tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2168945114908495712024-03-13T23:20:24.768-07:00Wolf's ReignPractical LunacyWolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-64865983774930193492015-08-10T22:27:00.000-07:002015-08-10T22:45:43.099-07:00Neither Endings Nor Beginnings: The Wheel of Time<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">It was <b>The Wheel of Time</b> that made me want to
become a writer. I could almost stop
writing, right there. I think that level
of impact – to say that a particular book or series of books was what set you
off on your life’s course – is pretty much indicative of everything I think and
feel about the <b>Wheel of Time </b>series
in a nutshell. But then this would be an
awfully short article, and hardly worth reading. Besides, as I learned from the series author
himself, you should never, ever use one word where ten will do.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">I remember the moment
very clearly. I only owned the first
four books in the series at that point, and I’m pretty sure I was going through
my first re-read of the series up to that point. It was a thing I used to do, as the time
spent waiting increased from one installment to the next. It helped keep me up to date on the
ever-growing cast of characters and series of events that occurred. The author, Robert Jordan (real name: James
Oliver Rigney, Jr.), was fond of bringing minor characters and plot points into
major relevance later in the story. You
could never be sure what was important (or even if you <i>knew</i>, beyond a scrap of doubt, you still never knew <i>how much</i>), and what was just so much
window-dressing. And there was <i>a lot</i> of window-dressing in <b>The</b> <b>Wheel of Time</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">The fourth book in the
series is <b>The Shadow Rising</b>, and
it’s probably the last one I enjoyed from start to finish with few if any
measurable qualms. I was about halfway
through it when I had the sudden wish that I could tell a story about characters
and a world that was this absorbing, that would take someone away from their
own life, even if only briefly, into something grander and
greater-seeming. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">I was fourteen at the
time. At fourteen, most kids believe
they really can do just about anything, given effort enough and time. So the thought went through my head: “Why the
hell <i>shouldn’t</i> I be able to tell a
story like this?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">I think I stopped
reading, pulled out a notepad and a pen, and started writing on the spot, just
to see what it was like. I had never
written anything purely for my own enjoyment, or for others to enjoy, before
that point. In fact, prior to that
moment, I sort of hated writing. Writing
was something I’d always done at someone else’s command, on someone else’s
suggested topics, for school, and it always had to be done a certain way. I don’t know if schools in Illinois today
still have the IGAP format for essay-writing (which, really, was all the
writing I ever did until I got to take a creative writing class in high school,
and was I ever chomping at the bit for <i>that</i>),
but they had it when I was in school.
I’d say it was godawful, but godawful doesn’t really do it justice. I could go on a good rant about it, but this
isn’t really the time or the place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Whether I’d liked writing
or not, prior to this, had been sort of irrelevant because I was somehow
relatively good at it regardless. I’d
like to brag, but the plain fact is that this is due, probably, to nothing more
remarkable than the fact that I read a lot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Looking back, I have a
hard time articulating why I loved <b>The
Wheel of Time </b>so much. It’s not that
I think, today, with the benefit of hindsight and a certain greater amount of
maturity, that the books are fundamentally bad.
I’d say that on the whole, my feeling about the series is generally
positive (though a little more mixedly so than I’d like). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Most of the difficulty
is that I literally just have not had the cause to articulate my feelings on it
one way or the other, period. At the
time I was first reading these books, none of my other friends were really readers. Later on, when more of the people in my
circle of friends were readers, there were few who were really inclined toward
reading a book series which now stands at fifteen volumes (fourteen in the main
story, plus a prequel that began life as a novella which was later expanded to
a full novel, albeit one significantly shorter than the rest). Those who had, by this point had moved on to
the less consistently enjoyable middle of the series, and had mainly given up
on it. So I didn’t have a lot of people
to talk about it with, and I’m not mentally damaged enough to start having
discussions with myself about it (though I suppose the argument could be made
that this blog boils down to exactly that).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">But I’ve decided to
write about <b>The Wheel of Time </b>anyway,
so I guess I <i>can</i>, in fact, talk to myself
about this after all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: black;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Nostalgia’s an odd
thing. You read a book when you’re
young, and love it, and then one day you’re an adult with a job and a car and a
mortgage and a spouse and two cats, and along the way from the day you first
read that particular book to this day, when you’ve decided to re-read it,
you’ve become a different person. Not an
<i>entirely</i> different person (not
usually, anyway), but different enough that the way you viewed the world maybe
changed. Maybe before, you were
conservative, and now you’re pretty liberal.
Or the reverse. Who knows? Anyway, you aren’t the same person who read
that book all those years ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">For some reason like
that, I haven’t revisited a lot of the books I read when I was a kid, and
later, a teenager. I suppose I’m a
little afraid. It’s easier to simply
bask in the warm glow of what I remember (probably some of it wrongly, this far
removed from that time) than it is to look at it fresh as an adult with all the
accoutrements (and baggage) of adulthood, and find out that something’s changed. Maybe it’s only myself, but I’m never sure
whether that’s the more or the less depressing idea. Sure, it’s probably not as dire as all that,
but why take the risk?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">I don’t have this luxury
with <b>The Wheel of Time</b>, though.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">The first book in the series,<b> The Eye of the World</b>, was published in
January of 1990. I would have been eight
at the time, and didn’t come to the books until a few years later. But the final book in the series was
published in January of 2013, twenty-three years almost to the day after the
first. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">These are not, like some
other series (<b>Recluce</b>, for
instance), different stories within the confines of a shared world or common
universe. <b>The Wheel of Time </b>isn’t even a series of separate stories about the
same cast of characters. No, this is a
single story about the same characters from start to finish. Even the prequel deals largely with
characters we’re already familiar with – just not the main ones, and at an
earlier point in their lives. It’s
difficult to say exactly how much time passes “in-universe”, that is, in the
context of the story. I <i>think</i> it’s something like three or four
years, but it may be little more than two.
The amount of time it ultimately took to tell the story makes it
difficult to get a good handle on how much time actually passes <i>in</i> the story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">So, no. The <b>Wheel
of Time </b>series wasn’t something I read once as a teenager, and then came
back to as an adult, and felt differently about. <b>The
Wheel of Time </b>was something that, for a long time, I was always somewhere
in the middle of. But more on that in a
bit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: black;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">I don’t know that J.R.R.
Tolkien was necessarily the first author to “sub-create”, to craft a world and
a history for the purpose of telling a story or a series of stories. On the other hand, I can’t say so for
sure. I know Robert E. Howard had at
least sketched out a world of sorts for his Conan tales (referred to as the
Hyborian Age), though it was nothing nearly so detailed in any respect as
Tolkien’s Middle-earth. And while I know
Tolkien’s world was taking shape even as he was in the trenches of World War I,
Howard published his stories and died (tragically young) before <b>The Lord of the Rings</b> saw the light of
day. What we <i>can</i> say, pretty conclusively, is that Tolkien was the first to do
what he did on the staggering <i>scale</i>
that he did. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">If we were to hold a
contest, to see who, so far, has built the most complete sub-created fantasy
world, Tolkien is undoubtedly in first place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Robert Jordan is a <i>pretty close</i> second, I think.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">If there’s one place
where there’s absolutely no dispute, where Tolkien has Jordan undeniably
beaten, in terms of depth of creation, it’s in language. Robert Jordan’s Old Tongue, a dead variation
of the modern language which is mostly known by scholars and people who have a
reason or a need to sound fancy from time to time, is consistent, and seems to
follow some general rules of grammar, but he never (to the best of my
knowledge) really built it into a full language. He created it strictly as needed by the story. It served much the same purpose in his
sub-created world as Latin serves (or at any rate once served) in ours, and was
used in much the same way. This is in
stark contrast to Tolkien’s approach, which was to create the <i>several</i> different languages of his invention
first, building all the while around them a world to provide context. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Just so we’re clear,
Jordan’s approach is far and away the more practical of the two, and Tolkien’s
advantage may be somewhat unfair in this regard, or at least one we can’t reasonably
expect other people to have. He was,
after all, a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford who created his own translation
of <b>Beowulf </b><i>and</i>, as an added bonus, was pretty much single-handedly responsible
for getting serious literary types to take <b>Beowulf
</b>as a serious literary work. So, you
know, if you ever had to read <b>Beowulf</b>
for a class at some point and hated it, now you know who to blame. What I’m trying to say is that where I and
many other rational people ground our teeth all the way through years’ worth of
English courses to figure out how our <i>own</i>
language works, the one we learned to speak practically by instinct, Tolkien
was making up languages of his own purely for the amusement in it. So when he had to refer to a place or object
by some ancient name, he had only to look at his constructed languages and say
“well, this place or thing would have been likely named by this particular
group of elves, who spoke Sindarin, so its name is such-and-such”, and then he
was done. No span of minutes spent
behind a keyboard frowning, chin on fist, desperately, and with mounting
frustration, trying to think of a completely fantastical place name that sounds
like an actual place while not also sounding corny or over the top, and which
also doesn’t conform to certain idiosyncracies in one’s own naming habits –
such as, just as an example of no particular personal relevance, a tendency to
use the letter A making an “ah” sound (not that I would know anything about
this, not me, oh no) – and most importantly, which one hasn’t used before
somewhere else. Interestingly, this did
lead to certain linguistic coincidences, perhaps the most readily recognizable
of which being the Elvish word <i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Atalantë </span></i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">referring to an advanced island nation
whose civilization was destroyed when said island sunk beneath the waves as divine
punishment for tremendous hubris (this was an actual coincidence, by the way;
Tolkien is said to have been quite irritated when he worked it out, because he
felt people would just assume he was deliberately referencing Atlantis).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: black; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">So, anyway, yes: Robert Jordan had an extremely
detailed history worked out for his world.
It becomes clear, as you read, that there are certain sections of its
history (for instance, the life and times of Artur Paendrag Tanreall, also
known as Artur Hawkwing) of which the author had laid down a detailed
chronology, with absolutely zero intent to tell any of those stories (at least,
not at the time), just because it was necessary to have that information way, <i>way </i>in the background for
verisimilitude’s sake. Because, see, it
was a major event. The comparison that
comes most immediately to mind would be the Crusades. Not because the wars in which Artur Hawkwing
fought were of a religious nature, but because they were a major event that
changed the world forever afterward, such that attitudes and ideas and
conflicts of the present can occasionally be traced all the way back to those
events. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: black; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">People also look and act differently from each other,
depending on where you are. People from
one country talk and dress and act differently from people in another
country. There are, of course,
occasionally very clear analogues to civilizations in our world. The countries of Andor and Cairhien are
simultaneously at each other’s throats and yet deeply intertwined politically
in a way that can only make you think of medieval England and France,
respectively. The far northern nation of
Shienar has echoes of Asia generally, though the Seanchan empire seems to be
evocative of Japan specifically, superficially (in many other ways, it is
completely unlike any civilization yet seen on Earth). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: black; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The sheer riot of invention is impressive. Unfortunately, after a point, that also
becomes the series downfall.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: black; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">But none of this addresses what the books are actually <i>about</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: black;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">In the beginning, the
series starts off in the typical way. We
have a group of young people in a town at the back end of nowhere. Three of them, young men all of an age with
each other, have a pretty good chance of being the chosen savior of the world,
and there is an itinerant magic-user trying to figure out which of them it is,
so that she can guard and guide whoever it is.
It’s fairly obvious, to us as readers, which of the three it is, but all
of them are important in a way that it takes a little bit of background to
understand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">The titular Wheel of
Time is a sort of mystical, philosophical notion – I’d almost say it’s a
religious idea, but there’s not really anything in the way of religion in the
world of the Wheel, but instead just a sort of generalized belief in the
Creator (often referred to as the Light) and the Dark One – one of many
borrowed from Eastern philosophy and mysticism, which posits that the world is
unending, and that there are seven Ages, represented by the spokes of the
Wheel, which repeat through eternity. As
the opening paragraph of the first chapter of every book in the series is keen
to remind us, there are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of
Time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">(This almost felt like a
joke at some point toward the interminable middle of the series. The beginning of <b>The Wheel of Time</b> seemed so remotely in the past that there may as
well never have been a real beginning, and it surely seemed there would be no
end.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Curiously, there is also
a different statement made at various points, that the Creator, “in the moment
of creation”, sealed the Dark One away in a sort of other-dimensional prison so
that he could not work his influence on the universe. This seems to imply some kind of beginning,
despite what the Wheel suggests. But you
know what? Fuck it. It’s not as if our real-world religions are
devoid of inconsistencies. Why should
our fantastical ones be any different?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Anyway, the force that
causes the Wheel to turn is called the True Source, or the One Power. There are two halves to the True Source, <i>saidin</i> and <i>saidar</i>. Certain people with
the talent to do so are able to channel the True Source in ways that affect the
world around them, which is the system by which magic functions in the
world. However, there’s a bit of a
catch, in that <i>saidin</i> can only be
channeled by men, and <i>saidar</i> can only
be channeled by women. The two forces
are alike in origin and nature, but fundamentally different in their use. Men must grapple with <i>saidin</i>, every moment of its usage being a struggle in which to lose
is to be burned to ash, literally. Women,
meanwhile, must learn to surrender themselves to the flow of <i>saidar</i>, like a riverbank which passively
contains the flow of the river.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">As these two halves of
the One Power are so different, men and women who channel are unable to work
together without a lot of through-hoop-jumping and other assorted mystical
jiggery-pokery. A man can’t see how a
woman weaves the basic elements of <i>saidar</i>
together, and a woman is unable to see how a man uses <i>saidin</i>. Which is just as
well, in some ways, because any given task usually has to be done in two very
different ways depending on which half of the Power is being used.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">In the Age before the
story opens, known as the Age of Legends, the Dark One was accidentally
released from his prison. Actually,
“released” is putting it too strongly.
His prison was opened only somewhat, allowing him to touch the world and
exert his influence on it, without actually freeing him to do as he
pleased. It might seem like very little,
compared to how badly things could have happened, but it was enough, and more
than enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Use of the One Power was
common in this Age, and most of those who held power and prestige in the world
were users of the One Power. They were
known as Aes Sedai (“Servants of All” in the Old Tongue – which was the common
language of the time).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">To many of these Aes
Sedai who were unsatisfied with their lot in life, the Dark One promised power
and favor if they would serve him. The
greatest of these would become known as the Forsaken, and the names they were
given as enemies of the Light would be remembered thousands of years later. The Forsaken drew followers to them, and waged
such a war for their new master that they brought civilization to its
knees. In the end, they were beaten,
though the price was dire.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Lews Therin Telamon,
essentially the leader of the forces of the Light, and known as the Dragon,
concocted a plan which involved using seven magical artifacts to seal the Dark
One’s prison. This was probably not
going to be as good a seal as what had been in place previously, but at the
very least, it could buy the world some time to breathe, and to think of a
better plan. So he set out with his
Hundred Companions to do this very thing.
The plan was nominally successful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Nominally.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">What Lews Therin had not
predicted – what no one <i>could</i> predict
– was that at the final moment before the seals were set, the Dark One lashed
out, not directly at his attackers, but at their source of power. Lew Therin’s Hundred Companions were all men. And so the Dark One tainted <i>saidin</i>, the male half of the True
Source. The effects of this last
vengeful stroke of the Dark One were not immediately felt, though they became
apparent soon enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Beyond this point, any
man who drew on the power of <i>saidin</i>
was doomed. The taint would slowly drive
all users of <i>saidin </i>mad, while also
afflicting them with a rotting sickness.
It would be easy to suggest the solution of “not using <i>saidin</i>,” except that to use the One
Power is fundamentally addictive. In
addition to all the usual benefits ofmagical powers, simply <i>holding</i> the One Power, even without
doing anything with it, creates a state of heightened awareness in which all
senses are cranked up several notches, and is accompanied by a sensation of
general empowerment and euphoria. Those
who have the ability to channel the One Power and who are later deprived of it
(it happens, occasionally, for various reasons), often fall into a deep
depression and die of sadness and longing, if they don’t manage to simply
commit suicide first.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Having half the magic
users in the world turn insane in a relatively short period is bad enough. When you consider that those magic users have
the ability to manipulate the very elements of creation, it gets far
worse. What followed was an event
referred to as the Breaking of the World, which changed the world’s geography
and, as a side-effect, plunged it into a dark age from which, as the story
opens, it <i>still</i> has not really recovered.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">In modern times, in the
section of the world where the main action of the story takes place (known
informally as the Westlands), all Aes Sedai are women, divided into seven
factions, or Ajahs, each with its own idea of what should be done with the One
Power, and thus with a specific task at which they are skilled and for which
they are often deployed. (There are
rumors, hotly denied, of an additional Ajah, a Black Ajah, which serves the Dark
One. Naturally, they are all true.) There are no male Aes Sedai. Unfortunately, the ability and inclination to
use the One Power is not simply learned.
It <i>can</i> be, for some, but for
others it’s inborn; they will begin to channel on their own, whether they are
taught or not, whether they <i>want to</i>
or not. Some of them, deluded or
genuinely mad, proclaim themselves to be the Dragon Reborn, and a few of these
have managed to draw followers to themselves and cause serious trouble for the
world at large. Because of this, the Red
Ajah of the Aes Sedai make it their mission to find all men who can channel,
and stop them by using the One Power to destroy the very faculty which makes
channeling possible. The practice is
called “gentling”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">This is getting somewhat
far afield, but it needs to be explained at some point, because most of it is
relevant later. But it’s time to get a
bit closer to where I was intending to go with all of this. Back to the Wheel, then…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">The lives of everyone in
the world, using our Wheel construct, are each a thread, woven together by the
turning of the Wheel into the Great Pattern.
The Dark One, meanwhile, wishes to escape his prison completely and
destroy the Wheel, thus unraveling the Great Pattern and unmaking the universe,
so that he might remake it in his own image.
Periodically (as we’ve seen) he gains the opportunity to do so. The reasons change with each Age.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">To combat the Dark One’s
distorting influence, and to preserve the Pattern, the Wheel occasionally
weaves in specific threads – lives – and the people who represent these threads
are called <i>ta’veren</i> (I’ve forgotten
what the word is actually supposed to translate into, but it’s a testament to
how often I’ve heard it, reading these books, that I can explain exactly what
it means). <i>Ta’veren </i>are people whose very presence essentially warps the lives
of others around them, and sometimes the behavior of objects (vases may fall
out of windows several stories up and not break, coins land on their edge, and
on one memorable occasion, a character manages to roll the dice and get a one –
on <i>two</i> dice, because one lands on its
corner) forcing them to conform to the intended course of events. The people thus swept out of the normal run
of their lives are often just as surprised that these things are happening as
everyone else. There are tales of <i>ta’veren </i>in times past who found that
their enemies would confess their darkest secrets in the presence of said <i>ta’veren</i>, despite having absolutely no
reason to do so, simply because it was required by the Pattern to make events
conform to the will of the Wheel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><i>So.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">The three young men from
the backwater village are all <i>ta’veren</i>. Typically, there is only ever one <i>ta’veren</i> knocking about at any given
time. The presence of three at one time,
in one place, is extraordinary, but also frightening in its implications,
because it begs the question: How badly off are we, exactly – how close to
complete disaster ?– that we need three people who are able to bend the very
paths of fate around them, just by being there? The Dragon, Lews Therin Telamon, was <i>ta’veren</i>, and with just the one of him,
we saw events set in motion that ended civilization as it was then known, and
in which the actual face of the world changed.
What’s coming that could be so bad, it requires <i>three</i> of these to correct the problem, when usually one is quite
enough? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">The entire series spends
a significant amount of time grappling with this, and it’s fifteen books long
because this isn’t the only thing that’s happening. It’s the <i>main</i>
thing, yes, but hardly the <i>only </i>thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><b>The Wheel of Time </b>reeks of destiny.
Things happen because they must, because this is how they were intended
by the Creator to happen. Throughout
much of the series, we read snippets of an in-universe work called <i>The Karaethon Cycle</i>, which is a
collection of prophecies regarding the rebirth of the Dragon, his conflict
against the Dark One, and a second Breaking of the World. Many of these prophecies are maddeningly
vague and seemingly self-contradictory.
Attempts to use them to predict events confound all who attempt using
them this way. Rather than predictive,
they are confirmative. They exist not to
tell you what <i>will</i> happen, but rather
to confirm that what <i>has</i> happened has
been part of the overall plan. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">But <i>The Karaethon Cycle</i> is not the only work of prophecy. The Aiel (a desert-dwelling people who are an
odd combination of the Zulu, the Bedouin, and the <i>Irish</i>, of all things) have their own prophecy regarding the Dragon
Reborn, whom they call <i>Car’a’carn</i>,
Chief of Chiefs. The Sea Folk (go on,
guess what <i>they</i> do) have their
prophecies regarding <i>their</i> idea of
the Dragon, known as the Coramoor. Even
the Seanchan, the descendants of an exploratory mission sent out at least a
thousand years ago by Artur Hawkwing, have their own prophecies about the
Dragon Reborn. And as you might guess,
none of these sets of prophecies seems to be in agreement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: black;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">We have a trio of main
characters. At the forefront is Rand
al’Thor, a tall sheepherder turned swordsman who spends much of the early going
running from the very thought of what he may be, even as he knows it in his
heart. Yet he is bound by a sense of
duty and responsibility. He hates what
he may be, for the destruction and hardship it will bring, and that all of it
will be in his name. Yet at the same
time, when the proof is put to him and cannot be denied, he does not hide, he
does not run, but faces it squarely, and rises.
He is the most strongly <i>ta’veren</i>,
though he would be lost without the help of his friends, also <i>ta’veren</i>. One of these is Mat Cauthon, a young layabout
who probably (before the story begins) spends more effort avoiding work than the
work itself requires, who loves pranks and jokes, and later dice and cards and
flirting with barmaids, and who is always ready to expound, at length, on how
he’s “no bloody hero” even while in the very midst of some of the most heroic
fighting the series shows us. The other friend
of Rand’s is Perrin Aybara. Powerfully
built, he is slow and careful in his movements, having learned early how easy
it is to hurt people accidentally. A
blacksmith’s apprentice, he’s allowed precious little time to do any
blacksmithing as the story goes on, though there’s a memorable scene of it in
the third book which is probably one of his early defining moments, and a
damned good piece of writing beside.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">The story starts out
with them running, hiding, seeking temporary refuge where they can, and relying
quite heavily on the fact that they are virtual nobodies in the world at
large. They are, of course, of
tremendous importance to the Dark One.
The Forsaken, and all the rest of his servants, know that it will be
utter defeat if these three are not stopped in time, before they grow in power
and stature. So this is the early part
of the story, where the characters are constantly on the defensive, constantly
on the run, more difficult for the forces of darkness to find, yet less well
able to deal with such threats when they arise, and with the destiny that lays
before them all feeling roughly as comfortable as a slowly tightening noose.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">But everything changes
with time, and our three heroes are no exception. Inevitably, the forces of darkness fail to
stop them at the ideal time, and the characters rise in the world. No longer constantly on the run, they are in
a position to form their own plans, enact their own maneuvers against the power
that seeks to destroy them as a prelude to its dragging the entire world down
into the dark.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Watching these
characters grown and change is one of the more interesting things in the
series, and it feels all the more authentic for happening gradually. But then, again, this is a fifteen-book
series. Nothing in it is happening<i> quickly.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: black;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Speaking of writing
quality earlier: The series has some truly breathtaking moments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">One of my favorite
moments in the series – perhaps <i>the</i>
favorite moment, for me – comes relatively early on, in the second book. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">There are a number of
great moments, to be sure. There’s the
moment where the companions come to the titular Eye of the World in the first
book, a lush, green preserve in the middle of the otherwise corrupt and deathly
hostile Blight, situated pretty much on the Dark One’s doorstep. There’s the encounter in the Stone of Tear,
where Rand takes one of the major early steps to embracing – not just accepting,
or resigning himself to, but <i>embracing </i>–
his destiny. As I say, there are
plenty. But there’s one that I’ll carry
with me for most of my life, and probably spend most of the writing I ever do
trying desperately to match.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">There is an artifact in
this world called the Horn of Valere.
Every so often, the kingdom of Illian puts on a hunt for it, very
imaginatively called the Hunt for the Horn.
What happens when someone sounds the Horn is that it summons the spirits
of heroes from Ages past to fight. Said
heroes are mostly (if not wholly) <i>ta’veren</i>
in their own right. The Dark One’s
forces are looking for it just as hard as those of the Light, no one is quite
sure whether the Heroes of the Horn will come to fight for <i>whoever</i> blows the Horn, or whether they’ll only fight for the
Light. No one <i>wants</i> to find out (except the Dark One’s people, of course). It’s found at the end of the first book, but
the second book is the one most concerned with it, being (among other things)
an account of the taking and retaking of the Horn by the heroes and the
villains alike, until the very end of the book, when Rand, Mat, and Perrin look
to be in their most hopeless situation yet (and then the Horn is basically
never mentioned again thereafter until <i>literally</i>
the last book in the series).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">And then, positing that
although the Prophecies are quite clear that the Horn of Valere must be sounded
at the Last Battle, those Prophecies are also somewhat murky on the question of
whether it can be sounded before… one of them sounds the Horn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">A mist rises. From it stride figures of legend, heroes of
hundred stories and a hundred Ages gone, and as many names or more. They are a small but deathless army whose
powers are neither mundane nor of the “magic” of the One Power, but something
entirely Other. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">There is a warmth to
these people, as they come to meet the Hornsounder; they smile, they laugh,
they banter a bit. They’ve spent quite a
while together in the time between when one or another of them is called back
into the Pattern, and they have been at all of this a very, very long time. And while they pay their respects to the
Hornsounder, they turn and face Rand, stating that there is one whom they must
follow, Hornsounder or no Hornsounder.
And it’s at this moment when Rand’s destiny truly begins to fall into
place. He turns to face what and who he
is, a man known to these people of legend, for he is one of them himself, and
he knows it now at last, and in no scrap or corner of him can there be any more
doubt or denial. From this point
forward, and until the end of his life, he will be what he was meant to
be. And so, raising his banner, he and
his friends and his army of deathless heroes charge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Ironically, it is the
Heroes of the Horn who do the mundane thing, the liberating of a city and the
rescuing of friends. Rand, initially
riding with them, is whisked away to some strange Otherworld to face his enemy,
the champion of the Dark One as he is the champion of the Light. Their battle, and its result, colors the rest
of the story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: black;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">I do not fail to get
tingles down my spine when I read the bit above. Every time.
<i>Every</i> time. But sadly, it can’t all be that good.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">To be fair, Jordan’s
writing is never <i>bad</i>. It does, however, get a bit excessive past,
say, book three or four. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">The first three books
are largely adventure stories, with the characters on the run, going to new
places, finding new dangers and new allies.
There is a sense of mystery at the very heart of the world, a feeling that
there are soft places at the edge of what’s known, where anything can and might
happen. Around book four, the world
starts to become a little more known. We
stop seeing new things, and we start seeing things we’ve already seen, just
with a different context. The
characters, as I said earlier, become movers and shakers in the world in their
own right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">This is not a bad
thing. But it is a fundamentally less
interesting thing, to me, than a good adventure tale. With the fifth book, <b>The Fires of Heaven</b>, it starts to really set in. And the problem is, along with all of this,
the books slow down. More and more words
are spent on less and less happening. I
forget exactly which book it’s in, but there’s one whole book where Rand spends
basically the entire time planning and plotting as if he’s going to do one
thing, only to do something else instead at the very end, to throw off one of
his enemies. There’s another book which
ends with Mat buried under a pile of rubble.
For the entire next book, no mention at all is made of him. And partly because of this massive drop in
momentum, Jordan’s worst excesses either get worse, or they get more
noticeable, but either way it amounts to the same thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Robert Jordan is a wordy
kind of writer. I don’t mean to say that
this is necessarily a bad thing, but he does go on about the details. Now, I happen to feel that this is somewhat
forgivable in fantasy writing. When
you’re writing about things that never happened in places that never existed to
people who never lived, you’re essentially building your own context. A certain greater amount of detail is needed
to keep everybody on the same page (so to speak). And this is fine for the early volumes of <b>The Wheel of Time</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">But later on, we get
scenes where whole pages are spent describing the wood paneling on the walls
and on a desk, the particular clothing styles of the characters we’re speaking
to, as well as detailed physical descriptions of the people themselves. These are, keep in mind, characters we will see
only in this one scene. It’s not even a
really pivotal scene. It feels, at
times, as if Jordan took the phrase “A picture is worth a thousand words” as a tremendously
conservative estimate, a bare and frankly shameful minimum, regarding how many
words are necessary to set a scene.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">He also has an
unfortunate habit of describing things (even if only in passing), which need no
description, because the audience is already familiar with them. Maybe a mention or two toward the beginning
of the book is necessary to help people get reacquainted with an idea here or
there, when it’s been a couple of years between installments, but we hear it <i>all the time</i>. We get to hear about the sweetness of
embracing <i>saidar</i> pretty much every
time a woman does it. Whenever a man
seizes <i>saidin</i>, we get to hear about
how it’s simultaneously like ice and fire, how it’s deadly dangerous but also exhilarating. And of course, we get to hear about the taint
on <i>saidin</i>. Oh, God, the taint. You could fill a regular-sized book with
nothing but Jordan’s descriptions of the taint on <i>saidin</i>. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">You could probably fill another book with instances
wherein one male character, confronted by one or more women, desperately wishes
that one of the other male characters were present;<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="box-sizing: inherit;">they<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>know how to handle women.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Added to that is the way
that the pacing of the books seems to change.
In the early installments, there seemed to be a number of minor payoff
moments throughout the given volume, little “Ah-ha!” moments or other revelations
or minor resolutions to give you a sense that Things Are Happening. Later books seem to ditch this in favor of
one really huge trash-the-set type of climax, but feeling really drawn-out and
strained all through the middle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">I remember when I got my
friend Steve to start reading the series.
He quit about two-thirds of the way through the sixth book, <b>Lord of Chaos</b>, which comes to a little
over a thousand pages in paperback. When
he quit, I told him, “Oh, you can’t quit <i>now</i>;
you’re just about at the good part!”
Later, I thought about what I’d said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">In a 1,000 page book
(rounding down – yes, <i>down</i> – for
simplicity’s sake), two-thirds of the way through is, what, 666 pages, give or
take a few paragraphs? That’s about the
size of any two average-sized novels (which may be complete and wholly
satisfying stories all on their own).
It’s a lot to endure to get to <i>the</i>
good part. I stopped nagging Steve about
reading <b>The Wheel of Time </b>not long
thereafter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Really, there are other
parts of <b>Lord of Chaos </b>that are
enjoyable, but these things start to feel like they’re building toward
something else. Most of it has an odd
feeling of happening on the way to greater and grander things. In the case of <b>Lord of Chaos</b>, that greater and grander thing is a massive battle
which is enjoyable in part due to how many richly deserving people get smacked
down in one way or another.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">At around this point, I
was going to mention one of Jordan’s other writing quirks, which is how he
handles relations between his male and female characters. It’s certainly worth going into by somebody, but
it really should be an article all its own, and the somebody in question should
ideally have taken at least a couple of college-level courses in gender studies,
and therefore be far more qualified than me.
About the best I can do is say that regarding Jordan’s idea of the
Battle of the Sexes, I can only shrug my shoulders a little helplessly, and
remark that it’s best described, in short, as a weird kind of
passive-aggressive <i>trench warfare.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: black;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Looking back on the
series now, I don’t know if I can recommend it without reservations. When I started reading, only the first four
or five books had been published – maybe six.
The first three were, to my mind, great.
The fourth was pretty good. The
fifth and sixth sort of seemed to fall off a bit, and that was pretty much
where things stood for a while. The
short version of it is that the first four books are basically straight
adventure stories, and have a major focus on the ancient past of the world, and
the secrets hidden in it. Past that
point, the books get more involved with political maneuvering of one sort or
another, which is interesting, but does not grip me with as much immediacy as a
good adventure tale.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">The thing is that, in my
own opinion, the series kind of <i>stayed</i>
in a “fallen off” state up through the eleventh main book in the series, <b>Knife of Dreams</b>, which was the last one
Robert Jordan wrote before passing away.
By that point, there were twelve volumes total: eleven in the main
series, plus a prequel, titled <b>New
Spring. </b>The final tally of books in
the now-finished series is fifteen. The
final three were written mostly by another author, Brandon Sanderson. Sanderson was chosen by Jordan and his widow,
Harriet McDougal, working from Jordan’s copious notes, and at the very least,
the epilogue was written by Jordan himself.
By all accounts, these three books (<b>The
Gathering Storm</b>, <b>The Towers of
Midnight</b>, and <b>A Memory of Light</b>)
were originally meant to be just a single book, titled <b>A Memory of Light</b>, and it was going to be a whopper. Even by Jordan’s standards. He memorably joked that he was only going to
write another book in the series, even if Tor had to invent a new printing
process to make it. (He also apparently
joked at one point that there was going to be a boxed set of the whole series;
it would necessarily come complete with its own library cart).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">That boils down to a lot
of reading to do, even for someone who loves it, for a series whose individual
installments tended to be a little disappointing as often as not. All of them have their moments, of course, but
beyond a certain early point toward the end of the first half of the series, I
begin to have trouble placing specific events in the right order, let alone the
right book. Even in the books past
volume four where I can still do this, I have a really hard time explaining to
anyone why, exactly, it took over nine hundred pages – nine hundred! In
hardcover! – to get there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">It helps, though, to
understand that I was reading these pretty much as they came out. Reading only one mildly disappointing book
every few years is pretty easy to do.
Reading fourteen books straight through (fifteen if we’re including the
prequel), some of which are good and some of which are… less so, is a lot to
ask of a person. Especially when that
person may have a job, loved ones, and a pre-existing social life and set of
hobbies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: black;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">There’s something
melancholy in finishing <b>The Wheel of
Time</b>. I began reading it with <b>The Eye of the World</b>, the summer I
turned fourteen. It was sitting there,
on my desk, when I came home from summer camp.
I’d been looking forward to it for weeks. I found the series by going over the
bookshelves at my grandmother’s house. I
saw the third book first, titled <b>The
Dragon Reborn</b>, and got interested. I
thought maybe, knowing the reading habits of my grandmother and my grandfather,
this was one of those international espionage or political thrillers that uses
certain medieval motifs in their titling for one reason or another, but
no. This seemed to be an honest-to-God
work of high fantasy. And on the cover
was the phrase “Sequel to <b>The Great Hunt</b>”. So I did some hunting of my own, and came up
with a copy of <b>The Great Hunt</b>, also
sitting on that shelf. And on the front
of <i>that </i>book was the line “Sequel to <b>The Eye of the World</b>”. I was beginning to wonder how deep the rabbit
hole went. Unfortunately, my grandmother
didn’t have a copy of <b>The Eye of the
World</b>, but she did have a book that contained its first eighteen chapters,
as a sort of promotional item. She gave
me that and the other two, and said she’d get me a copy of <b>The Eye of the World</b>, but would have to order it. I spent a large portion of that summer in
anticipation after I devoured that eighteen-chapter promo copy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">I finished reading <b>The Wheel of Time</b> when I was 32, in the
late spring, a few months after the last book had come out. At the time of this writing, I am 34. This is a story that I have been reading for
more than half of my life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">I stalled out after <b>Knife of Dreams</b>, and was reluctant to
start on the final three books, even though I had been buying them as they came
out. I bought them practically as a
reflex, because by God I was going to finish reading this series <i>someday</i>.
I’d spent a lot of time reading and re-reading these books over my life,
and nothing short of death itself was going to prevent me. Yet I hesitated. I read <b>The
Gathering Storm</b>, and liked it well enough.
The characters felt all right.
They were a little different from how I remembered them, but that was
hardly unexpected, being written by a different author, who was smart enough
not to try to mimic Jordan’s style.
Still, they squared well enough with my recollections. Better than I had expected, honestly; I had
for some time been bracing myself for a real horror show. This was not because Sanderson isn’t a
talented author (I wouldn’t have known, not having read any of his work prior
to this), but because the idea of one author taking over the meticulously
crafted world, all its history and its literal hundreds of important
characters, from the original author, sounded like a recipe for disaster, just
on basic principles. That the end
product of this was not simply serviceable, but genuinely good, has gone a long
way to convince me, if nothing else, that I should try reading some of
Sanderson’s books.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">But after <b>The
Gathering Storm</b>, I stalled. I wasn’t
sure, at the time, where my final bout of hesitation had come from. Some of it was the plain reluctance to slog
through another couple of mammoth door-stopping novels. Even given the quality of Sanderson’s first
effort in the series, there was still that to consider. And there was still time to fuck it all
up. He had two whole books – two whole <i>Robert Jordan-sized books</i>, which is like
four or five regular books – to flame out in a blaze of glory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">“But this is everything
you’ve been waiting for!” part of me cried.
“This is it! This is the final
bit of mystery, the final piece of the puzzle!
This is what all the parts of the series you loved have been leading up
to!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">And all of this was
entirely true. And all of that was part
of the problem. Still, eventually, I did
break down and decide that it was time to put the story to rest. To bring myself to the end of things, once
and for all. To throw the dice and see
how they came up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">It’s a strange thing
when you’re reading a story for years.
You really aren’t <i>reading</i> it
for all of that time, not unless you’re some kind of obsessive nut, but you
sort of <i>inhabit</i> it for that
time. The characters and events and
places all exist in a corner of your mind.
Even when there’s no more forthcoming for a while, you can go back and
re-read, find new information, new pieces of the puzzle, new wrinkles in the
pattern that you missed the first time around.
And because there’s no end written, you get to wonder, to imagine. There is a fascinating feeling of potential
to it that lends it a kind of life. Even
in the lull between volumes, that thought of “what if?” gives the story a
feeling of life and an illusion of forward movement. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, the story
was still happening. It was always
happening, constantly. I was still <i>there</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Then it ended, and I
came home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: black;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">I occasionally go to
anime conventions. The first one I went
to was AnimeIowa, in 2000. I went with
my friend Wade, and connected with a few of my other friends while we were
there, people I didn’t see much outside the college I went to. It wasn’t an especially large convention, as
these things go, but it was the first one I ever went to, and it seemed like a
huge thing at the time. To parallel <b>The Wheel of Time</b> somewhat, there’s a
scene relatively early in the first book where the main characters, coming as
they do from a village at the back-end of nowhere, come to their first big
town, called Baerlon. To them, Baerlon
is huge. To the rest of the world, it’s
a hick mining town out in the sticks, barely worthy of being called a proper
city at all. The difference is all a
matter of perspective.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">The thing about
AnimeIowa, and a lot of the larger conventions I went to afterward, is that
there’s a sort of carnival atmosphere.
Even if you’re just going to panel discussions and viewing rooms, and
taking photos of the occasional really impressive costume, the level of energy
can be tremendous. There is a feeling of
being constantly “on” that I have a hard time describing, because I don’t often
feel it in quite this way. The best I
can do is to illustrate a thing that happened.
On one night of the convention, I needed to take a break for a little
while and just hang out in our hotel room.
So I did. I read a little bit,
and later I put together one of the models I’d bought. And still, it was as if I could <i>feel</i> the convention going on, several
floors below me. It wasn’t any noise or
commotion, but a simple <i>feeling</i>. It was like a radio wave in the air, and I
couldn’t tune it out. It was as if all
the people involved in it had come together to make some new kind of life, and
it didn’t matter at all where it was or where I was. Since it was in a hotel, they could go around
the clock, and they did. While it was
happening, I was a part of it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">I had never felt
anything like this before. It was
amazing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Then it ended, and I
came home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">When Wade and I left the
convention, I fell into a deep melancholy.
I didn’t want to do anything, because nothing seemed to be really worth
doing. What I <i>did </i>want, which was of course impossible, was to be back at the
convention. The fact that the convention
wasn’t going on any more only made me dig in my heels and get angry with
reality. I wanted the convention to run
longer, another day or two, a week maybe, I didn’t know. It needed to still be happening, is what
needed to happen, and I needed to be there in it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">I’ve felt things that
affected me more. I once stood on a
mountaintop and looked <i>down</i> at other
mountaintops, lesser peaks and ridges, and felt at once how tiny I was in the
grand scheme of things, and somehow also exalted, just to be able to be in that
moment, at that peak, and have that realization. But this feeling of loss, coming home from my
first convention, which was supposed to be just nonstop fun and excitement (this
happened when coming home from others, later in my life) was wholly
unexpected. I dubbed it “convention
withdrawal” and left it at that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">I say all of this to
help try to describe what I felt when I finished reading <b>The Wheel of Time</b>. The exact
causes of the feeling aren’t the same, but the basic nature of it is. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">For most of my life,
this story had been happening. I had
been inhabiting that story, ruminating on its characters and events, wondering
at the truth of what had happened, and at the things that were yet to
occur. Because it was unfinished,
because I was in it, it was on some level of my mind still happening. When I finished it, all of that changed. It was no longer a thing that <i>was happening</i>. It had passed into the territory of things that
<i>had happened</i>. I had come through to the end of it finally,
and there was no more, and would be no more.
Even if there was, it would not change the fact that this story, which
had not only been with me for most of my life, but had helped in some ways to
shape that life, was now done.
Over. Finished. Through.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">You can, of course,
point out that re-reading is certainly something I could do. And I probably will, at some point. At the very least, I want to have a better
and more complete understanding of what happens in that foggy stretch between
books six and eleven. But it feels
different to read a thing – to experience <i>any</i>
story, in any medium – for a second time, even for works that encourage and
reward it. Re-reading <i>always</i> feels different. It’s not necessarily a <i>bad </i>thing, mind you. I once
mentioned to my wife, when I started to re-read <b>The Magic of Recluce</b>, many years after I had first read it, that it
was a unique joy to read something that I had enjoyed once many years ago, but had
since almost completely forgotten. There
was still the wonder at what exactly was going to happen, with the comfort of
having some sense of it already, and tinged with a general sense of known
enjoyment. But as enjoyable as this is,
few things match the raw excitement of diving headlong into unexplored
territory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: black;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">There’s a music playlist
I usually listen to while I write, which is mostly 90s alternative rock I heard
on the radio from around 1994 (when I first found a station I liked) to about
2000. There’s a lot on there that I
don’t hear any other way. Maybe a local
station will play “Nineties at noon” or something, and I’ll hear a song I
haven’t heard since more than half my life ago.
Even if I didn’t care all that much for the song then, there’s often the
strong, almost tidal pull of nostalgia, and suddenly I have to track down a
copy for myself. That’s largely how this
list got put together. There are songs
on there by The Cranberries, by Seven Mary Three, Dishwalla, The Gin Blossoms,
New Radicals, etc. There are two things
I remember doing – two things I specifically remember doing, several times, to
which this music provides a soundtrack.
One of those things is reading <b>The
Wheel of Time</b>. The other is
writing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">It’s not strange, to me,
that these things coincide. The former
inspired the urge for the latter, after all.
I love <b>The Lord of the Rings</b>,
and believe it’s still the better story.
But it wasn’t there when I was fourteen.
When I was fourteen, Frodo’s adventure with the Ring of Power felt
stuffy and rigid; it felt inaccessible; I couldn’t find the warmth in it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">A lot of people have
taught me how to write. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Stephen King taught me
it’s okay to swing between formal and portentous, and informal and even
crude. That it’s okay to say “Fuck
outlines!”, queue up a blank page, and just <i>go</i>,
and get lost in the fire of creation, in the pure joy of the act.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">T.H. White taught me to
take my time, to treat my characters with respect, and be clear in what I
write, and that even people who do things that seem awful can do them for good
reasons, and aren’t wholly irredeemable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">Reading about how J.R.R.
Tolkien wrote <b>The Lord of the Rings</b>,
I learned how a single seemingly minor change can send your story off down an
entirely different path, and that this is not necessarily a bad thing, if
you’re willing to follow your characters where they’re inclined to go, and that
sometimes the best lines of prose come to you while you’re in the bath.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">I like to think I would
have been drawn to writing anyway, because it’s what there is in me to do. But I’m never sure, and so I’ll always be
indebted to Robert Jordan for that. You
can’t get lost in the fire of creation if it isn’t burning in the first place,
and it was Jordan who set that particular blaze alight.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: black;">As I said quite a while
ago, <b>The Wheel of Time </b>is what made
me want to write. You could strip all
the rest of this away, or argue about every point I’ve made in this long,
ridiculous, rambling mess, and that one fact will always remain. And that’s no small thing.</span></div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-8465326521049319762015-07-14T22:49:00.002-07:002015-07-14T22:49:36.605-07:00From the Ashes - Gears of War, the Series<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I am not always a good judge of the things I will like or won’t
like. I had this problem with <b>Halo</b>, a few years ago, as I mentioned
in a previous post. I had it again with <b>Gears of War</b>, somewhat more recently.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I used to think, judging largely by the artwork and some snippets of
dialogue I’d heard, that this must be the most meat-headed, frat boy douchebag
series of games in existence. Just a
bunch of lumpy, over-muscled dudes shooting things with stupidly huge machine
guns and swearing a lot. And the machine
guns have chainsaw bayonets. <i>Chainsaw bayonets</i>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
But then the original <b>Gears of
War</b> came up for free on Xbox’s Free Games with Xbox Live Gold promotion one
month, and I thought “What the hell?” So I downloaded it and gave it a shot.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I wound up buying the rest of the series not much later.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Turns out chainsaw bayonets are <i>fun</i>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I don’t know of a better way to say this, except to say that <b>Gears of War</b> doesn’t take itself
seriously, but is still somehow a mostly serious game. The story throughout the series has moments
of real emotion and impact, and it sets these up and handles them well enough
that they come across as genuine and natural, rather than forced. The characters <i>look</i> like a sort of winking satire on the grizzled, armored
military guy trope (which is a broader expression of the “bald space marine”
trope that occupies so much of western gaming).
Main character Marcus Fenix, in particular, seems to embody this, with
his do-rag, his soul patch, his jutting jaw that could <i>actually </i>break rocks, and his “Ah, not <i>this</i> shit again” attitude. But
rather than crank it up beyond believability, they just kind of let it be what
it is. The characters pretty much just do
what they would do, given who they are and the context in which they exist.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The characters are really sort of brilliant, in the sense that their
designs match almost perfectly with their personalities. When you watch Marcus move, listen to him
speak, and see the things he does, the way he interacts with other characters, it
all <i>fits</i> so well it’s actually a
little bit scary.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I mean, here’s a guy who’s grim, gruff, and mostly quiet, and doesn’t
really seem to like anything or anyone in this hellhole of a world he finds
himself in. He often expresses
satisfaction with, and appreciation for, various skillful maneuvers (well-timed
weapon reloads, managing several headshots in a row, etc.), but this is at best
a sort of diagonally adjacent emotion to real happiness or enjoyment, which
seem utterly foreign to him. Pretty much
everything that’s first apparent about his character – his looks, his posture,
his movements, his voice – makes all of this seem right in line with who he
appears to be. It isn’t predictable,
necessarily, but it doesn’t exactly come out of left field, either.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
And this is true of pretty much any character with a unique personality,
who is in any way a mover or shaker in the story. They all look and talk in such a way as to
immediately telegraph who they are. The
characters play to particular tropes and archetypes (without leaning on them
too heavily) in such a way as to provide a sort of quick sketch of who they
are, a sense of immediate familiarity.
This way, the game doesn’t have to spend minutes at a time dwelling on
who all these people are and what they’re all doing, when it could instead be
throwing you back into the action.</div>
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<br /></div>
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* * *</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The action is one of the other areas of <b>Gears of War </b>which is surprisingly intelligent. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The original <b>Gears of War </b>was
one of the pioneering titles of the cover-based third-person shooter
genre. It’s not necessarily <i>the </i>first game in the genre, mind
you. There’s probably an argument to be
made that <b>Resident Evil 4</b> was a
major contribution to its development, but there are games before this that had
many elements of the genre in one way or another. My own first experience with these game
mechanics would probably be the original <b>Mass
Effect</b>, which in retrospect might not be the best ambassador for this style
of play. The first <b>Mass Effect</b> is a game that, if you love it, you love it despite a
number of minor-to-middling problems.
The parts where you’re moving and shooting are sort of mushy and
awkward, to be honest, if still ultimately serviceable, and at least make for a
decent example of the basics (the sequels are much better in this regard, but
we’re not here for <b>Mass Effect </b>today).</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Unlike a lot of franchises out there, <b>Gears of War</b> got it pretty much right on the first try. The sequels have mainly just focused on
offering <i>more</i>. More explosions (and more things to shoot and
blow up), more challenge, more weapons,
more areas to travel through (and, in all likelihood, destroy, intentionally or
otherwise), and more colors. The first <b>Gears of War</b> is a very, very <i>grey</i> game, you see.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Sure, it’s not as if Epic Games (fun fact: I’m old enough that I still think
of them as Epic Megagames, and have to consciously correct myself), the original
developers of the <b>Gears of War</b>, are
any strangers to high-quality games where you blow stuff up real good. They did make the classic first-person
shooter <b>Unreal</b>, after all, and they’ve
been around since well before then. But
the level of polish on display for <b>Gears
of War</b> is pretty remarkable when you stop to consider that it was the first
entry in a new series, in a relatively new genre, in the early days of a new piece
of hardware.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Mechanically, the game is smarter than it appears. Despite the gung-ho, “Fuck yeah, let’s kill
all the enemies!” attitude it <i>seems</i>
to have, in reality it encourages intelligent play. Attacking head-on is a great way to find
yourself getting mulched by a hail of enemy gunfire. Instead, the games encourage you to outmaneuver
your enemies. Flank them or take them
from behind, where they can’t easily find cover. If you don’t, they’ll surely try to do it to
you. And like <b>Halo</b> before it, <b>Gears of War
</b>requires you to acquaint yourself with a variety of weapons. While it’s more generous with some weapon
types, all the weapons and ammunition you find, you find in the environment,
either dropped by fallen foes, or left behind by defeated allies who previously
occupied the area. <b>Metal Gear Solid </b>would call this OCP (on-site procurement), and it
means you’re never in full control of your arsenal. It means you have to learn how to use all of
the game’s weapons to at least a basic degree of proficiency, and learn which
weapon types work best in which environments, so that you don’t waste
ammunition using the wrong tool for the job.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Rather than a point of frustration, I personally find this makes the
game more interesting. You’re not always
doing the same thing over and over again.
The various weapons work best at varying ranges and rates of fire, and
require different tactics for effective use.
It keeps you constantly on your toes, constantly thinking, constantly
paying attention and therefore constantly engaged. You fall into a kind of rhythm after a while,
but it’s never mindless; it’s never <i>habit</i>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
And the cutscenes, once the game really gets going, are generally just
long enough to get the point across, but short enough not to screw up the
momentum too badly. Epic understands
that when you play a game, you generally want to be <i>playing a game</i>, not listening to the game natter on and on about
things while you interact with it at intervals.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I was wrapping up <b>Gears of War:
Judgment </b>last night, and my wife was lying on the couch behind me,
half-watching and half-listening to me play.
<b>Gears of War</b> is absolutely
not a Katie sort of game.
Testosterone-heavy aesthetics aside, there’s the fact that she doesn’t really
get into third-person shooters that much, with the exception of <b>Mass Effect</b>, the mechanical problems of
which I touched on above. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
After explaining the story to her, and some of the backstory, she
paused for a moment, and then said, “You really like games where humanity is
pretty much fucked, don’t you?”</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
“No, no… I… don’t,” I said, and then I paused, thinking for a moment. “<i>Do</i>
I?”</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I thought for a few minutes more about a lot of the games I’d been
playing lately, and a lot of the games I really like.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter</b>
sees humanity fucked over by their own stupid choices resulting in environmental
destruction, forcing them to retreat to a single subterranean habitat until
someone can muster the courage to open the door after a few thousand years and
see just exactly what’s out there. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Assassin’s Creed</b>, at least
up through the third game, sees humanity fucking itself over by way of the
constant squabbling of the game’s two main factions, which blinds them to the
fact that there is a major solar flare set to wipe out most life on Earth, and
that they actually could have been prepared for it centuries ago if they hadn’t
been so obsessed with wiping each other out.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Destiny</b> sees humanity being
fucked by way of the invasion of at least four separate races of beings driven
to try to wrest control of our own solar system from us for one reason or another,
with humankind reduced to such numbers that we basically only populate a single
city on the entire planet Earth (yet the tone is somehow overall hopeful). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Halo </b>sees humanity fucked by
being on the losing end of a genocidal war against an alliance of alien
religious fanatics who believe us to be an affront to their gods. This at least sounds moderately more hopeful
than the first two examples, in that we at least haven’t done all of this to
ourselves, except that’s somewhat deceptive.
Dig into the backstory of <b>Halo</b>
even a little, and you’ll find that the entirety of human-controlled space was
embroiled in an insurrection ready to explode into full-scale war before the
Covenant showed up.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
In all of this, <b>Mass Effect</b>
is the outlier. While, yes, humanity
does appear to be pretty fucked in <b>Mass
Effect</b>, this is actually just because space-faring sentient life <i>in general</i> is fucked, as part of a
fairly regular, cyclical process; humankind is only one part of that. And while, being newcomers to galactic
society, the general feeling is that humankind has a long way to go to get its
collective shit together, it seems to be at least <i>doing</i> that shit-together-getting before all hell breaks loose.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
In turn, this put me in mind of a conversation I’d had some years
previous with my friend Captain Overkill, who introduced me to a friend or
acquaintance by saying, “he likes grimdark stuff”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I objected to this pretty much immediately, because I don’t tend to
think of myself that way, and then stopped, and thought about it for a moment.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Among my favorite anime, we have <b>Tsukihime:
Lunar Legend</b>, <b>Rurouni Kenshin:
Remembrance</b>, <b>Fate/Stay Night</b>, <b>Berserk</b>, <b>Evangelion</b>, <b>X </b>(the TV
series and manga, not the movie), <b>Kara
no Kyokai: the Garden of Sinners</b>, <b>Puella
Magi Madoka Magica</b>, and <b>Revolutionary
Girl Utena</b>. That last one doesn’t
seem to be very dark at first blush, but like most fairy tales pre-Perrault,
there is an undercurrent of something dark and unpleasant running through it,
and it’s not buried nearly as far below the surface as you might like.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
So I guess I like dark, heavy stuff, wherein humanity is pretty
seriously fucked.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
And let’s be clear: Humanity is <i>pretty
badly fucked</i> in <b>Gears of War</b>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
A lot of this isn’t really explained in the main game, because the
characters’ dialogue is written to sound like real (if occasionally cheesy and
often low-brow) <i>talk</i>, which means it
doesn’t often do double-duty as lazy exposition for the player’s benefit. But it doesn’t take much digging into
information about the setting to find out that, prior to the main conflict
(which, as of the main character’s release from prison in the beginning of the
first game, has already been going for some 14 years), there has been an older war
on for some 80 or so years. This war, on
the fictional Earth-like world of Sera, is roughly equivalent to what might
have happened if our own Cold War had gone hot, minus the nuclear weapons. Around the time this conflict (called the
Pendulum Wars) was winding down, a new enemy appeared. Referred to as the Locust (and more often,
derogatorily, as “grubs” due to their pale skin and preference for subterranean
living), they seem bent on the destruction of humankind for immediately
apparent reason. Despite their burly,
muscular appearance and fondness for savagery, they are more intelligent than
they appear, and have the added advantage of their movements being almost
impossible to track.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The Pendulum Wars were already well on their way to turning the world
into the bombed-out, ash-choked ruin it appears to be in the first game in the
series. The Locust really just took the
first steps toward finishing the job.
Between the drain on resources, the destruction of infrastructure, and the
devastation of the environment (shockingly, dropping an entire city into the
ocean has consequences), the survivors of the human-Locust conflict are going
to have a battle for mere survival on their hands when (if) the dust settles. And it becomes apparent, as you go through
the series, that the Locust aren’t just mindless aggressors. Their emergence, and their war on humanity, are
happening not because they simply have it in for humans (though they wouldn’t
be entirely unjustified if that was all it was), but because they’re on the run
from something else that also lives underground, and they don’t think they can
win against it.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
It gets to a point where, contemplating victory, Marcus Fenix asks (not
just rhetorically), what kind of victory is even possible? The world – the idea of civilization – is already
done for. What’s left, in the end?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<i>* * *<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Mentally, I tend to wind up comparing <b>Gears of War </b>to <b>Halo</b>. There are just enough surface similarities
that it almost seems like a valid comparison.
But there are major differences, too, and one of the greatest is in
tone. The difference in tone between <b>Halo</b> and <b>Gears of War</b> is about the same difference in tone between high
fantasy and low fantasy, between <b>Lord of
the Rings </b>and, say, Robert E. Howard’s stories about Conan of Cimmeria and
Kull of Atlantis. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Of course, in itself, that’s a frustrating comparison to make, because the
qualities that define each are largely similar, but set apart by their
context. Like the difference between
erotica and pornography, it’s tempting to simply say “I know it when I see it”
and leave it at that. But it isn’t a
very helpful description for the reader.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
If pressed, I’d probably say that high fantasy is best defined by its
inspiration, which seems often to come from myth and legend, and its overall
tone, which tends toward the optimistic and hopeful, however grim, and it
reflects who we believe (or hope) we are.
Low fantasy, meanwhile, tends to get its inspiration from history, and
tends to be grittier and more cynical, a reflection of who we fear we really
are. <b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
But still, gritty and cynical, there is room for hope. It just helps to remember that hope is not
always a light and happy thing. It can
be grim, and desperate, and shot through with fear. As much as it can be uplifting, it can be a
burden as well, a weight as much as a motivation. Hope can be a sort of duty. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I often find that this kind of hope is the more realistic kind, in that
it allows for a more balanced view of the world. It’s the one I often ascribe to, and I think
that, aside from its solid mechanics, its great graphics (because, if I haven’t
mentioned it yet, all of these games look fantastic, even the first one), and
its surprisingly interesting characters.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
It has a view of hope that resonates with me. </div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-41794056071800383702015-06-18T00:15:00.002-07:002015-06-18T00:28:40.521-07:00The Dangerous Illusion of Choice – Mass Effect 2<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
On my most
recent run through <b>Mass Effect 2</b>,
much like my last run through the first game, I played together with my wife,
and this trip was basically hers. I did
the moving and shooting, because I’m at least nominally good at that, but she
called the shots. One of the many
differences between her play-through and mine is that she plays a female
Shepard (I play a male Shepard, because I am boring and dumb). There’s always a delay of a second or two
while I readjust to seeing her character as Shepard, in my eyes. I’m so used to seeing my own custom Shepard,
even the default face design looks weird and wrong to me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Perhaps
because I’m not the one making the decisions, I get to observe more. It’s like driving while having someone else
navigate. I don’t have to concentrate on
where we’re going or how we’re getting there; I just get to keep the car safely
on the road, and watch the scenery ahead.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
There’s an
idea that if you’re doing some kind of work in multiple installments, you want
to leave room for improvement as you go.
