Dave Critiques - Human Resource Machine: Puzzle fatigue

Transcript

Hey hey folks, Dave here. Just a friendly reminder that this is a critique. I will be talking about Human Resource Machine for those who have played it. If you haven’t and are worried about spoilers, please pause the video, and go play the game before returning. For everyone else, let’s continue.

Human Resource Machine is the latest game from the minds behind World of Goo and Little Inferno. Fans of those games should recognize the art style immediately. This is a game where you create a list of commands which orders your worker around to complete a task given to them. Essentially, the game is teaching you how to program to solve problems. Each subsequent floor increases the challenge so that you’re multiplying, dividing, and then even outputting a fibonacci sequence. There’s also medals for solving the problem in the least amount of lines of code, or cycles through the program you’ve written. If you’re anything like me, if you’ve spent an hour solving one of these problems, and it turns out you’ve achieved one of these medals, it’s a feeling of extreme vindication and satisfaction. The game excels at that feeling to a point. To explain, I must dictate my journey through the floors of this fictitious company.

Have you ever played one of those mobile games where 3 stars is possible on every stage? When I approach one of those games my thought process usually goes like this. “I’m going to get 3 stars on every level.” Then after a couple of levels, “I’m gonna just try my best for two stars.” Then, “Man, I just want to finish the levels”, followed by looking up a walkthrough or stopping the game for good. My time with Human Resource Machine followed a similar pathway. There are branching paths as you make your way up the floors of the building. These branches are optional as they contain very difficult problems to solve. Partly due to a small amount of OCD and a large amount of stubbornness, I decided to tackle these puzzles. The floors alternated after all, and I wasn’t going to jump to floor 23 if I hadn’t completed floor 22. And as tough as some of these challenges were, and despite staring at my screen for close to an hour on a few of these, my brain eventually worked its way to a solution, and I felt amazing. To be honest, some of my best ideas came to me when I wasn’t playing the game. When meditating or walking, an idea would spring to mind, and the next time I loaded up the game, I was eager to try it. More often than not, that idea was what I needed to get through.

Then I got to the final branch. The Vowel Incinerator puzzle took me longer than any puzzle beforehand. Coming to the solution was excruciating. I will say right now that any time I had trouble with a puzzle (which was most of the time), I would go online to search for hints. I would read the forum threads on Steam where people were posting their solutions. This actually wasn’t a spoiler because the abstract nature of the code when pasted into a forum meant nothing to me. I was looking for commentary and hints to maybe push me in the right direction. Often the opposite happened. I don’t know if it’s normal internet bragging or a programmer’s mindset but everyone in these threads was talking about how easy it was. Oh it was a positive atmosphere mostly, where people were optimising each other's code and discussing the different ways to approach the problem, but as I was having such an issue with each level, I found this incredibly disheartening. I don’t think I’m particularly stupid (well no one really does), but I do think that perhaps my brain is not geared towards what is needed to easily see the solutions to these problems.

So after the difficulty of Vowel Incinerator, I opened the first puzzle in the final optional branch of the game. Looking at what it was asking me to do triggered a decision. I was no longer two starring the game (by solving every puzzle). I would stick to the main line and see the ending. This worked for a while, and then I got to the second last puzzle, Re-coordinator and something broke inside me. I no longer cared about solving the puzzles. I just wanted it to be over. I went to the Steam forum, copied the first solution in the thread, pasted it into the game, and enjoyed the ending. The only problem? I felt terrible after all was said and done. Like I had persevered so much through this whole game, and then right at the finish line I gave up. As I was playing through the levels, I often thought to myself how fantastic this is that I’m slowly making my way through these difficult challenges. When I solved the entire chain of optional puzzles starting with the fibonacci sequence, I was over the moon. Nothing could defeat me. Well yes, I could defeat myself. Something broke and I no longer cared. I gave up. So what went wrong?

The title of this video is ‘puzzle fatigue’. It’s a phenomenon I’ve thought about ever since the sequence I described with the mobile games first happened years ago. It’s a different phenomenon than just becoming bored with what a game is offering and deciding to move onto something else, but I think they share similarities. Now that a few days have gone by since I finished Human Resource Machine, I’ve been thinking of returning to it. I’ve been thinking about not only solving all the puzzles I haven’t, but I’d like to earn the optimization medal on every puzzle. Who knows, perhaps puzzle fatigue is simply a form of burnout. Games are usually repetitions of certain actions, and what makes an engaging game is a variety of said actions, or choices on how to utilize said actions. Human Resource Machine has a limited set of actions in the form of the commands available. As the puzzles show, these limited commands can be used to startling effect in a variety of ways, but perhaps the problem is that this variety is not immediately apparent.

A lot of the time spent solving the puzzles is based on working out just what you can actually do with the commands at your disposal. And while you’re trying to figure this out, you’re staring at the same office space you have been since the start of the game. The coffee breaks are not long enough to shake off the futility of your actions, and the encroaching horror of automation. There’s certainly a demoralising aspect to solving the puzzles in this game, and I wonder if it was intentional or not. And why did I feel so bad about looking up a walkthrough for this game, yet not for the puzzles in The Talos Principle? I think it might be because of the nature of these puzzles, I invested my self-worth in their solutions. My solution is unique, and by using another person’s solution, I had not actually solved the puzzle at all. I didn’t get help to progress, I cheated.

So what’s the answer to puzzle fatigue? Is it simply personal? What differentiates a puzzle that a player wants to solve themselves no matter what from a puzzle that they have no qualms about looking up a solution for? What triggers the change from the former to the latter? Is it a fault in the game or in the player? There’s definitely a difference between a game that has puzzles for their own sake rather than using puzzles as gameplay to break up story and world exploration. The two aren’t mutually exclusive either. Human Resource Machine’s puzzles are largely for their own sake. That likely means that the enjoyment of the game and personal satisfaction from playing comes from the player. This may be why so many felt let down by the bare bones story, and why I felt so terrible not getting to the end on my own.

Thanks for watching.

Why Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is one of my favourite games

Transcript

Hey Hey everyone, Dave here. Welcome to the 4th episode of Dave’s Favourite games. So it was 2004 or 2005. The local Blockbuster had one of those deals where you could rent a PS2 game for 3 days. My friend Andrew and I regularly took advantage of this offer. We discovered many interesting game experiences this way. It’s how we first came across Fatal Frame. Anyways, I forget what influenced our decision, but one weekend we got together and rented Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. I was excited to play it. Not only because of the hype that I had heard about the game, but I had played the previous 2D Prince of Persia games on my PC when I was younger. I loved the setting, the animations, and the mix of puzzles, platforming, and swordplay. I was expecting great things out of this 3D iteration.

I feel like I need to apologise to Andrew because here’s what happened. We played the game for hours the first day. We might even have completed it that day, but I do remember how we divvied up gameplay. Basically, every time there was a fight, I would hand the controller to Andrew, and then when there was a platforming section, I wanted it back. I feel guilty because I felt I was selfishly playing the best parts of the game, and having him play the frustrating parts. All these years later, having played the entirety of the game through multiple times by myself after that rental, I still feel this way. The setting, the narrative framework, the level design, and the thrill of the platforming… these are all marvellous. They hold up to this day. The combat on the other hand… well, let’s just say I know why they completely overhauled the fight mechanics and put an emphasis on them for Warrior Within. It’s also why I have never been able to get through that game despite multiple attempts.

