newdarkcloud plays Hitman: Blood Money - Episode 3: Part 1 - Bad and Wrong Hitman

In this episode of Hitman: Blood Money, we save one dude in order to murder three.



...or we would if I didn't screw it up.

I'm really glad that I messed up the way I did though, because this is a lot of what Hitman ends up being. You try one method, make some mistakes, and learn from them. Then, armed with what you learned the last time, you try something new. This process keeps going until you can make stunning assassinations flawlessly. Going back to that video I mentioned in the last episode, this is a good demonstration of that.

Next time, I manage to do this right...

newdarkcloud plays Hitman: Blood Money - Episode 2 - Assassin of the Opera

In this episode, we enter the opera house to enjoy the show... and murder some people!



In order to elaborate a point I made in the episode, this game operates on a "realistic surrealism". What I meant by that is that the things that Agent 47 can do are completely absurd in the context of real life. There's no way that his disguises should work, and many of the props in the game (like the over-sized laundry bins and trash cans) are deliberately created out of proportion to facilitate gameplay.

newdarkcloud plays HItman: Blood Money - Episode 1 - Mistakes Were Made

Another new series for you guys, and this time it's just me, going solo. I'll be running through and talking a bit about Hitman: Blood Money.

To start off, I should acknowledge the absolutely terrible quality of my audio during this recording. Unfortunately, by the time I started editing these videos, I made already completed three assassinations.

I also admit that I found it extremely hard to keep the dialog going. I'm used to playing off other people after all the many projects I've been involved with. Without that buffer, I suffered a bout of stage-fright and just kinda went blank. It's something I hope to practice and iron out the more I do these solo LPs.

#107: Dark Souls 3: The Absence of Hostility and Loneliness

I have written about my experiences playing From Software's “Soulsborne” games a couple of times on this blog. For that reason, I can distinctly recall my time in these games, which colored my expectations going into Dark Souls 3. To my surprise, and somewhat to my disappointment, the game didn't feel the way I expected it to. Though it certainly is a shining example of what could be described as a Souls game, Dark Souls 3 felt different than its predecessors. 

As I explored the desolate lands of Boletaria and Lordran, there was a palpable sense of loneliness to the proceedings. It was as if I was cold and alone against a world out to kill me, with its bands of diverse and terrifying opponents setting their differences aside in a concerted effort to block my path and take my life. Despite in many ways going against those same odds, I never had that feeling of isolation and hostility in Dark Souls 3. Rather than a world against me, it felt as if every area was merely a stage for I and my fellow players.

Much of that simply stems from the fact that there are many more players in Dark Souls 3 than there were in previous Souls games I had played. My first runs of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls were both in the summer of 2015. By then, the games were 6 and 4 years old respectively. There were certainly stragglers like myself who were still engaged with them, but by and large most had already moved on to greener pastures. And even if people were playing these games, my efforts to work with them were minimal. In Demon's Souls, I spent almost the entire game in Soul form, preventing me from summoning phantoms to aid me. Likewise, I can count the number of bosses I defeated with other players on a single hand. My experiences in both games are mostly mine and mine alone. When push came to shove, I could only rely on myself to get out of a hairy situation.

I can't say the same thing when I look back on the total sum of my Dark Souls 3 experiences. Strangely, I was excited to, for once, be a part of the community as the game comes out, exploring it together with everyone. In a way, this ended up being counter to what I most enjoyed in its older siblings. Talking with my Twitter friends, being guided to secrets by random strangers, aiding other people and being aided in turn, these were all wonderful experiences in their own right. However, it meant that my journey was less a result of my own effort and accomplishments, and more the gestalt of all of those who joined me on my path. Random strangers who I will never know, and who will never know me, were all working together to achieve a common goal. Even when I was invaded/invading, it felt like a respectable contest between peers and less an attempt of one person to sabotage another. I could use many adjectives to describe my adventure, but “lonely” is not one of them.