The general rule for sequels is that escalation is key. Bigger, louder, faster, more exciting, more
complex, more entertaining. The easy way
to do this is to hold something back for later efforts. If you do your best work first, it’s hard to
top.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I doubt this
was BioWare’s intent with <b>Mass Effect</b>
– the original game’s a little too much of a mess, in ways that don’t really
seem like they were calculated so much as they were resigned to – but it was
the outcome, nonetheless.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Now, let me
be clear on one point: I love <b>Mass
Effect</b>. The first time I stepped out
onto the surface of some desolate moon without breathable air, looked up and
saw two planets hovering in the sky, I was mesmerized. There’s something about the sensation of
being light years removed from anything familiar that the game manages to
convey so well I can love it easily, despite the mechanics being frankly
embarrassing in how rough and imprecise they are. There’s also the story to consider, alongside
the characters. <b>Mass Effect </b>was, overall, a tremendously positive experience for
me. But starting <b>Mass Effect </b>2 on the heels of the first game, I mean <i>right after</i> having played the first
game, literally stopping only long enough to swap out the discs, really throws
into perspective just what a mess the first game is.</div>
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There’s a
tonal shift between the two games that becomes apparent, if you’re paying
attention, as soon as you load up <b>Mass
Effect 2</b>. It comes in the form of
the title screen.</div>
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The original
<b>Mass Effect</b> starts out with a
serene, hopeful <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV1pPgpcAVw">piece</a>
of music playing over a slowly panning view of Earth. When you go to the main menu, it appears in
shades of cool blue. The in-game menus
are also in various shades of blue. The
color isn’t something that really draws notice to itself, except retroactively,
but blue is the color associated with Paragon-oriented moral choices in the
series. When you have a choice which
requires a certain level of reputation, either Paragon or Renegade, the Paragon
option’s text always appears in blue, and the meter which shows your Paragon
and Renegade levels uses a pale blue color for the Paragon side of the
meter. </div>
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<b>Mass Effect 2</b>, on the other hand, opens
with a title screen showing a brown dwarf star burning angrily in the
background, and an open view onto a fiery inferno that (we eventually learn) is
near the center of the galaxy. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYtj38KQxm4">music</a> is a sort of
lower, darker theme, though still suitably epic, with a touch of desperation to
it. The overall color palette for this
screen is an orange color, and the in-game menus are likewise orange, which is
the color of the Renegade side of the morality meter in the game.</div>
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This isn’t
to say that either game necessarily pushes you in one direction or another, but
I <i>do</i> feel that the overall direction
of each game is indicative of a general outlook, and it’s that outlook that’s
different between games. <b>Mass Effect</b> has a positive, hopeful
outlook. Your character, Commander
Shepard, is appointed by the galaxy’s ruling body, the Council, to bring in a
rogue Spectre (essentially, one of many highly trained and extremely dangerous
special operatives of the galactic government who operate with
limited-to-nonexistent oversight), and in fact you are yourself made a Spectre
in order to do this. This is a first for
humankind, relative newcomers to the larger galactic civilization who are not
always seen in the most favorable light.
Even when you fall short, even when your enemy escapes, even when you
find irrefutable proof that your initial enemy, the rogue Spectre named Saren,
is only a pawn in a much larger and more terrifying conspiracy that has its
roots in events that must have begun to occur literally millions of years ago,
there is still a sense of hope. There is
a sense that you can do this, that with determination and courage and a bit of
luck, you’ll make it in the end.</div>
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<b>Mass Effect 2</b>, right away, changes all
of this. Your character is now, instead,
something of an embarrassment. Much of
the truth behind the danger you managed to divert (and only temporarily, at
that) is swept under the rug. In
fairness, said truth would likely do little more than cause a galaxy-wide
panic. The coming disaster is massive on
a scale for which no real preparations can be made. How can you get ready for a galaxy-wide
extinction event of all spaceflight-capable species? For the majority of the game, even as a
Spectre, you’re operating largely on your own, tracking down an enemy few have
encountered and lived to tell the tale, and which fewer still even believe
exists. Previously, the eyes of the
galaxy were turned to you; you were seen with such hope. Now, you’re something of a pariah, and you’re
moving in seedier circles. It’s far
easier, and more tempting, to take the easy way out, accept the quicker, less
scrupulous answers to complex problems, justifying these darker means with
desperate ends. Should there be any
doubt, do keep in mind that the final mission of the main story is referred to,
in the most matter-of-fact way, as the Suicide Mission. Your survival is not expected – not even,
really, to be hoped for. <i>Success</i>, sure, everybody wants you to
succeed… at least, everybody who doesn’t believe you’re just chasing boogeymen out
in the dark corners of the galaxy. But
survival? It would be great, sure, but
let’s not kid ourselves. </div>
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The changes
seen in <b>Mass Effect 2 </b>go beyond just
the story, of course. Combat has been
tightened and expanded upon. Maneuvering
is more precise and controlled, while at the same time offering more options
for how to navigate the battlefield and deal with enemies. Getting into and out of cover is far easier,
and movement is snappier and more precise, so you’re less likely to get
yourself killed while mashing yourself up against a vertical surface and
waiting those crucial few milliseconds for the game to realize that you’re
leaning on the stick for a <i>reason</i>,
you’d like to take some cover here, maybe, if that’s okay, you know, and not
get shot at quite so much. </div>
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Likewise,
your character’s skill advancement has been simplified. There are fewer skill trees to advance (and
fewer ranks in these), and all of them are pretty much just focused on special
abilities like various ammo powers (a retooling of the various ammo mods you
could – and <i>would</i> – spend God alone
knows how much time swapping around in menus previously, but more on that in a
bit) and combat abilities which let you do things like temporarily increase
your accuracy, rate of fire, or shield strength, as well as boosting your
class-specific special abilities.</div>
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Weapons and
armor have also been changed. There are
far fewer weapons (you’ll typically only have three or four of any given type),
but on the other hand, instead of having only two or three basic models for
each weapon and several different palette swaps for coloring, each variation on
a weapon is visually distinct. The new
weapons you find also aren’t strictly linear upgrades in damage, accuracy, and
rate of fire, but rather offer different approaches. One sniper rifle may be immediately lethal to
all but the toughest enemies, but have a longer reload time which takes you
away from the scope, while another may be less powerful but offer semiautomatic
fire, letting you more easily stay focused on the enemy. </div>
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Armor is
handled much the same way. Instead of
whole new suits of armor (which were basically just three designs and a dozen
or so different color schemes) which are largely just upgrades in various forms
of defense, the armor in <b>Mass Effect 2</b>
is modular. You can swap out different
bits and pieces to focus on how you’d like to orient your defense, or what
armor bonuses you’d prefer, while still keeping to the character’s visual
theme. Though, hey, if you still want to
look like a well-armored circus clown like the first game, you can modify the
color scheme.</div>
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The main
point I’m trying to make here, I suppose, is that in the original <b>Mass Effect</b>, character advancement was
largely vertical. In <b>Mass Effect</b>, the question of “Do I use
this rifle or that rifle?” is largely a matter of balancing the advantages and
drawbacks. One might deal more damage,
but the other handles heat absorption better (weapons in this setting don’t use
conventional ammunition, but instead risk overheating and jamming with extended,
continuous use). But every weapon
ultimately operates the same way. If
you’ve fired one assault rifle, you’ve fired every assault rifle the game has
to offer. The only difference between
any of them lies in how much damage they deal, how closely you have to watch
your heat gauge, and how much you have to compensate for growing shot spread. </div>
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With <b>Mass Effect 2</b>, the physical functions
of your gear will change, so that (for instance) one rifle may feature
continuous, automatic fire, while another offers slower but much more accurate
three-round bursts, while yet another one fires a powerful, single shot with
every pull of the trigger. This changes
how you fight in a much larger way, and therefore how you approach the
game. <b>Mass Effect</b> encouraged you to get better stats and better gear – to
grind, in the grand tradition of role-playing games since time immemorial. The improvements were largely mathematical,
quantitative. <b>Mass Effect 2</b> instead asks a question: “How would you like to play
the game?” and lets you build your character accordingly. The design is less vertical and more
horizontal, the different options more qualitative. Even within the somewhat more rigid
definitions of your chosen character class, you have more options to tailor the
experience to your own preferences than <b>Mass
Effect</b> offered.</div>
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And so this,
from a purely mechanical perspective, already puts the sequel head and
shoulders above its immediate predecessor.</div>
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With <b>Mass Effect 2</b> keeping most of the
fiddly RPG mechanics out of reach, you’re left with more time actually playing
the game. <b>Mass Effect </b>had you spending what probably amounted to actual,
literal hours (in frequent stretches of a few minutes at a time) diving into
menus, switching armor, weapons, and modifications for these (keeping in mind
that, toward the end of the game, each of the four weapons every character
carries will likely have two weapon mod slots and one ammo mod slot, and most
armor will have two mod slots) between each of your half-dozen or so
squadmates, and of course Shepard also.
You’d also spend significant time melting redundant and unwanted
upgrades and equipment into omni-gel, which was a sort of all-purpose material
that you could use to hack various pieces of equipment to overcome certain
challenges and repair the Mako. The Mako,
if you’re curious, is basically a six-wheeled tank that maneuvers with the lightness
and grace of a drunken water buffalo. </div>
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You know,
now that I think about it, I take back what I said about the Warthog in <b>Halo: Combat Evolved</b>. The Warthog handles like a dream in
comparison to the Mako. But I’m going on
a tangent here. I was trying to make a
point, actually, before I got sidetracked by flashbacks to what must be hours
of my life spent fucking around with equipment menus. I’ve played <b>Mass Effect </b>and <b>Mass Effect
2</b> probably five times now, possibly more.
At any rate, enough that it’s getting hard to clearly recall now how
many times it’s been, exactly.</div>
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The point is
that, having obviated the need for the vast majority of the menu-diving
bullshit, <b>Mass Effect 2 </b>is free to
focus on what has been the greatest strengths of the series, which are the
story and the characters. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Let’s get
the bad out of the way first. </div>
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If there’s
one really valid criticism I have against the game, it’s that the story
structure basically makes a strong central narrative impossible.</div>
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Basically,
after you do a couple of initial missions to get the plot kicked off, you’re
presented by your nominal boss, the Illusive Man, with a set of dossiers of
people to recruit for your mission. Some
of these (mainly just the DLC characters, the mercenary Zaeed Massani and the
thief Kasumi Goto, I think) are characters whose services he has purchased
outright. Others, he’s simply looked
into, and believes they’d be assets for your team. You’re invited to go on these recruitment
missions in the order of your choosing, in keeping with one of the central
structural themes of <b>Mass Effect</b> as
a series, which is player choice. The
Illusive Man will forward you additional dossiers as you go, giving you a team
of an even dozen characters, eventually.
Each of your team members will, in addition, have an optional loyalty mission,
which they will confront you with at some point after you recruit them. </div>
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The idea
behind these loyalty missions is that each character has some prominent and
unresolved problem in their past, and during the course of your main mission,
they come across information that could lead to them resolving it. Despite being optional, these side mission
are strongly encouraged. Characters who
are loyal will unlock a new skill to advance, and have a greater chance of
surviving the final mission (some of them will flat-out die without it, no
matter what you do). There is no real
tradeoff for not doing the loyalty mission.
You can conceivably go for the final mission sooner, if you’re in some
kind of hurry (and if you are, why are you playing a <b>Mass Effect </b>game?), but all that will happen is that you’ll get a
large number of your teammates permanently killed. These deaths will actually carry over to <b>Mass Effect 3</b>. </div>
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As you build
up your team, you’ll occasionally get missions that advance the main story, but
there are surprisingly relatively few of these.
The recruitment and loyalty missions (as well as smaller side-missions
you may run across) take up a majority of the game. Because these can be tackled in almost any
order, they can’t really touch on the main plot points, as most of them may be
done before or after major events. So
the overall story, while still highly entertaining, feels a little more
disjointed, and it’s a bit easier to put the game down for stretches of
time. There’s not as much of a driving
sense of need.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The first
time I played through <b>Mass Effect 2</b>,
I hardly noticed this. The second time
also, since I was having so much fun revisiting something I’d loved, and
overturning new little things here and there.
But it becomes apparent on further play-throughs.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Most stories
have a overall sense of rising tension throughout. The story is always moving in a general
upward direction as it progresses. By
contrast, <b>Mass Effect 2 </b>comes to
long<b> </b>plateaus as you play, where the
tension fails to increase, because the overarching story which is the entire
reason we’re there is put on the back burner for a little while.</div>
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<br /></div>
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This is,
perhaps, about the only way in which <b>Mass
Effect 2</b> can be said to come up short in comparison to its
predecessor. The original <b>Mass Effect</b>, in retrospect, has a lot
of problems (samey cut-and-paste side-misisons, loose and sludgey controls and
movement, the awful fucking menu business about which I have at this point
probably said entirely too much), but there was almost always a sense of strong
forward motion. A good number of the
side-missions were short enough to feel like minor distractions, and were
always clearly optional. The major three
missions toward the middle of the game, even though you could tackle them as
you chose, all were tied to the main story in some way or another. Whatever order you chose to do them, they
still all felt like a definite step forward simply by providing you with more
information on the central conflict. By
contrast, the character missions in <b>Mass
Effect 2</b> are more detached from the main focus of the story. They need to be done, yet at the same time,
they don’t push the story forward or upward.
The result is that although the overall game is larger, it feels like it’s
grown wider rather than longer, if that makes any sense at all.</div>
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<br /></div>
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In a game
with less interesting and well-written characters, this would be a serious
problem. Here, though, while these missions
do kind of blur the focus of the main story, they’re still entertaining, and
serve as a way for you to get to know your team. Even the least interesting characters – your
first two human squadmates – still manage not to be boring, and are mainly just
less immediately and aggressively interesting than the other members of your
mainly alien crew.<br />
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But then,
that’s one of the things that I’ve always liked about <b>Mass Effect</b> as a series.
There are so few other games I’ve played where the characters in your
party are characters you can interact with in a meaningful way. In most games, party members are basically exist
to move and act in combat, and to talk during story sequences. As both the player and the main character,
you mainly interact with them by watching them do whatever the game tells them
to do in the story, or by tweaking their abilities and gear for combat effectiveness. <b>Mass
Effect </b>and its sequel give each character a spot on your ship where they
hang out, and you can go talk to them.
Sometimes it’s informative, sometimes they’ll actually give you a
mission to complete (even in the original <b>Mass
Effect</b>, while there weren’t loyalty missions, there were what seemed to be
prototypes for them), and sometimes they’re just fun to listen to. You interact with the characters on a more
personal level, and affect real change in their lives. <b>Mass
Effect 3</b>, when I get to writing about it, will go one better with this, and
have the characters move to different sections of the ship over the course of
the mission and interacting with each other entirely as a background event, for
verisimilitude. </div>
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<br /></div>
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And while
the story of <b>Mass Effect 2</b> may focus
on the characters rather than the plot, and may feel wider than it is long, the
story is still worth every bit of time spent experiencing it.</div>
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<br /></div>
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So, the story
so far…</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Mass Effect</b> saw the Citadel Council
(representatives from the three most powerful races in civilized space: the
asari, the salarians, and the turians) choose Commander Shepard to become the
first human Spectre, and charged him with hunting down the rogue Spectre Saren
Arterius (a turian with no love for humans) and bring him to justice. The crime for which he was meant to be
punished was an attack on a human colony called Eden Prime, where he commanded a
force of geth (a synthetic race of beings who had previously been content to
stick to their own corner of the galaxy for the last two centuries) to capture
a Prothean Beacon (which was subsequently destroyed), then bugged out in
Sovereign, his massive warship.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The
Protheans, for reference, were a race of space-faring beings who went extinct
some fifty thousand years for unknown reasons.
They left behind the Mass Relays, which every other race capable of
space flight uses to navigate the galaxy.
They also left behind the Citadel, a massive space station which, in
their time, served as the seat of their government and the center of their
culture, and serves the current generation of the galaxy’s sentient species in
the same fashion.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Though
vanished, the Protheans did manage to leave behind a small number of
artifacts. The Beacon on Eden Prime is
one such. Like many Prothean devices, it
interfaces directly with the mind of whoever is using it, imparting knowledge
through a series of visions. During
Shepard’s brief encounter, one fact became clear: the Protheans did not
vanish. They were wiped out by a race of
mechanical beings known as Reapers.
Shepard’s visions of the Reapers were, perhaps understandably, dismissed
as fancy by the Council, who saw them as a fairytale of sorts. They believed Saren was using the idea of the
Reapers to control the geth (being likewise synthetic, they looked on the
Reapers as gods), and to distract Shepard’s attention from whatever the real
threat might be. Shepard, however,
remained convinced that the Reapers were a very real and imminent threat.</div>
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<br /></div>
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As Shepard
hunted down Saren through his associates and known business dealings, it
becomes clearer that the Reapers were no mere rumor or myth. Yet
still the question remained: If the Reapers were real, where were they? What did they look like? What did they actually do?</div>
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<br /></div>
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Answers to
some of this were found on the planet Virmire.
There, Saren had a project in the works to cure the genophage. This was a disease that was deliberately
inflicted on the krogan race in order to curb their campaign of violent
expansion across the galaxy. Krogan can
potentially live for over a thousand years (though the lion’s share of them die
by violence well before then), and had been the heroes of the galaxy once, being
technologically uplifted to stave off another violent expansion attempt by the
(now supposedly extinct) insectoid race of rachni. The krogan had seen their expansion as
necessary (due to their high rate of birth) and deserved (for having saved the
galaxy). The genophage was meant to
lower krogan birth rates, thus keeping their population at a lower, yet still sustainable
level, obviating the need for expansion and thus removing the problem. However, the aggression and violence inherent
to krogan nature instead saw their birth rates decline. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Curing the
genophage would have given Saren the immediate support of the krogan, who would
be a powerful weapon in his hands. Thus,
although Shepard might have been in favor of curing the genophage under normal
circumstances (depending on how the player played), the cure in Saren’s hands was
a disaster waiting to happen.</div>
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<br /></div>
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It was while
sabotaging the facility where the cure was being developed that Shepard and
company stumbled across the truth of the Reapers. Saren’s ship Sovereign wasn’t a Reaper-designed
ship, as was first thought. It <i>was</i> a Reaper. What’s more, though it had weapons sufficient
to wipe out fleets of starships, it had a far more sinister and subtle way of
undermining its foes: Indoctrination.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Though the
mechanism was (and remains) poorly understood, the Reapers emit a kind of
signal that seems to be undetectable by any currently known means. But exposure to any Reaper, or to most Reaper
technology, for that matter, has a subtle effect on the mind of the
observer. They will find their wills and
their thoughts slowly but surely bent to the Reaper’s purposes. Where they might once have seen the Reapers
as a menace to be fought tooth and nail, they might instead begin to believe
that outright hostility is the wrong response.
Surely it would be better to study the Reapers first – know thy enemy,
after all. Who knows? Perhaps Reaper technology might be used
against the Reapers... </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Perhaps, as
Saren argued, it would be better to help the Reapers, to prove to them that
organic life has a purpose and a place in the galaxy. Perhaps servitude – even slavery – was
preferable to extinction? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The Reapers
are ancient on a scale difficult to fathom for any mortal mind. The Protheans were not the first race to be
destroyed by them. They were only the
most recent in a very, very long line.
Every fifty thousand years, the Reapers would return to wreak
destruction on whatever races currently have achieved spaceflight technology. No reason was, initially, given for
this. They simply do. More horrifying still, the Citadel and the
Mass Relays were not the invention of the Protheans, but rather the work of the
Reapers themselves. By using the Mass
Relays, the organic races’ technology would evolve along lines of the Reapers’
choosing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Perhaps as a
result of their machine intellect, the Reapers are a cold, logical race. Though they should easily be able to
overpower any fleet the current generation of space-faring races can bring
against them, they do not take chances.
Working through proxies such as Saren, Sovereign had determined that the
time was right to go to the Citadel, and use it for its true purpose, which was
to allow the rest of the Reapers into the galaxy at large (normally, they rest
outside the galaxy, waiting for the time to return and wreak havoc). In addition to beheading the galactic
government in a single blow, this would give them access to data regarding
homeworld and colony locations, population information, military strength and
resources, and other information of incalculable strategic importance. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
But this
time, the usual pattern did not hold.
While Sovereign was simultaneously trying to access the necessary
protocols within the Citadel and also to fight off Shepard’s efforts to stop
this (by possessing the corpse of the recently slain Saren), Shepard managed to
destroy Saren. The shock of it
momentarily distracted and disoriented Sovereign. In this moment of confusion, several fleets came
together to destroy it. The galaxy was
saved.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
For a time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Mass Effect 2</b> opens with Shepard’s
ship, the Normandy, being attacked by a mysterious race of beings known as the
Collectors. Many of the crew manage to
escape.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Shepard does
not. Left to float in the void of space,
Shepard’s corpse ultimately falls into the hands of an organization called
Cerberus. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Cerberus are
not nice people. Chances are, if you
played <b>Mass Effect</b>, you encountered
them. You <i>might</i> not have (I didn’t, my first time through, because I was
apparently some kind of idiot), but if you did, you got a pretty good idea that
they were basically Mad Science, Inc. In
<b>Mass Effect 2</b>, it becomes apparent
they they’re even worse. The problem is,
in part, one of semantics. Cerberus, as
an organization, tends to view itself as just aggressively pro-human, and very
intensely focused on their efforts. The
rest of the galaxy sees them mainly as anti-alien terrorists. While it’s not known what sort of resources
and revenues they have, they operate in cells, each one largely unaware of the
others, and each one focused around a single project. Perhaps Cerberus aren’t <i>quite</i> terrorists, but as the saying goes: if it walks like a duck,
looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, well…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Currently,
Cerberus are investigating the wholesale disappearance of human colonies on the
fringes of civilized space. None of the
usual anti-human agitators, such as the batarians, seem to be responsible. The Illusive Man, the head of Cerberus,
suspects the Collectors. Worse, the
Illusive Man believes the Collectors are working with the Reapers in some
way. The problem is, much like said
Reapers, few people have even heard of the Collectors, much less believe in
them. And Cerberus is as radical as it
gets; if they said the sky was blue, no one would take them at face value.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
For the
Illusive Man, to whom money is no object, the answer is simple: recreate the
fastest and most powerful ship in the human Alliance fleet (the Normandy),
rebuild the greatest fighter in living memory (Commander Shepard), and then,
like a gun, point them at the Collectors and pull the trigger.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The cells
devoted to these two tasks seem to have basically the same guiding philosophy:
bigger, better, stronger, faster. The
Normandy SR-2 is about twice the size of its predecessor, and while Shepard is
no bigger, neither is the character entirely organic any longer. A wealth of cybernetic and other enhancements
are implanted into Shepard’s body, so that after revival, they will be a far
more powerful fighter than ever before.
After sending Shepard to witness the aftermath of a Collector attack
firsthand, the Illusive Man then issues a new task: Assemble a team of the
best, toughest, craziest motherfuckers the galaxy has to offer, regardless of
species, and take the fight to the Collectors. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The team
this time is different. <b>Mass Effect </b>gave us fairly noble, clean
characters. Upstanding soldiers, a naïve
young scientist, a young traveler seeking a way to prove herself to her people,
a cowboy cop, and a mercenary. Urdnot Wrex,
the mercenary (and a krogan), was perhaps the most morally grey, and even he
was mainly just pragmatic in his dealings with his enemies. <b>Mass
Effect 2</b> gives us two Cerberus operatives (one more gung-ho about her employer
than the other, but both still fairly faithful), a mercenary, a thief, an
assassin looking to redeem himself, a convicted felon dangerous enough to be
held in cryonic storage, a vigilante operating in a hive of scum and villainy
that would put Mos Eisley to shame, and several more. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The trouble
is, being an ally-by-circumstance with Cerberus, Shepard doesn’t have the luxury
of old contacts and resources, though there are still a handful of friends from
before who are willing to lend a helping hand.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
It’s not
unusual for a role-playing game to let you create a unique face for your
character, and even let you choose the broad strokes of their background. It <i>is</i>
a little unusual, though, for a game to make that background come up in the
story (albeit in minor ways). It’s more
unusual still for the game to let you make choices about how you’ll handle
situations.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Like with the
original <b>Mass Effect</b>, the choices
are to some extent illusory. The
synopsis I provided above for the first game is a good example of this. It takes into account none of the choices
(some even quite major) that the game offers – though perhaps “requires” would
be a better word. Most situations of
note offer a choice between doing things the Paragon way (diplomatic,
cooperative, idealistic, forgiving) or the Renegade way (forceful, unilateral, cynical,
vindictive). The outcomes of every
encounter, every choice, are mainly the same.
The difference is in the perspective, the feeling of each
encounter. The events are the same, but
you have enough affect on them to take ownership of them. What this means is that you take a great deal
of ownership of your character, as well.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
More so than
the previous game, there are many ways the ending can play out. While there’s only ever the one end, your
choices leading up to it affect who will live and who will die. Some of these choices are obvious (or will
be, in retrospect), though many are not.
You can have an ending where everybody survives, if you play your cards
right. Or you can get some of your
people killed. You can get all of them
killed. You can even get <i>yourself</i> killed (though this ending will
not, naturally, carry over to the sequel), though to make mistakes for that is
basically a willful act of stupidity.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
What I love
about <b>Mass Effect 2</b>, and <b>Mass Effect </b>as a series, is the way
these choices play out. I like a fixed
narrative. I feel that it’s stronger
than the more open-ended plot of a game like, say, <b>The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim</b>.
It’s fun to play around in a game that gives you complete freedom, but
by the same token, there is, sometimes, a loss of meaning. There is a balance to be struck. Most games offer no real choice despite their
interactivity; most games offer you about as many choices as a book. You can continue playing, or you can stop,
and those are your options. A few go to
the other extreme, but in them your actions seem to lack a certain weight and
purpose in comparison.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Mass Effect </b>is a balancing act. You can debate whether or not it’s a <i>good </i>balancing act (personally, I feel
that it is), but that’s somewhat aside from my point. Earlier, I mentioned that <b>Mass Effect 2</b>’s improvements over its
predecessor were more horizontal than vertical, more qualitative than
quantitative. That analogy, or some
version of it, holds here as well, I think.
A game like <b>Skyrim</b> offers
quantitative choices, for the most part.
<b>Mass Effect 2</b>’s are more
qualitative. You can argue that the
morality system is clunky and obvious, and, sure, that argument has merit. I’d even probably agree with it. But the fact that it <i>does</i> deal with the morality of choices, rather than the
consequences of them; the fact that it deals with the <i>means</i> so much more than the <i>ends</i>
when it comes to those choices, is exactly what fascinates me about them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
What it
comes down to is that I like to be the hero.
And being the hero is not about skill or strength or cleverness. Those things, all of them, are simply tools. What separates a hero from a villain from a
bystander is the act of making a choice, whatever the circumstances, whatever
the outcome, and to be willing to be measured by that choice.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
To be a hero
is to choose.</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-1532500743714625402015-05-28T22:49:00.002-07:002015-06-15T23:01:06.100-07:00Behind the Gun – Halo: Combat Evolved<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
When Microsoft first got into the console video game business, my first
feeling was one of utter hostility. At
the time, I had trouble articulating it.
Looking back, I know exactly why it was.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Change.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
From time immemorial, console video gaming had pretty much been a
Japanese affair, barring some notable exceptions. The blockbuster titles and longest-running
series all seemed, in most cases, to originate from Japan. As someone who was interested in anime (and
Japanese culture generally, but let’s be honest here: mostly just anime), and
had all the furious devotion of the relatively newly converted, I was perfectly
fine with this. Preferred it, really, if
we’re being completely honest. There
were a few odd Western-developed games I liked (the <b>Legacy of Kain</b> series for one, and of course most of the PC games I
liked had been developed in the West), but when it came to console games, all
the best stuff came out of Japan, by and large.
At least, that was the case so far as I was concerned.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I had a life-long Windows user’s healthy disdain and distrust for
Microsoft. The last thing on Earth I
wanted was them shitting up my hobby with their stupid oversized black box,
which you could probably use to lay the foundations of the house, or to kill a
person if you dropped it on them from a height of five feet or greater. It wasn’t until they got the exclusive rights
to <b>Panzer Dragoon Orta</b> that I felt
anything about the machine beyond a sort of frigid, haughty dislike.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Halo</b>’s hero, Master Chief
Petty Officer John-117, and the game (later an entire franchise) he starred in<b> </b>by extension, put a face on all of
that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I hated <b>Halo</b>, hated the very
idea of it. Fucking <i>hated</i> it, sight-unseen.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Considering that I rarely go more than a few weeks without playing at
least a few hours of one of the games in the series, to relax with something fun
and familiar, this is deeply ironic.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I suppose all I can really say in my own defense is that I still had a
deal of growing up to do.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
At some point around the time when <b>Halo</b>
first came out, or when it was imminent, I read an article in a game magazine
which posited that <b>Halo</b> would fail
to become the face of the Xbox because its hero, the Master Chief, was a
faceless cipher. The magazine in
question was probably Game Informer, because I was subscribed to it at the
time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The article went on to say that previous console makers all had strong
mascots, which worked to sort of symbolize the consoles. Nintendo had the rotund and friendly plumber
Mario, with his whimsical adventures in the mushroom kingdom. Sega had Sonic the Hedgehog, whose speed and
attitude helped to communicate the more “grown up” (this term should, here, be
applied very loosely) nature of Sega’s first real success, the 16-bit
Genesis. Sony kinda-sorta had Crash
Bandicoot, though having never played any of the Crash Bandicoot games, I
couldn’t really tell you how he represented the PlayStation. The idea, though, was that all of these
characters had a distinctive look and identity, a personality which you could
glean from even a brief glance. The
Master Chief was armored from head to toe, and his face was covered by the polarized,
opaque visor of his helmet. His design
was comparatively <i>real</i> in a way that
Mario and Sonic and Crash Bandicoot had never been, and were never designed to
be. The article argued that this ran
counter to the whole point of a mascot.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I sometimes think this was the whole point, actually. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Halo </b>came out in a time when
the need of console makers for mascot characters was dying. Nintendo still had Mario, but in this, as in
so much else, they were and are unique.
Sega’s mascot was now appearing on whatever system would host his games,
and it’s difficult to express to anyone who wasn’t really around during the
16-bit era the feeling of strangeness you got at seeing Sonic on a Nintendo
system. Strange days. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Sony, meanwhile, had actually never had a proper mascot in Crash
Bandicoot, no matter what the Game Informer article said. He’s sometimes thought of that way, I guess, but
the first problem with this assertion is that he wasn’t actually owned by Sony. He was (and remains, I suppose) the
intellectual property of a third-party developer called Naughty Dog. He did a brief stint as a sort of spokes-creature
for Sony during the PS1 era, but faded from prominence during the PS2 era, and
is now pretty much a non-entity.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
This was also the era when the notion of “AAA” games began to pick up
steam. Games were becoming
ubiquitous. Even before Nintendo went
after the Blue Ocean, it was becoming increasingly difficult to find a person
who didn’t own some sort of gaming console.
The consoles were becoming powerful enough to display some serious
spectacle, and we no longer really needed mascots to represent them any more.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Ironically, in his way, the Master Chief <i>did </i>sort of become representative of Microsoft’s Xbox, then. Or more accurately, be was the face of what
the Xbox came to represent, which was the ascendance of Western console game
design.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Hear me out on this.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Long, long ago, the vast majority of popular, “important” video games –what
we might (if we were feeling especially pretentious) call the “Canon of
Interactive Entertainment Software” – originated in Japan. Atari ruled the roost for a while, it’s true,
but they fumbled badly in 1983, and they very nearly took the U.S. gaming
market with them. While most publishers
were shaking their heads over what they likely imagined to be a high-tech fad,
and selling all their Atari merchandise at fire sale prices meanwhile, Nintendo
snuck in and first revived, then conquered the market. They did this by redesigning their console to
look less like a video game console than a regular home entertainment appliance
(like, say, a VCR); by positioning the product as the “Nintendo Entertainment
System” in all their marketing, rather than as the video game console it
actually (and quite obviously) was; and they did some hardcore, stone-cold,
frankly ruthless <i>business</i>, certain
tactics of which were later ruled illegal.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Look back on the 8-bit era and think of the classics. The ones that practically everyone played,
the ones that are on all the retro-gaming T-shirts you can buy at Hot Topic and
elsewhere. <b>Super Mario Bros.</b>, <b>The
Legend of Zelda</b>, <b>Metroid</b>, <b>Final Fantasy</b>, <b>Contra</b>, <b>Castlevania</b>, <b>Mega Man</b>, <b>Ninja Gaiden</b>, and the list goes on and on. Even games that would seem to be American
were sometimes Japanese. <b>Tecmo Super Bowl</b>, for instance. It was developed by… well, by Tecmo. <i>They’re</i>
a Japanese developer, yet here they were making a game about football. American football, now. This is a sport which has very little
traction (read: <i>no </i>traction) in
Japan.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
There were console games developed by Westerners, of course. <b>Tetris</b>,
for instance. But these were by far the
minority of games. Western developers
(both American and European) dominated the PC scene, at least <i>in</i> the West. But what there was to be had on consoles –
good, bad, and otherwise – largely came out of Japan.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
This state of affairs continued on into the 16-bit generation and into
the 32-bit era as well. There were
always exceptions, but there in 2001, at the turning point, was <b>Halo</b>.
A true several-million-selling blockbuster, made by a Western developer
and released exclusively on a Western-built console system. I’m not saying that <b>Halo</b> did it all, really, but it sold systems. Its sequel sold more systems, and further
managed to sell the idea of online play on consoles (the Sega Dreamcast tried
to do this, but was in this, as in so much else, a victim of bad timing, bad
circumstances, and a long history of Sega’s bad decisions). Even if the original Xbox (fun fact: I wanted
to type “Xbox 1” to distinguish it as the first Xbox, but Microsoft has made
everything about the Xbox, even talking about the fucking thing with any real
clarity, difficult now) never made Microsoft a dime all in all, it got their
foot in the door for the 360. <b>Halo </b>might not have been directly
responsible for that, but it certainly helped, and quite possibly made the
difference, in the long run.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
But enough about business and context.
We’re here to talk about a game, after all. Let’s do that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
First-person shooters on console systems had always, prior to this,
been sort of compromised. The typical
control setup for a first-person shooter on a PC involves using the keyboard to
move, and the mouse to aim and shoot.
Console controllers never really have been able to match this level of
precision, for reasons I’m not going to get into here. The bottom line is that with a notable few
exceptions (<b>Goldeneye</b> on the
Nintendo 64 comes to mind), there weren’t a lot of first-person shooters on
consoles, and most of the ones there were, weren’t very good compared to their
PC counterparts, where the genre was dominant, and had been since the days of <b>Doom</b>.
Microsoft was perhaps taking a risk, making an FPS their flagship title
on their new system. But then, <b>Halo </b>wasn’t just any FPS. In fact, when development first began, it
wasn’t any kind of FPS at all.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
When development on the game <i>first
</i> began, it was under different
codenames at various points: first <b>Monkey
Nuts</b>, and later <b>Blam!</b> It was meant to be a sci-fi themed real-time
strategy game, and it was going to be released on both PCs as well as
Macintosh. Bungie, the developers, had been
primarily a Mac-oriented company. Game
journalists at the time, under non-disclosure agreements, seemed to be in
agreement that what they had seen of the game so far was nothing short of
amazing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
At some point (and I am struggling mightily to recall where I read
this; you’ll have to take my word for it that I have done so, somewhere, at
some point, and am not just making all of this up), the game changed. It was redesigned as a third-person
squad-based shooter, heavily focused around online multiplayer. The idea was that you would log onto the game
with teams of friends and fight each other over large, sprawling arenas and
battlefields. Footage of the game in
this stage of development looks familiar, if a bit more rudimentary than the
finished product. Later still, this
design idea was scrapped in favor of a first-person shooter. I’ve never really known why, beyond
theorizing that perhaps Bungie just had more experience with that genre, having
cut their teeth on <b>Pathways Into
Darkness</b> and made a name for themselves with the critically acclaimed and commercially
successful <b>Marathon</b> trilogy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Along the way, in 2000, they got acquired by Microsoft, news which no
doubt came as a kind of betrayal to their largely Mac-owning fanbase. Bungie still promised that the game would see
PC and Mac release, but still.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
In November of 2001, the game came out as a launch title for the
original Xbox, under its full title of <b>Halo:
Combat Evolved</b>. The “Combat Evolved”
bit was apparently suggested by a Microsoft executive because “Halo”, all by
itself, didn’t connote the necessary intensity, or perhaps even the fact that
this was a game about combat. Never mind
the large gentleman in green armor wielding a machine gun on the cover. Clearly, no one would understand. Online play for <b>Halo</b> was scrapped, as Microsoft was unable to roll out its planned
Xbox Live service with the system itself.
Instead, <b>Halo</b> supported what
we now call “couch co-op” either by way of split-screen view or, for the
extravagant, networking several Xboxes and TVs together to play online.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
This gave the game a perhaps unexpected amount of success (and
therefore sales) in college dorms and fraternities, where large groups of young
people could haul the obscenely large system and their TVs around to someone
else’s place with a minimum of real travel.
And since the game was designed not just with consoles in mind, but (as
of the most recent revamping of the project) with consoles <i>exclusively</i> in mind, it played well on consoles, which made it
accessible, which led to still more sales, ultimately.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Damn it, I’m talking about business again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The reason it’s important to understand the sort of higgledy-piggledy
development of <b>Halo: Combat Evolved</b>
is because this helps to understand why it’s so unique even within the auspices
of its own series. The series groundwork
is still all there, of course. You can
play <b>Halo 3</b> – really, you can play <b>Halo 4</b>, even – and feel the underlying
DNA of the series, the mechanical core which has defined it since its
beginning, which has remained unchanged.
You can play a lot of other FPS titles which have cribbed shamelessly
from <b>Halo</b> and feel it. But <b>Halo:
Combat Evolved</b> is still a very different beast, and it’s because of all
those changes it went through on the way to becoming what it became.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
What you notice, early on in <b>Halo</b>,
is that it’s a game of uncertain goals and direction, and of places wherein you
get lost. This isn’t because it’s a
maze, but rather because it’s the exact opposite of a maze. Many of the spaces you play in are huge, wide-open
environments without any clear sense of exactly where you’re supposed to go
next. If you wait around long enough,
demonstrating your helplessness, the game will throw you a bone and set up a
marker for you to run or drive toward, but mostly, it just leaves you to find a
path.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
This is unusual today, and it was unusual then. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Older FPSes like <b>Wolfenstein 3D </b>or
<b>Doom</b>, or even <b>Quake</b>, are structured like mazes for the most part. Each discrete level bore little connection to
the ones that came before or after it.
It’s usually a labyrinth of tunnels, doors, a few more open areas, and
the occasional locked door, for which you typically need to go find a key. But the total playing field you might have
access to is relatively small, and there are all sorts of landmarks to help you
keep a good sense of where you are in the grand scheme of things.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
In the middle and end of the 1990s, FPSes were undergoing a shift. Games like <b>Unreal</b> and <b>Half-Life </b>featured
a more narrative-driven experience. The
story wasn’t just a few quick paragraphs in the manual and a few lines of text
you got at the end of the game, but something that was happening all around you
while you played. The whole structure of
discrete and vaguely connected levels was thrown out the window. The game was typically divided into chunks
for the purposes of handling data, but the way it was presented was effectively
as a non-stop journey from start to finish, with natural transitions from one
area to the next which helped to more effectively convey a narrative, or even
just a <i>sense</i> of narrative. Game environments became less maze-like (and
abstract) and more linear and realistic.
The use of terrain and more tactical maneuvers became a greater concern
than simple navigation, and enemies were made smarter (usually) as a
result. The player was, at all times,
being funneled in a certain direction.
The cleverer games were just set up in such a way that the player rarely
realized just how few options he or she might have for travel. You just went where you could, and if the
game was well built, it never really occurred to you to wonder why you couldn’t
go somewhere else.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Halo</b> existed, then, in open
defiance of this trend. It’s probably a
mistake to attribute this wholly to any intentional design, especially
considering that Bungie abandoned this design in its immediate sequel. This openness is instead more likely a result
of the game’s development. The huge
battlefields and arenas originally envisioned for the real-time strategy game
and team-oriented first-person shooter were carried over into the final product
probably as a matter of simple practicality.
If you’re redesigning your game twice during development, you’re going
to want to save some time by reusing as many assets as possible. When your project has been appropriated to
coincide with the launch of a new piece of high-profile hardware, and you now have
a much firmer deadline, you’ll re-use anything and everything you conceivably
can.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The moment-to-moment mechanics of <b>Halo
</b>were quite different from most other games.
I’m not sure how much of this was a deliberate choice Bungie made early
in development, and how much of this was Bungie attempting to scale back the
usual FPS design to something that would “fit” on a console.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
At the core of the experience, so far as combat goes, is <b>Halo</b>’s “Golden Triangle” of guns, grenades,
and melee attacks. Let me explain a bit.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Prior to this, the usual approach in an FPS was to make the character a
veritable walking armory. You would
typically have over half a dozen weapons, including grenades, rocket launchers,
machine guns, shotguns, pistols, weapons more unique to the game, and usually a
dedicated melee weapon for up-close hand-to-hand attacks. Each weapon was typically bound to a number
key on the keyboard, so switching back and forth in your armory was relatively
easy, but still somewhat deliberate.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
This was a problem on consoles, what with lacking number keys, and
having far too many of the buttons on the controller devoted to the more
immediate and urgent actions of running, jumping, crouching, shooting, and
whatnot. The usual solution was to have
you just cycle through your weapons, but this was a cumbersome process that only
became more so as your armory expanded throughout the game.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The “Golden Triangle” solution was ingenious, all the more so because
it was also fairly realistic.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Firstly, the player can carry only two guns at once. You can swap out any gun you’re carrying with
any other gun you find lying around, but you can only have two on your person
at a time. This means there is no
lengthy cycling through weapons. Just a
simple button press switches the weapon you’re currently using with the one you
have in reserve. Secondly, grenades are
given a dedicated button, so that you don’t have to select them in lieu of
other weapons. This made using them much
easier, and therefore more practical and effective. Third, there is no specific weapon designated
for melee attacks, but rather a button assigned to execute a melee attack with
whatever weapon is currently equipped.
Typically, this takes the form of a sharp strike with the stock of the
weapon. Unlike a lot of prior games,
melee attacks are powerful (if risky, given the close range), and can be fatal
when executed from behind. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
As a result, even at its most frantic, you can always keep up with the
pace of a given fight. And there are
never moments where you might, say, cycle past the weapon you actually meant to
use. Your entire repertoire of tactical
options is right there at your fingertips, never more than a single
button-press away.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Halo</b> is also unique (or was,
for its time) in the way it allows you to use vehicles. Nearly every enemy and friendly vehicle you
see in the game, you can and will get to drive at some point. The game seamlessly transitions between the
two, and driving these vehicles is as easy as maneuvering your character. The lone exception to this is the Warthog, a
sort of futuristic Humvee which was designed by someone who has no real idea
how loud and cramped the interior of a Humvee (at least, a military Humvee)
actually is.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
You’ll drift-race your Warthog all over the place, not because it’s fun
(though it kind of is), or because it looks cool (though it definitely does),
but simply because the vehicle’s maneuvering is so piss-poor that it is
literally impossible to take a sharp turn at any kind of speed without the
ass-end of the vehicle trying to outrace its front. And as frustrating as it all is – as tempting
as it might be to hop into the gunner’s spot for a change – you <i>will</i> be the one doing the driving,
because the alternative is to let the game’s AI-controlled Marines drive, and
if you’re seriously going to do <i>that</i>,
you might as well just jump off a cliff and get it over with. The non-player characters uniformly drive as
if they have both a lead foot and a lobotomy, and even at your most new and raw,
you will be better than any of them. The
Warthog is easy to drive, but takes considerable practice to drive <i>well</i>.
Or at any rate, that’s been my experience.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Having played the newer games in the series (more recently and more often), it’s interesting to look back as I play through the original again, and see what’s changed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The original <b>Halo</b>, in
addition to the occasional wide-open field lacking in clear goals, also had an unfortunate
tendency toward copy-and-paste level design.
It occasionally got to a point where I would get lost, not because the
environment was terribly complicated, but because I’d get turned around in a
firefight, and take off down a hallway in the wrong direction without realizing
it for some time because everything looked so repetitive. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
This is helped somewhat by playing the anniversary edition of <b>Halo: Combat Evolved</b>, which came out in
2011 (and which is also included with the somewhat disastrous <b>Master Chief Collection </b>for the Xbox
One). The upgrade to HD and the added
detail in textures, polygon count, and lighting lend a lot more specificity to the
environments.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
It’s also odd watching the melee attacks being performed. Later games in the series seem to have these
attacks execute with greater speed and a sense of sharper motion. By contrast, the Master Chief’s melee attacks
in the original <b>Halo</b> seem to be
almost leisurely; they lack the needed sense of sharp force that makes them
feel both fast and effective.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
On the other hand, there’s a lot that has remained basically the
same. Weapons and gear have a different
sound, look, and feel between the UNSC and Covenant factions. Many of them work differently, with different
benefits and drawbacks, and therefore require different strategies. And, because you generally have to take
whatever you can find, it behooves you to familiarize yourself with everything.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Enemy behaviors are also a nice touch.
Enemy Grunts, for instance, will attack in groups when they have a
leader (usually an Elite) present, but if the leader is killed, they tend to
panic and scatter, though some will instead prime grenades and make a suicide
rush at you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
This is the underlying DNA I mentioned previously, the thing that’s
still quite present in the series, even as the developers add to it. </div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I’ve spend a lot of time talking about the development and mechanics
and impact of <b>Halo</b>, but none of this
is really what drew me to the game despite my initial (and poorly reasoned)
dislike in the first place.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
If it hadn’t become such a phenomenon, honestly, I probably would never
have gotten interested. But it was hard
to avoid. I would go to game stores, or
places like Best Buy, and it was always there on the shelf, or else there would
be posters up and cardboard displays. I
read good things about it from reviewers whose opinions I trusted. I would even see merchandise for it on sale
at Barnes and Noble. It’s not quite at
the level of, say, <b>Star Wars</b> when it
comes to ancillary merchandise, but it’s something like that. It has an expanded universe of novels and
comic books which tell stories taking place before, after, and between the
games, fleshing out the mythology. There
are toys, there are Mega Bloks sets, there’s a <b>Halo</b>-themed version of Risk.
You can buy the soundtrack albums.
There are movies, though nothing that’s yet seen release in theaters. There’s even an anime.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me, and I started reading
about the games and the story they told.
And I got interested, and thought, “Man, it’s a shame that this really
great-sounding stuff is bound up in these games I hate.” And then it occurred to me that I was being really
stupid and pig-headed. If it all sounded
so interesting, why <i>didn’t</i> I give it
a shot? By the time this happened, you
could buy the first two games on the original Xbox for about ten dollars
apiece. The absolute worst thing that
would happen was I’d lose twenty bucks on an experiment, and God knows I’d spent
more money than that before with less information to go on.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
So what’s to like?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I like a grim story that still has a thin sense of hope to it,
something with noble sacrifices and hard decisions. And I like a big, epic story in a well-built
world, with a sense of secrecy and mystery, and huge events that seem to carry
you off and sweep you along with them.
And <b>Halo</b> has that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
We start off in the 26<sup>th</sup> century, where humankind has a
civilization spanning many planets.
However, we have recently been discovered by a theocratic alliance of
alien races known as the Covenant.
According to the Covenant’s religion, humanity is an affront to their
gods, and must be destroyed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The “gods” the Covenant worship are a race of beings known to humans as
the Forerunners, who had a galaxy-wide civilization and achieved an
unparalleled level of technological sophistication, and who disappeared a
hundred thousand years ago. No one knows
why. The Covenant believe that they
departed on a Great Journey, transcending physical existence . </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
It isn’t made explicitly clear in the first <b>Halo</b>, but it becomes so throughout the original trilogy. If there was ever any doubt, <b>Halo 3: ODST</b> will go on to spell it out
in terribly clear terms in its opening text crawl: “We are losing”. The Covenant probably outnumber humankind;
they <i>definitely</i> outclass us in
technology, having reverse-engineered much of theirs from Forerunner
relics. Even if they don’t really
understand a lot of it, they have it, and they know how to use it to devastating
effect. Among other things, they are
capable of turning the surface of a planet to glass.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
So the story of <b>Halo</b> opens with
the United Nations Space Command vessel Pillar of Autumn escaping from a
Covenant attack on the planet of Reach, by way of a supposedly blind slipspace
jump (later developments in the series will suggest this arrival point was selected
based on much more than chance), and coming across an artificial ring-world
orbiting a planet. The interior of this
ring structure has a natural environment consisting of hills, valleys, forests,
lakes, and oceans, as well as breathable atmosphere. It appears to be of Forerunner origin.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Before the crew of the Pillar of Autumn can do much more than stare at
it in awe, they find themselves under attack by the Covenant, who have followed
them here. As part of the Pillar’s battle preparations,
the ship’s captain, Jacob Keyes, has Master Chief Petty Officer John-117
unthawed from cryosleep.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The Master Chief is among the few remaining Spartans. Identified as being genetically predisposed
toward all the skills of war, he was taken as a child and educated solely for
this purpose. Chemically and
cybernetically modified, outfitted with a suit of powered armor, he stands <i>literally</i> head and shoulders above the
average soldier in the UNSC. Faster,
stronger, with quicker reflexes and better endurance than most, Spartans are
nearly the only humans who can go toe-to-toe with the more physically imposing
races of the Covenant in a fight.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Initially, the Master Chief is given the task of escaping from the
Pillar of Autumn to the ring-world, which the covenant call “Halo”, and taking
the ship’s AI Cortana with him. Given
all she knows about UNSC capabilities and important locations, it is imperative
that she remain out of Covenant hands.
Her sarcasm and sense of humor serve as a counterpoint to the Master
Chief’s near-complete silence and stoic professionalism.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
As the Master Chief and Cortana aid in and help organize the guerilla
war the UNSC winds up fighting on the Halo ring-world, they become aware that
the Covenant believe there is an ancient Forerunner weapon on this
installation, and also a way for them to follow their gods on their Great
Journey.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
This is technically true, in the most horrible way possible.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Near (or just after) the middle of the game, the Master Chief and
Cortana learn the horrifying truth that, among its other functions, the Halo
installation is a quarantine facility, and is holding samples of a parasitic
organism known as the Flood. In their
blind zealotry, the Covenant unleash it, and it quickly begins to infect both
Covenant and UNSC troops alike. The
Flood consumes biomass and repurposes it,
but these are no mere shambling zombies.
Infected Flood forms are faster and hit harder than any uninfected
creature, and they typically pick up some skills (such as, unfortunately,
marksmanship) from their hosts. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
As the outbreak begins, the Master Chief is confronted by a Forerunner
AI named 343 Guilty Spark, who was assigned to oversee this installation. He explains to the Chief that there is a way
to stop the Flood, but it requires a human to do this, as humans are evidently
the chosen successors to the Forerunners.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
But Cortana, learning the full purpose of the Halo installation, stops
the Master Chief before he can activate this countermeasure against the
Flood. The Flood, she explains, require
sentient life to feed on and to grow, merging the infected biomass into ever
more powerful and intelligent forms.
Each soldier who falls to the Flood then <i>becomes</i> part of the Flood; every troop lost is one the Flood
gains. The Forerunners came into contact
with the Flood, some hundred thousand years ago, but this was not in itself what
destroyed them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The truth is that the Halo installation, contrary to the Covenant’s
garbled understanding, does not house a weapon.
It <i>is</i> a weapon. More accurately, it is one of seven such
weapons. When activated, it will fire a
pulse that will, in concert with the other six Halo installations, destroy all
sentient life in the galaxy, thus starving the Flood to death. The Forerunners were able to preserve uninfected
samples of most of the sentient races they knew about, but were unable to save
themselves. And so they died, to stop
the Flood, of a self-inflicted genocide.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The hows and whys of the Forerunners’ apparent inability to save
themselves; other measures that did not work (if they were tried); the
designation of humankind as Reclaimers, heirs to the Forerunner legacy; and the
preservation of other species, are not answered here. <b>Halo</b>
simply presents these things as facts. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
A lot of the draw, for me, before and beyond the actual narrative, is
the <i>feeling</i> of it. There is a sense of the far future mingling
with the ancient past, a deadly secret and a steadily mounting sense of
mystery. You experience it when you
first land on the Halo ring, in what I tend to think of as the first real establishing
moment of both <b>Halo</b> the game and <b>Halo</b> the franchise. You step out of the escape pod on a grassy
rise. You look off into the horizon, and
instead of seeing it drop off into the distance, it rises <i>up</i>, arcing overhead how many thousands of miles beyond, and coming
back down to become the horizon again on the other side. As you look at it, you can see water and
landmasses all along the inside of it. A
massive gas giant looms in the near distance, and a sun farther off. The environment is natural-looking, but
punctuated by the stark architecture of Forerunner structures which rise out of
the landscape. The effect is ultimately alien.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Perhaps wisely, Bungie (when they were still making the games) opted
never to explain much of this. I’ve
probably said it before, but sometimes, it’s better to wonder than to know. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i>This</i> is <b>Halo</b>, for me. This is what
drew me. This mingled sensation of
strangeness and wonder, grim despair and hope, a salvation dearly bought, a
victory barely won, and the sense of ancient secrets at long last uncovered.</div>
</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-21594810804167325792015-05-21T00:07:00.003-07:002015-05-21T00:07:31.474-07:00Rise, and Escape – Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I’ve written about this game before, but my wife requested that I write
about it again. I’m sure I’ll probably
wind up saying a lot of the same things I said on the first go-‘round, but who
knows?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Well, here’s something I didn’t say last time: When I first introduced
my wife to <b>Breath of Fire: Dragon
Quarter</b>, she got really into it. <i>Really</i> into it. Given her relative inexperience with Japanese
role-playing games, this was surprising to me.
But as she pointed out, the things that made it seem out of the ordinary
to me meant little to her. She didn’t
have much “ordinary” to compare it against.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Unfortunately, watching her play it made me want to play it also. Part of this is the natural (and deeply
unfortunate) backseat-driving instinct I have whenever I’m watching someone do
something that I’m familiar with, but feel they could be doing better, and in
fact, if they’d just let me have the controller for a few minutes, I could show
them exactly how… But part of it was also
just that seeing the game played really made me want to be playing it
myself. This presented a problem, what with
us having only the one copy. It led to
arguments. Not <i>real </i>arguments, but not exactly cute arguments, either. We did, at the time, have both a working
PlayStation2 and a backward-compatible PlaySation3, so it was only owning just
the one copy of the game that was really a problem. So the solution was pretty simple.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
That’s how good it<b> </b>is. <b>Dragon
Quarter</b>: The game so nice, we bought it twice.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
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* * *</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Technically, <i>we</i> only bought
the game once. <i>I</i> bought it when it first came out, back in early 2003. I played it for a while, and while it was
pretty to look at, and it had good music, and the setting was interesting, it
just didn’t come together for me. Despite
this, I had no desire to trade it in. I
had the feeling I was onto something good, though I couldn’t quite grasp it at
the time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I hadn’t had much experience with the Breath of Fire series then. I owned a copy of <b>Breath of Fire IV</b>, which was really the first game in the series
that I even tried to tackle seriously.
Having unwillingly skipped over the 16-bit generation (owning a
TurboGrafx-16 and five games hardly counts), my impression of the series at
that time could basically be described as “like Final Fantasy, only not quite
as inventive”. It perhaps wasn’t a fair
assessment, but I was basing this on the opinions of friends and acquaintances;
I was unable to draw my own conclusions.
Still, I liked <b>Breath of Fire IV</b>
well enough, even outside of some positive personal associations, so I hung on
to <b>Dragon Quarter</b>, feeling
relatively certain that one day, I would get the itch to try it again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
As it happened, I did, a couple of years later. The story and the characters were calling to
me, and this time, everything finally clicked.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
It probably helped that, around that time, I was beginning to feel that
JRPGs as a genre were becoming deeply conservative in terms of design, as well
as character and story archetypes. Realistically,
this has probably been the case since the days of the original <b>Dragon Quest</b>, <b>Final Fantasy</b>, and <b>Phantasy
Star</b>. But I got into these types of
games in late 1998 with <b>Final Fantasy
VII</b>; I was new to the genre in those days.
And in fairness, I’ve enjoyed a number of these types of games. But by this time, I found myself wanting
games in the genre to branch out and do something new. So many of the mechanical mainstays of the
genre, the “traditions” of JRPG design, began life as frankly clunky
workarounds for technology that wasn’t really up to giving us a less abstract
simulation of the expected features of a fantasy adventure: travel,
exploration, fighting monsters, finding treasure, getting new and more powerful
gear, and saving the world and any number of princesses. There was only so much you could do with
eight bits, and if you wanted to simulate all of these things, you had to have
a certain amount of abstraction. So you
have your turn-based battles, your random encounters, and so on, and so forth.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
By the PS2 era, the technology was rapidly growing beyond the need to
adhere to the old way of doing things for any reason other than nostalgia’s
sake. It had been doing this for some
time – <b>Chrono Trigger</b> shook up the
formula way back in the mid-90s, but despite the universal acclaim that game
received, no one involved seemed terribly interested in implementing any of its
innovations. Developers were, by and
large, unwilling to grow out of those old ways.
In part this might be down to the reluctance of their audience (or at
least a very vocal portion of it) to part ways with those same traditions. Either way, the result was the same:
stagnation. Or so it felt to me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I wanted something that was different from the JRPGs I’d played
before. Something that still offered the
thought and planning that went into playing an RPG of any kind, something with
a good story and interesting characters, but which went off the beaten path and
did something different.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
And so, in late 2004 or maybe early 2005, two years after I originally
bought it, tried it, and hung it up for the foreseeable future, I started
playing <b>Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter </b>again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
It’s an odd beast, this game, even when you look at it in the context
of its own series. All the more so,
really. The earliest <b>Breath of Fire </b>games got compared to
the 8- and 16-bit <b>Final Fantasy </b>games,
at least by most of the people I knew back then. Really, a more apt comparison would be to <b>Dragon Quest</b>, but I hadn’t played that
game, and I was part of a group of friends who oddly lacked much experience
with <b>Dragon Quest</b>, so maybe nobody
was in a position to make that particular comparison. With most of my friends, <b>Dragon Quest</b> (then known as <b>Dragon
Warrior</b>; I feel so <i>old</i> sometimes)
was always “That game where you grind for hours and hours and then you finally
say ‘fuck this!’ and go do something else, maybe play <b>Final Fantasy</b> or go outside or something, I dunno”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Anyway, the whole series up to this point had been pretty standard
high-fantasy fare, with the unique selling point being the main character’s
eventual ability to transform into a dragon.
Most of the game mechanics beyond this were pretty straightforward. My experience with the series at large was
pretty much limited to some time spent on the fourth game, and some time spent
goofing off with ROMs of the first two out of idle and quickly satisfied
curiosity. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
One other consistent feature of the series is that your main character,
the aforementioned dragon-transforming person, is always a young man with blue
hair and a sword named Ryu, and there is always a blonde, winged young lady
named Nina who typically focuses on magic.
Additional characters tend to be of all shapes, sizes, and species.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Dragon Quarter</b>, by contrast,
occurs in a future dystopia where humankind, having pretty much destroyed the
environment through the use of biologically engineered weapons called dragons,
has retreated to a single subterranean dwelling. There, they survive as best they can.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
In this society, everyone is given a rank, called a D-ratio. On the surface of things, this ratio is a
measure of one’s social standing, limiting the kinds of jobs they can hold,
places they can live, and overall determining just exactly how high they can
rise in the world, figuratively <i>and</i>
literally.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
“Low-Ds”, that is, people with low D-ratios, live further down in this
habitat. The air is worse, people’s
lifespans are shorter, and there are occasionally monsters called genics that
roam around down there. The people with
high D-ratios live closer to the surface where the air is better and things are
generally less dangerous. A nice touch
is that, especially in cut scenes, the game is <i>literally</i> more hazy and grimy, visually, the further down you
are. As you go up, the environments
gradually become clearer and brighter.