Although there is a little leeway in my criticism of the fights this time around. The PC Port of Sands of Time was released before controller support on PC was standardised. To get the analogue stick to record movement properly, I had to download a third party program to change some settings as to how the game interprets input. Even with these fixes, running in a circle would be halted into a walk animation. What I’m saying is there’s a lack of smoothness and consistency because I chose to play the game with a controller instead of a mouse and keyboard, and perhaps that is why a lot of the fights made me want to tear my hair out.

And I dislike being this critical about one particular aspect of the game. This is a favourite games video. I am meant to be celebrating the game in question. I will, but I feel I need to address this. The controller completely hampered my enjoyment. I have a feeling it was to blame not only for the issues I was having in the fights but often I would jump in the wrong direction, having to rely on a sand tank to correct the mistake, perhaps by changing the camera angle so I could adjust for the strange behaviour of the controls. Why I somewhat blame the game is that one of my criticisms of the game has always been the fights go on way too long. Before you obtain the dagger of time at the start of the game, you’ll come across groups of guards you must defeat. It can be a tough fight, especially when you’re surrounded, but once you are able to beat them, you feel triumphant. Once the sands have been unleashed, that same group of enemies is defeated, and then a new wave of foes arrive. And another… and another. Waves keep coming, and suddenly this short interlude between platforming and puzzle has become a chore. Each fight is ended with relief instead of triumph. Everytime enemies appear I could feel the pit of my stomach drop out. Especially because it’s so easy to make a mistake and suffer consequences that seem outside your control. Add Farah into the mix where you have to protect her, and a new level of anxiety is added. It culminates with the elevator ride at the end of the game. It took me 3 attempts this time. The funny thing is once that’s over, and you get the best sword in the game, fighting is supposed to be fun since you’ve become so powerful. This may be true, but once you remove the dagger and keep the controller issues, even one hit kills don’t stop the fights from being frustrating.

Ok, I think I have the criticisms out of my system. I still feel kinda bad since I love this game so much. It’s probably good it ended up this way. Some people have difficulty with the concept of criticising something they actually like. As if somehow you shouldn’t be finding fault in the things you enjoy. Of course, that is nonsense. My favourite books, movies, and especially games aren’t perfect, and sometimes by uncovering what isn’t working, it can make you appreciate what is all the better. So now let me just run through some stray thoughts from the game.

How great is it that so much of the platforming is baked into the level design? Especially the outdoor segments. I mean there’s the obvious example of climbing the tower without the dagger at the end of the game, but the caves, the sewer, basically any outdoor segment that involved flags, pillars, or disrepair leading to handholds. Heck, even a lot of the indoor sections. The library is memorable every time I play it for this reason.

How about how the best character moments are as you’re playing the game when either the Prince is talking to himself or him and Farah are verbally sparring? Yes, there are cutscenes, but it’s these audio files that play as you’re actually playing the game that endear you to these characters, and I think it’s a part of what makes the ending tragic yet bittersweet. The flash forward segments lend to this as well, showing late game narrative moments a lot earlier on, making the player wonder why they’re happening and what the context is for them.

How come nothing I’ve played in Assassin’s Creed or any 3D platformer since feels as cool as the wall run from Sands of Time? Maybe the camera placement has something to do with it, as in they knew how to frame each wall run and especially the wall run jumps for maximum cool. Not having consistent control over the camera with the right analogue stick was an odd feeling. When you’re used to something ubiquitous like that, stepping back in time before it was a general design rule can be tricky. I’ve had that get me into trouble before assuming older games had checkpoints and automatic saving.

And even with how frustrating I found the fights, there’s a fluidity and grace to the Prince’s movements that make them a joy to watch. Maybe that’s why the wall run is so memorable. Every action of his is elegant. It could be why the control issues and the fighting were so frustrating. When the Prince is failing, it still looks glamorous, so there’s this extra guilt heaped upon the player that yes, this is all your fault. Throw in controls and a camera you know aren’t perfect and anger can enter into it. “Great, the game is mocking me for failing when it’s doing its best to make sure I don’t succeed”. Next time I’m definitely going to try mouse and keyboard or go back to the PS2 version.

Thanks for watching.

Dave Critiques - Resonance: Is it thematically resonant?

Transcript

Hey Hey folks, Dave here. Just a friendly reminder that this is a critique. I’m going to be discussing Resonance for those who have played it. If you haven’t, and are worried about spoilers, please pause the video and go play the game before returning. For everyone else, let’s continue.

What differs Resonance from other adventure games is two-fold. One is that you control 4 characters throughout the game. From this point alone, there will be comparisons made to Heavy Rain and perhaps some spoiling of that game as well. Huh, this is the second video in a short amount of time comparing the game in question to Heavy Rain. I wonder what gives. Anyways, Heavy Rain spoilers, you have been warned. The more interesting difference, however, is the use of memory. You essentially have 3 inventories. One for the usual items you pick up and can combine and use to solve puzzles, and 2 memory slots. One for short term memory, and one for long-term memory. Long term memory features small cut-scenes that play either reminding you of information if you have forgotten it, or letting the character in on information that will now allow them to act with the game world in a new way.

The short term memory slot is by far the most interesting. Any hotspot in the game world can be dragged into short term memory. Want to talk to someone about a computer terminal? Drag the computer terminal into short term memory and then go ask the person about it. The only issue aside from the limited number of slots your short term memory possesses is that when stuck, you’ve essentially doubled the amount of fiddling around a player has to do. In most adventure games while stuck, a player will walk around and start randomly using all the items in their inventory on everything in the game world hoping to get lucky. I’ve solved many a puzzle using that method in the past. At its least innocuous, it gives the player something to do while their brain is working over exactly what they have to do to progress. With the addition of long term and short-term memory however, it exponentially increases the number of possible options (especially once you’re allowed to travel around the city at will). Resonance somewhat alleviates this problem by allowing the characters to ask the other characters what to do next for a hint. Of course, sometimes the hint is vague. After about 2 hours of consistent progress, I got stuck at a point where the hint wasn’t helping. I turned to a walkthrough and never looked back. Some of the puzzles even with the aid of a walkthrough were maddening (although one can’t fault the game for its variety of head-scratchers and multiple solutions to some problems). Of course I cannot say whether they would have been solvable or not with my own ingenuity and the use of the hint system. They definitely weren’t the draw of the game for me, more an impediment.

