eyes of one of them, and there were a lot of little touches that made it rather humorous, such as the Big Daddy posters proclaiming "Daddy is so strong!" And for the most part, when I thought Bioshock 2 was going to re-tread some of the same narrative tricks from the first game, it instead varied the formula in some interesting ways. There's still the hunt for suit parts, Little Sisters are again used as a necessity for escape, and your character is artificially compulsed to complete objectives. But instead of simply powering up for a final, physical confrontation, the build-up felt organic to at least the way I envisioned the narrative flow.

I'm not sure if I saw what I think I saw at the very end. When Sofia Lamb and Eleanor are in the escape pod, Eleanor is talking to you about forgiveness. It looks like she put an oxygen mask on Lamb instead of letting her drown, and that perplexed me at first. I thought to myself, "Why the hell would she do that?" Let's face it, Eleanor hated her mother and everything she stood for. Why ,then, would she start exulting forgiveness after a life spent in captivity? Well, I think it ties back in with Lamb's wrong-headed thinking. She reasons that "the self" is the cause of everything evil inside us, and so she set about completely wiping Eleanor's ego and replacing it with the collective hopes and dreams of an entire civilization. But in rejecting those ideals and then, in the end, still choosing to save her mother, Eleanor exemplified with a single action what Lamb couldn't see within an entire city full of people. It was Eleanor's conscience that allowed her to have compassion and forgiveness, and nothing Sofia Lamb could ever say would change that. So I think one thing to take away from this is how we all have the capacity to do harm, but it's our capacity for individual goodness that makes life worth living. Even if we have a huge propensity towards hurting each other, being at least conscious of that fact and trying to work for a better existence is where human beings shine.

Read more...

The Plot Thickens.

As a warning, I'll be going more into specific plot points and characters in this post.


Dionysus Park seems to mark the beginning of the end of Bioshock 2. Before I got to this point, I had received precious few tidbits of story specifics, and I was actually wondering when it was going to get a head of steam going. Well, the steam is starting to build now. I've learned some things about my character and what he did 10 years ago, and also what the catalyst was for the events taking place during the game. I'll guarantee you some douchey self-interest was involved, as well as unscrupulous back-stabbing. But what it basically boils down to is this: someone deserved to get it, and I gave it to him.

The first thing I noticed when I stepped out of the airlock was a sign that instantly brought me back to 2007. I forget the actual name on the sign, but apparently Sander Cohen had an art gallery of sorts, and throughout Dionysus Park there were scratched paintings, broken sculptures and destroyed statues, all pointing to one of my favorite characters from the last game. It just put a smile on my face to see his name again, honestly. There aren't a lot of direct tie-ins to Bioshock in the environments, so it was a nice touch to finally offer something familiar. Obviously, though, Sander Cohen didn't make an appearance. Instead, the deal-maker this time around was Stanley Poole. I had already collected a few audio logs of his beforehand, and he didn't come across as the straightest shooter. That's probably the understatement of the year. Without going into too much detail, Poole is responsible for your situation. He's also responsible for the death of a lot of Sofia Lamb's followers, and for much of what happened to Eleanor. It's all pretty fucked up, and this guy deserved everything that came to him (despite the same binary choice that seems to be the default conundrum in Rapture).

Poole worked as a reporter in Rapture back when it was still kicking, and Ryan had hired him to infiltrate Lamb's cult by pretending to write a tell-all book about the fall of Rapture. Once he got on the inside of the cult, it pretty much went downhill from there. As far as I can tell at this point, no one benefited from Poole's involvement in any of this. I don't want to go into any more details, but suffice it to say this guy is a total asshole. Once I got to Dionysus Park, he was immediately on my case to take care of all the Little Sisters in the area. He felt threatened by them collecting the Adam from corpses because of the DNA memories stored within, and his deal with me was to get them out of the picture. In return, he would open the control booth to get the train started. That was pretty much it, really. Dionysus Park was fun to explore, and so far every area in Rapture has been very noticeably different than the last. And adding to the constant scenery change is the steady addition of more enemies. In Dionysus Park, it was Houdini Splicers, and I made sure I had fully researched them before I moved on to the next area. It definitely pays to do so, because the most beneficial reward is being able to tell where they're going to re-appear much more easily.

In fact, of all the available research subjects, I only need to finish the Big Daddy, Brute Splicer and Security. Unfortunately, I keep forgetting to snap the pictures of cameras, turrets and bots, so I barely have any progress on them. There was even one room with at least 6 cameras and 2 turrets, and I took exactly zero pictures. Way to fail.

