Dishonored Review

Depending on your perspective Dishonored either seems to have come out of nowhere or has been one of the most anticipated games of the year. I’ve seen reviews calling it the surprise/sleeper hit of the year and others commenting on whether or not it lived up to all the hype and expectations.

The game had drawn comparisons to Thief, Deus Ex and Bioshock so it had set itself some very high standards and it mostly lives up to them. The look of the game shares similarities to the painted look of Bioshock and combines City 17 in Half Life 2, with a Victorian, cyberpunk feel. The world itself feels very unique as it’s able to draw on different historical elements but allows itself more artistic license with technology and magic than real history allows.

The first level of the game (a prologue aside) see’s you escaping from prison. You’re given a key with a note offering you a way to escape. The game doesn’t give you too many clues on how to escape there are hints and directional markers; though you can turn these off if you prefer to figure these things out for yourself. The difficulty in stealth games especially in an FPS is always not being sure what the enemies field of vision will be like. I spent quite a while in the opening room before I realized that for one, my character would be able to jump and climb a lot higher than I thought and secondly that your enemies have really terrible peripheral vision. It’s always seemed to be a bit of a failing in these games to me that enemies can see about 10 meters in front of them at best, but I won’t hold this against Dishonored. Once you get the hang of moving around and sneaking up on enemies you’re aware of the possibility of getting through the game with no kills. Possibly without even being discovered once, although that is truly difficult.

It puts you in a bind - do you go for the mostly stealthy no-kills game and get the happier ending? Or do you actually use some of the fun weapons and powers to take people down in creative ways, even if it does lead to a darker ending. It’s definitely a game where at least 2 playthroughs are needed to truly appreciate it. You’ll want to see all the alternate ways of tackling missions. If you go for a more violent approach, you'll still need a certain degree of tactical thinking. If you just run in trying to slash your way past everyone, you’ll struggle to get through unscathed. But certainly the difficulty in sneaking up on everyone and the limited amount of sleep darts you can carry makes killing the easier option. There certainly are creative ways to cause destruction in the game as this video demonstrates trailer so it’s a shame that the mechanics of the game aren’t able to reward you for creativity in other than a few trophies/achievements.

The first of the powers the game gives you is “Blink.” It allows you to throw yourself across along platforms, up to high ledges and you can also use it to break your fall.  It can also be a quicker way of sneaking up on enemies. There are limitations to it though. You can’t use it pass through traps, as you’re still physically flinging yourself through space rather than teleporting. It has that quality to it where even when you stop playing the game, you look outside and think “Hmm I could blink onto that window ledge, climb up onto that house, jump across the rooftops and into that house with the open window over there” I’m playing Assassins Creed 3 at the moment and it took a period of adjustment to get used to the fact that I wouldn’t have the ability to 'blink' myself to my targets.

Another inspired idea in the game was to randomize some of the mission variables. So some safe codes aren’t the same each time you play through and in the case of the Lady Boyle mission your target changes. Your mission is to assassinate one of the Boyle sisters at a masquerade party and each of them is wearing a different colour dress and each time the name of your target and the colour dress they wear changes so your investigation has to be slightly different each time.

It has to be said though, not every mission has this much creativity behind it. Some missions are across some fairly linear and narrow locations. Though there’s still slightly different ways to tackle them it doesn’t always challenge you to think so laterally.

As for the story, the world is very well crafted, it’s detailed, they thought about how the society operates, its energy sources, its history. The books scattered throughout the world offers insight into the history of the land and the mythology. If they wanted to write a sequel set in the same universe, perhaps in a different city entirely, or a different point in history. They’d probably be able to do it, and make it work very well. The trouble is the dialogue in the game is too basic its aim seems to be to get across all the necessary plot and character information without leaving much room for personality.

 Despite some high profile cast members, nobody delivers a particularly impassioned performance. It feels more like the cast are having their first read-through at times. The writer talked about trying to make the dialogue as brief as possible and the result is the characters feel flat. There are no real interesting human qualities to them. And the fact that your character has no voice and says nothing aside from a few things in multiple choice responses, means characters have to talk to you in that strange way all characters have to talk to a silent protagonist. It’s a real shame because the foundations for a great story are there, but some bad decisions were made in the execution. In the end you don’t feel as invested in Dunwall and Corvo as you should and so the ending just feels a bit underwhelming.

But this shouldn’t subtract from the fact that this is a smart and exciting game. Well worth a look for anyone interested in this multiple choice FPS/RPG hybrid genre.

Studio Ghibli Part 5

Howls Moving Castle

This was Miyazaki’s follow up to the hugely successful Spirited Away, so it had a lot to live up to. This one blends a lot of what he does, by Ghibli standards it’s a darker world but still with a lot more lightness than some. I think a major flaw in the film was how the character was Howl was introduced, from the way characters spoke of him it almost seemed like he was going to be an antagonist. Now the film does a lot of good things with some ambiguous characters, but it just seemed to me he was introduced poorly. There’s very much a fairy-tale vibe amongst this one. The film concerns a girl whom acts much older than her age, being transformed into an old woman, so she has to break the curse. There’s quite a lot going of story going on alongside this with a war going on. It does at times feel like it meshes a lot of elements from previous Ghibli efforts, but it does just enough unique things to distinguish itself. And the various elements manage to weave together and make for a very moving climax.

