Game Journal 2

Games I'm writing about:
Catherine for Xbox 360 by Atlus
Gears of War 2 for Xbox 360 by Epic
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker on Xbox 360 by Konami
Persona 4 for Playstation 2 by Atlus
The Witcher on Macbook Pro by CD Projekt Red
The Walking Dead: 400 Days by Telltale Games


Games I'm actively playing:
The Witcher
Persona 4
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
Far Cry 2

I don't have much to say about MGS: Peace Walker or Far Cry 2 this time. Stay tuned for further entries.

Catherine: Adding multiplayer to primarily single player games can be very dicy. It has often been accused to destroying the tone of the single player experience. For every good example, like Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed, there is at least one terrible example, like Metroid Prime 2, Tomb Raider or Spec Ops: The Line. Catherine may be a near pitch perfect example of how to do it right.
For those unfamiliar, Catherine is a Japanese puzzle/social sim game from Atlus, the creators of Persona. The story is concerned with Vincent, a 30-something dude with a girlfriend and a steady job. But he's having terrible nightmares, and a new mysterious woman has come to tempt him. However, there is a deeper supernatural mystery going on and Vincent must unravel it if he is to survive. (insert bit here about core gameplay) The core gameplay takes place within Vincent's nightmares. Which involve climbing a tower of movable blocks. You move the blocks to create staircases to allow you ascend, while a Freudian monster of the Psyche chases after you. It's Jenga meets Q*Bert meets Persona and it's extraordinarily original.
There are two multiplayer modes in Catherine, one is co-op which is basically the same concept, but with two players. It has spectacular moments where the players are forced to move the blocks very carefully as to accommodate each other, but it mostly scratches the same itch as single-player. Where it gets really special is the Vs. mode. In this mode, called Colosseum, both players ascend the same tower and attempt to win 2 out of 3 matches. You win a match by either making it to the top of the tower first, or if the other player falls before you. These simple additions, that involve almost no rule changes, give the game an entirely different strategic edge. You can move blocks in order to make the other player fall, or force them to discover a path of their own, rather than mooch off yours. The frantic puzzle solving gains a different edge because there is someone behind you who is catching up. It's incredible fun. It feels like an expansion or a valid addition to the game, rather than some unhealthy looking, corporate growth on the side of the game's face. Once more, both multiplayer modes force you to play the single player to unlock them. It's a game that's aware of its priorities, and isn't afraid to enforce them. The multiplayer is not the work of some investor looking over the shoulder of the development team. It is the result of the team wanting to work on the mechanics in a different setting. It's a labour of love and that makes all the difference.
 I'm not going to write about the single player much, because I don't have much to say about it.. However, I will say that playing a game that is basically about relationships and gender norms is so incredibly refreshing that it makes for a fun experience despite its more problematic elements. It's also refreshing to have a player character that starts out weak and cowardly and eventually through trial becomes bold and courageous. It's a game, primarily, about ordinary people, and that within itself is extraordinary.

Gears of War 2: Horde Mode is a really weird phenomenon. It has become one of the most popular game modes in recent years inspiring or directly influencing COD: Zombies, CoD: Modern Warfare 3, Mass Effect 3, Assassin's Creed III, Bulletstorm, Fear 3, Team Fortress 2, Killing Floor, Saints Row 3, Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, and Halo 3: ODST. And I'm sure there are dozens more that I'm missing. The interesting thing that Horde mode does is that there is no victory condition. You can not win. Every smart strategy, every close call, every sudden turnaround, is just a stall. You will lose. But, despite this, Horde Mode in Gears of War II is incredible fun. About as much fun as I've had playing anything. But it never seems to acknowledge the dark truth at the heart of the game. We are fighting, we are heroic, but we taste defeat. By entirely ignoring this element of the game, they ignore a potentially powerful story. Make no mistake, games tells stories. When I got cornered by three huge enemies and died, leaving my friend to fend off the rest of the wave, that's a story. When I rescue my friend under heavy fire, and we hold the line till the end of a wave, that's a story. When I make it to a very late wave, bruised and battered with no ammo, and die to a weaker enemy, that's a story. I just want the game to give those stories more meaning.

