Rogue Legacy: Don’t think too hard about biology

I’d heard good things about this one. Seen some speedruns, et cetera. So I picked it up to have a go myself.

I love the core idea of this game. You play as a member of this long family line of rogues, and when that character dies, you pick one of their children to play as. The children all have different classes and traits that will help and hinder you on your quest. Any upgrades and equipment you had on previous characters carry over to their children.

Your quest is to explore a castle (And associated areas). For each character, the castle (And associated areas) shuffle themselves around a bit into new configurations, so your experience in there with each character is fresh. Your overall goal is to defeat the boss of each area to unlock the door in the lobby which leads to the secret treasure of the castle.

Okay I’ll confess: I haven’t finished this one. I . . . got bored.

It’s fun, I’ll admit. The controls are (Mostly) tight, and for a good while I was entertained by the variety of experiences. But the game has a few problems that caused me to get tired of seeing the same rooms over and over far faster than I should have.

Namely, the level system. I’m not sure what levels actually do other than increase the price of your upgrades. So let’s say that you have a run of bad luck in the castle and come out without enough gold to buy new upgrades for your new character. You are, however, guaranteed to have gained a level or two, so now those upgrades cost even more gold! Oh and you can say goodbye to that gold you collected, because unless you have a few upgrades, Charon’s taking ALL of it before you go into that castle. A few runs of bad luck and you’re far, far behind, struggling to buy each new upgrade and get to the next boss.

The controls do have a few issues, namely things like the double jump being VERY picky about whether you have landed on a platform or not. It can look as though you have, so you go to do a long leap into the air, but end up taking a short hop into a large projectile.

It was fun for the time I played it. There’s a huge amount of variety in there! Lots of stuff to find! Good bloody luck finding it before you’ve seen every room with every class under the sun!

One other slight issue is that you quickly learn which traits to avoid. You see a child with glaucoma? You ain’t pickin’ them. Not if you have any sense.

So, I’ll quickly go over the story, which is actually quite clever. You start the game playing as a knight who climbs through part of the castle and comes upon a kingly-looking chap drinking from a fountain. At this point your only option is to hit said bloke with your sword and begin your legacy. You then go on playing as this knight’s descendants. As they go around the castle, they find the journals of their ancestor, who sought out a cure for his father’s illness in the castle and went about defeating the four creatures and opening the door – only to find that his father had beat him there and drunk from the fountain of youth within. Angered that his father would never die and he would never receive his inheritance, your ancestor strikes him down. So when you at last open that door, the fight awaiting you is, of course, the first character you played as! Neat!

Would I recommend it? Ye-es, okay. But don’t do as I did. Be extra careful. Be clever with your upgrades. Don’t worry too much about grinding gold, find and defeat the bosses as quickly as possible. For a game with such a huge variety of fun to have, it’s very easy to get bored.

Saints Row IV: Revolutions

Over the past 11 days since my last review, I have spent 28 Hours playing Saints’ Row IV. I’m pretty sure that’s where the apostrophe goes. Anyway, at least one of those was spent on character creation because if there’s one thing that sells a game to me, it’s deep and complex character creation. Sadly, as with Saints’ Row the Third, it isn’t quite as vast as Saints’ Row 2. I mean, in that game, sex was a slider. Nevertheless, I was able to create my perfect blonde be-pigtailed French sociopath to my satisfaction and I enclose an image, because heck, I’m proud –

And then a Frenchwoman became le président des Etats-Unis d’Amérique. Sacrebleu!

Over the course of the Saints’ Row franchise we see the Street Gang known as the Third Street Saints rise to power in the city of Stilwater (Twice!), become national idols who have films made about them and sell energy drinks, take over the city of Steelport and now we see the leader of the Saints (Our protagonist) become the President of the United States. I mean, it’s a natural progression. What do you expect, really?

So some spoilers concerning what I think of the story. Having been in office for several years, suddenly the world comes under attack from a group of aliens called the Zin empire. Emperor Zinyak abducts all humans he considers worthy, and places their minds in a simulation. A few of the Saints escape this simulation and set about rescuing their friends, including the protagonist, who has been trapped in a 50’s sitcom where they cannot do anything out of order, even swear. Seeing their resistance, Zinyak blows up the earth. As you do. So the Saints set about rescuing all their comrades from simulated nightmares using superpowers that they hack into the simulation and getting ready to give Zinyak an extreme Up Yours.
It’s not the most complex plot. Not that your goal has ever been THAT complex in a Saints’ Row game, yet . . . I dunno, in the last few games you had multiple villains with their own little story arcs that you took down individually before you went after the big bad. In this it’s just Zinyak, Zinyak, Zinyak and . . . while he’s a fabulous villain in some ways, it made the story lack the variety of goals that the previous games had. What Zinyak DOES do is pop up and be hilariously annoying a lot. Which makes you all the more eager to go and smash his head in. Well played, good villain.
As for characters, all your favourites are there like Matt Miller, British gang-leader turned MI6 agent and Viola . . . wait, where the fuck is Viola? She’s dead? She died when the – OKAY I’M OUT, 1/A*, BG BG BG. Okay yeah, a few characters died when the earth blew up. Alright. I’ll accept it. At least I have you, Matt Miller. The game also seems to think I care a lot more about Johnny Gat than I actually do. He’s an alright bloke, but I wasn’t upset by his death in the last game, nor am I elated that it turns out he was just abducted by aliens and trapped in a 2D side-scrolling beat-’em-up in this game.
You’ll also find a ton of references to other franchises. Mass Effect’s loyalty missions, the Matrix is pretty much a given here. Even Men in Black. Hidden in one of the shops is the “Loud Locust”, the tiny pistol that causes large explosions.
I’ll give. I liked the writing in this game. I like playing as an insane sociopath. As usual, the comedy was top hole, the characters were all likeable – well . . . except maybe Shaundi. Speaking of, they make a “thing” out of how much Shaundi changed between SR2 and SR3. She went from being a chilled-out party-person to being constantly angry in a flash. Apparently she blamed herself for Johnny’s death and wanted to be more of a help rather than a kidnap-happy sidekick. I can’t help but find the conflict between the two when Shaundi meets a simulation of her old self a sort of reverse commentary on the progression of the Saints’ Row games.