As with most adventure games, the story and the characters were what kept me interested. The game starts off with a global disaster before rewinding to a couple days beforehand. You take control of 4 characters who play through short separate vignettes until the inciting incident throws you all together. At this point you can switch to whichever character you want as you solve defined problems hoping to put a stop to this dangerous new technology. Those who have thought about the comparison to Heavy Rain for a couple of seconds might know where such a tale is going, especially when you control 4 characters. Yes, one of the characters is actually the villain. It’s not the ageing cop this time, but the game makes you think it might be. Actually, that red herring is pretty ridiculous when it gets explained, but it sets up the reveal to be quite shocking. And this isn’t even at the end of the game. It turns out Ed wasn’t exactly acting on his own. He was trying to stop two other characters who have been using him as a pawn in their own game. His actions while awful, are rationalised away as serving a greater good, and in the finale of the game, you can choose to side with him in his attempt to do what’s right, or you can take revenge for the death of Dr Morales and Anna. It’s one of those morality decisions. Do you sacrifice the few for the sake of the many, or do you enact justice no matter the cost of said justice? It’s a tough decision, and from what I gather, neither option is all that satisfying. I chose to save the greater good, and pretty much nobody has a happy ending.

At its core Resonance is a science fiction story about a new technology, and a shadowy group trying to use that technology for its own ends. The 4 characters you play as get caught up in this madness, and by the end of my playthrough, all 4 were either dead or in jail for the murder of other people. So how do the memories play into this narrative? Not well. Only Anna Morales has gameplay sections detailing her backstory. To be honest, her tale is only tangentially connected to the greater plot through her familial relationship to the creator of the resonance technology. The only reason her past matters is to be able to find Dr Morales’ vault where he hid the resonance technology, which serves as the driving goal for all 4 players once they come together. Dr Morales put safeguards in place that only Anna could solve, so we as a player have to know about her past to move forward. Ed, Bennet, and Ray’s past doesn’t matter as it has no bearing on the main plot of the game. There are ties to the antevorta system and the Eleven Foundation when we first play the vignettes of these characters, but those are present actions. The first playable version of Anna is her as a child escaping a monster. There’s a discrepancy between the 4 characters, and that the one character who does have a fleshed out backstory (which gives a reason for the memory system to exist) is killed to reveal that Ed is not who he says he is, that’s especially galling.

My overall impression of Resonance is a little flat (and that might have to do with the ending I chose). Despite the importance of the memory system not being altogether thematically tied with the narrative, I enjoyed how it worked. I liked the characters, the overall story and the world. It was good science fiction. After meeting the Eleven Foundation, I wished there was a game about those two characters, as their strange power, influence, and talk of fate I found much more fascinating than the vaporisation caused by resonance. As an adventure game I think it excels. As a consistent work, not as much, even if I think my long term memory will have a fond remembrance of the time spent with it.

Thanks for watching.

Dave Critiques - Undertale: The importance of killing Toriel

Transcript

Hey Hey folks, Dave here. Just a friendly reminder that this is a critique. I shall be talking about Undertale for those who have played it. If you haven’t, and are worried about spoilers, please pause the video and play the game before returning. For everyone else, let’s continue.

Watching Dave talk about Undertale fills you with determination. That’s a joke, I say, a joke. Well ok, it’s a reference, and quite an easy one at that. I wanted to start off by talking about determination. The determination I’m most interested in is my determination to play the game non-violently. This again is no big shock. The game opens you up to this pathway right after meeting Toriel. Each enemy in the game has a way to defeat them non-violently. A lot of people who haven’t played Undertale yet know about this factor of the game (or they talk about “that bullet hell RPG”). Back when the PBS Idea Channel talked about Undertale, they said that one reason this is so remarkable is that unlike most videogames, the violence in Undertale is a choice. Nothing is stopping you from murdering every creature you come across (and the game has its own path for this decision), but the characters are so delightful, and the world so full of joy and whimsy, that I don’t even know if I could attempt such a thing. I’m the kind of person who when finally trying his first Renegade run in Mass Effect turned it off after 15 minutes because I couldn’t stand what a jerk Shepard was being.

Toriel teaches you the path of nonviolence. She’s Undertale’s female goat Gandhi. She also arranges it so that you are stuck living with her forever once you reach her house and have put her philosophy into practice. To continue with the game, you must go against her wishes and follow her into the basement. To prove that you’re strong enough to face what the rest of the game has in store for you, you must fight Toriel. Now like every other fight in Undertale, it is possible to win this without bloodshed. There’s even a hint of how to do it earlier on. I guarantee that most first time players miss this. I certainly did. When sparing Toriel didn’t work, and talking to her didn’t work, I thought my only recourse left was to maybe get her health down enough so that she would surrender and you could spare her. After all, that’s how it works in Pokemon.

There’s a mechanic in Undertale related to critical hits and how much health your enemy has. In the final fight against Asgore, I noticed this for the second time in the game (as this is another battle where it seems like you must fight your way through). In fact, this increased damage saved my bacon against Asgore as I was on my last sliver of health. Remember what I said about my Pokemon idea? So I get Toriel down to about a third of her health and still I can’t spare her or talk to her. I think perhaps it needs to be a quarter or less so I attack again. Critical hit. Toriel dies. The ensuing cut-scene happens and the title plays. I was devastated.

I considered reloading my last save point and trying again. I’m sure many who killed Toriel thought of this or actually did it. Despite having to fight her, Toriel is gentle, kind, and lonely. It’s easy to empathise with her and her actions, and that makes the fight and her death even more poignant. As painful as it was, I decided to forge ahead. Here’s why. It has to do with David Cage. I know, I know, but listen. Back when Heavy Rain was released, Cage remarked that he didn’t want people replaying his game. You control 4 characters in Heavy Rain, and in most perilous situations, if you fail, the character you are controlling will die, and the game will continue. This leads to many possible scenarios. Cage’s thoughts were that the story you ended up with would be your unique story. I like this idea. It especially opens up a conversation with others who have played the game, as you can compare your notes on what happened and who survived. When Bioshock came out it was semester break at university, and returning to classes, all my friends started discussing our various strategies for combat. It gives each player a certain amount of ownership over their experience. Of course this idea goes against the notion of replayability which has been a sought after feature by gamers and game reviews for decades now.

And Undertale is chock full of replayability. Not only are there three main endings, but on those paths, there are some choices that will lead to different outcomes. Not all of these change the nature of the game, some are just changes in dialogue among individual characters, but it remains that Toby Fox put a lot of thought into anticipating player decisions and accounting for them. It’s the best use of player anticipation I’ve seen since The Stanley Parable. When a game has so many pathways open to it, a decision on when to stop playing has to be made. I have almost never played through a game a second time straight after completing it. All the other pathways, all those other decisions I leave until I feel like playing the game again someday in the future. Of course I am afforded this opportunity because I can buy my own games. I’ve always thought replayability was only a hook for younger players. If you only get a new game on your birthday or Christmas (if even you get one that often), no doubt you’re going to be playing a game with multiple paths over and over again until you exhaust all possible outcomes. Even then you’ll learn to master the systems and make your own fun within the game space. That’s certainly my experience as a kid, and I had some pretty awful games to do that with too.