It happens bit by bit, so you may not notice it the first time through,
but if you finish the game and start over again, the difference stands out.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
One of the few story beats to be preserved is our hero: Ryu. Here, he’s a low-D ranger, whose job mainly
seems to involve security and hunting down genics. His D-ratio is abysmally low: 1/8,192. His current job is the very highest he can
hope to achieve. He’s partnered with
another young man named Bosch, D-ration 1/64.
While Ryu is effectively at the very limit of how far he can rise in the
world, Bosch is only at the beginning. A
D-ratio as high as his means he can potentially qualify to become a Regent, one
of the four rulers of this underground world.
Bosch is basically just paying his dues, here. He’s friendly enough to Ryu, in a
condescending sort of way, which Ryu mostly just shrugs off. What else is he going to do?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
While reporting for an assignment together, Ryu succumbs to a brief
fugue, in which he has a vision. He sees
the decaying remains of a giant dragon spiked to a wall. Despite clearly being dead, the dragon seems
to talk to Ryu, mind-to-mind, though what it says to him makes virtually no
sense at the time. Moments later, he
comes across the real thing, though it is very visibly dead and inanimate.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
A terrorist attack splits up Ryu and Bosch, and shortly thereafter, Ryu
runs into this game’s version of Nina, as well as a member of the resistance movement
Trinity, named Lin. She seeks Nina for
her own – or rather Trinity’s – purposes.
The three form an unlikely but highly effective team. But allying himself with these two has its consequences,
and by the time Ryu and Bosch reunite, circumstances have made them into
enemies. Bosch is a good fighter, and he
has plenty of allies with him, but Ryu refuses to betray his new comrades. Thankfully, his encounter with the dragon was
no mere dream or hallucination.
Unbeknownst to him, it has bestowed him with awesome power… and a
deadline.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
With every passing moment, the monstrous dragon power lurking within
Ryu grows more prominent, threatening to overcome him. While Ryu is in control, he can transform
into a bestial form capable of slaughtering even bosses within just a couple of
rounds of combat. But drawing on that power
accelerates its progress in overtaking him. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
And so, with all hands turned against him, Ryu, Lin, and Nina have
ultimately just a single option: Escape.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
One of the things that I like about <b>Dragon Quarter</b> – one of many things – is the way that the game’s more
prominent mechanics and its story are so closely intertwined.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The dragon power bestowed upon Ryu early into the game isn’t just a
narrative device or story element, coming out only when dramatically
convenient. It’s also a game mechanic,
in the form of what the game calls a D-counter.
This is a number, a percentage, that appears in the corner of the
screen. As you play, it slowly ticks up toward 100 in
intervals of a hundredth of a percent.
Everything you do in the game causes it to increase. <i>Everything</i>. Every 24 or 25 steps will cause it to
increase by one interval. Later in the
game, this happens every dozen steps or so.
Ryu’s special D-dash ability, which allows him to avoid enemy combat,
causes it to tick up faster.
Transforming, all by itself, raises the counter, and any actions taken
while transformed increase it by whole-number percentages. It is literally overpowered. What I mentioned about crushing bosses in
just a couple of turns was not hyperbole.
I’ve done it. It’s basically my
end-game strategy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
There is no way to drop the counter.
Ever. There are no items, no
spells, no techniques which will allow you to reset it or undo any of its
progress. It just sits up there in the
corner, slowly increasing and glowing ever more furiously as the number
grows. The tension between the
temptation to use it whenever you’re in a bind and the punishing consequences
of said use can be exquisite.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
When I first heard <b>Dragon
Quarter</b> described as a survival-horror RPG, it didn’t make sense to
me. But that’s mainly because I
associated the mechanical elements of most of the survival-horror games I’d
played with the more thematic elements of horror.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The key here, I think, is the word “survival”. You might more accurately call <b>Dragon Quarter</b> a survival-RPG, except
it’s basically the only one of its kind that I know of. It’s kind of hard to wrangle a whole genre
out of that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
At their heart, survival-horror games generally “work” based on two
principles.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The first is the fragility of the player character relative to other
types of games. You are not the hero of a
more action-oriented games, who can take maybe a dozen sword strokes straight
to the face and just keep going, or who can withstand a hail of gunfire and
duck behind cover for a few seconds while your shields recharge. Every bit of damage taken is a significant
setback that needs to be planned around, and every attack must be
calculated. This is because of the
second principle, which resource management.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The in-game resources available to you, both those which you use to
preserve yourself and those you use to eliminate your enemies, are finite. So they must be spent wisely, frugally. Because of this, you are constantly required
to take a measured, careful approach to any situation. You can never just blithely wander around; to
do so invites disaster twice over. In
the short term, you risk serious harm, leaving yourself vulnerable to future
threats. In the long term, if you come
out of the situation relatively unscathed, it’s generally at some expense of
resources, leaving you ill-prepared for future encounters. Carelessness becomes indistinguishable from suicide.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
This puts pressure on the player to play extremely well at all times by
punishing mistakes immediately and brutally.
As a result, some of the typical elements of JRPGs are missing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
There are no healing spells or techniques. All healing – whether restoring health or
curing negative status effects – is accomplished by way of expendable (and
frequently pricey) items. And you have
to consider how often (if at all) you’ll be using some of these items, because
inventory space is limited, and multiple items of a single type don’t “stack”
very much before requiring another inventory slot. And, naturally, the usual economics of JRPGs
are in full effect. Whatever you get for
selling an item is a pitiful fraction of what it costs you to buy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The game offers you the ability to use bait and traps to lure enemies
into a position of compromise and get the drop on them, but even these need to
be used sparingly. There’s hardly enough
for <i>every </i>encounter.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Interestingly, the game knows exactly how difficult it is, and gives
you something of a way around the problem.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
As with most RPGs of any kind, Japanese or otherwise, you earn
experience points, new equipment, and new abilities as you go through the game. In addition, <b>Dragon Quarter </b>also gives you what’s called Party XP. Basically, this is experience you can dole
out to party members as you like to boost their levels. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Should you find yourself in a situation where you can’t progress
without either having your party wiped or running the D-counter up to 100%
(which, if it hasn’t become obvious by now, is an instant Game Over), you have
the option to do what’s called a SOL Restart.
This restarts the game from the beginning, but lets you keep all the
equipment and skills you’ve learned, as well as any Party XP you still
have. This gives you get a fresh start
while retaining your improved gear, and the Party XP lets you give yourself a
boost in the early going.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
There’s also an option to restore a previous hard save along these same
lines. <b>Dragon Quarter </b>allows “soft” saves anywhere, but these are
temporary by design. Once loaded, these
saves disappear. There are only a few “hard”
save points, from which you can restore at will, and to which you will be
returned with a SOL Restore. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
If this sounds ridiculous for what is typically a long-form type of
game, it may help to understand that <b>Breath
of Fire: Dragon Quarter</b> is only about eight to ten hours long from start to
finish on a single play through, once you know what you’re doing. Even with a couple of full-blown restarts,
you’ll be spending no more time on <b>Dragon
Quarter </b>than any other game from the same time period. Less, probably.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Writing this now, I just about want to say that <b>Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter </b>is <b>Dark Souls</b> before <b>Dark Souls</b>
really existed. There’s a certain
similarity in that both games are more difficult than usual while still being
relatively fair, and in the expectation that you <i>will</i> die, probably more than once, and that rather than being a
tragedy, it’s simply an instructive part of the experience. Or in the case of <b>Dragon Quarter</b>, you’ll experience (probably more than once) a
situation in which death is basically a given should you continue, and the
smart thing would be to cut your losses and restart.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Dragon Quarter</b>’s infliction
of pressure extends even to the representation of the game’s characters and
world.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Most characters have a skinny, almost emaciated appearance. Part of this is simple stylization, of
course, but it still contributes to the overall effect. These people live a thin and narrow
existence, it says, devoid of the expansive pleasures humankind was meant to
enjoy. There is a grimness and a quiet
desperation underlying it all. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The world itself is a fucking hole.
Corridors in the lower areas are littered with random junk and debris;
it’s best not to think what it might all actually be. The air is hazy and grimy, and things have a
sort of cobbled-together look that just makes the whole place look cramped and dingy
and uncomfortable. Especially in the
lower areas, everything looks like it’s about one stern look away from falling right
apart. The upper areas are cleaner, more
solid, but can seem so sterile and strictly designed as to be hostile. <b>Dragon
Quarter</b> does a wonderful job of creating a world you want to get the hell <i>out</i> of as soon as you can.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
It’s ironic, really. Most games,
I play to escape from the troubles and stresses in my life. And most games oblige this desire. Even the ones that take place in barren
wastelands tend to take place in <i>gorgeously
rendered </i>barren wastelands that encourage you to examine every carefully
tailored nook and cranny. They’re an invitation
to exploration and adventure, and are “barren” or “waste” only as a matter of
aesthetics.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Ultimately, a large part of what
interests me about the story of <b>Dragon
Quarter</b>,<b> </b>what keeps me coming
back, is that rather than a big, trampling save-the-world epic, it’s<b> </b>about a group of characters who just want
<i>out</i>.
This is a smaller story, a “tiny tale of time”, as the game itself tells
us. It’s huge in its implications for
its world and its characters. It’s great
in the scope of the ideas it asks its characters to contemplate. It that sense, at least, it does involve the
end of the world, in one way or another.
But the scale is smaller, and the characters strike me as being more real
because of it. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Ryu, Lin, and Nina don’t want to fight anybody. There’s at least one memorable occasion where
Ryu, surrounded by enemies, asks why they can’t just let him and his friends go. The character animations in <b>Dragon Quarter </b>aren’t spectacular, but
they get the job done here. There’s something
about the way that Ryu asks his question that seems to have layers. On one layer, he seems genuinely fatigued
from fighting all the time. On another layer,
he seems mentally, psychologically tired from the toll of all the deaths he’s
inflicted. On yet a deeper layer, he
seems likely to be tired of fighting the <i>thing</i>
inside him that threatens to take over.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
They aren’t trying to harm anybody.
And it seems reasonable just to let them go, on the one hand. But on the other, there is the major problem
that letting Ryu and company out of this subterranean pit will completely upend
the social order – will end this idea of the world – purely as a <i>side-effect</i> of his escape. Because the underlying problem with Ryu’s
world is a variant on the same problem that keeps people in dead-end jobs and
abusive relationships long beyond the point when, logically, they should be getting
out. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Fear.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The world of <b>Dragon Quarter</b>,
objectively speaking, is an absolute, utter shithole. Even the people in charge don’t seem to be
enjoying themselves much. And it’s
because everyone seems to be in agreement, unspoken, that even if the current
circumstances are awful, at least they’re <i>familiar</i>
awful circumstances. It’s <i>possible</i> that things are better on the
surface, but it’s just as possible that they aren’t. It’s just as possible that they’re far
worse. This, at least, is the devil we
know.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Even one of the main villains, the ruler of this subterranean
nightmare, is ruled by fear. A thousand
years before the story proper, he was given the opportunity to open this world
to the surface. But he backed down. In his fear that the world above might still
be the barren wasteland people left ages ago, he turned back at the final
moment, sentencing himself and everyone in the underground to remain in it
indefinitely.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
There’s an anime I like quite a bit – it’s probably my favorite, really
– called <b>Revolutionary Girl Utena</b>,
and in it there is a bit of dialogue that is recited so often it’s practically a
ritual. It goes like this:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
“If it cannot break out of its shell, the chick will die without ever
being born. We are the chick. The world is our egg. If we don’t crack the world’s shell, we will
die without ever truly being born. Smash
the shell, for the world revolution.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
This is actually a paraphrase from the Hermann Hesse novel <b>Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair’s Youth </b>(usually
just known as <b>Demian</b>), in which it’s
put this way:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
“The bird struggles out of the egg.
The egg is a world. Who would be
born must first destroy a world. The
bird then flies to God. That god’s name
is Abraxas.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
To go up, to go out, to rise, to escape: This is an act of tremendous faith.</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-75282828687899451922015-05-05T19:18:00.001-07:002015-05-11T19:41:13.921-07:00To Faraway Places – Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Ever since I first heard of <b>Ys</b>,
I’d been obsessed with finding a copy of the games and playing them. I don’t know why, exactly. I just remember, back in 1998 or 1999,
looking up ROMs for TurboGrafx-16 games, and reading good things about <b>Ys</b>, and being more and more interested
the more I read. It<b> </b>marked my first foray into something truly esoteric in my hobbies
of anime and video games. The whole <b>Ys </b>series is reasonably popular in
Japan, but few of the games ever saw U.S. release, and those that did were
either not the best efforts in the series (such as the Super Nintendo and Sega
Genesis versions of <b>Ys III</b>, which
was a fairly divisive game within the fanbase), or came out for systems which
were unpopular in the U.S. (like the TurboGrafx-CD).</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The obscurity of it was part of the appeal. It was like finding buried treasure, or
stumbling across some hidden wisdom or lore. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim </b>was
the first game in the series I actually got my hands on. This would have been on the PlayStation2. I was talking to an acquaintance of mine at
the time about my curiosity regarding the games, and my frustration with how
the fan translation effort for <b>Ys I
& II Complete</b> seemed to be indefinitely (<i>infinitely</i>, it seemed then) on hiatus. It was at this point she informed me that one
of the newer <b>Ys</b> games was available
for the PS2.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
“You’re shitting me,” I said.
I’d heard absolutely nothing about this.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
“I’m not,” she said. And she was
right. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I had my own copy of <b>Ys VI: The
Ark of Napishtim</b> within 24 hours.</div>
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<br /></div>
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* * *</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
A little history may be in order here, to put <b>Ys VI </b>into its proper context.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Nihon Falcom, the company who makes <b>Ys</b>, is probably one of the oldest Japanese game developers still in
existence. They got their start in the
1980s on Japanese PCs, mainly developing action-RPGs. <b>Ys</b>
was only one of the series they made, and it wasn’t even the only one they made
which came to America. <b>Legacy of the Wizard</b> on the NES was a
port of one of their <b>Dragon Slayer</b>
series installments, and <b>Faxanadu</b> on
the NES was a Nintendo-specific entry of their <b>Xanadu</b> series (the name is a portmanteau of <b>Fa</b>micom <b>Xanadu</b>). <b>Brandish
</b>on the Super Nintendo was also a port of theirs.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The key word here is “port”.
Falcom did not, at this time, do console games themselves (<b>Faxanadu</b> and <b>Ys V</b>, about which more later, being<b> </b>the only exceptions I’m aware of).
Console ports were generally handled by other developers. In the case of <b>Ys I &</b> <b>II</b>, the
developer who brought them to the States was Hudson Soft, who created by the
TurboGrafx-CD ports of the games which would go on to be practically the
definitive editions of those games for many years, at least as far as American
audiences were concerned. There was also
a port of <b>Ys I</b> to the Sega Master
System, but the TurboGrafx-CD version had something the Master System version
didn’t, or rather, <i>couldn’t </i>have:
Redbook audio, voice acting, and (admittedly quite limited) animated cut
scenes. This level of presentation made <b>Ys I & II</b> a stand-out title,
especially in the U.S., where games of real quality for the peripheral (an
expensive add-on to a system that seems to have been dead in the water from
pretty much the beginning) were oases in a desert. This was less true in Japan, however, where
the system’s Japanese equivalent (the PC Engine) did good business, ultimately
trailing behind only the revered Famicom itself.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Ys III</b> received this same
treatment: Released on the PC-8801 first, it was later ported by Hudson to the
TurboGrafx-CD. <b>Ys III </b>also got ported to the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis;
the three console versions were the ones we got in America. But the Super NES and Genesis versions
weren’t promoted very well and faded into obscurity. The TurboGrafx-CD version likewise suffered
obscurity, but in this case, that was simply the consequence of being a
TurboGrafx-CD game. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Ys III</b> was a bit of a black
sheep. Where <b>Ys I & II</b> (I refer to them together because they are, for all
practical purposes, a single game) were action-RPGs with an overhead view and
an odd ramming mechanic for combat, <b>Ys
III</b> was a side-scrolling action-RPG with platform jumping and a dedicated
attack button. The difference was not
entirely unlike that between <b>The Legend
of Zelda</b> and <b>Zelda II: The Adventure
of Link</b>, albeit somewhat less pronounced, ultimately. And the reaction among fans of the original
was similar. <b>Ys III </b>had (and has) its fans, but many who loved the originals
were angered by the new direction the series had taken.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
This was in 1991. At this point,
the lack of success Falcom had witnessed with the first three installments of
one of their star series apparently convinced them to give up on the American
market, because that was the last Ys game we saw in the U.S. for close to 15
years.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
It’s also at this point that the Ys series gets a bit weird.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
There were originally two versions of <b>Ys IV</b>, and neither of them were developed by Falcom
themselves. Instead, in 1993, Falcom
drew up an outline and licensed the development of <b>Ys IV</b> to two different developers.
Both of them, perhaps wisely, decided to return the game mechanics of <b>Ys IV</b> to the series roots.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Tonkin House (I love their name for reasons I have difficulty describing)
developed their version, titled <b>Ys IV:
Mask of the Sun</b> for the Super NES.
Hudson Soft, meanwhile, developed theirs under the title <b>Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys</b> for the
TurboGrafx-CD. The two versions of <b>Ys IV</b> vary a great deal in their story,
and while there are some characters and other elements in common, the two
versions are different and mutually exclusive.
Among the fan community, the general consensus seems to be that while
both games are certainly worth playing, <b>The
Dawn of Ys</b> is the superior version.
So, naturally, the one ultimately considered canonical was <b>Mask of the Sun</b>. That was until just a couple of years ago,
when Falcom released their own version of the game, <b>Ys IV: Memories of Celceta</b>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
1995 saw the release of <b>Ys V: Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand</b>
exclusively for the Super NES. PC-8801
fans were pissed off. TurboGrafx-CD fans
were likewise pissed off. Even the fans
who owned a Super NES were pissed off, really.
For one thing, there was the music.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
What you have to understand about Ys games, broadly speaking, is that
the music is always fantastic. This is
no mere opinion, mind you, but an objectively provable scientific fact. Oh, sure, there’s always an assortment of
sort of ho-hum town music, but even that is at least well done. But the music for roaming the overworld,
delving into dungeons, and fighting bosses, is always great. Much is made of Ryo Yonemitsu’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnhAO0Ne3Yw">arrangements</a> for the
TurboGrafx-CD Redbook audio, and rightly so.
But even the original <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpLAeLzDvfw">PC-8801 arrangements</a> by
Yuzo Koshiro and Mieko Ishikawa are equally worth listening to. Not just “good for their day”, but good
listening, period; Koshiro and Ishikawa play to the strengths of the PC-8801’s
sound chip to create music that is alternately fast-paced and intense, happy
and upbeat, or moody and ethereal. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
By contrast, <b>Ys V</b> made use
of the Super NES sound chip, which tended to have a very synthesizer-y sound
quality to it. In itself, this wouldn’t
be a bad thing. God knows there are any
number of soundtracks for Super NES games that are worth a listen as-is (<b>Chrono Trigger</b> and <b>Final Fantasy VI</b>, just to name two). But the Ys<b> </b>games’ music has a certain character to it which the Super NES is
poorly equipped to emulate, let alone replicate. It’s not <i>bad</i>,
it’s just… not Ys.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
In fact, the real problem with <b>Ys
V</b> in general is just that. It’s not Ys. It’s like countless other generic Super NES
action-RPGs. The color palette is
murkier, eschewing the bright, attractive graphics of the earlier series
entries in favor of something more “realistic”.
They also overhauled the game’s mechanics, and made it considerably
easier than previous entries. In fact, this
last point was such a bone of contention, that Falcom released an updated version
called <b>Ys V Expert</b> with the
challenge ratcheted up significantly.
But the damage was already done.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
A number of people will tell you that <b>Ys V</b> nearly killed the franchise.
I’d like to wave my hand dismissively at that suggestion and say “that’s
the worst kind of hyperbole”. I’d <i>like</i> to.
But then, it’s an undeniable fact that for the next eight years, Falcom
did not make a single <i>new</i> Ys<b> </b>game.
In 2001, they remade <b>Ys I &
II</b> for Windows PCs (this has since become basically the definitive version
of those games; with every port thereafter using its assets), and that was pretty
much it. The various games in the series
were, in that eight-year interval, ported to pretty much any and every system;
the list of consoles which <i>haven’t</i>
received an Ys<b> </b>port of some kind
(usually of the first two games) is short indeed. But like pretty much all ports, they were
handled by non-Falcom developers, and they weren’t all of exactly the highest
quality.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
To leave off one’s flagship series for a span of eight years is not
exactly a good sign for said series. It
would be like if Nintendo just stopped making Mario or Zelda games for a whole
console generation. (I was going to add
Metroid to that short list, but then I remembered that they’ve done that very
thing, and look poised to do it once again).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
So if you’re wondering why I’ve spent so much time leading up to <b>Ys VI</b>, that’s why. There’s significance to <b>The Ark of Napishtim </b>well beyond its existence itself. No creative endeavor exists in a vacuum,
after all. Every game you play is a
product not only of its creators’ hopes and wishes and ideas and compromises,
but also of the times in which it was made, the capabilities or limitations of
the technology of those times, and (unfortunately) the business climate of
those times.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
While I suspect there’s some hyperbole to the notion that <b>Ys V</b> nearly killed the franchise, I
suspect there’s also some truth to it, and to the logical conclusion that it
was then up to <b>Ys VI</b> to save the
franchise.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I’m really glad it did.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
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* * *</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The first thing you have to understand about the Ys<b> </b>series, as a whole, is that these are not complicated games. Whether you look at them narratively,
thematically, structurally, or mechanically, there is a lack of complexity that,
far from being dull, is honestly refreshing.
Hell, the first two games (and the fourth, returning to form as it did)
don’t even have an attack button. You
just ram into your enemies, making sure you hit them at the right angle to deal
damage without receiving any yourself (this is both more difficult and more
entertaining than it probably sounds).
You could practically have ported <b>Ys
I</b> to the Atari 2600, with its one-button-and-one-stick controller. I mean, it would have looked ugly as the
south-facing end of a north-going horse, and the soundtrack would have been a
crime against the very idea of music, and I’m sure it would have been
godawfully slow into the bargain, but you could just about do it, I think.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Anyway, you don’t play the Ys games to be immersed in a deep, complex
plot. The plot’s there, and it basically
makes sense, and that’s about all there is to it. There are some mysteries, but they’re not
terribly subtle or surprising. Until <b>Ys Seven</b> came along, <b>Ys </b>games were always pretty much
content to give you exactly what you were expecting.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
A large part of most every Ys<b> </b>game
is spent on creating a new and strange place, and new people to visit. This is part of what makes Ys games
intriguing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Most RPGs put you in the shoes of a hero (or heroes) appointed by fate
to do whatever it is the game has you doing.
A lot of the time, this involves saving the world while avenging the
destruction of your main character’s hometown, though there was a period where
killing God was all the rage. These
games tend to give you a huge world to explore, and see you crisscrossing vast
continents, making your way through forests, deserts, mountains, and plains,
traveling under earth and above it. Ys,
by contrast, usually confines each game to a single locale. With the exception of one game in the main
series, you play as Adol Christin, a red-haired adventurer who has a tendency
to roll into a town right as some ancient and sinister shit is about to hit whatever
the closest fan-equivalent would be in the medieval pseudo-Europe in which
these games take place. Adol isn’t your
average RPG hero. He does not wait for
Joseph Campbell’s call to adventure, oh no.
He has a tendency to just sort of show up right about the time adventure
would be picking up the phone.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Instead of giving you a huge world to explore, Ys always gives you a
single locale to roam. The games in
general try hard to give you a sense of place, a feeling of some new and
foreign locale teeming with a unique sense of self. So each game has its own feel and sense of
itself, its own story. So while there are
narrative and thematic elements connecting each game, they all stand alone
(barring <b>Ys I & II</b>).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
In this,<b> Ys VI</b> follows in
the footsteps of its forebears. It gives
you a straightforward fantasy adventure in an exciting new place. For this particular installment, Adol is traveling
far into the western ocean. Most of the
series thus far (and afterward) takes place in what is basically Europe and the
Mediterranean with the serial numbers filed off. This is at least more imaginative than, say, <b>Drakengard</b>, which takes place in <i>upside-down</i> Europe. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>The Ark of Napishtim</b> is a
bit unique, though, in that it occurs in its world’s equivalent of the
Caribbean – the Bermuda Triangle, actually.
In Adol’s world, this area is referred to as the Canaan Islands, and said
islands are surrounded by a massive storm vortex similar to the one that
surrounded Esteria, the island where he traveled on his first adventure to find
the legendary lost civilization that has lent its title to the whole series. It’s similar to the one that formerly
surrounded Esteria, in that pretty much any ship hoping to get through it is
destroyed. It differs, however, in that
it is far more powerful.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
As it happens, Adol has a problem with boats. Specifically, he has a problem with staying
in them. Anyway, he’s knocked off the
boat he’s traveling in (due to cannon fire, this time), and washes ashore on
Quatera Island, which is inhabited by a tribe of people called the Rehda. They’re basically elves, except they also
have tails. They don’t like humans much,
though this is somewhat understandable.
The humans on the neighboring island (all castaways or descendants of
castaways) have built their city by scavenging stones from the Rehda’s ancient holy
places. So while Adol isn’t exactly
welcome there, the people at least understand it isn’t his fault, and are at
least willing to nurse him back to health before insisting that he leave.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Their mercy does, perhaps, have something to do with the fact that Adol
is discovered by the chief priestess of the island, Olha, while she and her
sister are spending time on the beach.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
It’s funny that the game opens this way, with Adol washing ashore
unconscious at his destination, and being revived by the inhabitants of that
land. I get the feeling that Falcom is
sending us a message with the opening of <b>Ys
VI</b>, as it basically borrows the opening premises of <b>Ys I </b>and <b>Ys II </b>both. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
In <b>Ys I </b>(at least, in the <b>Ys I Eternal</b> version, which seems to
have lifted this and other plot elements from the <b>Ys I</b> anime), we begin the game with Adol washing ashore in Esteria
after having braved the storm vortex in a one-man sailboat. Unconscious, he is taken to a doctor, who
heals him until he is well enough to go exploring the island. In <b>Ys
II</b>, we start off with Adol being launched through the sky, to land near the
Ruins of Moondoria in the floating land of Ys.
That he isn’t killed stone dead by this is a testament to his strength,
or at least to the power of the Law of Dramatic Necessity. Again unconscious, he is discovered by that
game’s love interest (well, “love interest”; Ys’s love interests are a lot like
Bond girls, with the exception that Adol seems largely oblivious to the effect
his heroics have on the hearts of attractive young ladies in need), who takes
him in and cares for him until he’s well enough to continue on adventuring.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
It’s basically Falcom saying, “Look, okay, all that goofy shit with <b>Ys V</b>?
We’re sorry for that. Okay? Look, we’re going back to our roots (and not,
thankfully, just to the well). You
know? Back to the <i>good stuff</i>.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
At the same time, it preserves many of the mechanical changes made with
<b>Ys V</b>. Some of this is just a concession to
modernity. The ramming combat from the
older Ys games would be pretty impractical in 3D. Two-dimensional graphics make it possible
because of the simplified movement and perspective, but with the more nuanced
range of motion and 3D environments, it would be impossible.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Which is not to say that <b>Ys VI</b>
is complex. It’s more complex than its
predecessors, but not complex in itself.
The aim of every Ys game has always been to turn you loose to explore
the world and navigate the dungeons and other places of dark and danger with as
few barriers to entry as possible. You’re
given free rein pretty quickly, with a minimum of up-front exposition and few hand-holding
tutorials, if any.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Simple, no-nonsense, straight to the point. That’s Ys in a nutshell, and that’s the
example <b>Ys VI</b> follows. It isn’t long at all before you’re roaming
the forest outside the starting village looking for a way to the human town on
the next island over and also trying to find out where Isha (the younger sister
of the young lady who cared for you after you washed up) wandered off to. Not long after that, you’ve leveled up a bit,
found one or two little hidden nooks with treasure in them, and fought your
first boss.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
If I’ve neglected to mention it before, let me mention it now. Bosses are one of the staples of Ys in
general. These are frequently
challenging and frantic affairs, accompanied by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AifWabjUQEg">up-tempo</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3CNy_PvyBA">intense</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwZzrLkeqfk">guitar-and-synth-heavy</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PPui3GfGCY">rock</a>. It’s hard to care about how anachronistic
this might seem. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BhOjpTF6bI">Do Not Go Gently</a>,
indeed. And <b>Ys VI </b>is no slouch in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DfzxdyfRO4">this</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzfodAERwuU">department</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NyvvCGxRes">either</a>. All of this serves to express and heighten
the sensation of fighting creatures far more massive and powerful than you
could ever hope to be, the sheer adrenaline-burst of excitement and anxiety at
facing such enemies, and the rush of a well-earned victory, a narrowly avoided
defeat.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
But that’s another thing that sets <b>The
Ark of Napishtim</b>, and the series as a whole,<b> </b>apart. Most RPGs, and
adventure games in general, are deliberately paced affairs that require
patience, careful planning and forward thinking. Ys, by contrast, has an almost arcade-like focus
on action. It favors quick reflexes and
the ability to stay on top of frantic situations. Its best, most intense encounters keep you on
your toes and demand that you think on the fly.
Indeed, long forward planning is almost impossible. One of the quirks of older Ys<b> </b>games which <b>Ys VI</b> preserves is that once you’re in a boss battle, you’re locked
into it as-is. You can normally equip
one healing item of your choice for quick use at a single button press. You can have more than one item of this type,
but can only have one type equipped. Elsewhere,
you can swap out equipped items to your heart’s content. Once you’re in the boss battle, however, you’re
locked out of your menu and can’t change it.
It’s just you and the boss, period.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
In that, <b>Ys VI</b> shares its
greatest strength with the best entries of the series: A sense of constant,
forward momentum, a continuous feeling of <i>doing</i>. Everything about the game, from the pace of Adol’s
movement, to the way experience levels tend to increase rapidly, to the way even
just a couple of levels make the difference between getting stomped and doing
the stomping, is designed to keep you moving toward your goal. There’s a lot of backtracking in <b>Ys VI</b>, and a fair amount of hunting for
hidden treasures or other bonuses, but it rarely feels too laborious. The game’s snappy pace means traversing the
game world typically takes just minutes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I’ve been bouncing all over the place in this write-up, and I know it,
and the thing is I don’t know how to go about it any other way. There’s a lot I like, about Ys in general and
<b>Ys VI</b> in particular. It’s hard to stay on one topic, to stay
focused, and to give a dry run-down of what <b>Ys VI </b>has to recommend it.
It’s especially hard because this is one of many cases where the whole
is greater than the mere sum of its parts.
I say that a lot, I think, but that’s because it’s true of a lot of
games I like. I mean, I could write out
a bullet-point list of what <b>Ys VI </b>has,
if that would be helpful:</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Fast-paced action</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Massive, intense bosses</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Dungeon mazes</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Fantastic music</span></li>
</ul>
<!--[if !supportLists]--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
But when you put it like that, it doesn’t look like so much. I mean, really, that’s barely more than
back-of-the-box copy, and it’s not like I’m trying to sell you the game. Well, I guess I am, sort of. I like <b>Ys
VI</b> and want to share it with other people.
Not in a “Please buy this game so I can pay my bills!” sort of way, but
more of a “This is a cool thing I’ve found, and that I enjoy, and I’d like it
if more people were enjoying it too!” sort of way. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
About the only problem I have with <b>The
Ark of Napishtim</b> is that the improvements made by its own sequels show the
one or two things <b>Ys VI</b> could stand
to do slightly better. <b>Ys: The Oath in Felghana</b> (a from-the-ground-up
remake of the once-divisive <b>Ys III</b>)
and <b>Ys Origin</b> are both built on the
same game engine, but are improved in a number of ways. One of those is the pacing. As much as I love it, it's hard to deny that <b>Ys VI</b> has an odd sense of pace. It feels like this is dictated mainly by the plot, but even so, there is a sort of awkward sense of flow to the game. Few of the other improvements made by <b>Oath in Felghana </b>and <b>Ys Origin </b>are really major, but they still make
those games more refined experiences than <b>Ys
VI</b>. <b>Ys VI</b> has to settle for being <i>merely</i>
pretty good if somewhat uneven, as opposed to <b>Ys: The Oath
in</b> <b>Felghana</b>, which rates
somewhere near really fucking excellent, for me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
So if you like a lean, fast-paced action-RPG with rocking music and fun
mechanics that will never get you bogged down, then there’s not really much
else for me to say. Go buy it
already. It’s on Steam. You’re only about five clicks away from a
great time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b><u>Version history and miscellany</u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
In accordance with tradition (which is to say, as Ys<b> </b>games typically were before 2008), <b>Ys VI</b> was released on PCs first in
Japan, in 2003. Two years later, Konami
picked up the rights to port the game to consoles, and released a version for
the PlayStation2 in 2005. This version
added fully voiced dialogue to the game, and swapped out the original
anime-style cut scenes with generic (and honestly kind of hideous) CG cut scenes
instead. They also replaced the 2D
character sprites with 3D models, which is less of a crime when you stop to
consider all the detail that would’ve been lost converting the game to the
lower resolutions available for TV screens anyway. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
In addition to these changes, they added a few bonus mini-dungeons,
with rewards of experience, money, or emel upon completion. In <b>Ys VI</b>,
emel is a mineral you collect and use to improve your weapons. These dungeons are entirely unnecessary, and
honestly somewhat tedious, but they can be helpful if you want to avoid
grinding for money or experience or emel elsewhere.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
In gleeful defiance of good business sense, Konami translated the PS2
version and made it available in the U.S. also.
All the dialogue was re-recorded in English (badly, alas), but can
thankfully be switched to Japanese by entering the right code (the anime cut
scenes can be unlocked in this way also).
About a year or so later, Konami also brought over a PSP version of the
game.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Ys VI</b> on PSP isn’t really
worth it, in my opinion. The loading
times are a headache, the 2D character sprites (thankfully used in this version
of the game) are kind of blurry, and the 3D graphics are blockier and have
muddier textures than either previous version of the game. It also suffers the fate of so many other console
games ported to handheld systems: There’s less screen area on display, giving
you less time to react to incoming threats.
If this cramped, slow, murky mess is the only way you can get <b>Ys VI</b>, then by all means, go for it. The game is still eminently worth
playing. But otherwise, go for the PS2
version.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Or better yet, go for the PC version.
XSeed, as part of their deal with Falcom, have recently made the PC
version of <b>Ys VI</b> available on Steam
and GOG.com. While it lacks the
additions and changes made by Konami (those are exclusive to the console ports,
to which Konami probably still owns all rights), it’s available in HD, and the
system requirements are quite modest.
About the only thing really worth complaining about is that, with the PC
version being developed for machines in 2003, it doesn’t have the best
widescreen support. You can play it in
HD and in widescreen, but there’s at least one part I’ve noticed early on where
the screen is large enough that you can see the edges of the rendered game
world. This has yet to be anything more
than a mild irritation – really, it’s more funny (in a kind of “oh my God, look
how far we’ve come since then” sort of way) than any kind of real problem. </div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-81228435347103236242015-04-21T21:53:00.000-07:002015-04-21T21:54:37.218-07:00Here’s To You: Metal Gear Solid 4<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Many years ago now, my friend Wade and I watched through the anime <i>Serial Experiments Lain</i> in two
sittings. We meant to watch it in one,
but at a certain point it got to be too heavy, too <i>dense</i>, and I had to call a time-out that wound up going for the rest
of the evening, and we finished up the next night. It was one of the last anime I watched for
the first time before I left for the Army, so this would have been in either
the late summer or the fall of 2000.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
There’s a lot that <i>Lain </i>chooses
not to explain about its story, its meaning, or its message. Maybe that’s just a consequence of its
economy. It’s only 13 episodes long, and
it has a lot of ground to cover. But a
lot of the time, honestly, it feels like that’s all by design. At any rate, the explanations in <i>Lain</i> are there, but the story doesn’t go
out of its way to explain them to you. It
doesn’t come right out and <i>say</i>
anything. It gives you facts as the
story moves forward, and expects you to put them together as it goes. For Wade, none of this was new. He’d seen it before, and so a lot of things
made more sense to him than to me.
Having seen the ending, he knew what to watch for, knew the clues as
soon as he saw them. My own
understanding was much less complete.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
“Was there anything you didn’t understand?” he asked. I said no, I understood it, more or
less. There were lots of things I was
uncertain about, or would be hard-pressed to explain, but I got a sense of the
wholeness and the solidity of it. It was
a mystery, but it made sense. Its parts
seemed to fit together and move against each other correctly to do whatever it
was that it was doing, while still retaining a nice sense of the unknown
(though not necessarily the unknowable).
We talked about it for several hours into the night, which became the
morning, and our conversations would drift back to it later on as well. I sort of gradually pieced together a better
understanding of the story until I eventually felt like I “got” it, but I was still
left grasping for words, should anyone ever have asked what it all meant, and <i>how</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I didn’t really have a way to explain this feeling, and then one day,
reading Neil Gaiman’s <i>The Sandman</i>, I
did.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
There’s a point in the sixth volume, <i>Fables and Reflections</i>, where Abel explains the reason – the <i>real</i> reason – why a collective of rooks
is called a parliament. As the keeper of
secrets, it’s the sort of thing he knows.
His elder brother, Cain, berates him for this with all his usual fury:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i>"I keep telling you: It’s the </i>mystery
<i>that endures. </i>Not <i>the explanation. A good
mystery can last forever. The mysterious
corpse has a magic all its own. Nobody
really </i>cares <i>who-done-it. They’ll peck you to pieces if you tell them,
little brother."</i></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
While saying all this, he murders Abel.
This being <i>The Sandman</i>,
though, that’s perfectly normal. After
all, this is <i>Cain</i> and <i>Abel</i>.
It’s what they <i>do</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Before this, it was a thing I understood in a strange and inarticulate
way, in that odd basement place we all have in our heads, which is older and
simpler than higher functions like articulation. Things are simply <i>known</i> in that part of the brain, without reference to logic or
explanation or reason. The ideas are
just there. They just <i>exist</i>.
It’s cold and reptilian and binary there; things are either certain or
nonexistent. It’s where feelings stand
in for facts, and intuition runs through it.
It isn’t always right, but it is terrifyingly <i>exact</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I would argue with Cain’s point – carefully, politely, and over a great
distance (preferably by phone) – in one respect. If you’re the one solving the mystery,
there’s a great sense of satisfaction in knowing the explanation. <i>Watching
it</i> be solved, though, can be pretty disappointing. Simply being handed the answers can get
downright dreary and tedious. In those
cases, I would be inclined to agree with Cain.
The wondering is almost always better than the knowing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Which is, in large part, most of the problem I have with <b>Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots</b>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Before we talk about the problems, let’s at least talk about all the
things <b>Metal Gear Solid 4 </b>gets
right. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Guns of the Patriots</b> was one
of the first games that sold me on the PlayStation3, probably <i>the</i> first. The others were <b>The Last Guardian</b> (which, frustratingly, has yet to materialize,
and the chances of this changing any time before the heat death of the universe
are getting ever more remote) and <b>Demon’s
Souls</b>. By this point, I didn’t need
to see any screenshots or videos (though I did see a few). I was good and hooked on the series at that
point. Knowing the next <b>Metal Gear Solid</b>, whatever it was going
to be, was going to be a PS3 exclusive was enough. If it had been on the Xbox 360 instead, I
probably would have bought one of those a lot sooner than 2012. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
In fact, not only did I not need to know much about the game before
buying it, I didn’t <i>want </i>to. I actively steered clear of the hype as much
as I could. The bait-and-switch trickery
Hideo Kojima worked with the hero of <b>Metal
Gear Solid 2</b> didn’t bother me much, but I went into that game knowing very
little about it. Part of <i>that</i> is down to the screwed-up way I got
into the series, alternating sessions between <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> and <b>Metal
Gear Solid 2</b> until I got far enough in the second one to realize I was
expected to have a good working knowledge of the story in the first. My expectations for <b>Metal Gear Solid 3</b> were basically nonexistent, beyond knowing that
much of the action took place in the wilderness, and that avoiding detection
was going to be harder.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
All I knew about <b>Metal Gear
Solid 4</b> going in was that much of the game took place in actual warzones,
and that avoiding detection would be harder still.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
This much, at least, is generally true.
Avoiding notice is less about observing the routines of patrols in the
area and finding a good spot to hide in, and more about furtive lurking in
shadows, constantly dodging from place to place, never staying in one place for
too long for fear of being spotted there by <i>either</i>
of the hostile factions. But this is
hardly the only thing that’s been changed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The controls have been overhauled in <b>Guns of the Patriots</b>. The
previous two games largely just built on the control scheme of the original <b>Metal Gear Solid</b>, adding more
capabilities by way of ever more esoteric button combinations. While there was a lot you could conceivably
do, <i>doing</i> much of it could be a
tremendous pain. I mean, I was able to
get through the game with little trouble, but as the controls got decreasingly
intuitive, I hit a point where I might try to do something like, say, hold an
enemy at gunpoint to get information from him, but I had to struggle to
remember the exact combination of what I had to do and how I had to do it, and
I finally would just say, “oh, fuck it, never mind” and just <i>shoot</i> the guy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I’m not an idiot (or so I keep being told), but games get frustrating
when I have to think much about how to make the character do something. It’s one thing to think “How do I sneak up to
that hill?” in the sense of what actions need to be taken, in what order, with
what timing. It’s another thing to have
to consider the various button combinations that need to be pressed to do a
particular thing that <i>seems</i> simple on
paper, and to have to recall this process every time. I don’t like having to think about individual
button combos to make my character move or act.
It’s one thing for the controls to be difficult at the beginning. But past that point, they should be intuitive
enough that they become reflexive. I
should be able to think, “I want to do this thing,” and I already know how to
make the character do it. And there are
certain (thankfully optional) actions in <b>Metal
Gear Solid 2 </b>and <b>3</b> that require
a certain tedious amount of thought.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
So when <b>Guns of the Patriots</b>
revamped the control scheme to fall more in line with what we expect from, say,
a twin-stick third-person shooter, the difference was much appreciated. Initially confusing, granted, given my
experience with the series up to that point.
But much appreciated. For the
first time, it felt really intuitive. A
lot of the commands were made context-sensitive, also, which helped quite a
bit. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The game also looks gorgeous. I
don’t recall if it was Kojima’s stated intent to show off the capabilities of
the PS3, but it might as well have been.
Even today, there are PS3 games that don’t look as good as <b>Guns of the Patriots</b>. This was one of the first games I ever played
(the other was <b>Mass Effect</b>) that
demonstrated just how much of a jump it was, going into the first HD generation
of consoles. Here we are in 2015, the
twilight of the PS3’s life, and quite frankly there are <i>still</i> games coming out for the system that don’t look this good.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Of course, this is something of a double-edged sword. It isn’t <i>actually</i>
impossible to play the game on a standard-definition TV. I know this because my first time through,
that’s how I played it. When it comes to
on-screen text (usually text telling you what weapons you’re picking up, how
much ammo you have, etc.) that you’ll have to resign yourself to missing. Much of it is plainly unreadable on an SD
set. A certain amount of managing your resources
becomes educated guesswork. Thankfully,
all the important stuff is still satisfactorily visible.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The mechanics and structure manage to keep the game fresh. Rather than have a single large area in which
the game takes place like <b>Metal Gear
Solid </b>or <b>Metal Gear Solid 3</b>, or
most of <b>Metal Gear Solid 2</b>, <b>Guns of the Patriots</b> takes place in
five acts. Each act is a self-contained
environment with its own mission, and is actually fairly linear. But even compared to the previous games’
tendency to give you a huge environment and just let you go in it (albeit with
some direction), <b>Guns of the Patriots</b>’s
linearity is actually something of a boon.
The pace of the game is different.
There are very few places to hide for more than a few moments, and it’s
like <b>Snake Eater</b> in that sense, but
with the important distinction that at least in Snake Eater you had the
distance inherent to wide-open wilderness spaces on your side. You could wait for enemies from a way off,
trick them into poisoning themselves, use the environment against them. <b>Guns
of the Patriots</b> sees you often in more cramped urban environments. You constantly need to be on the move. There is little hope in staying put; a given
spot is typically only safe because the enemies happen not to be looking there
at the moment.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The level of stress ramps up accordingly. You tend to feel sort of beleaguered after a
while, harried and harassed. Being
pushed forward is almost a blessing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Guns of the Patriots</b> also
tends to feature more set-piece encounters and gimmicks. The second act features a lengthy section
where you’re barreling across the landscape in an armored vehicle firing a
mounted machine gun at gekkos (these are basically sort of like robotic,
autonomous mini-Metal Gears, part machine, part synthetic biology, without the
nuclear launch capability). Later on,
you’re shoving your way through a crowd, all need for stealth thrown to the
winds in the mad rush simply to escape.
Later still, you’re sneaking through a city in Eastern Europe that’s
been put under martial law. You’re out
after curfew, trying to locate members of a resistance movement, and remain
undetected both by the resistance and the soldiers. And so it goes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
In short <b>Guns of the Patriots</b>
goes out of its way to ensure that the act of playing the game is thoroughly
enjoyable. If the story surrounding the
game weren’t so lamentably told, I wouldn’t even have a problem. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Before I start talking about its problems, I do want to clarify that,
on the whole, I like the story of <b>Metal
Gear Solid 4</b>. Or at least, I like
the idea of it. Despite the way I’ve
been alluding to it this whole time, it <i>isn’t
</i>actually a complete shit-show.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
In the main, the story of <b>Guns
of the Patriots</b> is one of endings.
There is a subtle sense all throughout the game that, although neither
you nor the characters are sure of when or where or how, the forces that have
been moving and shaping the story of <b>Metal
Gear Solid</b> are coming into a kind of final state. There have been many feints, many dodges,
many decisive blows struck by one side or the other, but the final move is not
just coming. Not just coming, but
imminent. There is a sense of
desperation, of urgency, of a mad scramble to expose the conspiracy once and
for all, before it’s somehow too late.
There is a feeling that you’re always just a half-step behind the enemy,
one twist or turn of the plot away from pulling down the whole façade.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
And like all endings, there is the bittersweet sense of wishing
farewell to an idea, a group of people and a place who meant something to you,
and now all of them are going away, perhaps for good. It seems strange to say it, given the
high-octane cynicism that runs through much of the overall <b>Metal Gear Solid </b>story. And
when the characterizations get a little unbelievable – when Snake and Otacon
look at each other in confusion about the finer points of frying an egg,
because apparently having a Y chromosome and a penis makes cooking impossible
for any group of grown men, or something – you kind of just shake your head and
go “Oh, well.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
To be honest, very few of these people would be fun to be around. Otacon’s indecisive to a fault, and a
borderline doormat. Snake’s a miserable old bastard (admittedly, he’s
miserable at least in part due to his <i>being
</i>old well before his time, but he had other issues well before that). And yet, you sympathize anyway, because when
it comes to games, that’s part of what’s great about them, and also a little
unfair. Before you judge someone, so the
saying goes, you should walk a mile in their shoes. And we’ve walked (and crawled, and fought)
for God knows how far in Snake’s shoes already.
So when we watch him throw his hacking, wheezing, sometimes barely
ambulatory body into the thick of it once more, it does hurt a little.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The story does overdo it a bit with the melodrama, though. Between the shady arms dealer monologue-ing
about each member of the Beauty and Beast Corps (who serve as the game’s
bosses, and take certain thematic queues from previous games’ boss enemies and
encounters), and about how they were driven to their mad obsession with war,
and the out-of-nowhere revelation that one character from a prior game has
cancer, and will die of it very soon (as in, within minutes) without so much as
a hint of foreshadowing, it all feels more than a little ham-handed. You get the distinct impression that Hideo
Kojima was reaching as far as he could, to inject as much feeling into the
story as possible at every turn, and to demonstrate the human cost of war,
while forgetting occasionally that some justification is necessary.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
It’s tempting, thinking about this, to say that even if it’s a bit too
much, well… <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> has always been a bit too much. It’s always been a little like what might
happen if you stripped all the superficial and outright silliness out of G.I.
Joe, while still leaving in all the fantastical nonsense, and then piled on
layer after layer of grimness and darkness in the name of “grit” and
“realism”. In some ways, <b>Guns of the Patriots</b> is just the
logical extension of all of that. It’s
doing what <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> has
always done, only more and bigger.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
But even with something that’s normally over the top in the first
place, you can go too far. The action
scenes seem to borrow from the worst excesses of the fight choreography seen in
<b>Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes</b> (a
Gamecube-only remake of <b>Metal Gear Solid</b>).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Still, there’s something very satisfying in watching plot threads laid
down years ago finally coming together.
In seeing old characters and old ideas resurface with new purpose and
new meaning. In watching all these
wildly disparate elements come together to form a single, unified whole.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
It’s a shame it wasn’t better handled.
But then, we were talking about ham-handedness…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I’m not the first person to make this comparison, but if the shoe fits… When it comes to the plot of <b>Guns of the Patriots</b>, it honestly feels
like Kojima wrote down a giant, comprehensive list titled “Questions Currently Unanswered
in Metal Gear Solid”. And then, one by
one, he proceeded to answer those questions.
When he was done, he looked up with grim determination and began to plot
what sort of story could contain all those answers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Okay, in fairness, it’s probably not <i>quite</i> that dire. And <b>Guns of the Patriots</b> is, in pretty much
every other respect, a really excellent game.
But it’s too obsessed with giving straight and frightfully granular
answers to a lot of previously unanswered questions that were frankly more
interesting <i>as </i>questions, in the
unanswered state.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
There are seemingly endless amounts of cutscenes (which, themselves,
feel like they might go on forever if this weren’t classified as a game and
therefore it’s required that the player be allowed actually to <i>play</i> now and again) devoted to pulling
back the curtain, again and again, and explaining every question, every
niggling little inconsistency in the finer details that most of us probably
even didn’t remember until the game went out of its way to bring it up just to
answer it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
For instance: All the way back in the original <b>Metal Gear Solid</b>, Vulcan Raven tell Snake that he knows Snake is
partly Japanese. Yet Snake is cloned
from Big Boss, whose ethnic background, while not gone over in any real detail,
seems to be pretty definitively white all around. So <b>Guns
of the Patriots </b>goes out of its way to explain that Snake’s surrogate
mother was Japanese. On the one hand, I
can understand the need to have all the parts of the whole fit together. I’m at least obsessive-compulsive enough to
understand the almost physical feeling of discomfort when something’s out of
place and you <i>know</i> it’s out of
place. Once you see it, you have to fix
it. You just do. You’ll hate it because it’s a tremendous pain
in the ass and because there’s no fun in it.
There’s joy in the act of creation, but there’s rarely any to be found
in fixing a stupid mistake you made <i>while</i>
creating. But even though you’ll grit
your teeth and roll your eyes and mutter obscenities under your breath, you’ll
do it, because the alternative is to have that one error sticking out,
practically laughing at you. It doesn’t
matter if nobody else notices it, either.
<i>You’ll</i> know.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
And honestly, I feel sometimes like that’s the real root of the problem
in the storytelling of <b>Guns of the Patriots</b>. It feels at times as if the overriding
sentiment was “Let’s just get the fucking thing <i>done</i>, okay?” Hideo Kojima
has said at various times that he wants to stop making games in this series – I
may have mentioned this before – but it seems that this sentiment comes through
most clearly in <b>Metal Gear Solid 4</b>. Some of the story sequences are
rock-solid. Some of them – usually the
ones expounding on some tiresome bit of backstory or series lore – are little
more than abstract or symbolic graphics accompanying lengthy lectures on the
topic of the moment, and embody the worst excesses of Kojima’s style of
storytelling. There is occasionally
almost a documentary feel to the proceedings, the most hands-off approach
possible in a medium that is intrinsically hands-<i>on</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
And yet, you can’t really skip this stuff, either. I mean, you <i>can</i>, technically, but you shouldn’t. It’s really part of the overall
experience. The story is almost
practically divorced from the act of playing the game in most senses. Without all the exposition, the actual
playable sections would, taken by themselves, constitute the most disjointed
and bizarre story. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
And that’s really my main gripe with the story of <b>Guns of the Patriots</b>. It’s exciting
and entertaining to be made to work for the answers, but boring to be simply <i>given</i> them. And to be grabbed by the collar and have one’s
face mashed into them, well, that gets to be galling. And all the while, the story slaloms back and
forth between pure, dry exposition that feels almost like a souped-up PowerPoint
presentation, and raw, unfettered batshit-crazy <i>spectacle</i> the likes of which Jerry Bruckheimer can only dream.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
So: <b>Guns of the Patriots</b>. At its worst, it’s disappointing and somewhat
tedious, but the tedious bits aren’t really offensive because they require no
effort. They’re completely passive. You really just sit through them. And at least the acting involved is some of
the best in the industry. At its best,
it is sincerely masterful.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
So… Versions and release
history.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the
Patriots</b> was originally released in 2008 for the PS3. At the time, it featured its own version of <b>Metal Gear Online</b>. This feature has since been taken offline,
and Konami patched the game to remove the option to select <b>Metal Gear Online</b> from the game’s main menu. <b>Metal
Gear Solid 4</b> is also part of the package <b>Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection</b>, which is a PS3 exclusive,
and the version of <b>Metal Gear Solid 4</b>
that comes in this package already has the option for <b>Metal Gear Online</b> removed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
In all likelihood, this is the last we’ll be seeing of Solid
Snake. The other main <b>Metal Gear Solid </b>games, <b>Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops</b> and <b>Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker</b> star Big
Boss in the cold war era, as does <b>Metal
Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes </b>and the upcoming <b>Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain</b>. There are the <b>Metal Gear Ac!d</b> games for the PSP also, but while they feature
Solid Snake, they’re card-based games of some sort, which means I’ve had little
to no interest in them beyond general curiosity.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Chronologically, there’s a Metal Gear story set after <b>Guns of the Patriots</b>, titled <b>Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance</b>, but it
stars Raiden exclusively (to the best of my knowledge, anyway; I haven’t really
dug into it, but I figure if there was a surprise cameo by Solid Snake, I’d
have heard about that by now), and <b>Revengeance</b>
doesn’t seem to really involve itself with the themes present in the larger
series, and was in fact developed by a different studio altogether.</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-14606149743329107682015-04-06T23:13:00.003-07:002015-04-06T23:14:10.569-07:00Past, Tense: Metal Gear Solid 3<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Among many,
many other things, you could, for good or for ill, describe <b>Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty</b> as
a hard act to follow. Which is probably
why, on the surface of things, director Hideo Kojima decided maybe it was
better, really, not to follow it at all.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The games in
the <b>Metal Gear </b>series, Solid and
otherwise, have always taken place in a future near enough to be immediately
familiar, but futuristic enough for concepts like nanomachines and artificial
intelligence, which seem (at least in the present) to be just around the
corner, technologically speaking, to feel right at home also. So I was more than a little surprised to see
that for <b>Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater</b>,
Kojima was taking the story back to the Cold War, specifically to the
mid-60s. I was reluctant, if not exactly
outright hostile to the idea, but I bought it anyway. It was a <b>Metal
Gear Solid</b> game, after all. What was
I supposed to do? <i>Not</i> play it?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
And it’s a
good thing I did buy it, because it turned out to be my favorite game of the
series so far.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
When last we
left off, Raiden, Solid Snake, and Otacon initially seemed to have finally
succeeded in exposing the identities of the Wisemen’s Committee. Why this is significant is going to take some
explanation, especially since, looking back, I apparently didn’t bother
explaining much of this at all when I did my last write-up.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The
Wisemen’s Committee is essentially the leadership of an organization known as
the Patriots, who secretly control America from the shadows by manipulating
politics, the economy, the military, and the general flow of information. There are layers upon layers to their
operations, and the people who do their work at the “ground level” probably
don’t even realize the Patriots exist, let alone that they’re working for them. The Patriots have exerted such control that
there are those who, thanks the alterations made to them by the nanomachines
injected into them (we will have such fun with nanomachines in <b>Metal Gear Solid 4</b>, let me tell you),
that they literally cannot <i>hear</i> the
word “Patriots”. They aren’t allowed
to. Whenever someone refers to the
Patriots, these people hear the phrase “La-li-lu-le-lo”, which is apparently a “missing”
set of syllables in Japanese.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Look, it isn’t
very well explained.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
It was Snake
and Otacon’s plan all along to infiltrate Arsenal Gear (the mobile military
base in which the final act of <b>Sons of
Liberty</b> takes place) and steal information regarding the identities of the
Wisemen’s Committee. But this is a <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> game. Nothing is as it seems, and it turns out in
this case that one of the members of the Wisemen’s Committee is the biggest
contributor to Snake and Otacon’s NGO named Philanthropy. What’s more, <i>all</i> of them appear, somehow, to have died about a century
prior. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
If you’re
noticing that this doesn’t make much (or any) sense, then I’d like to say
welcome. This is <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> in a nutshell.
Stay awhile; have a seat, and some aspirin.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So while the
personal story of <b>Sons of Liberty</b>’s
main character Raiden ends on a relatively high note, the overarching plot of <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> as a series is
essentially a huge downer. It’s revealed
toward the end of that game that the whole enterprise has in fact been a
massive test. <i>What</i> the Patriots (whoever they actually are) were trying to test
was whether you could take a basic rookie like Raiden, train him extensively in
VR, and then turn him loose on a real operation and have him succeed as well as
a real operative with years of in-field experience. So Raiden’s entire portion of the game was
their test; the entire scenario, from start to finish, including all variables,
was orchestrated to occur exactly as it did, mirroring all the beats from the
original Shadow Moses operation that was the story of the first <b>Metal Gear Solid</b>,<b> </b>because they were deliberately copying that scenario. And in the end, the Patriots won. Oh, sure, Raiden beat the bad guy, Solidus –
but that, too, was engineered. It was
exactly what the Patriots wanted in the first place. Beyond the resolution of Raiden’s personal
crises, the entire ending is a punch in the gut, leaving you with a feeling
that you’ve been robbed of true victory against the external foe. It’s not even remotely the same as the ending
of the first <b>Metal Gear Solid</b>, which
settled for implying that there were things happening behind the scenes of
which the player (and the main characters) were unaware. You could write that off as just a hook for a
sequel. No, this was a move deliberately
calculated to throw you off, to upend your expectations, and make a point.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
It’s really
quite a feat, when you think about it.
Kojima raised the stakes of his story to astronomical heights, while at
the same time sending his heroes screaming all the way back to square one. In this context, it makes perfect sense that
he wouldn’t want to dive right into resolving this thorny problem. Or rather, that he would, but that to do so
would require that he step back and elaborate on the greater context. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Which brings
us to 1964, and some of the worst spots of the Cold War.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The story
opens with an operative code-named Naked Snake.
