Assassin's Creed: Gamer Girls' Choice

An introduction to read while you brew your tea...

I know very few gamers like me. Most people I know who game do so for mere entertainment. They game because none of their friend's are available, or because they heard of that new title; the one where you can perform a supernatural whoop-de-do and they thus get suckered in by the novelty. Others game competitively, and as a sidebar, I think it's the games they play which can rightly be called video games. I say the word "game" apart from the word "video" and I think of those things in boxes that contain a board and some pieces and perhaps a few dice. Or gambling. I think of that too.

Anyhow if you're not following me, I'm essentially doing a wrap-up, aristotelean style. You've got your big category of entertainment. Under that there's a slew of things: music, art (i.e. paintings and whatnot), film (motion picture or still photography), drama, sports, and somewhere in there we get what's commonly called today, video games... but there's probably an etc. in the slew as well.

But it's the category of video games that concerns this philosopher. Broken down, I'd argue you can go into two major groups, the first one being 1) the True Video Game and 2) the Narrative Game. I call the True Games as such because they adhere to a simple game format: beat the game by completing a certain challenge through strategy or chance. These are the pure puzzle games like Tetris, Pong, Space Invaders, Packman or even the early side-scrollers. Newer games in this category could be the multiplayer versions of games like Starcraft, Call of Duty, Halo, Super Smash Brothers, League of Legends and so on. Some of these True Games are single player vs. CPU, others are player vs. player, or PvP. But what they all share in common is that they have no or virtually no narrative element involved. Tetris players don't need to know why they are guiding blocks down the screen level after level. Indeed, their narrative starts at I turned on the machine to have fun playing Tetris, and now I will commence having fun.

These games are games that could theoretically be played without digital simulation. Even an RTS like Starcraft could probably be played if one had enough people and time. It's a True Video Game because it is at it's essence, a true game. It just happens to be in digital format on a digital medium, because slavery nowadays is expensive and quite illegal.

"Come on already!" You cry. "What does this have to do with Assassin's Creed?"

Tea done yet? We're about to start...

Okay, I'll tell you. I classify Assassin's Creed not as a competitive game. Yes, I'm aware some of the installments have multiplayer game modes, but honestly, what AAA dev isn't going to try their hand at a multiplayer just incase it helps rake in a few extra million? But AC didn't start off multiplayer, it started off in the other camp: the Narrative Game. The big deal? Well, with a True Video Game, success, sales and popularity depend largely on good mechanics: a TVG regardless of the amount of players, must be programmed to be a challenge but not an impossible one. An NG, on the other hand needs attractive gameplay, graphics and a compelling narrative story. Now graphics and story are a no-brainer, but what exactly is gameplay? My definition is threefold 1) basic game mechanics (i.e. how the game plays and is manipulated via controls), 2) physics and 3) overall game experience (i.e. how the game felt.

My take...

I remember when this franchise started. The thing that drew me into it was that intense minute or so trailer (seen here). And why not? This has all the makings of a really sweet game. Spying on a target from afar, stealing through a crowd to get in close, taking down multiple targets as if it were child's play, and finally killing off the one you sought with... get this: a hidden blade! But that's not all. The city guards are in hot pursuit. Let's elude them by doing some fancy footwork onto the nearest rooftop, taking down another guard unawares, and topping it all off in the nick of time by immersing yourself in a pool of monks just fresh out from their daily worship.

I still love that video to this day, but it's sad because it reminds me of how much better this series could've been. Most of my problems with the game center around the story, but I have many bones to pick with the gameplay as well. Since I'm of the assumption that most gamers only really care about the latter, I will begin here. Oh, but where to start? Ah, I know.

Dat parkour though...

First let me tell you that I've only played and completed the titles as follows: AC, ACII, AC: Revelations, and ACIV: Black Flag. The neat thing about these games however is that the engines and mechanics don't change much, so most of my beefs issued will be for all of these. Nevertheless, I won't be able to touch on the all specifics unique to each game, though I mention some.

• One of my main problems that I encountered in every game was that it was too easy. In the interest of not getting me wrong, I do NOT mean that it is user friendly... in fact I found the games to be quite the opposite, but we'll get there soon enough. There are very few penalties for messing up in the game aside from sustaining damage to yourself and possibly your armor ('cept Black Flag! And I—surprise surprise—lament this heartily too). The damage in question is only dealt if you fail to block or doge an attack, or you fall from a too great a height. The damage you do take is lacking in brutality as well. Melee warfare and weapons are vicious and I can appreciate the games for demonstrating this when you slay an enemy, but I think it's only fair if the same can happen to you. Still, I'd like to see more brutality. I'm supposed to be a goddamned, stone-cold assassin! Is it too much to ask for some dismemberment? Hell, that could have been implemented in the gameplay: clean kills are difficult, but make for stealthier jobs; brutal massacres are easy but gain you more notoriety. And speaking of... I know people have critiqued the game before for making the player character... a bit obvious for an assassin. Like, isn't anyone in a hood with loads of unique weapons automatically suspicious? To be fair, I think it does get a bit ridiculous, but only in the later games. In Altair's time, I can suspend my disbelief enough to accept white as a very common color, that fashions weren't as hard and fast (especially for the poor), so as to excuse the hooded robes (and also Christian monks did wear hooded robes), and I also don't find it hard to swallow him decked out with weapons as the world was a tumultuous place back then. It's characters like Ezio, Connor and Edward that make me scratch my head why the guards don't pay more attention to them. Oh yes, ACII did have a notoriety meter, but I found that a silly attempt to make the game challenging. Later on in II, I simply stopped trying to lower notoriety in order to give the game a bit more realism. I mean shit guys, for sure there's a lot of people living in Italy, but when you see a man in highly stylish clothing and armor cut down ten city guards (BTW, guards you might know personally as a citizen of the town), and flee the scene by scaling the side of the nearest building, you think you'll ever forget that man's face, clothes, weapons or actions? Maybe in the AC universe, every NPC has as much mental capacity as Brick from Anchorman. And then there's parkour. Something I am by no means an expert in, but something I can tell by looking at it that it takes skill. The AC games just give it to you as a freebee. No hours of mastering button combos, no gruesome accidents as results of failed attempts. Just hold down a button or two and run toward something. Anything. You can probably climb it. Forget misjudging distance; autoleap's got your back. Can't tell whether or not a roof tile, iron bar or bit o' masonry can support your weight? No worries, apparently it all can if you're an assassin... unless you're in a gigantic underground tomb. Then shit will break on you all the time—but don't fear; remember autoleap? All in all, AC games rank one notch above Fable in terms of challenge, but at least in Fable you could fart in people's faces and flip them off...
• What challenge I did get from AC is it's horrid UI. If you want a game to tell you next to nothing when you start a mission—oops I mean memory sequence—then I'd recommend this game. I fully understand that there are games out there that make heuristics a selling point, but AC doesn't do this. The standard formula runs more like a GTA pre-mission cutscene: Edward approaches quest giver, they talk about locations I've either never been to or just flat out don't remember (doesn't matter I've got radar blips); they talk about people who's names I can't connect to a face (doesn't matter I've got radar blips and on-screen text to tell me what to do with said person-blip); they talk about stuff just to allow room for character growth (dubious, but it's the gameplay that matters, yes?). Okay, I think I'm set! Let's tackle this memory with all our assassin romance and finesse! Alright, I'm after a man aboard slave vessel? No sweat! I can't sink the vessel because of the slaves on board? No problem, I've been fighting ships long enough to know that I must damage them into the red before they sink. Hey, why you getting angry? I just told you I have to pummel the ship into submission... wait what? WTF? Why did I desynchronize? Target destroyed? No I didn't, I was just damaging it enough to... [After a few more desynchs] You mean I had to just pull up NEXT to the ship WITHOUT damaging it THIS ENTIRE FUCKING TIME!?!? ANYONE PLAN ON FUCKING TELLING ME THIS!? This is just one example of the many times during memory sequences I absolutely ate shit because of a lack of information to the player. Perhaps they should use more visual cues instead of explaining things via conversation with some guy whose hat feather is distracting me, or some girl who's boobs are doing the same. Of course, it's not always this bad. I understand when it tells me to "tail target without being detected" or "kill that guy." But even then I suffer from lack of info to the player. I'm not above chalking it up to myself and the way I read instructions but I've encountered a much similar feeling in other games. For example, in Hitman Absolution, there's a part where you gotta take out this weapons scientist in a huge warehouse setup for testing out the company's land mines... on pigs. I tried numerous times to make it through that part without being seen and without kills. I couldn't do it. I fell back on kills, but still tried hiding the bodies. No dice; again I'd get seen or someone would discover the corpse before I had time to hide it. It's aggravating in the extreme when the name of the game is stealth, but it takes 1000 tries to obtain a perfect stealth record when out and out slaughter is just as viable, or indeed promoted as it is in the many scenarios of AC. In short, I felt like the game was saying to me, "Hey, what's with all the sneaking around? This isn't a stealth game you know; I didn't give you all these weapons just so you won't use them. Oh, trying to proceed without kills or k.o.'s eh? Just so happens there's a rooftop guard here, here, here and here. Oops, too bad! You've been had! Guess you have to kill them now..." And then we're back at bullet point one. The game is about assassins for pete's sake, you'd think stealth would be a lot more integral to the gameplay. Oh, I guess someone at Ubisoft confused stealth with parkour... or maybe it's just that in the AC universe, guards can't look up.
• Speaking of assassins, this game never made me feel like one. Perhaps that's my fault. I dunno. I mostly felt like a giant douche with some weapons who, for reasons unknown, never gets caught, never gets reviled by normal people, never gets spat upon by even the lowlifes in the slums. No, apparently for the assassins of AC, life is one big, glamourous party. Sure, half of your family might get killed, but eh, *shrug* unlucky. I guess the world was a different place back then. Murderers were celebrated in the streets (although prepare for a reprimand if you loot your victim's corpse). People are ready and willing to trust you if you wear a hood, kill town guards and officials by the score, and if they aren't, you can always throw money at the herald who talks shit about you (though honestly I don't think anyone listens to him; you ever see a random Joe or Jane Citizen call the guards on your ass because they heard some anti-you propaganda? Nope). Don't worry about sir herald either, that guy is as corrupted as they come. He'll always accept your dough, although, I mean in reality you could just kill him and silence him for good the next time you draw the eye of the templars down on you because of your hijinks... Well fuck it, cash isn't hard to come by anyway. Speaking of which, what's the best way to get cash? What? Assassin contracts? Hell no! What do I look like, a killer for hire? It used to be an assassin made his money by sequencing memories (don't ask me how that works). Another good way to accrue funds is by taking a small town under your wing and renovating shops and guilds to gain maximum profit over time. Assassins making a living through killing people? It was never thus! Yep, turns out we got assassins wrong all this time guys, just like dragons and vampires. They don't kill for the money, they kill for world peace and... liberty, I think... oh, and I suppose because it's also a thrill.

