Deeper, Still.

As I played through some four more hours of Bioshock 2, I continued to be in awe of the world Irrational Games (2K Boston) created. I've never played System Shock or System Shock 2, but man, would I love to. The price for System Shock 2 on Amazon is unfortunate, to say the least, so it looks like I won't be playing it in the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, that game's so-called spiritual successor is keeping me plenty busy in the mean time.

Tonight I went through Pauper's Drop. It's where, according to Augustus Sinclair, at least, the dregs of society hang their weary heads. The place is directly under the Atlantic Express line, and everything about it is fittingly shanty'd up. Pauper's Drop is also where the game starts to feel like it's opening up for me to do things the way I want to do them. Bioshock 2 is structured differently than the first game, because once you've left certain areas of Rapture, you can't go back. The game even gives you a warning that if you continue past point X, it's closed to you from then on. The great thing about this new area is that it's a lot bigger than previous areas, and the game's mechanics are starting to gel together to form the bigger gameplay picture.

For one, there is more than one Little Sister in this area, which means twice the amount of protection segments. Sure, they're absolutely, transparently artificial, but it's still fun to set up a fire zone and wait for the horde of splicers to come happily running to their fiery doom. The one thing that bothers me, though, is that other Little Sisters can walk around willy-nilly, jabbing syringes into whatever the hell they feel like without getting so much as a fart in their general direction. Randomly, firefights will erupt between a Big Daddy and some dude with a bandage on his head, but it's nothing near the all-out chaos that occurs when I decide to harvest some Adam. Whatever, I have cyclone traps now, so they can suck it. Besides the added mass splicers-as-lemmings carnage, the research camera becomes available part-way through the area. Just like in the original game, the camera adds a bit of depth to multiple gameplay aspects. Not only is it more fun to take snapshots of enemies before beating them to death, but taking good pictures gives you bonuses such as tonics and added damage against certain enemies. The combat feels like it has more than one dimension to it now, as it should. I maxed out all research tracks in Bioshock, and I imagine I'll do the same again. I wonder, though, if any part of Bioshock 2 will be able to best Sander Coen's game of take-pictures-of-corpses-so-I-can-get-off-on-it, while at the same time wondering if the ash-covered dead people are going to eat your face off. That shit was fucked up.

I also appreciate the scaled-down approach to such a large game world. In Bioshock, there was a lot of running around between areas with tons of real estate. This time around, the world feels just as big, but it's sliced into smaller chunks that the player has to tackle one at a time before advancing. It's nice this way, because it cuts back on the risk of backtracking too much or going in circles trying to find that one door or thing you missed. The map seems to be a little more helpful, as well, but that could just be because there's less square footage involved. Either way, the game feels a little more focused and intent on making sure the player has just enough space to work with. I've heard the game described as more linear, but that's a bunch of bullshit. You're still dropped into a wide-open arena full of things to do, and the ways and means of accomplishing specific goals are totally up to you. I, for one, feel like I have total control over the way I'm playing.

Very briefly, I feel the need to mention something I brought up in my previous Bioshock 2 post. I mentioned the moral "decision" regarding the Little Sisters, and how the choice is nothing more than the simplest of dilemmas, especially when stacked up to what the rest of the story has to offer. I experienced the same sort of thing tonight in Pauper's Drop. There's a character in the game whom you can either kill or let live. It's presented as some big choice for you to mull over, but the whole kill-or-spare version of morality is getting a little stale to me. Why does it have to be such a drastic choice? Why can't the game be filled with smaller, more subtle choices that add up to something in the end? Mass Effect sort of goes down that route, but I also have problems with Bioware's system. All in all, I've yet to see a game fully realize a "moral compass" within the constraints of a narrative. I'm sure it'll happen one day, and I'll blog my happy little ass off about it.

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A look back at: Heavy Rain.

Shortly after finishing Heavy Rain, I thought to myself: Did I just finish 2010's game of the year? It's barely March, and already we have been blessed as gamers with the likes of Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2, Darksiders, and more. But, as I sat there on my couch watching the credits, I couldn't help but think: "What's going to beat Heavy Rain?"