He looks a lot like Solid Snake, aside from his more pronounced facial
hair, but then, this is hardly a surprise in 1964. The game’s promotional materials have not
been coy about this, and anyone paying attention would deduce it fairly
quickly: Naked Snake is the man who will go on to become known as Big Boss,
also known as the greatest soldier who ever lived, <i>also</i> known as the template from whom Solid Snake and his
unfortunate brother Liquid Snake would later be cloned.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
But
appearances are deceptive. This man may
look like Solid Snake, and in terms of military skill and ability, it’s clear
that Solid Snake’s apple fell quite close to the tree. But Solid Snake, when we came to know him in <b>Metal Gear Solid</b>, was a bitter,
world-weary cynic, for whom the phrase “Been there, done that” falls so short
of the mark that it actually seems a little bit dishonest. Solid Snake does what he does with a sense of
grudging acceptance. He doesn’t really <i>like</i> what he is or the things he does,
but he does them because that’s pretty much all that’s in him to do. It’s what he was designed for, after
all. For all the talk in <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> about rising above
one’s genetic destiny, it seems like it was too much for Solid Snake in the
end.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Naked Snake,
on the other hand, is a little bit of a weirdo.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
He geeks out
over the modifications that have been made to some of the weapons he comes
across. He’s afraid of vampires and
other supernatural creatures. He looks
forward to eating pretty much any and every creature he comes across in the
field to survive, purely for the experience of it. At one point, he expounds on the comfort he
feels while hidden inside a box.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
At the same
time, he’s a consummate professional in his field, albeit with a certain odd
sense of youth to him compared to his enemies.
He believes in right and wrong – he believes he’s fighting for his
country, while the player (and pretty much everyone else in the game) knows
that this just plain isn’t the truth, and it’s honestly a little heartbreaking
to watch. Even in the 60s, prior to the
advent of much of the technology that makes the Patriots’ hold on the U.S. (and
the world) possible, they have a pretty good grasp on things. Naked Snake is comparatively young and
innocent, surrounded by older, more experienced and more cynical people who
have seen enough to know whose hands hold the reins of the world, and who have
at least some idea how to fight back. These
people would either use him or destroy him for interfering, or both. He is easily manipulated, and in well over
his head.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
This far
into the series, there are certain iterative patterns. Concepts introduced in one game are brought
back for the next, but refined and changed.
So where <b>Sons of Liberty</b> gave
us the Tanker and Big Shell chapters (essentially, the tutorial and the main
game), <b>Snake Eater</b> gives us the
Virtuous Mission and Operation: Snake Eater.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The Virtuous
Mission sees Naked Snake sent on the world’s first HALO jump deep into the
jungles of Soviet Russia. Here, he is to
retrieve a Russian scientist named Nicolai Stepanovich Sokolov. This man, it turns out, was the real reason
the Cuban Missile Crisis happened.
According to <b>Snake Eater</b>,
Sokolov was trying to defect to the U.S.
The USSR was aware of this, and their moving missiles to Cuba was their
way of threatening the U.S.; return Sokolov to the USSR, or else. The President caved in, Sokolov was returned,
and the missiles went back to Russia with him.
The Virtuous Mission, then, is portrayed as the CIA’s attempt to right
this particular wrong.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In addition
to his commander, a former SAS officer code-named Major Tom (later code-named Major
Zero, after the inevitable failure of the Virtuous Mission), Snake is getting
radio assistance from none other than The Boss, a female soldier who is the
mother of special forces in the U.S., and a fantastically talented
soldier. She is Snake’s personal mentor,
but is also something more. How <i>much</i> more is left open for debate.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Things start
to go sideways almost immediately upon Snake finding Sokolov. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Unbeknownst
to Snake, there is a coup in the works.
The current Russian government under Nikita Krushchev is threatened with
violent overthrow by a military commander named Colonel Volgin. Almost as soon as Snake makes contact with
Sokolov, a team of Volgin’s elite soldiers, called the Ocelots, make a strike
on the compound where Sokolov is being held.
Sokolov is a developer of weapons.
In particular, he is working on a new type of tank called the Shagohod,
which can cross virtually any kind of terrain, and will be able to fire a
nuclear missile. For a hawk like Volgin,
this is too tempting to pass up.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The Ocelot
unit has little concern for their regular army compatriots; in fact, they
slaughter the soldiers currently guarding the compound just to get at
Sokolov. The player recognizes trouble
when he sees it, and it takes no time at all to realize that the leader of the
Ocelot unit is a young man who will later go on to become the second coming of
Lee Van Cleef, in the form of Revolver Ocelot.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Snake and
Sokolov’s escape from the Ocelot unit is short-lived, however. As the two make their way across a rope
bridge over a <i>very</i> deep chasm, they
are confronted with none other than the Boss herself. Her earlier assistance to Snake was a
ruse. In truth, she’s defecting to the
Soviet Union, and she’s taking a handpicked group of soldiers, known as the
Cobra Unit, with her. Not long after
this, Volgin arrives by helicopter, along with the rest of the Cobra Unit, to
witness the Boss beating the holy hell out of Snake. In addition to recapturing Sokolov, the Boss
has a gift for her new commander: two nuclear warheads, and a “Davy Crockett”,
a portable launcher. The Boss tosses
Snake over the bridge and into the river below, seemingly knowing he’ll survive. As Volgin, the Boss, and the Cobras depart,
Volgin decides he wants to try out his new toy, and fires one of the nukes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So: We have the
failed defection of a Russian scientist who was working on a mobile nuclear
launch platform; the defection of <i>the </i>top
American soldier, not to the USSR, but specifically to Colonel Volgin, who
threatens to take over the entire Soviet Union and turn the Cold War hot; and a
nuclear explosion well inside the borders of the USSR, courtesy of a
U.S.-designed missile. In the political
field, I think the phrase they use for this is “a shitstorm”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
After a
tense call on the red phone between Nikita Krushchev and Lyndon B. Johnson, a
plan of sorts is worked out. The U.S.
will send an operative (Naked Snake, naturally) back into Russia to eliminate
both The Boss and Volgin, thus proving that the Boss’s defection to Volgin’s
faction within the Soviet Union was the act of a rogue soldier, rather than a
plot by the U.S. to destabilize the Soviet Union. Major Zero, meanwhile, sees this mission as a
sort of proof of concept for the Fox Unit he has for some time been trying to
form. The Virtuous Mission was supposed
to be that, of course, but now this mission, Operation Snake Eater, will serve
instead. Of course, the unspoken threat
is quite clear: If Snake Eater is a failure, none of them will be around to do
any kind of soldiering again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
And as
always, nothing is what it seems.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The thing
about the story of a <b>Metal Gear Solid </b>game
is that I can never really tell when to <i>stop</i>
talking about it. There’s a fine balance
to be struck between explaining enough to demonstrate the complexity of it, and
explaining too much and giving it away.
I <i>think </i>I’ve got it, but I’m
stopping here anyway, just to be sure. So
let’s talk about actually <i>playing </i>the
game. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The first
time I did, I was just about paralyzed with anxiety.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The thing
that’s different about <b>Snake Eater</b>
is that it takes place largely in outdoor environments. Previous games in the series took place
mostly indoors. The outdoor areas were
basically small segments of land between buildings, and were functionally
indistinguishable from indoor areas. The
exceptions to this rule were generally setpieces, such as tank battle and the
sniper duel in <b>Metal Gear Solid</b>, or
the much different sniper section in <b>Sons
of Liberty</b>. The main action in those
games involved sneaking around inside buildings, where sight-lines were
relatively short, and opportunities to duck around a corner and into a locker
or an air duct were plentiful once you knew what to look for and where to find
it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Snake Eater</b>, by contrast, throws you
into the middle of the open wilderness, with enemies whose camouflage is not
just part of a uniform, but is actually functional. It can be damned difficult to spot enemies in
the distance, and with this being the mid-60s, Snake’s radar isn’t available
yet. You have a motion tracker, but this
operates on a limited battery (which thankfully can be recharged), and only
shows the last known location of moving entities, not all of which are enemies
(a large portion of these may in fact be animals). More so than either of its predecessors, <b>Snake Eater</b> demands that you slow down,
use all of your tools, and plot your course of action carefully.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Enemies are
also smarter. If they detect any sign of
your presence, or hear sounds like bullets striking surfaces nearby (even if
the weapon itself is silenced), they will call for backup first, <i>then</i> go looking for you. Likewise, the Alert and Evasion phases of
heightened security are longer and also more stressful, as there are generally
fewer nooks and crannies to hide and just wait it out. To a certain extent, you could bumble your
way through <b>Metal Gear Solid </b>and <b>Sons of Liberty</b> simply by running away
and finding hiding places where enemies couldn’t follow you if you got spotted,
and your radar made detecting and predicting your enemies much easier. <b>Snake
Eater </b>requires that you make a greater effort to avoid being spotted in the
first place, as there are few impregnable hiding places – sometimes none.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The game
also strives to be more realistic. Where
previous games had the relatively straightforward video game-y mechanic of
health that you lost when being injured and restored by using certain items
(typically rations), <b>Snake Eater</b> has
two different gauges: one for health and one for stamina.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Health can’t
be restored directly. It naturally
regenerates over time, but this process is slow. It goes faster depending on how much stamina
you have. Stamina can be regained by
eating certain kinds of food (different
food regenerates differing amounts of stamina), which ranges from military
rations to whatever you can capture and kill in the field. Rotten food (such as animals you’ve killed
but haven’t eaten quickly enough) will actually damage your stamina, or even
make you sick. Which adds a whole new
layer to the survival mechanic <b>Snake
Eater </b>is trying for. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
If you take
damage severe enough – getting shot, stabbed, sliced, beaten with blunt
objects, catching a cold from spending too much time in the water, betting
burned, getting leeches stuck to you from crawling through the swamps, or getting
sick from eating rotten food – you’ll have to fix yourself up. There is a Survival Viewer menu you can
access which will tell you what’s wrong, and will allow you to use the
different first aid items you will occasionally find to fix the problem. For instance, if you get shot with a bullet,
you’ll need to first use your knife to fish the bullet out, then use a
disinfectant to sterilize the wound, then use a styptic to stop the bleeding,
then use sutures to sew the wound shut, then use a bandage. Thankfully, all of this is as easy as just
selecting the relevant items from a menu and pressing a button, but even so, it
can get tedious.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
And you have
to pay attention to all of this, because leaving these conditions untended will
cause your stamina to fall, which in turn will cause your health to drop. Some of these conditions also have more
immediate drawbacks. Major injuries will
bleed, and enemies can follow a blood trail.
Likewise, having a cold will cause you to sneeze occasionally, while more
gastrointestinal problems (sickness or just plain hunger) may cause your
stomach to gurgle. Of course, these
things tend to happen at the most inopportune times. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
To be fair, though,
<b>Snake Eater</b> gives you a lot more
tools than previous games. You have
multiple camouflage patterns and face paints that you can use to hide yourself
well enough that enemies can walk right by you without seeing you, unless you’ve
done something to make them want to look for you. Catching
food is easy (indeed, it’s why food going bad is such a problem; you’ll be
burdened with an excess of it until you get a feel for how much and how often
you need to eat, and what works best), and there are ways to use your rotten
food to make your enemies sick. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Likewise,
the game is fairly flexible, and offers quite a number of opportunities to
affect how later sections play out.
Destroy a supply depot, for instance, and enemies in a later section of
the game will fire at you more sparingly, since now they have to conserve ammo. While straight-up firefights are still
generally something you want to avoid, you can be more openly aggressive in
dealing with enemies than you could previously.
<b>Metal Gear Solid 3</b> gives you
quite an armory to play with compared to the previous games. Even some of the boss encounters can play out
with major differences (one can be sidestepped entirely, if your reflexes, aim,
and timing are good in a certain section of the game), which adds to that
all-important replay value.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
If <b>Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty</b> helped
to whet our appetites for all that the PlayStation2 could do in 2001, <b>Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater</b>, coming
three years later almost to the day, was a more refined game that helped to
demonstrate some of those capabilities.
This wasn’t quite the end of the PS2’s lifespan, but it was getting
there. The limits of the system were no
longer just hypothetical. At the same
time, developers were getting better at hiding the zipper in the monster
suit. The somewhat plastic-y, rigid look
of <b>Sons of Liberty</b> was softened by
desaturated lighting and better textures by the time <b>Snake Eater</b> rolled around, and the animations felt more natural. It was clear at this point that, of the three
systems in the console race in that generation, the PS2 was lagging behind Nintendo’s
GameCube and Microsoft’s Xbox in terms of sheer capability. But just because it wasn’t as capable in many
ways, that doesn’t mean games for it looked <i>bad</i>,
not by any stretch.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I tend to
think that <b>Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake
Eater</b> is a game that showcases the best of what the PS2 had to offer. Not only in technical capabilities, but in
the ambition of its design, and the way it merges its storytelling, mechanics,
and structure. Certainly, it shows Hideo
Kojima at the height of his storytelling powers. As much as I love <b>Metal Gear Solid 4</b> – and I <i>do</i>
love it, in a sort of backhanded way at times – that game glories in its
excess, and it’s one I have to be in the right mood to replay. And while that’s true of all but a few of the
games I like, it’s especially true of that one.
<b>Snake Eater</b>, by contrast,
tells a story that’s complex without resorting to a lot of flash and
techno-babble. The result is a story
possessed of real depth and a sense of meaning.
It’s also clever without showing off its cleverness, which is quite a
trick in itself. Its end – probably one
of the better final encounters in the entire PS2 library – brings together the narrative
and mechanics of the game so perfectly that you almost don’t notice it. You’re too busy to notice much, really; it
tests pretty much everything you’ve learned over the course of the game.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The best
final encounters tend to be like that, though.
A sort of final exam that demands you put together all the skills you’ve
been learning and perfecting throughout the game. And even at the end, <b>Snake Eater</b> retains some of that flexibility that truly makes it
special.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Ultimately,
it boils down to this: <b>Snake Eater</b>
is one of the short list of games that, all by itself, justified owning a
PlayStation2.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So, let’s
talk about versions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In addition
to the plain-vanilla edition that was originally released, Konami eventually
released a version of the game titled <b>Metal
Gear Solid 3: Subsistence</b>. Like the <b>Substance</b> version of <b>Metal Gear Solid 2</b>, <b>Subsistence</b> is packed with extras for <b>Metal Gear Solid 3</b>. But this is a far more substantial
offering. At the time of its release, it
included a new online game mode, <b>Metal
Gear Online</b> (now defunct), as well as a series of short videos (mostly
absurdly comical sequences), new camouflage patterns, and translated versions
of the MSX2 editions of the original <b>Metal
Gear</b> and <b>Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake</b>. Those last two alone justify buying the <b>Subsistence </b>version. But even without all of those things, there’s
one other thing that makes <b>Subsistence</b>
worth owning, and that’s the fact that the <b>Subsistence</b>
version allows you to control camera movement for the first time in the
series. While this is a feature whose
absence is a tremendous pain in the ass for <b>Metal Gear Solid 2</b>, its continued absence in the original version
of <b>Metal Gear Solid 3 </b>was downright
tragic.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The <b>Subsistence</b> version of the game is the
one offered in later digital editions, such as those found on the PS3 (<b>Metal Gear Solid HD Collection </b>and <b>Metal Gear Solid Legacy Collection</b>),
Xbox 360, and PS Vita. These versions,
however, do omit some of the extra content.</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-66171501615540094082015-03-24T22:12:00.001-07:002015-03-24T22:12:30.555-07:00Perception, Information, and Reality: Metal Gear Solid 2<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I tried to start writing this about half a dozen times in my head, and
each time, I stopped and started over.
Each time, I tried to tackle it from a new angle, and each time, I had
to give it up. Eventually, I threw my
hands in the air, said “fuck it!” and decided to have a beer. The throwing my hands in the air and saying
“fuck it!” were figurative. I tend not
to do things like that when my wife is around, as I think she’ll start worrying
if I’m talking profanity and gesticulating to no one in particular. The beer was entirely factual.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Really, what can I say about <b>Metal
Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty</b> that hasn’t already been said a hundred times
over? That hasn’t already been observed
with more depth, and the benefit of more disciplined and motivated research,
study, and applied thought than I have the will to muster? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
And the fact is that, at this late date – some thirteen years after the
game first came out – there really isn’t much new ground to cover. You can view the plot of <b>Sons of Liberty</b> as a deconstruction of the tropes and story beats
of the previous game, or you can view it as a reflection of those tropes and
story beats. You can say it’s director
Hideo Kojima’s attempt to troll fans of the series in the name of getting out
from under the behemoth he’s created (he’s said on several occasions that he
wants for the love of God to stop making Metal Gear Solid games, but can’t seem
to stay away; it’s his baby, after all, and even if he wants nothing more to do
with it, he cares too much to let it go wrong in someone else’s hands). You can say that it’s clever, that it’s
overwrought, or that it’s wrought just fine.
You can say that it’s stupid and pretentious and silly, or that it’s
serious and deep and turgid with meaning.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
You can, in fact, say pretty much any damned thing you like about <b>Sons of Liberty</b>, and that’s really the
whole problem I was having at the beginning of this writing. One of the really interesting things when it
comes to talking or writing about <b>Metal
Gear Solid 2 </b>is that no matter what you do eventually wind up saying, you
will inevitably and without fail find someone, <i>somewhere</i>, who will agree with you completely. Few games have engendered so much discussion,
from forumites shouting profanities at each other (and their respective
mothers) to intellectuals dissecting the narrative, the meta-narrative (that
word rubs me the wrong way), and the structure of the game itself. Most of the other games I can think of off
the top of my head tend to inspire a sort of general consensus of opinion, with
usually a dissenting minority. At the
very least, the opinion on a given game tends to break down along certain <i>types</i>: More casual fans of first-person
shooters, for instance, tend to like <b>Halo</b>,
while hardcore fans of the genre (especially on PCs) tend to loathe it. But opinions on <b>Sons of Liberty </b>tend to be pretty scattershot and without any real
consensus, even within an otherwise like-minded group.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
And whatever <i>I</i> might say, the
plain fact of the matter is that someone else will have said it first, better,
and with more effort put into the facts and the reasoning. And let’s be honest, here: I do this because
it’s fun, because I like to write, and I need to keep writing on the regular. I also do this because it’s a great way to
articulate my thoughts and feelings about the various games and other assorted
media that I have thoughts and feelings about.
It’s why I’m mainly positive in these write-ups. I tend not to <i>keep</i> things I dislike, and I tend not to dwell on them very
much. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
But when it comes to <b>Metal Gear
Solid </b>2, there’s one thing I think I can say about it that I think most of
us can agree with: </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
It was one of the first – perhaps <i>the</i>
first – major block-busting, system-selling title for the PlayStation2. For a lot of people, it sold them the system.</div>
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<br /></div>
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* * *</div>
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<br /></div>
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The original<b> Metal Gear Solid</b>
had been a runaway success, as I believe I might have mentioned. It was one of the titles that cemented the
original PlayStation’s status as the system to own for serious players who
wanted to be at the leading edge of the evolution of the medium. Not that that other systems of its time
weren’t worth owning – there are plenty of worthwhile games that came out on,
and were exclusive to, the Nintendo 64 and the Sega Saturn. But if you could own only one system, and
weren’t an absolute Nintendo or Sega diehard, the choice pretty much made
itself.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
For evidence of <b>Metal Gear Solid</b>’s
deep and lasting success, you have only to look back to the last time you had
to grit your teeth and sweat through an ill-advised and poorly devised stealth
section in a game that otherwise has no use for stealth. There is no praise quite like imitation, even
if the imitation is sort of pale and bland (if not just plain sloppy) next to
the original.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Of course, when talking about the PlayStation2, it’s questionable how
much help Sony needed to sell their system.
Coming off the success of the original PlayStation, Sony’s PS2 didn’t
have a lot in the way of stiff competition.
The Dreamcast was an admirable machine, and a forward-thinking one in
many ways, but Sony was destined to crush it.
The PS2 was an overall more powerful system, and had the benefit of
functioning as a DVD player at the same time that the DVD format was really
beginning to take off. It didn’t hurt
that the system was actually priced somewhat lower than DVD players at the
time. It also had the benefit of not
requiring you to forsake your PS1 library, since there were only a very small
handful of PS1 games it couldn’t play.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Which was good, in hindsight, since that first year of the PS2 was
honestly kind of dire. Not that it
probably mattered in the long run, but <b>Metal
Gear Solid 2</b> existed in some way as a sort of announcement to let everyone
know (in case there was any question) that the next generation was <i>here</i>, and there was far, far more to it
than having a better polygon count, smoother textures, silkier animation, and
better lighting effects.</div>
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<br /></div>
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* * *</div>
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<br /></div>
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When I think about the ways in which technology improves games, there
are two main ways I look at it.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
First off, there is <i>vertical</i>
improvement. More colors possible, more
objects on-screen, better music, etc.
This was essentially the sort of upgrade we saw from pretty much the
beginning of video games up to the NES generation, and then again up through
the 16-bit generation. The graphics in
games began to be less representational (where perhaps a stick figure, or a
square, or an @ sign, or a vaguely humanoid lump of single-color pixels stands
for your character) and more really depictive (the player’s character actually
looks immediately evocative of a human being, with a unique appearance and
maybe even a distinct sense of identity), the animations were more detailed,
and the music (when present) became worth listening to.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Then we have <i>lateral</i>
improvement. These are improvements that
widen the amount of options and broaden our idea of what is possible. Nintendo introduced lateral improvements with
their games for the NES. Prior to them,
the market was largely (this is not to say exclusively) dominated by games that
were either created as home versions of popular arcade games, or designed in
that mold. Nintendo recognized that home
systems were better suited to games that were longer, deeper, more thoughtful
and challenging to more than the reflexes, and they and their third-party
developers began making games accordingly.
The move from 8-bit systems to 16-bit systems was more of a vertical
one, but then gaming changed laterally again with the introduction of 3D
systems like the PlayStation, the Sega Saturn, and the Nintendo 64. This was a rare moment when lateral change
was an actual necessity. Systems
designed around providing 3D graphics pretty much required 3D games, and as we
all rapidly discovered, what worked in 2D games did not necessarily work in 3D
games.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Sons of Liberty</b> seems to
have sought to improve in both directions.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The vertical improvements weren’t hard to believe – in fact, they were
pretty much expected. Even aside from
the fact that vertical improvements always occur when we move to a new console
generation, you have to remember that these were the early days of the PS2. Sony wanted desperately for all of us to
believe that the PS2 was going to change how we interacted with our
entertainment media – would, in fact, change the very nature of video games and
interactive entertainment altogether. There
was a sort of breathless sense of wonder in the way industry pundits talked
about the system’s <i>two USB ports</i>
(which, ultimately, were rarely used), and all the possibility those
represented. It was as if they feared
that having a really great gaming machine (for the technology of the day) that
was also a fully functional DVD player, at a price well below what we might
reasonably expect to pay for both of those things separately, might not be
enough for some people. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
This was, by the way, the system that went on to dethrone the NES – which,
you might recall, came to America in what was basically a vacuum, and had the
market all to itself, uncontested, for several years running – as the
best-selling console video game system <i>of
all time</i>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
So, no. Nobody had any trouble
believing that the graphics and sound of <b>Metal
Gear Solid 2</b> would knock our socks off.
There’s a Penny Arcade strip that comments on this <a href="http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2000/05/12">rather memorably</a>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
But this was more than a longer, better-looking version of <b>Metal Gear Solid</b>. Some of the improvements, we could
expect. Enemies might be smarter? Oh, sure.
It was a given. Hell, it was an
unspoken <i>plea</i>, really. The enemies in the original game were dumber
than brickbats. Naturally, this was
nothing more than a system limitation, but it doesn’t change the fact that the
enemies were difficult only because they had unlimited firepower which the
player lacked, or moved in routines and numbers that compensated for the relative
idiocy of individuals.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
This is not to say that the enemies in <b>Sons of Liberty</b> put on a stunning display of intellect. No, no, that would be overselling it by
several orders of magnitude. They are
still fundamentally lobotomized creatures.
They will, after all, fail to notice that they have been shot with a
tranquilizer dart in any place that does not cause immediate unconsciousness
(and upon waking, they will have no memory of having been shot, or that
anything might be even slightly amiss).
They’ll go looking for the cause of a disturbance if they hear a noise
(or, again, if they’re shot non-fatally, or in a way that doesn’t induce
instant unconsciousness). But they fail
to immediately associate being shot with the possibility of a saboteur or
espionage agent in their midst. But they
will call for assistance if something seems awry. There’s a command center that checks in with
their patrols regularly, so you have to be careful about taking out enemies,
since if the commander doesn’t get a report back, he’ll be more than happy to
send in a squad of soldiers with shotguns and riot shields to check the
situation out.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The game does still makes dealing with enemies trickier overall, though. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Once an enemy is down, he doesn’t disappear as in the previous game (or
as in video games generally, which would cause enemies to disappear as much for
system limitations – each enemy the system has to keep track of is one more
drain on the memory, after all – as for any other reason). They just lay there, unconscious, evidence to
any other enemies that might pass by that something was out of the
ordinary. Nine times out of ten, if you
just knocked the enemy out, the KO’d enemy would be kicked awake by his
comrades, and upon awakening, would have no memory of being shot by a
tranquilizer dart. Or, you know, punched
several times in the face, depending on how you handled it.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i>Dead</i> enemies, on the other
hand, can be even more trouble than live ones.
Once discovered, dead enemies will cause their compatriots to call for a
sweep of the area, at which point you will be reintroduced to the guys with the
shotguns and riot shields if you don’t stay out of sight and move quickly. You can try to hide bodies by shoving them
into out-of-the-way places (most often lockers), but God help you if you leave
a trail of blood, which the enemies are at least smart enough to follow to
wherever you’ve stashed their unfortunate comrade. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Worse yet, God help you if you leave a trail of blood leading to<i> your</i> location, because you’re bleeding
yourself (from being shot, see), or if you’ve been out in the rain, or
swimming, and left a trail of wet footprints right to your hiding space. Or if, while hidden in your locker, you make
too much noise. Or if the enemy saw you
go into the room, and the locker was the only possible hiding place.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
This was mitigated somewhat by the addition of first-person aiming,
allowing you to look around, and target enemies and obstacles, beyond the range
of what is otherwise readily visible while you indulge in the normal running
and sneaking about (despite being in amazing-for-its-day 3D, <b>Sons of Liberty</b> still set the camera so
as to give you a bird’s-eye view mostly, which is fine for small sprites on a
screen, or even relatively simple PS1-level 3D models, but not so great for
when you’re dealing with larger and more detailed character models and more
intricate environments). It allows you
to fire on your enemies with precision so that you can kill them or knock them
out instantly by targeting vital areas.
It also allows you to target objects in the distance that might cause a
distraction. For instance, you might
shoot at a fire extinguisher down the hall from your enemy, causing it to go
off, and causing the enemy in turn to go investigate it.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
In short, the world is more wide open than it was in <b>Metal Gear Solid</b>. This seemed almost unthinkable in a way; <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> itself was a pretty
wide-open game compared to its contemporaries, and <b>Metal Gear Solid 2</b> upped the ante in pretty much every way. </div>
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<br /></div>
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* * *</div>
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<br /></div>
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It must be said that, occasionally, the Metal Gear series baffles me
with its treatment of what I’ll call, for lack of a better term, military
paraphernalia. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The game’s opening mission tasks you with infiltrating a tanker ship
carrying an experimental weapon called Metal Gear Ray. This unit has been built by the Marine Corps,
and designed to take down other Metal Gear units such as Rex, which you dealt
with in the previous game. You belong to
an organization called Philanthropy, which is dedicated to stopping the
proliferation of Metal Gear units throughout the world. You have to take four photos of this one,
from different angles. One of these
photos needs to show the Marine Corps logo on it, to expose the underhanded
dealings within the U.S. military that led to its creation. Which is all well and good, except,
well… It was 2001 when the game came
out, and this section of the game was set a few years in the future from that
point (2007; now well in the past). Even
in 2001, we had Photoshop, to the extent that photographic evidence could be
convincingly faked for a variety of purposes.
So photos showing the Marine logo coming from a fringe NGO like Philanthropy
could be easily dismissed as a hoax even then.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The other thing that bugged me was another scene (also from this
section of the game) wherein a Russian mercenary commander shows up to begin
the operation of hijacking the ship for nefarious purposes. Solid Snake, our hero in this part of the
game, sees him and immediately identifies him as Russian <i>not</i>, as you might expect, by the fuzzy brown hat with the star on
it, or by his uniform (or the uniforms of the soldiers he commands), but by his
haircut. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
“No Marine barber touched <i>that </i>head
of hair,” Snake says. To which my only
reply is: <i>bullshit</i>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I was in the Army. I am not
saying this to brag, but simply to support my point. I met or ran across more than a few Marines
during my job training and joint force exercises. I have seen Marines with that exact haircut. I’ve seen soldiers with it. You know what I <i>haven’t</i> seen? Soldiers (or
Marines) with beards, or with unbloused trouser legs, or sleeves rolled up to
their forearms (it’s either up to the biceps, or all the way down), because all
of these things are against uniform regulations that have been in place for
years – probably <i>decades</i> – and don’t
look likely to change any time soon. Yet
these are all things that appear in <b>Sons
of Liberty</b>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I mean, these uniform issues don’t actually bother me. It’s fiction; I don’t exactly have a stick up
my ass about this sort of thing in and of itself. But if you’re going to have characters make
pointed observations about the finer details of another character’s appearance,
and draw conclusions from those observations, it behooves you not to indulge in
a practice I like to think of as <i>making
shit up</i>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
It happens a few other times, too.
A character presenting himself as a member of Seal Team Six approaches
the player (this time a character different from Solid Snake, code-named
Raiden), and at one point in the conversation quotes what is apparently the
motto of the British SAS: “Who dares, wins”.
I’m assuming that’s the SAS motto, anyway; <b>Sons of Liberty</b> tells me it is for the purposes of its story. But who knows? The game has shown a willingness to fabricate
facts (“facts”) in the service of its story.
Anyway, the point is that after the character who says it leaves, Raiden
is warned that this character might not be who he seems (spoiler: he’s not, but
this being Metal Gear, no one is, not even said main character). His use of the SAS motto is given as
proof. Because, naturally, it’s
impossible that he might have heard it elsewhere and quoted it because he finds
it to be insightful, motivating, and encouraging; or because maybe he
cross-trained with the SAS or was on an operation with SAS operatives (as
special forces soldiers sometimes do); or for some other mundane and perfectly
understandable reason like that.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The kicker is that in the last example, we hardly need any warnings
that the Seal Team Six operative, who gives his name as Iroquois Pliskin, is maybe
not on the up and up. His initial
appearance is pretty suspicious, as is his cover story (glib, and given well,
but still a little dodgy all the same).
The additional admonishment is completely unnecessary and overdone. The same is true of the Russian commander in
the early part of the game. There are <i>legitimate </i>details the game could
highlight to make its observations, but it prefers to resort to bullshit
instead, and the only reason I can think of is that someone, somewhere, thought
it wouldn’t properly showcase the characters’ knowledge of military minutiae
(and therefore their being consummate warriors) if they did it any other way. Which is asinine, but… here we are.</div>
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<br /></div>
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* * *</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Speaking of asinine, I may as well get around to talking about the
story.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>Sons of Liberty</b> doesn’t just
go off the deep end. To say that it goes
off the deep end would be so understated as to be a lie. What it does is dive gleefully into the deep
end, head-first, mad-cackling, from a great height (possibly from orbit). </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I may be overselling that.
Somewhat.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Truth be told, calling the story asinine is probably pretty
disingenuous. Really, I tend to waffle
on my opinion.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Some days I think it’s stupid, and gets in the way far too much for its
own good, and why won’t these people shut up, can’t they see I just want to get
back to the running and sneaking and shooting and into-locker body-stuffing?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Other days, I feel as though it’s perfectly clever, and can’t applaud
it enough, and that even at its worst, the harshest criticism you can really
level at it is that maybe it’s <i>too</i> ambitious.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
In comparison, the plot from <b>Metal
Gear Solid</b> is pretty straightforward. Though, really, so is the plot of <b>Sons of Liberty</b>, at first. Oh, to be sure, it’s a little more out there,
a little more oddball. Things don’t seem
to make quite as much sense, and there’s a feeling right from the beginning
that everything is ever so slightly <i>off</i>. On top of this, the game’s story hits many of
the same beats as the previous game, and has some of the same motifs here and
there, though there’s often a new and different meaning to them, as dictated by
the different context of the game. It
becomes noticeable to the player – hell, it becomes noticeable to the <i>characters</i>, even the hero, Raiden, who
has “played” through the scenario of the previous game in a VR training
simulation. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
One of the central themes of the game is the nature of reality. How do we decide what is reality, what is
fiction, and how might an external entity’s control over information shape our
understanding of the world and the very fabric of what we perceive to be
real? How do our perceptions alter our
understanding, and how does our understanding alter our perceptions?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
One of the things that’s interesting is that, despite the many and –
let’s be fair, here – accurate claims that Hideo Kojima seems keen to ape
Hollywood in his storytelling, there’s no real denying that at the same time,
he’s perfectly able to tell his story in ways that would only be possible in a
video game. Playing on the theme of the
nature of reality, <b>Sons of Liberty</b>
does some of its storytelling through the very interface of the game. The characters who relay orders, information,
and advice to you through your codec go from giving bad advice, to going off on
bizarre and completely irrelevant tangents, to spouting complete gibberish. The Game Over screen pops up seemingly at
random, in tense firefights, except the game isn’t actually over, and the window
in the Game Over screen which normally shows a graphic depicting the manner of
your untimely demise is instead a tiny screen on which you are still playing
the game (briefly, before things return to what passes in the <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> world for normal). And there are other, subtler signs in the
interface and in the more mechanical elements of the game to indicate that
things are going pear-shaped in a tremendous hurry.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The more superficial, external elements of the plot are practically
irrelevant. After the opening chapter of
the game, you are on a solo mission to the site where Solid Snake supposedly sunk
the tanker containing Metal Gear Ray (except, as the player, you know that this
version of events doesn’t quite square with reality; already, the game’s themes
of truth, information and misinformation, and the manipulation of consensus
perception, are at work). On this site
is now a facility called Big Shell, which is meant to be cleaning up the spill
from the oil tanker (again, as the player, you know it wasn’t <i>oil</i> in that tanker). The President of the United States is being
held hostage there by a group known as Dead Cell, who were previously a unit of
the U.S. military tasked with infiltrating U.S. facilities as a way to test
their readiness. But they’ve gone rogue,
and are now making terrorist demands.
You’ve been sent in, alone, to stop them. There are other efforts in progress as well,
but these are largely diversions, meant to cover your own operation. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
The deeper elements of the story have been discussed back and forth,
practically to death, by now. That the
game performed the ultimate artistic bait and switch regarding players’
expectations has been discussed, but I’ll mention it anyway, because it’s an
example of the game’s very existence being demonstrative of the point the game’s
narrative is trying to make. I’d call it
the meta-narrative, if I didn’t feel like a pompous ass every time I even
considered using that word. (Damned if
it isn’t tempting, though.) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
So, the first part of the game teases you by letting you play as Solid
Snake from the previous game, then ditches him after that chapter closes in
order to put you into the sneaking suit (here referred to as a Skull Suit, for
whatever reason) of a new character, the comparative rookie code-named Raiden. There was some furor over this, in certain
corners of the <b>Metal Gear Solid </b>fan
community. In part, that’s because screenshots
and videos of the sections of the game starring Raiden were presented with
Solid Snake in his place, making the introduction of Raiden a complete surprise
when the game first launched. But this
is all part of the meta-narrative (there, I used it); director Kojima is
altering the information you receive, building up a false perception of the
game for effect (in this case, to make some kind of artistic statement, no
doubt).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
You could, I suppose, have a discussion on whether <b>Sons of Liberty</b> <i>is</i> art or
not, but really, so many of those arguments get tedious in a hurry. In the main, whenever I’ve stumbled into a
discussion as to whether such-and-such video game is art or not (barring a few
places), the primary metric used to judge this is whether the particular neck-bearded,
mouth-breathing, fedora-wearing, unwittingly Comic Book Guy-emulating self-styled
“intellectual” troglodyte in question likes it or not. There will be all sorts of eloquent
circumlocution bandied about, but in the end, that’s what it seems to come down
to in the majority of cases I’ve witnessed.
People who thought <b>Sons of
Liberty </b>was kind of stupid and too clever for its own good (these opinions
seem paradoxical to me, but I’ve seen people argue them both) tend to disqualify
it as art. Meanwhile, those who believe
there’s more to it than the most obvious, seemingly trolling manipulations of
its director – who believe these manipulations have a purpose, are <i>going somewhere</i> – tend to say that yes,
it is art.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I’m most often in the latter camp, I suspect. I believe <b>Metal Gear Solid 2 </b>is art. Whether
it’s <i>good</i> art, whether it’s art you’ll
<i>like,</i> is an entirely different
question, and one I’m not qualified to answer, and never will be.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><u>Mundane Stuff: Versions and
Availability<o:p></o:p></u></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
It occurs to me that, as I write about things, I should discuss their
availability for anyone who may be interested.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i>So.</i> <b>Metal
Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty</b> was originally released in late 2001 for the
PS2. It was eventually ported to the
Xbox under the new title of <b>Metal Gear
Solid 2: Substance</b>. This version
contained a few new play modes and mini-games (like a skateboarding game) to
tinker around with, as well as “Snake Tales”, which are brief missions you can
play through as Snake, to see what he was doing while Raiden was trotting back
and forth across the Big Shell complex.
The <b>Substance</b> version was
ported back to the PS2 at some point afterward.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Honestly, it’s probably not worth a lot of extra effort and cost to get
the <b>Substance</b> version of <b>Metal Gear Solid 2</b>. It’s worth having, but probably not worth
going out of your way for. If you can save
yourself money by getting the plain-vanilla version for PS2, then do that. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Later still, an HD version was made available for the PlayStation3, PS
Vita, and Xbox 360, as part of the <b>Metal
Gear Solid HD Collection</b>, where it comes packaged with <b>Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence </b>(the improved version of the
original <b>Metal Gear Solid 3</b>) and <b>Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker</b>. The Vita version of this seems to omit <b>Peace Walker</b>. There is also, for absolutely completist
nutcases*, <b>Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy
Collection</b>, which includes basically every single Metal Gear game Kojima
ever directed up to that point (<b>Metal
Gear Solid</b> and its <b>VR Missions</b>
expansion are available through download vouchers), with the PS2-era games and <b>Peace Walker</b> remastered for HD. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
*I am a completist nutcase, surprising no one.</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-77449506478332534072015-03-09T21:48:00.003-07:002015-03-09T21:48:39.624-07:00The Long and Stealthy Road: Metal Gear Solid<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Some games,
I had to learn to love. <b>Metroid</b> was one of those, which I first
encountered when I was about eight or nine.
I didn’t know how to play the game at the time; the concept of a game
that was nonlinear seemed foreign and strange, and I didn’t really comprehend
how a game could work without discrete levels.
Its openness and freedom felt hostile, almost cruel, when contrasted
against my expectations. I shelved the
game for years, only coming to it again with real interest when I was about 13
or 14, maybe even slightly older, which puts my finally learning to appreciate <b>Metroid </b>right around the time of its
inimitable sequel <b>Super Metroid</b>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Metal Gear Solid</b> was another of those
games. It was the second PlayStation
game I ever played, if demos count (the first was the disappointingly brief
demo of <b>Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver</b>,
also on that same demo disc). While the
demo for <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> was also
brief, it left me feeling strained, stressed, and completely bewildered by the
time I managed to blunder my way into the tank hangar, which is where the demo
ended. At that point, I thankfully took
out the demo disc, and popped in my brand-new copy of <b>Final Fantasy VII</b>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Like <b>Metroid</b>, I just didn’t get <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> at first. The idea of a stealth game was foreign to me,
and when I began to realize what it entailed, I was sort of horrified. Every single other video game I had ever
played, which involved conflict with a clear enemy, encouraged – often plainly incentivized
– direct confrontation with said enemy.
The idea that I should sneak around my enemies – not just sneak up
behind them to defeat them, but avoid them altogether when lacking the tools to
deal with them more permanently – baffled me.
I mean, I understood it intellectually.
But every reflex I had ever developed for a video game, every habit and
way of thinking, encouraged me to engage the enemy in some way.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
It didn’t
help that immediately prior to owning a Playstation, the next most recent video
game systems I owned were an 8-bit NES and a TurboGrafx-16. I was used to a D-pad, two face buttons,
Select, and Start. I was trying to get
used to a controller that added two face buttons (and labeled all of those face
buttons quite differently) and four shoulder buttons (not to mention two analog
sticks), in a game that demanded that you use <i>all</i> of them pretty much constantly. A certain embarrassing amount of my fumbling
about was spent <i>literally </i>fumbling
with the unfamiliar controller.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
“How is this
even remotely fun?” I asked myself, and promptly forgot all about it. Like my first bumbling, confused encounter
with the original <b>Metroid </b>more than half
my life ago (at that point), I didn’t understand it, and because I didn’t
understand it, I couldn’t enjoy it. So I
put it out of my mind.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
It’s an odd
reaction to have had, I think, considering the <b>Metal Gear Solid </b>series has gone on to become one of my all-time
favorites.</div>
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<br /></div>
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* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In my mind,
it feels like a lot more than three and a half or four years. It was Christmas of 1998, and I was 17 when I
first played the <b>Metal Gear Solid</b>
demo. In the late spring or very, very
early summer of 2002, I finally broke down and bought <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> and <b>Metal
Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty </b>at the PX on Fort Lewis, when I was in the
Army. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I can blame <b>Headhunter</b> for this.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Headhunter</b> was originally a Dreamcast
game, made in Europe, and like a number of Dreamcast games, it got ported to
the PS2 when the Dreamcast was discontinued in early 2001. <b>Headhunter
</b>had never made it to the U.S. on the system that spawned it, but we
eventually got the Playstation2 version.
I’m not sure why I bought it. I
had a fair amount of disposable income in those days. The Army’s salary for lower enlisted soldiers
is not, and never has been, particularly great, at least when you look at it on
paper. But it turns out you can make
your $800 a month base pay (not including extra pay for groceries, since God
knew whether, as a journalist, you’d actually be able to make it to a dining
facility in time for a meal) go quite a long way when you have nothing more
than groceries, a landline phone, and dial-up internet to pay for. So the chances were good that if I was more
than a little bit interested in a game, I’d wind up buying it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The problem
with <b>Headhunter</b> was that it never
really came together in a very satisfying way.
There were all sorts of neat things you could do to sneak around your
enemies. You could toss empty bullet
casings to draw attention away from your location. You could shoot pools of oil or gas that
might build up beneath vehicles to cause an explosion, and make your way out in
the confusion. These are the things I
remember. I know that doesn’t sound like
much, but this was a game I played for a few weeks over a decade ago. Cut me some slack.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The game was
pretty scripted, though. When there was
a pool of oil beneath a leaking tanker truck, <b>Headhunter</b> went out of its way to point this out to you, and pretty
much the only reasonable way to get through that point of the game was to shoot
it, cause the explosion, and run like hell before the enemies realized you were
there. No other sensible options
existed, beyond getting into a running fight with all of the enemies, which
most of the time resulted in a quick trip to the Game Over screen. I kept waiting for the game to turn me loose,
to open up and let me use all the various tricks at my disposal to handle
situations as I chose, and it just never did.
It wanted you to feel like a clever, dangerous operative, but it had
very specific ideas about how to do that.
You could either follow the particular course of action the game laid
out – the one correct answer to its idea of the stealth approach – or you could
have gunfight after tedious, frustrating gunfight. The gunfights were mainly tedious because
they were overly ambitious. <b>Headhunter</b> was a game that desperately
needed two analog sticks to control the way it wanted for the kind of game it
wanted to be, but it was originally designed for a system with only one stick.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Around this
time, I started reading reviews for <b>Headhunter</b>,
to see if maybe I just didn’t get it, or if the game would open up at some
point. But the reviews all pretty much
indicated that it never would, and the general opinion seemed to sum it up as
simply <b>Metal Gear </b>Lite.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
At that
point, I decided to bite the bullet. If
I was after a deeper experience than <b>Headhunter</b>
was offering, it seemed like, despite my early concerns, <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> was going to be it. Evidently, I must have thought it was time to
go big or go home, because about a day after that, I was standing in line at
the PX, buying my copies of both <b>Metal
Gear Solid </b>and <b>Metal Gear Solid 2</b>. A two-disc PS1 game and a fairly new PS2
games came up to about a hundred dollars, after tax, so this was something of a
gamble, even given the expendable income mentioned above.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I’m really glad
that worked out.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
One of the
key differences when I took this second approach to <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> was that I was invested, now. I <i>had</i>
to learn, or else I’d just wasted about an eighth of my paycheck, after
tax. While I might not have minded
spending a hundred dollars in those days, I still had the sense not to want to <i>waste</i> that much.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Another key
difference, of course, was that by this point I had the damned controller
layout pretty thoroughly ingrained in me.
So I set to work.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
And it was
work, for a little while. <b>Headhunter</b> turned out not to be such
great training for a serious stealth game like <b>Metal Gear Solid</b>, because <b>Headhunter</b>
wanted you to do one specific thing at every juncture, where <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> basically did exactly
what I’d been wishing <b>Headhunter</b>
would do the whole time, which was to turn you loose in an area and let you
figure out how to get from one end of it to the other in one piece. It required a certain amount of rethinking
my approach, and some unlearning of habits which might not have been bad
generally, but were of no help to me here.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Today, so
much of what <b>Metal Gear Solid </b>did
seems quaint now. To say that enemies
can track you by your footprints in the snow, or the noise you make, doesn’t
sound like such a huge deal today. At
the time, though, it was unheard of for a game to behave so realistically. We were, at that point, just a few years
removed from a time when 3D graphics had been the sole province of arcade
machines that might demand whole dollars for a single attempt. Console games with 3D graphics were largely gimmicky,
on top of being expensive due to the specialized chips the cartridges had in
them. You had <b>Star Fox</b>, which was pretty decent… but then you also had <b>Stunt Racer FX</b>, which was a choppy mess
with an awful framerate even by the standards of the day, and which got along
pretty much by virtue of its gee-whiz factor alone. Pretty much nothing before this (that I can
think of) had ever tried to simulate a realistic environment, which might
reflect the passing of the player character with such mundane-seeming but
subtly brilliant little details as footprints in the snow. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
This is part
of what had me so stressed out on that now-long-ago Christmas morning of 1998:
the realism. I was not accustomed to this. I was not prepared to have to think about my environment
in such a granular way, to take into account the lay of the land. I was used to enemies whose whole purpose was
just to attack on sight according to the tactics with which they were
programmed. There is a sort of
comforting predictability in this, because you always know what’s going to
happen, and also because games made like this are usually made in such a way
that you are equipped to deal with these enemies. The question is never so broad as “What do I
do?”, because what you should do is always plain: Destroy your enemies, before
they destroy you. The question in games
like that is, more narrowly, “How do I destroy my enemies?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Metal Gear Solid</b> makes every encounter
different, because it’s triggered by you, the player, outside of scripted
events. The enemies are just patrolling,
for the most part. They’re just making
their rounds. Their default state is
simply to ignore you, because until you make a mistake, they don’t even know
you’re there.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
It’s the “until
you make a mistake” part that made the game so unique for me, so troubling at
first and so fascinating once I was ready for it, because it completely changed
how I thought about games. With regular
games, conflict is the whole point. The
mistakes you make in those games are in faulty fighting methods, which result in
your character taking damage, or dying.
But the conflict in regular games is largely symmetrical, which is to
say that it’s balanced. You as the lone
hero (or party of heroes) will be woefully outnumbered, but to compensate, the
enemies are always either weaker, or lack resources available to the player, or
operate according to relatively simple patterns (whereas the player can think outside
the box or exploit those patterns). So
conflict is the norm; damage and death are punishments for being bad at combat.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Metal Gear Solid </b>makes the conflict <i>itself</i> a punishment. Stand-up fights are largely hopeless. Even toward the end of the game, with your
life gauge at its maximum and wearing body armor, you can take very little
punishment before dying. In an open fight
against multiple enemies, you will be annihilated in short order. <b>Metal
Gear Solid</b> encourages you to avoid detection by enemies altogether. Boss fights are different, of course, as are
the game’s handful of scripted encounters. In the main, what you want is to avoid your
enemies seeing you, and when you <i>do</i> come
up against them, you want to arrange it so that the conflict is <i>a</i>symmetrical, <i>un</i>balanced, and so that you have the complete advantage. Attack with stealth, from the shadows. Learn the enemies’ patterns, so you can take them
out with silenced weapons, one by one, preventing them from calling their
allies to destroy you. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In this way,
<b>Metal Gear Solid</b> keeps you
completely engaged. With a lot of games,
you don’t have to think much about what you’re doing. The objectives are clear, and getting from Point
A to Point B can get pretty rote. <i>Fun</i>, but not really making you fire on
all cylinders. You can enjoy yourself
and relax.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Metal Gear Solid</b> does not want you to
relax. It wants you to be, at all times,
in all situations, constantly alert and constantly thinking, and using every
single one of your relevant resources.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Check your radar for patrolling enemy
soldiers. Get a feel for their
routes. Look for the times and places
where there will be blind spots. Equip
your binoculars; look into the distance.
Plan your route. Put away your
binoculars. Doesn’t that path down the
middle look suspiciously empty and unguarded?
Equip your mine detector. Ah,
okay, the central route is mined, but that little side route is clear. Put away your mine detector. Equip your pistol with the silencer. Dart to the left. Sneak under security camera. Better to sneak under it than to use your
chaff grenades, since in addition to knocking out the security camera for a
bit, they’ll also knock out your own radar.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
And so on,
and so forth. This is basically the entirety
of the <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> experience, at
least from the perspective of play, of mechanics. There’s never really a moment when you can
just coast along thoughtlessly. Not even
when it comes to areas you’re familiar with.
Chances are, if the game requires you to go back to an area you’ve
visited before, something will have changed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The
underlying story for all of this is difficult to talk about. For <b>Metal
Gear Solid</b> specifically, it’s not <i>too</i>
hard. The plot for this game is a little
bit delirious at times, a little bit off the rails, but still basically
okay. It’s at least internally
consistent, and it does a decent job of not letting plot elements come out of
left field. You can’t always say the
same for the rest of the series, which <i>does</i>
get difficult to talk about in brief.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
You can just
jump into the game if you like, but there are briefing files you have the
option of reading viewing. In
themselves, perhaps, they aren’t all that gripping. They certainly don’t really constitute
anything like <i>playing</i> a game. Visually, they’re comprised of a series of
still shots with some light, basic animation and a lot of dialogue. Basically talking heads.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The obvious
joke here is that “talking heads” comprises up to half of the overall <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> experience, both in
this game and the series.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
But this isn’t
just a lot of self-indulgent nonsense.
Or, well, not <i>just</i> that. It helps to lay some groundwork for the story
that <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> tells.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
We start off
with Solid Snake (this is, of course, a codename; his real name isn’t given). The hero of two previous missions, Snake has
gone into seclusion – you wouldn’t call it <i>hiding</i>
necessarily, but that’s not too far off the mark – out in the middle of
nowhere, Alaska. The optional dialogues
make it clear that he doesn’t do this so much because he enjoys it, but more because
it gives him something to do besides soldiering. Soldiering is perhaps the one thing he’s good
at – certainly, we find, it’s the thing he was quite literally made for – but it’s
also the thing he wants least to do, as it seems to lack purpose. He’s found no good cause for his skills, just
a lot of causes willing to use him as a tool.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
But it seems
that he’s not hidden or secluded well enough, because his old commander, Col.
Roy Campbell, comes knocking with a new mission for him, and it isn’t exactly a
request. Well, it sort of is and isn’t.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Campbell
seems genuinely reluctant to drag Snake into this, but at the same time, he’s uncomfortably
close to the situation, and Snake is the only one he knows he can count on to
get the job done. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In a
nutshell, there is a nuclear disposal facility in the fictional Fox Archipelago
(specifically, the equally fictional Shadow Moses Island) which has been taken
over by a group of Next Generation Special Forces soldiers gone rogue. These soldiers have all had extensive genetic
modification, the basis of which being the legendary soldier codenamed Big Boss
(incidentally, but not at all coincidentally, the man from whom Snake was
cloned). Among their demands, they
require that the corpse of Big Boss be turned over to them, so that they can
fix errors in the genetic modification.
Being a nuclear disposal facility, their threats to launch a nuclear
weapon don’t necessarily ring hollow, though how they’ll launch a nuke is a bit
of a mystery at first.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Unfortunately,
the mystery doesn’t last long. It turns
out that the whole “nuclear disposal facility” bit is a smokescreen. What Shadow Moses <i>really</i> is, is the manufacturing and testing site for a project with
which Snake is intimately familiar: the titular Metal Gear.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
For those of
you perhaps not in the know, Metal Gear is a bipedal battle tank, capable of
launching a nuclear warhead theoretically from anywhere, and therefore <i>to</i> anywhere.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I’m going to
leave it there, though, as for as describing the story. If I don’t, we’ll be here all night. Suffice it to say that the reveal of the
Metal Gear is only the first in a long line of twists and turns the story
takes, and that nothing is quite what it seems by the end. Or even by the halfway point, for that
matter.</div>
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<br /></div>
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* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
For a lot of
us in the U.S., <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> was
our introduction to the series. Sure,
there was <b>Metal Gear</b> for the NES (this
version being a port of the original 1987 <b>Metal
Gear</b> on the MSX2, a Japanese console that never saw the light of day in the
U.S.), but that version was pretty stripped down, and lacking in comparison to
the MSX2 original. Which is sort of
comical, when you stop to think about it.
The whole reason the original <b>Metal
Gear</b> was designed as a stealth game in the first place was to work
around the limitations of the MSX2, which
supposedly couldn’t handle the screen scrolling and the number and complexity
of sprites and animation necessary for a more standard run-and-gun affair.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I don’t know
a lot of people who played the original <b>Metal
Gear</b>, and no one in the U.S. played <b>Metal
Gear 2: Solid Snake</b> (though perhaps some played, and even were capable of
enjoying, the weird, jokey “sequel” cooked up by Ultra Games for the U.S.
called <b>Snake’s Revenge</b>, which has
since been disowned by series director Hideo Kojima). <b>Metal
Gear 2</b> was a Japan-only affair, also for the MSX2.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Metal Gear Solid</b>, by contrast, was damn
near inescapable. If you played games at
all, you heard about it. If by some
freakishly rare circumstance you somehow didn’t, you still felt its
influence. <b>Metal Gear Solid</b> and its emphasis on stealth revolutionized video
games. In the way of such runaway
success stories, it inspired imitators (such as the aforementioned and sadly sort
of shallow <b>Headhunter</b>), and it
likewise inspired the directors of already-successful and established
franchises to insert stealth segments into their games. Sometimes this worked. A lot of times it didn’t.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
From a
broader perspective, <b>Metal Gear Solid</b>
was one of the game that helped make the original PlayStation the tremendous
success that it was. It’s true that, by
this point, the Sega Saturn was dead, and the Nintendo 64 was, though not dead,
a very, very distant second to the PlayStation.
But even so, alongside games like <b>Tomb
Raider</b>, <b>Resident Evil</b>, and <b>Final Fantasy VII</b>, it was a
system-seller, and it helped to highlight the PlayStation as the bleeding edge
of the evolution of gaming as a medium for entertainment and storytelling.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So even as
it’s tempting to deride the series (and by extension, the original <b>Metal Gear Solid</b>) for its weird, campy
characters, and its surreal and sometimes ridiculous plot, and its overall
phenomenal excesses, it has an undeniable legacy.</div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>That’s</i> pretty hard to make fun of.</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-61949708937191853512015-02-23T23:37:00.000-08:002015-02-23T23:37:06.833-08:00Behind the Gun: Quake<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I played a <i>lot</i> of computer games in the summer of
1997. My father had bought us a new
computer that February, and I was making my way through a number of games I’d
heard of and been interested in previously (but which our old computer couldn’t
run). I pushed myself through <b>Another World </b>(it was still called <b>Out of This World</b> in the U.S. at that
time), in what felt at times like a long bout of masochism, and was surprised
to find that the game was beatable in about 20 minutes once you knew what you were
doing (it was figuring that out which took so godawfully long). I worked through <b>Legend of Kyrandia</b>, and like most reasonable people, I had to look
up a guide for the maze in the caves. I
got my ass handed to me over and over and over again by <b>Spectre VR</b>, but kept coming back for more; I’ve never beaten it, I
probably never will, and that has always been joyfully irrelevant to my
enjoyment of it. I got bogged down
somewhere in the middle (I like to think it was the middle, anyway) of <b>Prince of Persia: The Shadow and the Flame</b>. And I played a fair bit of <b>Magic: The Gathering</b>, which had
recently been made into a sort of RPG by MicroProse (now more or less defunct,
I think). But more than any of these –
probably more than all of them put together – I played <b>Quake</b>. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Really, that
might not be quite right. It’s probably
more accurate to say that I lived, breathed, ate, slept, and dreamed <b>Quake</b>. </div>
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<br /></div>
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* * *</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The last
first-person shooter I’d been able to really play prior to this had been <b>Wolfenstein 3D</b>. <b>Doom</b>
was a far-off fantasy that I played mostly at other people’s houses. We owned the shareware version of it, but
never bought the full version because it would only have been torture. The computer we’d first had, back when <b>Doom </b>was the new hotness, was an HP
386/SX. It could <i>technically </i>run <b>Doom</b>,
but the game played like the slideshow highlights of an epileptic seizure. The only way to combat this effect was to
shrink the screen down to postage-stamp size, at which point you could barely
see anything, so what was the point?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I still
forced myself through <b>Doom</b>, though, because
I was too young to have a job, and therefore too young to buy games on my
own. When you rely on parents and relatives
to buy you games for your birthdays and Christmases (also possibly on special
occasions after many carefully constructed appeals that invariably culminate in
pleading), you learn to eke whatever enjoyment out of them that you can. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
During that summer
of 1997, though, a friend loaned me a binder of what must have been at least a
couple of years’ worth of demo discs that came packed in with copies of PC
Gamer. On one of those discs was the
shareware edition of <b>Quake</b>. I no longer recall for sure, but <b>Quake</b> may have been the main reason I
asked to borrow that binder in the first place.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I couldn’t
run <b>Quake </b>at its maximum resolution,
because this was 1997, and you had to be a very special kind of computer geek
to have a machine capable of that back then, but it ran just fine at normal
resolutions. I spent a lot of
afternoons, evenings, and nights (and, this being summer, the small hours of
God alone knows how many mornings) glued to the computer chair, eyes fixed on
the screen. To this day, I can play the
first few levels of Episode One from memory.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
My
familiarity with <b>Quake</b> has gotten to
a point where I may go months, or even a year or more, without feeling the need
or desire to play it. In this, it shares
a spot with <b>Halo</b> (which came much
later in my life), in that I played it first for the novelty, and later, when
it stopped being new and started becoming familiar, came to seek it out
precisely for the comfort of that familiarity.
It’s a sort of mental comfort food, a thing to consume when I don’t know
what else I want, or when I’m feeling too stressed to make sound decisions
about how to while away an idle hour, and anything new seems too taxing to
focus on properly. My wife plays <b>The Sims</b> (in all its many and sundry
variations) for pretty much the same reasons.
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I wonder
about this part of myself, sometimes.