Y’see, Saints’ Row 1 was trying to be GTA. It was a gritty crime sandbox game. But as the series progresses it gets more and more . . . nuts. SR2 was still pretty gritty, but you could commit all that horrible murder in a really stupid costume and hose down houses with the contents of a septic tank. SR3 went further off the wall with Zombie outbreaks and that whole part where you enter Matt Miller’s virtual world to take him down and spend some time playing as a toilet. And then there’s . . . this game. Aliens and superpowers and so forth.
You see, I really, desperately wanted to hate this game. SR2 had a dichotomy between the serious and the silly that just . . . really worked. The next two games felt like the developers saw this and said “Oh, you like silly, huh? We’ll SHOW you silly.” It feels . . . cheap. I feel like I’m being given fast food. I feel like they know exactly how to push buttons to give me instant gratification and they’re just slamming on them.

They know the formula works. You throw ’em in, give ’em a couple of weapons and vehicles and a bunch of activities, maybe a mission or two. Doing all the fun mini-games lets you upgrade your weapons and abilities to cause more chaos. Of course, this time some of those abilities are superpowers like telekinesis. Only . . . okay. You’re SUPPOSED to ramp up the difficulty as you go as well. You should also try and hide the collectibles used to upgrade your powers a little better. Because I breezed through most of the game with my huge arsenal of weapons and powers very easily. Once you get the “Explode upon death” for your fireball, you can just lob one into a group of enemies and then go make a snack while your work is done for you. Because enemies caught in the explosions ALSO CATCH ON FIRE AND EXPLODE WHEN THEY DIE. Maybe I’m doing it wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t have been idly completing nearby activities and should have waited for the “Side-quests” that required me to do them to show up. Maybe I shouldn’t have been darting about the city grabbing power clusters between missions. Maybe I shouldn’t have been buying the bonuses first, then the health, combat and damage reduction abilities. Maybe I shouldn’t have been focusing on fully upgrading a couple of guns!
I also feel like the most wasn’t made of the superpowers. It might just be me, but I felt like there weren’t enough superpower-focused activities. Just sayin’.
Apart from that, the gameplay is Saints’ Row. If you’ve played a Saints’ Row game, you know how this is going to be. That said, the superpowers are REALLY sweet. Aside from the glide being a bit janky before you get the ability that allows you to aim yourself exactly where you want to land, it was incredibly fun swooping around the city chucking fireballs, picking up cars with my mind, et cetera.

What WOULD have been nice would have been if the entire map hadn’t just been ported over from the last game. Come on, couldn’t I have been flying around somewhere NEW instead of just Steelport again?

So . . . I dunno. I begrudgingly admit that I had a lot of fun playing this game. Heck, I wouldn’t have spent 28 hours playing it if I hadn’t. In fact, I’m going to go and do the DLC content when I finish writing this. It feels a bit sparse. In Saints Row’ 2, it would take a LONG time to get done with all the activities. The focus seems to be more on things you can USE rather than things you can DO. In some ways, it feels a bit . . . TOO similar to the other games. Yes, it’s a sequel and you’d EXPECT it to be much the same, but with the game-changer that is superpowers and outer space travel, it feels like the most wasn’t made out of them, instead choosing to stick to the same old activities and such.

Maybe they know that. Maybe all the things they COULD have done with this are being reserved for a fifth Saints’ Row game. I’m down for it. The Saints set out to conquer the galaxy? Spaceship combat, zero gravity shenanigans? Can I get a hell yeah? But then again, maybe that would be milking it at this point. They’ve already gone utterly bonkers – at the end, the Saints take over the Zin empire and unlock the secrets of time travel. Oooh, Saints through time! I’d play that, too! But the end of the game does feel set up to be a finale of sorts. The Saints are the last remaining humans, now in charge of a vast intergalactic, technologically advanced empire, able to time travel back into the Earth’s greatest hits any time they like. There’s even a dance party at the end. They even had a dance party! They play Aerosmith’s “I don’t want to miss a thing” at the end of the credits!