And it's with this last bullet point that I feel it appropriate to turn to the story critiques I promised in the above.

I play it for the plot...

• Story is incomprehensible. Mismatch. Heh, me and my shameless allusions. But yeah, speaking from the heart guys, I think the AC series could be so much better than it is if it simplified it's plot. I had an author/screenwriter tell me once that when a movie promises depth, he's probably going to judge it more harshly than a movie that doesn't. Compare Tree of Life to Napoleon Dynamite, and I think you'll see what I mean. I know there are people out there who like a story that will get them thinking (and to grossly misquote Shakespeare, "If it be a sin to covet intellectual entertainment,  I am the most offending man alive") but if you as an author are going to attempt a thought-provoking masterpiece in any medium, you better be goddamn good at it. So good, in fact, that even your haters have naught to do at the end of the day, but disagree with the message presented. I argue from the standpoint that we feign thought-provokingness in our entertainment. The motion picture Inception was a good example of this I think. The film promises to put viewers knee high in some deep, involved plot. What I got at least was another action flick; standard race against the clock tension, standard violence possibly rendered a bit more meaningless in that the enemies were actually manifestations of someone's subconscious. There was standard, strained romance backstory too! All in all, I can walk away from Inception like I can from Die Hard, save that feeling where one film was more honest with me than the other. You wanna see shooting, explosives and stuff? Yipee ki yay mutherfuker. Translate what I'm saying into this popular stealth action/adventure series, whose main title revolves around the silliest creed I've ever heard: nothing is true, everything is permitted. Who ordered the deepsauce pizza with extra cheese? Sorry, we were out of ingredients, so we had to make that an imitation deepsauce. That'll be $60 please. I'd been waiting since game one of the series for someone to explain the logic behind this creed. It seems the player character does too when he inevitably asks about it. "Doesn't that mean I get to loot and plunder anyone I want?" asks Captain Kenway. "No," says James Kidd. "Hm, well perhaps because nobody knows what it means, there's wisdom behind it, and it should be applied to all aspects of our lives..." Said no one ever. If loads of people in this world reject common faiths like Christianity, Islam or Judaism (to name a few) why would anyone band together under a creed that makes less sense than the Immaculate Conception? "Oh actually, it's because it promotes freedom." Oh. Good. And how in the hell is that different from all the OTHER creeds, beliefs, religions and philosophies that promote freedom? What even is freedom to the assassins? In Black Flag, after Kenway takes down a target (I forget who), he accuses the templar of wanting to fashion a world where everyman is an obedient, docile, and most importantly, unknowing slave. It was a touching scene. I look out at a nation that cries for the intervention of it's government at every turn in life, like a child spoiled rotten, whining for mommy. We depend on the state because we're too scared to take control. It's our boys in camo and cop uniforms that do the fighting for us. Guns kill people; let's keep the men who use them separate from those of us that don't. It reminds me of this old Latin fable: a wolf struggling to survive comes across a well-fed dog and asks him how he manages to stay thus. Dog replies that he works for a man by watching his house all day. Wolf says it sounds like a sweet gig and wants to get in on the action. Dog mentions in the fine print that you have to be chained up during the day, to which wolf decides against trading his freedom for comfort. By and large, this is the textbook formula for the state to enslave its people, by increasing dependance on the central government. Again, prominent ancient Greeks—history's poster children for democracy—won people over not merely by showing off how smart or handsome or strong they were, but by giving handouts to the poor and needy. This is why Presidents always appear in public with rolled-up sleeves. After all, they're just like the next working class schmuck. So there you have it, freedom is not having chummy dictators who would like to feed you till you've become too fat to move. Freedom is not always fun. Freedom is painful at times, and not everyone wants to be free. In an ironic stroke of fate, I am the very person Kenway was talking about; the obedient, docile slave. I'm sitting here in my comfy chair—playing a game that was mass-marketed in much the same way they portray Abstergo (A.K.A. the bad guys) doing—and NOT starting my own assassin's guild, much less living by their creed. How's about next time you go to school or work or on a date you don't put in any effort at all? Everything's permitted, yeah? Good philosophy if you're looking to get expelled, fired and rejected. Real freedom is not doing whatever the hell you want. I, for one, am of the politico-philosophic persuasion that freedom abhors a vacuum. Think of it this way, if one man had the freedom to do whatever he pleased, his desire would eventually conflict with the desires of another person. The story of King Ahab illustrates this well. In the Bible, we're told of Ahab and his desire for this pretty sweet vineyard under the care and loving oversight of a dude named Naboth. Bartering for it was out of the question, and Ahab rage-quitted to his kingly chambers, refusing even to eat! Jezebel, his wife was like, "Quit thy whining likened unto bitches, O husband. Just kill the guy and take his vineyard." And one politically correct scene later, Ahab's got himself a shiny new vineyard! Had someone asked him at the time if he felt what he did was an exercise of freedom, I'd think he'd answer affirmative. Was Mr. Naboth free? No, his freedom was squelched. Ahab was, in one real sense, enlarging his freedom while Mr. Naboth's freedom was being greatly diminished, yea verily until he was denied the right to draw breath. If we drew a Ven of freedoms here, you would have one circle (Ahab's) and the other (Naboth's) with the overlap in between being the sacrifices they both make to keep each circle equal size. After the vineyard incident, Ahab's circle grows, enveloping the overlap portion (as no mutual sacrifice was being made here now) and Naboth's circle until the only circle left was Ahab's. "Aye, but that's just it," you say, "Ahab was a king. Of course kings will be dicks. AC repeatedly shows us this." To quote a character from a show I never watch, "False." AC doesn't really show governmental dickism except in very superficial forms; sure a guy might get an unprovoked (so it seems) beating by some city guards, but what does that tell me about ruling powers? Am I suppose to get pissed to the point of thinking that all governments sponsor this brutality on their own people? It's tempting to think that way, but I argue that's a narrow-minded way of looking at it. Maybe they're, unbeknownst to their superiors, simply corrupt men; maybe they'd be oppressive in another life and form too, like the asshole boss who's mean to his employees, or the gangster who outrages a defenseless woman, or the dick who cuts your coin purse and goes off free-running, never to be seen again... oh wait those are the assassins. Oh well, it's not like you needed that money to feed your family or anything. Let's hope another one shows up flinging his florins about the street, though not likely. Yeah, apart from bits of dialogue like, "We're only pillaging the Kings' men... the biggest crooks out there," or "They're just pirates in uniform," AC really provides no solid evidence for me to be confident that the Templars really are the bad guys. No matter which way you slice it, a person can try enlarging his freedoms by stepping on his neighbor's, whether he's a prince or a pauper. And this makes me wonder...
• Who are the bad guys? The series obviously wants us to woot for the assassins and boo for the templars, but after a lot of what I've mentioned in the above, there's room enough to argue there's no justice to be found in either camp. Sure, the assassin you're playing as never historically killed civilians (hell, he must have historically never eaten or slept either), but who's to say that's not Ubisoft covering their asses? If you think about it, AC and GTA have a lot in common; player is set in a world where thousands of NPCs live. NPCs are all defenseless and bound by in-game laws; in GTA, the laws are driving to the rules of the road (mostly) and in AC the laws are no parkour (mostly). In both games, their lives have no ultimate meaning for the player character. In juxtaposition, look at many of the NPCs in a Fallout or Elder Scrolls game; most have their own names, stations in life, unique personalities, methods of defending themselves if attacked, ideologies, etc.... If you went on a rampage in one of these games, you'd probably end up killing someone who might have offered you a unique quest, or had some kind of information. At the very least, you won't be seeing that character anymore because that was the only Veronica, or Lydia. Conversely, in GTA or AC universe, people that walk the streets from day to day are glorified, nameless cardboard cutouts. At a glance, it looks like they've got precious, busy lives, but don't be fooled; they're really only there to make it feel like the surrounding world is vibrant and inhabited. They also come with the added bonus of using them for tricks, stunts and targets for your griefing. And before you object, yes, you can grief the NPCs in AC. I remember playing ACII and beating up every unlucky man, woman and woman within a mile radius of Ezio... because boredom. Hey, he never historically killed any civilians, right? It was terrible: knocking down hordes of people, grabbing ladies by their garments and punching their faces in, seeing how many townsmen I can lay out before the guards notice, at which point I'd either lose the guards via killing or hiding and start my reign of terror anew. Faced with these facts, I can only conclude that Ubisoft really didn't give a shit about the lives of these NPCs, but (unlike Rockstar) they didn't want to draw unwanted attention of the bleeding-heart-game-violence-watchdogs, and thus assassins cannot kill civvies. Ironically, Bethesda games permit the wanton destruction of NPCs, but smart players will realize that harming them may hamper the game experience in the form of fines or execution, imprisonment or exile, not to mention you might axe somebody who gives you an important quest. Of course, at the end of the day, these are only NPCs and they don't/shouldn't bear any moral impact upon the player if he/she chooses to hurt or kill them. I bring NPCs up because AC brings them up. The NPCs are the "people that the assassins are fighting for," and yet, you can steal from them, use them as accomplices to murder (prostitutes/mercenaries), kill them accidentally with no recourse, trespass on their private property, and be a general nuisance. The guards, in all their inability, try to protect and serve these people from guys in the game like you, and yet somehow they are the bad guys. I guess this is one of those "greater good" situations...
• Let's talk about the Romanticism for a bit shall we? Don't misunderstand me here; I am no enemy to slicking things over with the ol' romanticization brush, even if the game is supposed to be historically based. I said in a previous post that I like Final Fantasy VIII mainly because of it's overall aesthetic! I will go so far as to say that I like the character designs in FFXIII (freaking XIII!), especially Lightning, despite the rest of the game leaving a horrid taste in my mouth and despite the hundreds of thousands of haters she has on mere association with the title. So allow me to take an aside to let the reader know that I respect AC's creative liberty where appropriate. Remember: I thought the trailer for the first game was really cool! The thing I am an enemy against here is over-romanticization. This is why I chose to title this post what I did, because these games get as ridiculous as the swan scene in The Notebook. In fact, I'd go so far as to posit that the AC games are really just playable chick flicks. And here's where I give a genuine applause to Ubisoft, for they have pulled off a marketing rarity in this game. The AC series is one of the first North American game releases that appeals to more girls than guys, while the guys dig it too. I realize I have no super-concrete evidence to back this up, but in true Phoenix Wright style, I do have an intuition—especially when there exists a blog on Tumblr specifically for showcasing yaoi fan art of AC characters (Here if you so dare). Ignoring rule 34 for the moment, let's consider the following: one of Ubisoft's top executives behind AC, Jade Raymond, is a woman. This shows if you know what to look at. I'm not saying that women are devoid of artistic brilliance; rather men and women are susceptible to their own pitfalls. Men can—and often do—pack as much gratuitous violence, sex and dissipation as they can into any given form of entertainment. Not much is gained from this. Women can be tempted to pack as much gratuitous drama, emotion and empowerment as they can into movies, books, and—I'd argue now—video games. Of course I'm not saying only women worked on AC, but I can't help but see a large female influence in the series' design; from the handsome, able and intelligent foreign player characters (not raging-bull, alpha males typical of a CoD, Gears of War or God of War), to the beautifully detailed cityscapes and locales, to the friendships. One thing I think stands out above the rest is the lack of general grit, and I've skirted this before in the gameplay section. I want to see consequences for my actions. Show me the weeping wives and children of the thousands of men I've killed. Give me the ability to solicit prostitutes if I choose (I mean, I can get drunk and murder people, why not this?). Go above and beyond the mild blood spurts; give me shrieks of pain and mortally injured who grovel on the floors, begging in vain for their lives to be spared. Be brave: let the main character be racist, sexist or religious. I'm not looking for a sweet guy who can take me to the heights of Il Duomo di Firenze to watch the sunset. I'm looking for a killer. His motivations could be evil or pure, but regardless there must always be a heavy, lingering regret for the things he's done and the things he will do. Watching events unfold in AC makes all the violence in history feel like I'm shoe shopping at the mall. Never in a AAA video game has death felt so cheap and unfulfilling for me. I realize it sounds like I've just asked for all the gratuitous stuff I only finished condemning moments ago, but consider the nature of the game. Assassin. What should be a word associated with darkness, brutality and killing (oftentimes for money) now makes for a nice fantasy date, where the player can run around with limitless energy, fell enemies with little difficulty or consequence and pretend all the while that he/she is saving the world in the process.

