Karma Police

“I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, Where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.” 

-Andrew Ryan  

  Games are the stuff of unimagined realities, we want reality but we also want the freedom to do everything in a game as in the real world but without having to be morally culpable for our actions. We want things to be different from the real world but have signs connecting the two. Games already are different, being caught by the police for murder doesn't have the same gravity in GTA as it does in the real world, there’s no trial, no prison and subsequently no rape. In games we want to see and do things we never thought possible, we want to experience things that are impossible and we don’t want to feel restrained by petty morality.

 It’s become a recent trend in games to inject some half baked ideas of morality or a moral consciousness into their games, mainly as a way to increase longevity; basically it’s just a cheeky way to get you to play the game twice to see the sickly sweet ‘good’ ending. The reality is there are no such things as moral choices in games because the game can be played again or reloaded to perform a ‘do over’. Sadly morality in games is often as messy in virtual worlds as it is the real, often I praised Mass Effect for having the bad speech options highlighted red and the good blue so I knew how to be evil, or good if I was feeling frivolous.

  One of many things Bioshock can be praised for is its stunning Manichaeism and ambivalence, there’s no moral grey area in cracking open little girls like coconuts and sucking out their plothole-filler juices. Although in a recording in the game it’s not described as killing them as it is taking a terminally ill patient off life support, but the alternative is saving the little girls and although you still receive some magical plot-filler-suspension-of-belief-juice you receive significantly less. So the moral struggle is very simple, it’s survival of the fittest, you save them at the risk of your own weakness or kill them ensuring your own survival. Although it’s essentially a clear moral choice where both choices can be rationalised, clear moral choices are in no way realistic, they don’t exist.

 Most of the time when you make moral choices in games, just like life it’s hard to establish which is which because morality isn't something that’s set in stone its fluid. What was moral one hundred years ago is not necessarily the case now, there was a time people thought human sacrifice was up there with giving blood. Not to mention that morality is entirely subjective, one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist and all that. Often it’s hard to make out if games are teaching us right from wrong or if we’re teaching them, because the idea of ‘right and wrong’ is about as black and white as a clown’s underpants, games almost become a philosophical dialogue. The game takes the role of Socrates helping you develop your own ideas of morality. All in all it doesn't matter because the people who your choices affect aren't real anyway, so how can human morality translate into a virtual setting?

Hitman Drabsolution. This time it's personal! sort of.

‘Hmm well if half the effort that went into the menu went into the game should be up for a lovely murderous romp.’

Voila, witness my above average Hitman Absolution review, in which Hitman Absolved to murder lots of rednecks…. Huzzah!

Ok intro; can’t say I liked seeing 47 topless, he’s always been a merciless killing machine not really the pretty boy type, to see him sexualized was slightly stomach churning, and I get the distinct feeling that they're trying to crowbar feelings into is stern visage, well onto the game.

First impressions; love the look, lighting, not really a graphics whore but they were nice. The intro was a little square. I think we've reached an opus where some off camera voice just telling you how to play the game just doesn't cut the mustard. I think tutorials should be entirely immersive because they’re sort of your gateway into the game, Alice wasn't told to tap X to enter wonderland, tutorials are important they shouldn't be just tacked on, you should almost not notice them.

What I like about it so far is it seems a lot more plot heavy than the previous games. Whether you’re familiar with the previous games or not it stands to reason that a game about a hired assassin won’t entail much plot as the whole purpose of hiring an assassin is to have a professional who has no connection to the victim so there’s no link to the client. The odd thing about the previous games were that they still worked because they were laden with sub-narrative; every room told a story and then there was an overarching plot happening in the background building until the climactic ending. This game seems a little Hollywood for my tastes, I mean I hate to say it but it’s the basic Mario ‘Save the princess’ plot-line  (in the voice of Morgan Freeman) ‘a plot as old as time’ and the whole game is based around padding that out.

Although the plot is a bit hit and miss there are some really great new game-play features which are mostly ripped off of other games but who cares? 47 has this sort of vats, time stopping shoot everyone power now like fallout 3, but Splinter Cell Conviction already ripped that one off so it’s no big deal, why shouldn't 47 be able to walk into a room and shoot everyone without much input from me, maybe I should just sit this one out and catch up on my word based puzzles.

There’s also a new stealth system, long story short if you dress as a guard all guards are going to be suspicious of you so you have to avoid them, so the trick is to basically find the one person who is meant to be there but that nobody knows and you can wonder around freely. It makes a lot more sense than the previous games and I think it’s very clever… also they ripped off Assassins Creed lacing the game with hiding spots… but who cares?!

As side note, 47 has acquired the ability to hide a sniper rifle up his ass, I liked how in the previous games you couldn't hide two handed weapons unless you had a suitcase because it’s realistic and makes it more of a challenge to smuggle weapons into areas if you can hide a M60 in your pants it takes the sport out of the whole game. Also one thing I loved about the previous games was that there was always people frisking you (not that it’s a fetish of mine) or metal detectors or things like that so improvising or sneaking in weapons was really important. 

Whereas in this game they seem to let any Tom, Dick or Harry in with an AK under his arm. So although this game makes a big thing about improvised weapons, like using a brick or a bottle to kill someone it’s just sort of style over substance really since you can just use a gun or fiber-wire that 47 has all the time or his bare hands which he can do now. I mean I like the idea that you can kill them from the front with a screwdriver but there’s not much point to it.

The levels seem a little less well structured since this game isn’t about him carrying out a series of well orchestrated assassinations it’s just him basically killing anyone he fancies really. I often found myself reading the objective screen because I’d get half way through a mission with no idea why I was strangling and/or dropping things on all these people.

Don’t get me wrong I love Hitman, it’s one of my favourite games series, I've been waiting for this game for ages and I can’t say I was that blown away, I enjoyed it but it just didn't have the same clout as the other games, it was just missing something, it felt a little rushed, like I’m given all these nice set pieces to play with but I don’t get enough time to faff about with them. The systematic nature of the levels just drained the game of fun and to be honest I've always hated the scoring system on Hitman. I just think giving people targets like that destroy the natural flow of a game, to an extent it almost puts the game on rails, taking all the spontaneity away.