Moreover, is Heavy Rain even a game? Well I guess that depends on your definition of "game". If to you, a game is you controlling a character on screen and running around environments, then yeah, Heavy Rain is a game. The difference here is that, instead of moving level to level taking out bad guys, then encountering a boss, you are really just interacting with scenes.

And these "scenes" are what set Heavy Rain apart. By presenting the gamer with scripted event after event and letting you make decisions that impact each character, Quantic Dream grips you the way that a great movie would. Fully invested in these characters, each with his/her own demons, you care that much more about them. Couple that, with a good story, and you have a great piece of entertainment.

So that brings us to the presentation. Heavy Rain is a great looking game, not the best, but great. What really helps the presentation here is how everything flows together to make a cohesive experience. The camera angles are well done, often adding to the drama. The biggest part of all this is the "Quick Time Events" that make up a major part of the gameplay. With Quantic Dream's last game, Indigo Prophecy, the QTEs were always right in the middle of the screen, more times than not punishing you for paying attention to the scene rather than the button prompt. In Heavy Rain, they are used to draw your attention to the action by putting the QTE in the middle of the action. This really does go a long way to drawing the player into the scene.

Will Heavy Rain be game of the year this year? Way to early to tell. But what I can tell you is that I am ready for more of this "Interactive Drama".

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Journey to the Surface.

Sequels can be funny things. Sometimes they vastly improve upon their predecessors, and other times they take a step backwards. Mostly, however, they're a combination of the two. Take Bioshock 2, for instance. There are immediate and obvious improvements to the game - most of which are mechanical - and they go a long way in allowing me to continue to enjoy my journey into the depths of Rapture. But what is the cost of these rote additions to the nuts-and-bolts of the game? I don't mean to suggest that one aspect of a game has to suffer in order to improve upon another; I'm simply wondering where the priorities were for the folks at 2K Marin while they were developing Bioshock 2.

Don't worry, I'm enjoying the game quite a bit so far, but there are certainly flaws I feel the need to point out. For starters, being a Big Daddy should come with immediate advantages. It certainly does when you're dealing with regular ol' splicers, but when confronted with taking down another Big Daddy, the encounter exposes what's really going on with the gameplay. Visually, you look and feel like a lumbering behemoth that could wreak havoc at will. In practice, you're exactly the same as you were in the first game, only with a different character skin. You'd think that being inside an enormous diving suit would afford you some luxuries in the defense department, but when a crazy lady with a pipe hits you for a quarter of your health in 3 seconds, all pretenses of power are dropped. But my problem isn't really with normal enemies. I noticed this disconnect mostly when I encountered my first Big Daddy/Little Sister combo. When I was about to engage him, I thought to myself, "Alright, Big Daddy on Big Daddy, dueling drill arm action. May the best man win." Once it was over, I was painfully aware there was only one Big Daddy during the fight, and it wasn't me. Why is it that when I swing my gigantic drill with thunderous force against the armor of the Big Daddy, he seems to shrug it off and in one fluid motion knock me half-way across the room, taking half of my health with it? I thought we would be evenly matched as far as brute force goes, but I was sorely mistaken. I'm not complaining about actual difficulty, mind you. I'm noticing the difference between what the game is telling me I'm capable of doing, and what it's actually allowing me to do.

I completely understand that if I were able to just obliterate everything in my path that the game would be a simple matter of pressing the "kill things" button while walking forward. Perhaps, then, the basic concept should have been completely different. Maybe they should have done what I've been wishing for since finishing the first Bioshock: a full-on prequel. I want nothing more than to be able to walk through Rapture at the height of its power and opulence; to be a witness to the unfolding madness and chaos as Ryan and Fontaine battled for control of an ultimately failed societal experiment. I think it's a great idea to take the role of one of Fontaine's lackeys, going about his dirty work trying to throw every wrench possible into Ryan's works. At some point, maybe your character would start to see things differently and a conflict would arise. I haven't put much thought into it beyond that, but I'd call it a pretty good starting point. Anyways, my whole point is that being a Big Daddy for the entire game might not have been the wisest of design choices. The game plays just like the original, which I'm fine with, but it forces me to ask why I can't take (and dole out) the same amount of punishment every other random Big Daddy is able to. I'm willing to forgive this disconnect and call it what it is: a purely cosmetic change. Granted, story-wise it's a genuine difference. But as far as the gameplay is concerned, you walk with a metal clang in your step and grunt when you fall.