But the further I get in the game, the more impressive the presentation is becoming. Not many games can make the lack of interaction a strong suit, but Bioshock 2 does it constantly. It's funny, then, how the simple act of just meeting up with another character gets me all excited to get where I need to go. Like I said in another post, these people I'm interacting with almost don't seem real, so when I get the chance to see them, it does nothing but strengthen my resolve to push forward. Bioshock, in general, is all about conflict and resolution without much in the way of positive reinforcement. You have to get shit done or die trying, which brings me back to another point I made in a previous post. Stanley Poole is another guy I wouldn't mind getting to know a little better, but the game structure doesn't allow for that to happen. The only real way to accomplish that would be to make a prequel, so again, my fingers are crossed for that to happen some day.

I also need to mention that even though Andrew Ryan and Sofia Lamb are both extremists, from time to time they make valid points. I even find myself agreeing with some of the things they say. It's too bad they can't (or more accurately for Ryan, couldn't) get past their own myopic views to see the bigger picture. Both espouse to be working towards that bigger picture, but the only way to do that is through some form of compromise. That's one thing life is full of, and neither Ryan nor Lamb have that quality in them to allow for less than their every desire. I have more sympathy for Ryan, though, because I think he's a more noble person. I'm not saying he's not horribly flawed, but in direct comparison to Lamb, I'd side with him probably every time. Still, that dirty "c" word will continue to inhibit Rapture from ever becoming what it could - and should - have been.


Read more...

Cults and Crosses.

Having finished Siren Alley about an hour ago, I'm struck with just how much Rapture has changed. Gone are the statues portraying Man looking up to the heavens, and in their place are shrines for Man to bow in deference to the very thing they formerly aspired to be. It was strange being in a traditional church setting, but the cult vibe permeated the air far outside of the Temple of the Lamb. I think one of the most appealing things about this series is that it makes you constantly think to yourself, "Wow, I'm glad I don't live there." No matter what is going on in Rapture, I can't help but feel the hopelessness and futility of everyone still roaming the once-great halls. The feelings I experience while playing Bioshock 2 are, for some, the same things video games allow them to escape from. I use games for that purpose as well, but it's not often for a world as rich as Rapture to exist in the form it does.

Siren Alley is the sanctuary (or at least one of them) for the cult following of Sofia Lamb, which, it seems, has built itself a strange form of Christianity. There's a lot of talk about The Almighty Lord doing this and that, and sin and redemption. Numerous Holy Bibles are littered around nightstands and counter tops. People seem to want to be forgiven for the things they've done, and in wanting their burdens to be lifted, they've allowed extreme thinking to alter their minds. It's really no different than what happened to Rapture before, but this time it's for a totally different reason. Lamb has some secret stuff going on behind the scenes, which I'm still trying to puzzle out, but I have at least an idea of what she's doing now. All I'll say is that having an army of people convinced of something with everything inside them can be very, very useful for ulterior motives.

The characters in this area, in a way, almost made me wish the structure of the whole game was different. Most of the time in Bioshock, every different area has a sort of "boss" character. They each have their own little block of Rapture carved out for themselves, and the goal of the area basically boils down to exploring their weird little world and then confronting them once you've discovered everything there is to know. The same holds true in Siren Alley, but I really wanted to get to know the central characters better. I could smell a good story coming from their relationships, and I wish there was a logical way to elaborate on it without bringing the whole game to a screeching halt. There's no real way to do it, so it's not something I begrudge the game itself, but I do think it's too bad I'll never really get the chance to explore the lives of these people a little more. In the end, I'd call it a massive compliment to the game world and the ability of the designers who crafted such a believable and interesting narrative. Leaving the player wanting more can sometimes be the best thing a storyteller could possibly do, and in the case of Bioshock's characters, it is certainly the case.

I'm also starting to get a lot more plasmids and tonics now, which is further opening up the gameplay for me to experiment with multiple ways of totally ruining people's shit. Spider splicers seem a lot quicker, but it doesn't really matter when I have a home-made shotgun with tesla coils sprouting from each side. I think I'm going to be using the next few hundred Adam I get to buy up every tonic slot, because there are just so many stackable benefits to be had from them. I don't want to have to be continuously switching them out at the gene banks, so I'll just kick ass and equip as many as possible. I'm not really sure if I'll be able to buy every plasmid in the game, but I've already pretty much found my stable of a few abilities I consistently use. There are quite a few plasmids to be had, but some of them don't seem particularly useful to me, especially with the tonics I already have equipped. For example, there are both tonics and plasmids that deal with elemental damage. Having both equipped would be stackable, but it seems like overkill and a waste to use them at the same time. Needless to say, I have a lot of options in front of me.

The last thing I'll mention is that as I was walking around in Siren Alley, I saw a Little Sister start harvesting Adam from a corpse that wasn't a corpse until I showed up. So, my initial reaction was spot-on: any corpse will do for collecting Adam. Sometimes I hate being right.

Read more...