It always feels good. The developers always work hard and make something fun and hilarious. But at the same time, I’m philosophically in favour of stories ending where they should. Philosophically, I’m opposed to another sequel. Realistically? I’d play the shit out of another sequel.

But what the hell would they call it? They’ve exhausted all the naming conventions. They did a plain number they did the Nth, they did Roman Numerals, they . . . oh.

Bring on Saints’ Row: Something beginning with “Re”

Metro 2033 – A Train Ride in Russia

Again and again

Steam sales! It’s a magical time of the year, the holiday season for PC gamers. We leave it with our wallets empty and more stuff than we ever really needed or even wanted. This morning I bought a Princess simulator. Yeah. No joke, that’s probably going to be the game I play the most out of all of them. 

Still, even as I poured my money into a pit, I realised that out of the games in my library, I’ve completed what, maybe half of them? Probably less than that. Hang on, let me count. 

Okay, maybe it’s more like a fifth, but factor in all the ones that are a) Not a thing you really “Complete”, but pour a lot of hours into, b) Entirely Multiplayer Experiences or c) Games that I’m sure I didn’t even buy, I’ve probably played about half. Anyway, long story short, I’ve decided that in this looong summer I’m having here, I’m going to catch up. And I figured I may as well do some short reviews as I go along. 

So today it’s Metro 2033. I got this in a humble bundle a while ago which I actually bought wanting another game (I think Saints’ Row 2?) and sorta ignored. Somebody asked if I’d played it a while back and when I told them I hadn’t they said “Wait, you love Half-Life, right? It’s kinda like Half-Life.” 

And . . . I suppose I can see the comparison there. It’s a linear story-focused first-person-shooter. Your protagonist is silent save for briefly narrating a short paragraph at the beginning of each segment. But if I were asked to pick out of the two, it would have to be Half Life any day. 

Metro 2033 is actually based on a novel of the same name. Its sequel, Metro Last Light is being adapted into a novel by the author, rumoured to be entitled “Metro 2035”. I found this out after I googled something like “Why does Metro 2033 have a book of itself scattered everywhere in the game?”. Seriously. One in your room at the beginning of the game, one in the luggage section of the train . . . it’s everywhere. And it makes no sense. Was this book published after the apocalypse and now just . . . everyone has it? Was it a prophetic book? I dunno. It got to me a little is all. Is the book in the book? That’s the meta. 

Okay, I don’t really have a format for this review in mind, so I’m just going to go over stuff I liked and didn’t like and try and wrap it up somehow at the end. 

There are totally gonna be some spoilers by the way.

So the story: I didn’t actually pick up on what the heck was happening until I was about 3/4 of the way through, partly because I somehow managed to skip the opening cutscene twice, partly because just what is happening here. I spent most of the first few hours scuttling around with random people trying to go . . . somewhere, because I had a token or something. If I hadn’t read part of the wikipedia article, I would have had no idea why we were even in a train station in the first place. 
It turns out somebody bombed the heck out of Russia and you, Artyom, live in the Metro stations beneath Moscow. The surface is polluted with deadly gas and everywhere is crawling with mutants. Some new mutants called “The Dark Ones” (Now thassimaginative) are threatening your station and you need to go and get help. In a very Half-Lifey fashion, stuff happens, you get new mini-objectives towards your bigger goal. What annoyed me a lot was the fact that the tutorial mission of the game is a flash-forward to something that happens near the end. I’m . . . not sure why it was necessary to do that. I guess the book probably did it, but in a game it just served to confuse me. Overall? Story, check. There is one. It’s nothing . . . uber special. There are some interesting themes and dalliances over nukes being what caused this in the first place, is it right to nuke the dark ones, et cetera . . . Artyom appears to have some freaky prophetic powers/Creepy hallucinations that are never really explained. Similarly, the presence of mutants and “Anomalies” which roam the tunnels, are never really dwelled upon, they’re just sort of . . . there. I guess, like Half-Life, if you listen to the conversations, you get more out of it. I’m guessing.  
The characters . . .  didn’t particularly enthrall me. Artyom could really be replaced with a rock with a worried face drawn on it in permanent marker. I remember Uncle Bourbon because he was nuts. I remember Khan showing up and being creepy. That’s . . . about it. Everyone is just sort of, a beardy, bulky Russian bloke. I think I saw maybe two women? 

Also, everyone loves Artyom unconditionally. Artyom, my friend! Hello Artyom! Artyom, you made it! Artyom, come here, let me stroke your hair. 

So, more importantly, the gameplay. It was marketed to me as survival horror by a couple of people, but no. No, this is action horror at best, but really, it’s just action. Sure, it’s dark and there are monsters, but you have a powerful-ass torch and are packing. It’s mostly your rooty-tooty-point-‘n’-shooty game, but there are a couple of cool extra mechanics to go over.