IN. THE. ENNNNNND!!!!

Whew. I've said a lot. I could probably say more. I'll summarize instead. For a game series that is critically acclaimed and has a pretty wide fan base, I am not a fan. For a game that should have been heavier on the stealth action, it's overall controls were an insult to my intelligence at best and jerky at worst. In classic Ubisoft fashion, replay value in this game is based on collectibles and completion records. The games are unchallenging and despite peppering the series with historical tidbits here and there (most of which are optional reads), hasn't motivated me to further broaden my knowledge of the world we live in. The weak and incoherent narrative is good for delivering the loads of emotional porn women crave, while flying under the radar of the series' fanboys.

A Meandering Contemplation on Final Fantasy (...at least the one's I've played)

I feel as though this 'writing out my thoughts' thing has been put off for too long since last time. Very well, I will lay out my thoughts imperfect and jam-packed with tangents that diverge from the main point.

But in all truth, I actually find my thoughts cohere better when I scribble them down. I can memorize the main point I want to illustrate while first elucidating that point. Something that, I believe is quite genetic, as most normal people on this planet would state their points first, saving elucidations until immediately afterward.

For this post, I've decided to treat on the ever popular Final Fantasy series. I confess on the outset that I feel very ill equipped to handle a subject like this one for I have extensive gaps, I'm afraid, in my education on the series. This is where the stats jump in:

First FF game exposed to: FFVIII
FF games I've played: VIII, IX, XIV:A Realm Reborn, X, XIII, III (that's the Western-released III, I believe), IV and VII.
FF games actually completed from start to end: VIII, X, III

Now, you should see why I would consider myself a poor authority on the subject of Final Fantasy, since the number I've merely played greatly outranks the number I've completed. And if the crown gem of the series (that is, VII) is not among the completed list, than why on earth would anyone think I have anything of import to say?

Well, I would remind everyone that this blog's main purpose is to record my thoughts and musings for my own benefit. I would never take my opinion to a forum, or more pathetic, the comment section on a Youtube video. I acknowledge the raving mass of fans out there that can take whatever opinions I own and rip them to shreds with verbal eminence surpassing that of my own! The end result is myself feeling much like a dog who gets scolded my his master simply for his being too eager to play when his master has had a rough day at the office. The point? I'm going to say things here that people will take issue with. My disclaimer has already been made known, so if you happen to read the following and take exception with the following, I'll probably just respond with a "boo hoo" unless of course it's an intelligent comment. Oh! and as always, HERE BE SPOILERS! Don't be sailin' on unless ye want to sink yer ship in the briny seas of endings revealed prematurely!

I classify useless questions of category and subjective statement, as well as other forms of nerdery, worthless in the extreme, but I may answer some of these "not so pertinent" questions along the way. One that sits before my mind now is, do I count those other games along with those that bear the Final Fantasy title? You know the ones; made by the same company and play just like a FF title but without the title: Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Kingdom Hearts...etc...

My answer? I don't know. The only FFish game I've played was Chrono Trigger. And, no, before you ask, I didn't beat that one either.

So the next question you might have is, "What's wrong with you? How is it you've played a lot of these titles and not finished them?" That's a legit question. The reasons why I haven't actually beat so many of them are various. Most of the time is comes down to gameplay, though I oftentimes loose interest in a particular part and stop playing the game for awhile. When I come back to it, I don't remember where I'm at in the story, so I just start all over, probably just to get bored again around the same spot. Still, I think the big reason is gameplay issues; for example, a certain title will not tell you outright that it's a good idea to constantly stock magic from the very beginning, or to fight every mob you see. Sometimes the game actually gives players hints that indicate good strategies, when they're actually good ways to get yourself royally screwed later on. I will not pretend I'm a shrewd man—actually I will pretend, but I know in reality I'm not—so I naturally don't think in RPG terms, e.g. how much DPS this new weapon will grant me; instead, I just know that I'm more powerful with it. And that line of thought can be treacherous when the only way to determine increased power is to pay sharp attention to a dry stats menu and (God forbid) crunch numbers.

