Now that all the filler is out of the way, Sam and I are free to finish the best part of the game, before moving on to the worst part of the game.
We have a pretty lengthy discussion on PMCs in video games. Without delving too much into politics, I think it would be difficult, but not impossible to tell a story involving a PMC without that organization being secretly evil. There is a very good reason why PMCs are generally frowned upon in polite company. I'd be interested in seeing developers try that, but one cannot deny that there's a huge risk in doing so.
Another topic we talk about is game endings. One of the things that I have noticed, particularly in the last generation of gaming, is that a lot of games tended to end a lot later than probably should have. I truly think that ending the game at the point before Jason even gets the chance to confront Hoyt would have been a lot better. Not only is that last half (or third) of the game a massive drag, but Jason dying as a result of his falling into madness is an extremely appropriate end to his character arc. As we mentioned in the episode, Bioshock suffered a similar problem after the grand reveal.
We said that this part is the high-point of the story. We're actually a little wrong. It's not this episode that serves as the strongest part of the plot, but the next episode. It actually makes use of some more subtle writing and use of metaphor to convey the overall point of the story. But we'll get to that next time.
One of
the things I was told pretty regularly before I finished inFamous:
Second Son was that getting the First Light expansion was worth it.
Since it was a standalone DLC akin to that of Far Cry 3: Blood
Dragon, this was something that people told me to play without even
touching the main game. Because it was free on PlayStation Plus, I
took the opportunity to play it after finishing Second Son. First
Light, especially when compared to Second Son, is quite interesting
to look at. This is because it is in a very unique position with
regards to the franchise, which I will detail this week. Hopefully,
First Light shows Sucker Punch a new direction they can take the
franchise, to help alleviate some of the more common criticisms from
both myself and other critics.
Released
in August of 2014, First Light tells the story of Abigail “Fetch”
Walker, the conduit Delsin takes his Neon powers from in Second Son.
It shows how, after coming to Seattle, she finds herself embroiled in
gang politics, narcotics dealing, and the DUP. Not only is her
capture and transfer to DUP custody explained, but also her descent
into anger and rage, resulting in the Fetch seen in Second Son.
The very
first thing I noticed while playing First Light is that it is the
very first game in the inFamous franchise that did not make use of
the Good/Evil karma system seen in every other inFamous title to
date. In fact, no morality system exists in this game. This does
wonders for the story. Since Fetch has to become the character from
Second Son, she cannot take a different path. Secure in the knowledge
that the plot only has one possible outcome, the writers are free to
delve deeper into the character and why she is making the choices she
makes. Fetch is totally free to express her inner thoughts, take
stances of her own, and define herself as a character.
Previous
inFamous protagonists did not get that same freedom. Because the
player could choose between being completely Good or completely Evil,
the writers had to take both possibilities into account when writing
dialog. The protagonist's dialog had to make sense for both a saint
and a devil, with the exception of scenes that take place immediately
after a karmic choice. In a sense, they served more as ciphers for
the player than actual characters. Because of this, they could not
take strong moral stances on anything, because the possibility
existed that they would not take the path which they were advocating.
Since Fetch can take moral stands, and form opinions of others, it
makes her that much more strongly characterized as a result.
The
other positive about removing the karma system is that is eliminates
this need to allow players to choose between two overly extreme story
choices. As I have talkedabout
in the past, inFamous's karma system often makes the player make
decisions between normal person or cartoon villain. Second Son had
the opposite problem where choices felt far too similar on both sides
in some instances. When these get removed, the writing becomes
stronger just by virtue of not taking the player out of the
experience with these inherently meaningless choices.
Another
way in which First Light differentiates itself from Second Son is in
the way powers develop. In Second Son, there were four different
power sets that all played the same, but had different properties,
because Delsin could use multiple powers. Fetch only has Neon powers,
much like Cole in the original games only had electricity. Instead of
having one template in which multiple powers are used, Fetch has one
skillset which gets augmented gradually, over the course of the
expansion. As a result, the sense of progression is a bit more
pronounced.
What is
more important to our conversation is how these powers can be
upgraded over the course of the game. In both games, players need to
gather some form of collectible. Delsin had to collect Blast Shards
in Second Son and Fetch was required to gather Neon “Lumens” in
First Light. For certain upgrades, Delsin also had to acquire a
specific karma-level, either Good or Evil, to earn the right to
purchase them. For example, only an Evil Delsin can upgrade his
grenades to have a larger explosive range, while only good characters
can heal themselves by subduing enemies without killing them. On the
other hand, Fetch only needs to unlock the base power to purchase
upgrades for it. Some can only be gained after beating the game, but
without karma blocking off development, Fetch develops much more
organically.
