Earthbound and Dune 16.02.2016

After finally completing the main story of Fallout 4 I wanted a shorter more sedate experience, so I turned to Firewatch (PS4) which while a brief game (i completed it in two sittings) was not a serine exploration of the wilderness. From what I got out of it it's a game about how I deal with problems, right off the bat the story presented me with a major issue to deal with and the flexibility to decide how to deal with it. Initially the choices given didn't seem too varied which helped keep the narrative tight while also for me felt more human, whatever path I went down seemed like a shitty thing to do, but more believable than giving polar opposites. I'm being specifically vague as its a game driven by the the story it tells and so short I'd find it hard not to recommend playing while knowing nothing. The things I really liked and won't ruin any surprises are the design. At times it looks incredibly real, only being brought down to earth by a glance at the lead characters cartoony physique. There's a neat workaround for the conversation choices made too, all character interactions are though a walkie talkie and buttons mapped to the shoulders of the controller, it has a satisfying clunk on screen and helps to immerse in the world. I wasn't too keen on setting the game in the 80s, it seemed like a cheap way of justifying the lack of modern technology like GPS and not any other reason. The few bits that reminded me here and there that it was a period piece, Totos Africa or a Walkman felt too knowing. That's a minor gripe with the game though, especially as it justifies the use of a map and compass throughout. It doesn't take long in the game before it becomes an exercise in orienteering, and I thought it was really cool how by stripping back mechanics which are commonplace like arrow markers it made me think more about where I was going. It also made what was actually quite a small physical space feel much more expansive. As the story continued while I got frustrated that some areas where fiddly to get around (without a jump) I was also surprised to see it taking tropes from Metriod and Zelda in making new areas accessible when new things were found. 

One thing I found early on in the disposable camera was ambiguous throughout, here and there I'd take snaps (aware of the limited film in the camera) sometimes of things I thought important but others of things that looked pretty, a butterfly on a log or ruined jet-ski. The payoff for this was a wonderful thing, and even more so that it wasn't constantly reminding me to take pictures. The payoff for the story itself I liked, it suited the tone of the game for me, if it had gone another way it could have been jarring. That's all I can really say about Firewatch without getting into what happens, I liked it a lot.

Earthbound and Dune 10.02.16

SPOILERS BELOW

So after a long slog which included a break for about a month around christmas I finally got to the end of the main story in Fallout 4 (PS4). Whats really interesting is how split opinion i've read about the game is. Every issue I've read in the game seems to be if you've taken another path or faction to what i've taken. Performance issues on the Playstation 4 I didn't experience (apart from a few points of minor framerate drops) but I could see where they would be if i'd joined another faction, presumably if I'd gone with the Brotherhood of Steel I would have controlled Liberty Prime at some point or at least been flying about in helicopters instead of shooting them down. Its not hard to imagine these mechanics would have been more straining to the console. After reading the other endings (I'm not inclined to play through again) It seems that three endings are very similar and the other (which I took) is more bespoke, and while I can see that thats frustrating, I can't be too upset because I found the ending I was given satisfying. 

What struck me most about the game is how morally ambiguous it is throughout, there didn't seem to be a right or wrong path. Introduced early on through the ark of the character Kellogg, and not subtly as I walked through his memories at one point seeing what made him become the child snatching/wife killing/age defying assassin he is by the point I met him. The game at this point was getting me to side with him, understand what pushed him to becoming the primary antagonist early on. Whilst I sympathised with him I still was inclined to kill him quite mercilessly when given the option. My justification was he had the information I needed and he would do the same. From then on (and this happened to me around a quarter of the way through my play-through) I didn't encounter another antagonist, or at least to the same degree. Every opponent I met from Paladin Danse to my own son where distinctly grey in terms of whats right and wrong. I decided the right thing for me was to support my son and his goals. Quickly I realised the path I was on was essentially the same as that of Kellogg, the Institute was using me and my knowledge of the wasteland to they're gain. The point this was forced home hardest was when being sent to deal with the Railroad faction. Father (my son) assigned me the task. On the word wheel of choices I admitted I'd formed a bond with them, that I was reluctant to kill them. Fine he said, talk them down. So I went to see them, and quickly it became apparent this wasn't an option, my only option it seemed was to kill them all and they put up little fight. When completing this mission and looting the corpses of characters who'd helped me earlier find my son, I had accepted that I was quickly becoming a bad person in this game. It was before this mission that I found out that Father was dying and that he wanted me to take over his work. The son who I'd spent half the game finding to discover he was an old man who had not only survived all these years, but thrived and helped create a society was for the first time in need of me to act as his father. Thats how I justified killing the entire faction of the Railroad. 

This was my darkest moment in the game, the Railroad had done nothing wrong, certainly I had more misgivings about the behaviour of the Brotherhood. I'll get to that in a bit. The next few missions for me where me trying to make a small difference to the bigger picture, it was obvious that the Institute where not going to change they're attitudes toward synths or people surviving the wasteland but I could make an impression through a few choices and it seemed to work. When I was confronted with the Minutemen again prior to capturing a scientist they didn't act with hostility, I could reason with them. The Minutemen where the only other faction I considered going with, I still use Sanctuary as my base of operations and its populated by a mixture of mutants, synths, dogs and Minutemen I've met along the way. Not seeing Preston drinking at the bar I'd built or Sturges wandering about would have been quite distressing. Toward the end of the story, lines of dialogue I'd decided on start to play out over the radio, a reminder of the fairer more accepting wasteland I was trying to build. Ideally my Sanctuary would be a microcosm of the Commonwealth, but this would take time (and obviously wouldn't be achieved in this game). What I did achieve though was getting rid of the Brotherhood. 

Whereas the mission to destroy the Railroad felt like a downer the end of the Brotherhood was the Hollywood ending to the game I wasn't expecting. I mixed up combat with sniping down helicopters from afar to stealing missile launchers and blowing up the infantry. When I got closer to my goal I started to call in Synths to help, short bursts of conversation with them saw them regard me with fondness and respect. The Brotherhood retaliated by sending in named characters, people I'd had dialogue with, but instead of feeling reluctant to kill them like the Railroad, they're twisted vision of the world in the game made me embrace killing them. As I slowly chipped away at the waves of Brotherhood soldiers Paladin Danse showed up, he'd given me a gun early in the game as a mark of respect and thanks for completing a mission. I took this gun out and fired a few fatal shots at him, it was when I looted his corpse that a few hints toward him being a synth came up. Presumably this may have been touched upon with different story choices, but the idea of him being something his faction was actually trying to destroy was a powerful concept.

There where plenty of cliches and things that I would've liked seen done differently in the time I spent with the game. I can also see quite clearly how if I'd taken another route through it I would have had a different opinion on the story but that in itself is fascinating to me, that whole arcs of characters are locked out following one decision. I'm now chipping away a a few missions which I hadn't completed and they do get repetitive, as much as I like Preston as a character he keeps asking me to do one more mission, invariably killing some ghouls upsetting a small settlement. My final thoughts on the game though are it's one hell of a thing. Dense with story, at times so much so that fantastic plot lines can be missed. I stand by it being the best thing I played last year and for a long time but it's such a personal journey I completely understand why people disliked or where disinterested in it.