Topical

My deepest sympathies to anyone who has suffered as a result of the Corona Virus outbreak.  That said, I've always felt the best way to combat imminent doom is to mock it with humor.  So, without further ado here's some video game jokes about it.

Reverse Flow

In past blog posts I've mentioned how movies influence video games, both directly (in the form of movie-tie-in games) and indirectly (in terms of game visuals).  There are even some cases where the flow of influence has reversed course after a fashion with video game IPs being turned into movies.  Off the top of my head Mario Brothers, Wing Commander, Silent Hill, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider and soon Sonic the Hedgehog all serve as examples of this sort of thing.  There are also indirect examples of video game concepts or aesthetics influencing films indirectly such as in the case of "TRON", "Scott Pilgrim vs the World", and "Edge of Tomorrow" (also known as "Live Die Repeat").  Having said all that, what about table-top RPGs?  Obviously, they have been a major source of inspiration in direct adaptations of Dungeons and Dragons computer games.  The same can be said for Shadowrun, and even the first Battletech computer game ever made - Crescent Hawk's Inception.  JRPGs (such as the Final Fantasy franchise) and CRPGs (like the Ultima series) were also influenced indirectly; particularly when it comes to mechanics.  But what about the other direction?

GURPS (or Generic Universal RolePlay System) by Steve Jackson games was designed as a one-size-fits-all set of table-top game mechanics with a variety of different thematic books sold separately from the fundamental rules.  Among what became a vast collection of setting material, there was one particular supplement based on Myth...or more specifically Myth: The Fallen Lords.  I must confess, I owned this book and no other GURPS products which (as you can imagine) meant that it was quiet impossible for me to actually play the game.  Nevertheless, it stayed on my bookshelf for a long time simply because it stood out as a lone example of a real-time strategy game turned into a table-top RPG.  Since that time though there have been more similarly produced games.

RUNE the video game and "RUNE" the table-top RPG were developed simultaneously with both making their debut in 2001.  The new Alien table-top RPG is derived not only from the films, but certain setting materials and gameplay mechanics come from Alien: Isolation as well.  CD Projekt Red seems especially fond of this sort of thing.  "The Witcher" series of novels turned into a trilogy of video games, and now even has a table-top RPG.  Their upcoming title, Cyberpunk, started off as a table-top RPG, then became a first-person action RPG, and now is getting a new version of the core rule book based on the expanded lore developed for the video game.  Even the indie game Hyper Light Drifter has a table-top RPG in the works thanks to a successful kickstarter project (although the results of the crowdfunding endeavor are pending as of the publishing date of this blog post).

Board games have followed a similar trajectory with OGRE being the earliest example that I can recall of a video game (metaphorically) ripping the setting and mechanics straight out of the cardboard box.  Since then there have been a lot of similar cases including, but not limited to, "Axis and Allies", "Catan", "Clue", and "Space Hulk"...not to mention some of the usual suspects like chess, "Monopoly" and "Risk".  More recently there are a number of cases where the opposite holds true.  Dark Souls, Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, Tomb Raider, World of Warcraft, Halo, Doom, and Gears of War have all gotten the board game treatment (albeit with some tweaks to make them work with dice, tokens and figurines rather than controllers, consoles and TV displays).

Needless to say, if you are an avid board game or table-top RPG player there are a variety of avenues in which you might entice video-game-playing friends to try out your non-digital hobbies...or vise versa. 

Game/Control

Control is a video game developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by 505 Games.  The genre is third-person action/adventure with a few RPG mechanics sprinkled in.  The main character is a woman/female/character named Jesse Faden.  The game takes place almost entirely in a mysterious location called "The Oldest House".  A top secret government agency, The Federal Bureau of Control (or FBC for short), has established itself here since the 1960s.  Unfortunately, when Jesse arrives the agency is suffering from a crisis/takeover instigated by a invasive entity known only as the "Hiss".  It has subverted/possessed the majority of the agency's onsite employees, making the Oldest House a very dangerous place to be.  As is usually the case in these sorts of games, it is up to Jesse (and by extension the player) to make things right.  That might sound like an impossible task, but Jesse has a powerful ally she calls "Polaris".  While the nature of Polaris is never fully reveled Jesse can communicate with it via internal monologues.  There's also an interesting color contrast going on with the Hiss represented by harsh red light while Polaris is always a soft blue shimmer. 

Other story elements of the game include audio/video clips introduced/explained via an old telephone that has a black nob where the rotary dial should be.  So, no outgoing calls are possible and to boot it doesn't appear to have a receiver either because all calls made to Jesse are one-way phone conversations with the previous Director or the enigmatic "Board".  The latter of the two has a habit of using slash marks to denote alternate text interpretations/translations of its otherwise incomprehensibly muffled speech.  Also, it is visually depicted as an upside-down pyramid of otherworldly origin.  Face-to-face conversations with actual people/humans/NPCs can also occur (usually with multiple dialogue options).  However, the majority of the setting lore is conveyed via text documents found scattered throughout the game.  Many of these collectible text snippets have redacted words or phrases which gives the writing an overall vibe reminiscent of the SCP Foundation.  Unlike that collaborative writing website though there is an underlying reason for all the paranormal objects and events in the Oldest House.

From a technical perspective, Control takes what might seem to be boring office spaces and infuses them with a lot of Brutalist Architecture.  Adding to that are dynamic and highly destructible environments, plus little side places to discover/explore.  The icing on the cake is ray tracing, which completes the presentation with little lighting touches and reflections.  That said, Control has some performance issues (particularly on consoles).  The check point system can be frustrating at times too.  Design-wise, the boss battles are a bit oddly distributed in that the most interesting/unique/bizarre encounters are relegated to side missions.  Contrasting the optional content are rather bland mandatory foes in the form of Hiss subverted gunmen and the occasional telekinesis wizard.