Something else that really bothers me is gathering Adam with the Little Sisters. I haven't gone back and checked, but I'm pretty sure Adam can be harvested from any corpse. As long as they're spliced up, they should do fine, right? And if that's the case, then why can't I get it from, oh, I don't know, the hundreds of people I'll have killed before I'm through? Instead, the game only gives me Adam from specific corpses that are labeled as "Adam corpses". I can guess the reason, which is mechanical contrivance. But it makes absolutely no sense to me, and gives me more cause for alarm. A secondary (and far less stupid) bafflement is the sort of mist that acts as an ethereal bread crumb when trying to find the next Adam corpse. What the hell is up with that? I don't remember there being any supernatural means for Adam extraction up to this point. In fact, if you remember when you get your first plasmid in the original game, a Little Sister walks up to you thinking you're dead. When she gets close enough, she realizes you're still alive and says something like "he's not an angel yet." So, she was fooled by seeing you lying on the ground, which means she wasn't being led by some weird fog trail that comes out of nowhere. No, it's another gameplay mechanic that has no weight or meaning to it, and I wish it wasn't there.

One thing I'm glad is available is the ability to change the difficulty setting at any time. I started the game on hard, but after a couple of hours I realized I wasn't having that much fun. There are certain games I'll only play on the hardest difficulty possible, and they mainly consist of FPS or shooters. If you want to count Bioshock as a "shooter", then go right ahead, but the reason I play it is wholly different than why I play most other FPS. I'm not exploring Rapture looking for the hardest twitch challenge I can get, and I don't want my time to be filled with frustration and repetition from dying. What I do want is to feel immersed in the environment and delve deeper into the story behind the fall of Rapture. If I need to scratch the shooting-dudes-in-the-face itch, I'll pop in Call of Duty or any number of other games. But I made this realization after I had my first Little Sister protection encounter. Up to that point, I was pretty much getting devastated by every single splicer I had fought, but I was soldiering on. But when I had to fight like five of them at once, and then five more after that, it clicked in my head that this isn't why I'm playing. Bioshock isn't the most technically proficient FPS out there (I never claimed it to be), and the harder difficulty really highlights this fact. It actually seems quite a bit harder than the previous game's hard difficulty. So, yea, I'm playing on easy now, and I couldn't be happier. I never thought I'd say that about a game, but when the story is more important than the challenge, it makes a lot of sense. One could even say it's a testament to the game that the story is good enough to put the combat on a lower tier, and I really think that's the case here. Either way, for me, easy is the way to go.

My last gripe isn't really a gripe, and it pertains to both games in the series. The issue of morality and harvesting/saving the Little Sisters was never that big of a deal to me. Honestly, it's such a binary decision that morality doesn't really factor into it. The moral choices have already been made in Rapture, and all you can do is look at the outcome. Of course, no one would want to kill a child, but I think the way it's presented is superficial when compared to the rest of the game, and limited agency to such a degree defeats the point. If the developers really wanted the question of harvesting or saving to be a moral one, there should be no tangible benefit to either decision, and no pretense of there being one. The way it's currently set up, it just boils down to a numbers game. Most people will approach the situation by wondering which decision will yield more Adam instead of pondering a mercy killing versus attempted salvation. Giving such a choice a deliberate numerical value takes away from the emotional impact that should occur within the player. But, like I said, I find that emotional impact elsewhere in the game, so it's a minor fault that I'm more than willing to move past. The rest of the world and the people in it are so detailed and thought-provoking that I don't really need this specific mechanic to carry all the weight. I'm just sayin'.