When you compare it to something like Max Payne where your jumping around firing two guns prematurely ejaculating bullets all over the place it almost makes murder boring, trying to make it as neat and economic as possible and when did the Hitman series become so xenophobic? In Contracts and Silent assassin 47 went all over the world, in the last game he spent most of his time in the south of America killing hillbillies then he went to Vegas and in this he just splits his time between Chicago and Dakota… killing hillbillies again. All games are set in America, I am seriously bored of America and I get the distinct feeling Hitman hates Americans, especially rednecks.

My only other little niggle is the addition of a cover system, it just destroys me to think that there are people playing this game as a cover shooter chest-high-wallfest and not as the methodical murderfest that it is. Also QTE?!.... in Hitman!? What were they thinking!?.... Nuns?

Games Vs Art

"Movies don't create psychos. Movies make psychos more creative!”

                                                                                 - Billy Loomis (Scream 1996)

 Although the columbine shooters may have based their rampage loosely on the Matrix by wearing black trench coats and the classic pc game Doom was found to be one they played frequently that doesn't mean if neither the Matrix nor Doom existed the shooting wouldn’t have happened. Films and games influence people but they don’t decide people’s actions. If not the matrix then another action movie, the idea of living in a dream world, tricked by a malevolent entity is by no means new, it originates from the sixteenth century French philosopher Rene Descartes and his ideas of the devil, but that is entirely beside the point.

"To try and fasten any responsibility on art as the cause of life seems to me to put the case the wrong way around. Art consists of reshaping life but it does not create life, nor cause life. Furthermore, to attribute powerful suggestive qualities to a film is at odds with the scientifically accepted view that, even after deep hypnosis, in a posthypnotic state, people cannot be made to do things which are at odds with their natures."  -Stanley Kubrick (1972)

This quote, from Kubrick is regarding the spree of copy cat violence that occurred upon the release and subsequent ban of A Clockwork Orange. Essentially what happened was criminals ‘themed’ crimes around the film or mimicked some of the crimes that happened in the film. Who knows maybe they dressed the same maybe they sang singing in the rain while beating a man and raping his wife, who cares? The point is this is purely aesthetic, you don’t watch a film one day and say ‘sod it’ and go live the life of a rapist gang member out of the blue, if you did do that it would have to have been something that you wanted to do all along. Games and films don’t manufacture behaviour they don’t alter people the only impact they have is on the aesthetic, so the film isn't the ‘why’ it’s just the ‘how’.

The only impact The Matrix had on the columbine killers was their choice of clothes, which seems like a moot point when the cause of their actions was their parents and their school ignoring the fact they were obviously being bullied not to mention the fact they were collecting guns. Not that I believe gun collecting precipitates shooting but what other uses to guns have? On the surface the ban is understandable but what it boils down to is purely aesthetic. Yes they may have copied the clothes and the words but when a killer kills we shouldn't focus on the clothes he wears or the books he reads to explain why. Those things are only the window dressing of a disturbed mind. Games and films and other media can’t actually implant murderous thoughts into people’s heads. Those are already there, films and games may if they do anything fan the flames, give them ideas but ideas are just ideas and to give up these ideas would be worse than just living with them.

 Would you really want to give up films like Clockwork Orange just to stop people copying them but then if not Clocking Orange then it’s the Matrix, ok that’s gone, what’s next? Just destroy all films and all books and all plays and erase all history to do with any violence just to destroy the slightest possibility that anyone might copy any of it. Do you think this would work? Of course not because people will still kill, as long as there are two men left on the earth one may still kill the other and he’ll say God told him to do it, if he hasn't read any good books recently or seen any good films.
The reason for this is because people just want something to blame anything but to have to come to terms with the fact that we’re no better than animals really and animals don’t need any other reason for killing other than having nothing better to do.

Happiness is a Warm Gun

    Games in all forms have since inception been viewed as intellectually degrading, which is irrational (Johann Huizinga - play anthropologist) games are central to the formation of culture, we learn everything vital to being a person as a child through play. An example of this is God of War. Throughout the game we’re taught a rather twisted version of ancient Greek mythology but it has a basis in ‘real’ mythology and since mythology isn’t really real anyway what does it matter if it’s altered or not? Play is essential to civilised society. It’s a social pleasure and it mediates social interaction, but what if games could mediate or incite crime like the facebook riots?

We don’t really want to kill real people in games, that’s why they look so computerised (people in games don’t look like people in the real world usually but they’re starting to) or wear masks or are just plain reprehensible (Inhumane actions result in a character becoming less human), we dehumanize them, separate them, they become the faceless ‘other’.

Still the subject fascinates us as most taboo subjects do and video games allow us a neutral non-judgemental environment to play with these ideas of murder, crime and revenge. In that respect gamers are more like sense explorers, than children playing. They are the philosophers of the 21^stcentury; they sample a variety of emotions and sensations that not everyone can or is willing to experience, everything from fear and loathing to love and lust as well as pure child-like wonder.

The obvious worry is that people will learn or develop violent behaviour from playing games. In reality a video game has no more power of an individual than a film or a book, it’s just information, holding a gun or a knife and a controller are so far removed it’s laughable. Obviously it’s beside the point, erections don’t rape people, people rape people.

“The fighting game, like fighting itself, will always be popular “(Poole 2000). Sadly people are savage in nature, every art form we have originates from that savagery before the television we had public executions and the coliseum and still the most popular forms of media are those that glorify violence, but what’s wrong with that? If mindless violence is not entertainment, then what is?

Although we've had light guns for a long time in arcades that emulate the look and feel of real guns, reason dictates that one day there may be a game that could in some way teach you something be it combat or cooking but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Knowledge is without agency, although it is said to be power knowledge has no will of its own it’s what is done with that power that is paramount and that is up to the individual.

