Resident Evil 5, DLC, and cash-grabs

Over at Popmatters — who lovingly sends me games to review in exchange for my opinions — I reviewed the Resident Evil 5 downloadable content packs.

DLC is a thing we have to deal with as gamers today. Often, developers will sit on DLC that used to be on-disc and save it for a DLC release, usually to make money. If you want to the most out of your favorite game, you’re compelled to buy DLC. The RE5 content made me sad, as I love the game, probably more than most did/do. But Lost in Nightmares was trash. To summarize my review: at $5, it’s not a rip-off, but it’s not worth the price of admission.

Stay tuned to Popmatters for my review of the other, better DLC.

Happy birthday best system ever

One surefire way to incite nerd rage is to ask a group of friends what the best gaming console ever is. “Dreamcast!!” the savvy gamers will say. “Super Nintendo, no doubt” retro fans will argue. “Xbox 360″ foolish young’uns will say.

But the only real answer is Sony’s Playstation 2.

I won’t recount the history of the console here, but I’ll point you to Kotaku’s Mike Fahey’s ode to the system. In short, it launched in 2000, ten years ago today, and games are still being made for it. And it’ll probably still happen for 1-3 more years. It’s library is unparalleled in terms of quality and depth – home to scores of great RPGs, fighters, puzzle games, and every other genre anyone could want. It’s the console where I became a “hardcore gamer.”

The PS2′s father was where I got hooked on gaming, with a score of Final Fantasy titles and action games. But the PS2, with games like the Metal Gear series, God of War, Shadow of the Colossus, and, of course, the Final Fantasy titles released on the console, I began to take gaming more seriously. The seeds of me being a quasi-professional games writer, I’d say.

But this is less about my experiences with Sony’s console and more about why it’s the best console ever. And really, it’s not close.

The amount of classic games on the system is astounding. Two Metal Gear games – arguably the best two in the series. Two God of War games. Three Final Fantasy titles, even though many discount the underrated X-2. Two surreal Katamari games. The birth of the Guitar Hero series. RPG standouts like two Persona games, a Dragon Quest and two installments of Kingdom Hearts. Oh, and Grand Theft Auto‘s best are there too. It’s unreal how many AAA titles the console had in it’s decade of existence.

If the parameters for “best console ever” are quality of titles, length of run, sales, graphics, or anything else, the PS2 wins without a doubt. I have to believe any of the big three console-makers look at the PS2 as the gold standard of success. Backwards compatibility? DVD player? Price points and multiple iterations over time? It really laid the blueprint for how modern consoles operate today.

Today, my PS2 is probably on it’s last legs. I tried to play Silent Hill 2 on it recently, and it struggled and wheezed like an old dog. In many ways, it’s fitting. Mine’s a first generation still chugging along. Barely. Much like the PS2 as a console itself. Will I get it replaced? Probably, as there are many games I want to play on it. And anytime you can get some money out of someone for a decade-old system, that’s success.

So happy birthday PS2. May you have a great farewell run.

It’s simple, really

What makes a video game fun? It’s a subjective and impossible question. But one tried and true tactic – from classics such as Contra to the modern Call of Duty – is allowing your avatar to become more powerful. Weapon upgrades, more hit points, double jumps, whatever it may be, as long as the carrot is tasty enough, we’ll chase the string.

One genre in particular has made a cottage industry (as much as a niche sub-genre can) out of this simple premise: Metroidvanias, named after progenitors Metroid and Castlevania series. Summed up in a sentence the genre places the player in a seemingly enormous map, the corners of which can only be uncovered by obtaining certain items. They are sort of the original sandbox games.

Shadow Complex, which was released August of 2009, is an example of what can be done with a dated genre in the modern era. It’s a game that unabashedly wears its influences on its sleeve, while adding enough new elements to still be compelling.

The set-up is simple. You’re plopped into a huge map (the Complex) and you’re just there to explore. There may be some plot about rescuing someone or something, but really: there’s a huge map. Explore it.

At first, your character cannot do much aside from running and jumping. But as you progress, the glory of movement unfolds. You’ll double-jump, jetpack, run with blinding speed, wall jump, use a grappling hook – basically every video game motion (I’m talking movement, not waggling) gimmick is thrown in and spread across a huge map filled with challenging enemies and platforming sections, all of which require you to use your new toys to their fullest extent.