But sometimes, the reason why I stop playing through a FF title has a lot to do with the story. It's fascinating to me how many stories (be they FF or otherwise) can grip me at the beginning and lose me in the middle. Sometimes, it can hold my attention for 2/3 of the game, but I'll get hooked on some other game by that time, or one or many of the reasons stated above might occur and my attentions will shift elsewhere.

Let me start my opinions (once again, the most unnecessary, but most exciting part) out by stating directly what I like and dislike. Starting with FFs VIII, X and III, I figured that I might as well begin by saying what actually got me through them. This won't (shouldn't) take long.

I liked VIII because it was the first FF I've known. Yeah, yeah I'm kinda a few years behind the gaming scene for being a product of the 90's but I was socially stunted as a child and didn't get fancy toys like video game consoles when everyone else was, so instead of being apart of the millions of Westerners who's first FF in Playstation format was VII, mine was VIII. Sue me. And yes, I am one of those types who form bias on nostalgia, I'm sad to say.

Still I can't help but love the setting I find myself in FFVIII. I think the whole "mercenary school" is imaginative genius with lots of potential and trumps the hell out of Hogwarts. The overall aesthetic to the game was genius as well. The player is brought before a myriad of sceneries; some conveying an advanced, Japanese-cyberpunk feel (Esthar), others giving off an old-school Western European feel (Deling, Dolet), others giving off an ancient Greco-Roman feel (Centra), while still others mirrored scenes from everyday life. I think it's a shame the game isn't considered a production on par with its predecessor, and therefore will probably never attain the title of 'Classic' for the sole fact that it's aesthetics are amazing.

Yeah, I will admit that the story got kinda wonky after the second disk and kept getting wonkier. Yes I will also admit that the combat system had some wonks of it own. But in all fairness, I've never really been a huge fan of turn-based combat. It's never seemed that realistic to me and I may go to my grave viewing it as a vestige of hyper-rational conflict assessment, whose origins probably date back to D&D.  Yes, it might be entertaining for a while in the strategic sense (like how chess might be considered fun), but the battlefield probably shouldn't be that platonic in the end. In FF I can deliver a sword blow across the chest to a human target, and despite a flinch and a numeral popping up telling me how much damage I accrued on his hit points, the target doesn't appear any less worse for wear. Once again, if you're the kind of gamer who is into the strategy and intellect of it all, then be my guest, but in my mind a platonic battlefield shrinks the world and the story. It's one thing to quantify damage done, it's entirely quite another when pain and viscera are thrown into the mix, because then issues like ethics and will are brought into the picture.

Interestingly enough, in FFVIII there's a small portion of dialogue between Squall and Seifer where the latter asks the former if he's scared to kill actual people in armed combat. Squall, nonchalantly as ever, replies something to the effect of, "I try not to think about it." Indeed, that's what all good soldiers must do and I think you can make an argument for that whether the death in question is an inoffensive falling down to the ground and fading away, or a grim spectacle of blood spinach and intestinal chewing gum. Like, even in the first example you still are bringing someone to non-existence (to use the term very loosely). Still, FF never really asks that question in any other series (that I know). Sure there are ethics concerning motives for killing and fighting but the actual fighting in question never seems to make much of a difference to the protagonists. In fact, there are times where I find it extremely ambiguous as to whether I am killing an enemy or merely "kicking it's butt" to the point of incapacitation. In any case let us say the protagonists are killing their enemies. One would think they could work that into the story itself or effect the character in some way. I mean I can picture, a 13 year-old Hope killing a pulsework solider or a monster and being psychologically okay, but when he kills a cocoon soldier he's not one bit shaken. And forget for now that he was harboring an intent to kill Snow all this time too; for it's one thing to want and say you're going to kill but quite another to actually do it, especially at that age and station of life.

So anyhow, my point in brief is that life-taking occurs in FF games a ton, but I can only feel disconnected a bit by the characters' behavior regarding what should normally be a very difficult and traumatic thing to do. There's just a kind of comic attitude about it that bothers me in the way a home-cooked meal does when it tastes like a crucial spice was left out. More I can say. Probably shouldn't.

Now one thing players like to get into regarding the story is the whole Ultimecia debate. Honestly, right now I will tell you I am not often one for debate. I remember looking this up one time but I became progressively bored the more I read and don't quite know where to stand. Maybe the only thing I took away from the debate was that you cannot change your fate. Be that as it may, the game, in my opinion, doesn't make that a focal point of the story and instead puts the love story between Rinoa and Squall at the forefront. I actually like to think of the game as a character study of Squall, as it starts with him, centers around people he primarily knew in his childhood and gradually displays his movement from cold independence to emotional kindness. In other words, tsundere. Ha! Just kidding. Though that label sort of applies, Squall isn't actually full tsun, I'd say. He can still get along with people, it's just he never lets his shield down.

To summarize, I think the story gets lost somewhere around where sorceress Adel and the Lunatic Pandora come into the game. All of a sudden you are hit with the revelation that Edea wasn't the bad guy after all, but was being possessed through time by Ultimecia. In my humble opinion, involving time travel in a plot can either make or break your story and it did with this one. Yeah you can get all involved and deep about who was actually possessing who (or who is who) and wrestle with the debate issues, but perhaps one solution to the myriad of questions is just that the writers didn't know what they were doing. Perhaps that's just me being intellectually banal and lazy.

The one with the best story so far had to be FFX. I only owned the game for maybe a year and a half and played through it about five times. I really enjoyed how the game was put together. Even the combat system was fairly straightforward and included a telos in that slain enemies would fade into a swarm of pyreflies. The lore in this game was integrated like no other title I've fully played. Like, if you came across a ruin, the characters themselves would explain to you what its significance is. They easily did this through the Newcomer trope manifested in Tidus' character; because he'd never been to Spira before, it gives a nice little excuse to share all sorts of info about this world in such a natural way, unlike FFXIII's database thingy *glares*. All the characters I found to be rather enjoyable despite falling more on the "peppy" side of things (remember I'm a Leonheart fanboy. Good heavens, did I just say that?). The game had many good things to say regarding sacrifice and selflessness, usually demonstrated through Yuna's and Tidus' actions.

Here's where an objection might be raised: but wasn't all that self-sacrifice just a result of being duped by a twisted organized religion that preached an even more twisted entity? Well in some ways yes it was, and I think the game rightly showed how short-sighted or even wicked religions can be. Religions are dangerous things because they involve worship, and worship inevitably turns the worshipers into the object of their praise. Yu Yevon, or rather, the spirit of Yu Yevon, was a mindless, but powerful entity, capable of ensuring the rebirth of the monstrous Sin no matter how many summoners' lives were sacrificed in the vain hope of purging it from Spira forever. When this is revealed to the company (and the player) by Lady Yunalesca, I think Yuna's response to her one of the single most fitting and moving speeches in a video game I've ever heard.

But here's where it can get easy to stick out your pointer finger like Mr. Wright and yell, "Take that!" ...Uh and also, "Ha! See where religions lead you? Never be fooled into their hate and pointlessness! Now die, Yunalesca! Die, leaders of Yevon! Die Yevon himself!"

We must not be tempted to take an anti-religious stance in life or make atheism a creed to live by. The Western World, though gaining so much through the Renaissance and Enlightenment, has lost a lot too. Notice that though the game pointed out the failings of humans regarding religion, it didn't end with Tidus waking up somewhere realizing it was all a dream and him going to continue living his life as an unbeliever all things spiritual and religious. In fact, because he was a dream, he departed to the Farplane in the end, where the spirits of his mother, Jecht and Auron were.

Because they found the source of the corruption to be backed by a thousand years of religion, doesn't mean there are no true gods to serve. The sacrifice Yuna was meant for, and the one Tidus ended up making were still for salvation from Sin. Sin wasn't brought about by any god, but by a man, and it took more than a pure human element to redeem Spira.

All in all, I would recommend FFX to many people. Most likely people that I like. Kind people, with caring souls. This was what FFXIII should have referenced as far as the emotions department goes... whiney bitches does not a good story make (and though I say that, a certain young wizard with a lighting-shaped scar on his forehead comes to mind).

I'm also aware there are like, purists out there who only consider FF titles I-VII to be worth anything at all. VIII is where the series nose-dived and it's gotten ever worse, they may claim. I have no idea how close to the truth these purists may be as the only one of these I've beaten was III. Now to eliminate any confusion here, I'm talking about the III that has Terra and Locke and espers etc.... I know other, perhaps more seasoned gamers stick to calling it VI, but I will call it III because that's what popped up on the main title screen after the DUN DUN DUNNN music plays.