That being said although the subject matter of most games may centre around murder, games are actually more like sport. In a game the goal is not actually to kill but to win, killing is just the means to an end it’s not an end in itself. So although in the game Hitman you are a professional assassin and the objectives of the game are to kill people the pleasure doesn’t come solely from the act of killing (admittedly some of it does) the joy of the game comes from the journey and the eventual conquering of the game, saving the world/princess/Holy Grail whatever it is.

 Killing is just a minor part of whole game, it can never be the main focus. If there was such a game just about killing you could put all the names of the people buying it on a register because the only people that would play it would be undoubtedly insane and it would probably never make it onto the shelves anyway. If you say video games are violent in the sense that they train someone to be more effective at killing or increase aggressive tendencies then martial arts, body building, fencing, shooting, paint balling etc. should also be suspect.

Even if video games did increase the ability to kill they don’t necessarily increase the drive to. The drive to kill is down to the person playing. Just because you play manhunt carve out a niche in virtual butchery doesn't necessarily mean you would turn those new found skills to actual murder, the two are not in the same ball park, they’re not even the same sport. The game Madworld is a good example actually because although it’s a game about a murder game show your actual objectives are not to kill but to win the game show and you have this overarching story where you’re a government agent sent into to stop the game show.

Another example of this is Manhunt a very controversial game by those lovely people at Rockstar who brought us Grand Theft Auto, that amoral classic. Manhunt is a game about making a snuff film but that’s the goal of your captor not your character, the characters goal is just to survive and get out of this maze of death and kill the director and stop the snuff film. So as a player you sort of a play a rival director following the snuff film directors orders for the time being so as to get closer to him and put a stop to him.

The bottom line is that actually it makes no difference because there is nothing to kill in the first place because it’s just a fantasy, the people aren't real, all the meaning and the consequence of their lives were imagined and taking their lives has no permanence because you can select ‘new game’ and do it all again.

Imurder

“Real, unreal what’s the difference? As long as you don’t get caught”

- Trickster (Brainscan 1994)

Brainscan was a brilliant nineties film starring Edward Furlong (Terminator 2 1991, American History X 1998) about what the Wii would be like in a perfect world and the reason the film really interested me was because it laid bare this vital truth about video games; they’re all about murder. A slight slippery slope of an argument coming up but please stay with me. We live in a time where people can socialise on-line they can visit casinos and virtual strip clubs, they can shop and take tours of places without ever having to meet with anyone condescending, so why can’t they kill?

On-line hunting is currently locked in legal battles with animal rights groups trying to have it banned all over the globe. For anyone who is not familiar with on-line hunting it's basically the commercialisation of remote control robotics that fire guns instead of make coffee. Similar to the ones used by the military to clear caves or go anywhere an american soldier might encounter ghosts, but you pay to shoot at animals rather than foreigners.Supposedly it’s targeting disabled people who can’t go hunting or just lazy people who can’t be bothered to put on a high visibility jacket and wellies. The possibilities are limitless, literally turning killing into a game, setting up this strange nexus between real and fantasy.

There are enough accidents that happen in real hunting imagine how many ‘accidents’ will happen when the person is just clicking a mouse and feels no real responsibility for the lives they’re taking because they feel so removed from the actual act as they’re not actually there. It's very much like Brainscan, it's basically a film about a video game where you commit a murder but it actually happens in real life. So that being said why not on-line murder for people that want all the thrill of being a serial killer without all the mess.

 It goes without saying that it wouldn't exactly be legal but since when has that stopped anything on the internet? Half the allure of the internet is that it’s basically the wild west of information, too big and too wild to be tamed by any law enforcement agencies but I think it’s fair to say it’s also a pretty scary place when you think about it. I still support that idea of real freedom even though it inevitably leads to deviance.

What I'm trying to say is; what if, like Brainscan, someone could make a real murder feel like a video game? People could in theory be tricked into murdering someone with an on-line game, and have no idea that real people were being killed as a result of their actions, it’s possible but wholly unlikely. On the other hand why couldn't a killer wait outside a house with webcam on his head and an earpiece in his ear to receive instructions from a paying customer how to commit a murder? The pretence would basically be that the killer was going to kill regardless and the customer would simply be paying to choose the method and tools used. Basically it would be up to the customer to suspend his disbelief to whether it was real or fantasy and would probably get the benefit of the doubt in a court of law. There could be a massive market for selling someone a murder fantasy that could be entirely staged but still leaving room for doubt. You may ask yourself ‘what’s the point?’ but you could say that about almost anything on the internet. What's the point of putting a cats face through a piece of bread? The fact is it doesn't have to make sense, it’s just supply and demand and there will always be demand for the taboo.

Video games are already used to train pilots and terrorists use them to map locations they plan to terrorize. It seems really strange when you think back to the Robin Williams film Toys (1992) of which the premise was that the military were making toys that could kill controlled by kids who thought they were playing video games and looking at today’s predator drones (the unmanned remote control bombers used by the US Military) and realising the only difference is they’re not controlled by kids, just under developed macho man children. Where do you draw the line when murder is legalised and a click of a mouse away?   The reason I love video games is that they’re honest, they operate on the principle that there’s a killer in everyone, they just allow the killer to come out and play.

Sophisticated Illusion

“The future game player might be an actor in a drama over which he has no control” that’s what makes a drama dramatic (Poole 2000). To be realistic a game should be more like life in the respect that you only have a facile amount of control over a situation. If you’re all powerful in a game and control and change all outcomes, the game is less immersive less dramatic because you are in a sense omnipotent. Loss of control is more engaging more realistic more dramatic, something beyond your control happens and your choices revolve around how you deal with that. The walking dead game is a good example of this, you steer the story but can’t predict the future; therefore you have no control over the outcomes you've orchestrated.  It allows you to feel the illusion of control and then reminds you that some time shit happens and there’s nothing you can do but pick up the pieces.