Firstly, your ammo is also your currency. I was pretty hyped about that, having to make the decision between your ammo or buying an extra medkit, better gun, new filters for your gas mask . . . but actually . . . no. The ammo is separated into “Dirty Rounds” and “Military Grade”. The military grade is the one used as currency. You can also use it as more powerful ammo, but usually your bog standard ammo does fine. And there is just so much of it. Dead bodies carrying ammo, crates of ammo, the stuff is everywhere. Only once did I not have the ammo to buy something I really wanted, but I got on just fine without it anyway. Well, nearly. It didn’t help that I ran into only what, three, four shops during the game? 

Secondly, if you go near the surface or, I dunno, just whenever the game feels like it really, you have to put on a gas mask. You need to buy new filters for it and replace it when it gets broken. But . . . I never actually died from not having enough air. I never had my gas mask break on me and needed to scramble for another one. Again, there are dead bodies everywhere and more often than not, they have spare filters for you, or a shiny new gas mask for you to put on. 

Thirdly, your torch battery has to be physically charged. When it’s on low charge, it does practically nothing to the gloomy environments, when it’s fully charged, it’s a mini-spotlight. I like this mechanic. You’ve gotta remember to keep it charged for those tense moments when you’re surrounded by hordes of something. It also adds something to the stealth sections of the game.

Oh yeah. The stealth part. So theoretically, you can be a stealth dude at any point you please. But in a lot of areas, it’s not exactly feasible, I mean how many wide-open spaces with dotted cover do you get in a train tunnel. But they find ways to throw in a few – there’s a . . . Communist camp, a Nazi camp and err, that one Bandit camp . . . okay, there’s not much variety there. I’d be all for it if . . . if the stealth mechanics were actually any good. So you have a couple of methods to silently take people down. You can buy throwing knives and a silenced pistol. But as I found many, many times during my playthrough, it’s very rare that these actually . . . work. Usually, I’d find a dude blocking my way to the next section of the game, wait until he’s in the shadows, all sneaky like pop a knife in his spine . . . five seconds later, I’m hightailing it down the corridor with a screaming horde of burly Russians at my back. There’s not room for a single slip-up. Even at times where it’s nearly impossible to avoid killing a dude, you’re done if you make even one noise or one flash of light. At least, that was my experience. Maybe I’m just bad. 

The game environments are from the same mold as the enemies and NPCs. Cookie cutter copies. Well, I suppose in a post-apocalyptic train station there isn’t much room for variety, especially when you’re going from a book. From bleak subway tunnel to dirty subway tunnel to bleak and dirty surface . . . I finished the game in eight hours and I suppose for a game of that length, the small variations were just enough to keep me entertained. The library was pretty cool, that final level, whew . . . but my main issue is that they’re all so . . . so dark and full of grey and brown, which is what you’d expect in a post-apocalypic game but you know . . . so are the monsters. Issat a monster over there? I can’t . . . I can see an outline but I’m not suuure?

One thing I do find in favour of this game is that it had some pretty cool set pieces. You’ve got your mine cart chase, that part where you carry the kid on your back, the DAMN AMOEBAS (Gosh dang I hate those things. Miller says “We’ll cover each other” but he doesn’t do Jack all to watch your back, I swear. And they just show up out of nowhere.) and of course, the epic final climb of the tower and short hallucinatory sequence where you run around weird corridors from the dark ones . . . yeah. Okay. It was no Half-life, but it was good enough.

That’s . . . more or less a summary of what I felt about this game. It has successfully staved off my hunger for a new Half-Life game for a little while. It had . . . flaws, sure. But overall, yeah, I enjoyed it just enough. Oh, you’re gonna die though. Quite a lot. There will be bullshit, like a demon swooping down entirely at random and throwing you into a building. Actually, since the checkpoint was right there it was kinda awesome. Never mind. It was just interesting and different enough to make me want to play it through to the end. It felt good, sitting on top of that tower in the end, watching the missiles rain down. Sitting there and wondering what on earth will happen in the sequel. 

I’ll see you later for another review, comrades. 

Romance in Fiction: U wot m8

I, personally, am not a big fan of what most people call “Romantic”. It usually feels cheesy and unrealistic to me. There are lots of ways to love someone and Hollywood BS just isn’t what I go in for. 

Hence I rarely, if ever, will watch/read/play something where the main plot element is romance. I’m not saying they’re bad (Even if their library of tropes seems very stale, cliché and unvaried), I’m just saying that ain’t for me, dawg. 

That’s not to say I dislike all romance in fiction, however. Very rarely, I’ll come across a romantic sub-plot in a work I like that’s just perfect – I’ll take the example of Edward Elric and Winry Rockbelle. Throughout the story it’s made obvious that there is a romantic attraction there, but it isn’t dwelt upon, it isn’t over-dramatised and it certainly isn’t cheesy. (Seriously Ed, what sort of a proposal was that? You wallaby.) Another I liked was Yasuri Shichika and Togame in Katanagatari – it was a central element of the show, sure, but the romantic moments felt natural. Once you get past the whole “I am your sword” thing.

So what spurred this little talk? Well, the latest MLP comic has Celestia crying and saying “Tell them they have to save him . . . I love him . . . “

Excuse me? 