I enjoyed III for how well it was able to make me feel like it was always a part of my childhood. Chrono Trigger was much more a part of my childhood and yet the amount of expression the characters had in III compared to the ones in IV, for instance, really made me think back to my first experience watching my big bro play CT the first time. And it's not only that. From the somber music in the opening scene (Terra's theme I believe it's called) to the progression of the story through each of the three character groups up until Kefka unleashes hell upon everyone really did a good job of capturing my interest, as well as making me feel like they had belonged to memories I've had long ago forgotten. In other words, I felt more attached to the characters, towns, setting and adventures than I had when I tried my best at IV or IX. And for the record, VII succeeded in this too, what with all it's dirty-industrial 90s punk feels, but alas I couldn't finish VII for a different reason than the ones above: emulator difficulties :(

In fact, had it not been for the environment and setting of III, I might not have finished it. On my first few attempts, I would always seem to get bogged down shortly after Kefka's calamity. I know it's as simple as scouring the now-dead world, gathering your mates and eventually dealing justice to that psychotic clown, but... dem end-game blues tho...

End-game blues are when you know you're getting close to the end of the game and all that's left are a few paltry side-quests that you don't feel like expending the energy on because... well... 1) not story relevant and 2) I've beaten everything thrown my way so far, why do you think I need whatever weapon/armor/ability this side-quest will grant me now all of the sudden, O game? You may be thinking #2 is a stupid reason. Aye, if you know how tough some of the bosses that lie ahead are, then you'd have all the more reason to make sure you've secured all the necessary comrades to your party and collected the most badass espers and taught everyone all the most badass spells and not to mention Edgar's tools... it would be wise to stock up, yes?

Yeah, but it takes time. And I've found the more time I spend in an FF game where no plot progression is being made, the less interested I become and therefore the more willing I am to put the game away for good. XIII had this in one... heh heh GRAN example: Gran Pulse. Once I was at Gran Pulse, I felt like I knew the end was near, which aggravated me as I also learned that the game wanted me to essentially grind precious hours of my life away before any more story could happen. I cri. So I've felt like this in III's world, post Kefka wrecked everyone's shit. Also slightly got this feel upon entering the Calm Lands in X, but they kept it fresh enough and not as much grinding and finding (finding i.e. exploring everything in hopes of unlocking a secret the game was adamantly not telling you, while possibly enduring grinding along the way. Think the clock in Zozo) was required. Yet another exemplum: CT's Ocean Palace. The place was so gaddam big that with each mob I fought, I could see Crono and friends yawning and blowing snot bubbles along with the Guru of Time...

So in the spirit of confession I will admit I cheated my way through FFIII. I had to. Terra's theme kept beckoning me to finish. But those damn elemental dragons were so tough... and I didn't want to grind or find....

So my final battle with Kefka was undoubtedly anti-climactic, but what you gonna do? Perhaps next time, I'll just get ahold of a nice walkthrough guide and beat the game semi-legit. As far as the bigger picture goes, I appreciated FFIII for it's setting and aesthetics as well as the plot. It explored loads of questions from the ethics of warfare and industrialization to empires to greed for power and influence. I honestly didn't foresee Kefka becoming as big of a problem as he did right off the bat, and actually felt quite a bit comforted when peace negotiations between the Returners and the empire were happening. Hell, even Kefka was in chains then! So props to FFIII for letting me take part in an adventure I'll never forget.

Some closing thoughts. From my perspective as a gamer, it seems like what's happening nowadays in the industry is much more different. Of course AAA games are likely to have way better graphics and user-friendliness in amounts as liberal as icing on one of those store-bought cakes, but as I played through III, it occurred to me that it's got a lot more "scriptedness"to it than other games. Games heavy on dialogue like the Mass Effects and Elder Scrolls are trying to break away from the script, trying to let the player forge the narrative as he sees fit. I like this and I don't. I like how these games can bring a player into the world further through optional dialogue choices.

Think about a dream wherein you were in a beautiful, totally freaking-cool awesome place. As it's a dream however, you cannot control your actions and as a result you may awaken from the dream depressed that you never fully got to explore the awesome place. Let this serve as an analogy for a scripted work, or game in this case. I feel this way about FFVIII from time to time, wishing there were more people to meet, more lore to be learnt, more cities to visit and more downtime to experience. I get this in games like Fallout; that is to say, I don't feel like it's over-scripted. If one of the characters I meet along my path gives me a simple greeting to their town I can either give them a hearty hello, be a bit more reserved or tell them to out and out fuck off.

That being said, I feel like FFIII, for all it's scriptedness gets something right. Perhaps we've gotten a bit too hooked on games with the alternate end and the speech/action options that bring us there. I suspect it's what critics have railed against games in recent history for doing, e.g. Metal Gear Solid. Fans were okay with the cutscenes in 1, tolerated them in 2, annoyed by them in 3 and reviled them in 4. Gamers now seem to hate exposition all of a sudden. Kojima is now infamous for his games being 80% cutscene and 20% game time. We cannot sit still long enough for a story to unfold, so we want our games to tell it to us while we are in control, walking alongside a character, al la Assassin's Creed, or have crucial narrative events unfold before our eyes al la Half-Life or Bioshock. But are we as an audience even paying attention? So many times, I've seen gamers miss something important to the story or even the advancement of the game itself because they were busy being distracted somewhere else. Atlas tells us to "find a crowbar or something" and Joe Blow at the helm of our protagonist didn't catch that part because he was too busy looting stuff or jumping around or other ass-hattery. Another thing players are notorious for missing is on screen text-tips and general written instructions. Indeed, I've seen otherwise intelligent people fail horribly at the first few missions in GTAIV because they never considered the words on the screen, "Wait in Roman's car" for example, to be worth their time. Then follows confusion and frustration afterwards when Mr. ADHD's interests conflict with the game, usually resulting in mission failure for leaving the site or just plain being stuck because God forbid you actually should read stuff in a game, right?

All I'm saying is that it'd be a shame if games that do play a bit more linear (like FFIII and perhaps other FF titles) dry up and die out because gamers' attention spans today are shorter than a midge fly's pecker.

On GTA, for the Occasion...

So! So...

Rockstar has done it again, eh? Win the hearts of millions of gamers with the newest installment of their best selling, criminal, open-world game...

...And there was much rejoicing...

...As well as a lot of non-rejoicing (which, btw what does one call that? Grumbling? Eh close enough...)

To be perfectly clear, I haven't played a lick of GTAV yet, so this will be more about the franchise in it's entirety than a review about V itself. The only titles I have played were GTA: Vice City and GTAIV. Hm, where do I start? Well let's look at the public outcry against the game first.

Not too long ago I read an article one of my weaker-willed (aka Canadian) friends posted on Facebook. I would link it but, meh, lazy. Anyhoo people can probably find it with a quick web search. I think it was from the NYT, but I can't remember as I had a lotta shit going down at the time. Well, in said article, what should the topic be about but questioning the game's violent content... again.

This article had a slightly different twist on it though from the usual "WTF? VIOLENCE!!!" articles; it went about discussing the violence as analogous to violence in film. What's more, the author held a more sympathetic viewpoint for violence on the silver screen while seeming a bit more reserved where games like GTA were concerned. This mildly surprised me; after all in my youth I remember if you were an anti-violence in video games advocate, you were probably anti-violence across the board.

But here the article was, soberly admitting that it's long been held that violence and sex (and violent sex) as portrayed in films and literature, is nothing more than exercising our rights to free speech. So, it honestly asked, what about violence in video games?

The author didn't actually pronounce a judgement that went beyond a yay or nay, but just kinda ended up with a "we'll wait and see" conclusion. So I guess this article wasn't as extremist as I was first led to believe (but that was my Canadian Friend's doing as he introduced it with lots of sentiment and... oh, what do you call it? "gooeyness," when he shared it to FB).

Still, the author of the article did question the philosophy behind gratuitous violence, or violence for it's own sake, especially from the perspective of the game controller. To summarize, it was like, "Yeah maybe the passivity of the person partaking in book or movie violence is maybe less harmful than that of the activity of the person partaking in video gaming violence." But to be even more fair, the article made the (shocking to me at least) distinction between the violence in GTA that drives the narrative (such as it is #editorialslol) and the gratuitous violence that the player can engage in on their on volition.

Honestly, every time I've heard some layman stereotype GTA games, the phrase "killing hookers" always pops up. As far as I know, there's no mission EVER, in the two titles I've played, that sends you off to some street corner to pop a cap in their "been everywhere" asses. No, the killing of hookers is not the point of the game. Neither is the killing of cops nor anyone else. If you want to attack a game for it's sheer brutality and offense to human life then go off on a tirade against Manhunt or something. As far as I'm concerned, even the gratuitous violence in GTA is more just like a blithe troll in comparison to other titles out there, I'm sure.

Take Hitman for instance. Now in Hitman, the goal of the game is to kill your target (duh), which is always some very terrible person (child sex-trafficker, pornography kingpin, rapist, genocidal maniac just to suggest a few). As one game commentator put it, via my paraphrase, the Hitman franchise really makes you want to kill your targets out of an inflamed sense of justice. However, that being said, you can kill anyone you please as long as it doesn't hinder your mission. This could be done in either a pragmatic light (e.g. I need to get beyond that door and I'll need poor Janitor Joe's jumpsuit for that, so I'll just be taking his life now as well as his outfit. [double parenthetical: although you can also knock Joe unconscious in some instances, but it may fraught with difficulty]), or you can just kill a random, and as far as you know, innocent person or people, hide their corpse(s) and carry on with the objective.