A game is a subtle blend of tempos, games have to create extreme anxiety in the player for them to be engaging but also have to give some level of breathing room, they can’t be relentless. Games have to flow, getting this flow right is an art. Also if too much breathing room is given we lose a sense of immediate danger that you might get in a game like Silent Hill, where there's danger everywhere and your only option really is to run. Also a game has to be cleverly laced with an increasing array of challenges and rewards to keep the player interested and entertained and more importantly keep them playing. 

Decision making has become a very important process in games these days but to a degree it destroys storytelling. You can listen to a story and then decides how it develops on top of that; having your cake and eating it. You should be at the mercy of the story. In reality you don't construct the story of your own life, you have control to some degree but that control is an illusion because anything could happen to us at any moment that could change the story dramatically in a way we have no control of.

One crucial difference between film and games is that film actors are chosen but game characters are made (That’s not necessarily true any more a la L.A Noire). So this character is designed to make you feel a certain way and although speech in games is always limited to a set number of responses. If you create a large enough number of responses that can create the illusion of intelligence and the player fills in the blanks because of their love of characters. Anything more than that would require the computer to able to think for itself and understand what you’re saying.

It’s an odd phenomenon but I find it harder to watch a likeable character die, their life has meaning purely because they’re liked. They are constructs but you want them to succeed. This protectiveness creates a kill or be killed sort of scenario which can lead to horrific violence like in Manhunt, you’d rather kill and mutilate to progress than let Cash die and be done with it.

However realistic characters are in a way undesirable because they’re everywhere. In real life you can’t date an alien or a robot, fight zombies or ninjas... or zombie ninjas, but you can in video games. So maybe making them real people is taking a step too far, because real people are boring.

Games are a kinetic art form, every frame of movement in a video game is painstakingly crafted by gifted people working very hard just to create a particular string of emotions in people all over the world how is that not art? Really games have to be played to be understood, it’s like when you see a picture of someone as opposed to actually meeting them. People on the outside just see it as lights and noise and violence for the sake of it, they don’t understand because they refuse to suspend their disbelief.

 Playing a game is like religion; deep down you know its nonsense and atheists like me mock the idea of believing something without evidence, but to people on the inside it offers a feeling of fellowship and satisfaction that can be likened to playing a game or taking a drug. That’s because they've chosen to believe it, when you walk into the cinema or a church you hang up your common sense at the door and you prepare yourself to believe baseless fantasy because that’s a fun way to spend a few hours. The only difference is at the end of the film or the game you put your common sense hat back on. We understand that's it's only an illusion but we want to be taken in by it even if it's just to forget about our daily lives for a few hours.

All Killer No Filler

There’s a fine line between freedom and fun. Games should allow you to experience a certain level of freedom but enough constraint to offer a challenge to overcome. It’s often the case that non-linearity leads to non-urgency, if a game gives you too much freedom the natural reaction without the constraint of consequence is to abuse that freedom.

A story should sweep you along but often I find myself just wasting time because I've been given the option to. In a lot of open world games the emphasis is taken off the story content and focused more on the freedom and the mini games so it becomes less like a sandbox and more like a toy-box. Rather than driven by a plot towards the inevitable goal you’re given the option to essentially go around in circles fulfilling minor goals for meagre rewards. It’s like filler for a game it adds to the overall goal of completing the games plot but doesn't add to said plot, it's just padding.

Anomie; is a principle theorized by French sociologist Emile Durkheim and put plainly it is a state where norms (expectations on behaviours  are confused, unclear or not present.  In your everyday cross section of modern life even the most asocial of people can share a common goal with a passer-by even if it’s just the basic goal of survival. We understand that every man woman and child wants to live and we are aware as a social norm that human life has value and that taking it is expressly forbidden. On the other hand in the world of games they make their own norms. So one day you can be a cop and another you can be a criminal with two opposed set of norms.

 For instance if you play a crime a game and you’re given an entire city to explore why wouldn't you commit criminal acts? The perfect example of this idea of ‘normlessness’ is Postal 2; The game is the ultimate example of too much freedom causing deviance. The game is even named after this idea of ‘going postal’ referring to spree killing carried out by postal workers in America.

 Postal 2 has a vague structure of missions that are intended to be everyday like ‘buy milk’ and then the rest is up to you. So there are outlines of missions to carry out but you’re given so much freedom and weapons of course I found myself spending most of my time going on killing sprees with virtual people running and screaming as I doused them in petrol.

 It’s only natural that given an open world without consequence and without norms and tongue firmly in cheek that you create chaos because you don’t care about what happens, you can create chaos because it doesn't matter. There is a big ‘but’ here; this type of game-play has no longevity, I found myself getting very bored very quickly. It had no meaning, no purpose, no driving force, no overarching goal, it was just instant gratification. Freedom is what attracts us to games but structure is what sustains us.

 For our actions in a game to have meaning we have to have norms and structure to base them on. So killing sprees are fun in Postal 2 (or any other game for that matter) because they have no consequence but get boring for the same reason. To feel a part of a game we have to feel like our actions have some sort of consequence, so that we’re drawn into that world and we care about the characters.

This idea of pleasure without consequence is fun but it’s a hollow feeling that has no lasting sense of satisfaction. Nothing is gained or learned, it's like chewing gum as opposed to eating a meal. We need structure in games because it distracts us from the fact we're playing a game. We need that realistic framework to make our ridiculousness in the game seem more consequential, rules and norms are important in games so that we can have a blast breaking them.

Ancient Alien Creed 3

Welcome to recap city population you; Desmond did a bunch of stuff including sitting in a chair and then walking about a bit, maybe a bit of climbing and very little stabbing but hey that could change in the all new faffing-about creed.

From what you may gather, I didn't really think the last few assassins creed games were all that and a bag of fair-trade organic peace crisps. I thought the first game was ‘interesting’ when I say interesting I mean their take on stealth was certainly ‘unique’. Ask anyone what their definition of stealth is and stabbing someone and running away won’t be high on their list. You could remove all the important assassinations and lengthy monologues and it could be renamed Muggers Creed. (Not to mention in this game you collect trophies from your victims; Serial Killer Creed?!)