When my wife wants to retreat into something comfortable, she chooses
something productive and constructive, shaping lives and helping people. Virtual people, it’s true. People who sometimes are too stupid to
understand how to climb out of a pool if the ladder is taken away, to the point
that they will drown, sure. But
still. Meanwhile, <i>I</i> retreat into power fantasies and shoot aliens and eldritch
abominations in the face, (occasionally pistol-whipping them and stabbing them
with knives wherever applicable or preferable) over and over again. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
But to this
day, there is not a single computer I have owned (either personally or jointly)
that hasn’t had <b>Quake </b>installed on
it. Even if I don’t have the urge to
play it, I need to be <i>able </i>to play it
pretty much on demand.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
All of this
is probably no more than a really long-winded way of explaining that it’s
difficult for me to be critical about this game. But since that’s what I’m here for, I suppose
I’d better try.</div>
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<br /></div>
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* * *</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In its
design, <b>Quake</b> really adheres more to
the old school than the new. Of course,
in its time, there were no schools, new or old, unless you wanted to make
purely technological distinctions. While
it helped to usher in the age of 3D acceleration and specialized graphics cards,
its overall structure is far more reminiscent of <b>Doom</b>, and to a certain extent <b>Wolfenstein
3D </b>before it. The game is broken up
into four episodes (the first one is shareware; this was toward the final days
of shareware in general, I believe), each of which in turn is divided into
discrete levels. This is a far cry from,
say, <b>Half-Life</b> (which came out just
a year or two later), or <b>Halo</b>, both
of which <i>are</i> split into chapters, but
for narrative purposes rather than for reasons of game structure.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
A criticism
that has been leveled at <b>Quake</b>, and
at Id Software games generally, is that the enemies are dumber than a sack of
hammers. They simply pursue the player
once they become aware of him or her, and attack. For a new-school FPS, this would be a problem. But there’s a crucial difference between
games of <b>Quake</b>’s vintage and most
newer FPSes which makes this “problem” forgivable.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In my own
personal experience, more recent FPS games tend to exist on a spectrum. On one end, there are more linear games (like
<b>Half-Life, </b>and <b>Halo</b> after the first one).
On the other end, they tend to be wide open (like <b>Far Cry </b>and <b>Crysis</b>). The linear games usually direct you where to
go next, either by designing the environment so that that it’s essentially a
tunnel (figuratively speaking) with only one really clear path or objective in
the first place, or else by resorting to on-screen markers pointing you in the
desired direction. The more wide-open
games might place a destination on the map and tell you that you have to get
there and do a thing, but leave the route and method of approach entirely up to
you. But the thing about these games,
regardless of where on the spectrum they fit, is that they are focused almost
exclusively on combat, and the structure of the environments is designed to
control the pace of, and options available to the player in, combat.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Which isn’t
to say that old-school FPS design shies away from combat, of course, because
that would be a completely ridiculous thing to say. Also, it would be untrue. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
But
old-school FPSes do not rely exclusively on combat; they combine it with problem-solving. Typically these problems takes the form of
navigating your way through a maze, finding doors tucked out of the way,
discovering which switches to hit to trigger changes elsewhere in the level,
and finding the right keys and remembering where the doors they unlock
are. In this style of FPS, the enemies
are more like an additional obstacle.
They may not be smart enough to employ squad tactics, take cover, flank,
etc., but they don’t need to be. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Each enemy
has a specific way of moving and a set way of attacking. They may not be intelligent in themselves,
but their placement is fairly smart, and they’re one more element of the game
that you need to learn. You learn their
patterns so that you can begin to out-maneuver them and attack when the time is
right. You learn their weaknesses so
that you know which weapon (of the more than half-dozen you carry; another
element of old-school FPS design) will damage them most. You can evenlearn to exploit them, luring one
enemy into attacking others, doing at least some of your work for you. And if this still isn’t enough, you have the
environments to worry about. I don’t
like to think of how many times I wound up traveling in endless circles in
Satan’s Dark Delight or the Dismal Oubliette, <i>wishing</i> I could mix it up with some monsters, because that would be
less frustrating than being lost. There
is something uniquely frustrating in being defeated not by any enemy, but
instead by passive terrain features.</div>
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<br /></div>
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* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In terms of
story, <b>Quake</b> may as well not have
one. What it has is less of a story and
more of a premise, and not a terribly complex or interesting (or even
particularly <i>present</i>) one. You’re a soldier or Marine of some kind
(because you always, always are, in games like this, unless it’s <b>Half-Life</b>, where you’re a physicist…
who’s doing soldier-type shit). The
scientists at the base where you’re stationed have been working on a bit of
technology called slipgates, which should in theory allow for teleportation.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Unfortunately,
these aren’t one-way gates, and the demonic agents of an extra-dimensional
entity known only as Quake are able to slip through and attack. Your goal is to eliminate all enemies and
destroy Quake. Once you play through the
last level of the first episode, your goal gets a little more concrete. At the end of each episode is a rune
key. When all four are brought together,
they will open a way to Quake’s realm.
While the episodes do escalate in difficulty, you can attack them
however you like.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
That’s
pretty much it. There are no real
characters to speak of. Quake, when you
finally encounter it (it bears the name Shub-Niggurath, straight out of
Lovecraft) has no dialogue and doesn’t really <i>do</i> anything besides require you to run through the most brutal
gauntlet of the worst enemies the game has to offer (in multiples!). Finishing a given episode (even the game itself)
results in nothing more spectacular than a still shot of the environment you
fought in and a brief crawl of text letting you know what happened. This is maybe a half-step above “Your
princess is in another castle” storytelling.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
But I wasn’t
playing <b>Quake</b> for the story back in
1997, and I don’t play it for the story today.
Nobody did. Nobody does.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
You play <b>Quake </b>purely for the rush of it, and
the atmosphere. The dark, grim, gritty,
bloody <i>feel</i> of it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
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* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Like a lot
of technological achievements, <b>Quake</b>
was mind-blowing in its time, and is pretty quaint today. It’s difficult to imagine someone new to the
genre, who grew up on <b>Halo</b> and <b>Call of Duty</b> and more modern FPSes,
really enjoying <b>Quake </b>the way I and
people my age do. For younger players,
it must have all the appeal of a high school history lesson. And yet…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Id Software
knew how to work well within limitations.
<b>Quake</b>’s technology was at the
bleeding edge of what was possible at the time.
But as true as that is, even then, no one was ever going to mistake <b>Quake</b> for reality, and Id knew it. As 3D graphics go, the engine was
rudimentary. It was incapable of
rendering a natural, organic environment.
Knowing this, Id chose rather to play to the strengths of the engine. If you can’t make natural environments, so be
it; make the most <i>un</i>natural
environments you can manage.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
There’s no
better example of this to be found than <b>Hexen
II</b>, developed by Raven Software using the <b>Quake</b> game engine. <b>Hexen II </b>isn’t a bad game at all, but
the ambition of its design occasionally exceeds the capabilities of the
software. Walking around in more natural
outdoor areas, you really start to see the seams, so to speak. Mounds of turf and grass just look <i>wrong</i> rendered in sharp angles and
simple geometric shapes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Quake</b> aims to make you uncomfortable
with just how unnatural its environments are.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Each episode
starts with a level that’s meant to represent a high-tech military installation
with a slipgate in it. As you fight your
way through these, machinery grinds and groans and hums and thrums in a way
that you know makes the whole room vibrate.
It doesn’t matter that there’s no way to express this during play (this
was a little before the days of force-feedback). You know it, just the same. When you run through these levels, you understand,
in your gut, that the floor beneath your feet is shaking ever so slightly. Doors open and close, and lifts rise and
fall, with a whine of hydraulics and a deep, muted banging of metal that makes
everything feel substantial.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The
remaining ninety percent of the game occurs in a series of nightmarescapes
comprised of castles, fortresses, dank grottoes, and labyrinths, all shot
through with a touch of eldritch horror.
Think of it as a sort of gothic-medieval Lovecraft-lite. All looming towers and dark stonework and
thick, half-rusted-out iron, and everything joins at hard angles. The world is rough and unforgiving and
sparse. These are places that were meant
to be defended, but never really lived-in.
There is a sense of tremendous, ponderous, oppressive <i>weight</i> to these rough-hewn hulks of
stone and metal which any number of more recent games, rendered with far finer
and more minute detail, have failed to capture.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
But it isn’t
all the visuals, oh no. The sound is
part of it, too.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
All these
years later, there’s something deeply satisfying about how crisp and distinct
the various effects are. There’s
something almost comforting about the clear <i>POP…pong…
pong, pong</i> tones of a grenade launching, then bouncing until it contacts a
target. Or the deep, crunchy, percussion
of said grenade exploding. Or the sharp
rasping sound whenever you pick up ammunition.
Or the grinding, slightly electric-guitar sound when you pick up a
health pack. Or the music. Dear God, the <i>music…<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
To call most
of the <b>Quake </b>soundtrack music is to
use music’s most technical definition, which is to say that it is a series of
sounds deliberately orchestrated to achieve a specific effect. The desired effect, incidentally, is to creep
you right the fuck <i>out</i>. So Id recruited someone from their <b>Doom</b> fanbase to compose the soundtrack,
and that someone was Trent Reznor. This
much could not have gone more perfectly. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The
soundtrack is not <i>bad</i>, not even
remotely. But it’s difficult to describe
in typical musical terms – harmony, melody, beat, rhythm, etc. None of those really apply. <b>Quake</b>’s
soundtrack is in no way radio-friendly. It’s
full of all sorts of intermingling swells and pulses of sound and samples produced
by no discernible instrument (beyond probably a synthesizer), calculated to
create a deep sense of unease. Like the
physical environments themselves, the “music” is dark and sinister, unnatural,
uncomfortable, and utterly alien. You
can play the game without it, should you choose, but it really heightens the
atmosphere, and should absolutely accompany the experience if at all possible.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The thing
about a story is that while it provides a reason for what <i>does </i>happen, and an overall sense of structure, as a consequence of
this, it puts limits on what <i>can</i>
happen.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In itself,
this isn’t a bad thing at all. Stories
have to have limits, rules, however you want to think of them, for the same
reasons games (of any type) require them.
Rules provide structure and meaning for the actions within the
story. If anything can happen, then
nothing that does happen matters. An
occurrence matters pretty much in direct proportion to its unlikelihood. The more rare, the more remarkable. This requires rules.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The thing is
that the rules of a story are not the same as the rules of a game. The rules of a story – a <i>good</i> story – are logical, in that they make sense within the
context set forth by the story itself.
There must be internal narrative consistency. A game’s rules are mechanical, and demand
consistency only so far as the mechanics themselves go. It’s always nice when a game manages to marry
its story to its mechanics, because it gives the mechanics more psychological
weight, and gives the narrative a greater sense of immediacy and urgency. But “nice” isn’t the same as “necessary”, and
sometimes throwing out that connection is what works best. The makers of <b>Quake</b> must have come to understand this quite well, because it’s
apparent as early as level two of episode one that there was no real unifying
principle or concept (let alone something as solid as a coherent plot), or even
much more than the vague suggestion of a narrative structure. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Games need
stories like porn needs stories” someone at Id – I believe it was John Carmack,
but I may be wrong – once famously said (I’m paraphrasing, but I’m using the
same comparison he did). The developers
appear not to have been really troubled by their lack of a story, and it shows
in the game’s aesthetics.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Lest you
think I mean this as a criticism, I feel obligated to say that this utter lack
of shit-giving could not have gone more right.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Quake</b>’s development process might
charitably be described as “higgledy-piggledy”.
It began, in the minds of the developers at Id, as a fantasy role-playing
game of sorts, starring an axe-wielding barbarian who would himself be named Quake. I remember reading this in an interview
printed somewhere in the strategy guide for <b>Doom II</b>, years (<i>decades</i>)
ago. This was back when Id, like the
Beatles, were probably bigger than Jesus for some people.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Of this
original idea, only the title (which is now completely arbitrary, even in
context), the axe (it’s your character’s melee weapon), and some medieval-ish
castles remain. The game itself got
compromised into a nominally sci-fi first-person shooter with a light patina of
H.P. Lovecraft. You have possessed
soldiers wearing Kevlar and wielding shotguns, and you have possessed knights
swinging bloodied swords at you. You
have ogres who attack by throwing grenades from a distance, and slicing you
with a chainsaw when they get up close, and you have giant shamblers, bipedal white
behemoths who will wreck you with their claws if they get close, and <i>shoot lightning</i> at you from afar. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
And it’s
carried off like a grand Bavarian Fire Drill.
Id just showed up looking authoritative, acting like they knew what they
were doing, and because of that, we all just sort of went with it. Chainsaw-wielding ogres in arcane fortresses
don’t make sense, you say? Especially
not alongside all the other weirdness?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Eh, screw it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
And really,
who cares? <b>Quake</b>, the game, clearly doesn’t care about any of this
sense-making business, and neither should you.
Why on Earth (or any other plane) <i>would</i>
you? What has sense done for you
lately? Has it let you shoot ogres in
the face with a shotgun, or blow up zombies with a grenade launcher, or take
down demonic spider-creatures with a gun that shoots pure lightning, or
electrocute a giant lava-dwelling creature while it throws fireballs at you? <i>Ever?</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
No?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Well, then, quit
worrying about sense. Go play <b>Quake</b>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><u>Author’s Note:</u></b> While getting <b>Quake</b> to run as-is on modern PCs is apparently sometimes an
exercise in teeth-grinding, hair-pulling frustration, there are a number of
source ports which allow the game to run on modern machines with all sorts of
bells and whistles. These are completely
free, and absolutely worth the effort to track down.</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-48848501931384245112015-02-09T23:37:00.002-08:002015-02-09T23:37:41.089-08:00Behind the Gun – Wolfenstein: The New Order<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I was
eleven, and it was winter. I can’t
remember if it was late in 1992 or early in 1993; I just remember that it was
winter, and I was eleven. My father had
recently been promoted to an office position of some kind at the company he
works for, and occasionally, he’d bring home disks with shareware games on
them. This was back when you could get a
reasonably full-featured experience on a 3.5” floppy disk that held less than a
megabyte and a half of data.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
He came home
one afternoon, fired up the PC, and popped a disk in. A few minutes later, he called out, “David,
come here! You have to see this!” About a minute after that, I was watching my
father mow down Nazis with a machine gun.
There was blood everywhere. “You
have to try this,” he said, stepping away from the computer desk and letting me
take a seat behind the keyboard.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I was
floored. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
That same
year (if I remember it right), <b>Mortal
Kombat</b> hit the arcades, and it was the kind of game that, at ten or eleven,
I could never, ever admit to my parents that I had played. They’d heard of it, and they didn’t
particularly care for what they’d heard.
I didn’t have a system that could play it when it eventually made its
way to consoles, but pretty much all of my friends did. We were all at that stage that I suspect a
lot of young boys go through, where there is a certain lurid fascination with
violence and destruction in all its forms.
Maybe that was just me. But,
looking back, there certainly has to be a reason the Sega Genesis version of <b>Mortal Kombat</b>, which kept all the blood
and violence in their version of the game (locked behind only a simple password;
and if I remember correctly, the initial run of the game lacked even that token
gesture) sold better than the Super Nintendo version, which was much more like
the arcade in graphics and sound (and whose controller was far better suited
for fighting games), but cut out all the blood and the more violent moves.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Now, here
was my father, ushering me in front of the computer to take my first stab at <b>Wolfenstein 3D</b>, inviting me to take a
shot at turning Nazis into little more than puddles of gore. I learned a valuable lesson that day: Games where
you rip out someone’s spine are bad, and you shouldn’t play them. Games where you shoot and stab your way through
an ever-growing mound of corpses to eventually wind up facing Hitler himself
(in the registered version, which we eventually got), and riddle him with so
many bullet holes that his body essentially liquefies, leaving only his
dismembered head atop the resultant pile of viscera and gore, are A-OK.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
My father,
ladies and gentlemen.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I have a
friend at work, Brendon, who describes certain games as “the right kind of
stupid”. This was his assessment of <b>Wolfenstein: The New Order</b>, and the way
he talked about it, I started wanting to play it. I had fooled around a bit with 2002’s <b>Return to Castle Wolfenstein</b>, which I
think was intended as a reboot for the series.
I had sunk a bit more time into 2009’s <b>Wolfenstein</b>, enough to determine that the game was entertaining,
and generally enjoyable, but not really a must-own. I’d be happy to own it cheap, but I wasn’t
going to go far out of my way to track down a copy. I was content to let <b>The New Order</b> slide right on by.
But Brendon’s recommendation intrigued me, so I decided to pick up a
copy, figuring that it would at least be entertaining.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Instead, I
found myself pretty thoroughly hooked. <b>Wolfenstein: The New Order</b> is very well-made,
and surprisingly appealing. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In terms of mechanics
and structure, <b>The New Order</b> offers
a surprising mix of stealth and full-bore action. On the one hand, you’re encouraged to shoot
like crazy. You can basically dual-wield
every weapon. If you want to run around with
a shotgun in each hand, reducing Nazis to a fine red vapor, you’re welcome to
it. The game will certainly indulge you
at every turn. As long as you aren’t an
awful shot, and you know how to pick the right tools for the job, you can get
away with that. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
On the other
hand, there are a number of sections that aren’t scripted as straight-up
free-for-alls. The enemies may be on
patrol, but won’t notice you until you draw attention to yourself. If you can take out the officers in an area
before they can sound the alarm, you can prevent them from sending
reinforcements, making your life easier throughout several sections of the
game. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Early on,
you’re offered the choice of whether to save supporting character or another. The choice has a few narrative consequences
down the line (though this is mainly window dressing, since the plot and the
missions given never change), but it also has a deeper mechanical impact. Saving one character results in you getting
upgrades to your maximum health periodically as you play through the game. Saving the other instead allows you to increase
the resilience of armor you pick up as you go.
The mechanical difference places a subtle emphasis on more careful, stealthy
play on one path, and more active running and gunning on the other.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
As you go,
you can unlock various perks, which cause you to gain various skills – faster reloading,
quicker movement while crouching (which means less likely detection when you’re
trying not to be seen), greater accuracy with certain weapon types, etc. These are typically unlocked by completing
various feats of skill with consistency, and while none of them are strictly
necessary, they can help a great deal.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I have a few
gripes with the controls, which ultimately feel kind of petty, but in the
interest of not sounding completely uncritical, I suppose should name them. The button used to throw grenades and bring
up the weapon select wheel are the same (at least on the PS4; I assume all the
console versions have the same control layout); it does the former and the
latter based on whether you just tap the button or whether you hold it. Sometimes, it seems to have difficulty
determining which. If you tap the button
for longer than a half-second, it can interpret this as a “hold”, and bring up
the weapon wheel when you’re trying desperately to throw a grenade. Likewise, there’s a difference between just pressing
and holding the right stick, which
results in the difference between a standard melee attack and throwing your
knife, which the controller seems to occasionally have trouble
interpreting. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Probably the
most annoying mechanical issue, though, is related to picking up items and
armor. Your cursor has to be pretty much
pinpointed on the item, and you have to be pretty close to it, to register that
you can pick up the item in question. It’s
not a thing that breaks the game, but it can be frustrating to be killed while trying
to grab a health power-up that could keep you alive, because you weren’t lined
up with it just so.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
But, as I
said, complaining about these things just seems petty because ultimately, very,
very few of them really contributed to lingering problems I had with the game. Most of my problem was with the difficulty in
spots, and even that requires some explaining.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I play a lot
of first-person shooters, but I’m not especially picky about them. I tend to get interested in games based on
their story, atmosphere, and the more nebulous characteristic of “feel”. What it amounts to is that I’m just not a
connoisseur. My primary (read: <i>only</i>) metric for judging games in this
genre is “Is this fun?” Or, more
accurately, “Is this fun enough to keep playing despite the occasional bullshit?” It’s important to understand that for most
people’s purposes, “bullshit” is probably best defined as “sections that are frustrating
and difficult for me on normal difficulty, but I’m too bullheaded to rethink my
approach and do things in a more careful, intelligent way (which is to say, a
way that is careful and intelligent <i>at
all</i>), and too stubborn to turn the difficulty down a notch”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
What I’m
trying to say is that I’m not sure I’d exactly recognize good FPS play versus
bad. I find myself occasionally in
situations where I’m suddenly being shot at by enemies, or damaged by hazards, beyond
the immediate viewing area, and can’t find them and escape quickly enough to
avoid getting killed. There are a few
spots where this seems to happen multiple times, and the game stops being fun
for a while, and starts to become work.
But I’m rarely certain whether this is bad game design, or just one more
instance among many of me being awful at the game.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>The New Order</b>’s game design itself is
an interesting mix of old school and new.
On the new-school side of things, we have regenerating health and
auto-save checkpoints. On the old-school
side of things, we have the fact that health doesn’t regenerate completely
(just to the closest full increment of 20 health points), and the ability to
carry about a dozen guns at once. The
game also has no online play mode. There’s
just the campaign (which is, thankfully, long enough and substantial enough to
justify the price of admission), which you can play a second time after
choosing to save the other support character at the end of the first section
for a somewhat different story and different set of upgrades, as mentioned
above. For some people, this is a major
strike against the game. Me, though… </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I’m a weirdo
who hardly ever plays FPSes online. I’ve
spent a bit of time playing <b>Halo 4</b>
online (and experimented with <b>Halo 3</b>
and <b>Halo Reach</b> for about an hour,
total, combined), but mostly with random strangers, so that I might as well be
playing with bots. And there’s <b>Destiny</b>, which is pretty much the same
way so far. So in that sense, the
campaign-only philosophy behind <b>Wolfenstein:
The New Order</b> never bothered me. On
the contrary, it’s pretty much what I was hoping for. I like to settle in for a long single-player
session. I like the notion that after an
hour or two, I will have barely scratched the surface, that there’s a lot more
to go, as long as it stays fun and varied.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I also liked
reading <i>The Wheel of Time</i>, so take
away from that what you will.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
It’s always
strange to find a well-done story in an FPS.
They’re not unknown, exactly, and the genre has undeniably become more sophisticated
and nuanced since the days when these games were all just called “<b>Doom</b>-clones”. But this is still a genre where most of the
development time goes into making sure that the guns all look, sound, and feel
as much like real guns as possible.
Probably more so than most other genres, FPSes are intensely
technology-driven.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So to see
the story well done, even occasionally thoughtful, in <b>Wolfenstein: The New Order</b> is pretty surprising. I don’t necessarily mean this as an insult to
the rest of the Wolfenstein franchise, but <b>Wolfenstein
3D</b> was created by Id Software, famous at one point for the belief that
games need a story about as badly as porn does.
Granted, they simply oversaw the development of <b>The New Order</b>, rather than making it themselves, but still.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
To start, I wouldn’t
even call it the right kind of stupid, because honestly, it’s not any kind of <i>stupid</i>.
It <i>looks</i> like it should be
stupid. The hero, William J. “B.J.”
Blaskowicz, looks like the dictionary definition of a meathead: A tall,
broad-shouldered, crew-cut soldier with the build of a heavyweight MMA fighter
and a jaw that could only be more square if it was rendered using a single, actual
square. His voice is low and rough,
raspy even when he whispers, and there’s a hint of a Texas drawl. <i>George
Washington</i> was not this American. And
Blaskowicz is not always terribly thoughtful.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Yet <b>The New Order</b> is smart with his
characterization. It understands that a
person like Captain Blaskowicz is not going to be well-balanced. His tendency to attack Nazis on sight –
including a former Nazi in the resistance group, before he knows better – comes
from years spent fighting them. His
fervent belief in America (he believes in America the way some people believe
in God) seems to come from a deep-rooted <i>need</i>,
more than anything else, to believe that there must be some group that is as
good as the Nazis are evil, which can stand against them. He doesn’t take it well when it’s pointed out
to him by a black man that America has its own uncomfortable problems with
race, and that from this character’s perspective, the average white American
(of whom Blaskowicz is practically the poster child) isn’t nearly as different
from the Nazis as Blaskowicz would like to believe. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
That <b>The Last Order</b> even had an exchange like
that surprised me. I’m not knowledgeable
enough about these things to say for sure how well it was handled, but I was
impressed at the way the game let the exchange play out, without
compromise. I can’t recall the exact
dialogue. The character making the point
is J, who is heavily implied to be Jimi Hendrix in this alternate history of
how the war played out. But I don’t need
to recall the exact dialogue. The point
of J’s argument is pretty clear. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
It goes
something like this: “You want to think of America as this place of pure
equality and freedom, and it’s not.
There’s a deep hypocrisy in it when it comes to people like me, and the
truth is we have it pretty bad there. Our
problems aren’t institutionalized like they are here in the heart of Nazi Germany,
but in some ways that’s worse. It’s
easier to repeal laws than it is to repeal a deeply entrenched, culturally
embedded mindset that’s upheld by tradition in a thousand subtle ways. And don’t try to bullshit me on this. You can’t; whatever you might <i>think</i> about it, I <i>know</i>.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
And the
thing that impresses me about it is that there is no compromising, no
mealy-mouthed revisionism or white-washing of the facts. J says it, and B.J. can only clench his fists
in futility and fume about the ugly truth of it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In a lot of
ways, that was the kind thing that kept surprising me about <b>The New Order</b>: the way that it kept
bringing up these surprisingly well-written passages. Here’s one from the opening, where B.J. is
dreaming of a future he becomes increasingly sure he’ll never have: </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
“…children, a dog, and I see someone. I think I see someone. These things, none of it for me. I move by roaring engines, among warriors. We come from the night.”</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So <b>The New Order</b> takes this character who
has been little more than a mere avatar, who had less personality than Mario,
and gave him a personality. We glimpse it
in flashes, here and there; it’s sketched in more than spelled out. But that works. It suggests more than it says, and gives us
space to imagine and be curious. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
It’s
funny. The game is billed mostly as a
balls-to-the-wall action extravaganza.
And it is that, more or less. As
in <b>Wolfenstein 3D</b> of yore, you will
stride to victory over a mountain of bloody, ragged corpses. But just as the game unexpectedly rewards
careful planning and a certain amount of stealth, so does the story have these
quiet, thoughtful moments, where you see the toll this type of conflict is
taking on the characters. Blaskowicz and
Solid Snake could have some conversations, I’m sure.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
And through
it all is a sense of uncertainty about the purpose of everything he’s doing. “Is there anything left worth saving?” he
wonders. And well he might, because in <b>The New Order</b>, the Nazis have won. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Wolfenstein: The New Order</b> doesn’t beat
you about the head and shoulders with its backstory. It lets you play through some of it. The first chapter of the game takes place in
1946. Germany is winning the war. Those of you who know your history already know
that something is off. There is a
scientist on the German side, Wilhelm Strasse, who is usually called General
Deathshead by the Allies. Strasse would
like you to know, however, that despite his name, he is a very happy man, and
he would prefer you say his name in German, because it sounds wrong in English. <i>Toten…
kopf.</i> This man is basically the
reason Germany is winning. His
inventions, decades ahead of their time, have given Germany the edge. The game opens with B.J. Blaskowicz on a last
desperate mission to infiltrate Deathshead’s fortress and eliminate him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The mission
fails.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
While
attempting to escape after everything goes pear-shaped, Blaskowicz is caught in
an explosion. Shrapnel is embedded in
his brain.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
He spends
the next fourteen years in a catatonic state.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
When he finally
wakes up, it’s 1960, and the Nazis have won.
They conquered all of Europe, Russia, Africa, and the British
Isles. They forced the U.S. to surrender
by dropping an atom bomb on New York and vaporizing Manhattan. They have most of China (and are in the
process of taking the rest). B.J., in
the one real narrative misstep, comes back to the world pretty much as he left
it fourteen years ago, without a trace of muscular atrophy and only a passing
mention of any dizziness or disorientation.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
From the
asylum where he was being cared for, Blaskowicz makes his way to Berlin, where any
resistance groups’ members are imprisoned.
There, he breaks out whichever support character you saved in the
beginning of the game, and is led to the re-formed Kreisau Circle, the
resistance group from the previous game.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
MachineGames,
who developed <b>The New Order</b>, took a
page out of <b>Half-Life 2</b>’s book and
opted not to force-feed you the events of the fourteen years our hero spent in
catatonia. Throughout the game (mainly
in the resistance group’s headquarters), you’ll find significant newspaper
clippings posted, which will give you snippets of the history you’ve
missed. You’re left to read these or
ignore them as you like, and put the pieces together on your own. But they don’t want to just tell you what
happened. They want to show you the
effects of it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So you have
weird little oddities like Die Kafer, a group of four musicians from Britain
(Liverpool, to be exact), who are forced to either learn to sing pro-Nazi songs,
and in German, or face jail time and banning.
You have other bits of strangeness like The Animals’ “House of the
Rising Sun” being sung in German, to the accompaniment of tuba and accordion. It doesn’t add much to the play of the game,
but it’s a nice little touch of “what if” that you don’t often see.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In a way, it’s
frustrating to say that a game is more than the sum of its parts, because the
sum is much harder to describe than the parts are. But that’s exactly where I find myself with <b>Wolfenstein: The New Order</b>. There isn’t one thing I can single out and
say “This! This is what’s great about
this game!” Because the honest truth of
it is that there is no one thing that really excels about <b>The New Order</b>. It’s just put
together exceptionally well. Everything
is solid, everything <i>fits</i> so neatly
and tightly together. It’s difficult not
to recommend. About the only turn-off I
can see for anyone would be the violence.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I wouldn’t
call the violence in <b>The New Order </b><i>excessive</i>, but I would say it’s <i>unflinching</i>. If you shoot someone in the head with a
shotgun at close range, you have to expect that you’re going to have a mess on
your hands. That’s just an inescapable
fact. The New Order doesn’t really revel
in that violence, or shove your face in it, or allow you (or command you) to do
outlandish, over-the-top things. But by
the same token, it never shies away from that violence, and the technology is
good enough that you can see things only trauma ward doctors and nurses
typically do.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
As I think
about <b>The New Order</b>, I keep coming
back to one of the big questions of its story, asked early on, which is “what point is there in fighting?” There <i>is</i>
no more war. The Nazis are entrenched everywhere, and have been so for nearly
14 years. There’s a whole generation of
children growing up indoctrinated with Nazi ideology, for whom the Nazis’ ideas
of right and wrong came to them as naturally as mother’s milk. They are in the process of wiping out whole
cultures, destroying them and sculpting the remains in the Nazis’ own
image. <i>So what</i> if you kill Deathshead (who is implied to be the real power
in the world)? You killed a leader – big
deal. The whole institution of Nazism,
and the world it dominates, is still there, and it’s going to fall apart just
because one man died, no matter who that man is. It will take a lot more than that to topple
an established government.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
This
unspoken despair is part of the story, too.
The answer to it is not comforting, but it’s probably the best answer
you could hope for in these circumstances.
“We fight because we have to, because we must, because we can’t do
anything else”. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Bleak, but
compelling.</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-77376711509194824192015-01-21T00:33:00.003-08:002015-01-21T21:14:19.502-08:00Destiny and Fate, Inevitability and Futility: a Look at X<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
It occurred to me recently that we
have a tendency to romanticize the winter season a bit.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
We look at the season as a time of
warmth, friendship, fellowship, etc. We
think of shopping malls full of people looking for the perfect gift for
so-and-so, a light dusting of snow making everything look silvery and
enchanted, building snowmen, sledding, spending time with loved ones,
exchanging gifts, having entirely too much Christmas ham or turkey or whatever
you normally have for Christmas dinner (and enough cookies, candy, chocolate,
and other miscellaneous sweets to provide job security for any number of
dentists), and so on, and so forth.
Maybe you even go Christmas caroling; I don’t know. <i>I</i> never
did. Well, I did once, with some
friends. On Halloween. Because we were all stupid high-schoolers at
the time, and it was all so random and lol.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Anyway, all of that is pretty much
within the first couple of weeks of the official beginning of winter. And then it’s over, and the hard reality sets
in.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Winter is a son of a bitch.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Winter is long, and cold, and dark,
and bleak.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Winter (if you’re an adult, living
well above the Mason-Dixon line, and with no time for sledding and no
possibility of snow days) is waking up before the sun, which tends to slack off
around this time of year, and shows up far later in the day than is
reasonable. It’s scraping ice —
sometimes frost, but all too often, it’s actually ice — off your windows, and
going to a job where you will in all probability work until the sun has gone
back down.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Winter is the miserable cold walk
between your warm house and your freezing car, and the hope that you have
everything you need already in your house, because you don’t want to go anywhere
once you get back from work. But it’s
more than the outside cold. It’s the <i>inside</i> cold, the feeling of bleak,
frigid desolation in the very center of your being that no amount of turning up
the furnace and curling up under blankets will ever dispel. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Because winter is more than a season
unto itself, as if that wasn’t enough.
No, instead, winter is the universe’s dirty little secret, the grim
foreshadow of the inevitable future which, if we are fortunate, we will never
live to see. Winter is the foretaste of
how the whole universe ends. Oh, sure,
first there will be the fire of the red giants and supernovas, but this is
nothing more than the candle guttering before it goes out entirely. And then?
When the last star burns out and collapses in upon itself, and there is
no longer light, nor heat, nor sound, nor movement: That will be the winter
that ends all winters.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
These are the bleak thoughts I try hard not to dwell on, and I normally succeed. Against them, I comfort myself by remembering that
I will be dead, and that whatever happens after death, I will be beyond
caring. But these thoughts are always
closer to the surface at this time of the year.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Christmas and the New Year are over, and
with them all the excuses for fun and family and fellowship that make the
winter seem even remotely desirable. Now
it’s time to settle in for the long, dark freeze of the bleak season. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
It’s time to read some <b>X</b>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
* * *<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>X </b>wasn’t the
first manga I ever bought (that honor belongs to <b>Fist of the North Star</b>). It
wasn’t the first series I really got into (that would be <b>Bio-Booster Armor Guyver</b>). It
wasn’t even the first CLAMP manga series I got into (that would be <b>Magic Knight Rayearth</b>). But it was probably the first one that
exerted such a strong grip on me.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I don’t read a lot of manga these
days. I don’t know why. Part of it is the sheer cumbersome nature of
collecting easily a dozen paperbacks’ worth of material (quite often much more) for just one story. And of
course, fans of American comics are laughing their asses off at me, because they've been following <b>Batman</b> or <b>Superman</b> or the <b>X-Men</b> or <b>Spiderman</b> or
whatever for God knows how long now.
Those are comics that began well before I was born, have not stopped at any point since, and show every sign of continuing well on into the future, long
after I am gone. But the point
remains. I only have room for so much
stuff, and eighteen volumes of anything seems kind of excessive these days.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Like most things, I got into <b>X</b> completely backward.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I was in college, in the year-and-change
between when I graduated high school and joined the Army. At the time, <b>X </b>the manga was being published under the name <b>X/1999</b>, because there was another comic being published in the U.S.
at that time which had the <b>X </b>name. So I got my first taste of <b>X</b> late, late in the fall semester of
1999 (appropriate, I know). I had never
heard of <b>X </b>before this at all, or of
the four-woman group of manga creators known as CLAMP. I just heard a few of my friends describing
the movie based on the manga, which had recently come out, and it sounded pretty amazing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I managed to acquire a fansub copy of
the movie from my friend Sean. In these
days, that meant a VHS copy dubbed from an imported laserdisc. Well, actually, it meant a standard VHS tape
copied from a high-quality master VHS tape with subtitles, dubbed from a
laserdisc. <i>Literally</i> a copy of a copy.
Low-quality as it was, with its washed out colors (which seemed simply
to add an extra layer of ethereal effect, to me) and slight blur, I was
mesmerized.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
It may help somewhat to understand
that <b>X</b> had an unfair advantage at
the time. First off, I was a relatively
new-minted anime fan. Now, I had been a <i>fan</i> of anime for a few years by that
point, but it was only recently that I had gotten a job. With the job came the ability to start buying as I liked rather than recording whatever the Sci-Fi
channel was showing on Saturday mornings — which was to say I was able to buy
anime <i>at all</i>. Having had my horizons so newly broadened, I was therefore
highly impressionable. Which is a
charitable and somewhat roundabout way of saying that I wasn't terribly
discerning. Then there’s the fact that <b>X</b> struck me right on the unexpected
intersection between my odd fascination with apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic
stories, and my weird soft spot for <i>shoujo</i>-style
artwork. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I could try to explain <i>why</i> I have the fascination with
apocalyptica (pinpointing the <i>when</i> is
easy; it’s the how and why that will take all day), but I’d rather focus on <b>X</b>, since it’s what I meant to write about
in the first place. The <i>shoujo</i> thing, I can actually explain
with relative ease. I like the sort of
willowy, elegant designs. It’s
interesting to me to see the human form stylized in a way that expresses beauty
without reference to power or sexuality, but rather emphasizes simple grace and elegance. I don’t want everything to look <i>shoujo</i>, but I certainly enjoy some of
the things that do. And at that time, for me, it
didn't get more <i>shoujo</i>-looking than
CLAMP.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Unfortunately, the movie was the
easiest thing for me to get hold of. The
manga was harder to track down.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
What you have to understand is that these
were the bad old days. The whole market
for anime and manga was different then.
Tokyopop had yet to really come into their own. They were around, but not as they were in
their heyday just a couple of years later.
They were publishing manga under their Mixx label (an offshoot of their
magazine, <i>Mixxzine</i>, which was meant
to provide a mixture of <i>shounen</i> and <i>shoujo</i> manga). The manga boom hadn’t happened yet. Most manga came through two publishers so far
as I can recall: Viz and Dark Horse (by way of Studio Proteus). At any rate, those are the only two prominent
publishers I remember from that time.
You <i>might</i> have found a slim
selection of manga at a bookstore back then, but chances were better at a comic shop, and
even there, the selection could be most generously described as “a
hodge-podge”. God alone knew what they
might have in stock on a given day. <i>I </i>certainly didn’t, and it never felt
much as if the person running the store gave even half of a damn about it. It’s a small miracle that I managed to
collect even most of the series (let alone all of <b>Magic Knight Rayearth</b> and all of the <b>Guyver </b>manga that was ever made available in English) before my
manga-buying slowed to its current trickle. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
* * *<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
It’s always interesting to see your
own culture and its trappings viewed from a very different perspective, or
borrowed by people who didn't grow up steeped in it, especially if it’s purely
for entertainment. It can just as easily
be an offensive experience, I suppose.
And I can imagine some people feeling that way about <b>X</b>, since<b> </b>it involves religion, and in this case it’s less a matter of
“borrowing” than it is of “flat-out misappropriation”, but whatever.
To the extent that I’m religious at all, I care far more about the
people and the ideas native to my religion than the mythological structure.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In loose terms – <i>very</i> loose terms – <b>X </b>tells
the story of the end of the world, as originally outlined in the Book of
Revelation. Sort of.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Kind of</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
You have seven seals and seven
harbingers, and a Beast, and… you know, I think that’s pretty much it. It’s been a long time since I felt compelled
to read through the most metal part of the Bible, but I don’t recall there
having been any psychics, super-computers, young and irreverent Buddhist monks-in-training,
Shinto shrine maidens who can summon swords from their palms, or anything like
that. I mean, again, it <i>has</i> been a while. But you’d think they’d mention something like
that in sermons. I can guarantee you it
would spike attendance.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So it goes down like this: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The year is 1999 (at the time, you
see, this was The Future). Powerful
forces are gathering in Tokyo, a modern-day Babylon, which will determine the
fate of the world. On the one side, you
have the seven Dragons of Earth, also known as the seven harbingers. These are seven individuals specially gifted
with various destructive powers, whose goal is to wipe out humankind. Though they themselves are of course human,
they believe humanity is a blight upon the Earth, and must be destroyed for the
Earth to survive. Opposing them are the
seven Dragons of Heaven, also known as the seven seals. These are people likewise gifted who fight in
defense of humankind. Both sides are
guided by dreamseers, a pair of sisters who, through their dreams, prophesy
different versions of the future, and guide their followers toward the outcomes
they see and desire.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
It turns out that the fate of the world rests on the integrity of seven specific locations throughout Tokyo, particular landmarks of the city.
If all of these places are destroyed, that destruction will trigger the
end of the world.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The Dragons of Heaven attempt to stop
this by way of an ability each of them has, which the Dragons of the Earth do
not. Each Dragon of Heaven is capable of
creating a barrier called a <i>kekkai</i>,
which pulls any combatants and the area encompassed by the barrier into an
alternate dimension. Damage done to the
area within the barrier will not be reflected in the real world, unless the
barrier’s maker dies within it. If the
attacking harbinger can be driven off, and the seal survives, then the damage
dealt to that location never actually happens.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The end begins when Kamui Shiro
returns to Tokyo after several years’ absence.
His mother (his only living relative) has passed away under mysterious
circumstances. Her dying wish is that he
would return to Tokyo and try to change his fate. He knows the power that lies within him, as
do both sides of the emerging conflict.
Both sets of Dragons, Earth and Heaven alike, seek to recruit Kamui
to their side, in the certain knowledge that he is destined to lead one side to
victory over another. Both dreamseers
have seen it and know it to be true.
Kamui, meanwhile, simply wants to protect his childhood friends, Fuuma
(a young man Kamui’s age) and Kotori (Fuuma’s younger sister, and a budding
dreamseer in her own right).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
While he initially comes across as
callous and uncaring, we quickly learn that this is Kamui’s defense
mechanism. As with all the other players
in this game, Kamui knows the stakes, and he knows the path he is destined to
walk – or rather, the paths from which he is expected to choose. At first, he wants no part of it, but it
becomes all too clear that the conflict is unavoidable. He will have to choose a side, and fight, and
so he determines that in order to save his childhood friends, he will have to
side with the Dragons of Heaven, and fight for humankind.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
It’s at precisely this point that the
story takes a hard left turn into the horrific.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
A friend of mine (it may well have
been the same friend who helped me acquire my VHS copy of the <b>X</b> movie) once told me that pretty much
every work by CLAMP is notable for having a dark twist somewhere in it. Not only does <b>X </b>fail <i>spectacularly </i>to
avert this particular tendency, it stands as perhaps the single greatest
example of it in CLAMP’s entire catalogue, then or now.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
It turns out that both dreamseers were
right, after all. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>A </i>Kamui is
destined to lead the Dragons of Heaven. <i>A</i> Kamui is also destined to lead the
Dragons of the Earth. It comes down to
the dual meanings of his name, which don’t really come across in English. I’ll let Wikipedia do the heavy lifting for
me, here:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“His name (神威 Kamui) carries a double connotation: "the one who represents the majesty of God", meaning the one who protects the world and carries out God's will; and "the one who hunts the majesty of God", meaning the one who kills those given God’s power and destroys the world.”</blockquote>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Kamui is not simply the character’s
name, but a title. And there is another
Kamui in the story, a twin star, destined to take on the opposite role,
regardless which side Kamui chooses.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
That twin star, that other Kamui, is
Fuuma, one of the childhood friends who was Kamui’s whole reason for coming
back to Tokyo in the first place.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
While the theme of fate and
inevitability is shot through the whole story, it’s at this point that we see
exactly how heavy-handed it gets. And
for me, this is the only real sticking point for the story. I like the idea of duality (another major
theme in the story), and I can appreciate the dramatic irony of Kamui being
forced into a deadly conflict against one of the two people he specifically
wanted to save. And the conflict <i>is</i> deadly. Rightly or wrongly, both sides seem to have
surrendered themselves to the idea that the only way to win is to slaughter the
enemy.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
But Fuuma’s adopting the role of
Kamui’s enemy happens for no better reason than, as we say on TV Tropes,
“Because Destiny Says So” (I hate resorting to Troper-speak to describe things,
but when the shoe fits…). Fuuma has no
stake, either practical or ideological, in the fight between both forces. Indeed, aside from Kotori’s vague and
frightening nightmares (which he has no reason to believe are anything but just
that), he has no reason to believe such a fight is <i>even occurring</i>. If he had a
reason of his own to join the Dragons of the Earth, so that Kamui’s alliance
with the Dragons of Heaven would push him over the edge into making the
opposite choice, I would be set. I would
be goddamned <i>riveted</i>, is what I would
be, and in such a way that I could not be more so without the use of <i>actual rivets</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
But even this only serves to demote <b>X</b> from “sublime” in my book to “really,
really good”. Maybe for me, it just
scratches that itch. It hits all the
right notes of duality, touches on eschatological themes, and it has some truly
gorgeous artwork. It’s not a coincidence
that my first art book was the price-gouging <i>X Zero</i>, which, ninety dollars or no ninety dollars, has still
somehow been worth every penny. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Even at its most gruesome (and it gets
very, very gruesome), <b>X </b>manages to
be compelling – darkly poetic, if not always beautiful, when it revels in the
gore. In this, it straddles the boundary
line between <i>shounen</i> and <i>shoujo</i> manga in a way I’m not sure I’ve
ever seen. For those not in the know, s<i>houjo </i>manga tends to focus on the
relationships between the characters, and on their thoughts and feelings, and
is generally marketed toward girls and young women. <b>X </b>has
this as part of its focus, and gives us the graceful, elegant character designs
we’ve generally come to expect from most <i>shoujo
</i>manga as well. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Neatly balanced against all this
thoughtfulness is the savage violence that erupts whenever the two sides of the
conflict engage. This is generally the
territory of <i>shounen</i> manga, which
often focuses more on action and conflict, and is generally marketed to boys
and young men. Given the nature of the
conflicts and the violence, it might even be more accurate to describe this
aspect of it as <i>seinen</i>, which is
marketed more toward adult men. <i>Shoujo</i> typically shies away from this
level of brutality, but CLAMP is happy to shove your face right in it, perhaps
to show how desperate and terrible people can be when this much is on the line.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
There is a profound sense of duality
within the story. On the personal level,
we have the potential and mutually exclusive fates from which Kamui can
choose. In a larger sense, we have the
two groups diametrically opposed to each other, whose goals and ideologies make
it both impossible for them to coexist and equally impossible for them <i>not</i> to come into conflict. In a still larger sense, we have the two
potential, and also mutually exclusive, fates of the world. One side seeks to eliminate humankind from
the world, while the other has faith that humankind will <i>not</i> destroy the world (despite how things appear at present), and
chooses to leave the world in human hands.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The duality is even demonstrated
outside the story proper, by the very juxtaposition of the narrative and the
title itself. The story relentlessly
plugs the idea that fate cannot be denied.
Choices may be apparent, but consequences are fixed. The destined order of events will not be flouted. Yet the very title itself, <b>X</b>, was chosen because the letter
represents <i>possibility</i>, and the lack
of any fixed value, quantity, or inherent meaning. This is a story all about constants and named after a variable, where most of the characters know that they are irrevocably committed to a particular
cause and course of action, and treat all of it as a foregone conclusion. They come to this sense of inevitability with
feelings that range from grim determination, to stoic indifference, to cheerful
fatalism.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Let’s take a look at one of these characters,
to give some idea. We’ll look at
Sorata. It was foretold in the stars
when he was born (this series has kind of a thing for astrology) that he would
die protecting the woman he loved.
Therefore, he was raised pretty much from birth to stick to Kamui’s side
at all times and fight for him with all his might when the time came. The logic here is very clear. Since it is known that Sorata will only die
protecting the woman he loves, then it is impossible for him to die any <i>other</i> way. Thus he can serve as an invincible shield for
Kamui, since nothing he does as such can possibly lead to his death.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
The sense of fate is near what you see in Greek tragedy, where the will of the gods cannot be defied, and every time the heroes act to prevent it, they find that those same actions were in fact what would lead them to it all along. You feel sometimes like it's just the <i>knowing</i> that's truly damning. Oedipus would never have been set on the path to kill his father and marry his mother if his parents hadn't heard it from the oracle in the first place, after all.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Really, it's all very neatly put together. The only really troubling
thing about <b>X </b> is its ending.
Endings. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
It’s complicated.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
* * *<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
There are three ways to experience <b>X</b>, and each of them is a bit different
from the others. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The first, of course, is the manga,
originally published by Viz Media. It
has the advantage of being closest to the creators’ original vision, and having
a larger story with more elements to it.
It also has the <i>dis</i>advantage
of being unfinished.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
However much it may straddle the <i>shounen-shoujo</i> divide, <b>X</b> was published as a <i>shoujo</i> comic, in a <i>shoujo </i>magazine, and was subject to the same expectations as other <i>shoujo </i>manga. As it turns out, you can’t go brutally
subverting the expectations of your publisher without some consequences. <b>X</b>
was put on hiatus by the original manga magazine that was publishing the story,
and it was a few years before CLAMP either found another outlet for the story, or convinced the original publisher ot give it another go. I'm not sure which. But it was again put on hiatus by the
publisher due to the relentlessly dark nature of the material (and probably
some of the graphic violence, also).
This time, it seems to have been for good. Wikipedia lists it as “ongoing”, but this is
probably wishful thinking at best. The
manga remains unfinished, and is increasingly likely to remain so the more time
goes by.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The second <b>X </b>experience is the movie.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I have very conflicting feelings about
the movie.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
On the one hand, <b>X </b>the movie is gorgeous.
It’s not gorgeous in perhaps the same way a Ghibli film or something
directed by Mamoru Oshii tends to be, but the quality of the artwork and the fluidity of its animation is consistently high.
The movie was made in 1996 (before the manga was put on its first
hiatus), and holds up extremely well today.
It’s a feast for the eyes and the ears, keeping in mind of course that
it preserves virtually none of what makes the <b>X</b> <i>story</i> any good.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I don’t mind spoiling it, because I
have no respect for the story of the movie.
The movie, for its part, seems to have no respect for the story of the
manga, so it all evens out. And anyway, I
can’t think of a better way to explain how much the story has been pared down
to its absolute barest essentials to even fit it (uncomfortably, for all that)
into the framework of a feature film. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The cast of <b>X</b> consists of seven seals and seven harbingers, two dreamseers,
Kamui, Fuuma, and Kotori. And Kamui’s
mother, in a sort of flashback. That’s twenty
named characters, all of whom are important to the story in the manga.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Of these, Kamui alone survives the
movie, which is about an hour and a half long.
Some characters even manage to die multiple times, by way of dreams or
visions.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The movie is a fucking bloodbath, is
what I’m saying. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Now, again, it is a visual and aural <i>feast</i> of a fucking bloodbath, but it’s
still that, just the same.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>X </b>the movie
has a kind of slow but steady, crushing <i>weight</i>
to it. It doesn’t pick up speed much,
but then, it doesn’t need to. It moves
forward relentlessly, killing off its cast without granting any particular sense of importance
to any individual death. These are
people we are meant to care about, and they die with impunity. There are so many of these deaths that their collective weight wears on you in a way that any one character’s demise
never could (though some stand about for being remarkably cruel or
brutal). There is such a relentless,
overbearing weight of dread in the story that, very early on, you will come to
assume (correctly) that nothing truly good will happen to any of these people
by the time the movie’s done.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
A better movie might make you feel
wrung out at the end of this sort of meat grinder. But this isn’t that better movie. So you simply come out of the movie feeling
disappointed, and maybe a little disturbed.
And if you’re new to this, and don’t have the sort of weird
predilections I do, which make you say “More of this, please!” when you watch a
movie like this with no real grounding, you’re probably just going to be confused. And disturbed. Most definitely disturbed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The movie may prove difficult to find,
as it was originally licensed by Manga Entertainment. The license has since expired, and has not
been picked up by anyone else.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The third and final way to experience <b>X</b>, which has the benefits of being both
more coherent and also finished, would be the 24-episode TV series which ran
from the fall of 2001 to the spring of 2002.
Animated by Madhouse, the TV series is both very technically proficient
and also well-paced (if a bit sedate). Happily, you can still find it, as Funimation picked it up after Geneon lost the license.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
While there are some elements of the
manga that didn’t make it into the TV series, and not all of the characters get
the same amount of development (or any at all), they at least get some room to
breathe, and enough time that we can care about the ones we’re supposed to care
about. The ending to the TV series also
feels just about right, as opposed to the movie’s, which just felt sort of
tacked-on and a bit anti-climactic. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
* * *<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I began this with a frankly dark,
maybe even morbid introduction. Part of
it is the season, and part of it is just that those thoughts exist, and they
don’t disappear, they just kind of go away for a while. But they always come back.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Earlier, I said that I didn’t want to
wrestle with the hows and whys of why I like apocalyptic stories. And that’s still true. I don’t.
Not here, anyway, and not now.
But I can offer up one bit of explanation in closing, to hopefully end
this on a positive note. It’s this:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Whatever my feelings about the grim
inevitability of things at any particular moment, I still wrestle with it. Nihilism and cynicism are so easy. They are <i>too</i>
easy, and I long ago learned to distrust very easy solutions to big
problems. <i>Simple</i> solutions, sure. Big
problems usually do have simple solutions, in my experience. But simple isn’t the same thing as easy. <i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
What I like most about <b>X</b>, maybe even love, is the
characters. Even as they recognize the
sheer immutability of their fates, they play with those certainties. They find the wiggle room, sparse as it
seems, to be who they are, to have their own lives, shortened though they may
be. There is something in that struggle,
however much more immediate and urgent it is for them, that resonates with my
own to an extent.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I like the idea that you can face the
inevitability of annihilation, so long as you can give meaning to who and what
you are, and what you do.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
There is something amazing in that, to
me, that I’m not sure I will ever have the words or the ability or the time to
untangle completely.</div>
</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-32438515481968888972014-12-23T00:32:00.001-08:002014-12-23T00:32:21.576-08:00Surprisingly seasonal: Final Fantasy IX<div class="MsoNormal">
For some reason, <b>Final
Fantasy IX </b>always makes me think a little bit of Christmas.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Actually, I shouldn’t say “for some reason”, because the
truth is I know perfectly well why <b>IX </b>puts
me in a Christmas frame of mind.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Set the Wayback Machine to late 2000. I had shipped out for basic training in the
Army on Halloween of that year. What
with one thing and another, I was in reception and fitness training for a
while, and didn’t get to basic training proper until the day before
Thanksgiving. I don’t know if they still
do, but at the time, the Army sent all Initial Entry Training (IET) soldiers
home for two weeks for the holidays. The
trip home is a short story all by itself, but one for another time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This was right shortly after the PS2 launch, and I was
sorely tempted to buy one when I got home. But at that time, it was really never even a
possibility. One reason was that I
didn’t have quite enough money to justify it in addition to all the games I
bought while I was home, and my buying those games — a certain core few of them,
anyway — was never in question. Since
they were all PS1 games, there seemed no real necessity at the time for a
PS2. Another reason, far more practical,
was that there simply were no PS2s to be had.
That soon after launch, finding a PS2 in a store was a lot like finding
a Wii after <i>that</i> system’s launch some
six years later.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was, in some ways, one of the best Christmas seasons of
my life. I felt as free from outside
responsibilities as I ever have, in a way.
Sure, basic training was a stressful environment, and there was no
question of my going back to it after my brief, two-week reprieve was up. But during those two weeks, I was liberated
more completely than I have ever been (and likely ever will be again) from
pretty much all the normal pressures and stresses of life, in the Army or
otherwise. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I can still remember all the games I bought in that shining
two-week stretch: <b>Breath of Fire IV</b>,
<b>Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete</b>
(about both of these, I will assuredly be writing at some later point), <b>Mega Man X5</b>, <b>Mega Man Legends 2</b>, <b>RayCrisis:
Series Termination</b>, <b>Vampire Hunter D
</b>(God knows why), and of course, <b>Final
Fantasy IX</b>. It was <b>Lunar 2</b> and <b>Final Fantasy IX</b> that I had been most looking forward to. The rest were impulse buys, and mostly worth
it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To this day, the songs “The Place I’ll Return to Someday”
and “Crossing Those Hills” from the soundtrack put me in mind of snowfall,
Christmas decorations, being with family.
The former, especially, has a nice medieval-ish feel to it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of course, there’s nothing especially Christmas-y about <b>IX</b> in itself, but because of this
association, every year when the holidays roll around, I get the itch to start
playing it again.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In those days, most of the Final Fantasy fans I knew came
into the series with <b>Final Fantasy VII</b>. I did, myself. The history of the series prior to that point
has always been a little murky to me. There
are names of characters, places, weapons, and spells which crop up throughout
the series, and which I know are significant, but which by the same token I
have no personal experience with. Aside
from <b>Final Fantasy III</b>, I haven’t
really made a series attempt at any of the older games, and even my run at <b>III</b> was the DS version. So even most of what I know is secondhand,
things I’ve heard about and read about – absorbed through some sort of strange
osmosis – rather than seen and done for myself.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Final Fantasy VII</b>
and <b>Final Fantasy VIII</b> were pretty
radical departures from the accepted norms of the series (up to that point),
which had always leaned pretty heavily toward high fantasy. <b>Final Fantasy
VI</b> (<b>Final Fantasy III</b>
originally, here in the U.S.) was somewhat steampunk, but that was about
it. Yet <b>Final Fantasy IX</b> is a call back to those earlier times, what we in
the late 90s and early 2000s were calling “classic” or “old-school” (if you can
believe it!). But in the late 90s, <b>Final Fantasy VII </b>and <b>VIII</b> seemed worlds away from their immediate
predecessors. Today, of course, they
hardly seem so revolutionary, except in terms of technical presentation. But that’s hindsight for you. In its time, the look, feel, and themes of <b>IX</b> seemed like a deliberate call back
to yesteryear.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So <b>Final Fantasy IX</b>
is a kind of love-letter to the elder days of the series, name-dropping characters,
places, and items from times past. It
has a light-hearted streak in it, and while many of the human characters look appropriately
anime-styled, a number of non-human characters, like Freya, and Doctor Tot, and
maybe Amarant, look almost like something out of Brian Froud’s work. Even as the story is mainly serious, there’s
a certain sense of fun and whimsy, as if the underlying directive of the game’s
overall design was a question: “Wouldn’t it be neat if…?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Wouldn’t it be neat if there was a whole city built
throughout the branches and trunk of an unfathomably massive tree? Wouldn’t it be neat if there was an
underground transit system between two cities that was basically a cart slung
from the body of a giant insect who simply walks along a track in the
ceiling? Wouldn’t it be neat if…?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And the world this all takes place in treats all the
oddities – the non-human people like Freya and Amarant, the odd, improbable
locations – purely as a matter of course.
The game never goes out of its way in the narrative to point out all
these weird, wonderful things. It just
puts them there, and you go through them, and you think, “Wow, that’s really
neat!” If anything, it heightens the
sense of wonder. You feel like you’re
discovering these things for yourself, instead of having them forced upon you,
or having them belabored, as if by a tour guide. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If <b>Final Fantasy IX</b>
takes its sense of light-hearted, free-wheeling adventure from the older
entries in the series, it gets its overall sense of structure and mechanics from
the newer entries still.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Like its immediate predecessors on the PS1, <b>Final Fantasy IX </b>features actively
rendered 3D character models on lush, detailed pre-rendered backgrounds. Battles are still turn-based, and still use
the ATB system originally developed back in the early 90s with <b>Final Fantasy IV</b>. However, the pace of <b>IX</b> is somewhat slow compared to its predecessors. Loading times are longer than they’ve ever
been, which is especially problematic when you’re heading into battles. Minor battles may wind up taking longer to
load (and to exit once you’re done) than they actually take to fight. The battles themselves seem to take longer as
well, compared to earlier games. The ATB
gauges fill slowly (at least, until you get your levels high enough), and the
battles are in some ways bigger. At the
very least, your own party is bigger – <b>Final
Fantasy IX </b>allows you to take four characters into battle, just like the “classic”
games it strives to remind you of so much – instead of just three like <b>VII </b>and <b>VIII </b>do.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Character advancement is also simpler than in previous
games. The gear you equip will have
various skills which you can activate.
If you keep a skill active long enough, you’ll learn it permanently,
even after discarding the equipment itself.