All that being said, the game gives you leave to slaughter innocents in creative, borderline-psychopathic  ways. I myself discovered I wasn't nearly as cold as I formerly believed when I witnessed 47 bring a meat-cleaver swooping down upon the pate of a hapless young (and attractive... yes it matters) woman. Didn't help very much that she made an unpleasant gurgling noise while collapsing to the floor in a heap. Oh and speaking of noises, when the weapon made contact, an equally unpleasant sound, akin to that of sinking an axe into a thick piece of wood, occurred.

My point in all this is that it seems like people get totes bent out of shape whenever GTA is brought to the spotlight (which is basically whenever they release a new title; games go to snoozville faster than me watching sports... #moareditorialslol). It's as though life is okay and non-threatening and then a new GTA game is made. Moralists prick their ears up and go, "What? A new GTA? Oh yeah, I forgot about them. And all other violent games. Time to talk some ears off about it; maybe someone will listen this time!"

But once again, returning to the question posited to us by our newspaper article, what's the difference (if there is) between violence in game, in text, or on film? And once again, the question seems tricky, because you as an audience member in a theater or as a reader of a book are not pulling any triggers or swinging any meat cleavers. It gives us a sort of comfortable distance to recoil from the movie screen or the page and utter, "Well I never!" But the gamer, so it seems, only has to push a button, and life is wiped out, brutally or otherwise.

Personally, I wouldn't let it get me down. Ethics can get more complicated than they need to be, and by that token, they afford jerks and douche bags to ask you silly things like "If you were in a speeding train and couldn't stop..." or, "If you were Jack Bauer and it was either torture one man to death to save one million men...." The question I ask in return is, is it all that simple? I for one, have heard a few theses given about how Shakespearian (Shakespearian!) plays can allow the audience to take a sick delight in the killing and immorality of the characters vicariously. Well shit, if Shakespeare—the pinnacle of English story crafting—can't be trusted with our bastardous minds, then we certainly can't leave anything to chance! Throw out books! Throw out movies! Throw out those video games especially!

No, I think we can be simultaneously both active participants as well as a passive agents wherever narrative is being distributed by a medium. When I played Far Cry 3 and (Oh Spoilers again!) got to the intense [debatable] scene where you beat up your last surviving brother and torture him so as not to blow your cover, was I pressing those buttons because I wanted to hurt him and to cause him suffering? No. Actually at that point, I was pretty bored with the game and at least wanted to see how it ended before I had to return to college, but that's a stage you gotta go through, else you won't see the end. Yes, at that violent point in the game, I could safely say I was a part of the audience, though I was indeed pushing buttons. There are other times where I identify with the character however (for his or her ideals mesh with mine) and really do want to see this son of a bitch eat lead. That doesn't happen quite often however. And you might've guessed by now, when I play GTA (which I don't always do, but when I do #memesftwlol), I don't gratuitously slaughter people... anymore at least. And I've got my reasons. I do think it's wrong. I think it devalues the game's overall experience. I think it's much more of a challenge to traverse the streets of Liberty City—using the more traditionally 'legal' means, e.g. taxis and subways—than to steal the first car that comes down the road. I think it fits in with the narrative better. I think random chaos just makes for a crappy plot; yes, read ancient Greek myths and you'll agree!

Moreover I don't think we can accurately make the claim that we are either only passive or active in regards to a narrative. This is because I think we live in one ourselves. There is a super, overarching Narrative that is narrating the times we are participating in a sub-narrative of our own. This Narrative writes down and accounts back to us that time, in history, of when I, you, and anybody else that played through GTAIV, and felt "thus and such" at one part, and felt "this and that" in the other part of the game. Ultimately, our hearts carry the real, honest, and deep reaction to whatever is being shown to us via narrative. If GTA, or any other game makes you happy that people are dying, (regardless of entertaining you [that's different I'd argue]), and regardless of whether you'd imitate the same thing in reality, I'd say you have a bad heart. Contrariwise, if you are so strung out over the deaths and violence in GTA (or any other game) that you think it's just as bad as doing it in reality, then you too, have a sick heart.

And that's humanity for you; a bunch of people with sick hearts. Some are not as sick as others however and it's because there's a cure out there. Just sayin' that if the content of a game, book or film (hell or even song or painting or whatever) is making you sick, then at least do us all a favor and don't go there yourself. The world as we know it won't turn out like it is on GTA. And if it does? Well patiently bear through it, bucko, like a certain people had to bear through a certain holocaust, or like another certain people had to bear though certain atomic bombings. Sure hard to imagine civilization going to hell because of a video game when there are other, more important problems at large.

On Farcry 3

Alright! first legit review of my blog and the game in the docket is Farcry 3! Since the common man has forever been enamored with stats, I'd like to begin by throwing a few up:

Number of play-throughs: 1
Time until completion: Roughly 2 weeks.
Pace of gameplay: Casual
Difficulty: Medium
Console used: Xbox 360

PLEASE NOTE: This blog is a spoiler den. Keep reading and you will soon know how it ends.

Ahh, Farcry 3. A game hailed with so much excellence that my younger brother asked me to get it for him as a Christmas present. And so my Christmas of 2012 will be forever remembered by running slave-trading pirates through with a machete, ripping the bloody skins off of animal carcasses, and scaling ramshackle radio towers, all in a beautiful tropical environment!

So what's my take on the game? Mmm... let's see. Well, I must hand it to Ubisoft for coming up with a decent open-world FPS/RPG. I imagine the company's experience and feedback with the Assassin's Creed series helped them out to create FC3 to be what it is. Still, others might suggest any other Ubisoft title can be argued to have influenced FC3 to be what it is. Most obvious of all is the possibility that it is the first two Farcry games had influenced FC3 to be what it is. And why not? You cannot have a 2nd 3rd or 4th (etc.) installment of something without the very first version. Well, the makers of Troll 2 did it, but we're not talking about them...

In any case, the reason why I'm harkening back to AC for elements of note in FC3 and not other games is because I've never played the first two Farcry games. And after playing AC, and AC Revelations, and hearing a lot about AC3, I can guess that a lot of what they have you doing in FC3 is a lot of what you're doing in AC3.

Now the incredulous among you might jump to the obvious differences about these titles, mainly the camera views, the free-running and the story. Mmm... yes, but aren't there towers in both games that reveal map area upon scaling them to their heights—which inevitably, by the way—have some sort of fast way down from the top? Aren't there enemy outposts in both games for the player to capture for his NPC-allies? Isn't there an underlying emphasis on stealth-tactics in both games? Aren't the bad guys in both games offensive to American sensibilities? Don't the currencies in both games feel horribly inflated (Okay, that's maybe one editorial too many...)? Does Ubisoft get ubihard at the theme of main characters lacking ring fingers (sorry, couldn't resist)?

I'm sure I can draw more parallels out from the two titles (And who knows? It could be everyone who reads this is heartily concurring with my remarks, or at least saying, "No duh, moron!"), so if I remember any I'll let 'em rip, but I want to move on to the better, juicier, core results of this hit video game title.

I'll start off by saying I liked it more than Assassin's Creed and Assassin's Creed: Revelations. This surprises even myself! Ever since the Halo fad and subsequent Call of Duty fads and the Battlefield 3 (I guess?) fad, I've started to dislike the FPS as a genre. It's easy to understand why. For my part, online gaming disagrees with me. I can first remember the time when my big brother hooked up his Xbox (the original that is) to the internet and got a month's free subscription to Xbox live. Playing Halo 2—the world's most popular game at the time—over the internet was kind of a big step forward for us in video game hipness.

Rewind it just a few more years, and we were astonished little boys when big brother hooked up some old mac computers (my dad's employers were going to throw them out anyway...), together and we were playing, (ironically) Bungie's FPS precursor to the Halo games: Marathon. I believe big bro used Ethernet cables to set up a LAN. There was a time when a blue cord ran the length of our suburban home to link up the three computers, one in dad's room and two in the "lab." Now that, in all candor, was fun. Given my little big rant in my introductory post, readers may think of me against all games that don't have lengthy or engaging plots. For the record, I think there is a place for "party games," as I've termed them. Smash Brothers, Tekken, Star Wars: Battlefront and even Halo are games that provide players the opportunity to get together with some pizza and beverages and let the good times roll, "good times" understood as indulging in playfully killing your friends and family in a home-sweet-home setting. I'll leave the second half of this conversation for a later time however.

Getting back to the topic at hand, I cultured a moderate distaste for FPSs around the time between Halos 2 and 3. "Why," you might ask? "The campaign modes," I'd say. "Well, no duh again!" you might reply, "No one plays the campaign modes! FPSs are all about the online play."