Now the titanic stinking elephant in the room; what was up with those bloody spin-offs? ‘Oh you hate Ezio well maybe you just haven’t got to know him enough. We’ll make two more games where he does pretty much nothing except buy everything in the country and fight an inconceivable wall of money buying paintings and maps to find treasure!?’ I played brotherhood and revelations and it’s never good in a game if you prefer organising a spreadsheet of fictional assassins carrying out imaginary missions than the actual main missions.

I’d come to the realisation that Ubisoft were trying to bring about the return of the great old ones by draining our money with poorly made games about messing about and stabbing people in silly hats, slowly lowering our expectations of games and storyline and life in general, preparing us for the return of Cthulhu.

So it came as a surprise to me, that I absolutely adored Assassins Creed 3.

First impressions of this game is; why is Desmond the only assassin to wear jeans? How does he do all that climbing in them?

The story (although the last two games made a bloody mess of Desmond’s side) is incredibly engaging, the characters are very nice. The game looks and sounds great especially with the addition of snow that crunches satisfyingly under foot. The combat as always is fantastic and it’s got even better surprisingly. The controls have been made a lot more user friendly. You no longer need to hold R1 to scratch your balls, just to run or free run and he has only one run as opposed to a million like the last game only two types of swim; fast and slow as opposed to the bazillion in Brotherhood. I like also how they tell you about all these improvements in an email within the game telling you that they've improved the animus, I like little touches like that, sort of messing with the fourth wall.

The first mission in the animus is in London which is really cool. You play Haytham Kenway an English gentlemen/ruthless stab merchant. Yeah he’s not the Indian on the front cover you play him later it’s all a bit complicated and spoiler territory so I’ll try to tip toe that as much as I can. It just has lovely pacing, lots of games these days just seem to want to get the introduction to the game out of the way to get to the action, which is a mistake. In any form of narrative the most important parts are always the beginning and the end, it has to hook you at the beginning and leave a lasting impression at the end. This game just doesn't feel rushed, but also doesn't get boring, they've struck a nice balance and it just feels right.

They've added a lock picking system which is good because that made them decrease the amount of treasure boxes. So there’s less faffing about collecting them all, there are just less with more stuff in them and they’re a bit harder to get to. Then you need to pick the lock, so it’s a bit more satisfying than just opening a million deal or no deal boxes in quick succession.

  Also there is less synchronizing, I feel like they've streamlined the game, they've tried to reduce all the annoying time wasting in the last games. Not completely eliminating them, just reducing them and I think it works. Also they got rid of that bollocks when they ask you if you want to continue as if there’s another option; ‘Oh no Assassins Creed I don’t want Ezio to enter the ancient tomb of awesomeness, instead I want him to go home and eat digestive biscuits’. Also there’s no annoying health system just a nice thumb-suck system, I’ve got nothing against health systems it’s just in AC it was more of an unnecessary annoyance than something that added tension.

First thing to impress me was that the currency of the game; good old pound sterling and there are kids and animals in the game. First thing to disappoint me is that you couldn't stab said children and animals. I think it’s the first game to actually have kids and domesticated animals just there, which I really like. I think it really hurts realism when a game is entirely populated by adults and old people like a reverse Logan’s Run. The kids are annoying, they take the role of the beggars in the first game and the minstrels in the second; the annoying shits that get in the way hence my annoyance at not being able to stab them.

Another improvement I think was a crucial failure in the last games was the economy. The balance between earning and spending was not right. You need to be constantly chasing money and new items and weapons if you can just save up and buy everything and create this tidal wave of money it makes having money pointless because you can just buy everything and there’s no challenge. I love the trading system in the game, having to balance buying ingredients and crafting and trading goods as well as finding new craftsmen and recipes is really fun for anal people like. There’s also a really nice hunting system which a lot of the time is your main source of income. A bear pelt for instance is a lot of money because of how much effort it takes to kill one. It’s just a nice change from the other games, because if you needed money in that game you just waited or went treasure hunting, in this game you actually just get on your horse and jump on a bear.

Another vital improvement from Assassins creed 2 was improving the homestead. Now in 2 this was just a soulless raising of numbers. You just invigorated the economy by opening more shops which improved the town and you felt no real connection to the town or the people and didn't really notice the changes. This game is the complete opposite, instead of buying new businesses you invite or hire tradesmen to live on your land. So instead of dealing with just shops, it makes it more about the people and you get to know them and help them grow their business and you realise you’re not fixing a broken down town you’re actually building a thriving frontier town. You don’t feel like you’re raising numbers on a chalk board, it feels like you’re actually improving the quality of the people’s lives, people have their homes taken away by the English you give them a chance to come live with you.

Now for the best part of the game; the naval missions, the missions where Desmond sits about picking fluff out of his belly button... I mean the bits where you get to be a pirate! I started playing this and I thought; ‘Bloody hell, another Assassins Creed mini game disaster’ but it was amazing. Fun and so different, a really great change of pace, from running in the streets and stabbing cockneys to strategically commanding a huge naval vessel, with a rag tag crew of misanthropes. It reminded me of star wars rogue squadron but with cannons and sails instead of proton torpedoes and s-foils. You can disable ships and board them all while weathering stormy waters or cruising the Caribbean. I honestly love it, why aren't there more pirate games?! GTA Manowar!

Also weirdly I loved the Desmond bits as well because they don’t have a hud or any attack telegraphing so it makes the animus stuff feel like a video game which makes Desmond’s levels more ‘real’, they draw a line between the two, they’re the same but they’re so different killing someone in Desmond’s missions holds a lot more weight than in the animus because it’s like that already happened.

So in conclusion buy this game and try to forget the last two ever existed.

Mass Effects

Video games free people from the shackles of linear storyline, storyline can be moulded by the actions of the player. Thus the experience is customised to the player creating more involvement and hence more emotional attachment. The player feels a part of the story he or she created and the characters in it. Older games had no progressive stories other than movements like up down, left right, shoot. Modern games are different, story can unfold all around you.