An aspect of the sequel I did move past, or rather re-thought my perspective on, is the way you talk to and interact with Sinclair. Last night I played through the Atlantic Express section, and when I saw Sinclair for the first time, I was a little annoyed. I had thought that his character was supposed to be Bioshock 2's Atlus, and it felt forced. In combination with that, the only time other characters interact with you (excluding enemies) is behind an artificial impasse. There's always something blocking you from fully seeing them, and sometimes even your movement is restricted. For some reason, that really bothered me when I saw Sinclair. I felt like the developers wanted to keep the feel of the first game, but they were trying too hard. I even went to bed thinking about it, but the more I thought about it, the more I saw the presentation of all the characters differently. As I mentioned in the paragraph above, the fate of Rapture was basically sealed a long time ago, and as I'm going through the different areas, I feel like I'm seeing the ghosts or echoes of things that were. In a sense, I get the same feeling from characters like Sinclair, and even Tenenbaum. By effectively cutting you off from most visual contact, the game subtly turns living, breathing people into memories. If you think about it, their most common means of communicating with you is strikingly similar to the audio logs strewn about the environments. And when you actually get to see them, it's only for a fleeting moment from a distance. So as the game presents them, I know they're still in Rapture, but I feel like I'm alone.

The story itself is still up in the air. I like the way the communal, "we are all one" societal structure is shown as a cult-ish religion. At first, I was a little put off by the directness in Sofia Lamb's approach. She's so much the polar opposite of Andrew Ryan that it almost felt like too much. But that's the thing: she's so entrenched in her beliefs that she's consumed by them. Her every waking moment - much like Andrew Ryan's before I clubbed him in the face with a wrench - is spent propagating her point of view. So it makes sense for her to speak in platitudes now and again, and to seem like a personification of an idea. That's exactly what she is, and Rapture is, yet again, the outcome of extreme idealism.

Of particular note so far is the Journey to the Surface section of Rapture. It's a theme park built by Ryan to indoctrinate children against the desire to go to the surface. It's structured like a Pirates of the Caribbean-esque experience, with animatronic scientists, artists and families being used to further his brain-washing techniques. The sets are pretty damn great, because they all have the same basic message: everyone on the surface is trying to do their own thing, but The Man keeps getting them down. To illustrate this point, it shows people going about their business, then a gigantic hand comes down from the sky to stop them in their tracks. The amusing part is how every single display does the same exact thing. Andrew Ryan was not one for subtlety, after all. But this section of Rapture was, by far, the most interesting in my journey and I can only imagine where it's going to lead me in the coming days.

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Visiting An Old Friend.

Bioshock is one of the greatest games I've ever played. I remember the sheer awe and wonderment I felt when I found myself swimming through a sea of fire towards the lighthouse; I was at once both scared and excited, apprehensive about entering Rapture yet compelled to get there as soon as possible. Once I was under the sea, the destroyed beauty of Rapture became a source of instant bliss. Not only the architecture, but also its decaying denizens served as a giant societal and philosophical warning against unrestrained ambition. It was a microcosm of an alternate universe plagued with vanity too large to be contained in the tiny jar it was held in. And when my journey was over, it lingered in my mind for quite a long time. What moral implications were held within the trappings of the game's story? Why did Rapture crumble under its own weight? Those questions and more still swim around inside my head, and two-and-a-half years later, I'm finally able to go back to the source of all those thoughts and questions. It feels like I never left.

I've purposefully stayed away from pretty much all media related to Bioshock 2, and I'm glad I did. I don't know anything about where the story is going, except for a few early clues. The new leadership in Rapture seems to be heading in the exact opposite direction of Andrew Ryan, and that makes me extremely happy. Obviously, Ryan's brand of Objectivist Capitalism didn't quite work out, so bolting to the extreme other end of the spectrum makes a lot of sense. Since the development team isn't the same one that worked on the original game, I don't know how much cohesion the story will have when it's all said and done, but I have a generous amount of faith in them. Ken Levine might not have been helming the project this time around, but the foundations he built are strong. Very strong.

That's Ken Levine's hand on the left.