But have they always been? Indeed when Halo: Combat Evolved hit the shelves in whatever year it did, Xbox live didn't exist! Or if it did (I'm lazy when it comes to fact-checking), it certainly didn't support it. The upshot of this means the only multiplayer going down in Halo was classic-style split-screen, not the 16v16 big team battles, ranked matches, clans and whatever sort of hootenanny youngsters can get into nowadays. This premise leads to the next: certainly, with the multiplayer in Halo being what it was, surely more consumers were spending their time on the campaign mode when no friends were around to do otherwise. Additionally, Halo became such a legendary game that people had to have played and explored so much of what it had to offer, i.e. campaign mode.

Let me tell you, when I came across a copy of Halo: Combat Evolved, I naturally played the campaign. I'd played the Halo 2 campaign a lot before this, so I was eager to see the first version of the game. The one that set things all off. I was disappointed. Not because I liked Halo 2 better (indeed, I confess the reason why I played 2's campaign so much was because I was very bored at the time and I fell for the game's graphics), but it's because the campaign was boring, repetitive and repetitive. At least Volition's Red Faction had a plot you could relate to a bit more!

I found Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, 3 and Black Ops more or less of the same vein. Just point and shoot and run from location A to location B... maybe hitting some buttons along the way... well at least COD has some interesting and mildly interactive cutscenes from time to time...

So thanks a lot, props and kudos to you, Farcry 3, for not being a copy of other FPS fails. I liked the gameplay quite a bit actually. It was a refreshing change of pace from the previously mentioned shooters. Stealth and planning actually play a part in your success. Experience is awarded for skillful kills, multiple kills and if you took out an enemy outpost silently enough. And for those without patience to be stealthy (shame on you!), the game can still be played. Yes, I'd hardly lump FC3 into the "stealth genre" pile.

They've said FC3 is like "Skyrim with guns." Just the tagline that motivated my brother put it on his wish list. My response to such a tagline was, "I thought Fallout was like Skyrim with guns..." Well, I can see why they'd put it that way. A year after the epic came out and the masses are probably already clamoring for another one. Just make it real-life, tropical and chock full of firearms and it'll sell itself. In my opinion, I was right in thinking Fallout is the real "Skyrim with guns." FC3 earns itself a "close, but no cigar" on my does-it-compare-with-TES V: Skyrim-o-meter. Heck, I wouldn't even say it's "like Oblivion with guns," but if they used TES IV, no one would have bothered playing it in the first place. Chronological Snobbery rears its ugly head once more.

But Ubisoft has picked up some useful things in the RPG-making trade, crafting to name one, experience gains and weapon customization another and another. I didn't even really notice or care that there was a lack of leveling up a "leather working" or "syringe making" skill. FC3 is a game that just gives it all to you, or at least makes you think it does until you quickly find out that you need to run some more main quest to unlock new recipes. Not that I cared much about that either; there weren't that many sub-quests or side quests that I wanted to do first before I crossed a point of no return somewhere along the main quest line. I have mixed feelings about the side quests. I felt like they were kind of a stupid way to make money and carried about as much depth to them as those odd mini quests gamers encountered in GTA IV. But if they felt as personal as the quests and odd jobs in a Bethesda game, I would loose all track of time, and being stranded on Rook Island would quickly become too surreal; it's surreal enough taking into account the time you can spend/waste there, the amount of people you kill, the kind of money you make, and other various and sundry factors.

But for all that, I like the gameplay better than AC or AC: Revelations. The plot I also liked better but that's where things get tenuous. First off, they cast a set of douchebag teens who I automatically have no sympathy for from the moment the game begins. Okay, so the popular crowd might be more able to identify with them, fine. I'll suspend my judgment... Lord knows I needed to when I played through GTA IV (but then, Niko Bellic wasn't a douchebag teen, but I digress).

I liked Vaas as a villain a whole lot and I find it a supreme bummer they didn't do more with him. He's on the cover of the game for Pete's sake, I thought he'd be a tougher nut to crack. Hell, I would have appreciated it a whole lot more if the game gradually turned Jason Brody (aka player character) into another Vaas. But like GTA IV, this plot rolled off the rails on a crazy train and fell into a slough of something reminiscent to the "oh crap, we got rid of the bad guys and the main character hasn't really sacrificed himself for it yet" dilemma.

If it tried to confuse what I believe morally, it failed. If it tried to show me moral foundation amid a ship of wretchedness in a sea of chaos, it failed. I don't know what the game was trying to tell me about morals and I soon stopped bothering to find out when I killed my first hundred or so STD-ridden pirates. The scene where Jason finds out his brother Riley actually survived and is being held captive by Hoyt was obviously meant to be some kind of crux, but all I get is a brief one-liner soliloquy from Jason, "What have I become?" I dunno, Jason, what have you become? Less of a pussy about killing people, that's for sure. But are you any closer to being a man? Can't say you are.

In the end, everything you've fought for boils down to one moral decision (where once again, I would have there be a lot more of these dotted throughout the game, each choice turning you either more into a Vaas, or more into a... Grant maybe? He did seem like the least douchiest of the group despite, being a solider...): should I stay or should I go? I'm not sure at this point what there is to tug at my heart-strings for ditching Citra and the Rakyat. I personally felt betrayed by them the moment they first drugged me and had me running errands for them. I had my suspicions when I first woke up to find what's-his-name etching a tatau in my arm at the beginning of the game.

So I freed my friends and left, in turn causing what's-his-name to get all worked up in a lather and come at me with a blade. Citra, silly schoolgirl that she is, throws herself in harms way and absorbs 100% damage for critical hit! Needless to say, she dies, and I escape the island with my friends. I haven't played the other option, but I've seen it on Youtube just now....

...Okay! It wasn't entirely what I expected, but yeah, Brody ends up killing prior girlfriend and making vigorous love to Citra on an altar. Brody finishes and Citra shouts prophecies, or rites or something. Then she turns Brody on his back and lets him have it with that same blade you used to kill prior girlfriend with! Ouch! At least you get to see her boobs again before you go...

Hmm... final thoughts on plot: Lord of the Flies did it better. If I am right, what the writers are trying to do is paint the classic "noble savage vs. tamed westerner" picture. But that's not fundamentally, what our choices boil down to. It's not just in the Rakyat culture that "warrior" translates to "psychopath." Anyone in anyplace in any circumstance can be just as much of a bastard as Vaas or Citra. We forget that killing is an impulse that starts in the heart first. The desire to cause pain can easily be seen in the small child who refuses to obey it's overburdened, stressed-out, pleading mother who absolutely refuses to put her foot down. And then consider a man behind a desk who can utter but a few words and by them, start wars and genocide. We cause pain to others daily because it's a cheap substitute for killing them. Killing people we don't like isn't worth the risk nowadays (or so games like this will have you believe), so unless society collapses or unless your hand is forced, we will refrain from killing (unless we're soldiers or abortive mothers) because we, "just cannot take what we need."

In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, the nature of humanity as a whole is captured in his island microcosm. At the end of the book, the children get rescued by a Vessel or the Royal Navy (if I'm not mistaken), subtly reminding us that the whole time these boys are on the island, forming factions and killing each other, it does one no good to clasp hands and think, "Oh, how the lack of civilization contorted their souls into savagery! If only they were at home, they wouldn't be doing this!" Maybe not, but their elders were doing it with things a whole hell of a lot worse than a stick sharpened at both ends.

In the outcome I chose, Brody ends the game with some dialogue like, "I've killed so many people... It'll take me so long to come back from all that... but somewhere really really deep down inside me, I know I can do it..." or something to that effect. In reality, Jason Brody has nothing to "come back" to. Sure, he has a girlfriend, but they only antagonize hatred and pain; last time I checked, that's what humans do to each other, and last time I checked, girlfriends are humans. If Brody is truly sickened by his actions on Rook Island, I would much rather prefer the outcome to be a lose/win rather than a win/lose or a lose/lose scenario. In other words, it would have ended better if Brody gave his life for his friends rather than a lovesick Citra (and btw, how can you be lovesick like a schoolgirl one moment, and still be willing to kill your lover the next?). They can keep the "stay with Citra" ending as it is. That's an accurate enough portrayal of the wages of wickedness I think.

And that's a sufficient enough report on the game, I think. Granted, I didn't cover the other game modes like multiplayer, and I did get way off track multiple times, but there's still a lot to chew over here. And if you still want more... I suppose that's what comments are for... but this blog is mainly for myself in the first place. Just consider yourself a welcome guest.

Intro Intro

I am not concerned with prestige. These following posts serve only one major purpose and that is to chronicle my thoughts of certain video game titles I've played and any accolades or critiques I can bring to them. Any outsiders stumbling across my thoughts may feel free to stop and go on as they see fit.

Video games are a great passion of mine and they are increasing in popularity around the world. I feel it safe to assume that they enjoy the reputation as one of the world's fastest-grown industries. As someone who has borne witness to the changes our world has been subjected to in the past couple of decades, and simultaneously as one who cannot stem the outpour of thoughts and questions from his head (indeed, "The brain secretes thoughts as the liver secretes bile."), I relish the thought of jotting down my opinions on cyber-paper, coming back to them after some time, watching them age like stationery in the arid desert sun. The prospect of philosophizing about something I love piques my love for that something still further. So without any more delay, I will begin—as all philosophers do—with a question.