 Story can happen in front of you and have nothing to do with you really, it’s just to add sub-narrative or atmosphere, almost like watching a film in a game. Narrative in games isn't as limited as in any other form of media. In a book you read it and it enters into the processing plant of your imagination. In a film it rolls over your eyes and you take it in or you don’t but in a game you have to play with the story you have to interact with it and change it. Thus it becomes more involving and more engrossing and it achieves the ultimate goal of story which is suspension of disbelief.

Heavy rain is interesting because it’s a game that makes no bones about being a film, in fact Quantic Dreams last game Fahrenheit had a film introduction by it's directors. Heavy Rain has no game play it takes more of a passive role, instead of you directly controlling the actions of the characters your part is more guidance using Quick time events (QTE) so it’s more of an interactive film than a game and is heavily story orientated with several different scenarios and endings.

The most important thing about Heavy Rain for me is that the game can change drastically through your own actions even to the point where the main character can die and the game can continue on using one of the other playable characters. Initially I just thought this was an interesting gimmick but throughout playing I realised that if I failed this mission the character I had gotten to know would be gone and I’d have to restart the game to play him again. This made every fight more intense, every encounter more shocking because I knew if I failed there would be no retry, that would be it, their lives are literally in your hands.

 This one idea changed how I thought about a video game character. Before that point I'd been happy watching Leon S Kennedy get butchered by chainsaws or eaten by monsters because I could always just load and try again. Heavy Rain achieved something not many games have, they gave their characters lives value (Just the value of your time and emotions but still more than Leon got), just by simply making them like ours; Finite. I know there is an ending in the game where all the main characters or most of them die but I've yet to try it, because I just don’t want to see that, I'm happy with my ending.

Another such instance and the reason for this title is Mass Effect. I bring this game up is because I've played the first two games of the saga without replaying them because I like how the plot turned out and I didn't see a reason for replaying the games and changing the outcomes since I had chosen the outcomes I wanted. Then my xbox broke and I bought the 3^rd instalment on my ps3 and I started playing it and within an hour I stopped because it didn't feel right, because how this game works is that is the sequels remember what you did in the previous games and it essentially just continues that plot from where you left off.

 So because I didn't have all the saved data from my last games on the ps3 it was a fresh story, all the encounters all the relationships I had created didn't exist, I told myself when I bought it; ‘It’s just a game, it doesn't matter’ but it did matter and I couldn't play it any more and my only solution is to get my xbox fixed and start over on mass effect 3. That’s the power interactive storytelling like this has, you stop being a gamer and you become a part of the story, you become a director and the main character rolled into one and that is something that no other media can compete with.

Aside from Mass Effect Interactive plot usually destroys sequels because the next game is unsure of its history. So Heavy rain 2 is virtually impossible because it won’t necessarily know who died and why but I think this is fantastic because it increases innovation. Sequels are black holes of creativity they should only be created if there is something to add and an entirely new experience on offer not because there’s more t-shirts to be sold. You see the way Mass Effect was designed was different, it was envisioned as a trilogy so they had already planned for two sequels and built their games around the story becoming fluid.

On the other hand stories are supposed to be based on irreversibility, just like life but games aren't although they are in terms of the end result. You could for all good measure decide that you’re characters death in the spiked pit is apt and leave it at that turn off the console but you don’t, you want to progress and get the true ending. 

Game Vs Film

Cinema and videogames are on a convergent path, this is undeniable. Two of the most memorable games of the last ten years were L.A Noire a game although not directly based on the film L.A Confidential was very similar and shared the film noire style and Heavy Rain described as an ‘interactive film’ by its designers. Games using film styles is not uncommon; Mass Effect is a sci-fi game, Red dead Redemption is a western video game, Mafia is a Gangster video game and there are enough war games to fill an Olympic swimming pool.

There are films about games or that copy games there are even games where there are films inside the game world like The Darkness screening to kill a mockingbird and of course there are games in films. Tron is about a man entering a video game, Gamer is about a man exiting a video game, eXistenz is about not being able to tell the game world apart from the real world like The Matrix.

One of the most famous series of games renowned for its cinematic style is the Metal Gear series by Hideo Kojima. Kojima is quoted as saying he copied the main character for his game Solid Snake from Kurt Russel’s character Snake Plissken in the cult classic Escape from New York. What this means is films and games have almost a symbiotic relationship, they influence each other in the same way books inspire films inspire tv shows inspire awful musicals, they’re not at war they’re in business.

I hate to say this but I’m a massive fan of Silent Hill, the games and the film and I’ve played all the games but I watched the film first. Sacrilege, I know but that’s the point of films of games and books of games and films of books; to get you interested in the whole mythos by giving you a feel of what the series is about. I liked the film so much I had to play all the games because I was so interested in the world of Silent Hill being such a big Lovecraft fan the similarities were too much for me to ignore. You see because I like the Resident Evil games I ‘have’ to go see the films even though I know they will be terrible, I just have to know because I've made an investment in time, money and in some cases emotion to the series and I have to know how mind-rapingly awful the films are as a result of that.

Games today map real actors so as to have actual acting in their video games, I remember playing L.A Noire and recognising people from tv shows and movies I’d watched and it was amazing seeing them and playing them and fighting them. This isn’t new though Command and Conquer has been hiring real actors for years to star in their live action cut scenes to add realism and drama to the action.

Now for the elephant in the room; Movie tie-in games and movies of games usually suck, with a few exceptions, like the Mario Brothers movie... (What!?). I know they’re terrible but I still watch them and I still enjoy them but it highlights the fatal flaw games have which is they rely on gameplay more than they do story or characters. Which is why when they make the leap to the silver screen they fall short and the same is true the opposite way around; films that become games are usually ill conceived and have terrible game play and a tacked on storyline that has no relevance (one exception was Spiderman 2 the best Spiderman game in my opinion).