This is exactly, precisely the kind of cheese that irritates me. Aside from the fact that this is pretty out of character for the thousand-year-old, benevolent, extremely emotionally stable, independent, has-other-more-important-shit-to-worry-about Princess Celestia, just . . . WHY? I could get a cheesy line like that by picking up any trashy paperback novel!  You know what I can’t get? A story about colourful equines travelling to a dark parallel version of their world where everything’s screwed up! Can we not just focus on that? Does this really NEED to happen? 

I usually engage in fictional works as a form of escapism. The closer to real life it is, the less likely I am to enjoy it. Here’s the thing: Romance works the same in every setting. Except maybe Mirai Nikki, that was fucked up (And I LOVE it.) But a cool fantasy setting has so much other stuff to talk about. You could be exploring characters in so many different ways, building a magical impression of this weird and wonderful world, but no, you’re handing out lines like “Tell them they have to save him . . . I love him . . . “. 

This kinda links to why I don’t want to talk about romance, sexuality or gender in any of my work. I want to tread territories uncharted and I want to have characters define themselves by their personalities. I want to show my characters as independent people without people worrying about their “ships” for them. I also don’t like the idea that people would go down a checklist of my characters going “Yep, got that, got that, got that . . . not got that, ugh, how awful to not represent that group . . . got that . . . too much of that . . .” And you know they would. You see it happen constantly on bloody tumblr. I want my worlds and characters to explored for what and who they are, not what happens in them, or their attributes. But this is straying into another day and another cup of earl grey territory, so I digress. 

I guess what I’m saying is this: I can’t tell you how to write your stories. But I’d advise two things: One, please don’t waste your incredible imagination. If you must have a romance, work extra hard to make sure you get the best out of the world it takes place in. Two, please don’t be cheesy. 

This Hollywood idea of romance has polluted culture in a strange way. People internalise and idealise these unrealistic relationships and the drama that surrounds them and act surprised when it doesn’t work out how they thought it would. I hate seeing good works of fiction suddenly begin perpetuating that idea of what love is. It isn’t all tiddles and winks. It’s commitment. It’s mutual sacrifice. Sure it can be mushy and lovey-dovey if you want it to be; but if you don’t have that firm basis, it’s gonna fall apart like my trainers after that one really wet week where I had to walk a lot. 

See you later; and don’t drive fast on the wrong side of the road. It’s dangerous.

Forgive me father, for I have been lazy

It has been about 1000000 years since my last blog post . . . 

So, uh, I moved into a house. The house has cheap rent and is thus falling apart. And two of my housemates are messy enough that it overwhelms the three of us who want to keep it tidy. Overflowing bins, stacks upon stacks of washing up and apparently no ability to remember to turn things off to save on bills. 

Of course, I did this in order to begin my second year of uni wherein two modules I understand and rather enjoy, two are simple enough but boring and two are ????? because I have no idea what either lecturer is saying. Credit to them, they seem to know their stuff, but they have very, very thick accents and are teaching the hardest modules I have. 

So despite the heap of coursework I’m supposed to be doing, I’d much rather be drawing and working on Ashes (The webcomic I’m co-creator of and you should totally check out at http://theashes.thecomicseries.com/) I really, really wish I could live off comic work, it actually feels like something I can put my heart into. But alas, ’tis a difficult thing.

I also figured my hermetical life style would change once I got back to uni, but no. All the people I liked at the societies I went to no longer go and/or I am no longer able to go to that society. 

And the heater in my room is broken, so I’m bloody freezing all the time. 

All in all, the perfect setting with which to welcome winter and the onset of seasonal depression! 

So yes, I have just been busy and forgot that I had a blog. Went around the houses to say that, didn’t I? Still, I’m sure I’ll be procrastinating soon and will find something interesting to write about. In the meantime I’m going to huddle under a blanket and watch Kill la Kill. May also form some sort of summoning circle out of fezzes and bow ties in an attempt to summon “The Day of the Doctor” early. 

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs – Last Impressions

Yes, I’m done already. I thought more end of the week rather than now that I’d be writing this. AMfP is dramatically shorter than I had thought it would be, racking up just five hours of playtime.

I finished not more than hour ago and already the environments blur together. The streets, the heart of the machine, the old house and the church are about all I remember. What even came in between? Oh, there was a sewer I suppose. Great.

I’ll say it again; the atmosphere was fantastic. The writing was brilliant and the pacing was fantastic – narrative suspense built up to a marvellous climax at the end of the game. The music! Oh, the music. 

But it . . . wasn’t really . . . a game . . . 

That’s it. It felt entirely like an interactive story. I felt like I was shepherded along a path, look at this, look at that, now hurry along, there’s a good boy. I remember being lost and confused in Dark Descent. I remember scratching my head over puzzles! Machine for Pigs feels . . . devoid of gameplay. How sad. 

And halfway through the game, you get to freely stare one of the creatures in the face and feel no danger! The entire experience of being trapped and alone with them just slightly out of sight is devalued by knowing what they are. 

They even recycled the water-ghost thing from dark descent, except not nearly in such a compelling way. Even that encounter was easily resolved by running away quickly. 