The increased and yet increasing popularity of video games has been aforementioned. It would be foolish to think that video gaming is an obscure pastime (like pogs, or something). Multitudes of people, spanning all across the demographic board, flock to electronics stores, video game shops and conventions to play, peruse and purchase these games or enhance their gaming experience.

But—and here's my question I promised you—I still cannot admit that most people take them seriously. Wait, that's not a question! Okay here it is: why is it that people don't take them seriously?

Okay, now here's the part that, for philosophers, is necessary and enjoyable: defining terms. Now, when I use the word "seriously", do not think of the guy who honestly and literally believes that Alex Mason was President Kennedy's assassin. To put it another way, I recognize the fact of "make believe." I understand why more video games are including the warnings at the beginnings or ends stating that it's all a work of fiction; "Any entity, person or organization represented in this game are fictional despite their apparent similarities in real life... blah blah etc. blah."

No, my question is a bit deeper and complex. Take my roommate for example: he loves movies. Actually, virtually every soul at the college I attend loves these Hollywood films. My own father is readily willing to sit down at and watch a motion picture with me, but when the game console turns on, he's gone. In fact, I'd wager were some psychopath to put a gun to his (very politically conservative, by the way) head and give him the choice to either watch American Pie or play Portal 2 (or of course barring these, die a besplattered death), He'd pick the movie, despite it being the last one on earth he'd watch willingly (and even then I'm convinced he'd induce vomiting right afterward). Oh, and in case you were wondering, he wouldn't even have to beat Portal 2, just play it for however long American Pie lasts.

Suffice it to say that people these days may enjoy video games, but it's the movies that are socially acceptable to hold in-depth conversations about. I think out of all of the things people talk about when they meet someone for the first time, occupation is first, movies second, hobbies a close third. Maybe I'm wrong, but shouldn't movies be considered a hobby on par with video games? Wait, no! A better solution! Shouldn't video games be elevated to the social pedestal along with movies?

I admit up front I'm not that keen on films, be they Hollywood or otherwise. As a medium, I think they are growing inferior and obsolete. Someone in the movie business told me that Hollywood is in a panic. The industry is facing a catch-22; they want something new and different, but they cannot have too different. Hence we are faced with remake after remake. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that they were going to redo the Spiderman series for instance. But I hear any ideas introduced to Hollywood that are too original are rejected on the basis that it might not sell. Additionally, it's my opinion that the movie medium itself is overburdened. A three hour time limit is pushing it and people are only willing to pay attention to something for so long. Oftentimes a movie will feel like it cut out at the end, and viewers feel as though the producers were going along with the film just fine until they realized that they were approaching the time limit, and felt compelled to wrap it up quickly. Then there's the whole problem of sequels and prequels; when a movie has gone on long enough, it's become customary to set the end up so that the audience can see where things might pick up again when the next installment comes out, or in the prequel's case, tease the audience with the backstory to those classic films we've grown quite fond of.

To all these problems (and any other's I might have missed), I'd suggest that television could be a remedy. Things are getting so that anyone can fabricate decent-looking CGI without much cost. Shows like Firefly and Band of Brothers are proof of this. Intricate plots can be made. Story lines can weave and cohere neatly with each character. Sets, special effects and the like can be done rather excellently. And ultimately, the tale is not as restricted by time limit, allowing one to watch an episode at his or her leisure.

Alas, television too poses some problems, the biggest one being many don't know when to quit once they've gained the public's interest. Actually, that's what I find to be the bane of many a medium. Popularity seems nice at first. What is our zeitgeist these days if not democracy? Interestingly enough, many music lovers have found this to be the direct opposite. With the advent of the hipster, more and more people are finding out that the band they discovered last year (who could only boast of a fan base of a couple hundred), are now leading the charts, but for some reason, they don't sound as good as they did back then.

In the realm of TV then, it's the same fate. Friends, Buffy, Scrubs, Smallville, That 70's Show and others have run for a long time indeed. But there comes a point where the producers realize people have stopped watching, and it's time to let the show die. And when that time comes, can people relate the end of the series like they relate to the end of a good movie or book? Something's telling me the answer is no.

Anyway, that's all food for thought. In respect to video games, I would like to propose that they too can achieve (and in some cases already have achieved) the medium value on par with that of a book, movie or TV show. And that's what I mean by seriously.

Why I think they don't get recognized as such is how I think they're still seen by culture. Many people (my father included) think gaming is a childish or inane act, regardless of how much violence, sex, drugs and/or rock 'n roll is portrayed. In their minds, it all boils down to sitting in front of a series of images that can be controlled by pushing buttons and moving analog sticks or clicking a mouse, so ultimately one can fulfill a goal that is about as worthless as winning five bucks in the lottery. Big whoop, eh? The point of gaming to them seems to be tantamount to purposely inducing oneself into deep sleep so one can achieve a lot of fun things in their dreams.

What I've just described might sound to you like a non-gamer. Actually, I believe gamers like this exist, and they might even compose the majority of gamers. They will heartily acknowledge that the games they play have no effect on the reality around them and admit the only reason they play the things is because it's a great new-fangled way to have some fun. That's odd, that's exactly how I would describe watching a movie... they have no effect on the reality around me and I only see them as a great, new-fangled way to have fun.

That's not entirely true, I'm just biased against movies. For the record there have been one or two that moved me to think deep. I can still count more video games that have stimulated thought within me, and as long as we're at it, hundreds of more Japanese anime and thousands of more books.

And that, my friends, brings us to the Great Divide, which is another thing philosophers inevitably run into... and very much enjoy.

I will close this post explaining what I mean by this Great Divide and I will open my closing harkening once again to my father. Remember his disposition toward gaming? Well to be fair, there was no such thing as video games when he was a lad. Furthermore, when gaming hit the market in the form of Gameboys (with their black-and-white screens and their four AA battery requirements... sorry, writer's moment of nostalgia), Ataris and what have you, games were still very basic content-wise. They were fashioned back in the days when being a nerd was something to be ashamed of. After all, they were, by and large the products of computer programmers, AKA nerds. Computer nerds back then weren't interested in plot structure, you see. And if they were, then they took poetry and theatre electives, dressed up like Shakespeare, got called a faggot, and got beat up for it. At least the computer nerds could stay inside their labs and homes all day, where no one might come around and give them trouble.

But the nerds needed something to do in their free time (yes, even most nerds have free time) and they would have liked to play a game with someone, but since nerds didn't have friends back then, they decided to program a little game on the side (believe me, they have free time). These first gen games, as a result offer the player with some kind of challenge with the computer being the opponent. People like the nerds began to say, "This is great! Why play a few rounds of spades with those bothersome neighbors when I can play infinite rounds of Tetris with myself?" People like my dad began to say, "This is dumb! Why play a solitary game with a score that doesn't matter when you could be having fun with real human beings in a friendly game of cards?" Needless to say, my father is one of those bothersome neighbors... Anyhoo...

But let the reader check him/herself lest he/she (screw it) think that's what the Great Divide is all about! The reason my dad has always despised gaming is what he thinks of the content. I've noted similar complaints in other men of similar standing. "It's all about how much non-existent points you can rack up while not paying any attention to your dog/baby sister/whatever." But wait! Aren't video games more than that nowadays? If I ever took that route that no teenager ever takes and tried to explain to pops that video games are more narrative-driven now, would that make him understand? Actually, it doesn't. He just tells me to read a book instead if I want narrative. Figures. How many times do I see him reading a fiction novel? Never. On the extremely rare cases where I do see him playing video games, are they narrative-driven? Nope. Hypocritical bastard. But I digress... and I'm supposed to be concluding too... Oh the humanity!

THE POINT IS that the Great Divide I'm dealing with here, is the divide in the driving purpose of the game itself. If you've been following along, you'll know which side of the divide I take. If you haven't been following along (Heck, I understand if I lost you at paragraph one!), I'll tell you now: in this world where video games tend to be driven by 1) gameplay, competition and high scores, or 2) narrative, in-depth characters and beauty, I choose..... *drum roll*

Number 2! When it all comes down to it, I think the purpose of the bulk of our entertainments should be, as Sir Philip Sidney said, to delight and teach. There sure are a surprising amount of people out there these days that don't know how to think! I'm convinced many of these people don't want to think, and so they avoid daily the issues that plague us in current events. Some avoid the issues by drowning themselves in the newest movie release every weekend. Others do it through blind and meaningless competition. A disturbing amount of people think they can achieve absence of thought by turning to drugs, legal or no. Even more disturbing are those that believe drugs are what's helping them to start thinking, or enhance their thinking.

No. Narrative does this. Good narrative poses questions. Attentive listeners dwell on these questions. The fortunate ones obtain wisdom from their struggles with their thoughts. The wise become great leaders and raise greater leaders in their footsteps. So get ready, gird up the loins of your mind and let the thinking begin.