 Movie tie in games only work when they create a different experience that branches off from the same scenario. So in terms of Spiderman 2, yes it follows the same story arc as the film so you fight doc ock and do most of the things that happen in the film but also there were loads of side missions and other villains to fight as well as the whole of New York city to explore. In my humble opinion it wasn’t a game as much as it was a Spiderman simulator as in I think that game is the closest you are going to get to knowing what it feels like to be Spiderman.

Are games incompatible with stories or do they reinvent them? Games tell stories but the stories are counterfeit because they aren’t as important as the world or the game play, or just the ‘raw feel’. You could make Casablanca the game but that doesn’t mean anyone will want to play it, videogames are not inferior films but something structurally different all together. Story should be the most important part because that’s what drives us on, story and meaning gives purpose to the lives of the characters.

In the cinema, the world is projected at you; in a videogame, you are projected into the world (Poole 2000). A film rolls over your eyes it can leave you behind you can fall asleep and it can carry on boring you but a game needs your input and that’s why it’s more engaging. It’s like watching die hard and then Bruce Willis ask you for help in killing some trashy euro-crooks, who knows maybe that’ll happen one day. Look at the way games and films both do 3D, so you take 3D glasses into a film who’s to say one day you won’t take a lightgun or science help us; a wiimote into the cinema and help the allies fight Mecha-Hitler?

I think it was final destination 3 that allowed you to decide who died in the film which would in turn alter the endings, which is interesting because a lot of dvds do come with alternate endings to films and in some cases I’ve thought they were better so why shouldn’t I be allowed to choose that ending? I’m not rewriting the film I’m just choosing the way I think it should end. Film is afraid of games in that way, it parodies them or uses them to show that people are anti-social, or dangerous because videogames in nature are more flexible and malleable than films and they can’t really compete with that.

Too Real

Technology enframes us not necessarily liberating us (Heidigger 1979). We envision in life we can do anything but we can’t in the same way we think anything is possible in video games and it isn't, but at least we can do more without having to worry about consequence. The only solution for this is to create more games that allow us to experience more, but this also might be a slippery slope for if we envision a world similar to that of the matrix where all human life is mediated through a game we would have travelled full circle and the freedom we had created would need regulating as of the sheer enormity of the player base. The more things change the more they stay the same.

“A sense of pleasurable control implies some modicum of separation: you are apart from what you are controlling” (Poole 2000 Pg 77)

You want to be a part of games but at the same time you want to be separated enough so you can make choices you wouldn't necessarily make in real life. You don’t want it to be real because that would make it boring or terrifying or painful. You want to be emotionally attached to characters in games so you care about them but you don’t want to be hurt by them.

 The idea of video games is to offer us tainted realism, we want to be able to do the impossible in a possible scenario or place and vice versa, we want a realistic fantasy. It's why games like Call of duty don't do anything for me because they're too real, it's like making a game about working in an office, it's a realistic premise set in a realistic world. In the same instance you wouldn't want a game about a piece of toast that could fly and shoot hamsters out of a hamster cannon because it makes no sense we need some sense of realism so we have a point of reference. Whereas Bioshock is also a First person shooter but it takes place in an underwater city populated by genetic enhancement junkies and you yourself can alter your dna to shoot bees out of your hands. It's real enough in the sense that bullets come out of your gun and people fall down when they're shot, it's realistic enough so it doesn't become farcical but it's utterly mad, which is why it's great.

So in terms of consoles like the wii where they try to involve the player more in the movements of the game with a motion controller this is an attempt to draw the player further into the game world physically. This in my opinion reaches a point where it gets ridiculous why would you want a really realistic bowling video game when you can just go bowling without the expense of buying a wii? The whole console is just a novelty, I don’t doubt that it’s changed the culture of gaming forever in terms of expanding the fan base of gaming but is that a good thing or will games become more generic trying to pander to more markets alienating hardcore gamers? What we need to be focusing on is making the stories more involving not the control systems.

I remember walking into a Gamestation and seeing a middle aged woman and I thought to myself; 'She must be lost'. Not long ago the only people that entered Gamestation or any game shop were spotty teenagers, mostly boys, mostly single (Me included). To see an adult who didn't work there usually meant they were stepping into the dangerous territory of buying a game for their child/grandchild/captive and they needed help. On the other hand this person was in fact purchasing a wii with wii fit and as I stood in ear shot I heard them say; "It's better than the gym innit". A cold sweat came over me as I realised that this place was not a sanctuary for lonely adolescents any more, it had become just another shop. The wii has made gaming a norm and now no one is excluded there are games about cooking and caring for pets, dancing, flower arranging... working in a funeral home, lots of things along those lines. The wii sort of opened the world up to gaming and whether that's good for games as a media or bad for them as an artform only time will tell.

Disbonored

Good morrow fine sir/madame, prithee, look upon my Dishonored review with good taste. I just felt like introducing my review that way because everyone in Dishonored wears frilly shirts but sports the drabbest of American accents. When will someone make a Downton Abbey video game where you can play Jack the ripper and kill everyone with a samurai sword carved from Edgar Allen Poe’s bones?!

Dishonored, the bastard child of Thief and Bioshock but to be honest I think Bioshock should get a DNA test because it looks a bit more like fable than Thief, but hey I like Fable too so maybe we can leave Jeremy Kyle out of it for now.

You play Corvo a rubbish bodyguard turned misunderstood magical assassin who seems to have misunderstood the meaning of the job title ‘assassin’ since you have to not kill anyone to get the good ending but the bad ending isn't that bad anyway so who cares?

First impressions of the game it looks like an old pc game, I'm not usually the graphic nazi type, I think complaining about graphics is something that is reserved for the elite class of pc gamers and eight year olds, and the average gamer has bigger things to worry about like game-play and storyline. Nevertheless the game looks a bit ‘rough’.

Anyway, moving on; So yeah Corvo is this bodyguard who for some reason is returning from a holiday somewhere doing something vague. Just in time to be framed for the ruthless shishkebabing of his employer. Within the space of a minute the plot is painfully obvious. It’s the basic power struggle; evil dude wants to be the new king of everything so has to kill the present king of everything to rule with an iron fist... (in Morgan Freeman’s voice) ‘a plot line as old as time’

.