Overall,
the removal of the karma system afforded First Light a number of
opportunities not granted to other inFamous games. I know, deep down,
that this is because it is only a $15 DLC, much like the Festival of
Blood on the PS3. However, it still reveals that the franchise has
been held back for a long time by what initially seemed like a
necessity. At the time of the first inFamous, moral-choice systems
were all the rage. Now, in an era full of choice-based games like
those from Telltale, they seem very weak. Perhaps it is time to
consider a change of pace for the series, now that we know it can
work without such mechanics.
In this episode, we finally complete the pointless filler missions, and get back to Jason being a complete tool.
It sure is convenient that good ol' Bambi decided to betray us in this section. Otherwise, we would not have been able to give it to Citra to actually progress the story in some way. Actually, that might have been an interesting opportunity. After getting Bambi's dagger for him, another mission or two to either take it from him or convince him to hand it over to us.
Alternatively, we could left the island and not given a shit because we essentially completely our main objective of getting all of our friends back and get off the island. Riley (to our knowledge) is dead, so we have every living party member with us. By all rights, we should be gone.
However, Jason does not want to leave. He suddenly decided that he wants revenge. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. Unfortunately, there's no real lead in to his decision. A scene or two of him talking with Liza, or hell even Citra, about taking revenge and/or killing Vaas/Hoyt, As it stands, it takes less than 5 minutes for him to go from "My brother is dead." to "Let's kill some folks." If that was just what put him over the edge, and he was already contemplating it, that would be one fine. It's just, they could have done some form of foreshadowing.
Back to the topic of Buck, it really doesn't make sense for him, to betray us. What exactly does he hope to gain? It's not like he was particularly happy to keep Keith, and he knew we were pretty good at wasting pirates. It just seems like an unnecessary risk, and any future business transactions he undertakes of this nature will be compromised, because the other party has no reason to trust him.
There's only so much stupid that a plot can hold before I start to wonder whether or not the editors are as high as our friend Oliver seems to be. I'm just not sure how it came to this.
And the whole group is back together again. Further, Garrett's friend Tyler stopped by to join us for most of the cast.
We tried to do something new by having all of us record our audio on Audacity. However, it fell through. We're going to try it again next week in an effort to improve the listener experience, so don't lose hope.
0:01:30 Viewer Questions
Adonisus's podcast is here, for those who are curious.
"Do you think that an AO game has any commercial viability?"
Honestly, there is a small, but potential market for an AO game. As much as I dislike Hatred, as an example, I believe that it can do well.
Retailers will not waste their time with AO games, for two reasons. First, there is not a big enough market. Secondly, they tend to present a family-friendly environment, which those games tend to detract from.
That said, I imagine with all the publicity, sales from the designers website will, while no where near as good as a dedicated retail store, will likely be enough to make a profit. In that sense, it could be commercially viable in those terms.
So, while it is not a big market, it does exist.
"What do you guys think of the news that Marvel intends to reboot their universe after the Secret Wars event?"
I am glad Chris is here to answer this question, because he knows so much more about comics than I do.
In general though, I am of the attitude that I am okay with whatever changes a developer wants to do, so long as the character can still be recognized as the character. We can only determine how good and bad changes are after they've been implemented.
0:17:13 Gaming News The Elder Scrolls Online goes Buy-To-Play
I think this will attract more people to the game, since the barrier of entry is lessened. However, I feel that the next logical step is truly Free-To-Play, and this won't produce enough revenue to not go in this direction.
The game is still fundamentally flawed, and the initial bad taste it left in the mouth of many players is still there. They could do well, but it needs to reclaim a lot of its lost good will.
In a broader sense, I am not convinced that subscription is the way to go for specific games anymore. For $15 a month, I could get either a Netflix or a GameFly account. Those are just significantly more robust forms of entertainment.
AOL is shutting down Joystiq
The way it was handled is pretty fucked up, if you ask me. I hope the staff bounces back from that.
Gaming journalism has accelerated in these past years. It used to take years for a publication to shut down, but now shut downs happen all the time.
0:34:00 Tyler played Dragon Age: Inquisition (because his save file was lost)
I feel bad, because I would be pissed off if all of my saves and data just vanished like that. Defeated by a power surge.
We then go into a somewhat random conversation about save features in remakes.
Then we discuss Dragon Age 2 and Origins, because of course we do.
0:46:55 Tyler played a bit of Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2.
He beat his old record in zombies. I can't really say if that's good or bad, because I'm terrible at those kinds of games.
0:48:10 Garrett installed a 2TB HDD in his computer.
It's a lot of memory. Even better, he has Windows 7 now, instead of Windows 8.
0:50:04 We talk about the Nationwide Super Bowl commercial.
In hindsight (since I watched it after the podcast), I can see why people reacted as strongly as they did. However, that's the entire point of the commercial. I actually thought it was really good.
0:51:50 Garrett played League of Legends
With a new season, the rankings reset, so Garrett needs to get good again.
0:52:55 Garrett talks about his game design class with Tyler.