For one such as me, not easily frightened, the game is already lacking something. But at least the Dark Descent managed to be unsettling – I found myself a little shaken by those blood-soaked torture chambers. Given the nature of the story of machine for pigs, so much imagery could have been applied, and yet the opportunity is overlooked for the sake of more metallic corridors, stone archways and endless crates. 

The story carried the game entirely for me. I cannot ignore the gameplay issues, but knowing what I know now, I’d still not change the fact that I bought and played the game. The writers are geniuses, truly. 

Although the story IS fantastic, we were promised that we wouldn’t be certain what was and was not reality. I felt more could have been made of that.

*Sigh*

I wanted to like this game. I wanted to love it as I did Dark Descent. It seemed one of the last gleaming lights in an ocean of genericness, but even its own light is dimmed, and it has become little more than being led upon a path.

The Dark Descent was far more of a game than this. All that seems to have been done is that things have been removed and not replaced. How sad. How very sad.

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs – First Impressions

I am a huge fan of Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It did horror right in a way that other games just don’t these days. The atmosphere was dark and oppressive, you had no way to defend yourself and you were crushingly alone. Except for the monsters which you always had a feeling were there but you never quite saw until it was too late.

Horror doesn’t affect me too much, so most of the kicks I got from Amnesia came from its fantastic atmosphere and visuals along with its brilliantly paced story. The few hours I’ve played of Machine for Pigs show that that’s all still here, and once again whirls together to create the aforementioned dark, oppressive feel, but actually delivering on the horror is where it trips over.

The suspense, once again, is perfectly built. And yet somehow, encounters with the grunts were much more frightening than the encounters with the creatures found in aMfP, even though these new encounters are far more clever. In DD, you had all the music a-playin’, the screen a-shakin’, the grunts a-roarin’, yet that first moment you saw the thing was always terrifying because you didn’t know it was coming. Machine for pigs however . . .

“Oswald walked into the room already crouched, for he could see that it was not a puzzle room, and the way it seemed to be laid out, with endless barricades of boxes and machines, light pooling in some places with utter darkness surrounding, told him that an enemy was probably lurking nearby. His lantern flickered. Although no music played and he heard nothing but muffled footsteps and a snuffling noise, he knew exactly how to proceed. A minute later, he was at the other side of the room, quite content in his safety from the confused creature.”

It’s not quite so compelling. You can see what’s going to happen quite easily if you’re reading the signs right and that makes the entire encounter a farce. I love the fact that there’s no music and that the creature won’t just go away if you crouch in the corner for a minute or two. But knowing when you’re safe and when you are not safe completely undermines the horror aspect. What would be ideal is the best of both worlds; these encounters happening unexpectedly, but also not just finishing when you’ve sucked your thumb in the corner enough. No music either. Sounds good to me.

The rest of the game seems lacking. Being not much affected by horror, the joy of the game was exploration and puzzle-solving to me. With no inventory screen, puzzles are more limited already. And what I’ve seen so far haven’t been much more than glorified fetch-quests or a game of hunt-the-lever.

Here’s another thing that’s taken the tension off and is related to the whole inventory screen thing; your lamp never runs out. You no longer have to conserve your oil, fearing that you could be left stumbling around in the dark slowly going insane. It was an annoyance, yes, but it DID succeed in making things tense. I’d have left it in.

Finally; Sanity’s gone. You also have no way to assess your health;I I assume it just regenerates. I see the logic since in the last game you died in a couple of hits, but still, again, it added to the tension to know when you were on your last legs. And the one time I did get caught by the creature, it got off three or four hits on me. I got away just fine and I assume made it back to full health somehow with no negative repercussions.

Don’t misunderstand me; I’m having fun with it. It’s still Amnesia. It just doesn’t hold a lantern to The Dark Descent so far.

I’ll post a last-impressions to give my full thoughts on the game when I’m done but for now, peace out.

Safehouse Syndrome

(That there title’s a work in progress)

So, I recently skipped over the opportunity to take a holiday in Paris with some dear friends of mine. I also managed to accidentally worry one of them by not turning up to a few other events, which I certainly didn’t intend or desire. One of the reasons behind this is what I’m calling “Safehouse Syndrome”.

My Grandfather on my Mother’s side died before I was born, but from what I’m told we are quite alike in one way; I, like him, don’t particularly relish the prospect of leaving the house. In his later retirement years, he almost never left the house, only going to wedding and the occasional funeral if he had to.

When I’m away from home I feel uneasy. It’s not fear as such, more a creeping discomfort that I can’t quite shake. The only thing that quite cures me of this is if I’m near some place where I can be comfortable or can easily make my way to one. By comfortable, I’m not sure what I mean – a way out to be alone for a while is a possibility. A place where I have guaranteed access to that which satisfy life’s basic needs is another. Either way, for some reason or another I need to be near a place that I can “trust” or is “safe”. 

There are ways to overcome this, which I have utilised in the past. If I distract myself enough or reassure myself that I can get home if I need to, I can sometimes overlook it. But it’s incredibly tiring and never guaranteed to work. 