The NPCs also seemed a lot more welcoming in Dark Souls 3 than they have been in the past. My runs of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are marked by a sense that there weren’t many people in the world that would even think to assist me. Outside of the Nexus, I remember that non-hostile NPCs were scarce. It was at least 10 hours before I brought my first new NPC back to the Nexus with me. Until then, the ones I had encountered had either perished unceremoniously (sorry Ostrava), or actively screwed me over (which is why, to this day, I murder Patches every chance I get). Just finding a truly friendly face was a rare treat. The same can be said of Dark Souls. While there are certainly a few kind folks who inhabit the Firelink Shrine, most of them are battered and broken when you find them. And by the time I finished my journey, the most friendly of the lot, like Siegmeyer and Solarie, had met with terrible fates.

By contrast, in my first 10 hours of Dark Souls 3, I encountered a Robin Hood-esque thief, a young woman who knows miracles and her protector, an old pyromancer, a Darkmoon blade from the Sunless Realms, and Siegmeyer's more capable descendant. All of these people had offered their aid to me in some form, either as a vendor or a companion. Where friendly faces were rare before, they were quite common place now. I did not have to look far to find someone with a vested interest in my success. Far from the isolation I once felt, Dark Souls 3 provided an almost constant comfort by offering me my choice of assistants and allies.

Even though the abundance of other players and NPCs are large contributors to why I have lost that adventurous, yet isolating spirit of the previous games, there is another reason. At this point, I have played so many Souls games, and particularly so many Dark Souls games, that the mechanics and world are largely ingrained into my mind. When I was a new player braving the perils of Boletaria, and later Lordran, I often fell for the tricks and traps laid about. I would die to ambushes than I should have seen coming in hindsight. I spent many deaths learning each enemies attack patterns and figuring out the weaknesses therein. I crashed through broken boards and into traps that would be noted and avoided in the future. The designs of From Software were alien to me. Learning them was half of the battle, and half the fun.

Unfortunately, there's only so far the Soulsian “fair” ambushes can go before they reach the territory of just spawning in mooks in lieu of hiding them in creative ways. That's not necessarily From Software's fault, because it is infinitely easier for players to figure out their tendencies than it is for them to think of new ways to surprise those same players. But it does mean that I have gotten much better at predicting when an ambush is likely to happen than I used to be.

I don't remember ever being truly caught off guard while exploring the shattered remains of Lothric and the lands surrounding it. At the same time, I have a distinct memory of an archway in Irithyll of the Boreal Valley. I had not seen nor heard any enemies in the room on the other side, but I suspected that something was “off”. Looking down and to my left, I saw a ledge that I could easily reach by dropping down. Going into the hallway through the opening on this ledge, I climbed a ladder that lead me to the other side of the room beyond the archway, bypassing a group of enemies waiting to ambush me. By just following a slight “off” feeling, I had anticipated and subverted a snare that I would have easily fallen for before. At the time, I felt smart for having trusted my instincts. In hindsight, all I really did was just fall back on knowledge I had gained from 4 previous games' worth of experience. Not only wasn't I surprised by the enemies’ tricks, I couldn't be, because I had already fallen for them before.

Instead of making me believe I was a single man out against a world which wants nothing more than me to fail, Dark Souls 3 felt like reuniting with an old friend I hadn't seen in awhile. There's nothing inherently wrong with that quiet nostalgia. But the dreadful anxiety I experienced the first time, as I explored the worlds of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, is a large part of why I fell in love with the franchise. As disappointing as it is, I'm not sure that one could ever adequately capture that atmosphere that drew me in when I first started Soulsborne. Though I want so badly to feel that isolation, that growing sense of isolation and excitement. I just don't believe it's possible given how large an influence Soulsborne has become. It's hard to feel alone and afraid when in the comfort of your home, surrounded by the old and familiar. These games have become as much a home to me as the house I live in, and that's exactly what I don't want them to be.

#106: Breaking Bread: The Use of Food in Games

It is said that food is a universal language, and why wouldn't it be? After all, every living creature needs to eat to stave off death, if nothing else. But more than that, sharing a meal with other people is often a great way to socialize and form connections. Within the scope of my real life relationships, most of were forged, in part, while eating together. From the high school cafeteria to a night out at a restaurant, most people can readily recall eating out with friends and family. So then why is it that an activity as normal as dining with other people so rarely depicted in video games?