Princess Mononoke

One of the darker more adult stories from Miyazaki, this is certainly one of his epics. Themes he would revisit of a war going on while one of the main characters is cursed. Quite unusually for Ghibli the main character is a young adult male. It certainly gets quite dark and gritty at times. But certainly one of its great successes is having no truly evil characters. Even with some of the terrible goals the antagonists have, they’re not show to be truly evil people; they’re just misguided and have some of their own interests that they need to protect. It’s also very much a tale of man vs. nature that’s one of the strongest recurring themes among Ghibli films. This is one of their longest as well, so it certainly has a lot to say on the subject. The version I saw certainly suffered a bit with the translation, I don’t know of may have just been a synch issue with the file I had, but the dub was a little mistimed, and it seemed less had been spent on it than there sometimes be. I kept recognizing John Di Maggio’s voice for some of the incidental characters. It’s a certainly a large cast, so they may have needed to cut down a bit, but it doesn’t seem to be one of the dubs available. Anyway I’ve generally not been as keen on the longer epics that ghibli produce, and while this isn’t an exception, it’s one of the strongest.

Porco Rosso

Unusual for a Ghibli film in that it’s set during a specific time in history. Set during the interwar period, it concerns an ex World War 1 fighter pilot turned bounty hunter. Although in a more Ghibli spin, the titular character is someone who has been turned into a sort of hybrid pig-man. An idea sort of used again in Spirited Away. This does seem to be a reoccurring trope inspired by Japanese folklore. Although the reasons for him being cursed aren’t really explained and aren't really relevant. Through the film he teams up with Fio, his mechanics’ granddaughter who turns out to be a more than capable mechanic and assistant. And of course she inspires Porco to become more of a hero and have less jaded world view. It feels quite different for a Ghibli film as it’s a hybrid of having a real world setting, but it’s still an action-adventure story with some mild fantasy elements. It’s a little shorter and lighter than the average with some of the goofy humour that doesn’t usually seem to translate very well. It’s like a light-hearted Sunday afternoon film. It’s not Miyazaki’s most ambitious work, but it does what it does well.

Dead Island Riptide: Special Misogynists Edition

So lessons apparently haven’t been learnt from the controversies of last year, such as the Hitman trailer. Deep Silver, the publishers of Dead Island believe this is an appropriate thing to give away with their special collector’s edition version of the game.

It's a painted statue of a bloodied woman's torso with large breasts. Even if I were a misogynist, this statue has no arse for me to objectify.

Look games publishers you can’t keep hocking shit like this and then wonder why it’s mostly men who play your games. It’s starting to seem a bit disingenuous. I mean if you actively do things that’ll put women off buying it; you can’t then later bring up your market research and say “Well we market it towards men because that’s who our audience is.” It’s that way because you made it that way.

It’s remarkable how far behind the games industry seems to be on these issues, still blundering about like a republican congressman. But then when has it ever been important to them to look at the outside world and see how things are changing. Would have been nice if 2013 had been a fresh start and we started to see some more positive progress but apparently not.

It’s been heartening to see that the overwhelming reaction to it has been negative, and Deep Silver are currently reconsidering it.

A lot of comments seem to suggest that deliberately sparking outrage is still positive publicity for them, but I’m not convinced it is. I’m not sure that anyone is going to buy this game that wouldn’t have already. It’s an odd state of mind when people object to others complaining about this. Its shit and it’s going to take people complaining about this every time something like this happens to stop it happening again. Hopefully the money wasted on commissioning these will at least cause the company to rethink this next time. I wonder if many of the statues have already produced, and what will happen to them if this does get pulled. It does bring up a rather bizarre image of a mass of torsos being pulped.

What’s so confusing is how the games industry consistently wants to alienate an entire gender with this. In fact it alienates most men as well, so really what is the point? They don’t seem to understand why what they’re doing is offensives and why it’s against their own interests.

Death of big budget indie games

New article by me up at http://www.thegamerschallenge.com/tgc/the-death-of-big-budget-indie-games/

Silent Hill Downpour Article

Now available at http://www.thegamerschallenge.com/pc/silent-hill-downpour-review/

Studio Ghibli Part 4

From up on Poppy Hill

 Ghibli's latest work is one of their more down to earth pieces. This time the screenplay is co-authored by Hayao Miyazaki and Keiko Niwa, based on the manga by Tetsuro Sayama. It’s directed by Hayao’s son Goro, who co-wrote and directed the Disappointing Tales from Earthsea. I think he does a slightly better job here, it’s a screenplay that doesn’t lend itself so well to animation, but there are few flourishes to bring it to life. But it’s not one of the most interesting stories they’ve produced, but it does still have some endearing characters to carry enough interest. It does leave me slightly worried as to how well Goro will carry on his father’s legacy if he is to be carrying on with this for years to come. It’s a passable film, but in terms of their drama’s set largely in schools. The made for TV movie Ocean Waves does a better job. 