I suppose it might be somehow linked to my heavy and pronounced introversion. That was especially a factor in my chickening out of Paris – I’m usually able to recharge my social energy around people I’m comfortable with, especially those I care about, but spending a full week almost “Trapped” with even those people makes me worry – what if I suddenly DID run out of that energy? When that happens, I can transform into quite a grumpy, irritable gremlin of a person, and I’m not terribly keen on that.

Is it really a problem though?

I wouldn’t say so. I can still leave the house and go places if I need or want to. If a social event suits my needs, I can, no, I’m HAPPY to go and hang out with people. It’s just that this isn’t always the case. 

I’ve only ever spoken to a few people who really got it, one because they have the exact same sensation. Unfortunately, people who DON’T get it sort of see it as an affront, or as something debilitating that causes me to be miserable, which, more often than not, it doesn’t.

I guess my point is that people are different and get their kicks in different ways and are comfortable in different situations. I wouldn’t expect everyone to be comfortable with my sort of hanging out, which usually involves video games/Anime/A quiet cafe or pub. Some people love to be out . . . doing things. In places. If only a happy medium could be found where we’d all be comfortable. 

Abortion and Vegetarianism

Oooh.

There’s a touchy issue. 

I’m notorious for not taking sides other than my own personal side, because I don’t believe any group or organisation can possibly accurately represent all my personal viewpoints. My views on this particular topic also happen to have nothing to do with my Christianity or belief in God. It just makes sense to me. But I’m not here to state my views, although some of them may become apparent, I’m just here to think about a particular thing that was said to me. 

I was told that, “One cannot be realistically pro-life/against abortion without also being a vegetarian.” 

Oooh. Interesting.

So, I can’t really say exactly how this statement was intended, but I took it to mean (From a secular point of view) that – let’s make this what I’m going to call from now on a “Red truth” – “Human fetuses are no different from animals. If you believe you shouldn’t kill one, then you should also not kill the other.”

At the time, I found this profoundly unsettling, yet I couldn’t quite place why exactly. Having thought about it since, I think I’ve come to an answer. 

Firstly, let’s establish why human adults ARE different from animals. Unless you’re advocating murder, rape and all sorts of other things, this must be the case. All of these things happen in the animal kingdom and are perfectly excusable because of this – one may see a bear kill a trout and that’s acceptable because it’s a “Natural” occurrence. What then, makes humankind and its products “Unnatural” and why then, do we know that murder and rape are terrible, awful things to do? Where also, do we get this notion of having “Rights” – in the animal kingdom, it seems that whatever goes, so what makes some things acceptable and others not for humans? 

Right. I’m gonna throw up a blue truth for that to note that this, in my argument, is established – “Human adults are different from animals – It is unacceptable to kill them.”

Okay, so. We come to this – a foetus is, in effect, a human adult in potentia. If it is not aborted it will grow and become a human adult unless it is not cared for properly by an adult human. 

So, what is alike between animals and foetuses that makes it acceptable to kill them? 

Well, once again I have to assume that the reason for this is that they are unaware of what is happening to them when they are killed (Provided the killer is being “Humane” . . . funny word, that) and that they do not have the same ah, development as an adult human. 

Skipping over the issue of whether or not a foetus is alive or capable of being aware of its surroundings for now – indeed, to be alike to animals, it probably has to be both of those – let’s get to what really unsettles me here. 

I go to bed every night. When I fall asleep, I fit part of that definition – I am not aware of what is happening to me. A humane and skilful killer could put my lights out without me ever knowing. So why is it not acceptable to murder me while I’m sleeping?

I can only assume that it’s because, left to my own devices, I’m going to wake up the next day. It’s the same for any human being born. 

Hmm. 

So . . . a foetus, will at some point become an adult human from a similar state, but killing one is okay? Animals, however, will never become human adults. They will never “Wake up” as it were. 

Ah! But I, when I wake up, can look after myself! I don’t put anyone out like a baby does. So, surely we should focus on finding better ways to prevent unwanted pregnancies from happening in the first place and better ways to care for ah, “Unwanted” children? 

So, that’s what unsettles me about that particular argument. It seems to me that doing such a statement actually devalues human life as a whole rather than focusing on foetuses. 

Obviously, this doesn’t cover all my views. What about rape, what about kids who are likely to have horrible, debilitating conditions? The entire argument between pro-choice and pro-life seems to come down to the question of what makes people people and which people have the right to say what happens to others. And of course, whether people have the right to say who are people and who aren’t. I’m far too tired to go over all of that, sorry.

*Pause to reflect* Maybe I will go over all this some day, but I lie in a strange grey area myself, still thinking things through and pondering about the subject. But for now, I think I’m going to call it a night. Thank you for listening to my ramblings. That one felt like it had to come out, you know.

Triggy’s Casebook: Evil and Suffering vs The God of the Bible (2013)

Hello again, friends. Once again I must call out for calm, and rationalism before we go any further. In a recent discussion on, lo and behold, a Game Grumps video, I ended up being asked many juicy questions by interesting, civil and intelligent people. Who knew that Castlevania could be so conducive to intellectual stimulation of this kind? 