The more I hear about GameMaker, the less I would ever want to use. I mostly just want to do the coding myself, so that I have more control over the final product.
Coding isn't as hard a people make it out to be. It mostly just takes practice, like any other discipline.
0:59:50 Garrett tried out to be a voice-actor in an animated video for the Zoophobia web-comic.
'nuff said.
1:02:30 Sam tried the new and improved Warframe
Apparently it is a lot different than it was before.
1:05:00 Sam tricked convinced a co-worker to get Saya No Uta
It's again hard to comment on this without spoiling it, so we can't get into a big conversation.
1:07:00 Sam bought and played a bit of Dying Light
I initially was not terribly interested in getting Dying Light at first. Having seen a lot of it, I kinda want to get a copy of it now. It looks really interesting, and I'm a completely sucker for parkour-esque exploration in video games.
1:13:45 Sam played Forza Horizon 2.
Yeah. Racing games.... It is really hard to talk about them.
Also, talking about the show in the middle of recording.
1:19:25 Sam played Life is Strange: Episode 1
I do want to play this game, I really do. However, after playing all of those Telltale games, I am burnt out on the episodic model. I just want to wait for all the episodes to come out before I invest.
If Dontnod releases episodes 2 through 5 in a timely manner, I might change my mind. Until then, I am keeping my wallet guarded. It's also hard to talk about it because, like any episodic game, we cannot determine its quality until after every episode has been released.
That said, what I have heard about Life is Strange is promising. It is also really interesting to note how rare it is for games to take place in the modern world, without any sort of catastrophe or twist. It's just our world.
1:29:55 I finished Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls
I don't have much more to add here in the shownotes. In the coming weeks, I will release an article on my experiences with the game.
But it's worth talking about the challenges of moving an inherently PC game to a console. It's easier said than done.
1:38:25 I played and beat the first Bayonetta
I suck at this genre, but I loved playing the game. It's nice to play something that doesn't take itself too seriously. On top of that, it's very visually appealing.
1:42:45 I just finished Dead Space 2.
Like with Diablo 3, my article for it is coming. But the conversation we had on it was a good one.
In general though, it is a significantly, noticeably better game than Dead Space 3, to the point where I actively wonder what the hell happened between the two games.
1:52:40 I went with some friends to see The Imitation Game.
As a Computer Science major, this was a very interesting movie because it was basically a biopic of the guy who invented my entire discipline.
On top of that, it's a very good dramatic movie. This is one of the most unknown, yet interesting people in recent human history. I had a great time and would easily recommend a lot of fun watching it.
1:56:26 Chris did not play Assassin's Creed 3, and instead played Assassin's Creed: Liberation HD.
Aveline is such a good character, and the game is so much better paced. It really should have been the one Ubisoft focused more on. Definitely get it over Assassin's Creed 3, as it's much better in almost every way, especially with the stuff they added to the original Vita version.
There are ideas in Liberation, like Aveline's multiple disguises, that deserve to be revisited in other games in the franchise. There's a lot that mechanic could be used for. I'm also not kidding when I say that Aveline is the most interesting protagonist in the Assassin's Creed franchise. Her background is interesting and I wish she was used more frequently.
I also find it amusing that Chris is having a bit of a "Season of Assassin's Creed" in a way that I had my "Season of ATLUS" a few months back. It's good that he's taking a hiatus for now.
2:15:45 Wrapping Up
My inFamous: Second Son article is here.
Sam's Life is Strange article is here.
Sam's videos are here and here.
Interactive Friction is still a thing. A new episode went up.
Adonisus's podcast is, once again, here.
You're probably wondering, "Why did Google lead me here!?" Those of you not wondering that are probably asking "Why is this so damn late!?"
Well, we forgot to record last week. Sam and I thought we had a backlog of episodes to go through. As it turns out, we did not. So, we got together on Monday (which is when this should have been posted), to record a new batch of episodes before we got too far down the hole.
I'm also not entirely sure what happened to my audio during this recording session.
Anyway, this episode has more filler missions.
Do you know how every Let's Play series will inevitably have that one episode where nothing substantial happens, and as a result the commentary feels a lot like repeated what was previously said.
This was that episode.
What I want to talk about instead is the way that writing about games fundamentally alters the way people like Sam and I play them, since it came up in our discussion. Before I started doing stuff like this, I would just go through games and think "Oh, I liked that." or "Oh, that was bad." What changes when you start making this kind of content is that you instead beginning to think less about what emotions you feel as you play (which are easy to discern). Instead, the focus shifts to why the game elicits those reactions from you. That, to me, is what distinguishes a critic from a more, and I hate to use this word, "casual" consumer of video games.
Anyone can do it, it's just a matter of actively trying to shift one's mode of thinking. There's nothing inherently special about people who criticize media beyond their willingness to just go out and do it, especially in this day and age.