For those who felt hamstrung by the subtle complexities of <b>Final Fantasy VIII</b>’s junction system,
this is a breath of fresh air.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The characters themselves are reminiscent of <b>Final Fantasy IV</b>. Not in themselves, but in the way they are
presented. Each character essentially
adheres to one of the main jobs from the Job System, first introduced in <b>Final Fantasy III</b>. Zidane, our hero, is a Thief. Garnet is a White Mage and Summoner, with a
focus on her White Mage abilities (another character, encountered later, has
the same mix of abilities, but with the balance reversed). Vivi is a Black Mage. Steiner is a Knight or Paladin. Amarant is a Monk, while Freya is a
Dragoon. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This gives you a party of characters with their own unique
identities, both in terms of the story and in terms of game mechanics, which
was an unfortunate failing of <b>VII </b>and
<b>VIII</b>. While the games’ various systems allowed for
a lot of leeway in customization, they did so to the detriment of the
characters’ sense of identity beyond what could be expressed in the story
scenes proper. I personally like the
game mechanics and story to be a bit more solidly merged; I dislike the feeling
that the parts I’m watching and the parts I’m playing are largely divorced, so
I appreciate the way <b>IX</b> handles its
characters.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ultimately, I’d argue that the game’s… <i>stately </i>pace is probably the only major failing with regards to mechanics
or structure. While in some ways the
overall design isn’t as ambitious as <b>Final
Fantasy VII</b> or <b>VIII</b>, and it does
wind up being fairly linear for most of its length, these are not necessarily
bad things in themselves. We tend to
think of them as bad in terms of Japanese RPG design, because many Japanese
RPGs are quite linear compared to many Western RPGs, and in PS1 era the problem
was especially bad. But it’s not a bad
design choice inherently, and sometimes these familiar elements can be
comforting.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Final Fantasy VII</b>
started us off with a high-intensity bombing mission, throwing us right into
the action with barely a word of explanation or justification until the
excitement died down. <b>Final Fantasy VIII</b> gave us a CG cinema
scene montage that segued into an intense duel between the two rival characters
of the story, and gave us a nice, exciting battle not too long after.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Final Fantasy IX</b>
begins with the Princess Garnet til Alexandros having a dream that may be a
memory from her childhood, when she was on a boat on a storm-tossed sea. Then the story steps sideways, and gives us
our hero, Zidane Tribal. He’s a thief, a
womanizer, and a wise-cracker. He also,
for some reason, has a monkey’s tail. It’s
important later, actually (kind of), but nobody comments on it. When you have rodent people running around;
and black mages with no faces except for their big, glowing eyes; and the king of
a neighboring country who’s been turned into a sort of insect creature (and
later on, a frog); and various other not-quite-human characters, a man with a
tail seems pretty mundane in context, even if it <i>does</i> appear to be prehensile.
We see Zidane plotting with his companions, part of a group called
Tantalus. They have a dastardly plan
to kidnap Princess Garnet, and then the story steps sideways <i>again</i>, and now we’re in the oversized
blue coat and big, pointy hat of Vivi, a black mage. He’s going to see a play titled “I Want to Be
Your Canary” (though he seems to have been sold forged tickets by a scalper). The play is a sort of faux-Shakespeare piece;
it’s being performed by a renowned theater group called Tantalus…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It sounds maybe like a recipe for drama, or madcap
hilarity, or maybe both. It settles for being amusing,
and being a deliberate start for a story that’s a slow burn most of the way
through. We find out that Tantalus’s
plan to kidnap the princess is actually a rescue attempt. Garnet’s mother has not been herself in
recent years, and she has taken to leveraging the weapons being sold to her by an
arms dealer named Kuja (who looks nothing at all like any other arms dealer the
world – ours or the world of <b>Final
Fantasy IX</b> – has <i>ever</i> known) to
invade neighboring countries and claim more territory for her kingdom of
Alexandria. Among her weapons are the
black mages, who seem to operate with one directive and one directive only: To
destroy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And yet not all black mages can be bad. Vivi’s one of them, after all. And while Zidane is the protagonist, in a
major way, Vivi is the emotional center, the figurative heart of the
story. The other characters have led lives
that went more or less normally – even Zidane, really – but not Vivi. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Vivi was not born, but created. He is a black mage; in <b>Final Fantasy IX</b>, these are a separate race of beings which Alexandria
has recently begun to use. Like the rest
of these, Vivi was intended to be a weapon, but something went a bit off during
his manufacture, apparently. Instead of
being an engine of mindless destruction, he has a conscience. Where many other black mages you come across are
menacing with their completely obscured faces and large, glowing eyes, Vivi
seems simply innocent and a little naïve, childlike in a way. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fairly early on, you run across a village of other black
mages who, like Vivi, are choosing to live their own lives. But they face a dilemma. After a period of time – no one knows how
long, and it seems to vary for everyone – a black mage simply… stops. They go limp, fall down, and no longer do or
say anything or respond to anything or anyone.
The black mages aren’t certain what this stopping is, exactly, but they worry
about it, and fear it. Vivi, traveling
with a band of much more normal people – for a given value of “normal” – begins
to understand what this stopping is all about.
More, he begins to understand, from what he has witnessed of the other
black mages, that although he has no way to know how much time is left before he
“stops”, too, all signs point to it being not very long.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But despite his youth, his inexperience, and his childlike nature,
Vivi does the thing which so many other characters, even the seemingly
happy-go-lucky Zidane himself, can hardly bring themselves to do with all their
experience of the world. Perhaps he can
do it simply because he is so childlike, because his experience of the world
has been so limited, and so filled with kind, caring people. He <i>hopes</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In many ways, this hope is the theme of <b>Final Fantasy IX</b>. There's the usual stuff about saving the world from an outside menace that threatens to destroy it, and it's all interesting enough, and well done, but I'd prefer not to give much away, and it will lose a lot of its impact for being known ahead of time. The important point is this: To see
that life is still worth living – that it is still worth going grimly forward in
the face of danger, despair, horrible truths and pain and seemingly certain doom
– requires hope, but in the end, is worth it.
The hope will sustain you, if you let it, if you choose not to close
your heart to it. And that in the
darkest moments, the pain can be borne, and you can go on, because you are not
alone.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was surprising to write those last few paragraphs,
because honestly, I hadn’t known this, or at any rate I hadn’t thought this,
about the game until I started writing about it. I find that this is sometimes the case. An idea may be nebulous and vague in my mind,
or completely unrealized, and remain that way until I start trying to put words
to it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At any rate, I think that’s where I’ll leave this for the
time being. I’m not sure how much I’ve
said here that may be of any real use or import or significance, but I got here
by muddling through from beginning to end, mostly, the way I usually do, and I
think I ended it on the right note, however I got there. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Friendship and fellowship and hope.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have a hard time thinking of a better way to celebrate the
upcoming holiday than these.</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-64596772289388211122014-12-08T19:07:00.000-08:002015-01-26T21:33:34.966-08:00Toward the Sky<div class="MsoNormal">
It took me three years to get around to finishing <b>The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword</b>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In itself, this is hardly noteworthy — for me. Off the top of my head, the longest it’s ever
taken me to finish a game was seven years for <b>Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete</b>, which I bought around Christmas of
2000, and finished sometime around January of 2008. If I ever manage to beat the final boss of <b>Breath of Fire IV</b>, which I bought
around the same time, that will make the record, I think. I wonder sometimes if I have a very selective
type of ADD, or ADHD, or something.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But most of the time, it doesn’t take me this long to get
around to finishing a Zelda game. Most Zelda
games occupy a rare spot in my mind, up there with <b>Halo</b> or <b>Metal Gear Solid</b>
or <b>Mass Effect</b>. These are games which, once begun, I tend to
play exclusively until completion. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But there were several points during the game where I was
compelled to set the controller down and go play something else. It was that, or throw my hands in the air
(and the controller through the TV, in all likelihood), and scream to no one in
particular “Oh, this is <i>bullshit</i>!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Interestingly, it wasn’t because of the much-vaunted (or much-lamented,
depending on who you talk to) motion controls.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s talk about the motion controls for a bit, though, because from
what I’ve seen that seems to overshadow most discussion about the game. It’s kind of the Big Thing with <b>Skyward Sword</b> and I want to get that
out of the way up front.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Skyward Sword</b>
presents us with the realization of a fantasy, or at least a lot of blue-sky speculation, that I believe a lot of people had
about <b>Twilight Princess </b>back when speculation about the Wii and <b>Twilight Princess </b>was all we had. There was this idea in some corners of the internet that with motion controls, every swing of the remote would correspond to a swing of the sword, moving
in the same direction, with the same speed, that the player moved. Of course, the reality was much different. But <b>Skyward
Sword</b> makes this (somewhat) possible through the more advanced motion sensors and
accelerometer of the Wii Motion Plus. For
some people, this probably ought to be filed under the category of “Be Careful
What You Wish For”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is no simple button combination you press to strike
one way or another. Swing the remote
horizontally, and Link executes a horizontal attack. Swing it vertically, and Link attacks upward
or downward, depending on how you swing.
Thrust forward, or slash diagonally, and Link does those as well. He holds his sword at whatever angle you’re
holding the remote; there is literally a one-to-one correspondence between the
remote and the sword. At first, it’s
sort of neat.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It quickly gets difficult.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Combat used to more or less boil down to pressing the attack
button when the enemy was not defending, to continue pressing it until the
enemy was dead, and to let up occasionally when the enemy was defending itself
(if it was capable of such a thing).
Bosses and a handful of other enemies (mini-bosses and Darknuts, mainly)
typically took a little more thought, but the rank-and-file bad guys have
traditionally been relatively simple to dispatch.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Skyward Sword</b>
makes every enemy a puzzle. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Enemies may block high or low, left or right. You learn quickly to attack from the side opposite their defense. Your own defense
is less than assured. All of your
shields can take damage, and eventually break, under the strain of constant
abuse. The Hylian shield is the
exception to this, but it’s found late in the game, is completely optional, and
frankly, if you have the skills to earn it, you can probably pretty safely do
without. Now, if you can manage to time
a shield thrust just right, no damage will be done to the shield. Of course, failing in this shield thrust
results in getting hit. And the enemies
in <b>Skyward Sword</b> can punish you
brutally. This is the first game in the
series to start you off with six heart containers instead of the usual three,
and it only feels generous until you start fighting enemies. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then (if all of this wasn’t enough) if you’ve been
simply blundering along, relying on blind luck </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
and persistence to carry you
through, the first boss will annihilate you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So that’s combat in <b>Skyward
Sword</b>: Learn, or suffer.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I may be overselling it a bit. It takes a measure of getting used to, for
sure. But Nintendo made sure that the
controls weren’t just a gimmick. They
are central to the game. You can’t
scrape by on luck. You must learn, or
you will get nowhere. And ultimately, it
works. By the end, I had only two real problems
with the motion control scheme.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The first problem was mainly just me. When it gets down to the wire, I tend to get
a little panicky and flustered, which resulted in me more than once just wildly
swinging the remote when even just a little bit of clear thinking would have
gotten me through. And that’s a thing
you learn quickly with <b>Skyward Sword</b>:
you need to be on the ball pretty much all the time. Even minor enemies require a little bit of
thought. Take slimes, for instance: If you attack one with a horizontal strike,
that will split it into two slimes. But
because it’s a horizontal cut, that means one of the two is directly on top of
the other. When it falls onto the one
below, the two merge, and now you have one slime again, and meanwhile have
dealt no damage. You have to attack them
vertically. Also, some Deku Babas now have a
four-part jaw, which can open either horizontally or vertically, and you have
to attack along the line of the jaw’s opening to deal any damage.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The second problem was with the controls, though. While they never once, in my play through,
failed to track motion correctly, the “neutral position” did tend to wander a
bit. That is, I would hold the remote
control forward, while Link would hold his sword out to the side. All motion would correspond completely to how
I moved the remote, but would be offset in proportion to the initial difference
between how I held the remote and how Link held the sword. Now, if this only occurred during sword fights,
it wouldn’t be so bad. The neutral
position does tend, over time, to wander back to true. But it becomes especially frustrating with
swimming and flying, which are done by angling the remote. Thankfully, this can be fixed. You can go into the menu at any time and
recalibrate the remote.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The overall experience I had with the motion controls was
positive, if not completely enthusiastic.
Put more simply, while it was a
fun experiment on the whole, I definitely don't want Nintendo doing this for every Zelda game. <b>Skyward Sword</b> was an interesting divergence, but should not be the way of the future. But when it
worked, it worked phenomenally. The
final few battles of the game were some of the most exhilarating I’ve ever fought
through because of it.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So if it wasn’t the sharply divisive motion controls that
brought me to a halt so often, what was it?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well, <b>Skyward Sword</b>
has a few segments where you’re looking for magical energy to upgrade the
Goddess Sword, which is the weapon you have for most of the game. To do this, you enter into a kind of spirit
realm, and must search for the Goddess’s Tears.
The spirit realm segments are taken from actual areas of the main game,
except certain points are closed off here and there to make navigating more
difficult. You have no access to your
equipment or weapons in this part of the game, and must traverse the terrain
with just the basic maneuvers available.
This would be tedious all on its own – I tend to dislike hunt-the-widget
challenges in general, because I invariably get down to a final two or three widgets which are hidden in
infuriatingly clever spots, and run around in circles trying to find them.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Skyward Sword</b>
makes this worse by imposing a time limit.
From the moment you leave the starting point, you’re pursued by enemies
who will “kill” you in a single blow. If
you collect a Goddess Tear, the enemies revert to their starting positions for
two minutes. Each Goddess Tear you
collect restarts the countdown, but if you run the timer down or manage to trip the alarm in another way, the enemies will begin
chasing you again. If any of them strike
you, you’re returned to the starting point, and have to collect the Goddess
Tears all over again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So the game takes a task I already find tedious, and ups the
ante by making it stressful. There is no
part of these sections of the game which I enjoy. The game makes you do this four times in
all. What was especially frustrating was
that the last of these collectathons should have been the easiest, since unlike
the others, it takes place in an area you’ll have visited countless times
prior. But since it was so long since I’d
actually played the game, it was just as bad as the rest because my memory of that area was fuzzier than it would normally have been on a straight run through.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
These parts of the game were why I took so long to finish
it. Pretty much everything else was
highly enjoyable. But these particular
parts of the game, I found infuriating to the point where I had to stop playing
because I couldn’t keep my composure any longer, and the thought of going back
to them was actively repellent.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You feel betrayed,” my wife told me, when I tried to
explain all of this. “This is a series
you’ve been playing since you were a kid, and enjoying all the time, and now it’s
doing something you hate.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She’s right, mostly, but I feel like maybe “betrayed” is
putting it a bit strong. “Disappointed”
or “let down” might be a better description, but at any rate “deeply unhappy”. I play games to relax and have fun, not to
get stressed out and made to do tedious, frustrating tasks over and over again,
from scratch, as punishment for even a single mistake.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But this is probably less a problem with the game itself,
and more a problem I personally have with the game. I have spoken to people who like these
segments, after all, and to the best of my recollection, none of them were
mental patients. Not at the time,
anyway.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So that’s the bad, then, in a nutshell. The motion controls (which people in general
seemed pretty divided about), and the bullshit collectathons, which I
personally hated, but which may be <i>someone’s
</i>cup of tea, at least.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How’s the rest, then?
Barring these two specific things, how does <b>Skyward Sword</b> stack up, broadly speaking?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When it comes to long-running game series, it’s difficult to
think about them in a vacuum. What they
do right and wrong, and what you (or I, anyway) tend to like and dislike about
them has a context, a frame of reference, derived from things the series has
done well or poorly in previous installments.
The longer the series, the more of an issue this becomes. I was going to say “the more of a <i>problem</i> this becomes,” but I’m not sure
it’s a problem really, so much as it’s just a kind of … <i>thing.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s overlook this failure of articulation for a moment,
and move on.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So when you have a massive video game franchise spanning
multiple video game systems and dating farther back than the birth of a
sizeable portion of your fan base, it can be risky to go mucking around with
the established structure, mechanics, and lore of the series. A strange thing happens when people become
fervent fans of something: they begin to identify with it. And any changes they dislike, whether they be
additions to or subtractions from the original formula, tend to be
unwelcome. And that’s putting it kindly. Not that Nintendo seems to be worried about
this overmuch.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are people who have been declaring each new Zelda game
since (and including) <b>Majora’s Mask</b>
to be a failure, and a harbinger of the death of the franchise. That was back in 2000. And yet, somehow, here it is plodding gamely
along in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Fourteen, reliably turning a
profit for Nintendo all the while.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is the most curious definition of “failure” and
“franchise death” I have ever seen. And
there certainly have been changes. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In this outing, Link is more athletic and maneuverable than
he’s ever been. The roll maneuver has
been done away with. Among other things,
this tremendously improves on the series soundtrack which, since <b>Ocarina of Time</b>, has largely consisted
of “Hup!” <i>*thump* *thump* *thump*</i>
“Hup!” <i>*thump* *thump* *thump*</i>, at
least if you wanted to get anywhere in a hurry and had no access to a horse. Instead, Link sprints for short
stretches. He can run up walls for a
couple of steps before hopping up to grab a ledge, and can hang from these
ledges to avoid notice, groping his way along them, hand over hand. He also spends a lot more time climbing and
swinging from vines and ivy. We’re not quite dealing with the<b> </b>levels of parkour present in, say, <b>Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time</b>,
but it’s still nice to have a different set of maneuvers, and Link seems to
navigate the landscape more smoothly.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Said landscape, by the way, is completely gorgeous.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The artwork in <b>Skyward
Sword</b> strikes a nice balance between the more realistic look of <b>Twilight Princess</b> and the cel-shaded
cartoony look of <b>Wind Waker</b>, and has
an overall sort of Impressionistic look to it.
Or so I’m told. I don’t know
enough about art to say for sure on my own authority. But, look, it looks beautiful, even playing on
an HD TV, where the picture quality is (unavoidably) sort of jagged and
awful. The artwork allows for more
realistic figures to stand together in the same environment as more fantastical
structures and landscapes and creatures that are wildly improbably or frankly
impossible in reality, and still look coherent and internally consistent.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Part of the reason this style seems to have been chosen was
to facilitate the sword-fighting mentioned above. With the bolder colors and more pronounced,
cartoony animation, and less intricately detailed designs, it’s easier to tell how the enemies are posed and to
telegraph their movements.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The world itself is a bit smaller than some outings, and honestly more linear, but
denser with secrets and things to do. As
opposed to the emptiness of <b>Ocarina of
Time</b>’s Hyrule Field, or <b>Twilight
Princess</b>’s main overworld or, God help us, the ocean from <b>Wind Waker </b>(which I get weirdly
nostalgic about, even as I remember its tedium), all of the areas you visit seem to have a
purpose other than just being big so as to contribute to the world’s sense of
scale. Each location hints (some more strongly than others) at a place which once had a purpose in the larger context of the ancient world. There is a bit of emptiness to
the hub world in the sky where Link nominally lives, but it’s nowhere near as
bad as it could be, and can be navigated with relative speed and ease. At any rate, it doesn’t take much time or
hassle to get to the interesting areas.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Another common complaint leveled against the Zelda series in
recent years is that the various tools you unearth are, much like keys, useful
only in the dungeons where you find them.
<b>Skwyard Sword</b> happily averts
this. You will frequently be called upon
to use your tools (this is more true of some than others) throughout the
adventure. At first, this was actually
disorienting to me. I’d gotten so used
to finding an item, using it in the one dungeon, and then promptly forgetting
about it (barring items with some combat utility, like the bow and arrows) that
I kept getting thrown for a loop by the constant need for older items. It didn’t help that, putting the game down
for long intervals here and there, I tended to forget the varied uses of some
of the game’s tools. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So that’s another nice thing about <b>Skyward Sword</b>: it keeps you on your toes a bit, demanding that you
keep in the forefront of your mind a good working knowledge of everything you
can do with the tools at hand. The first
major tool you get, a sort of remote-controlled metallic bug, can be used to
scout out difficult-to-reach areas, grab items from far off, hit switches, and
even drop bombs. The gust jar can be
used to blow sand off of surfaces to reveal items, but can also be used as a
sort of jet to propel you along on hanging platforms. In addition, many of these items can be
upgraded in town, to increase their power, range, and duration of use. This includes your shields, which helps to offset
their destructibility somewhat.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Another nice change is the way bosses are handled. For a good long while now, the typical
pattern of most Zelda bosses has been pretty much a three-step process.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Use the item you found in the dungeon to expose
the boss’s weak point.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Mash the attack button repeatedly, until the
weak point is no longer exposed.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Repeat.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While this is still true to some extent, in that you need to
use the dungeon item to expose the boss’s weak point, getting to the boss and
actually doing any kind of damage often requires some skill with using the
sword, or other mastery of the motion controls. The particular pattern you need to follow, while still being mostly logical, seems a bit less blatantly telegraphed. Like combat in general, this
helps to avoid the motion controls becoming some kind of gimmick. Nintendo clearly took the idea seriously and
integrated it into the core of the game, and you have to likewise take it
seriously yourself, and learn it.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So in addition to making substantial changes to the
mechanics of the series, <b>Skyward Sword</b>
also delves into the deeper background lore of the series. In fact, it sets out to tell the origin story
for the whole series. Amusingly, the
whole thing calls back to a conflict even further back in the past, which isn’t
elaborated upon much.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Zelda history/mythology/legendry, whatever you want to
call it, has never been terribly complex.
It’s seemed pretty variable and flexible over the years (to the point of
seeming just plain inconsistent at times), but the main beats and the major elements are
all there. <b>Skyward Sword</b> purports to give us a foundation for all that’s
happened so far, to explain what set this recurring conflict into motion. But <i>The
Silmarillion, </i>this isn’t.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We begin with two deities:
the demon Demise, who seeks to conquer the world and destroy all who
stand in his path, and the goddess Hylia, who seeks to stop Demise and protect
her chosen people. How the triple
goddesses of the Triforce fit into all of this is alluded to and implied more
than explained outright, which I personally think was the right call. The vagueness helps it all retain a certain
sense of mystery.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the end, Hylia managed to seal Demise away, but before
doing so, led her chosen people to escape by way of her magic. This escape involved taking their town away
into the sky, where it remains today. It
is called Skyloft. The people there have
basically forgotten that there ever was a world on the surface. There, many young men and women train to be
knights at the knight academy. When they
graduate, they are given a particular set of clothing to wear, with the color
varying every year. The cut and color
for Link’s year should look familiar to most series fans.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In <b>Skyward Sword</b>,
Zelda is not a princess, but she is the daughter of the headmaster of the
knight academy. Predictably enough, she finds
herself imperiled by the forces of Demise, who have not been sitting idly by
since his imprisonment. She is in short
order plucked out of the sky and left stranded on the long-forgotten surface
world. So it falls to Link, chosen
champion of the goddess, to save her. To
say that Zelda is more than she appears to be is to state the obvious.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Relatively early in his travels, Link runs afoul of
Ghirahim, who is an agent of some sort for Demise. Ghirahim seems to strike a fine balance
between sinister and foppish. He teases
and mocks Link, which backfires on him spectacularly, but he ultimately serves
as a kind of nemesis.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Aiding Link on his travels is Fi, the spirit within the
Goddess Sword which Link is given on his search for Zelda. Fi seems to be a mostly mechanical being,
imparting advice on where to go next and initially quite dispassionate on
anything not immediately related to the quest she shares with Link. Most of the time, she just reminded me of
Midna from <b>Twilight Princess</b> (one of
the only things most people can unanimously agree that Nintendo got right with
that game), except not as amusing or as interesting. She’s not a bad character, but she’s not as
good as Midna, and is tied into the mechanics in unfortunate ways. She will, for instance, inform you that you
are low on health and need to seek hearts, as if the constant, irritating chime
that always accompanies dangerously low health needed clarifying.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The world in many ways makes me think of the original Legend
of Zelda. Like the first game in the
series (perhaps deliberately as a tribute to the origins of the series; <b>Skyward Sword</b> marked Zelda’s 25<sup>th</sup>
anniversary, after all) the world is largely abandoned, and most of the people
you encounter wandering about it do so at some degree of peril. The abandonment heightens the sense of mystery. You see various statues and structures built
by a long-vanished people for purposes which never seem quite clear. Odd gazebos and fences give certain sections
of the woods an almost park-like feel, albeit run-down and overgrown. The mining facilities in Lanayru province,
now a desert, speak of a fascinating, highly advanced past, which you glimpse
here and there, in bits and pieces.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Done correctly, I tend to prefer this to endless
exposition. I’d rather <i>not</i> know, sometimes. The wondering is almost always more fun than
the knowing. Granted, the world doesn't have quite the hostility of, say, <b>Shadow
of the Colossus </b>(itself based to some extent on the original <b>Legend of Zelda </b>in this respect). It’s a Nintendo game, so it’s going to be a
little more friendly, a little more cozy. Ironically, while <b>Shadow of the Colossus</b>'s world <i>felt</i> more threatening, it was completely safe to traverse, barring the colossi themselves. <b>Skyward Sword</b>, meanwhile, is bright colorful, and full of things trying to kill you.<br />
<br />
Yet at the same time it feels abandoned, <b>Skyward Sword </b>does get across a sense of ancient mystery and
loss. Alone in the wastes and the
wilderness, you have the feeling that there was something here, once. Something great that is now lost, left
largely to the keeping of the monsters that roam seemingly at random, and of
which the civilization of Skyloft and its people is but a dim shadow.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Taken as a whole, I thoroughly enjoyed <b>Skyward Sword</b>. There were
sections that frustrated me, but this is less because they seemed unfair and
more because they explored game mechanics that I dislike. For the most part, I enjoyed myself. I can see where the motion controls would be
a hurdle for some, and while I didn’t have too much problem with them beyond
the one or two hitches I mentioned above, I can see others not caring for them
much.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Aside from that, I feel like <b>Skyward Sword </b>did nearly everything else pretty much right.</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-27523800711634433112014-11-22T23:15:00.001-08:002014-11-23T20:09:16.625-08:00A Galaxy of Possibilities<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
My experience with Western
role-playing games is, well… “Sparse”
would be a tremendous understatement.
“Just this side of non-existent” is probably more accurate. I played <b>Stonekeep</b>
for a few months back in 1999 or early 2000, well after it was new (I was going
to say “after it was relevant”, but then remembered there was really never any
such time). And I’ve sunk some hours
into <b>Diablo </b>and <b>Diablo II</b>. But that’s pretty
well it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<b>Final Fantasy VII</b> was my first real RPG of any kind that wasn’t
part RPG, part something else (like <b>Crystalis</b>
on the NES). And of course, then there
were the subsequent Final Fantasy installments (and some earlier ones), <b>Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete</b>, <b>Lunar: Eternal Blue Complete</b>, a few <b>Breath of Fire</b> games, some time spent
tinkering with a few <b>Tales</b>
games... </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
The pattern to all of these is
usually pretty straightforward, well worn territory. You have a town where someone tells you where
to go next and who or what you need to kill there, some other people might give
you helpful hints, drop information about a short side-quest, or let you buy
and sell various items and bits of equipment.
Experience is earned from battles, which tend to occur randomly – this particular
ageing, hoary mechanic comes down to us from of old, when this was the best way
to simulate the occasional encounter with dangerous monsters you might expect
while traversing the trackless wilds of the fantasy world du jour. Killing monsters earns you experience points,
and eventually, when you accumulate enough, your experience level increases. This makes all the monster-pummeling
marginally easier. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
In between these bouts of
village-finding and random encounter-having, the story occurs. This typically happens in chunks of cut-scenes,
completely non-interactive. These tend
to be riddled with bits of whatever the director or scenario writer can
remember of their time in Philosophy 101.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Perhaps I’m being unfair, but if
so, well, familiarity breeds contempt.
Certainly there are exceptions. And
there is a certain amount of comfort in having one’s expectations catered
to. But these exceptions are just that:
exceptions. And by their nature as such,
they merely serve to underscore the general pattern. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
So as you can likely imagine, much
of <b>Mass Effect </b>was strange to
me. Getting experience points just from
talking to people and examining things? Having
party members I can actually talk to when I want, to explore their
personalities and their pasts (or not) as I choose? Being able to choose what I wanted to
say? Being asked a question, and being
able to say “No” without the game saying, effectively, “Haha, okay, seriously
though: say ‘yes’ or you’re not going anywhere”? What madness <i>was</i> this?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
I first encountered <b>Mass Effect</b> at a friend’s house, back
when the game was still new. I was
vaguely intrigued by what little I saw of the opening mission, though I was
horrible at what little I played because the Xbox 360 controller was unfamiliar
to me. Its placement of the A, B, X, and
Y buttons was completely the opposite of what I expected. Back then, the game looked amazing. This was the first HD game I had seen played
on an HDTV, and so that perhaps has something to do with it. Today, the graphics are far less
impressive. But aside from running
around awkwardly and shooting very poorly, I had no real sense of what the
larger game was like. That I was,
effectively, in the game’s tutorial portion didn’t really register with
me. That the game was actually some
species of RPG went right over my head.
It was an odd night.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Still, the title <b>Mass Effect</b>, and the general sense of
interest, stuck with me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
I wasn’t able to own the game for
myself, initially. This was still in the
early days of the last console generation.
I’d taken a long, hard look at my finances, and chosen, rather than an
Xbox 360 or the then-astronomically priced PS3, to buy the system I could
afford. Sadly, <b>Mass Effect </b>didn’t look likely to see a release for the Wii at any
point in the near future. But I kept it
in mind. And then, some two or three
years later, my wife (then my pseudo-fiancee) and I got together the money for
a respectable desktop PC. Browsing Steam
one day not long after this, I found <b>Mass
Effect</b> for twenty dollars.
Realizing, suddenly, that I could play beefy HD games like this, I
thought, “Why not?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Not since <b>Ico</b>, back in 2001, or <b>Breath
of Fire: Dragon Quarter </b>a year or so later, have I been more amply rewarded
by an impulse buy. Maybe not even
then. Roughly an hour or two after I
started playing <b>Mass Effect</b>, I quit,
went into the Steam store, and bought <b>Mass Effect 2</b>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
In an odd way, playing <b>Mass Effect </b>is like going to Disney
World. There are a lot of interesting
things to see and do, and you can’t really see and do all of them in a single
trip. And subsequent trips are like
returning to Disney, in that you’re faced with a dilemma: Do you revisit all
the highly enjoyable things you did before, which made the experience enjoyable
and memorable for you in the first place, or do you forsake those and do
something completely new?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Choice is a big part of <b>Mass Effect</b>. And ironically, most of the choices are, on
some level, irrelevant. Well, maybe
“irrelevant” is putting it a bit strongly.
What they mainly boil down to is a matter of flavor, or perspective, for
lack of better terms. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
The story always hits the main
beats. You play as Commander
Shepard. The gender, face, first name
(never used in-game), personal background, military history, and skill set of the
character are all up for grabs.
Humankind is the new kid on the galactic block. There is the Citadel, a construct built by an
ancient precursor race, now vanished, known as the Protheans. The Citadel isn’t quite a capital, and the
representatives of the various other sentient races of the galaxy who live and
work and negotiate there aren’t actually the rulers of their respective people,
but at the same time, the Citadel is a symbol of galactic civilization and
unity. Of all the races who have
embassies and representatives there, only three are actually on the
Council. The asari are a mono-gendered
race (who tend to appear female to most other races), great policy-makers and
diplomats, and are almost universally adept with biotics, which serve as magic
in this game’s setting. The salarians,
by contrast, are a relatively short-lived species, for whom 40 is pushing
decrepitude. Warm-blooded amphibians
with a habit of speaking quickly, they take a very scientific approach to life. Lacking the brute force of the other Citadel
races, they rely upon spying, espionage, sabotage, and other trickery to gain
the advantage in warfare. Lastly we have
the turians, militaristic and hawkish, but disciplined; essentially Romans in
space. They have a somewhat antagonistic
attitude to humanity, due in large part to a brief conflict fought between the
two races not long after humanity discovered the Mass Relays. These are the giant structures which allow
for convenient space travel; like the Citadel, these are believed to have been
built by the Protheans, and the technology behind them is poorly understood.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Shepard is earmarked to be the
first human Spectre. Spectres are
operatives working for the Council, given an almost absurd amount of leeway and
virtually no oversight (the better to plausibly deny, if necessary). The Spectres are the Council’s right hand,
and having a human Spectre is generally seen to be a step toward having a human
on the Council. But the first mission,
meant to be one of many, to see whether Shepard would qualify as a Spectre goes
sideways before it’s fairly begun.
Instead of retrieving the Prothean artifact recently discovered in the
human colony on Eden Prime, Shepard encounters an attacking force of geth,
synthetic beings who have not, until now, ventured beyond their own little
corner of the galaxy for some centuries.
These are led by a turian named Saren, himself a Spectre, now apparently
gone rogue. The mission ends with the
artifact being destroyed, but not before it grants Shepard a strange,
disturbing, distorted vision of the doom visited upon the Protheans fifty
thousand years ago by a race of spacefaring machines known as the Reapers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
It is these Reapers Saren appears
to be serving. He seeks the Conduit,
which will allow him to bring them into the galaxy to wreak havoc once
more. Shepard, once he or she is able to
prove to the Council beyond doubt that Saren has gone rogue, is then made a
Spectre and charged with bringing him in.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
From here the game opens up,
offering three different story missions, each of which offers certain
information about Saren’s plans and movements.
There is also an ocean of side-missions in which to lose yourself, about
which more later.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Ultimately, the plot unfolds, as
mentioned before, along the same lines no matter what you do. Your choices mainly tend to affect <i>how</i> events happen, rather than
determining the outcome directly. You’ll
always, for instance, rescue your teammate Liara from her entrapment in an
ancient Prothean ruin, but you can choose whether to be nice about it, or
whether you’d rather be an asshole instead.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
This type of choice is really the
heart of the game’s morality system.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Most games that feature any kind
of morality system are honestly kind of laughable, mainly because of the way
the choices are presented. Your options
usually boil down to either being able to do something very obviously good
which is also very obviously reasonable and sensible, or something outlandishly
evil, such that it is completely ridiculous and could only be considered even
remotely reasonable from a completely insane point of view. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
I’ve heard this particular
tendency in game design referred to as the “Save the Baby/Eat the Baby
Dichotomy”. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<b>Mass Effect </b>tends to avoid this problem by not presenting its
choices in a good and evil light.
Instead, where the choices break down into obvious types at all, they
break down into two.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<i>Paragon</i> choices tend to emphasize cooperation, diplomacy, and
appealing to people’s better natures. A
Paragon Shepard would generally rather negotiate than go in guns blazing, and
is often forgiving and understanding, and keen on behaving in a way that seems
fair. But a Paragon Shepard isn’t all
sweetness and niceness. As much as he or
she may want to avoid starting a fight, they rarely have problems with ending one.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<i>Renegade</i> choices, by contrast, tend to go pretty much the
opposite. A Renegade Shepard has no
compunctions about using force to do what seems right, and often feels quite
certain that the ends justify the means.
Renegades don’t hesitate to threaten, and tend not to be overly
concerned with the needs of others. The
mission takes priority, and God help you if you find yourself in the way and
slow to move. However, a Renegade
Shepard isn’t completely evil or tyrannical, and it may be that some Renegade
options seem more just, or at least more expedient when it matters.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Both choices, when offered, will
get the job done equally well. What
changes is the way other characters respond to you. The “flavor” of the story, the sense of
perspective it takes as you play, changes according to your choices. What you do or don’t do, and <i>how</i> you do what you do, causes the
characters to respond in different ways.
And <b>Mass Effect</b> keeps track
of it all, as you discover in the sequels.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
As much as personalizing your
character’s face and background, these choices personalize both the story and
the character for each player. More than
changing the story, the choices offered let you feel more involved in it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
In this, <b>Mass Effect</b> actually walks a very fine line. On the one hand, you have the wide-open
narratives of Western RPGs where your characters are usually blank slates (of
necessity, being player-created), and the story is therefore never very personal. In these, you usually have a lot of choice
about what you’ll do and how you’ll do it, because the view taken in most
Western RPGs is that they are a simulation of an adventure. Japanese RPGs, on the other hand, tend to
focus more on the story. Where
exploration is possible, it’s rarely of much consequence, as the game typically
wants you to go to specific places in a specific order so as to advance the
story a certain way. These games
typically have a more in-depth story, as the characters are pre-made, with
personalities and appearances designed by the developers. Most Japanese RPGs tend to focus on the
plot, rather than the simulation of an adventure.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Between the two, we have <b>Mass Effect</b>. I don’t think it was BioWare’s intention for
the game to necessarily take a middle way between these two schools of RPG
design, mind you. But I feel like it
does that, just the same. And the way
BioWare handles it, we still get an engrossing sci-fi adventure without losing
the feeling that we can choose how we go through it. We feel like we’re doing it all our own way –
and we are, in a sense – even as the game always, always dictates what we
do. It’s because we choose <i>how</i> to do it that we feel like we’re in
charge.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
* * * </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Actually playing <b>Mass Effect</b>, from a mechanical
perspective, and from a broader game-design perspective, can be frustrating.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
While it’s structured as an RPG,
it has the basic mechanics of a cover-based third-person shooter. But the mechanics are just that: basic. Moving can be imprecise, and the character
slow to respond. Taking cover isn’t
handled by way of a button press. You
just shove the character up against a wall, and if you’re moving more or less
perpendicular to the surface in question, Shepard will take cover. From there, you can lean out and shoot at
your enemies. But if you come at your
cover from the wrong angle, it can be difficult to “stick” to it. This usually results in the enemies taking
potshots at you while you try to actually take cover, and likewise results in
you having a frustrating time aiming and firing. This is especially irritating if your squad
(two chosen ally characters who may accompany you) gets in the way, which they
invariably do. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Worse than this, and less
forgivable, is that the game itself is a bit…
Well, “janky” is the word that comes immediately to mind. The framerate suffers visibly during more
intense conflicts (when you <i>most</i> need
it to be smooth), to the point that aiming and firing can occasionally be
difficult for more than just the usual reasons. Even outside of battle, camera movement is
kind of rough and jagged. Vehicular
combat can also be an issue, as you may occasionally find yourself too close to
a target to be able to actually hit it, even when you have it in your sights. And the less said about the driving segments,
the better.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Playing the game on PC, rather
than on console, can mitigate this somewhat.
While still not exactly worth writing home about, <b>Mass Effect</b>’s visuals look considerably better, and lack the
framerate problems and rough camera issues when running on even modest
hardware. It’s also nice when the
textures load more or less immediately, rather than taking several seconds to
pop in as they do on the Xbox 360 version.
But then the PC port introduces bugs not present in the original version
of the game (to the best of my knowledge, anyway). I found myself ejected from the level
geometry during a boss fight in one run through the game. A friend of mine says that he’s run into a
situation where, once a weapon overheats, it never, ever cools down again. This isn’t just the Overload ability (which
you can also learn and use against enemies); Overload is temporary. This is permanent. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
In a broader sense, the gameplay
of <b>Mass Effect</b> is a bit uneven,
also.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Story missions are a blast to
play. Wonky mechanics aside, they
provide interesting environments, objectives, and enemies. The story that advances through these
missions is also pretty interesting, and of course playing through multiple
times lets you play through it multiple ways, with different party
combinations. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
But then you have the
side-missions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
These are given to you by other
characters. Sometimes you’ll enter a
system and be alerted to an occurrence that requires your attention. Sometimes you’ll find clues while on a main
mission that lead to a side-mission.
There’s always a bonus to be had in experience, gear, and money for
completing these, but they don’t offer much beyond this, and are kind of
lacking in themselves. The vast majority
of them are barebones affairs with little interaction or plot advancement, and
usually go something like this:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
You touch down on a planet, and
are given a small part of its surface area to explore. There will be a few different points of
interest, often in the form of rare minerals you can survey, or abandoned gear
you can pick up, and one or two places (depending on the mission) where the
actual meat of the side-mission happens.
Traversing the planet surface is an exercise in aggravation. Typically, the shortest distance between any
two points on the map is a straight line which has that planet’s equivalent to
Mount Fucking Everest right in the middle of it. It’s fun, at first, to realize that the Mako
(your exploratory vehicle) can drive up virtually any surface that isn’t an
actual 90-degree cliff, given time enough, and sufficient finagling. It goes from fun to irritating in a hurry,
however, when you realize that not only <i>can
</i>you, you’ll <i>have to</i>. Frequently, and at length. Then, as you begin to thank your lucky stars for
finding a nice, flat stretch of ground to drive over… Invariably, this is when you will encounter a
Thresher Maw. This is essentially a
giant worm, found on many worlds, that spits acid and does its level best to
ruin your day. You can fight and kill
Thresher Maws, but this quickly (which is to say, more or less immediately)
becomes tedious.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
So you drive to where the mission
actually happens. And here, you’re
confronted with the fact that there are only three maps in which side missions
take place. You have the mine shaft, the
pre-fab dwelling, and the underground bunker.
The only variation to speak of in these is where the crates and any (entirely
static, non-interactive) machinery in them will be placed. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Finishing the side mission usually
nets you some money, maybe some halfway interesting gear, and often fleshes out
some of the “lore” or other sub-plots going on in the main story.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
The side missions aren’t actually <i>awful</i>, but they do get tedious, and the
work-to-fun ratio is not favorable.
They’re best done a few at a time, between story missions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
My most recent play-through of <b>Mass Effect</b> is actually my wife’s
play-through. She has been in the room
for a good portion of all four of my previous runs through the entire trilogy,
and has gotten more than a little curious about the game. So she took a stab at playing herself. For this, I had to leave the room.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
It turns out that a lifetime spent
<i>not</i> playing more violent video games,
developing the skills necessary to run, jump, punch, shoot, throw grenades and
otherwise ruin your opponents’ whole week does not predispose one to much skill
with this sort of gameplay. So it’s more
than a little intimidating, and even its basic mechanics offer a comparatively
steep learning curve to a raw newcomer.
I should explain that this is nothing against my wife. She plays games like <b>The Sims</b>, and all its countless and myriad variations and
expansions, and as much as I tease her, secretly, at the bottom of my heart,
those games are intimidating to me because they are completely
inscrutable. So I do the running around
and the shooting things, and she chooses where we go and what we do and say,
who we do it and say it to, who we like, who we dislike, who we’ll fall in love
with, who we’ll ultimately have to sacrifice.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
She’s playing a female Shepard,
out of curiosity as much as anything else.
I always play a male Shepard, because I am boring and dull. I have run through the entire trilogy about
four times, and have played <b>Mass Effect </b>and
<b>Mass Effect 2</b> five times. Always, I play a male Shepard. After all of that, she’s been curious about
what it’s like with a female Shepard. It’s
actually helped to make the game new for me, because I’m so used to hearing
certain lines of dialogue at certain times, and when those lines are delivered
by a different person in a different way, it sometimes jars the whole
experience into a strange feeling of newness.
Especially since characters react differently depending on whether you
play a male Shepard or a female one.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Ultimately, <b>Mass Effect</b> is a diamond in the rough. I love it, really – despite all it does
wrong, there’s a lot it does right to be worthy of that love – and I still, in
the end, enjoy playing through it. I
love setting down on alien worlds, seeing strange skies with strange moons,
suns, and planets in them. I like
standing on a high place, hearing the ambient music, and the booming of the
wind, and staring out across the vista.
Even with all the lack of refinement, there’s a certain rough elegance
to it at times.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
But playing at someone else’s
direction lets me think about things in a way I sometimes don’t get to when I’m
focused on the decisions <i>I</i> want to
make. When I know a choice is coming and
I’m debating it silently in my head, running through a particular firefight or
stretch of Mako driving purely on auto-pilot, I don’t have time to notice the
minor flaws, and the not-so-minor flaws, that have been there since the
beginning. Then, too, it doesn’t help
any that I’ve since played much better third-person shooters. <b>Gears
of War</b>, of course, and then <b>Mass
Effect</b>’s own sequels both stand as better examples of how this sort of
gameplay should really work. Sure, you
can always say that <b>Mass Effect</b> is
supposed to be a sort of RPG-shooter hybrid, but problem isn’t that the shooter
mechanics aren’t very deep or fleshed out.
They’re just shaky, and kind of <i>bad</i>. You have only to play <b>Mass Effect 2</b>, with its much tighter and more responsive moving,
maneuvering, and shooting, to understand what could have been – what <i>should</i> have been.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
But, at the same time, <b>Mass Effect</b>’s story elevates it above
these problems, and the sense of exploration is unrivaled in anything else I’ve
played, including its own sequels. If it
falls a bit short of the mark in this, it at least aimed high, and you can tell. When it’s <i>on</i>,
it’s really, really on. At its worst, <b>Mass Effect</b> is a diamond in the rough. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
And when that’s the worst you can
say about a game, well… Some studios
live and die wishing they’d made a game you can say that about.</div>
</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-21548386603069987242014-11-22T20:46:00.004-08:002014-11-22T20:46:58.211-08:00FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC: Succession of Witches, and...<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In 1997, we
had <b>Final Fantasy VII</b> which, despite
being technically uneven, was an unprecedented success. Its sales figures were amazing for its time,
and are still respectable today (more than a decade and a half later, mind
you). It’s a sort of lightning Square
has been trying to make strike twice to this day. As a popular and critical darling, warts and
all, it’s a rare creature, and it was the spark that set off the explosion of
Japanese RPGs that would become staple genre of console gaming for the
remainder of that console generation and virtually all of the next.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In 2000, we
had <b>Final Fantasy IX</b>, a massive
nostalgia bomb, a love letter to the medieval-ish high-fantasy days of the series
before the Playstation. Hearkening back
to its 8-bit and 16-bit history, it referenced and name-checked all sorts of
characters, places, plot elements, weapons, and other thematic elements from
the days of yore, which really weren’t all that far back in retrospect, but
were worlds removed from the modern, urban fantasies that <b>Final Fantasy VII</b> had ushered in.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In between,
in 1999, we had <b>Final Fantasy VIII</b>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Final Fantasy VIII</b>, the awkward,
gangly, but well-meaning middle child of its generation. In retrospect, it could never have been
anything else.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The success
of <b>Final Fantasy VII</b> was practically
an accident, as most such runaway successes tend to be. It was a massive technological leap forward
for the series, horrifically inconsistent visual style aside. While its enduring success is due to its
rock-solid gameplay, interesting story, memorable characters, and status as a
game of historic significance in both its specific genre and the medium in
general, its <i>immediate</i> success owes
much more to savvy marketing. Not one
commercial for the game showed any of the actual playable parts, but instead
focused exclusively on the cutscenes, which were state of the art for their
time. If you didn’t know that <b>Final Fantasy VII</b> was a role-playing
game, and you didn’t know what a role-playing game was, you had no idea what to
actually expect of the game. Which was a
perfectly understand course of action to take for the advertising, really. Menu battles don’t exactly make for thrilling
commercials. As far as Squaresoft (now
Square Enix) was concerned, so long as you wanted it nonetheless (as many
people certainly did), then that was fine.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I say this
mainly to point out that <b>Final Fantasy
VIII</b>’s own considerable sales figures, despite its status as the black sheep
of the Final Fantasy family for several years (and now merely as <i>one of </i>the black sheep), are no great
surprise. It traded on a massive amount
of goodwill built up by <b>Final Fantasy
VII</b>. The plain truth of it is that <b>Final Fantasy VIII</b> could have been
shit—Square could have packaged actual human feces in every jewel case—and <i>still</i> it would have sold millions, based
solely on the strength of reputation. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
But let’s
step back a bit.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
It’s pretty
uncommon now, but it used to be, way, <i>way</i>
back in the day, that sequels could be radically different from each
other. <b>The Legend of Zelda</b> went from being an overhead-view
action-adventure game with non-linear exploration and some light puzzle-solving
to a sort of vaguely RPG-ish game where most of the actual <i>playing</i>, outside of navigating from one location of interest to
another, took the form of a side-scrolling platform game. <b>Super
Mario Bros. 2 </b>was so different, mechanically, from its predecessor that it
might as well not have been a Mario game at all (I know, I know; what we got in
the U.S. as <b>Super Mario Bros. 2 </b>technically
<i>wasn’t</i> a Mario game originally, but
bear with me; I’m going somewhere with this).
Where <b>Castlevania</b> was a
linear, side-scrolling platform game, <b>Castlevania
II: Simon’s Quest</b> offered a wide-open sandbox with no real boss encounters
until the very end of the game.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
And so on,
and so on.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Final
Fantasy, as a series, has always done this.
What makes Final Fantasy as a series unique is that it has <i>kept</i> doing this, while other series are now
content for sequels to simply iterate upon the basic formula outlined in the
first game. Iron out the kinks from the
previous game, introduce a few new quirks to the system, make the game bigger
and better-looking. That’s essentially
the way sequels are done today.
Occasionally, you reboot the franchise if things have gotten stale or
you want to go in a new direction.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Meanwhile,
the only thing truly the same between all Final Fantasy titles is the goddamned
<i>title font</i>. And even <i>that</i>
wasn’t set until <b>Final Fantasy IV</b>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Actually,
that’s a little bit untrue. In recent
years, Square has taken to creating compilations of games set in the same
world, featuring the same characters. It
started with <b>Final Fantasy X-2</b>, and
there have been other sequels and related games made for <b>Final Fantasy VII</b>, <b>XII</b>,
and <b>XIII</b>. But even before this, there were certain
things all entries in the series had in common.
Some of it was in the names of certain places, characters, and items,
which carried over from one game to the next.
Some of it is in the mechanical elements of the games (the ATB System,
the Job System, etc.). A lot of it was
in certain ideologies and philosophies; certain repeated narrative themes,
elements, and motifs; and a certain “feeling” (for lack of a more exact
description) present in the various games. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Final
Fantasy is one of the only series around still doing this, still reinventing
the wheel with every new installment.
Which is one reason why I like <b>Final
Fantasy VIII</b>, perhaps in spite of itself.
Because even in the face of the overwhelming success of its immediate
predecessor, Square decided <i>not</i> to do
the obvious thing, which would have been to make another game exactly like <b>Final Fantasy VII</b>, only prettier and
bigger. Instead, they chose to do what
they’d always done, which was to do something completely different.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Inevitably, <b>Final Fantasy VIII</b> was going to be seen
as somewhat of a disappointment to a lot of people. It was really never possible for it to be
anything else. The truth is simply that
its predecessor left some impossibly big shoes to fill by virtue of its
reputation, and no game on planet Earth was going to be able to fill them. Much like <b>Destiny</b> today, the product being sold by advertisements and
interviews and previews and ad space in magazines, and on the strength of the
reputation of its predecessor, and the product that eventually arrived in
stores, that real human beings in our sadly limited physical universe could
own, were too far dissimilar.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Which is
not, of course, to say that <b>Final
Fantasy VIII </b>is perfect, or even great.
It <i>isn’t</i>, and there are
reasons why it’s one of the black sheep of the series. But it isn’t a bad game, either. It’s merely a good game, coming after a
series of consistently excellent ones, and foreshadowing some of the troubles
its developer would come to face in a console generation or two. But then, experimenting with the formula is
bound to result in more than a few failures.
It’s in the nature of experimentation to fail, occasionally. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
But probably
even saying that is putting it too harshly.
A game that has moved as many millions of units as <b>Final Fantasy VIII</b> has over the years can hardly be considered a
failure by any reasonable metric. And as
time has marched on, and we’ve gotten away from the immediate aftermath of its
predecessor and can more clearly judge it on its own merits, without bias, it
turns out that <b>Final Fantasy VIII</b> is
pretty all right, in the end.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So what does
<b>Final Fantasy VIII </b>do right, and
where and how does it go wrong? What’s
it like to play today? That’s what I’m
hoping to answer.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
One of the
first things <b>Final Fantasy VIII </b>got
right was its English localization. This
was a relatively new practice at the time; in point of fact, <b>Final Fantasy VIII</b> may have been the
game that pioneered it. Before this,
games were usually translated into English at some point after the game was
finished and released in Japan. Because
getting the game into English was a generally secondary process, it usually had
a brutally short timeframe. Most of the
quirks and errors in the translation of earlier games tended to be due to
this. Rather than laziness on the part
of the translators, it was simply a matter of not having enough time to get it
fine-tuned. The international success of
<b>Final Fantasy VII</b> helped to convince
Squaresoft that the market beyond Japan was important enough that good
localizations mattered. And so the
English script was written in tandem with the game’s development.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
This was
also the first game to finally standardize the spell name structure of the
Final Fantasy Series. The whole “-a”,
“-aga”, “-aja” suffix thing got its start here.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
As an
insufferable English pedant myself, this pleases me to no end. Granted, some of the slang and other
colloquialisms of the game stand out sharply today, and date it, but on the
whole, the attempt (largely successful, by the way) to give the game’s dialogue
some texture and flavor was and remains greatly appreciated.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
There are
other developmental points we could make about the game—its use of
realistically proportioned character models, the minimalist combat menus, and
so on, but technical details are so dry and boring, and don’t make for a good
retrospective.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So let’s
talk about gameplay.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
There’s a
lot to talk about, and I’m probably only going to scratch the surface because
of it (this is a retrospective, not a manual or a guide), but even just
skimming the surface reveals how different this game is.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
As I
mentioned, pretty much every Final Fantasy game reinvents the wheel to some
extent. <b>Final Fantasy VIII</b> does it more so than most. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Where its
predecessor was already comparatively minimalist about weapons, armor,
accessories and whatnot, <b>VIII</b> does
away with these things altogether. You
don’t even buy new weapons. You can
upgrade your weapons, assuming you find the right parts (these are items,
dropped like everything else after combat, depending entirely on the will and
the whims of the fickle and almighty Random Number God). Aside from the usual combat items – potions,
antidotes, echo screens, eye drops, softs, etc. – there’s not much to buy with
your money.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
And then
money is yet another thing <b>VIII</b>
handles differently. Rather than earning
money from fighting monsters, you are paid at regular intervals. Your characters belong to a mercenary group
(more on this later), and are paid a regular stipend corresponding to their
rank. Said rank can be raised and
lowered depending on how skillfully (or not) you play. You can also take quizzes to raise your rank,
and increase your pay thereby.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
And then
there is the Junction System…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
This is the
thing that frustrates newcomers and people who prefer more straightforward
character building in games. A cursory
look at how the system works makes it look like the most insufferable thing
imaginable in a game. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So: You have Guardian Forces (GFs from here on
out), which are powerful spirits like Ifrit, Shiva, Quezacotl, Siren, and a
score of others (basically the summon spirits from previous Final Fantasy
games). You Junction these GFs to a
character, which initially enables various battle commands (magic, items,
etc.). The GFs can be summoned at will,
without draining any kind of magic point pool—because there isn’t one. They also each offer a slew of passive
bonuses and abilities, and are capable of learning more as they level up along
with the characters. One of the
fundamental benefits of GFs, however, is
that they let you junction magic to your stats.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
This takes
some explaining.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So, in <b>Final Fantasy VIII</b>, you don’t have
magic points, or even spell charges like the very first entries (at least, not
in quite the same way). Instead, if you
have a GF junctioned, you have access to a “Draw” command. You can use this to draw magic spells out of
the enemies you fight (each enemy has a set selection of spells you can draw
from it, though not a set amount of said spells), as well as certain “Draw
Points” in the world at large. Drawing
from an enemy or draw point will give you between one and nine charges of a
particular spell. Characters can carry
up to 100 charges of a particular spell.
When you junction a spell to one of your stats, the more charges of that
spell you have, the greater the effect.
So if you junction 100 Cures to your hit points, you can expect your HP
total to jump by about a hundred or more.
Some GFs let you junction elemental spells to your attack stats, meaning
your default attack will carry an elemental modifier, which makes those attacks
more effective on enemies weak against that element. You can also junction status effects to your
attacks as well, with the right GF.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
This is the
sort of complexity that makes some players tear their hair out. It’s also exactly the thing that lets you
open the game up wide, break it over your knee, make it your bitch, etc. ,
etc., in so many clever and creative ways.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
You know
those status spells that always sound really cool? Blind, Sleep?
<i>Death?</i> You know how they never, ever work when you
need them to or want them to in other Final Fantasies? Well, they still don’t work terribly often in
<b>Final Fantasy VIII</b>, either, not when
cast regularly. But only a chump does
that. Slap 100 Sleep spells on your
attack stat, and you’ll be putting enemies to sleep about 80 percent of the
time with just your standard attack. Or
maybe you’re just tired of getting hit with Death spells yourself, since your
enemies never seem to suffer from the sort of questionable effectiveness of
these spells. Junction 100 Death spells
to the right stat, and you’re pretty much immune to the instant-death status.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
And it gets
better!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
There is a
card game you can play with many other people in the game’s world, with cards
based on various characters and enemies found throughout the game. One of the GF abilities you can learn early
on lets you turn enemies <i>into </i>cards. Now, winning the card game is great and all,
but there are other GF abilities which let you refine cards into items,
sometimes rare and powerful items, which you can then junction to your stats,
which then allow you to run roughshod over the world at large, like gods.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I could go
on and on forever, probably. There’s the
fact that enemy monsters’ power scales with your own experience level, so that
they always present a consistent challenge, but if you keep your levels low and
junction smart, you can make yourself inordinately more powerful than the
monsters, and stomp all over them from hell to breakfast, if you like.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I think I
need to stop, though, or else I’ll never shut up.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So what’s <b>Final Fantasy VIII </b><i>about</i>, anyway? We’ve come
this far; maybe we should, you know, talk about the story. There are four discs of it, for God’s sake;
it must be worth mentioning at some point.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So we start
off playing as Squall Leonhart. Squall
is a young man enrolled at the Balamb Garden, a sort of military academy which
trains and deploys elite mercenaries, known as SeeDs (yes, with ridiculous
capitalization), all over the world.
Squall has a rival or adversary of sorts named Seifer Almasy. While their relationship is mutually
antagonistic, they also seem to be the only people who really understand each
other, and they both mirror each other in odd ways throughout the game.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
To say that
Squall is a loner is to put it mildly.
An orphan (as are so many main characters in this game), suffering from
severe abandonment issues, he believes that a person should rely only on
themselves, and should never have to rely upon others to get by, either
physically, emotionally, or otherwise. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Upon becoming
a SeeD (which happens fairly early on), he and two companions are sent to aid a
resistance group in a place called Timber.
Timber is occupied by an imperialistic nation-state (there do not seem
to be well-delineated countries) called Galbadia. While in Timber, Squall and Co. discover that
Galbadia has a new ambassador, the Sorceress Edea.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Sorceresses in
this world, we learn, are Bad News..
There was a massive war fought to subdue one (probably the equivalent of
a World War) 17 years prior, and Galbadia’s thinly veiled bid for world
domination looks likely to trigger another such conflict. And of course, the Sorceress here is far more
than she appears to be. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Not long
after this, Squall’s orders change.
Instead of supporting the Timber resistance, he is to eliminate the
Sorceress Edea at all costs. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
With him and
his SeeD compatriots in this endeavor is Rinoa Heartilly, the young, impulsive
leader of the resistance that he was previously (and grudgingly) aiding. While she is quite serious about the
resistance movement she leads, she is immature in ways; she lacks the
understanding of just how grim an undertaking it is that she leads. Squall finds himself irritated by and with
her, and at the same time, can’t seem to part himself from her. As much as she frustrates him, she also helps
to ground him and humanize him. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
If it wasn’t
apparent before, even just from looking at the game’s logo, <b>Final Fantasy VIII</b> is, as much as it is
a fantasy adventure, a romance. This is
both good and bad.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The characters
themselves are actually fairly well done and developed, and interesting once
you get to spend time with them. But
it’s the time required for this to become apparent that is the fatal stumbling
block of <b>Final Fantasy VIII</b>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
A large part
of the problem is the pacing. To an
extent, this is true of most PS1-era RPGs.