While I started by merely pointing out that Arin and Dan’s views of hell were misconceptions (I’ll cover that in detail in another post, I think), I ended up being told that “The God of the Bible is not a God of love (Because of the evil and suffering present in the world)”. 

Quite good indeed! Why wouldn’t an all-powerful God create a universe in which free-will exists, yet there is no evil? Why does God allow there to be suffering in the world when, with his power, he could dispose of it? 

So here we go! Investigation START! 

I would firstly point out that because we can’t see a reason why such evil and suffering exists, that does not mean that it does not exist. No, no, don’t start typing yet, I’m not copping out! I’m setting up! Honest! Holster your weapons!
Still, the existence of evil and suffering does not logically disprove the existence of God. Many I have discussed with have acknowledged this, but the point they raise is that if such a God exists, they can’t see a reason why he should allow such evil to occur and therefore would not choose to follow him. However, if such a God does exist, how could it be that we, his creations, could logically comprehend all of his reasoning, given what we are? If his power and intelligence are, as necessary to this argument, far beyond ours, why should we be able to understand all his actions and put them on a human level?

Right, wishy-washy bit out the way. Let’s get on.

I’ve quite often told that good can come from evil and suffering. People who have been through painful events in their lives can come out of it stronger, or be led down a path towards something good. While sometimes true, this is quite a weak point, since many people do not find such good things after an event, and nobody would feel glad of the evil happening, no matter what came from it. However, something to keep in mind when considering this issue. 

Something very juicy indeed has just been said to me – that morals such as those that exist do not require God. However, I’d like to make a counter-assertion that they do and that they point towards his existence! 
I believe I mentioned in my last post that many people these days follow the doctrine of “Moral relativism” – that every human being has their own personal morality and there is no overarching right and wrong. Secularism necessitates this, since current evolutionary theory has dismissed societal survival through such a morality in favour the passing down of one’s personal genetic code. Many of these existing moral standards don’t make sense given the current evolutionary model. (Evolution and Christianity is another post and another cup of Earl Grey)
A question I believe I posed to all moral relativists in the last post is this – “Do you believe that someone is doing something that is right by their personal morals, that they nevertheless should not be doing?” If the answer is yes, then we have a problem. I’d also question the concept of human rights – why do we feel this special entitlement to our freedoms and so forth? Both of these things point to the existence of an overarching morality, an inexplicable sense of right and wrong. I’d also point out that male ducks raping other ducks is considered to be “Natural” – what then makes humanity different to the duck? The real question is this – Where is the genuine sense of moral obligation in a secular world?

Okay, so all of this doesn’t quite get God “Off the hook”, as it were. Here, still assuming that we are talking about an existent Christian God, I’d like to bring in Jesus to point out that God was, very much, on the hook. The Christian God is the only deity to be “Immanuel” – God with us, in that he took on human form and in that form he experienced all the suffering and pain that any other human would. One may suggest that he did not, yet the Gospel accounts paint a picture of Christ before and during his death as a man in a state of emotional shock and distress. Before one questions the accuracy of a Biblical account, I might point out that if such an account was falsified, why would literary detail (Which was not used at the time save for describing real events) be used and secondly, why would they describe a man who they would want people to worship in such a state? Still, that’s another blog post again. 
So, God came and suffered with us – but that he is with us in suffering still does not excuse the existence of the suffering, right? But it does prove this – if there is suffering, it cannot be because he doesn’t love us. 

So what WOULD possibly excuse all of this evil and suffering? Only a complete undoing of all that has been done, right? Not compensation for, not consolation for, but complete renewal of our lives to us and the complete annihilation of all every evil act, every pain, every horror that ever came to pass. 

Jesus said “When the renewal of all things comes, the son of man will sit on his throne in glory.” That’s quite a powerful statement, the renewal of all things. The Revelation to John speaks of “A new Heaven and a new Earth” – all things made anew, completely perfect. A restoration to you of the life you wanted. 

So, this being the case, that the evil and suffering will, after this brief span of time relatively short when compared to eternity, be annihilated entirely, what purpose did its existence serve? In this situation, evil and suffering would only serve to make its ultimate defeat and the glory of the new world even greater. Herman Melville said in “Moby Dick” that (Forgive me, for I cannot find the exact quote), that Ishmael could not enjoy the comfort of his warm bed without that one contrast between the warm and the cold, that being the tip of his nose. Having suffered as we have, will not humanity’s salvation and restoration feel all the better? 

I imagine that people will call me out for assuming that God exists and so forth, but I’d refer you to the case title I’ve put up there – what we are discussing is whether the God of the Bible could possibly be a good God and a God of love given the state that the world is in. To summarise, I would argue that the assertion “The God of the Bible cannot be a God of love” is incorrect. 

If you do have any additions to make to this, given the scope of the discussion, feel free to comment below, I’ll listen with interest and respond. Oh, oh, but let’s make this fun! 

All comments MUST be preceded with the words “OBJECTION!”, “HOLD IT!” and possible followed with “TAKE THAT!”
I may also accept “GOTCHA!” and “NOT SO FAST!” if you’re lucky. 

Until then, the defence rests!