I was wondering if 2K was going to try one-upping themselves during the opening of the game, but thankfully, they didn't. For sure, there are shocks to be had, but there's nothing artificial about the events that are transpiring. There's no overblown scene showing how much bigger and better this game is going to be over its predecessor. The saga is simply continuing. And right away, I feel at home in Rapture. If anything, it looks even more dilapidated than I remember it, but that could just be due to my time away from the game. Either way, Rapture is still falling apart, but one thing has changed for me. The sense of dread isn't quite the same as it was before. Being a Big Daddy with a huge drill arm sort of takes away the feeling of helplessness the first game so expertly afflicted me with. Even so, it didn't lessen my actual enjoyment of playing. I was instantly transported back to 2007, when my mouth gaped wider with every step forward.


I don't want to talk too much about the gameplay yet, but one thing I do want to mention is a sequence where I had to walk around the ocean floor to get from one wing of Rapture to another. I wouldn't say I ever felt nervous about being out in the open, but my mind traded fear for amazement. The sequence wasn't very long, and it wasn't particularly open for exploration, but being able to walk among the seaweed and fish while taking in the far-off sights of skyscrapers without the visual restriction of glass and steel was breathtaking. It's something I had always wanted to do since the first time I turned the original game on, and it was everything I had envisioned. I'm giddy with excitement to get home and start playing, and this whole weekend is going to be filled with like emotions.

Also, I would like to kiss Ken Levine. Total man-crush.
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WAR....HUH! what is it good for? a friggin great time!

Let's get this out of the way first and foremost. Darksiders won't be the most original game you play in 2010. Originality is overated anyways. Although we as gamers very much appreciate new ideas, the truth is they don't always sell very well and we end up sticking to things we love the most like Halo or COD. Don't believe me? Clover/Platinum games in the past few years delivered two awesome, fresh, yummy bits of gaming and nobody cared. Madworld tanked, and Okami never really found a truly wide audience. We are comfortable with things that are familiar, and it's sad but true. Over the years I have found that I will seek out the open world GTA experience or twitch action stylings of a Devil May Cry simply because I loved those games and want to replicate those moments of digital bliss. I'm only a couple of hours in, and Darksiders is taking me back to the place where I discovered why I fell in love with video games to begin with.

The main character is one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse named War. Generic as can be, but awesome nonetheless. I'm hoping that developers take a cue from Vigil and start finding simpler names for video game characters like Military, Skilled Swordsman, or Plumber. (sorry I digress) War is having a bad day after starting the downfall of mankind only to discover that the 7th seal hasn't actually been broken......oops. He is condemned to demon evisceration, but talks the powers that be to letting him return to Earth and punish those responsible for bringing the end of days too early. It's a great set up and when the world finally opens up, the fun begins.

War has a massive sword bigger than a skyscraper that he thrusts and whirls about on anything or anyone that gets in his way. The combat starts simple with one button controlling it all, but playing more unlocks new moves and abilities. The deeper I get into it.....the more complex the control scheme becomes. You can get away with just mashing like crazy, but the more skilled gamer will find a treasure trove of strategies and movesets to inflict carnage with.

Most veterans will notice right away that only certain areas of the world are open to explore from the get go, but possibly getting that right gadget or power might let them go a little further next time around ala Zelda or Metroid. I love that formula so have no problems at all making that connection. So far Darksiders seems to take a lot of familiar things from other games and pay them homage. It's my understanding that there's even a "Portal" gun with blue and orange doorways later on that helps you through a level. As long as I'm still having a good time (which I am) they can still keep on cranking out the greatest hits moments!

Of particular note worth mentioning is the excellent pacing. In the short time I have played, the game has given me God of War style combat, Zelda-esque exploration, arena battles, platforming sections, and completely transformed into a shooter. You never seem to be doing the same thing for too long. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and I think Vigil's Darksiders is a love letter to those legendary games that have come before it. I can't wait to get back into War's world. For a game about Hell on Earth, so far it's video game heaven.



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Waking Up.