The vast amount of storage space for raw content offered by the then-new
widespread adoption of CD-ROM as a standard format was far too tempting for
many developers of long-form games, and very, very few of them were able to
resist that temptation. “Bloat” is one
of the hallmarks of the era, honestly.
But <b>Final Fantasy VIII</b> feels
especially bad about this. There are a
number of segments that feel, if not necessarily gratuitous on their own, then
excessive and unnecessary taken altogether.
It feels as if, enamored with the thought of all they <i>could </i>do, they never stopped to think
about whether they <i>should</i> do it.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
And this
makes the characters suffer.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In previous
Final Fantasies, as with most games, the characters are instruments of the
plot. Their strengths and weaknesses,
their troubles, their failures and their triumphs, all occur by order of
dramatic necessity. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Final Fantasy VIII</b> tries to turn this
around. The characters, their
relationships, and the development of both, are ends in themselves. The characters don’t develop on the way to
other things; their development is a large part – probably the main part – of
the whole.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
But this
process is <i>slow</i>. Clear and momentous transitions are
vanishingly few, perhaps nonexistent.
Our hero Squall is one person at the game’s start, another, different
person at its end, and there is not a single point where <i>all</i> of it changes. It’s a
gradual process, not set up in discrete stages or movements. I like this, actually, because in this much
it is honest. Life is like that. But the drawback to this slow development is
that first impressions, or any other brief surveying of the game, will not
reveal any of its greater depths. It
will, in fact, only reinforce the stereotype of Squall as an emo loner
jackass. And while this much is true as
far as it goes…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--> He has <i>reasons</i> for being the way he is, and </div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->He gets better, which of course is part of the
whole point of the story in the first place.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
But it is
such a <i>slow burn</i>. You have to stick with it. And this is a large part of the problem. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I like
character stories. Really, I do. I have always been of the belief that good,
strong characters are the life’s blood of any story. If you can’t get invested in the
characters—whether you love them or hate them—you can’t get invested in the
story. But this kind of story is perhaps
not the best fit for an RPG. The countless
hours of random battles and grinding and drawing spells and fiddling with your
junctions and hitting enemies with wildly improbable weapons until all the
numbers come out can get in the way of the character development, and vice
versa.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
None of this
is to say that <b>Final Fantasy VIII</b> is
bad—far from it!—but it does require a certain amount of patience. An amount of patience I didn’t have back in
1999, when I was 18.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So, how has <b>Final Fantasy VIII </b>aged? Is it worth it?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Graphically,
it’s<b> </b>a bit rough. In September of 1999, of course, it was
phenomenal. But fifteen years of
technology marching on have not been kind to it. I’ve been playing most of my PS1 games on my
PS Vita, where the screen is small enough that this issue isn’t very
noticeable, but on a nice, big, HDTV…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The polygons
are sharp-edged and jagged like sawteeth, and the pixels in the texture maps
are big enough to pick out and count.
Some of the animations look pretty twitchy and jittery as well, par for
the course in this particular timeframe.
And of course, because of the PS1’s shortsighted lack of perspective
correction, the textures warp and bend at odd angles from time to time. But in a weird way, I’m nostalgic for that. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I’ve taken
to playing the game on my PS2 on a standard definition TV. I find that it softens the blow.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The music is
definitely a step up from its predecessor.
<b>Final Fantasy VII</b> was
well-composed, but the execution was frankly embarrassing in comparison to <b>Final Fantasy VIII</b>, which maybe doesn’t
have as many memorable songs, but certainly has an overall better sound
quality.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In all, the
gameplay conventions that <b>Final Fantasy
VIII</b> was founded on have gotten pretty long in the tooth. Random battles are becoming increasingly
passé, and the game probably serves as one of the most egregious examples of
the aforementioned PS1-era bloat. I’m
not sure who the audience for this game is going to be. Kids who grew up on HD systems are probably
going to find it visually glaring, mechanically obtuse, and torturously
slow. But for those of us who are older
and more patient, those are the very things that make it more rewarding (well,
not the visually glaring part), and I’m finding that I enjoy the game much more
today than I did fifteen years ago when it came out.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So that’s my
verdict, I suppose. If you tried it and
couldn’t hack it then, give it another shot now. You may find that it’s changed, or that you
have. </div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-88390677361379290702014-08-19T13:30:00.000-07:002014-08-19T13:30:05.301-07:00Get Born Again<div class="MsoNormal">
So last night, for the first time in my life, I got to see
Alice in Chains play live. They’d never
come to Peoria before, and their touring days were basically done for the then-foreseeable
future by the time I got really interested in them. They’ve remained a favorite band of mine ever
since I was sixteen, when I got my first CD player and my first CD. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I asked for an Alice in Chains CD on… not really a <i>whim</i>, necessarily, but not with any
particular motive, either. I’d heard a
number of their songs (“Man in the Box”, “Rooster”, “Over Now,” and “Heaven
Beside Me” come immediately to mind) on the radio, and I liked what I’d
heard. And their name stuck with me. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Prior to this, I’d listened pretty exclusively either to my
parents’ music, or whatever I could manage to record (on tape – how quaint!) from
the radio. But it was getting harder and
harder to find most new artists on cassette, CDs offered less hassle and
greater portability, not to mention better sound.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This first CD was the band’s latest at the time, and would
turn out to be their last for several years, as they went on hiatus. I worked my way through their discography
basically in reverse, literally. I
bought their CDs as I could, from latest to earliest. This wasn’t something I planned, or did for
any reason other than that it was just how I found them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I could never put my finger on why I liked their music so
much. But that’s me, in a nutshell, when
it comes to things I like. I can never
explain <i>why</i> things have an impact on
me, at least not without a lot of thought and the benefit of hindsight. I just hear a song, and it sinks into my
head, pushes all my buttons; this is how I know I like it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Their music was darker than I had expected, based on what I’d
heard on the radio. That this didn’t
scare me off surprised even me, really.
Their sound was so far off-base compared to what I’d grown up on (Phil
Collins, Bruce Hornsby, Fleetwood Mac, James Taylor, and Elton John are the
names that come immediately to mind) that I’ve spent a good chunk of the
interval wondering just how in God’s name I acquired a taste for this sort of
thing. Alice in Chains gets lumped in
with the grunge movement, because they’re from the Seattle area, but they aren’t
really a grunge band in the strictest sense (compare them to Pearl Jam or
Nirvana or Soundgarden, and you’ll see what I mean). They’ve been called metal, and there are
elements of that in their music, but they weren’t really like much of what
metal sounded like at the time, either.
They’ve been called alternative, but that term, helpful as it sometimes
is, is pretty much also a cop-out. “Alternative”,
especially in the 90s, applied to everything from Incubus to Creed to R.E.M. to
Natalie Imbruglia to the Dave Matthews Band to Live to No Doubt to Primus to…
well, you get the picture. Basically, if
it wasn’t heavy metal, or pop, or R&B, and was in any way even vaguely
rock-ish, it was bound to get the Alternative label slapped on it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think, looking back, that a large part of what I liked
about their music was that it felt in a weird way relatable. Now, this takes some explaining, since I was
in high school at the time, and the struggles of the average suburban white kid
in high school tend to be <i>pretty minor</i>
in the grand scheme of things, to the point that “struggles” should probably be
written in scare quotes, in all instances.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hang on, let me go update my AP Style Guide…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Part of what was interesting in their music was the weird
dichotomy of it. On the one hand, you
have songs begging forgiveness for past mistakes and crying out to be
understood, or at least not to be <i>mis</i>understood,
and lamenting this feeling of isolation and alienation. On the other, there are all the songs furiously
condemning a society that rejects people for their problems, for failing to
slot easily into ready-made roles, for failing to properly align with some
nebulous idea of normalcy, and punishes them for having the audacity to be
dissatisfied with this state of affairs.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There were also the songs about the sheer soul-devouring hell
of heroin addiction, but I never did relate to these, nor do I expect to, for
reasons that I hope should be obvious.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Obviously, being in high school was nothing like the grim
and soul-wearying struggle Alice in Chains was singing about, but I sense an
inkling of that sentiment in my own life.
Their lyrics felt true, or at any rate felt that, for me personally,
they soon would be.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There wasn’t a lot of solace to be found in the music, but
sometimes, you don’t need solace, and you don’t need answers, because the
solace feels false (and the world only feels that much worse when you
eventually have to go wading back into it), and the answers never feel
adequate. It’s not that help is
unappreciated, but more like it can never be enough. Sometimes, the only thing that seems to make
the world make sense is the knowledge that someone, somewhere, shares your
frustration, your anger, your desperation…
Someone shares it, and even if
they can’t answer you, can’t help you, or don’t even know that you exist, you
know that you are not alone in feeling the way that you do, and just knowing
that, all by itself, can make a difference.
And someone, somewhere, is taking that pain and making amazing music out
of it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve heard the theory before that all art comes from
pain. I don’t want to believe that,
sometimes. It seems unbearable,
monstrous almost, to think that all the amazing, beautiful works I’ve enjoyed
in my life – every movie that I’ve loved, every song that spoke to me, every lined
in every book that ever sent shivers down my spine – were created from the
suffering of another person.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At the same time, it makes perfect sense. Happy people, content people, practically by
definition, don’t have that gaping void in their lives to fill that inspires –
that <i>demands</i> – that one make art, capital-A
<i>Art</i>, in whatever capacity possible.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And the thing is, the more I think about it, the more the
idea that art comes from a person’s pain and struggles isn’t necessarily such a
bleak and hopeless idea after all. What
could be more comforting than knowing that pain and struggle can be turned into
something of real beauty, meaning, and worth?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In April of 2002, the long downward arc of Layne Staley’s
personal struggle with heroin addiction came to the bad end everyone suspected
and no one could really stop.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was in the Army at the time, stationed at Fort Lewis, in
Washington. This was about an hour or so
from Seattle. I was a journalist,
working on the Northwest Guardian, which was the post paper. My friend Joe was a photographer, and when it
came to the work of taking photos, his bad days were better than my best days
were ever going to be. I say this
without jealousy or envy, but to state a simple fact. I cared much more about writing stories, and
I didn’t really “get” photography beyond the absolute basics. The basics, in this case, being “make sure
the picture is in focus and for God’s sake try not to let your hands jitter too
badly”. He was one of the civilians on
staff at the paper, and he’d lived in the area for most (if not all) of his
life.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I call him my friend in the hope that the feeling was
mutual. It was a strange and awkward
time of my life (the obvious joke here being “when has that ever <i>not</i> been true”), and in hindsight, I
have to admit that I could be kind of an insufferable shit at times. I don’t know why. Sometimes, everything just felt wrong, and I
felt wrong right along with it. I <i>told</i> you Alice in Chains struck a chord
with me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So I was on my way past Joe’s desk for something or other,
and he pulled me aside. This is the
conversation as best I can remember it”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Hey, you listen to Alice in Chains, right?” he asked
me. I told him I did, and wondered where
this was going. “Well, you’re not going
to want to hear this, but you should probably know that they found Layne Staley’s
body in his apartment yesterday.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Oh… Shit.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You know who he is, right?” Joe asked. He looked a little concerned. “He was the lead singer of—”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Alice in Chains, yeah.
Um…”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Are you going to be okay?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Yeah, I’m just going to go… sit down, I think.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Which I then did. It
was a strange feeling for me. I couldn’t
claim that I was personally moved by the death.
I had never known the man as anything other than assorted photos in the
liner notes of CD inserts, and a tremendously talented voice from the stereo. But that voice…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In many ways, he is one of the most talented singers I’ve
ever heard. He could go from a grainy,
anguished belting-out, to a scream of fury and pain, to a sonorous drone all
within the space of one song. He shared
songwriting duties with Jerry Cantrell, the lead guitarist of Alice in Chains
and one of the better guitarists currently active, period. With a few notable exceptions, he wrote most
of the lyrics for the band’s last album.
It might help to explain most of that album’s dark, introspective tone. You can tell from the lyrics that this is the
work of a person who has problems with the world.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I couldn’t mourn the man personally, because it didn’t hit
me the way deaths in my family have done, striking in the place below and
before thinking and understanding, the place where there is only feeling and
reaction. But at the same time, I did
feel upset. Someone who had been important
to me had been taken out of the world. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By all accounts, or at least, judging from his interviews, Staley
was not a man who enjoyed his addiction.
Maybe he had, once, at the distant beginning. But he had reached a point where he did
heroin for the same reason most people breathe: because some part of his brain told
him it was necessary. He admitted on at
least one occasion that he was fairly sure it was going to kill him, and he
felt like there was nothing he could do about it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Like I said: the bad end everybody knew was coming and
nobody knew how to stop.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was hard to listen to Alice in Chains for a while. Suddenly, the band’s whole body of work sounded
to me like one long, pre-emptive obituary for Layne Staley.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I didn’t listen to them for a long while after that. It just felt strange and uncomfortable,
knowing that the owner of the voice coming through the speakers was no longer
alive.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some years and a few jobs after I came home from the Army,
one of my supervisors asked me if I’d heard the latest Alice in Chains
album. This was in 2008, and <i>Black Gives Way to Blue</i> had just come
out. I hadn’t been paying attention. Alice in Chains had gone on hiatus in 1996,
when Staley’s heroin problem had become enough of an obstacle that he could no
longer perform live or even really record in the studio. While there had been a couple of new songs
released in this interval for a “Best Of” album (itself culled from a boxed
collection), titled “Get Born Again” and “Died”, even this had been a struggle
to arrange and execute. The group had
disbanded following Staley’s death, and I figured, well, that was it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I didn’t realize they had a new album out,” I said to my
supervisor, whose name was Brandon.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Yeah, it just came out like a few weeks ago. There are a couple songs on the radio. I think you’d like it.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was oddly offended.
“How can they even have an album without Layne Staley?” I asked. “I mean, he wasn’t just some singer. He wrote a lot of the lyrics. He wasn’t exactly the whole band by himself,
but still…”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I know, man, but the new guy they got sounds pretty
good. A lot like Staley, actually. Just... Look, just give it a listen.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For a while, I couldn’t shake the weird feeling of
betrayal. It felt like moving on with
the same name was in some way trampling on everything the band had been. Layne Staley had been an integral part of
it. I mean, if he’d been fired, that
would have been one thing. But this was
completely different. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Eventually, though, I broke down. I bought <i>Black
Gives Way to Blue</i>. And if I didn’t
love it the way I’d loved the self-titled final album before Staley’s death, or
<i>Jar of Flies</i> or <i>Dirt</i> before it, it was still good.
The new singer, William DuVall, does sound a bit like Layne Staley, and
a little different at the same time.
What’s more important, though, is that Alice in Chains still sounds like
Alice in Chains.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s the thing I kept thinking as I was at the concert,
with the music roaring and my skull shaking, singing along with the lyrics of
pretty every song (save for the ones on <i>The
Devil Put Dinosaurs Here</i>, which I need to go out and buy soon) and knowing
my voice was lost in the crowd, completely inaudible even to my own battered
ears, and caring not even one single bit.
The important thing, the best thing, was that Alice in Chains still
sounds like Alice in Chains.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
And they sounded incredible.</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-35733417356136092312013-06-02T23:17:00.002-07:002013-06-03T13:29:36.204-07:00Lunar 2: Hope Springs<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
If <b>Lunar: Silver
Star Story Complete</b> was in some way partly about becoming an adult and
living a dream, then <b>Lunar II: Eternal
Blue Complete</b> is much more about <i>being</i>
an adult, dreams or no. It is about
making and living with the decisions of a harsher world that allows for fewer
mistakes, and forgives them less often, less easily and less completely. There is a running thread throughout <b>Eternal Blue</b>—I wouldn’t call it a
theme, necessarily, but it feels broadly present— that what is best for
everyone might not always be what makes them happiest. Certainly the game is shot through with
melancholy meetings and bittersweet partings.
From Nall’s quiet sorrow over long-absent friends, to the party’s final
tearful farewells, the message is clear.
No one can escape the bitter choices, the compromises and the sacrifices
that are imposed by reality.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I started playing <b>Eternal
Blue Complete</b> in the Christmas season of 2000. I was home from the middle of basic training
during Christmas Exodus, and it was on the short list of games I felt I
absolutely needed to play. It was
supposed to have come out before I shipped out the previous Halloween, but this
was Working Designs we were dealing with, and I discovered that their trouble
with delays wasn’t something isolated to <b>Silver
Star Story Complete</b>, but was instead more like an unintentional company
policy where RPGs were concerned. I
played it a bit at that time, but only a bit, because there were lots of other
games to play (also purchased during this brief window: <b>Final Fantasy IX</b>, <b>Breath of
Fire IV</b>, <b>Mega Man Legends 2</b>, <b>RayCrisis: Series Termination</b>, <b>Mega Man X5</b>, and, lamentably, <b>Vampire Hunter D</b>), and because there
were friends and family to visit and spend time with who of course took priority,
and holidays to celebrate.<b> </b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I picked away at it in fits and starts, here and there,
throughout my time in the Army and afterward, but could never seem to find the
will to power through it. It wasn’t as
if the game was bad. I suppose the
mechanics had progressed, in this interval, from being quaint and charmingly
retro to positively archaic, but I’ve played tons of equally antiquated games,
so I’m sure that’s not all it was. But
that was a strange and uncomfortable period in my life, for the most part, and
it was difficult to enjoy a lot of things.
I didn’t properly finish <b>Eternal
Blue Complete</b> until the early winter of 2008, when I had been laid off from
my job and the utter collapse and ruin of my life seemed nearly
inevitable. I was looking for work, but
looking for work isn’t nearly as time-intensive as actually working. I had a lot of free time to kill, and a lot
of mental and emotional anguish about my situation that I didn’t know how to
handle; I just wanted to be gone. If I
could have stepped out of my life and all its attendant miseries and problems
and just become somebody else, I think I might have done it. As Tolkien tells us, there are two kinds of
escape: that of the deserter, and that of the prisoner. And I think that the very best kinds of
escape are those that take us, for a time, out of our own lives and teach us
something, so that we come back better armed to handle our troubles.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Looking back, I could not have chosen a better time to
play <b>Eternal Blue</b>. I had never, and have never since, been more
in need of hearing the things it had to say.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>Eternal Blue</b>
is a darker game than <b>Silver Star Story</b>. It’s not <i>dark</i>,
per se. Indeed, silliness still
abounds. But the circumstances are much
more dire, the stakes higher, than the previous game. The characters are a bit older, many of them a
bit more worldly and world-weary. These
aren’t all a bunch of kids (and a couple of newly minted adults) trying to rise
to a dream of heroism. These are, for
the most part, people who have gone out into the world and done some
living. Some of them have blood on their
hands, some of them have made mistakes and fallen from grace, some have lost
faith in themselves. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
But far from being a lament for the imperfection of the
world and the people in it, the message of <b>Eternal
Blue</b> is ultimately positive. Hope,
even amid the gathering dark, still thrives, and through Hope lies the victory
of the Good and the Right.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The story starts us off with the protagonist, Hiro. He’s been raised by his uncle, Gwyn, who is
an archaeologist, and who has set up his household near a couple of ancient
ruins sites to better study them. Hiro
himself has an interest in archaeology, but where Gwyn’s approach is thoughtful
and scholarly, Hiro is more an archaeologist of the Indiana Jones persuasion.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
But Hiro’s life takes an unexpected turn (as these things
often happen in fantasy stories) when a bright light descends from the sky to
the top of a nearby tower, called the Blue Spire, one of the aforementioned
ruins near Hiro and Gwyn’s home. It’s
a mystery worth investigating, but Hiro isn’t the only one interested in it.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
A thousand years have passed since <b>Silver Star Story Complete</b>, when Alex became the Dragonmaster and
cast down the Magic Emperor, and the world seems to have grown more grim and
solemn in the millennium interval. It’s
more than the knowledge that friends from the previous adventure are all long
in their graves. In the era of <b>Eternal Blue Complete</b>, the goddess is
once more physically incarnate. She
dwells in the holy city of Pentagulia, surrounded by her worshippers. But where the Goddess of ages past wished
simply for people to be kind and good to one another, and employed force only
to defend her people against the forces of evil, the Goddess of this more
modern era has an army at her disposal to enforce her will.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
It is one of her soldiers, the beastman Leo, who Hiro
encounters on his way home early in the game.
The strange light that has touched down on the Blue Spire was predicted,
it seems, and is identified as the Destroyer, sent from the Blue Star to bring
doom to the world of Lunar. Leo has been
sent to find this Destroyer, and destroy it first, before it can begin its
apocalyptic work. Yet beneath all of
this, there is a deeper mystery at work.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
One of the things that draws me to <b>Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete</b> is the way that it examines the
mystery behind the very existence of the world of Lunar and the purpose and
origin of the Blue Star. It isn’t as if
these things weren’t touched upon in <b>Silver
Star Story Complete</b>, exactly. They <i>were</i>, in a minor way. And it isn’t too hard to guess even from
those few, vague clues what is going on—why the world is called Lunar in the
first place; why the Frontier is a grey, crater-marked wasteland; and why the
massive Blue Star dominates the skyline the way that it does. But these things were hardly significant to
the story of the first Lunar game, and were tangents to the main thrust of the
story. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Most of that story, we know from legend. Humankind dwelt on the Blue Star once, eons
ago, but some disaster struck, and that world became corrupt and impossible to
live upon, and humankind stood at the brink of extinction. It was then that the Goddess Althena took the
remnant of her people and fled to the world of Lunar. Once an inhospitable waste, through her
powers she turned it into a lush, green world, save for a small portion of it
which maintained much of its wasteland nature.
But the blight of the Blue Star was no accident. It was set in motion by a being or a power of
uncertain origin but clearly malign nature. Though that power has lain dormant for a long
age, as the events of <b>Eternal Blue
Complete </b>unfold, it begins to stir, and it turn its attention to the world
of Lunar, and the descendants of those who escaped its wrath an age ago. But the Destroyer is not what we would
expect, or who, and the evil that threatens Lunar is more insidious and more
subtle than it seems.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
This is one of the storytelling tropes that I love the
most, the one I think of as the Mystery of the World. So when it comes to evaluating <b>Eternal Blue Complete</b>, it’s perhaps
unfair that it begins with an advantage regarding my own personal tastes. Part of this sense of mystery requires
unveiling a little of the lore of the
series. We know the broad strokes, but <b>Eternal Blue Complete</b> gives us a hint
at something greater, more horrifying, hidden and forgotten in the mists of
time. It seems to emphasize the ancient
past of Lunar more than the first game did.
In terms of playing the game, this results in you visiting all kinds of
ancient, tumble-down ruins which were nowhere to be found in the original game,
although there are even more which you cannot access during the main
quest—foreshadowing for the epilogue.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
It’s interesting that <b>Silver Star Story Complete</b> and <b>Eternal
Blue Complete</b> are such different games.
While they share certain themes and a roughly similar outlook, in tone
they feel very different. <b>Silver Star Story Complete</b> is very
upbeat and positive. The circumstances
are occasionally dire, but they’re more Hollywood Dire than anything. You know the heroes will prevail, because this
is the sort of story where the heroes always must. It’s kind of the whole point. <b>Eternal
Blue Complete</b> is never so certain in its victories. On the one hand, you’re certain that the
heroes <i>must</i> win. It’s That Kind of Story. On the other hand, some of your bitterest
foes are fundamentally good people whose desires to do good are twisted by shadowy,
insidious forces to the ultimate ends of evil.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Insidious. I like
that word. Just the sound of it seems to
hint at its meaning, and when it comes to <b>Lunar
2</b>, its especially apt, since that’s the way much of the evil you confront
is presented. There <i>is</i> a clear and obvious enemy who makes himself known (though he
doesn’t exactly <i>appear</i>) near the
beginning of the story, but the full nature of his intent, and the complexity
of his schemes, are not apparent until much later, when the trap is sprung and
nearly closed.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
But that’s another difference between <b>Silver Star Story Complete</b> and <b>Eternal Blue Complete</b>: scale. <b>Silver
Star Story</b> had as its villain the Magic Emperor: a man whose evil lay
mainly in his hideously, horrifically misguided attempt to correct what he believed
to be flaws in the very nature and structure of the world. He believed, as most evil people in the world
today believe, that what he did was perhaps brutal and unfortunate, but
ultimately necessary as the only certain means to achieving what he believed to
be right. But that’s just it: he was an
evil <i>person</i>. Bad as he is, there is at least a little
essential humanity that makes him work.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The antagonist of <b>Eternal
Blue Complete</b> has no such limitations on its nature. It is not a man at all. It has no desire to control the world, to
correct its flaws; it has no delusions of making life better for others by
providing them with what it sees as a necessary structure or authority. It does not concern itself with these
things. It is a cosmic engine of fear,
malice, corruption, and hate. It isn’t
quite a Lovecraftian monstrosity, but it’s in the ballpark.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
And it inspires the tiniest thread of doubt in the
story—doubt not about whether these particular heroes will win, but doubt about
whether any sort of victory at all is possible.
After all, this is the power that laid waste to the Blue Star, rendering
it a withered husk of its former grandeur and might. This is the power which forced the Goddess Althena
to <i>flee</i>. When even the Goddess must abandon resistance
in favor of mere escape, what hope has humankind for victory?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
So there’s the narrative for us. Considerably more grim and solemn than the
previous game, as any tale of impending apocalypse should be.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I could talk about game mechanics, but why bother? I did that for <b>Silver Star Story Complete</b>, and <b>Eternal Blue Complete </b>changes nothing. Characters progress in exactly the same
fashion as the previous game, learn new spells and techniques in the same way—there’s
really no need to even acknowledge the manual, though you may want to for the
artwork, if nothing else. It was
upgraded from the Sega CD original to match the look, style and mechanics of <b>Silver Star Story Complete</b>, and in that
respect it is absolutely successful.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
There is at least one continuity error in <b>Eternal Blue Complete</b> that I know of,
though. In the Sega CD original <b>Lunar: the Silver Star</b>, the Grindery
(the Magic Emperor’s mobile fortress) makes its final assault on the city of
Meribia. There it is brought to a
standstill by the efforts of the player’s party of heroes. A millennium later, it is inhabited by a
pseudo-bandit named Nall, who uses it as his headquarters, but his main
activity is not so much real banditry as it is watching over a small host of
orphans who have happened into his care.
In the PSX remake <b>Lunar: Silver
Star Story Complete</b>, however, The Grindery doesn’t attack Meribia, but
instead is directed toward the floating city and headquarters of the magicians’
guild, Vane. To me, this makes more
strategic sense. Vane seems like it
would be able to mobilize the greatest opposition to the Magic Emperor, and its
destruction would be the first order of business in any sensible plan of
conquest. So in <b>Silver Star Story Complete</b>, the Grindery comes to its final rest
outside of Vane.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
This becomes a problem in <b>Eternal Blue Complete</b>. The
party’s meeting with Nall has some significance for the storyline at the
particular time it happens. The party
travels to Meribia fairly early in <b>Eternal
Blue Complete</b>, and so the Grindery is right there. To place it where it last stood in <b>Silver Star Story Complete</b> would put it
much later in the game, requiring a rewrite of much of the story which occurs
between those two locations. I don’t
know how that amount of reworking would have been handled, and the problem (if
you can call it a problem) is that such a rewrite really feels
unnecessary. Because the fact of the
matter is that <b>Lunar 2</b>, both the
original Sega CD <b>Eternal Blue </b>and
the PlayStation remake <b>Eternal Blue Complete</b>
was a much better-made and better-executed game than its predecessor. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>Silver Star Story
Complete</b> was meant to improve on the execution of its first iteration, and
that execution was flawed due to some combination of a compromise of vision or
lesser capability of its makers at the time.
A fair number of the changes <b>Silver
Star Story Complete </b>made seem to have been qualitative in nature. But GameArts seem to have really found
themselves with <b>Eternal Blue</b>, and so
considerably fewer of the changes made between <b>Eternal Blue</b> and <b>Eternal
Blue Complete</b> were qualitative. Most
of them were quantitative—updating the graphics, making the cut scenes full
anime like <b>Silver Star Story Complete</b>,
that sort of thing. It was less
necessary for them to remake <b>Eternal
Blue</b>, because the limits of its execution laid less with the creators and
more with the technology, where the same is less true for <b>The Silver Star</b>. <b>Eternal Blue</b>’s remake seems to have
been predicated less on the logic of making necessary improvements to tell the
story correctly, and more on the logic of “well, we remade the first one, so we
should probably update the second one to match”.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
And I’m all for that, really, because any way you look at
it, <b>Eternal Blue Complete</b> is still a
fundamentally better experience than <b>Eternal
Blue</b> on the Sega CD. It’s just that <b>Eternal Blue</b> being a better-made game
overall meant that the creators were less willing to rewrite major sections of
the story for <b>Eternal Blue Complete</b>,
probably out of a fear that, once you start changing one major thing, you have
to change others, and pretty soon the thing bears no resemblance to the much-loved
original. And why should you do that
when the story’s solid on its own, and all to avoid a single continuity
flaw? So I can see why GameArts did what
they did, even though it will always bother that weird part of me that requires
everything to fit just so.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
So, is <b>Lunar 2:
Eternal Blue Complete</b> worth playing today?
Well, the graphics and sound can be a little underwhelming by today’s
standards. Even when I was finishing it
in 2008, it was beginning to look long in the tooth even by the standards of
retro-style games. The five-year
interval has probably not changed that at all—not for the better at any
rate. Not to say that the game looks
bad, just… dated. But the fact stands
that I still recommended <b>Lunar: Silver
Star Story Complete</b> more or less without reservations, and God knows it has
all the same technological shortcomings.
So why would the sequel be any different? It’s a bit darker, but for me, that’s practically
a selling point.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I like dark and grim stories because they make us
confront the true perilous nature of reality.
I like to escape as much as the next person (possibly more so, it’s
true), but I usually prefer not to lie to myself while I do it. And the true heroes seem to be the ones who
prevail over true darkness. So I prefer
Hiro’s story in <b>Eternal Blue Complete</b>
somewhat more than Alex’s story in <b>Silver
Star Story Complete</b>. It’s not that I
don’t think Alex is necessarily a lesser hero.
As a character, he had no certain knowledge of his victory, but the same
was not true of me. <i>I</i> knew he would win, not because I am so very wise, but simply
because that’s how these kinds of stories go.
I couldn’t say the same for Hiro, not completely. He, of course, was uncertain of victory,
because remotely intelligent heroes always are.
But I was uncertain as well. There
was that thin thread of doubt. Would he
lose? Would he win, but at terrible
cost? And that doubt was what made the
difference. Because there is no hope
without its attendant fear; the former cannot pretend to reality without the
latter.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
When the characters feel hope and fear, that’s one
thing. When the player feels that hope,
and that fear, that is something much, much greater. More profound. More <i>real</i>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
And it was that sense of hope that helped me through a
dark time in my own life. Maybe that
sounds cliché, or trite. Certainly there
are other stories, similarly themed and equally well told, that might have
taught me the same. But they weren’t
there at the time. <b>Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete</b> was.
I’m not going to sit here and tell you that playing this game turned my
life around, because that <i>would</i> be cliché,
and untrue besides. The situation was
much more complicated than that. But it
helped me to see past the mire of the present into the possibility of the
future, to strive for something better in that future, and to handle the
present with grace meanwhile.</div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
And <i>that</i> has
made a difference.</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-23133604672678606242013-06-01T02:48:00.000-07:002013-06-01T23:01:03.060-07:00Lunar: With Uncertain Steps<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
When the first bright, warm days of May come around, I
always get nostalgic for the spring of 1999.
This was when I graduated high school, and when I was confronting the
impending dilemma of full adulthood, and a life with no certain structure,
meaning or purpose. School and home had
provided all of those things, but I was approaching the point in my life where
school was going to be something I tackled purely on my own terms, in my own
way (if at all), and home was becoming less of a sanctuary and more a place I
wanted to escape if I could. Still, there are a
lot of things to look back and remember fondly.
Since I’ve been playing video games since about the age of four, games
are one of them. Most of the major
moments of my life, I can associate with music I was particularly into, movies
that especially interested me, books that I was getting absorbed in, and games
I was playing. In this case, the game in
question is <b>Lunar: Silver Star Story
Complete</b>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
It was long in the coming.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I had pre-ordered it on the recommendation of a friend,
who said he’d heard our local game store might not have enough copies to go
around when the game came out. This was
instantly compelling. So I went to the
store (it was a Babbage’s then, and it’s a GameStop now), put down the money
for the pre-order, marked my calendar for the anticipated late February or
early March release date, and waited.
And waited. And waited. And waited, and waited, and waited, and
waited, and waited, as the release date got pushed back a week here, two weeks
there, a month on one occasion. It began
to feel as if Working Designs (the company responsible for localizing the game
and releasing it in the U.S.) didn’t actually <i>have</i> any projected release date, and were popping dates out at
random because they knew they were expected to have one.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Finally, in May (possibly the tail-end of April, but I
keep thinking of May), the <i>demo </i>arrived. This was about a month or two after the full
game was supposed to be in our hands.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Demos were different back then. In this case, it was a disc made available
exclusively to pre-order customers, and contained the first few hours of the
actual game. This was pretty generous, even
by the standards of the day. On top of
that, you could save your progress in the demo, and load it up once you had the
full version of the game. So that was
how I spent the last couple of weeks of high school, in between actual classes,
extracurricular activities and work: glued to the TV, slowly working my way
through the demo of this game that I had worked myself up over. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
It was June or July by the time the game actually came
out, and I was there the very first day to pick it up, of course, but some of
the fire had died down a little. The
main question—“What kind of role-playing game <i>is</i> this, anyway?”—had been answered. Most of the fundamental sense of mystery was
taken care of at that.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
My first actual RPG, of the random-encounter-having,
turn-based variety, had been <b>Final
Fantasy VII</b>. I had technically
played a couple of RPGs before, but <b>Crystalis</b>
eschewed much of the traditional RPG framework, and <b>Swords and Serpents </b> was, put
bluntly, godawful, and I didn’t really play it at all once I determined
that. And I missed the 16-bit generation
petty much entirely. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
So <b>Lunar</b> was
in some ways a step backward, into the aesthetics and the mechanical framework
of games of the previous generation.
Which I suppose is an especially apt way of putting it, considering
that’s more or less exactly where <b>Lunar:
Silver Star Story Complete</b> belongs. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The game began life as <b>Lunar: The Silver Star</b>, made by GameArts for the ill-fated Sega CD
Genesis add-on, and made its way to the U.S. courtesy of Working Designs in
1993. It was a fairly impressive use of
the technology, but GameArts blew it out of the water about a year or so later
with the sequel, <b>Lunar: Eternal Blue</b>. It was apparently enough to make them wish
they could have done a better job with the first <b>Lunar</b>, because they remade it and released it as <b>Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete </b>on
the Sega Saturn in Japan in 1997, then ported it to the PlayStation, and it’s <i>that</i> version of this remake with which
we’re largely concerned. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The story of <b>Lunar:
Silver Star Story Complete<i> </i></b>concerns
itself mainly with a young man named Alex.
He stands on the borders of youth, staring across the wide and perilous
gulf of adulthood, and in his heart is a single hope, a dream, and he has no
idea how to turn it into a reality. He
wants to be a hero, but not just any sort of hero. He wants with all his heart to be the
Dragonmaster. This is a title, a
station, granted to one who is chosen after completing the trials of the four
dragons who serve the Goddess Althena.
He is uniquely empowered to act as a champion for the Goddess herself,
and fight against all threats to humankind.
This is rather a difficult path to follow, and not less so for there
being no directions, no roadmap, no indication of where he should go and what he
should do. And even when he gets the
chance to speak to the wise in his world, they mainly shrug and shake their
heads. Go and seek the dragons, they all
tell him. <i>They</i> will determine whether you have what it takes to be a
Dragonmaster.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
In Alex’s case, destiny turns out not to be so much a
thing to be sought as an inevitability bearing down upon him. But at any rate, his search to fulfill his
dream, his ambition, resonated with the feelings I had myself, around that
time. A feeling that there were no paved
roads into the future, no clear and certain paths forward into life. I simply had to go and do whatever it was I
had it in my head to do. The rest would
happen, or not, as it would. In the
meantime, stop worrying about <i>how</i>. Just… <i>do.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
There are times when we read something, or see something,
or hear something, and it speaks to us in ways that we do not expect. They tell us what we need to hear, even if we
do not realize we need to hear it, even if we do not understand it until many
years later. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
What’s interesting about <b>Lunar</b> is its deceptive depth.
On the surface, it looks very rote, very <i>done</i>. You have the hero, a
very earnest young everyman who is mostly defined by his ambitions. His personality is much more nebulous; we
don’t know what he likes, what he dislikes, what makes him angry or sad or
happy. Well, we know one other thing
that his life seems to revolve around: the girl Luna.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
A young lady of uncertain parentage and unquestionable
singing talent, the infant Luna was taken in by Alex’s parents not long after
he himself was born. Somehow, she and
Alex managed to overcome the Westermarck Effect in order to have the sort of
will-they-won’t-they romantic relationship that drives so many romantic comedy
anime. Except here, it’s actually fairly
subdued. It’s clear that they care about
each other romantically, but the fact of this care and attraction runs through
the story without ever being brought to the forefront, save once, powerfully.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
What really sells it, though, is the earnestness. There is a certain way of thinking which
views anything simple as unworthy. We
tend to revere complexity, mistaking it for sophistication, because simplicity
has so little readily apparent value in the eyes of many. But simplicity does not mean unimaginative,
or dull, or stupid, or trite, or at any rate it doesn’t have to. And
the people at GameArts who made Lunar didn’t tell a simple story because they’re
just all thumbs in the ideas department; they told a simple story because that
was the story that they had in them to tell at that time. They told it with as much skill and polish as
they could manage, and they made it work.
They were serious about it, and they were earnest, and that shows in
their characters. Alex and Luna are
strong enough to carry the story, and if you’re looking for more colorful
people, well, the game has that, too.
Your regular party includes four other main characters. You have Kyle, possibly the oldest member of
the group (at least he’s of legal drinking age), a lecherous barbarian type who
takes very little seriously. Then you
have his girlfriend, Jessica, a priestess in training who much prefers punishing
the wicked over quiet contemplation and prayer, and who is both a ferocious
melee fighter as well as a healer. Then
there’s the brash, stuck-up, frankly irritating mage apprentice Nash, who
displays a bit more depth than he might initially seem capable of, and his
object of affection, Mia, who is the quiet and unsure daughter of the
headmistress of Lunar’s magic guild.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Interesting how all the main party members break down
into romantic pairs.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The game itself is linear almost to a fault. There are no items of consequence tucked away
in out-of-the-way corners of the world, no caches of treasure and rare items or
equipment to give you the edge over some looming boss encounter. The few optional elements are there basically
for fun, or for bragging rights. They
alter the game’s difficulty and mechanics not one iota. Character development happens purely as a
matter of course. There is no choice
about which spells or techniques a character will learn. All of them are either bequeathed by the
plot, or else become available once the character reaches a certain experience
level. There’s nothing really to discuss
about character builds in that regard.
And in some ways that does hurt the game. “Replay value” is a term that gets tossed
around a lot; having it is a good thing, while lacking it is a bad thing, and
tends to hurt review scores. But RPGs
like this are long-form entertainment anyway, like reading a book. They aren’t something to be played over and
over again, to achieve all the multiple means of mastery. You play it, you move on to something else,
and then in time possibly years later, you come back to it fresh. You remember very little specifically, except that you enjoyed it the first time around. The vague memory of that enjoyment makes revisiting that world and those characters all
the better; it's all suffused with a warm glow of certain affection.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Part of what makes <b>Lunar</b>
so refreshing to play today is that despite the simplicity of its characters,
they actually seem to be basically real people.
You really can’t make a game like <b>Lunar</b>
today. If you tried it, brand-new, all
the characters would be <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moe_(slang)">moe</a></i>, Luna and
Jessica would be some kind of horrible <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundere">tsundere</a></i>
or <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yandere#Y">yandere</a></i>, and Mia would be every
creepy otaku’s favorite due to crippling shyness and submissive tendencies (she
also might be twelve). But <b>Lunar</b> strikes me as the sort of game
where none of the characters were created specifically to adhere to a
particular “type”, or designed to garner appeal from any specific demographic. They were created the way they were because
that was what the creators had in mind, and that was what the story needed.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The original version of the game, <b>Lunar: The Silver Star</b> for the Sega CD, appears to have been a bit
of a diamond in the rough. Various
employees of GameArts have said as much in interviews, and this was one of the
reasons for the remake. They felt they
could do better than they had, that perhaps the story deserved a better
treatment than they were capable of giving it the first time around.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Much like the Sega CD version, the in-game graphics in <b>Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete</b> weren’t setting anybody’s world
on fire. And the music was actually
something of a step <i>down</i> in
quality. <b>The Silver Star</b> had employed Redbook audio—basically CD-quality
audio—whereas <b>Silver Star Story Complete</b>
relied on the game console’s sound chip.
Still, the soundtrack is nice enough, though much of it stays squarely
in the background. In technical terms,
though, <b>Lunar: Silver Star Story
Complete</b> really shines in its cut scenes.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
While the Sega CD original featured anime-style artwork
in its cut scenes, it was on a very limited basis. There was very little real animation, as
such. By and large, it seems to have
been mostly what I think of as “dynamic stills”, where there is only slight
animation (eyes blinking, mouths moving, and the occasional more involved
animation), but done with greater detail than was usual. It still looked nice, is what I’m
saying. <b>Silver Star Story Complete</b>, however, had actual anime cut scenes. This allowed for much greater dramatic impact
and much more theatrical presentation. It
wasn’t uncommon for games to have an animated introductory sequence to get
your attention and to serve as a sort of trailer, but it seems (to my memory,
at least) to have been fairly common in those days for those intro sequences to
be the only such instances of such animation.
<b>Lunar</b> inserted them at
various points of the story so as to fully “sell” the important moments. The in-game graphics were relatively
pedestrian and old-school in their design—back when “old-school” barely applied
to anything—so the anime cinematics were more than just showing off. They were integral to the storytelling
process, helping the story achieve a greater sense of urgency than a bunch of cutesy, squashed super-deformed sprites could depict convincingly on their own. And this was at the very beginning of the anime boom in America, which certainly couldn't have hurt sales at all.</div>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
For a long time, <b>Lunar</b>
was the province of Redmond, California-based localization company Working
Designs. They got their start localizing
Japanese games for the TurboGrafx-16, and later became convinced that CD-ROM
games were the future. They went to the
Turbo Duo (a CD-ROM add-on for the TurboGrafx-16), and after that went south,
they began bringing out games for the Sega CD.
They later went on to localize games for the Sega Saturn, but their
relationship with Sega soured, and they cut their ties there. In retrospect, this was a wise business move
for any reason, since the Saturn became one of the worst-performing consoles ever
to be released by a serious contender in the console wars. They then went on to enjoy a period of (for
them) unprecedented (and, sadly, unequaled) success and productivity for the Sony
PlayStation. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
There were two things that set Working Designs apart from
most other companies, discounting their status (fairly rare for the time) as a
company who did not make games at all, but localized existing games from Japan.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The first was that they believed that literal
translations were inferior to localizations.
They would take the basics of the dialogue and rework it into something
that more closely resembled the speech of a native English-speaker. On many occasions, they threw out the
original dialogue entirely, and wrote in its place something that conveyed the
same meaning, but made use of American slang and colloquialisms, as opposed to Japanese. While I am in favor of this practice (or some
variety of it), there are those who did (and still do; some grudges die hard) harbor
a fiery hatred of Working Designs because of it.
And, in fairness, Working Designs were capable of taking it too far.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The second thing about Working Designs was that they also
had some kind of fetish for releasing their games as deluxe packages. <b>Lunar:
Silver Star Story Complete</b> shipped in a box that included a full-color, hardcover
manual; a soundtrack sampler CD; a Making-Of CD; and a cloth map—with an oddly
pungent odor—not to mention the two discs of game content, for something like
seventy or eighty dollars. This was in
an era when PlayStation games came in standard CD jewel cases, with slender
black-and-white manuals the size of CD jewel case inserts, which doubled as the
cover artwork. And while this sort of
thing is usually offered as some kind of limited edition package these days, Working
Designs would hear of no such thing as a division between standard or deluxe
editions. Oh, no. It was deluxe or nothing.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
But back to point number one above, there are things
about the Working Designs treatment that I really could have done without. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
There’s a town in the latter half of the game, the
gimmick of which is that all of the people in it are all, shall we say, <i>uncomfortably inter-related</i>, and talk
like the worst <i>Deliverance</i>-style
caricatures of backward Southerners. I’m
comfortably certain this was absent in the Japanese version. Likewise the sage and inventor Myght, who
dislikes people in general and lives by himself in a tower. In the hands of more reasonable translators
and localizers, his dislike of people and his cranky personality would be
enough to justify his living apart from his fellow creatures. But no, for Working Designs, this is not
enough. He must be a horrifically
odoriferous old man, and also afflicted with chronic flatulence. Elsewhere in the game (this may be either
shortly before or after we meet Myght; I no longer recall), there is a scene
where the characters are required to sculpt something out of clay that has
personal meaning for them—I could explain why, but it’s one of those things
that only really makes sense at all when you play, so let’s just go with it for
now. Jessica sculpts a copy of a pendant
that is important to her. Kyle says that
it looks like an IUD.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I understand that Working Designs was trying to inject
humor into the game, and I appreciate the effort. But so many of the “jokes” fail to be
humorous, and come off cringe-worthy instead.
The IUD joke struck me as particularly bad, as out-of-context as it
was. How in God’s name does a barbarian
on a medieval-ish fantasy world know what an IUD even is? Breaking the fourth wall to make unfunny
jokes strikes me as a bad idea, but maybe I’m just weird.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Working Designs imploded in 2005. Possibly one of the earliest signs of this
was UbiSoft picking up the rights to an edition of <b>Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete</b> for the Gameboy Advance. Maybe Working Designs just didn’t deign to
work on handhelds. Certainly the reviews
of this particular version of <b>Lunar</b>
have been generally unkind, and as compromised as that version must have been compared to the PlayStation version, I wasn't too enthusiastic to find out anyway. But even
diehard fans were seeing the writing on the wall at this point. I should know. I was one of them, kind of.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Happily, for those tired of Working Designs-style
nonsense, there is another, newer edition of the game available for the PSP,
titled <b>Lunar: Silver Star Harmony</b>. There appears to have been some drama
surrounding its release, courtesy of former Working Designs CEO and current CEO
of GaijinWorks Victor Ireland trying to inspire a boycott of the game since his
company wasn’t handling it. He made much
of all but one or two of the original voice actors not working on the game, castigating the one or two who "broke ranks" and lent their voices to it. Considering that most of Ireland's voice cast seemed to consist of friends and
neighbors (and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Angel">some guy</a> who made it onto O-Town), any sense of victory to be
gleaned from this is questionable at best.
Thankfully, the lady who lent her singing voice to Luna, Jennifer
Stigile, returned for the PSP version. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
And, it must be said, <b>Silver Star Harmony</b> stacks up favorably to previous releases. It features the same anime cut scenes from <b>Silver Star Story Complete</b>, along with
in-game graphics which look shockingly modern (by handheld standards, anyway).
The story has been added to a bit here and there as well, lending some unnecessary
but still appreciated background.</div>
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<br /></div>
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* * *</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Ultimately, it can be difficult to assess the overall
quality of a game so mired in my own nostalgia.
That’s the problem with nostalgia generally speaking.
You never know when you’re objectively evaluating something (so far as
objectivity is even possible with a work of art or entertainment), or when you’re
artificially inflating its value due to positive associations with your own
past. And you're always consumed (at least, if you're me) by the fear that you're actually doing the latter no matter how much you feel like you're doing the former, no matter what anyone tells you. In the end, I’d like to recommend
it to just about anybody. It’s a good,
simple, fun RPG with a lot of charm and heart.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
But more than that, it’s the game I remember from when I
stood at a strange, uncertain point in my life.
I’d say “at a crossroads,” but that would be inaccurate. There weren’t <i>even</i> roads, crossed, straight or otherwise, that I could see. Popular thinking and fiction likes to paint any major juncture in life as a clear-cut, often binary choice: you can do one thing or the other, <i>be</i> one thing or the other. But that's not always been right. For me, that's <i>never</i> been right. There are just myriad choices, and
possibilities, all heading off in some vague and often worryingly tangled future-ward direction. And whenever those choices
lie before me, when there’s no clear way forward, no certain path, it’s <b>Lunar</b> that I think of. And then I remember that there is no certain road
ahead, and that doesn’t matter. It’s
often only when we are looking back that we can see whether our way was correct
or not, and why. Sometimes, in the
moment of choice, there is no one who can tell you which way is right or
wrong. And in the end what you have to
do is just go. <i>Do</i>. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Make your own way, however you may.</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-84999840579472099242013-04-25T20:30:00.003-07:002013-04-25T20:30:32.076-07:00Long Live the Revolution<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have been contemplating writing this review for a long
time. I even took a shot at it once or
twice before now. Hopefully, this will
be the last attempt and the first real success. I know that it's pretty firmly on the long side, but it sums up most of what I wanted to say on the subject, and what I thought was worth saying. I find it’s hard to write about especially complex things, even when you
love them. Sometimes the love is what
makes it difficult.</div>
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<br /></div>
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* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A friend of mine in basic training recommended <i>Revolutionary Girl Utena</i> to me. This would have been back in late 2000, or
else very, very early in 2001. If you
know anything about <i>Utena</i>, or about
basic training, or both, you can well imagine that this would be the last place
you might normally expect someone to recommend something like <i>Utena</i> to you. But he offered to loan me his tapes of the
series once we both had permanent duty stations, if we could keep in
touch. I didn’t manage to keep in touch,
because as it turns out I’m lousy at that kind of thing, and while I regret it,
it’s probably just as well for him in one sense. It would have been hell getting those tapes
back from me once I’d gotten good and hooked.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had seen the <i>Utena</i>
movie at a convention, back when it was big in the fansub community (this was
back when fansubs were on VHS), and while I had loved the absolute poetry of
its artwork, the way it dealt with themes as deep and dark as the center of the
heart, I had very little idea what much of it had actually meant. I knew there was a TV series that this movie
was somehow connected to, and had heard of it before, but further information
eluded me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Still, I had my own interest, a keen fascination, and a
solid, reliable recommendation to motivate me.
So when I saw the first 13 episodes — the first arc of the story — on
DVD at Otakon in 2001, I didn’t hesitate to buy them. I bought a lot of things at that Otakon, but that
first story arc of <i>Utena</i> was by far
the most memorable.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Among other things, <i>Utena</i>
marked my first real foray into the realm of <i>shoujo</i> anime. I had explored
that territory before, in an extremely limited way. I was a fan of CLAMP, having read what
existed of <i>Magic Knight Rayearth</i> and <i>X</i> at that time, but those examples
hardly count. CLAMP has often straddled
the line between <i>shoujo</i> and <i>shounen</i> (this was particularly evident
with the dark and moody <i>X</i>), and they
have always stood apart from what I often think of as “typical” (probably “stereotypical”
would be more accurate) <i>shoujo</i> fare. And it doesn’t get much more <i>shoujo</i> than <i>Revolutionary Girl Utena</i>. My
preference in anime has traditionally been for the weird and the dark and the
thoughtful. It’s why I gravitated toward
<i>Akira</i>, and <i>Ghost in the Shell</i> and <i>Neon
Genesis Evangelion</i> at the time, and why I am enthralled by anime like <i>Wolf’s Rain</i> and <i>Kara no Kyoukai</i> and <i>Puella
Magi Madoka Magica</i> today. So on the
surface of things, <i>Revolutionary Girl
Utena</i> looked like it would be a major departure, being all pink and
fanciful and fairy-tale wonderful.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Imagine my surprise.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For a while there, I was a sort of <i>Revolutionary Girl Utena</i> evangelist. Several years ago, I was attending an anime
club at a college where, oddly enough, I had never, ever been a student. I petitioned the club president to allow
viewing sessions after normal club hours, where a niche group of us could watch
things that might not have a very broad appeal without any risk of alienating
the club members who were there mainly because they liked <i>Naruto</i> and <i>Bleach</i>. This was a sort of compromise we had
reached. She wanted to hijack the club’s
viewing schedule to watch <i>Utena</i>,
because she had never seen it but had a burning desire to do so, and I wasn’t
willing to loan her the DVDs (you will have to trust that my selfishness was
the wiser course in this situation). I
still wanted there to be a club to go to on Friday nights, and I discovered
that we still technically were allowed to use the clubroom for two hours after club
normally ended. The arrangement
practically made itself.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After <i>Utena</i>
viewing sessions, we would usually head over to a nearby Steak ‘n Shake to talk
about the series, or about whatever came to mind. It was through this group that I met one of
my best friends. There’s probably a
moral in there somewhere, but I’m not going after it.</div>
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<br /></div>
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* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So… About <i>Revolutionary Girl Utena</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are some media — anime, books, films, TV shows, video
games, works of art — which reward subsequent viewing, and <i>Revolutionary Girl Utena</i> is one of these. There are some that practically require
multiple viewing, and <i>Utena</i> is one of
these, as well.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s difficult to describe.
It is impossible to summarize in any short form (and it would be
cumbersome to the point of uselessness do so in any long form), and it is probably
equally impossible to provide even a short synopsis. Still, because I am stubborn, or stupid, or
something, I will try.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Utena Tenjou is a girl just entering high school, and she
attends the private and very prestigious Otori Academy. Otori Academy is practically a world unto
itself; very, very little occurs off-campus.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Utena is, perhaps, not a normal girl. She wears a boy’s school uniform, and on her
left ring finger, she wears a rose signet ring.
When asked, she says simply that her Prince gave it to her. But unlike so many of the young girls around
her, Utena is not the sort to wait for her Prince Charming. She wants to meet him again, of course. Whoever he is, it’s evident even from early
on that he was responsible for saving her from a very personal sort of certain
doom. But to Utena, he is also an
inspiration. She has decided that she will
be a Prince like him, that she will live nobly, courageously, heroically.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One day, the captain of the kendo team, Kyoichi Saionji,
carelessly breaks her best friend’s heart.
He compounds this sin by making a public joke of it. Utena challenges him to a duel. Being the sort of domineering, sneeringly
prideful person he is, Saionji would normally ignore this challenge. But he sees her ring. Strangely enough, he wears one just like it —
it happens to match the school’s emblem, and every member of the Student
Council wears a ring just like it.
Saionji changes his mind, and tells Utena that he will meet her in the
forest behind the school after classes are finished. He is dismissive of her concerns that the
forest is off limits, as though those who wear the Rose Seal are not bound by
the same rules as others.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What she finds when she goes there is a staircase leading up
to a dueling arena in the sky, above which, impossibly, is suspended an
upside-down castle with its foundation seemingly in the clouds. It is in this arena that the Duelists — those
who wear the Rose Seal — meet and duel, in the hope that if they can become a
champion, they will be granted the power to revolutionize the world. This has been promised to them by an
individual known only as The End of the World.
To the best of anyone’s knowledge, this person is never met, never seen,
never heard; he is known only through letters, which instruct the Duelists on
when they will go to the arena.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Utena presents a problem, though, in her very presence. She has received no letters, and has no idea
about The End of the World, or about the power to revolutionize the world for
which the Duelists all strive. Yet she
clearly operates by End of the World’s mandate, since she has the Rose Seal,
and no one can enter the arena without one.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And so Utena finds herself drawn into something that is both
strange and dark and wonderful, by turns and all at once.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At its most basic, <i>Revolutionary
Girl Utena</i> is a metaphor, an allegory.
For what, I will leave it to you to determine. Half of the reward for watching is the
discovery of its meaning. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The series sets up a sort of ritual, early on, which helps
bolster its sense of meaning and imparts an air of mysticism. A more superficial analysis would dismiss
this as formula, but no. Ritual really
is it. There is a sense of heavy, grave purpose
behind the repeated actions, a sense of significance. <i>Revolutionary
Girl Utena</i> is practically turgid with meaning. These things are done because they impart a
sense of importance, of weight, to the proceedings. They are like the parts of a Catholic Mass. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The strength of a ritual lies in its sameness, its
repetition. But it also serves to set a
standard. So when things change, the
impact is more keenly felt. So when the
established ritual changes, you feel not only interest, but a vague sense of
alarm. Something upsets the natural
order, turns the world a bit sideways, and the change signifies
insecurity. Because that is the other
thing ritual accomplishes. The motions, repeated
often enough, seem almost meaningless.
Their constant and reliable form becomes a comfort, freeing you to
ponder the deeper mysteries toward which they gesture. The change to this established order, the
upheaval, signifies danger — to life, to mind, to the very sense and essence of
one’s self.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The word “apocalypse” pops up quite frequently throughout <i>Utena</i>.
It’s right there in the song that plays each time Utena ascends to the
arena: “Absolute Destiny: Apocalypse”.
And there is definitely the feeling of a certain and inevitable doom as
the series winds toward its climax. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Apocalypse” is a very apt word for the end of <i>Utena</i>, both of the series and the
movie. We all know the common meaning,
of course. Catastrophe, disaster,
widespread (particularly on a global scale) destruction. Doomsday, essentially. But the word has an older meaning, and that
is “revelation”. That was, in fact, its original
meaning, before the only thing it got associated with was the disaster hinted
at in the Book of Revelations. That’s
linguistic drift for you. But back to
the point: “apocalypse” is <i>the</i> word
to describe <i>Utena</i>, in both the modern
and in the much older definitions. For at
the heart of <i>Revolutionary Girl Utena</i>
is a revelation, and it may very well destroy worlds, in a real and personal
sense.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In some ways, <i>Utena</i>
has all the hallmarks of its era. The animation
is minimal, which has typically been characteristic of <i>shoujo</i> anime for as long as I can remember, and some of it does get
reused or retraced. This isn’t the crime
it might normally be. The focus of <i>shoujo</i> is usually set on the
relationships between characters, and you don’t need a lot of fancy animation
techniques for that. And while a more
cynical person would be tempted to take all the things I said about ritual up
above and use it as evidence of something much more mundane at work — budget constraints,
perhaps — I tend to think that if it wasn’t a deliberate stylistic choice, then
it was either a happy coincidence, or else one of those situations where the
limitations of a production, instead of hampering it, help to inspire it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While on one level, it does occur to me that the characters
in <i>Utena</i> don’t usually behave in the
way normal people do – people don’t normally challenge each other to duels —
their behavior is to some extent stylized.
The actions can’t be subtle and nuanced, because they would either be
possibly misunderstood, or else never be noticed. Like a stage actor, the actions must be great
instead, so we can see and completely understand the meaning.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But if the words and actions are grandiose, the characters still
retain the subtlety of normal people. If
their words and actions are at times grandiose to the point of improbability,
their feelings, with all the layers of meaning and subtlety, are absolutely
real. And that is part of the mastery of
<i>Utena</i>, that the essential feelings,
thoughts and ideas come through clearly despite the limitations, and because
the people making this thing <i>used</i> the
limitations smartly when and where they could.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The story itself, as mentioned above, is complex, symbolic,
and many-layered. You can understand it
well enough on a single viewing. But
there are things that you see differently after you’ve seen the series through
once. There are things that were
mysterious before that now have clear meaning.