So Corvo is banged up because as a silent protagonist who doesn't sign, his defence case didn't have a leg to stand on. So after being bashed on the bonse you wake up in prison and we’re meant to believe he’s been there for a substantial amount of time to justify butchering all his prison guards.

 Bingo bango he’s been head-hunted to join a group of exceptionally uninteresting and lazy rebels as the man who goes on suicide missions while they sit in the pub all day thinking up new ways to get him killed. They give you a shiny disappearing sword and a really subtle mask that says ‘I'm just going about my daily business officer’. Although I don’t really see the point of the mask since everyone and their mum attacks you on sight anyway as if them knowing who you were would make a difference.

The game play is pretty fun it does feel like Bioshock with a bit of climbing thrown in. You also get like a steampunky pistol that is oddly satisfying to fire because it has a great noise and big puff of smoke like a musket or something but this hurts the ebb and flow of a stealth game a wee bit. I like the little things like the magical disappearing sword that he hold front grip in combat and reverse grip while stealthing.

As a magical assassin you might not be surprised to hear Corvo can pull a rabbit out of a hat then shove it up someone’s arse. He can also teleport, possess living things, summon rats, see in the dark, stop time and.... make....wind!?

Ok so teleportion; probably not the best word because it’s just line of sight dashing really you can’t travel through matter you can’t even go through a fence, but it will be the power you use the most as most of the time it’s the only one you can afford because all of the good powers take too much mana to use.

Onto possession, this was the most promising power and it’s the reason I was interested in the game but like ten minutes in and I’m reading a loading screen that’s telling me when possessing someone all you can do is open doors and walk about.... so what’s the point!? All that hype and it’s just a less effective version of 47 changing clothes. Also you don’t even get to possess people until later so you spend the first part of the game just getting close ups of rat arses.

Summoning rats is pretty cool if a little specific, you summon a bunch of rats to distract/eat everyone while you go on your merry way. It’s a pretty cool power but I didn't end up using it very much since the rats once summoned don’t seem to want to eat anyone that isn't directly in front of them. They don’t even want to eat the zombies in the game (Yeah the game has zombies too, spoiler alert*) a task you’d think they’d be perfect for because they all huddle together and there’s lots of them but no, these rats seem to be connoisseurs and only the freshest of douchbags will do.

Seeing in the dark is pretty self explanatory and you can also see through walls and see their cones of vision, the wind power is just that you create wind, it’s magic not rocket scientist most things in front of you won’t be in front of you when you use that power.

The best power is probably the time slowing/stopping power but of course time powers in games are treated like fire from mount Olympus ‘Man is not ready for such great power! We must regulate it and make them rely on drinking lots of potions and only allow them to stop time long enough to make it completely useless.’

Why do games these days give us ultimate power but only a teaspoon at a time? Whatever happened to magic meters recharging? Deus Ex would have been perfect if the main character wasn’t completely dependent on chocolate bars. There have been games about stopping time and possessing people on much older consoles that were awesome, so I can only assume games are getting gradually worse.

Once you’re over the initial wonder of the powers the game gets a little repetitive and there aren’t even that many powers, everything about it is borrowed, it has no original ideas or characters and no atmosphere whatsoever. The characters are wooden and boring and you’re supposed to care about the empress dying even though you only meet her for literally a minute before she’s killed. How do you care about characters when the game is so formulaic and leaves no room for character development?

The game claims to be like thief yet there is only one free roaming area you only visit twice which has like two sub-missions then it’s just one linear level after the next with a bit of exploration thrown in. Also what’s the obsession with whales all about?!  You collect whale bone runes to increases your powers and every machine in the game is powered by ‘whale oil’. Also why is the rune locator a heart that talks?! I thought that would be something to do with the main plot but it just seems to be random. Like it could just well have been a throbbing hamburger but that wouldn't have been as cool.

I don’t get what this game has against killing people you don’t usually see assassins trying to find alternative methods of conflict resolutions that aren't stabbing someone in the neck. The morality of this game makes no sense because the alternatives for killing people in the game usually involve fates worth than death, like being sold into slavery. This is the reason I hate morality system in games not because they’re a bad idea because morality in games is an important framework, it’s just usually implemented in the worst possible way.

 For instance; giving you the option to save or drown orphans then getting mad at you for choosing to drown them... YOU GAVE ME THE CHOICE!! I don’t see why you should be penalized for making a binary choice. Games designers just use morality as a tool to make you play the game twice, it doesn't matter to them if it makes sense.

Where I think it fails is it has no sense of humour, it’s trying to be like thief and fable but it takes itself far too seriously. It’s just blank and emotionless and it has no sense of fun or real character. It just thinks it can throw together a bunch of game elements stolen from other games, tack on a tired plot and away it goes, without any real effort gone into atmosphere or character development.

It also makes me laugh that games designers think they can put books in games to add sub-narrative and back story but don’t realise the game has to be interesting to make you want to learn the back story  why would you want to read more filler?!

I think if I made this game I would have taken more time to get to know the characters, I would have made the intro much longer like fable so the empress’s death was more hard hitting and so you could see the conspiracy slowly unfolding just short of actually stopping it. Also I would have made Corvo’s prison time playable. A) Because I love games set in prisons and (not because of the showers) B) because it would give Corvo more character because it just seems like he goes from heroic body guard to shadow stalking neck hater in the drop of a hat. Also more free roaming sections with sub-missions would give the city of Dunwall more character. I just think the game feels rushed and unpolished with a distinct lack of direction.

All in all the game is just a massive let down for me, I really had high hopes for this game as Bioshock , Fable and Thief are some of my favourite games and this game just failed to deliver that sense of atmosphere and immersion. It didn't take me anywhere it didn't do anything new or interesting it just didn't work it’s like putting all the best music in the world into a machine to combine them and then Justin Bieber moonwalks out and brings about the end of days.