As a further example of this, after completing the game, I guess I got the neutral ending. I had to fight Photoshop Flowey. That was a trip and a half. The game ends with encouraging you to replay to get the pacifist ending. I had killed Toriel after all. I was merciful to every other enemy in the game (even Flowey), but I had killed Toriel. And you know what, I’m kind of glad it ended up that way. The horror of accidentally ending Toriel’s life after she had been so kind to me, after I tried my hardest to find a peaceful solution, that stuck with me for the rest of the game. That crack I made at the start about determination, it turns out there’s truth to it. Killing Toriel filled me with determination. The determination to not end another life, no matter how difficult. I didn’t always have the answer, especially for most of the boss battles, but that determination made me look up the solution to these fights online. Strange huh. I didn’t want to reload my save file because this is the path I had chosen, but at the same time, I was going to find a way to complete the game nonviolently by any means necessary. It also gives me something to accomplish for a future playthrough.

I entertained playing through Undertale again straight afterwards. I actually played the first hour. I was able to spare Toriel, and then get a ways into Papyrus’ traps but then decided that my original playthrough was all I needed to make this video. The pacifist playthrough is something I can look forward to one day. Not only to see what happens but because I know there are many things I didn't do. I never made friends with Undyne. I never went on a date with Dr Alphys, and I’m sure there’s so much more that I missed. That’s the benefit of a game with replayability, more often than not, it’s close to impossible to see everything the first time through. Of course the opposite can be true too. If you play through a certain way, get an ending that was unsatisfying, and then don’t play the game again, your experience of the game might be negative, regardless of the game’s quality. I enjoyed my time with Undertale. That’s good enough for now, and getting the pacifist ending in the future might change my perspective of the game for the better.

Thanks for watching.

Dave Critiques - The Beginner's Guide: Is it anti-critic?

Transcript

Hey Hey folks, Dave here. Just a friendly reminder that this is a critique. I’m going to be discussing The Beginner’s Guide for those who have played it. If you are worried about spoilers (and this is a 90-minute game that has quite an impactful narrative revelation), please pause the video, and play the game before returning. For everyone else, let’s continue.

I’d like to start this off with a quote by Ed Smith over at Kill Screen on The Beginner’s Guide.

“Everyone wants to look like they “get” games, or that they respect art, but ultimately their displays are hollow since they’re more interested in intellectual credibility than actually just speaking honestly about and enjoying the work.”

This quote may not have had the emotional impact that the end of The Beginner’s Guide does, but it affected me on a much deeper level. Such a quote brings into question the purpose of what I’m doing. Am I writing about games simply because I love games and want to express this love, or am I looking for intellectual validation? “Oh that Dave guy, he writes some smart stuff about games.” Heck, one of my favourite things is to share work I find intellectually stimulating or funny with others, to see reactions. I attach myself to the work I share, and get a measure of joy when someone reacts positively to it. I am aware that the work is created by another person, but I gain a measure of satisfaction from being the person who let someone else know about a piece of art I enjoy. It’s safe to say that I was very sympathetic and understanding of Davey Wreden’s motives and plight during this game.

It would also be disingenuous to say that I don’t enjoy the creation of these videos. Unlike sharing work, my criticism is the combination of two hobbies: playing games, and writing about games. Actually throw in voiceover and video editing in there as well. Basically, I found a way to turn playing videogames into its own form of artistic expression. Some people see critics as parasitic, attaching themselves to art to serve their own ends, but criticism is indeed its own artform. It’s part interpretation, part translation, and a whole lot of guess work. Half the fun of writing about games (or any art really) is choosing the angle you’re going to be writing from. Most often this choice is dictated by the uniquely human experience of the writer. I tend to focus on my emotions and choices when playing games, but then fall into discussing aspects of the games themselves I find interesting. It goes to show that with any piece of art, the finished product might not have been able to meet the artist’s intention.

It’s entirely possible to read The Beginner’s Guide as being anti-critic. Davey isn’t just walking us through the games of Coda, he has altered them to suit his pre-determined conclusions. His blatant disregard for the wishes of his friend lead to the game’s conclusion, and shows a lot of what I’ve just discussed turmoiling around in Davey. This need for external validation by sharing the work of another is one thing, but what about actually changing the art itself? Critics often are criticised themselves for the connections some make to support an interpretation, but there is a difference. An interpretation that causes any audience to think that the critic is stretching themselves past breaking point to justify said interpretation; such an interpretation can be argued, ridiculed, or ignored. It invites discussion and response just like a piece of art does. If you change the art to make your point however, well The Beginner’s Guide takes the position that there is a real problem with that and it can do a lot of harm to the artist.

Coda is not making games for an audience, he is making games for himself, and he has chosen to share them with a small group of people, Davey being one of them. That the games are mostly unplayable on purpose is part of the art that Coda is making. This is a dilemma that might be unique to videogames. Not only a piece of art that can’t be finished, or that forces the audience to spend more time than they thought they were going to, but a piece of art that can be changed by another person to circumvent these problems (if you even see them as problems in the first place). If someone makes a 5-hour long movie filming a streetlamp, an audience member can fast forward it, or if it’s on YouTube, skip around. This doesn’t change the original video in any way. If you share that video with only one friend, they could edit it before sharing it with others. They could add sentences to your written story, they could change your painting with their own brushstrokes. Writing this now I wonder if The Beginner’s Guide is making a comment how once art is made it no longer belongs to the artist, or perhaps that’s only true when an audience is introduced, even if that audience is only one person. It does seem to take Coda’s side on the matter though. Like the relationship between artist and audience cannot coexist alongside friendship.

I don’t think The Beginner’s Guide is anti-critic however. As said earlier, Davey isn’t just interpreting Coda’s work, he is changing it. He is effectively making his own work on top of Coda’s and then reading into it to make himself feel validated as the audience of this game agrees with his views. That is if you believe what Davey is telling you. One of the core questions of the game that has been discussed a lot is how much of the game is actually real. Is the Davey Wreden of The Beginner’s Guide a fictional character, or is this an actual depiction of a betrayed friendship between two game designers that took place in the years around 2010? If the answer is anywhere on the spectrum between these two positions, then how much can we believe, and why? There are a lot of inconsistencies with the story. For instance, if The Tower was Coda’s final game, what is Davey playing in the epilogue, and how many of Coda’s games didn’t he show us to support his own findings. How many games didn’t Coda send to Davey? What if there never was a Coda to begin with, in reality or fiction? Why does The Tower seem to be Davey in real time when he needed to have played through the game to change it for you as the player?

While The Beginner’s Guide isn’t anti-critic, I think it speaks to the dangers of trying to understand an artist as a person from their artwork. You can gain glimpses into what they were thinking or feeling at the time they created the work, but even speaking to them about it won’t likely give you the whole story. The university game is the best example of this. You never know what other people are going through, why they do what they do, and why they create what they create. As a critic, the best you can do is interpret and make a case for a point of view. Since the criticism is filtered through your unique life experience (especially if you enjoy writing from a subjective viewpoint), then those that are the audience for your criticism encounter the same problem in understanding you as a critic from what you wrote. It’s interpretation all the way down.

Thanks for watching.