There are subtle bits of foreshadowing here and there that the show just
moves right over; you almost have to know what to look for or what’s coming
ahead in order to see them. There’s a
particularly neat bit done with a row of photos toward the end of the second
story arc that I didn’t notice at all until I was on my third run through the
show. So while you can pick up the
essential meaning of the show in one pass, I do think subsequent viewings are
best for full appreciation.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I should mention it at some point, so I suppose now is as
good a time as any. I may write about it
in more depth some other time, but right now we’re going with the short
version, so here goes:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is a <i>Revolutionary
Girl Utena</i> movie. It tries to cover
the same basic themes as the TV series, but in a much different way, and in a
heavily altered setting. The Otori
campus looks like something out of an Escher painting. The themes and relationships between the
characters in the movie are more obvious, most likely due to the movie being
somewhere under an hour and a half (as opposed to nearly 20 or so for the
series), but for those less willing to sit and ponder and ruminate on things,
that might actually be a benefit. The
ending to the movie is terrible — I get the metaphor, but I think it’s
horribly, clumsily handled, completely out of line with the general tone of the
series (and of the movie immediately prior to the ending), and most of the
time, I just turn the movie off at a certain point. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Still, the movie is absolutely, amazingly one
hundred-percent drop-dead gorgeous. It
should be running on an endless loop in a gallery somewhere. (That might be hyperbole. Possibly).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, I want you to understand, in this next section, that I
am typically a pro-dub sort of anime fan (please, save your pitchforks and
torches for another time). I’m going to
take a moment to talk about the English dub here, because it certainly deserves
a mention. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The dub is fucking awful.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To describe it in more precise terms than that—to <i>find</i> terms precise enough—would exhaust
the thesaurus, and I’m not about to do that.
I am neither Stephenie Meyer nor Christopher Paolini; I can’t write with
one hand on the keyboard and the other busily searching for synonyms.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s difficult to put my finger on the exact nature of the
problem with the <i>Utena</i> dub. It isn’t that it’s poorly acted—it’s not <i>even</i> acted. Some of the actors recite their lines in the
same way that you might read a storybook to a small child, reading things in an
overemphasized way and accenting your syllables too hard because you’ve never
been to acting school or done any professional acting, so you don’t know any
better. Except nobody here has that
excuse. Other characters’ voices just seem
to be a bad fit for their roles, or they’re altering their voices in an attempt
to sound different (and failing miserably).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a note to a friend, I described the English dub of <i>Utena</i> as follows:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“There is no dub. I
know the DVDs all have a dub option, but this is a mistake. A dub may have been recorded at some point,
and it may even have been good, but it was for some reason removed, at the
point of manufacture, and therefore before the DVD menu options could be
altered to reflect the change. What
exists in its place sounds deceptively <i>like</i>
English dubbing, but carries, buried within it, a subtle subliminal command
that will, with increased exposure, drive you to claw your own ears out.</span>”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I mean, there are worse dubs out there. The <i>Fist
of the North Star</i> movie has a godawful English dub. But that movie couldn’t be dubbed any other
way. To dub that movie with serious
acting from serious actors who performed like they meant it would have been an
absolute disaster. The ridiculous
dubbing of that movie is part of what makes it bearable.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Utena</i>, by
contrast, <i>absolutely requires</i> a
skillful dub. I guess that’s my problem,
really. There are all sorts of implications
and fine distinctions and a range of subtle emotions that the dialogue needs to
carry. Then here comes the English voice
case, stumbling and bumbling and fumbling their way through it, with their heavy
overemphasis and breathless whisper-shouts and mismatched voices, turning what
ought to be a serious, deep and layered character drama into something more
like a fifth-grade school play.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And some of these actors are good! Crispin Freeman is in this thing, and he’s on
my short list of voice actors I’d like to meet in real life. But he sounds like he was acting through a
concussion here.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Finally, I’m going to take a few moments to talk about the
various releases that <i>Revolutionary Girl
Utena</i> has seen over the years. There
have really just been three.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The first release was on VHS, sometime in the mid-90s, and consisted
of the first 13 half-hour episodes, released across four VHS tapes (par for the
course at the time), of the whole 39-episode series. It went no further than that, and for several
years, those 13 episodes were all we had to go on in the U.S., unless you
wanted to go the fansub route. And let
me tell you, that was an extremely dodgy practice in those days. It wasn’t as if digital fansubs were even
possible at that time, after all.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The story I heard regarding this was that Be-Papas, the company
that made <i>Revolutionary Girl Utena</i> in
Japan, believed that the U.S. market for their show would be pretty small, and
so they charged a fairly small fee to Software Sculptors to license it. Because Murphy’s Law is the one ruling
principle of the universe, <i>Utena</i>
actually managed to achieve a fair degree of success. This is not a bad thing in itself, but of
course it was impossible for Be-Papas not to find this out, and that was the
problem. So when Software Sculptors went
back to Be-Papas to negotiate the rights for the rest of the series, Be-Papas
decided they wanted a bigger slice of that pie. Software Sculptors was either unwilling or
unable to pay Be-Papas’s price. Of
course, one side or the other must have changed their minds at some point, because
in the early 2000s, we got the movie, and then started getting the rest of the
series.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After the VHS tapes, there was the first DVD release, which
basically covered the same ground as the original VHS release. The DVD release of these first 13 episodes is
frankly atrocious. On the one hand,
those episodes, the first story arc of the series, are contained on two
DVDs. Economy is always a plus. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That about does it for the positivies.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You could be forgiven for thinking that Software Sculptors
simply took the VHS tapes and recorded them onto DVD. The episodes are divided only into halves. There are no separate chapter divisions for
the credits; chapters only go either to the halfway point of the current
episode, or to the beginning of the next.
So unless you really, really like “Rinbu Revolution”, you’ll need to
manually fast-forward through it. I
know, I know; talk about your First World Problems. But literally no other anime DVDs I have ever
owned worked in this way. Even back
then.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The subtitles are also a wreck. Dialogue text is a paler yellow than is usual
for subtitles, and the borders around the letters are thin enough that the
dialogue sometimes gets lost in the background.
It doesn’t happen a lot, but it does happen often enough to be
notable. The text for the song lyrics is
the more usual style for subtitles, and is in a bolder green text. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The real problem with these DVD releases, though — the one issue
that could excuse the other problems if it wasn’t such a problem itself — is
the poor transfer quality. There’s a
kind of jitteriness to the picture which I tend to associate with VHS. You don’t notice it as much when everything’s
in motion, but <i>Utena</i> is the type of
show that has lots of long, contemplative stills and slow panning shots. There’s also a kind of fuzzy, murky quality
to everything, and the colors overall seem a bit washed out. It seems minimal at first, but watching later
discs throws it into contrast.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Between the poor transfer quality, the lazy chapter breaks,
the sparse menus and the sub-par subtitling effort, I suspect that my
comparison of the DVDs’ quality to the VHS is much less of a joke than I’d like. The DVD release of the first 13 episodes
makes only the most basic concessions to the benefits of the DVD format. Granted, the DVD format itself was a somewhat
newfangled thing when the <i>Utena</i> DVDs
were first coming out, but the level of “quality” on display here is frankly ridiculous.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The only excuse I can think of for this is that perhaps,
with the rumored shaky relationship between Software Sculptors and Be-Papas
regarding the equally rumored newer and much-higher price Be-Papas demanded for
further episodes, Software Sculptors may not have had access to more
high-quality video to copy onto the DVDs.
Perhaps the reason this first DVD release is so bare-bones is because
they were trying desperately to scrounge up the cash necessary to get the rest
of <i>Utena</i> into the States. I don’t know.
What I do know is that I have, in all seriousness, watched pirated
Taiwanese fansubs of anime that have more attractive menus and a bigger suite
of features.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thankfully, from this point forward, the DVD releases get
better. From Episode 14 onward, the
video quality is much crisper, the colors are sharper, the chapter selections are
in line with what seems to have become the standard for anime on DVD, and the
subtitles are respectable. The English
dub is still as awful as it ever was, but what can you do? At least they’re consistent.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The third and final release is a much more recent one,
coming to us through The Right Stuf International and Nozomi, and oh my God, is
this ever the sort of thing <i>Utena </i>always
deserved.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s available in a series of three box sets, split by story
arc (more or less). The first one contains
the entire Student Council arc, the second contains the Black Rose arc, and the
third contains the Apocalypse arc as well as the movie. Each one comes with a small booklet which
contains background information on the making of the show, and also brief
interviews with director Kunihiko Ikuhara.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The video has been completely remastered. Colors are brighter and bolder, and lines are
crisper. As much as the original
Software Sculptors DVDs seemed like a giant leap in quality after Episode 13,
these constitute a yet more tremendous leap.
The animation is still pretty sparse, but <i>Utena</i> still has it where it counts, and if you’re looking for a
beautifully animated <i>Utena</i>, I mean,
the movie is <i>right there</i>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The sound has also been remastered. Some of the effects have changed, for the
better of course. The bells that signal
the duel sounded like a decent approximation of bells, in the previous
additions (if a little tinny), but now they are no longer approximations; they
are honest-to-God real bells ringing, or the next closest thing, and it is
wonderful. Some of the music is also a
little different. The songs are all the
same, but there seems to be a slight difference in the mixing. Parts that were drowned out before are
brought forward to enhance the original sound.
It’s not noticeable in every piece of music—probably not in <i>most</i> of the music—but there are definite
changes here and there.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am of two minds on these changes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Part of me is absolutely thrilled at this set. It’s basically the definitive <i>Utena</i> compilation, and I had no
compunctions about giving my previous set away to a friend who is fairly new to
anime, and since I am something of an <i>Utena</i>
evangelist, I felt as though this was a good way to spread the word. “Here: Have 39 episodes and one movie of raw excellence.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Another part of me, smaller but still significant, feels a little
odd watching and hearing the new box set, because there are large parts of <i>Utena</i> that I am familiar with from
multiple viewings. My brain fixes on
certain images, certain sounds, and these are different. My main issue in this sense is with the
visuals—the sound still has some getting used to, but I can appreciate its
superiority with little trouble. But I
had come to love the oddly pale visuals of the series as a whole. I doubt that it was ever an artistic choice,
but I felt that they lent the series a sense of insubstantiality that oddly
worked. It made things seem just
slightly removed from reality, as if the whole thing took place in a realm
where <i>things </i>and <i>events </i>mattered less than thoughts and feelings, and that light and
airy feeling, that insubstantiality, placed the emphasis of the story on the
latter rather than the former.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is not a gripe, exactly. Not really.
It’s more just a thought.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In case it wasn’t abundantly clear by this point, <i>Revolutionary Girl Utena</i> is probably my
favorite anime, period, and I am happy to recommend to anyone open-minded
enough to watch it.</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-11025906874121194742013-04-22T22:06:00.001-07:002013-04-22T22:06:53.658-07:00Behind the Gun: Doom<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
So we have a history lesson that needs to be gotten out
of the way, if we’re going to do this whole “writing about FPSs” thing
right. And since I’ve been going back to
games of this period lately anyway, it makes sense personally as well.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
So… <b>Doom</b>.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>Doom</b> isn’t
necessarily where the first-person shooter genre began — that honor probably
belongs to <b>Wolfenstein 3D</b>, or
possibly some game even older — but <b>Doom</b>
<i>is</i> where the FPS style of game really
took off. Before <b>Doom</b>, the genre hardly existed. There were really only a handful of
notable games in that vein. After <b>Doom</b>, the first-person shooter quickly
became one of the major staple genres of computer gaming.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The success Id Software achieved with <b>Doom</b> is a thing of legend. According to the stories, productivity at IT
firms and computer engineering outfits ground nearly to a halt as the employees
apparently preferred to install the game on their workstations and play against
each other on their respective companies’ networks. In addition to its PC release, <b>Doom</b> has found its way to a number of
consoles, both those popular at the time of its release, and subsequent
generations. There are versions of it
for the Super Nintendo, Sega’s 32X add-on for the Genesis, the ill-fated Atari
Jaguar, the Sega Saturn, the Playstation, the N64, the Xbox, the Xbox 360, the
Playstation 3, the Gameboy Advance, and this is not a complete list. It was also ported to the Macintosh (albeit
some years after its original PC release and, oddly, after even its own
sequel). There were also several games
made by other companies who licensed the <b>Doom
</b>engine (essentially, the technology which allowed for the creation of 3D
graphics, placement of items, enemies, doors, etc., and governed their
operation in the game’s environment): <b>Heretic</b>,
<b>Hexen</b>, <b>Strife: Quest for the Sigil</b>, and expansions to these. <b>Doom</b>
itself received a couple of expansions (and got re-released in different
versions with those additional episodes included), and then had a full-blown
sequel using the same engine just a year or so later. In addition to all <i>this</i>, the fan community continues to create source-ports, which
(for the uninitiated) are programs designed to make the game run on newer
operating systems, taking advantage to a limited degree of some of the
technical advances that have occurred since 1993, when the game was new. The only game I can think of with more
source-ports is <b>Quake</b>, also an Id
Software product, and the immediate successor to the <b>Doom </b>crown.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Let’s let all of that soak in, just for a minute. For the past <i>twenty years</i>, <b>Doom</b> has
been commercially viable and readily available on almost any platform you could
ask for. With video games, that kind of
longevity is mind-blowing. The
willingness of both fans and the developers alike to create either updated
versions of the game, or software to make running it on modern systems
possible, speaks of a demand practically unheard of in this particular medium.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
So the obvious question practically asks itself: why all
the fuss?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Well, the problem with thinking critically about <b>Doom</b> is that it’s so completely
ingrained in the DNA of the FPS genre, it’s almost impossible to really
touch. It seems quaint, these days,
though in its time it was at the absolute leading edge of both the technology
seen in computer games and of game design.
It’s only because its design elements have become so ubiquitous, and been
iterated and improved upon so much, that it seems absolutely mundane
today. The best analogy I can come up
with at the moment is like reading about the moral panic that erupted when the
Beatles became popular. Beatles music
seems so… <i>safe</i>, these days. You hear them on the lite-rock stations, for
God’s sake. It’s difficult to fathom how
anybody in their right mind got their shorts in a twist about lyrics like “She
loves you yeah, yeah, yeah,” unless you look at the context and realize that,
in that time, nobody else was making music like that — or if they were, they
didn’t manage to touch that particular nerve.
But now, things that the Beatles have done are practically everywhere in
popular music. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
So that’s <b>Doom</b>
today. The Beatles of the first-person
shooter genre. And just like them,
although it may seem simple by today’s standards, there’s an entirely
satisfactory game that’s still quite enjoyable even today. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
While it was modern for its time, <b>Doom</b> today still feels fairly old-school. Its<b> </b>structure
is still a fairly rigid, level-based affair, with clear beginnings and
objectives. Most games today tend to
feature much more fluid play, breaking things up for story, but otherwise
feeling like a more unified experience.
If you put <b>Doom</b> at one end of
this play-style scale, <b>Half-Life</b> is
a prime example of the opposite extreme, never once breaking away from the
player’s perspective, and moving in a single, unbroken line from start to
finish. Most games tend toward this end
of the spectrum these days. By
comparison, <b>Doom</b>’s sense of pacing
is more… well, game-like. You begin each
level at one point, and your object is to get to the clearly marked level exit
and throw a lever. This ends the level,
and you’re given a brief rundown of the percentage of enemies you’ve slain,
secrets you’ve uncovered, and the amount of time it took you to complete the
level compared to a given par time.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
This isn’t a bad thing!
In some ways, it’s actually good.
Rather than constantly mounting tension that goes on for hours, <b>Doom </b>gives it to you in smaller doses,
allowing you some time to relax at the beginning of a level before the
challenge ramps up again. It also serves
to make your goals fairly clear. You
always know what you need to be looking for or doing at any given moment, and
there’s never so much ground to cover that you have to worry about getting
completely lost, or intimidated by the sheer scope of the environment. But the level structure does make <b>Doom</b> feel very different from more
modern FPS titles.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Another concept <b>Doom</b>
introduced (or at least made popular) was that different weapons have a
different effect. This in itself doesn’t
seem revolutionary, but there’s a template of weapon progression that <b>Doom</b> laid out.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Melee
weapon (here, that’s punching or using a chainsaw, if you can find it):
requires no ammunition, and generally does little damage, but still allows you
to attack if you’ve exhausted your ammo and are in a tight spot.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Pistol:
Fairly accurate, better than nothing in terms of offensive power, and ammo is
fairly easy to find. However, while it’s
sufficient early on, it’s going to take forever to drop the more powerful
enemies, and it has almost no stopping power.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.<span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Shotgun:
Questionably useful at long ranges, but respectable at medium ranges (still
more powerful than the pistol) and devastating up close, the shotgun is the
weapon you’ll be using the most, as it strikes a good balance between offensive
power and ubiquity of ammo.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->4.<span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Chaingun:
Rapid-fire machine gun which uses the same ammo as your pistol. The rate of fire makes it powerful, but that
same speed means you have to use it judiciously.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->5.<span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Rocket
launcher: Devastating at any range, to the point that most lesser enemies fall
after a single hit. However, the blast
can damage the player as well as the enemies, and ammo is scarce, so choose
carefully when and how to use it.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->6.<span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Plasma
gun: The “fun” weapon, firing rapid-fire bursts of energy that are accurate and
fairly damaging.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->7.<span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><!--[endif]-->BFG-9000:
The Big One. Basically clears a room in
one blast, but requires an obscene amount of ammo for even a single shot.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The template itself wouldn’t be all that interesting, of
course, except that until pretty recently, almost every FPS followed that model
pretty much to the letter. The weapons
may have gone under different names and had a different appearance, but in
terms of function, order of progression and best application, this is pretty
much <i>the</i> list for FPSs, until <b>Halo</b> came along and introduced the
concept of a more limited and situationally available arsenal.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
But what perhaps set <b>Doom
</b>apart most in its own time was something that its predecessors were
incapable of.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Atmosphere.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Now, again, it all looks a bit long in the tooth today,
what with our mip-mapped, bump-mapped multi-million-polygon character models,
realistic physics models, fancy lighting effects, and locales modeled from real
life. But <b>Doom</b> was a pioneer in its time.
It used lighting to create contrast between high-visibility areas and
cramped, dark areas, for one thing. It
was able to induce a sense of actual fear.
You ran around in narrow corridors where the light flickered or was
totally absent, occasionally hearing the sounds of creatures that hunted you
through the level. <b>Wolfenstein 3D</b> had blown people away just a year or so before, but <b>Doom</b> made it look about as tense and
atmospheric as an early level of <b>Pac-Man</b>.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Part of why this was possible was due to the leap in
technology between the two games. While
neither of them is truly 3D, tricks of rendering made <b>Doom</b>’s levels much more believable environments. <b>Wolfenstein
3D</b> was very rudimentary. You were in
a series of mazes meant to evoke, vaguely, the interior of a German castle, or
bunker, or something. It varied
depending on the episode. The
environments were all fairly uniform, with a flat, even floor and ceiling that
had no texture, and bright, consistent lighting throughout. There were occasionally objects placed in the
environments (tables, chairs, potted plants, hanging cages), but these seemed
to be placed as much to break up the monotony as for any other purpose. They suggested a sense of purpose to various
locations, but were rarely ever very convincing about it.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
A modern FPS thrives on a sense of place. Wherever you are, whether you’re struggling
across battlefields in World War II, or duking it out on space stations
centuries into the future, or slaying monsters in medieval fantasy worlds, a
large part of what makes the game work is how convinced the player is of the
reality of the environment. <b>Wolfenstein 3D</b> offered little
reality. Its appearance was novel in its
time, but <b>Doom</b> blew it away. In addition to better lighting and sound, <b>Doom</b> also allowed for more varied
environments in terms of overall design.
It sounds perhaps a little simple to say now, but things like
staircases, elevators and moving platforms dropped jaws when <b>Doom</b> introduced them. Vertical movement of any kind had never
really been possible before. It was
still technically impossible then. I
could never explain it in technical terms, but there was some sort of coding
sorcery at work that allowed for vertical movement in what was still technically
– so far as the computer was concerned – a 2D space. It’s one of the reasons the game offered no
capability to look up or down. The
perspective only looks right when you’re looking straight ahead. Playing <b>Doom</b>
in source-ports, where vertical looking is possible, exposes it. The perspective distorts in odd ways that
make looking up and down kind of uncomfortable after a while. Later source ports have fixed this, or at
least mitigated the effect somewhat.
Still, the use of visual trickery to achieve the more advanced 3D effect
and the resultant improved realism made a world of difference in the necessary
sense of place. <b>Doom</b>’s environments still seem a bit abstract by today’s standards,
but if you were to make a sliding scale, with one end being abstract
environments and the other being absolutely realistic, <b>Doom</b> would land <i>just</i> on
the realistic side.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
So what about actually playing the game?</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Well, one thing Id Software seems to believe in quite
firmly is that the player should not be kept waiting, that the average player
starts the game not to be dragged kicking and screaming through tiresome
opening cutscenes, hand-holding tutorials, or beginning levels that offer
little action, no challenge and no satisfaction. The player, in Id’s mind, wants to start up
the game and just <i>play</i>, without
distraction or delay. That approach
wasn’t quite so revolutionary in its day, but it’s a refreshing novelty
today. Not that there would be much time
to waste in the first place. The
controls are simple for this sort of game, and as for story… Really, <b>Doom
</b>doesn’t <i>have</i> a story to speak
of. John Carmack, head honcho at Id, is
famous for his expressed belief that video games need story about as badly as
porn does, and at least with <b>Doom</b>,
he certainly put his money where his mouth is.
Where most games have a story, <b>Doom</b>
has a premise, which is confined to the manual, and to the brief text crawl
that accompanies successful completion of an episode. It’s simple, uncomplicated and
unsophisticated, and could probably be summed up like a prompt for some
drama-class exercise.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
“You’re a lone space marine on one of the moons of Mars,
where the government has been conducting secret experiments into teleportation
technology. However, there is an
unforeseen hitch in this technology, which is that the portals work by
transporting things through another dimension, which turns out <i>literally</i> to be Hell. Now the demons are using that technology to
invade. You’re the last one left alive
(that anyone knows of), and you have a pistol with a couple dozen rounds in
it. <i>Go!</i>”</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
And by God, that is exactly where and how <b>Doom</b> starts you off. From there it’s pretty much just a brutal,
blood-soaked and gory gauntlet to the end of the game. You pick up additional weapons on your way
through the Mars base and then the bowels of hell itself, and the game does a
good job of keeping you tense and anxious for action.</div>
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Even the traditional complaint leveled against pretty
much every Id Software game — namely, that the enemies are mindless, and their
main tactic (their <i>only</i> tactic) is to
advance toward the player and attack whenever possible — falls flat here. First of all, for 1993, that’s about all that
was possible. <b>Doom</b> at least can be forgiven for this sin (its descendants… not so
much). Second, while the enemies may
indeed be dumb as a sack of hammers even so, their <i>placement</i> is smart. Large,
massively powerful enemies may be intimidating, and are certainly lethal, but
almost always pose less of an actual danger than mobs of low- to mid-strength
enemies. As the game progresses,
learning how to bait enemies into attacking each other is a skill that becomes
increasingly mandatory.</div>
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There’s not much to dislike, unless you absolutely can’t
stand the sort of tongue-in-cheek heavy-metal aesthetic that the game uses in
its imagery. And really, even that has
its purpose, which seems to be to remind us all that it’s just a game — a
violent one, yes, but almost cartoonishly so — and therefore probably not worth
getting into a moral panic over.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Not that <i>that</i>
stopped anybody.</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-29848637858952301542013-03-06T20:04:00.004-08:002013-03-06T20:04:58.185-08:00Behind the Gun: F.E.A.R.<br />
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Well, <b>F.E.A.R. </b>is
about six and a half years old now. Maybe
I should write about it, before it becomes completely irrelevant.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>F.E.A.R. </b>isn’t
the first horror-themed first-person-shooter out there. <b>Doom 3</b>
beat it by about a year, and I’m sure there have been others that I’m unaware
of. But <b>Doom 3</b> tried to be frightening by way of survival horror, which
failed for reasons I’ll explain later. <b>F.E.A.R.</b>, in my inexpert opinion, is
largely successful on this count.</div>
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<br /></div>
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What does <b>F.E.A.R.
</b>stand for, you ask? It refers to a fictional top-secret special operations unit that
deals with supernatural threats. It
stands for First Encounter Assault Recon.
It also, depending on who you ask, stands for Fuck Everything And
Run. Your tolerance for blood and jump
scares will be a good indicator of how true this is for you.</div>
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<br /></div>
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For me personally, <b>F.E.A.R.
</b>is rarely ever truly frightening. In
fairness, though, that’s more a consequence of its being an FPS than any
failing on the creators’ part. Generally
speaking, most FPS games put you on an even footing with the enemies, in terms
of power, maybe even make you more powerful.
It makes sense, since you need <i>some</i>
kind of edge, and the enemy pretty much always has raw numbers on their
side. Going the route of survival horror
in an FPS, then, is generally a bad idea.
This is where <b>Doom 3 </b>failed. Survival horror is concerned in large part
with managing the character’s resources and relative fragility (hence the word “survival”). The main notions of the FPS genre run
entirely counter to that. So the game
relies on jump scares, unsettling fake-outs, disturbing tableaux and of course
a few actual “gotcha!” moments. Maybe that
does it for some people, though. I’ve
seen at least one Let’s Play on Youtube where the player seemed pretty
consistently freaked out. </div>
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<br /></div>
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And to be fair, <b>F.E.A.R.
</b>does mess with you a bit. There are
often objects which seem to exist for the sole purpose of being knocked over or
bumped into in order to make a startling noise that wrecks the otherwise eerie
quiet. And there are a few moments where
some scripted brief weird and eerie event occurs, but is actually harmless, and
largely happens just to keep you on your toes.
Particularly on a first pass through the game, you can’t really write
these events off, because there’s no real way of knowing (short of familiarity
with the game) when these events are happening just to screw with you, and when
they preface an actual threat.</div>
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<br /></div>
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So what’s it about, then?</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>F.E.A.R.</b>’s story
is a mix of horror and science fiction. Long
story short, it involves your attempts, as the Point Man of one of at least two
First Encounter Assault Recon units, to find a genetically engineered psychic
commander named Paxton Fettel, and kill him.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Up until quite recently, Fettel was the property of Armacham
Technology Corporation, which is the kind of corporation that employs a small
army, complete with fully automatic weapons, as a security force, and has
policies in place to murder anyone who might leak incriminating information during
the sort of disaster that unfolds as the game begins.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Because it would be far too easy otherwise, in addition
to being a psychic commander, Fettel has an army of clone soldiers, referred to
as Replicas, who are especially susceptible to his mental commands. While he was once locked up tight, he has
recently been released by persons unknown, and he clearly has a mission of some
sort.</div>
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<br /></div>
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He also has an appetite for human flesh, but this is just
a means to an end, really. He indulges mainly
because eating part of someone allows him to absorb their memories.</div>
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<br /></div>
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You know precious little of this starting out, and one of
the ways in which the game supports its eerie atmosphere is by never spelling any
of this out very directly. What you
really know in the beginning is that you, fellow soldier Spencer Jankowski and
forensic specialist Jin Sun-Kwon are being called upon to find and eliminate
Fettel, which in theory will render the Replica soldiers insensible, thus
ending the threat.</div>
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Of course, it doesn’t work out quite like that. It never does.</div>
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While he’s supposed to have a tracker chip embedded in
his head, Fettel seems to appear and disappear at will. That he always seems to be a step ahead of
the F.E.A.R. team, having slain and dined upon pretty much anyone who might
tell you anything useful about what’s really going on, makes things somewhat
frustrating. You uncover clues as you go
on, relating to a girl or woman named Alma, who is in some way integral to the
experiments Armacham was running prior to the creation of Fettel himself. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Most of the plot details are revealed through the messages
left on various important people’s answering machines, which you encounter as
you work your way through the Armacham offices and other nearby locations. I guess it’s a good thing the game takes
place in 2005. If it was set in the
present, the Point Man would have no idea what was going on, unless he could
retrieve everybody’s cell phones. Eventually,
the truth emerges, and you realize that Armacham has about a cemetery’s worth
of skeletons buried in its closet. You
begin to feel a little sympathy for Fettel.
Clearly, his methods are horrific, absolutely intolerable, and yet his
goals are not wholly without justification.
At least a few of the people who die at his hand (or fangs, whatever)
had it coming.</div>
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<br /></div>
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So what about the game itself? That the story is well done is all very well
and good, but how does it play?</div>
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<br /></div>
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Pretty well, actually.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>F.E.A.R.</b>
follows in the newer trend of FPS games in that it limits the player’s
arsenal. There are close to ten
different weapons (the number differs depending on whether you count the
ability to wield pistols singly or as a pair as two separate weapons), plus a
handful of different types of grenades, but you’re limited to carrying only
three firearms at a time. In a game like
<b>Halo</b>, this helps to liven up the
experience by requiring you to adapt your tactics to whatever weapons and
ammunition happen to be on hand. <b>F.E.A.R. </b>backs away from this
restriction somewhat, though, by making a couple of weapons consistently
available.</div>
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In addition to the FPS-standard melee attack (in this
case, hitting enemies with the butt of your chosen weapon), <b>F.E.A.R. </b>also gives you a handful of
other melee attacks. You can holster
your current weapon to strike with your fists, and in fact, the smaller the
weapon you’re carrying at the moment, the faster you move. You can also employ a flying bicycle kick and
a sliding tackle with a few simple commands.
This amount of attention paid to melee attacks is rare in FPS games, and
it’s all the more interesting that melee attacks are so powerful. Most standard foes will fall in a single hit,
especially if you can sneak up on them from behind.</div>
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<br /></div>
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And that’s not even the best of it. The Point Man has superior reflexes and
perception, which manifests in a limited ability to slow the game down. This allows you to maneuver among the enemies
more quickly than they can easily track, and line up precise shots under
pressure.</div>
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<br /></div>
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All of these abilities would make the game sound stupidly
broken and easy, were it not for the fact that the enemy A.I. is some of the
smartest around.</div>
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Enemies are intelligent enough to shoot from behind
cover, flush you out with grenades, employ suppressing fire, and split their
forces in order to flank you. That last
bit is something they will do at every opportunity, and it’s important to
remember when playing, because that opportunity presents itself distressingly
often. Pretty much every area has a
couple different paths you can take to get through, and whichever one you’re
paying attention to in the middle of a firefight, the enemy will probably be
sending people through the other route to take you down from your blind side. They’ll also spot you coming if you have your
flashlight on (and the game has enough dark areas to make sure you need it,
often at the worst possible moments), and are bright enough to target any
exploding barrels or other explosive hazards that happen to be nearby. As logical as it sounds for the enemies to be
this intelligent, it was pretty unusual for its time, and continues to be kind
of impressive even today.</div>
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<br /></div>
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In fact, in their way, the regular enemy encounters are
some of the more harrowing and taxing parts of the game. Sure, the intentionally horrific scenes—the hallucinatory
nightmare walks through blood-filled hospital corridors, the unsettling
encounters with dim phantoms in a fire-lit void—do their job, but the main
combat does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to making you feel strung
out. </div>
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<br /></div>
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To which I can say only: Bravo.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Of course, <b>F.E.A.R.</b>
isn't quite perfect.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The environments do wear out their welcome after a
while. There is entirely too much time
spent wandering through the Armacham offices, though I do think that’s the
worst part. The industrial section that
precedes said offices could probably stand to be trimmed a bit, also. It’s not that they’re bad, just long to the
point that you start wanting to see something new well before anything new actually appears. The game could stand to
be shorter. If it had to be just as long, then it should have more diverse environments.</div>
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The sound effects are a bit of a mixed bag. Most of the more conventional firearms have
oddly low-key sound effects; the submachine gun and the machine gun sound about
as threatening as a popcorn popper. This
is in direct contrast to the visceral, meaty sound of bullets ripping into your
enemies, which is something I don’t think most other games I’ve played even <i>have</i> a sound effect for. It’s kind of unsettling. The more “future-y” weapons, I can’t really
complain about. To my knowledge, nobody
actually knows what an energy weapon that vaporizes flesh and leaves a charred
and bloody skeleton would actually sound like, so <b>F.E.A.R.</b>’s take on that is as good as anybody else’s. The voice-acting, though, is done well. There's something in the mixed anger and frustration in the enemies' voices when you're whittling down their numbers that almost makes you feel for them, and that's rare in <i>any</i> game, let alone in a genre where enemies exist almost solely to be mowed down in a hail of gunfire.</div>
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Enemy variety could also stand to be a little more
diverse. You have your normal Replica
soldier mooks who (to be fair) come with a variety of different weapons, armored mooks
that are considerably harder to kill, mooks in mech suits, Armacham security
mooks, flying gun turrets, ceiling-mounted gun turrets and the odd ghostly
phantom enemy. Still, aside from the
phantoms (they go down fast, but move more quickly and erratically than
anything else in the game to make up for it), fighting the enemies gets
harrowing enough that you may find yourself honestly thankful that they come in
strictly limited varieties.</div>
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There are also two expansion packs: <b>F.E.A.R.: Extraction Point</b> and <b>F.E.A.R.:
Perseus Mandate</b>, which take place after the events of the main game. Both of them add new enemies and weapons, and
if my own experience has been any judge, are somewhat more difficult than the
original <b>F.E.A.R.</b> But I’m honestly kind of bad at FPSs in
general, so that may just be me. I can't speak on these much, as I haven't finished either one of them yet. But it's kind of a moot point by now; buying the game on Steam, which is pretty much the only way to get it, nets you both expansions automatically.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
All in all, <b>F.E.A.R.</b>
is definitely worth playing. The
graphics have aged surprisingly well—character models are a bit simple, but expressive
and well-animated enough to compensate—and the flaw of overlong areas is far
outweighed by the skillfully handled atmosphere. The story, while simple, is handled well and
internally consistent, and there are some nice bits of foreshadowing in the
beginning which will probably make you go “Ohhhhhh,” on later
playthroughs. And <b>F.E.A.R. </b>is, frankly, still mechanically better than some later
games I’ve played. That it set a new
high-water mark for enemy A.I. in FPS games doesn’t hurt its reputation,
either. After <b>Half-Life 2</b> and the original <b>Quake</b>,
<b>F.E.A.R.</b> is the FPS I’ve probably
spent the most time on, and not because it’s difficult.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Not <i>just</i>,
anyway.</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-15948189828367227292013-03-02T00:27:00.002-08:002013-03-02T00:27:44.664-08:00Behind the Gun: Half-Life 2<br />
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I’ve had it in my head for a while now to write a series
of “reviews” of first-person shooters. I
somehow doubt I’ll be doing so <i>exclusively</i>
for the next little while, but we’ll see.
In any event, here is the first.</div>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
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I have a fascination with these bleak, dystopian
settings, these harsh wastelands barren of hope and promising decay, and death
for the unwary. I think I’ve felt this
way ever since I was a child, reading through the mini-comics that came with
the Starriors figures I got for Christmas for a couple consecutive years. The idea that the Earth might be damaged to
such an extent as to be inhospitable to human life—that it might conceivably be
destroyed, even—is so repellent to instinct that it becomes in some way
perversely compelling.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b>Half-Life 2</b>
pretty much opens up with that kind of scenario and gets progressively more
grim from there. I think it’s safe to
say I was going to be a fan right out of the gate.</div>
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You start off on a train, a nod to the tram car where your
player character, Gordon Freeman, ended the original <b>Half-Life</b> after doing the smart thing and accepting the G-man’s
offer of “employment”. He took you into
some kind of stasis, and now here you are, some twenty-odd years later (give or
take). You haven’t aged a day, but
things sure have become different while you were gone.</div>
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<br /></div>
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“Wake up and… smell the ashes,” the G-man tells you, in
his oddly haunting and strangely emphasized tones. Who he is—<i>what</i>
he is, precisely—remains unknown. What
we know for sure is that he is some sort of interdimensional bureaucrat who has
retained you for your unique skills. Your
first glimpses of this future world are not uplifting. Wake up and smell the ashes, indeed.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
You have only the vaguest notion of where you are and
what you’re supposed to be doing. The question of “where” is easier. You are in City 17, located somewhere in
eastern Europe, which serves as a sort of capital for the much-diminished human
civilization. The Earth has been overrun
twice over. First it was the creatures
that slipped into this dimension due largely to the events of the original <b>Half-Life</b>. Then came the Combine, a collective of alien
races bent on utter domination. Between
creatures making the countryside and wilderness highly unsafe, and the
Combine’s efforts to corral and control humanity, the numbered Cities seem to
hold the majority of humankind. A
suppression field prevents reproduction.
Volunteers are modified to become troops for the Combine; troublemakers
are also modified, but in a much different, less pleasant fashion (not that the
volunteers’ modifications look to be all fun and games, mind you). The message is clear: those who <i>can</i> be used, <i>will</i> be used. Those who
cannot will be driven to extinction. The
bottom line is that humankind as we understand it will be destroyed, and the
Earth will be gutted for its resources. <b>Half-Life 2</b> shows us subtle signs of
this gutting already happening. Docks
and boathouses on dry land, well away from the shore, give a good indicator of
how much water has been drained from the oceans already. </div>
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None of this is shoved in your face. The Seven-Hour War, in which humanity rose up
against the Combine and was decisively trounced—which served, really, as little
more than a prologue for the complete surrender and “treaty” brokered by one
Dr. Wallace Breen—is hardly mentioned.
It’s in a few newspaper clippings you’ll find here and there, pinned up
by the sorts of characters who would want a reminder of all that has been lost,
perhaps to goad them ever onward toward some action. Maybe some conversations mention it. It’s difficult to recall, exactly.</div>
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One of the many strengths of <b>Half-Life 2</b> is in its narrative subtlety. There are very few scenes where characters
exposit at you for long stretches.
People talk about background events and history in much the same way you
or I might talk about history. They talk
about the Seven-Hour War like we, today, might talk about 9/11. We don’t expound on the tragedy. We mention it; we share a grim, knowing
glance; and everybody understands the full meaning of what’s been said. In much the same way, characters in <b>Half-Life 2</b> don’t feel the need to
speak in brief history lessons specifically for your benefit. They talk how people talk. You want to be in the know, great; go figure
it out on your own. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
So there’s <b>Half-Life
2</b>’s setting in a nutshell, if we want to be flip: part <b>War of the Worlds</b>, part <b>1984</b>,
part <b>Children of Men</b>.</div>
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<br /></div>
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That answers the question of “where” nicely enough. What about that question of “what”?</div>
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What, indeed?</div>
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The G-Man himself provides a subtle answer to this in his
brief opening monologue. “The right man,
in the wrong <i>place,</i> can make all the
dif-ference in the <i>world</i>,” he tells
you with his off-kilter enunciation.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The original <b>Half-Life</b>
saw you pretty much being exactly that.
Surviving a catastrophic accident that opened a portal to another
dimension was practically a fluke. The
game from that point forward amounted to little more than the player character’s
attempts to escape from Black Mesa (the research facility where the disaster
occurs) for much of its length. That
there are alien creatures running around, and later, U.S. military personnel whose
job was to shush the whole affair up, is practically incidental. Freeman just happened to be fit enough and
determined enough to beat the odds and escape.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The right man in the wrong place.</div>
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<br /></div>
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So, rather than give you any real direction (or even a
stated goal), the G-Man just drops you into a train car bound for City 17,
apparently having faith that you’ll do exactly what he (or his employers) want,
just by doing what comes naturally.</div>
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You’re quickly pulled aside at the train station’s
processing center, presumably for understandably lacking important
documentation. Thankfully, the guard who
pulls you aside is Barney Calhoun, one of the heretofore nameless security
guards from Black Mesa. He discreetly sends
you on your way to Dr. Isaac Kleiner, one of your colleagues from the
back-story of <b>Half-Life</b> who is,
despite his apparent nervous disposition, part of the resistance in City
17. Lacking a map or even basic directions,
however, you are quickly cornered by the City Overwatch. You’re saved in the nick of time, however, by
Alyx Vance, the daughter of Eli Vance, another scientist from Black Mesa. Alyx guides you to Dr. Kleiner’s lab, where
you’re given your familiar Hazardous Environment (HEV) Suit. Also, your old crowbar.</div>
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<br /></div>
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This is pretty much the iconic image of the series in a
nutshell: the bearded and bespectacled theoretical physicist-turned-action hero
Gordon Freeman, with nothing but his HEV Suit and trusty crate-breaker to fend
off hordes of aliens and other assailants.</div>
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<br /></div>
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From here, you’re pretty much on your own. You’re tasked with finding Black Mesa East,
which is the resistance headquarters, and reconnecting with Eli Vance, where
Freeman will theoretically do some science for once. Of course, this is not to be. Upon being discovered at Black Mesa, Freeman
is forced to flee through Ravenholm, which has been infested with headcrabs,
which effectively make zombies of their victims, and make Ravenholm one of the
more unnerving sections of the game. From
there you go through the mines, and shortly thereafter find yourself tooling
along a lonely stretch of sea-cliff highway toward Nova Prospekt, which is a
political prison.</div>
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<b>Half-Life 2</b> never
seems to wear out its welcome. The
various environments you traverse last just long enough to feel substantial (especially
on your first, most clueless playthrough), yet are short enough that you never
really get tired of a particular area.
Even in the game’s various areas, there is often diversity in the
different sorts of places you’ll go. The
aforementioned highway section is broken up frequently by various
obstructions. You find yourself dealing with
the occasional ambush, or removing a barricade, or deal with rolling mines or any
of a number of other things. There is
always some variety to keep things interesting and novel.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The game occurs largely in big setpieces. There’s a rhythm to the game; you’re usually
alternating between more navigation-heavy sequences which involve solving
puzzles on your way from Point A to Point B, and more combat-oriented sequences
where puzzle-solving is nonexistent and you’re gunning down bad guys or
blasting a way to freedom. But even in
combat, you have to use your head. Sure,
some minor encounters can be solved by charging in with guns blazing and mowing
down every mook that comes into sight. Most
battles don’t work that way, though.
Like most FPS games, <b>Half-Life 2</b>
requires you to manage your resources.
There are only so many health and armor recharging stations and items in
the game. Likewise, there is only so
much ammunition. And while there are
also only so many enemies, unlike you, they can shoot and throw grenades
forever. Some of them are immune to most
your many weapons. (<b>Half-Life 2</b> is somewhat old-school in that Freeman carries an
arsenal of nearly a dozen weapons, and ammo for each, on his person throughout much
of the game). Fight smarter, not harder,
in other words.</div>
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A common complaint with <b>Half-Life 2</b> is that its enemy AI is lacking. This complaint is probably lent more weight
than it should be on account of how intelligent (relative to the standards of
the day) the enemies in the original <b>Half-Life
</b>were. When it comes to <b>Half-Life </b>2, the complaint is both true
and false. Custom-made levels have shown
the enemy AI to be quite intelligent.
However, the way environments are set up, it’s difficult for the enemies
to really showcase their abilities.</div>
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So all of this provides a halfway-decent description of
the game, but why do I like it so much?
If it’s my favorite FPS of all time, surely it does something special,
right? Well, yes and no. I tend to think of <b>Half-Life 2</b> as the sort of game where the whole is greater than the
sum of its parts. The game is getting
somewhat long in the tooth by now—it was released in late 2004, after all—but that
doesn’t matter much to me. After all, I’ve
played the living hell out of older games.
<b>Quake</b>, for instance.</div>
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A lot of it comes down to the atmosphere I mentioned back
in the beginning. And it’s not just that
Valve chose a post-apocalyptic atmosphere (or one similar to it) when they made
this game. It does take a little more
than that to get my interest. It’s that they
were at some considerable pains to reinforce the sense of despair and slender
hope that are manifest every inch of the game’s world. You periodically run across resistance
outposts, all of which have the appearance of having been lightly manned and
(in most cases) hastily abandoned. You’ll
walk into a room in some dilapidated shack by the road, or some platform tucked
away just out of sight, and there will be a small cache of supplies there, and
a mattress and a radio to show that someone, however briefly, occupied that
spot. If you’re observant, there are
occasionally clues as to why that person isn’t there any more. The atmosphere is in the way the people
dress, the way they talk, the way they mutter to each other about how terrible
things are, or warn you not to drink the water while in the city (there’s
something in it that makes you forget, apparently)… There are probably a hundred things that are
beyond description because I’d take them for granted, and only notice them by
way of their absence in other games. “Man,
I wish this game did X like <b>Half-Life 2</b>
did,” I’ll think, and then pause. “Or
that it did X at all.”</div>
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I tend to come back to atmosphere a lot when I think of
what makes a game’s story good. That’s
mostly because I think atmosphere is one of the most important things a game
has to get right in order for its story to have the greatest impact. Atmosphere is in the subtle, delicate details
of the game world. A game may look real
and sound real all it wants to, but atmosphere is what makes it <i>feel</i> real, in a compelling way, and that
feeling is infinitely more important than any one thing we see or hear. The environment doesn’t have to be realistic,
but atmosphere is what gives a game’s environment a sense of consistency and
purpose, which translates into a form of realism.</div>
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Of course, the rest of the game is also great. The graphics, despite showing signs of age,
still function perfectly well. The sound
effects and music are done admirably. But
I tend to look at the overall experience, and what stands out to me is the
attention to detail everywhere you look, the atmosphere balanced so well that it helps to sell the setting while not being cloyingly thick,
the aggressive adherence to realism in the environment's details.</div>
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Long story short: go play <b>Half-Life 2</b>. Then go play
the two episodes. <i>Then</i> go play <b>Black Mesa</b>
(the fan remake of the original <b>Half-Life</b>).</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216894511490849571.post-76906224198388429332013-01-29T11:50:00.001-08:002013-01-29T11:52:25.964-08:00The Other M Is for “Missing the Point”I started out wanting to write about <b>Super Metroid</b>, and sometime I will, I swear, but somehow this happened instead.<br />
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In my first draft of this write-up, I had a several-paragraphs-long
tirade about the unfairness of gender roles in our society today. I talked about how it seemed unfair to me
that male heroes in video games can look any way they want, because they have
and exercise power in some form in the game world, and that seems like the
ultimate basis for “traditional” values associated with male attractiveness. I talked about how unfair it was that when it
came to female heroines of video games, they all had to conform to a certain much
narrower standard of attractiveness, governed by a “traditional” mindset
regarding what makes a woman attractive, with physical beauty being a mandatory
characteristic (for male heroes, it is recommended, but optional).</div>
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I want to be proven wrong, but I don’t think I will. Find me one heroine (assuming she’s a full
adult, and that we’re playing a game with relatively realistic character models, and that she is <i>the</i> protagonist)
who lacks a respectable bustline and an hourglass figure.</div>
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While you’re at it, find me a dodo bird or two.</div>
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Actually, no, the dodo is a bad comparison. It at least existed at some point.</div>
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I took the tirade out because it was long-winded and probably ill-informed. I refer just to
the crux of the dilemma, however, because it’s a large part, probably the largest part,
of what pisses me off about <b>Metroid:
Other M</b>.</div>
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Our heroine Samus Aran has proven herself time and again
to be an absolutely professional warrior.
Her occupation in the games, overall, is that of the one-woman
army. She is the sort of person the
Galactic Federation calls in to take care of a situation after more typical
military solutions fail. She has saved
the galaxy more than once, with little oversight, support or backup at any
given time. <i>This is not a secret</i>. This
is the reputation she has earned for herself.</div>
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What I personally find remarkable about the Metroid
series in general, and its heroine in particular, is that no particular issue,
in the universe of the games, is made of her gender. She is a female warrior who performs most of
her missions clad in a suit of powered armor that makes her gender
ambiguous. Come to that, she doesn’t
even need to be human. Any kind of
humanoid creature at all could lurk under that armor (and in fact, series lore
states that it was made by a non-human race).
Nobody remarks how amazing it is that a woman is the one saving the galaxy
with all this heavy firepower. They just
call on her to do a job, she does that job, and everybody just kind of rolls
with it. </div>
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To me, this is the ideal goal of feminism. Her femininity is not an issue of any
kind. It’s neither overplayed nor
underplayed – it isn’t played at all. It
doesn’t need to be. She’s a woman; so
what?</div>
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Then, in <b>Other M</b>,
she falls in with a group of soldiers with whom she worked previously, before
she began her solo career as a bounty hunter, and… they all treat her like a brash,
over-eager younger sister who can probably hang with the boys, but still
warrants a certain amount of looking after.
And she just kind of goes with it.
Grudgingly, sure, but with no real protests to speak of.</div>
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Now, narrative isn’t usually a big point in the Metroid
games. It normally just provides a
reason for the places you’re going and the things you’re doing there, and that’s
it. It’s the kind of thing that exists
mostly in the manual, or in opening and ending cut scenes. The in-game narrative in Metroid games is
often subtler. The things you do, the way
the environment changes as you progress, the new abilities you gain as you
explore: <i>that’s</i> the story. That’s always been part of the genius of the
Metroid games. The story is solid, but
heavily understated. Where so many other
games are content to disconnect the narrative from the gameplay, and reward you
with non-interactive chunks of the former after completing a certain amount of
the latter, the Metroid series on the whole avoids that. There are exceptions (<b>Metroid</b> <b>Fusion</b> and the
Prime trilogy, though they try to keep their non-interactive bits brief and
infrequent), but aren’t there always? Metroid
games let your exploration, your brooding sense of isolation and your
unanswered questions about all the weird vistas and objects you encounter, be
the story. </div>
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<b>Metroid: Other M</b>
does not. It wants to tell you all about
Samus’s motherhood instincts, and rather than do it subtly, as <b>Metroid II</b> and <b>Super Metroid</b> did, <b>Other M</b>
wants to beat you over the head with it.
It wants to make sure beyond all doubt that you understand that Samus Is
A Woman, and that she has a deep-seated need, despite all this galaxy-saving
she does, to mother something. This is
why the game has so many terrible ideas, such a distress call being referred to
as a “baby’s cry” (seriously), or the space station where the game takes place
being referred to as the Bottle Ship (and it’s shaped pretty much like a baby’s
bottle, with some additions which obscure this, very slightly). It has other weird and kind of ridiculous
ideas, such as trying to parlay the whole “thumbs-up, thumbs-down” gestures
into something with deep meaning and symbolism, but that’s a lot less
offensive. What <i>is</i> offensive is how <b>Metroid:
OtherM </b>tries to enhance the overt femininity of the heroine by giving her
powered armor a wasp waist and a more pronounced chest, emphasizing the
femininity of the whole thing, and by putting fucking <i>high heels</i> on the skin-tight Zero Suit she normally wears beneath
it. </div>
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Let me repeat that, because it’s so fundamentally
ridiculous that it really should be highlighted. A woman who is known for single-handedly succeeding
where armies fail for some idiotic reason goes into combat <i>with high heels</i>.</div>
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It also tries to downplay her known and oft-demonstrated strengths
in order to play up her insecurities, with the stated goal of making her a more
well-rounded, fully realized and interesting character. Except she was already interesting and well
realized. The games prior to this mostly
took the ancient maxim of storytelling – “show, don’t tell” – to an aggressive
extreme and in so doing gave us ideas about the character that we could
interpret along certain general lines.
And it did this without getting in the way of the game itself, for the
most part. So few games do this well, or
at all. The ones I can think of offhand
are <b>Another World</b>, <b>Ico</b> and <b>Shadow of the Colossus</b>. </div>
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<b>Metroid:</b> <b>Other M</b> says that’s not good enough.</div>
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It starts off well enough, giving us an early view of
Samus’s life as a green recruit in the Galactic Federation army under her
commander and mentor Adam Malkovich. We
get to see her as a raw, idealistic young warrior who finds herself at odds
with the cold, hard facts of military responsibility. We can guess this fiery temperament cools into
a more level-headed perspective with time and experience, but here we would be
wrong, despite everything the rest of the Metroid series seems to imply. Part of the problem is that <b>Other M</b> has a short list of issues in
the larger Metroid story that it wants to tackle, and is hell-bent on doing
exactly that, however stupid the method might be.</div>
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Let’s talk about the military presence in <b>Other M</b> for a minute.</div>
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The story of <b>Metroid:
Other M</b> proper starts with Samus responding to a distress call (I’m sorry,
a “baby’s cry”; God, that’s a terrible idea) originating from a space station
called a Bottle Ship. Arriving on the
scene, she runs across a group of soldiers who have also been dispatched to the
Bottle Ship. They are very familiar to
her, as they should be. They are the Galactic
Federation 07<sup>th</sup> Platoon, her old unit, still led by Adam Malkovich. Adam is now a general. He orders her to shut off her power suit’s
many functions and weapons in order to avoid undue damage to the Bottle Ship
until his unit’s operation is complete, and she willingly complies</div>
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The game has hardly started, and already, we have problems.</div>
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Platoons are not led by generals. Generals are usually in charge of much larger
units of soldiers – brigades, whole armies, etc. They <i>never,
ever</i> go to the front lines, and they <i>certainly</i>
never take point I sensitive, secret operations with low survival odds. This isn’t because they’re fundamentally
cowardly, lead-from-the-rear sorts. It
is because military regulations prevent it.
The loss of strategic expertise and the compromise of sensitive
information should a general be killed or captured is not acceptable. A general would design and authorize a
mission like this, sure. And then he
would send it to a captain or a major under his command to actually execute it. He certainly wouldn’t go along on the
operation and he <i>especially</i> wouldn’t
be suiting up in armor to go with his men on the ground.</div>
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So why did General Adam Malkovich do exactly that?</div>
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Well, the first, most tempting answer is that series
director Yoshio Sakamoto is an idiot who lost sight of his creative vision. And this is probably to some extent
true. After all, despite the known
predilections of Team Ninja (famous for the <b>Dead or Alive</b> series of fighting games, as well as <b>Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball</b>, and the
<b>Ninja Gaiden</b> reboot), with whom
Nintendo partnered to make this game, Sakamoto has gone on record as saying
most of the story ideas came from him anyway.
But there’s another reason as well.
Sakamoto is hobbled by the overall story of the series.</div>
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Samus has a personal history with General Malkovich. As explained in <b>Metroid Fusion</b> (chronologically the last game in the series, but
the one where Adam is first named and his relationship with Samus explained),
Adam was Samus’s commanding officer, back when she was still a soldier in the
Galactic Federation army. It’s clear
from what she says and implies in <b>Fusion</b>
that she cared for him, admired him and respected him. It’s also clear that the feeling was mutual. He often referred to her as “Lady”, a title that
was both sardonic and fond; it served as a reminder of his authority, but was
always delivered in a way that also acknowledged her autonomy and conveyed his
respect. This was my reading of it,
anyway. Unfortunately, Adam is dead in <b>Metroid Fusion</b>, and has been for some
time. <b>Other M</b>, however, seeks to explore the relationship between Adam
and Samus. Which is fine, in and of
itself. So Adam having that distant-yet-also-paternal
authority, where Samus is impulsive, rebellious and brash makes sense. <b>Other
M</b> hams it up a bit for drama’s sake, but the relationship operates along
the basic lines described by Samus in <b>Fusion</b>. Placed where it is in the timeline of the
series, though, it makes very little sense.
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<i>If</i> Samus was a
rookie bounty hunter, fresh out of the army and stumbling into her old comrades
during an <i>early</i> solo mission, <i>then </i>the relationship dynamic would make
sense. Samus would still be making her
way in her new life, feasibly shaky enough on her own still that she could
easily fall back into old habits of obedience when in proximity to (and under
the nominal oversight of) her old commander.
It would <i>also</i> explain her
abject terror at encountering the series recurring villain Ridley, who is responsible
for the loss of her family and her entire way of life, because this would be
her first encounter with a truly vicious, powerful and serious enemy who has
also provided her with one of her life’s great turning points.</div>
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But <b>Metroid:</b> <b>Other M</b> occurs next to last in the
Metroid timeline. Samus is a big girl
now. She’s defeated the Space Pirates on
four separate occasions by this point, and has destroyed her nemesis Ridley as
many times. She has committed practical
genocide on a parasitical species whose use as a biological weapon also
threatened the galaxy. She was also indirectly
responsible for the detonation of an entire planet. She is a consummate warrior, a skilled
veteran, and her quick thinking and determination have saved the galaxy time
and again. If Queen Badass of the Galaxy
was a real title, it would be hers.</div>
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<i>And yet</i>,
unaccountably, she obeys Adam’s commands with little question (and much
figurative hand-wringing over what he might think), including arbitrary
commands to deactivate most of the useful functions of her power suit. Her encounter with Ridley, whom she has
destroyed four times now (and whose reappearance after “death” should no longer
come as a surprise to anyone, least of all Samus), has her inexplicably
paralyzed with fear.</div>
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So the writing is terrible. Both on the level of execution (some of the
dialogue is pretty cringe-worthy) and on the conceptual, story level, it’s
bad. So, <i>so</i> bad.</div>
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<br />
So how’s the actual game?</div>
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It’s okay.
Probably the largest problem with <b>Metroid:
Other M</b> from a purely gameplay standpoint is that it feels like a Metroid
game made by people who enjoy the series thoroughly, but have trouble articulating
what makes it great. And since they can’t
explain it, they’re unable to really create it.
There’s exploration, to an extent, but you are limited. Previous titles in the series mostly feature
a fairly open environment, allowing you to go wherever your abilities can take
you. <b>Metroid</b> and <b>Super Metroid</b>
have become famous over the years for the sheer number of ways clever players
have been able to exploit the heroine’s abilities to reach locations in the
gameworld which they were not meant to be able to reach until much later in the
game. <b>Metroid: Other M</b>, on the other hand, has definite ideas concerning where
it wants you to go, and when, and its structure allows for very little player
freedom. Platforms you might be able to
reach with new abilities remain inaccessible due to invisible barriers; the
only available entrance or exit to these areas is the one the game designers
intended, even if your abilities should by rights allow you other means of access. This flies in the face of the very essence of
the Metroid experience.</div>
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Even the process of gaining new weapons and abilities is
robbed of much of its savor. In previous
Metroid games, Samus gathers various upgrades in order to better explore the
game’s world. She empowers herself
through resourcefulness, diligent exploration, and the competent application of
existing skills and abilities. You have
to go out and find the items that empower you, and the ability to use them and
apply them in other areas of the game is its own reward. In <b>Other
M</b>, Samus gains new weapons and abilities because… a man told her to
activate them. The sense of discovery is
completely absent, and in fact no real discovery actually happens. The abilities just become available to you at
set points throughout the story, no finding required. And the narrative framework makes this <i>even more</i> galling by specifically
denying you these abilities that you always had, and in at least one memorable
case only activating an ability <i>after</i>
it would have been most useful. </div>
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The story’s given excuse for this may be weak, but it can
be made to work. Samus’s weapons are
deactivated so as to avoid collateral damage, okay, fine, I get it. It’s stupid, but I can work with it. But her <i>armor</i>
abilities being turned off? Is Adam
really afraid that she could potentially damage something by, I don’t know,
being immune to high temperatures at it?
And then, when all of Samus’s abilities are activated by the endgame
anyway and fail to do any real damage to the Bottle Ship, the whole “authorization”
business falls apart like the lazy fucking gimmickry that it is.</div>
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The game itself is all right and actually can be pretty
consistently fun (I did manage to finish it, after all), if a disappointing low
point in its series and a frustrating exercise in missing the point of what
makes Metroid games interesting and fun in the first place. But it’s saddled with some awful game design
decisions and this frankly embarrassing plot that tries hard to be deep, and
sacrifices no small measure of consistency with the greater series story in the
attempt. That it fails so miserably only
makes the sacrifice all the more aggravating.</div>
Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06490427875102849883noreply@blogger.com0