I was dreaming about 40 minutes ago. Dreaming about being in my local game store - the one that is the mecca of all things video games. It was one of those dreams where you know where you are, even though the location looks nothing like the real thing. Anyways, I was there perusing the shelves, and one of the only games I can remember looking at was Resident Evil 5 for the Gamecube. You read that right. I remember thinking that it can't look good at all, then flipping the box over and saying, "Well, it looks like Resident Evil 5."

Oh, there was also another one I remember looking at, but it wasn't an actual game. Apparently, it was a boxed version of a game demo, because I remember looking at the back of the box, which had game features actually listed and then crossed out. It was letting you know what the full game will have, but not the thing you're holding in your hands. It was also $26.99. What a steal.

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Getting Emotional.

Recently I've seen the argument put forth that games cannot, by default, elicit the same emotions that movies do. Reason being, simply, that you're looking at computer-generated characters instead of real, living, breathing people. Is that actually the case? Is that a very strict limitation of games that can never be overcome? I give you two examples - one from an actual live performance, and one from a video game. The actual live performance is longer, but for the sake of my comparison, I think that's okay. I won't give you the insights into the Clapton song if you don't know what he's singing about, because the same context isn't readily available for the Silent Hill example. I'll simply place them next to each other and let you come to a conclusion.

Eric Clapton:





Silent Hill (ignore everything after the initial song):


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Immersion Factor OVER 9000?!?!?

It's not often a game pulls me in so completely. So completely, in fact, that I'm going to declare Silent Hill: Shattered Memories one of the most immersive games I've ever played. Every aspect is designed to make the player feel like they are part of the world, and it's working on me hook, line and sinker.

I'm not going to go into all the details just yet; I'll save that for when I've finished the game. Instead, I want to focus on a single mechanic: Harry's cell phone. When you hit the minus button on the Wiimote, Harry will take out his phone and hold it up to the screen. There are 9 menu items to pick from, including saving your game, dialing a number of your choice, listening to/reading messages, and using the phone's camera. There are phone numbers written all over the town, and if you dial one of them, you'll get some kind of an answer. It may just be an answering machine, but an answer nonetheless. And the genius part comes in once you hit "call". Not content to simply let Harry hold the phone up to his ear in the game, the developers decided to have the player do the same. The audio from the phone comes in through the Wiimote speaker, and let me tell you, it only adds about 985, 543% to feeling like you're really in Silent Hill. I almost said "hello" the first time I answered a call, and I did one of those things where you look at your phone, put it back to your ear, look at it again, put it back to your ear, etc. It's so wondrously simple an idea, yet its effect is monumental.

As I said, you can also choose to whip out the built-in camera. Doing so will cause Harry to hold it sideways, and you can take a picture of any and everything you want to. And just like talking on the phone, there's a little extra bit of immersion added to the camera. The phone's screen actually has the distortion and lag that real camera phones have, and walking around with it in the middle of your field of view makes everything seem even more disturbing. It's another small, genius move that puts a stupid grin on my face. Of course, there is an actual use for the camera besides taking random pictures of the game world. At times, you'll be prompted in some fashion to take out the camera. When you take a picture of a certain area, you'll get a voicemail or text sent to you from different people. It hasn't happened to me a lot yet, so I don't know the full extent of this part of the gameplay. Regardless, it's yet another use of the engrossing phone mechanic.

Even only a couple hours in, I already have so much more I want to talk about, but I'll hold my tongue until (probably) this weekend when I finish the game. I've heard it's relatively short, but I think I'm done measuring a game's worth in hours. The experience is what I'm after, not a mathematical division of hours played and dollars paid. So, yea. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Great stuff.

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Penumbra: Overture.....Totally Fucked Up.

Observe, if you will, the difference between MY opening scene in Penumbra: Overture vs. the walkthrough on Youtube.



Youtube: skip to the 5:20 mark for this:

Looks normal enough, right?

My playthrough:

wait....what? THAT'S NOT RIGHT. FUCK YOU, PENUMBRA.

Yea....not much else for me to say. Sucks.

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2009.

I just want to quickly point out that I have absolutely wayyy too many games that I either a) haven't finished or, b) haven't even started.

2009 was the year of me being a douche. That is all.

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