Dave Critiques - The Silver Case: It doesn't matter what it's about

Transcript

Hey Hey folks, Dave here. Just a friendly reminder that this is a critique. I will be talking about The Silver Case for those who have played it. If you are worried about spoilers, I suggest you pause the video and go play the game before returning. For everyone else, let’s continue.

In 2007 I played Killer7, and I think it changed my perception of what games can be. It’s kind of weird to say that and not have it be hyperbolic. Despite the unintuitive rail shooting, odd controls, and scattershot plot, when it finished it was like nothing I have ever experienced in a videogame before, or likely since. Heck, it made me read a 50-page plot FAQ to understand an interpretation of what I just went through. Granted I haven’t encountered many stories overall that play with characters being representative of more than one thing, but definitely not in a game. It made me a fan of Suda51 as a game developer. The year after, I bought No More Heroes, and while it wasn’t as grandiose in its ambition, it cemented my fascination with the man’s work. Also, it was one of the few games to really think about the controls of the Nintendo Wii in a genuinely creative manner. I’ll always remember the smile on my face during the first cell phone conversation with Sylvia Christel.

Over the years I’ve kept up with his work and have enjoyed it to varying degrees. Subversive elements are hidden in big budget action titles like Shadows of the Damned and Lollipop Chainsaw, and Killer is Dead is the closest I feel we've gotten to recapturing some of that Killer7 magic. I even played Flower, Sun, and Rain when it was rereleased on the DS. That one is hard to get through. A groundhog day visual novel where the solution to every puzzle was hidden in a guidebook about the island your character was spending his reoccurring day in. It seems the further you go back in Suda’s work, the less user-friendly it is. You have to be willing to endure some levels of obtuseness or tedium to fully engage with the interesting elements. If anything, as Suda has made more games, he’s been able to hide the most interesting elements under the surface of mechanics and user interfaces that are more accommodating to your average player. With this in mind, I was fully expecting to have a difficult time with the remaster of The Silver Case; Suda’s first game under his own studio Grasshopper Manufacture.

The Silver Case like Flower, Sun, and Rain is a visual novel. You play a silent protagonist that is part of a special forces unit that gets slaughtered by a master serial killer who has escaped from a mental hospital. After this happens, you find yourself working at the heinous crimes unit of the police force and engage in some cases that all have something to do with Kamui the serial killer or the strange circumstances surrounding him. During this time you get to know most of the members of the force relatively well, but this is only half the game. The other half is following a journalist who has been hired by a mysterious benefactor to investigate Kamui. These episodes run in-between the case files and usually follow the events that you just played through as the heinous crimes unit. In some cases, your investigation spells out what just occurred during the case. This was beneficial during the case titled Parade where the CEO of a corporation gets kidnapped, and the background of why was very ambiguous in the case itself (or I just wasn’t able to put it together as I was playing it). Tokio’s section afterwards put the pieces together and made the whole thing a lot more impactful. Of course when the story kind of spirals inward on itself at the end, I found Tokio’s last section kind of confusing. The game doesn’t end in a satisfying manner. I won’t say there are more questions than answers as that actually isn’t the case. The story does wrap itself up nicely, but a lot of the details confused me. Either because they were introduced too late or I didn't see threads that might have been woven through the whole story. I think The Silver Case is one of those works of fiction that would benefit greatly from going through it a second time, if just to understand what’s happening as it happens.

The thing that you sometimes have to ask yourself playing a Suda game is if the annoying elements are there on purpose. For instance, Tokio’s investigative sections can become overly tedious. The only interactivity in these chapters is to walk to your computer to check your email, talk to your pet turtle, or answer the phone. It echoes the sections of the case files when you find yourself in your apartment, although the special forces character you play exits the apartment after checking his email or looking in the mirror to go work the case. That leads to more interactive opportunities, limited as they may be. Tokio just gets to walk around his apartment. When he goes out investigating, it’s a cutscene. The player is stuck in almost a Groundhog Day repetition of waking up, walking to the computer, checking it, and having the plot move forward. Perhaps this idea is what lead to the creation of Flower, Sun, and Rain, which uses these repetitive elements to increased thematic effect. The tedium still stands in both cases though. Is purposeful bad game design to make a point still bad game design? If not, how do you tell the difference? Papers Please was pretty overt in that the tedium of your job is part of the point, but when does a developer gain the benefit of the doubt in these matters? Is it when they have something interesting to say?

I will admit, there were times I thought about not continuing with The Silver Case. The plot had me lost, the interactive elements were almost non-existent, and boy is the game long for what it is; around 12 hours. There was something that kept me going though, and I think perhaps it was the ideas at play. I want to say it can’t be the characters. The reason I want to say that is that they’re written in such broad strokes. There are about as many uses of “motherfucker” as you’d expect in a Quentin Tarantino movie. There’s this veneer of machismo, that what makes a man tough is saying “fuck” every second word, and then threatening anyone who makes a joke at their expense. When we first meet Tokio and senior detective Kasubi, this is the impression we have of them. As we spend more time with these characters, we do see that this is a facade that they use to hide the real issues plaguing them, or perhaps it’s a response to the horrors that they have to deal with in their line of work. It doesn’t make it any less adolescent, but you start to accept it a little more because you know where it’s coming from.

But we do get to know these characters, or at least we thought we did until the end. All bets are off in the end. The whole plot is a vast conspiracy and it seems almost everyone is a part of it in some way or another. The corpses pile up in the last couple of cases, and even the epilogue suggests that the murder count and cause of all the problems are far from over. After all, the character you play is still alive. When serial killers are educated as children, brainwashed and controlled by the government, and you play a defected product of that experiment, well it probably would be a lot safer to not let such a person be walking around. Although I do wonder if that’s even what the game is about. There’s talk of crime as a virus, and how even the most abhorrent ideas can be praised by society. As the game was made in the late 90s, there’s a lot of talk about how the internet is going to affect people’s lives and society in the new millennium, and the ideas and concerns don’t seem altogether that dated. Hell, it even has a similar reveal as the first season of Psycho Pass as to what is actually needed to run this perfect system. It’s just a little more ludicrous.

And it’s not a style over substance thing either. Even though one thing that struck me was, I have never seen a videogame that looks like this before. The background movement, the colour schemes chosen for different cases, the portioning off of the screen for small pieces of animation, or the use of video along with the mix of 2D and 3D art. It definitely makes an impression. There is substance here. It’s just not told in a straightforward manner, and the game 's not really as engaging as one would expect a game to be, even a visual novel. I think it’s more interesting as an entry into the games of Suda51 to see a style and sensibility start to emerge. To be able to track that from the beginning, to where the gameplay becomes more important, and yet how the ideas have not been sacrificed.

Thanks for watching.

Dave Critiques - Child of Eden: Perseverance pays off

Transcript

Hey Hey folks, Dave here. Just a friendly reminder that this is a critique. I will be discussing Child of Eden for those who have played it. If you’re worried about spoilers, please stop the video and go play the game before returning. For everyone else, let’s continue.