 Ocean Waves 

 A slightly different work from Ghibli, a film worked on by some of the more junior members of the Ghibli staff. They were given a chance by being asked to produce a made for TV movie. Although it still went over budget anyway. Still the shorter running time seems to really help this film as it tells a much tighter, more focused story. Aimed at a demographic they don’t go for as much - the teenage love triangle story and how a girl affects the friendship between two boys. It’s not able to have as strong an emotional impact as some of their major features, but what it aims to do, it does well. It seems a shame they’ve not done smaller films like this, as it allows them to try their hand at different styles.

 Whisper of the Heart 

 A screenplay by Miyazaki but the only film to be directed by Yoshifumi Kondō who tragically died of an Aneurysm a few years after making this film. It was believed to be caused by work-related stress. And you can see from the film that he was a man who dedicated himself to his work, because it looks stunning even by Ghibli’s standards. Its story falls in-between the down to earth and the fantastical stories. So it has the strong resonant character driven drama, along with some of the more childish wonder. That description may give you the wrong impression, from what I’d read about it going in, I thought the main character Shizuku would enter a fantasy world at some point. All that actually happens is we see some small extracts from the book she’s writing. There’s a sense of some other magical things going on but they’re macguffins, albeit very effective macguffins. When thinking about the Disney comparisons it occurred to me that the closest this film gets to a musical number is when the characters sit around at one point singing and playing instruments, performing a cover of “Country roads” which somehow manages to feel much more exciting and magical than any other Disney number that springs to mind. So this films goes somewhere near the top of my list for managing to combine many of the elements that Ghibli do so well. It feels different yet still does what they do best as well. 

The Cat Returns

 Loosely a sequel to Whisper of the Heart in that it heavily features The Baron from Whisper of the Heart. This is certainly one of the films aimed at a younger audience and it’s much more of an adventure story. It’s one that feels a little more ‘slight’ in comparison to their other works and it would probably be because it had been intended for a straight to video release. It’s the only film to be directed by Hiroyuki Morita. It may have had a similar intent behind it as Ocean Waves. The animation does look a little cheaper and simpler than the average Ghibli film but they were evidently impressed enough with it to give it a cinematic release. It does have a shorter, simpler running time. So it’s an enjoyable story, but not essential, one for people like me, who have become compelled to be completest. I think if there’ one problem with it, is it’s largely centred on a secret kingdom of cats. Which is cute and everything, but the internet has ruined cats for me. It does predate the proliferation of cat memes though, so that shouldn’t be held against it.

Replaying Silent Hill 2

So I’ve replayed Silent Hill 2 recently and let myself get properly sucked in to the world this time, I’ve done speed runs to get bonus endings and stuff in the past, but this time I took it in slowly, listened on headphones and played it late at night to really get absorbed into the world. One thing I’ve been reminded of in replaying is just how detailed the world is. Every time you enter a room it tells a story. Sometimes, an obscure, indecipherable story, but there’s a reason it’s there. The room in the apartment complex with all the butterflies – I’m not sure why it’s there, but there’s a probably a good reason for it. The riddles and puzzles in the game are there to explore specific themes. The hospital in particular constantly brings things back to mental illnesses. You could tell some fascinating backstories based on the puzzles and memo’s found in Silent Hill games, and indeed the plot of SH4 was based on a newspaper article found in SH2.

What Silent Hill has, and Silent Hill 2 in particular has that other games lack is that the whole experience feels like someone is fucking with you. Everything is tailored towards you. One of the differences in Resident Evil games for instance is that the world still operates without you. This is a normal world gone wrong, but one of the fascinating aspects of Silent Hill games is there’s the sense that someone has been there before you and left all these hints for you to find. But you can never tell if they’re on your side or not. You always feel that there’s some intangible presence, whose mercy you’re constantly at, and whether they’re enemy or friend you can never be certain. There’s something that actively hates you and wants to punish you and make you unhappy.

There’s also no other game world that feels so grimey and decaying. It’s irritating that the art direction in Silent Hill games would subsequently come back to the iconography of the first game as if the mist world/otherworld divide was all there was to it.

SH2 seemed more pre-occupied with things that have become rotting away. It’s harder to describe it simply because the idea of the ‘otherworld’ is much more blurred in the game. You don’t get an ‘otherworld’ until the hospital and that has more the look of a condemned, bombed building. The prison and labyrinth beneath the historical society all already feels like a nightmarish alternative world when you arrive, and it’s debatable just how real that is anyway. So the only other place with an otherworld is the hotel, which feels more flooded and burnt than anything else. [Spoiler] And the implication is, the hotel had burnt down, so the otherworld version is the real version of the Hotel [/spoiler]

So many themes and ideas are reinforced in every aspect of the game. So for any future developers that want to do something “that gets back to SH2 roots” what you need to do is think about how everything you include in the game adds to the overall piece.  You can’t just throw a load of Silent Hill clichés at the wall and hoping they stick together.