While I was in the middle of my playthrough of Bravely Second, I noticed that there were a plethora of scenes where the party got together and not only ate as a group, but talked about the various delicacies of the towns they visited. At first, I thought it was weird that such a small detail stood out to me. The more I pondered it, the more I realized that such scenes stood out because aside from the previous game and the Persona franchise there aren’t many other games where protagonists just eat together. That’s a shame, because there is so much potential in those little interactions for both character and world-building.

It is true that a lot of games utilize food in some way. Food is often used as a restorative item, like in Bioshock: Infinite, Fallout 3, and most survival games. However, food is frequently just something that the protagonist consumes for the enjoyment. In games like these, food is purely utilitarian. Players eat only to increase numbers. While there is certainly simulationist value in that, the more social aspects of dining aren't depicted in games as much.

And those social elements of dining can be valuable tools in the designer’s tool belt. Just like in real life, having characters eat together can serve as a catalyst for conversation. In Bravely Second, many dungeons will offer a point where players can set up camp and rest. Though the game incentivizes them by fully healing party HP/MP, they also show completely optional scenes where party members chat with each other -- often over a meal.

These scenes involve the cast opening up to each other about things going on in their lives and what kind of things they've seen on their journey. One scene in a dungeon crawling with ghosts and zombies has lead character Yew (Yes, “you”) Geneolgia lamenting his fear of ghosts. This fear is so great that his shoulders and back have become sore after all the tensing and crunching caused by wandering the halls of the under. With the ice on the topic broken, the others open up to share some of their fears and how (or if) they've learned ways to deal with them.

Persona 4 also has examples of this type uses dining as a venue for character interaction. Over the course of the game, the Investigation Team is often shown eating together, making idle small talk. Sometimes they talk about the latest developments in the homicide case, but often the subject will be things like upcoming exams, school trips, and other such mundane events. Seeing how each person in the group reacts to something like an upcoming exam can be a great window into their life. Watching Yosuke cringe at the prospect while Yukiko takes it in full stride tells me more than someone else calling them an idiot and a genius respectively. It isn’t necessary to have this conversation over a group meal, but having the party eat together makes it much easier to naturally have these moments.

Even if the party doesn't directly talk about themselves, often the kinds of foods they prefer can reveal a lot about them. In fiction, each culinary palate has a number of stereotypes classically associated with it. Writers can and will use these as shortcuts to tell their audiences more about the cast without having to waste time with exposition. Even if you don't think about them, you're probably at least aware of their presence. If I mentioned that Edea, one of the party members in Bravely Second, puts ketchup on many of the foods she eats, and prefers to eat extremely sweet or extraordinarily spicy foods, then you probably have an image of someone with an intense personality. Like the foods she eats, she tends toward the extreme in the her actions and reactions. Even if the game didn't show much of Edea outside of the scenes where the party dines together, this information could be gleaned just from her tastes.

Similarly, Persona 4 makes use of this narrative technique, but not quite in the same way. Generally, the better you are at cooking in Persona 4, the more self-reliant you are. People like the protagonist and Nanako, whose parents are rarely around, are able to cook so well that the others are left in awe at their culinary skill. Yet characters like Yukiko and Chie, who aren’t so self-reliant, are the worst cooks in the group, and their fellows will often go to great lengths to avoid consuming their “Mystery Food X”. Party members like Rise and Naoto, who tend to be fairly lonely even if interact with others regularly, tow a middle line in cooking skill. Rise can generally cook, but tends to overly spice and Naoto only knows enough to be able to follow instructions on the back of pre-packaged foods. Regardless, their skill at preparing great tasting food and their friends’ reactions to it reveal much about their home lives.

It feels strange pointing out the way writers can use the act of eating to tell us more about the teams they create, but examples are so few and far in between that I am compelled to do so. It’s easy to for a writer to just have a character tell their audience about themselves and the world around them. At the same time, it is one of the least engaging ways to present such information. I present this use of group dining as only one possible alternative to keep exposition to a minimum while still allowing for character and world-building. There are countless other ways to achieve the same end. I advocate exploring and making use of them as well.