Overall, Control is a game with an interesting setting and environments, but only average gameplay.  Still, I would recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the table-top RPG Delta Green or the X-files TV series.  For a more comprehensive look please refer to other online reviews and videos.   

Long-Longer-Longest

I've seen some griping on the net about Youtube videos recently.  Basically, it comes down to people claiming that they can't be bothered to watch an hour (or more) long video.  I don't have a problem with busy people asking for summaries.  However, when said individuals spend countless hours on twitter/facebook/forums/etc. I can't help wondering if the problem isn't a shortage of time, but rather patience.  So, if you're the kind of person who much prefers talking to listening then these three embedded videos are not for you.  Each one is longer than the last and, somewhat consequently, each is more informative and nuanced as well.  Of course, this is a blog page all about video games so that is the topic of each video.

The first is brought to you by Errant Signal, and is about Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.  While not especially long at 21 and a half minutes, I think he has much deeper insight into what a lot of people (including me) had noticed about the game mechanics.

Next is an Accursed Farms analysis of TrackMania.  Normally, I'd think a 51 minute and 49 second video about a racing game has got to have some filler in it, but good-old Ross manages to keep things entertaining throughout.  He also has some very astute observations on the darker practices the video game industry choose to embrace.

Last up is Noah Caldwell-Gervais, a man known for long-form in-depth video game retrospectives.  Here, he exceeds his own reputation for thoroughness with a four hour and nearly six minute long breakdown of the entire Red Dead franchise.  A lover of travel and nature, Noah brings a very unique and insightful perspective on this franchise that feels like an epic journey unto itself.

Return to the Deep (Part 2 of 2)

On a strategic level, I like the idea of XCOM using a massive surface-going ship as its mobile base of operations.  Smaller attack submarines could be deployed from it to intercept and disable alien vessels, while clean-up ops could involve lowering XCOM aquanauts down to the target location in a bathysphere.  Of course, all this begs the question: why go through all this effort to defend the oceans?  Well...XCOM: Terror from the Deep was unusually cognizant in that the game predicted rising sea levels in its near-future setting.  Less usable land means a refugee crisis, and a refuge crisis means large quantities of supplies need to be brought in to prevent widespread death and chaos.  Like it or not, ocean shipping lanes are the only way to transport large quantities of goods from one landmass to another.  Aircraft can do some of the long distance distribution work, but they too might need to travel over the ocean to get where they need to go (thus placing them in danger from sea-to-air attacks).

From an economic standpoint it's not hard to think of trade and commerce as tax revenue, and tax revenue as funds for XCOM.  If any step in that process is disrupted then that means less (or no) money for government-funded organizations.  If you would prefer a more sci-fi themed motivator though, there could be these massive Climate Nominalization Platforms (CNPs) that are similar to floating oil rigs in appearance, but in terms of function are used to reduce the intensity of hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones.  Without them, population centers would be devastated (a fact the aliens are keenly aware of).

So, what about overarching alien goals?  Aside from making humanity miserable, it's always more interesting to give them a secret agenda that the player must discover over the course of the game.  In XCOM 2 it was the AVATAR project.  In the the original the ultimate goal of the aliens was to simply enslave all of humanity, but in Terror from the Deep they went a slightly more interesting route by drawing inspiration from the writings of H.P. Lovecraft.  When playing, it's easy to spot some parts that were influenced by "Dagon", "Call of Cthulhu", "Shadow over Innsmouth", and to a lesser degree "Whisperer in the Darkness".  Essentially, the aliens in XCOM: Terror from the Deep represent a different faction than those in the original game.  They came to earth long before recorded history and established a number of bases and depots beneath the waves.  There was a war, and while some strongholds were destroyed other more well hidden ones were preserved.  The inhabitants of these deep sea dwellings used their technology to enter a multi-eon long stasis.  Now that they have woken up from hibernation the aliens seek to re-establish themselves by reactivating their long-idle infrastructure.  Ultimately, their goal is to revive a powerful psychic entity capable of subjugating all of humanity.  How much of this story would play well in a modern XCOM game is hard to say, but one plot point I particularly like is the aliens resurrecting extinct forms of native marine life.  Perhaps they even modify each species cybernetically or at a genetic level over the course of the game to better serve their purposes.  Because the game takes place underwater, it would be interesting to have some really big sea monsters.  Conversely, very small parasitic organisms could be an excellent way to introduce some body-horror elements.  I also think some kind of swarming piranha-like enemy would make for an interesting bio-weapon or "living ammunition" for alien use in combat.  A substantial obstacle for advancing the storyline would be XCOM having to develop and build the necessary equipment to reach the deepest parts of the ocean in order to take the fight to the aliens.

The climatic finale of Terror from the Deep takes place on a fortress (called "T'leth") floating over the sea.  It's something that was reused in the Firaxis Enemy Unknown and Enemy Within, so I think it would feel cliche to bring it back a third time.  Instead, the end game of XCOM: Apocalypse might be a better fit in that rather than having one big showdown, the player engages in a series of raids intent on destroying the means by which the aliens prosecute the war.  This could all culminate in a final assault, not on the alien's main base by the player, but on XCOM headquarters by the aliens.  As the saying goes, an animal is at its most dangerous when it is wounded, scared and has no hope of escape.