Child of Eden is a game that has been sitting in my PS3 library for years. It’s been on my mind ever since I bought a console capture device back in April, and it’s sad it’s taken me this long to record another PS3 game with it. Well, the stars aligned, and it looks like after a brief play Child of Eden is what I would call the spiritual successor to Rez.

Right away I was struck by, I guess you could call it a sense of synaesthesia. Child of Eden tries its best to fully capture three of the body’s five senses and twist them around in a tumble dryer. The surreal visuals mix with the pulsing soundtrack which is reinforced by the subtle yet ever present vibration of the controller. As each stage continues, all three aspects keep building to a crescendo. Most of the time, that crescendo is a boss fight, but all of the stages play with this simple idea of building to cathartic release in different ways. For example, stage 1 has the boss quite early on, and then the action starts building all over again afterwards. Stage 4 has you fighting the boss at the outset, in the middle, and finally at the end, and stage 5 is sort of a boss rush, where all the previous bosses appear in different forms. Luckily you don’t have to fight all of them, but the variations on their original encounters undoubtedly resulted in some panic.

I’ve strayed a little from my synaesthesia point so let me talk about my first play session with the game. In that session, I played through stage 1 and 2. At the end of stage 2 when I turned off my PS3, I felt like I had just been on a hallucinogenic ride. I felt like I needed to come down. So potent was the game, and I was so focused on playing through these stages that it physically affected me. The reason I want to bring this up is this is one of the pitfalls of writing about videogames. You can watch someone play through game footage, and especially if they're commentating, you can get an idea of what is like to play the game yourself, but it is a poor substitute for what it feels like to be plugged into the machine so to speak. And I was just playing on a standard TV using a controller. Child of Eden supports 3D television and either the Kinect or Move depending on what system you play on. I tell you, I would have definitely appreciated the finesse of motion controls over using the analogue stick as I played through stages 3 and 4.

I had no idea the game would get this hard. I seemed to be alone in that thought too, as most of the help on the internet was along the lines of, “What?! It’s easy!”. It does seem that the actual challenge of Child of Eden is in 100% purges and 5-starring the level, but just making it through was a nightmare for me. And unlike a lot of other games, there are no cheats and no walkthroughs to help me when I get stuck. No, this is a game where I must use my skill to get further and the only way to improve that is to play these levels over and over again until I become intimate with them.

Part of my slow progress was taking an inordinate amount of time to work out the whole regular enemy / purple enemy divergence. Once this was realised, the 3rd stage, ‘Beauty’ was not as daunting and it only took me a couple of tries to best it. Stage 4, ‘Passion’ is where I almost considered giving up. And it wasn’t the stage either, it was the boss. Child of Eden has no checkpoints, so a 12 minute stage has to be played through again if you lose it at the end, and did I lose it at the end, time and time again. The patterns of purple projectiles it pelted me with were insurmountable. Even if I had saved up my euphorias (a screen-clearing bomb that you can hold up to 3 of), it wasn’t enough to stop the onslaught. I was becoming frustrated and disillusioned. Sure, you can farm previous levels for stars to unlock the later stages, but upon acquiring 20 stars to unlock the final stage, I realised I had to complete Passion before I got a chance at it.

So was I going to give up? I told myself that I had more than enough footage to talk about this game. I also told myself I made a commitment, and if I used a play session to keep playing Passion over and over again, I’d eventually have to win. So I bought myself a 3.5mm jack cable extender so I could plug my headphones into my television (as there’s no way to use headphones connected to the PS3), and set my intentions to finally making it through. I beat it the first try that evening. After hours of defeat, I made it through… barely. My heart was pounding, and my adrenaline was soaring as it came down to the wire between the boss and me. I had one health left and had used my euphorias. Could I pump enough damage into it before the projectiles overcame me again? I could!

So I had one final decision to make. Would I play the last stage through normally, or go to ‘no damage mode’ to scope out the lay of the land? To those wondering why I wasn’t playing on ‘no damage mode’, you don’t get scores or unlock stars for using that mode. Nothing counts. You can’t progress. Well, I made the decision to try the final level on normal. My adrenaline was high, and I thought I was in the zone enough to be able to take on whatever came my way. And you know what? I was right. After all the replays of ‘Beauty’ and ‘Passion’, I finished ‘Journey’ the first time. Child of Eden was over. I could now relax as the credits played. It's like a mini epic. I faced what seemed like impossible challenges, I thought about giving up, I decided to keep at it, I persevered, and I am glad I did. It resulted in triumph.

Thanks for watching.

Dave Critiques - The Talos Principle: What does it leave behind?

Transcript 

Hey Hey folks, Dave here. Just a friendly reminder that this is a critique. I will be discussing The Talos Principle for those who have played it. If you are worried about spoilers, please stop the video, and go play the game before returning. For everyone else, let’s continue!

When explaining The Talos Principle to others, I describe it as “Portal, with existential philosophy instead of humour”. Having completed all three endings of Talos on two occasions, I have to say that the description still stands. You enter a number of puzzle rooms that prompt you to use the tools at your disposal to solve them. As you do not use a portal gun and your character can jump, this is where the differences end (not to mention the complete divergence of theme and purpose). To take some of the headache out of first person platforming, jumping is almost turn based in that footsteps will appear on ledges, showing you where you will land if you hit the jump button. This is the first of many clever things about this game.

A lot has been written and discussed on the topic of mechanics as metaphor. Essentially it is the game imparting narrative information through the gameplay itself (its rules and systems). The Talos Principle links most of how it looks and plays to what it is about. The puzzle rooms have a purpose, the gorgeous locations have a purpose, the QR codes from other players have a purpose, and listening to both Elohim and the MLA have a purpose. What is that purpose? For starters, I think it speaks to the development team and project lead setting out to make something they really cared about. Something they could only express through this medium.

At every turn, the game is rewarding and vexing the player, often simultaneously. The puzzles can be fiendish, but you have a wide variety of them to choose from in your quest to retrieve any one sigil (the reward for solving said rooms). Exploring the world reveals lost audio logs, new computer terminals, QR messages, and even glitches in the system. Conversation is actually an important game mechanic. Once you make contact with the Milton Library Assistant, it will start to ask you very tough questions about what it means to be alive and to have consciousness. There is no right answer as any answer given will result in the MLA coming at you from a different angle. These conversations were my favourite part of the game. Although my desire to be cordial to the MLA in the face of its insults lead to it not wanting to speak to me anymore the first time through, in my second playthrough, I became friends with it, and we eventually fused into one being.

Even cooperation is a mechanic. Not only can you find paintbrushes that allow you to leave messages (that friends on your Steam account can see in their game), but the conversations between characters give great insight into how the other children of Elohim are faring. This all culminates at the top of the tower when you have to solve puzzles alongside Samsara and The Shepard (two characters you would be quite familiar with by this point). This section of the game leads towards the second of three endings, and after playing through it, I read their messages littered around the game world with a lot more understanding. Oh, and let’s not forget the playback machines, where you have to use a recorded version of yourself to help solve puzzles. If you think cooperating with other people can be maddening, try cooperating with yourself!