Persona 4: This one has spoilers, so you know SPOILERS: Persona 4 is an insanely smart game. This is really shown through how the game builds your routine and then messes with that rhythm. This is most explicitly shown in the endgame, where there are two primary changes to your routine, Nanako is gone, and a ominous, and eventually deadly, fog has settled over Inaba. Before Nanako was kidnapped, everyday you get home she greets you. I believe, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, that the greetings change as the game continues and your relationship to Nanako deepens. But once Nanako is gone, those greetings cease and their absence, as well as the change in music, cuts like a knife. Every in-game day, something that can occur several time in a single play session, gains a sudden reminder of what is at stake. Once the fog settles over Inaba, every location changes, again a constant reminder of what there is to lose.. Even when you hang out with your friends, the reminder text pops up before the short story truly begins. The sudden change gives everything weight, and lets your decisions weigh down on you before the coming storm.

The Walking Dead: 400 Days: 400 days is a semi-expansion to Telltale Game's excellent The Walking Dead. That follows 5 characters in interlocking stories that all take place at varying times during a period of 400 days. Making a shorter form Walking Dead game is really interesting, because it makes the illusionary nature of its choices more explicit. The Walking Dead always cheated, your choices don't ultimately have a huge effect on the overall narrative. But they do have an effect on how you perceive it. The example I tend to bring up in defense is Hamlet. Hamlet follows a fairly conventional trope, for both now and the time it was written: The revenge story. The play even acknowledges this by having two other characters, Laertes and Fortinbras, that represent more typical revenge protagonists. Even though many of the beats of Hamlet's story remain the same, he is different, and thus much of the play takes on a different tone and meaning. It changes everything. This is how I tend to justify the essentially meaningless choices in The Walking Dead. Plus the experience of making the choices is distinctly powerful and engaging despite their lack of mechanical meaning. And the choices you'll make in 400 Days are remarkably powerful. They'll make you question morality, nature of trust, the nature of sin, and what we're willing to do to survive. All of the short stories are very well constructed and build to effective, and occasionally devastating climaxes. It is astonishing how well the stories set up their characters and conflicts, it seems effortless, but it is definitely not.  It's not quite as heart breaking as the original game, but it's very impressive how much it does with its running time. So whether or not those choices we made actually matter, it's unclear whether these characters will show up for the game's announced 2nd season, the experience absolutely does.*

The Witcher: From a gameplay perspective, I don't have much more say than I did last time. The Witch is a beautiful, soulful game drenched in an engaging world, that is deeply flawed due to its occasionally very clumsy design. However, I wanted to talk about sex in the Witcher. Sex in the Witcher is so casual as to lose all meaning. Part of this must be since Geralt is a mutant and unable to get or inflict STDs, as well as unable to impregnate others. But this goes strangely unmentioned by any of Geralt's potential bunk mates. The societal implications of sex are not mentioned or elaborated upon in any fashion. It is unknown if this casualness is something normal to the world of the Witcher or unique to Geralt. Or whether him and his long term girlfriend Triss are committed and Geralt is cheating. What ever you think about sex, and where and when it should be done. It is an action and actions have equal and opposite reactions. The Witcher paints a picture of world where sex seems to mean nothing. For all the game's supposed maturity, that's pretty silly.

1: SPOILERS: The one story I was ultimately disappointed with was Bonnie's chapter. The death of Dee, while very powerful, doesn't feel driven by player action. The first thing I thought when the shadow of a menacing figure was approaching was that it might be one of my two companions, so I waited. You then get smashed with a flashlight and the game over screen plays. In order for Dee's death to mean something, the player has to feel responsible for it and even though I took action against it in a reasonable manner, the game ignored me. Thus the accident didn't feel like it was my fault, it felt like it was the fault of the game's designers and the scene lost much of the power it might have had.