I’d like to take the time to address how a puzzle game like The Talos Principle works when playing through it a second time, as I did to acquire this footage. I last played the game in late 2015 so almost a full year has gone by. I had a much easier time with the majority of the puzzle solutions, and I don’t think it has to do with remembering how the puzzles were solved. A month or so before playing Talos I played a couple of hours of The Witness to see if I wanted to critique it (I do, and that video will be on its way sometime in the future). The Witness’ approach to puzzle design is not so much presenting you with puzzles to solve but rather teaching you the language that you need to solve the puzzles in the first place. That’s what caused the most grief my first time through The Talos Principle. The solutions to the puzzles often required the use of puzzle elements that I didn’t even know was possible. Returning to the game, I knew the puzzle language and had a much smoother time of it. There were still many red sigil puzzles that gave me grief, but more often than not, reading a messenger hint was enough to grease the gears of my brains sufficiently to lead towards acquiring the sigil.

So now we get to the question that is most pertinent, just what is going on? Well if you’ve completed the first ending, you’ll have a sense of what this computer construct’s goal is and what it is aiming for. Sadly the first ending means your character fails at what it set out to do, which is why I refer to ending two as the ‘real ending’ (and not just because we get a proper credits sequence). The second ending creates a sense of autonomy, and of anti-authoritarianism. It’s also only possible by benefitting from the work of others. It sort of mirrors that Isaac Newton quote, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”.

The second ending leads to a new age of the Earth. As far as I can ascertain, the whole game is set within a computer simulation that contains archives of all of human knowledge (or as much as they could archive before they were wiped out). Elohim, the MLA, the puzzles: they’re all there to create the perfect artificial intelligence to take physical form, and go out into the reality that humanity has left behind. The ‘talos principle’ itself refers to a concept that for all our philosophising, we’re still tied to this world in corporeal form, and thus have to come to terms with the limitations that brings. The character you are playing is trying to achieve physical form. Elohim and the MLA are watchful computer systems whose purpose is to mould the intellect of those that are training to ascend and become more than themselves.

Rather than expanding on this, the third ending seems like a letdown but is a missing piece of the puzzle. It’s kind of inversely proportional to the work required to activate it. You have to gather all the bonus stars in the game, and then solve the grey sigil puzzles in the star worlds. The stars are the most ingeniously guarded of all the game’s prizes, often using elements from multiple puzzle rooms to solve (or keen observational and deductive reasoning skills). Some of the stars are hidden in quite a beautiful way, such as the star on messenger island C, but most of them I never would have found if not for a walkthrough.

My first playthrough I started using a walkthrough about halfway through the sigils in Temple B. There were still puzzles I solved on my own, but you know how this works. The more you use a walkthrough, the easier it is to go back to it time and time again when you get stuck (and it took me this long to discover how easy it is to use the Steam community guides in game). I would say I solved around two-thirds of the puzzles on my own, and ended up using a walkthrough for everything else (including the bonus stars and the larger tetromino fields). On the second playthrough, I only needed a walkthrough for 2 of the red sigil puzzles, and about half of the grey sigil puzzles (plus once again, most of the tetromino fields).

I think what this means is I am admitting that the game is smarter than me. I feel like one of Elohim’s failed children (of whose desperate messages I read so much of during my playtime). The caveat is that while I felt defeated, I still was able to succeed thanks to the work of others. Very similar to the second ending in fact. Perhaps if I was like one of the programs whose only purpose was to solve these puzzles, I might have persevered, but as that was not the case, I did what I had to do to gain the answers I required. And then the third ending didn’t feel like such a let down because as I was helped in my quest to finish the game, I can now help others in their quest. All the work to find the stars made a little more sense. To truly help others, you must be fiercely dedicated and sure of your own purpose.

Finally, after the task of completing all three endings, I wondered about everything in the game that I had missed. I skimmed most of the text files in the computers, and I’m sure I missed a couple QR codes and audio messages. I wonder how many more easter eggs were present in the game, and what they entailed. More than anything I thought of the developer’s motives for making the game.

What were they trying to say? As the game revolves around philosophy, perhaps they weren’t trying to say anything, at least in an absolute sense. It almost feels like a thought experiment. Not only how computer intelligence would regard our collected history, but how such intelligence is formed, what it means, and how it wrestles with the same questions we wrestle with. Perhaps all that matters is what we leave behind. In this game, humanity is gone, but the combined efforts of the species have been passed on (as much as it can be I guess). Perhaps The Talos Principle is a similar process of the development team passing on their ideas to those that come after them. If that’s not the purpose of life, there’s a good argument to be made for it being the purpose of art.

Dave Critiques - Alan Wake: When horror becomes tedious

Transcript

Hey hey, folks. Dave here. Just a friendly reminder that this is a critique. I will be talking about Alan Wake today, and those that are worried about spoilers should go play the game before watching. For everyone else, let’s continue. So, like my Broken Age video, I initially played and wrote this critique of Alan Wake last year. I was wondering if, like Broken Age, my thoughts on the game would have changed given enough time. That ended up not being the case. To be honest, my thoughts are a lot stronger the second time round. I have a feeling that the majority of this critique will be my original writing. Enjoy!

Does anyone remember after the release of Bioshock Infinite, how articles were decrying that it was a first person shooter? How the story Infinite was trying to tell was at odds with its gameplay? That’s exactly how I feel with Alan Wake. I had a friend tell me that one of the reasons he loves the game so much is that there is really nothing else like it out there, and on that point he is correct.

There is a lot to like about Alan Wake. Growing up in the Pacific north-west myself (Woodinville, Washington), I was engulfed in the atmosphere that the game surrounds the player with. The forests, lakes and mountains exude that crisp sensation of the outdoors, and remind me of many hours spent driving to hiking trails, visiting streams, rivers, and waterfalls. The small towns were full of log cabins and diners that sold delicious pie. Twin Peaks wasn’t presenting a caricature of such places, and while Alan Wake wears its Twin Peaks homages on its sleeve (as well as nods to The Twilight Zone and Stephen King among others), it has captured an essence inherent in that television show’s location.

You spend most of your time in Alan Wake amongst the trees at night. As this is primarily an action game, and a third person shooter at that, this impressive amount of world-building put into Bright Falls and its citizens seems misplaced, or at least not fully realised. It is said that before it became a shooter, Alan Wake was an open world game similar to the GTA series, and likely the town and its denizens were conceived in that stage of development. It’s a shame, especially since my favourite part of the game was traversing the town with the sheriff. I would have liked to have had the opportunity to explore each building and talk to its inhabitants on my own terms, but the game only allows exploration in short ‘off the beaten path’ bursts, while anything having to do with the townspeople funnels the player along through cutscene or brief interaction.

Perhaps if the story had more room to breathe it would have made a greater impact. Any story about a writer and has to do with writing itself is hard to pull off. I think the creators were somewhat self-aware of this as there is an exchange late in the game between the sheriff and Alan about her reading his books. She remarks that he leans too heavily on metaphors. As I spent most of my playtime groaning at the bulk of Alan’s narration (with its heavy leaning on unnecessary exposition), this small exchange almost felt like a partial apology. I think though that the attention to detail in the world and in its characters shows too much integrity to use a fourth wall moment to point out and thus excuse a potential failing of their work.

As for the tale itself, it has all the right ingredients. There is an air of mystery about what is going on, and what the motivation of the darkness actually is (or where Alice has gotten to, what happened in the missing week of time, and is any of what the player is experiencing real). Heck, even having the possibility that Alan is just a fictional character created by Thomas Zane is bold, especially when Alan as a character is so unlikable. While the game ends on a somewhat ambiguous note, I feel satisfied with the conclusion as Alan defeats the darkness and rescues Alice. What happened to Alan is of little concern to me, and as the game itself left me cold for at least the last half (definitely since the episode titled ‘The Truth’ which starts to spell out everything for the player), the added story DLC held no pull. Even ignoring the annoying practise of having the true ending of the story in a piece of DLC, the bulk of my reasoning is I had absolutely no desire to encounter one more fight with the Taken (the name given to the spectral enemies throughout the game that require the ol shine n’ shoot strategy™).

I dreaded every fight with the Taken. It wasn’t because I was scared of them. It was because combat with them is one of two extremes. It’s either mind-numbingly tedious or teeth-grindingly frustrating. If the Taken are in small packs, shining your flashlight at them and firing your weapon can quickly dispatch them with little effort. Even the instances where one appears behind you (a gimmick that the game is guilty of overusing far too often) only requires some quick repositioning before the dispatch occurs. As the game goes on however, the way the Taken swarm the player and the ratio of small, fast enemies to lumbering brutes shifts and multiplies. While you do have tools to manage packs of foes (such as the flare or the flashbang), it is the dodge that is usually your best friend. That is if it works properly.

When an enemy is about to attack you via melee swing or throwing a projectile, a well-timed press of the dodge button will reward the player with a slow-motion reaction that is quite cinematically pleasing. The parameters to set this off must be very specific, because most of the time you effortlessly duck, move a little, and get hit anyway. Either that or you spam the dodge button when the game enters slow motion to show you the Taken appearing behind you, but then it doesn’t let you dodge and you take the hit. The most enjoyable form of this evasion when it works is when an enemy is trying to get a hit in behind you or to the side. I must have had a sixth sense on some encounters, because I decided to press the dodge at seemingly random times, only to have the slow-mo engage and reveal a foe taking a swing at me. Those instances show off the potential of such a mechanic, but because the camera is so close to the player, and the only sound cues seem to be the enemies themselves, you have to rely on such positional awareness (or blind luck) to gain the full benefits of the system. Most of the time a misplaced dodge just leads to being trapped, attacked and killed by multiple enemies.

And a mention should be made of the poltergeists which possess random objects throughout your journey and fling them at you, requiring a long stare down with the flashlight to dissipate. While this breaks up the idea of a traditional fight with the Taken, the camera and dodge functionality make these almost more frustrating, considering the size of most of the objects. I will say it does lead to some quite unique boss fights where you must battle possessed vehicles alongside Taken that can be enjoyable with the right strategic approach (and the final boss was enjoyable if just for its uniqueness), but like the Taken themselves, the frequency of such encounters overstay their welcome. It’s almost as if there was a script in the game that says “You’ve explored long enough buddy. It’s time for one of those enemy encounters you despise. Let’s spin the wheel. Will it be ghosts, Taken, or both? Yee-ha!”.

In the end, it was the world itself that kept me going. The foggy haze among the trees, following specs of yellow paint to a hidden hideaway, even visiting the watchtowers just to listen to the radio updates; these elements brought a world together that I wanted to return to, despite the game’s combat and over-explanatory narrative telling me otherwise. I’ve followed Remedy as a developer since the early 2000s, enjoying both the first and second Max Payne games. Those games suffer from some of the same issues, but they didn’t take themselves too seriously (or at least balanced the serious parts with humour and an overt noir cheese).

Alan Wake does not wink at the camera however. Yes, the game is playing with the tropes of horror and thriller, but it is trying its best to be faithful to the genre rather than using it for laughter. I think it mostly succeeds. The story isn’t the most original but is well woven. It could just stand to have had less of what’s going on spelt out for the player. For me, the world and its characters were the most accomplished aspects. The gameplay falls flat through its repetition and mechanical inconsistency, and while it would be nice to imagine this as an open world game or an adventure game, it is a third person shooter, and at least the combat is thematically consistent with the rest of the work.

Thanks for watching

Dave Critiques - 1979 Revolution: Black Friday - The problems of history as episodic fiction

Transcript

Hey Hey folks, Dave here. Just a friendly reminder that this is a critique. I will be talking about 1979 Revolution: Black Friday in depth, so if you are worried about spoilers, please play the game before watching this video. For everyone else, let’s continue.

1979 Revolution is what would happen if you played a Telltale game set during a real historical event - in this case, during the 1979 Iranian revolution. The Telltale skin disguises any edutainment that might be present underneath, as the cultural and historical information is engaging, and prompts at least myself to want to know more as I played about this time and place in history I know very little about.

You play Reza, a photojournalist who returns home to Iran after studying abroad in Germany. A lot of the game is spent documenting the streets of Iran through your photographs, and after every picture is taken, your image is shown beside a real picture taken of the exact subject. It gives a sense of authenticity to your role in the game, even if the person you are playing may or may not be fictional. Someone took these photographs during the revolution, and now all these years later, you are doing the same. That the tale of the revolution brewing is intercut with your character being tortured and interrogated in prison heightens the authenticity, and perhaps dictates your actions during those moments when you can choose how to behave.

But more than most Telltale games, the choices in 1979 Revolution undercut the story being told. During the game, I decided to stick to the creed of Reza’s friend Babak and to go through the events with a philosophy of nonviolence. I wasn’t persuaded by the arguments of the revolutionaries Reza finds himself amongst either, but despite not wanting to be a part of the movement, the story has to continue, so reluctance or enthusiasm aside, you find yourself a contributor until the climax of Black Friday. The choice made during the massacre, and whether to side with your brother or cousin feels meaningful, and where you stand when it comes to what you've seen and how you feel about it. Then Babak gets killed, and it’s easy to see Reza fully joining the movement that I had chosen to keep a distance from during my playtime.

And after this, the final section of the game is back in prison, leading to murder, an act of defiance, and a very abrupt finale. You have no idea what happens to Reza or what occurred in the time between Babak’s death and when he is arrested at the start of the game. I have read that Ink Stories, the developer wants to make more episodes with these characters, but there is the issue of funding. So at the moment, it feels like I’ve played episode 1 of a Telltale game, enjoyed it, but am unsure if episode 2 is ever going to come out. Now I know how fans of the Blackwell Legacy felt when that game was first released in 2006. I definitely want to spend more time with these characters in this time period in this part of the world. Even more, I would love to experience other periods of history and other cultures using this style of videogame.

Thanks for watching!