The genius of Shadow Complex is how tantalizingly close the carrot dangles to your face. Every new power-up makes you feel like you just won the lottery, without being game-breaking. Also, there’s copious hidden upgrades that really test your skill in order to find them – which you’ll want to, because they make your guy better.

I’m far from a completionist, but I found myself seeking out these items because of how they tested my skill and rewarded it with something tangible. Sure, it may have taken me ten minutes to nail that jump perfectly to expand my missile cache by five, but it was fun trying to do so.

The game also removed the one aspect of the genre that is annoying – getting lost. A blue line will on your map will always guide you to the main objective. Better yet, the line can be turned off for exploration sessions. Throw in a 2D-but-not-2D shooting mechanic, and you’ve got yourself a tough genre ushered into the new era. It’s rare in 2010 to say this, but I actually want a sequel to this game, as it’s nearly perfect in every way. If you’ve never played a Metroidvania (and there’s a pretty good chance you may not have), give this modern one a try. It’ll be only a matter of time before you pick up Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

The unreliable narrator in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

[Update: my review of Shattered Memories just hit Popmatters. If you don't plan on playing this game, go read that before reading this.]

I was first introduced to the unreliable narrator in college during a Nathaniel Hawthorne class. The novel was The Blithedale Romance. At the time, the novel seemed boring to me. “It’s just a bunch of people at a farm in some sort of love triangle. Whatever.” But it was soon revealed to me that the protagonist – whose perspective is the primary one – was not only not privy to everything that was going on in the narrative, but may have been intentionally lying to the reader.

What?

Up to that point, I had assumed everything a main character said in a novel was truth, presuming they weren’t a villain. And even then, it was most often made clear they were lying. This was a literary revelation for me, even if I didn’t know it at the time.

What if we cannot trust the only person available to us?

Blithedale is not the first novel to use this tactic. Famously, Lolita features a pedophile lead whom, through lies, charisma, and the fact we only get his perspective, we come to sympathize with. Or at least don’t hate. That is an amazing feat, considering the pedophilia and all.

The unreliable narrator is a unique literary maneuver. It is, in effect, a gimmick. We generally only know a narrator is unreliable by the story’s conclusion. And only then do the narrative’s previous events come into question. Even if we know early on, we don’t know what’s true and what’s not. In film it is more challenging to pull off, as it gets rarer and rarer we have voice-over narration in the medium. We are used to seeing all or most angles and lying to the audience is more challenging.

Rashomon

Video games are in a unique position, in that they are unparalleled in their ability to put the user in a character’s perspective. You force the action. You make the decisions. You see the story unfold in front of your eyes. Video games have the opportunity to push the unreliable narrator to unknown places. I have glimpsed this in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.

[As an aside, I'd say seek this game out. It does some wonderful things, all in a very tight package. My review on Popmatters is pending. There will be massive spoilers to follow.]

In Memories, you play as Harry Mason. A loving father who is thrust into confusion and mystery surrounding the disappearance of his young daughter after a car crash in the namesake town of Silent Hill.

At least, that’s what you’re lead to believe.

The structure of the game features third-person “action” (more exploration) scenes for most of it’s run. It’s in these scenes where we move the plot forward. Interspersed are first-person therapy scenes, where you answer some personal questions that tie to the action going on in-game. Since we control Harry, we assume Harry is the one in therapy. It seems like a logical connection to make: we control Harry in the game world, therefore we control him throughout.

It’s this incorrect assumption that creates a unreliable narrative.

The game’s very first screen is a video tape of Mason playing with his daughter. The tape rewinds as he embraces his daughter, who espouses, “I love my daddy” at a key moment. It is a haunting start-up screen to be sure, but one I brushed off as a clever way to start the game. Upon completion, this was far from the case.

Analyzing this scene, we assume we are in Harry’s head as he watches an old tape of him playing with his daughter, longingly looking back on a missing loved one. After all, we know from the game’s box that Harry Mason is looking for his missing daughter. But the big reveal in the game – that it is indeed Cheryl Mason is in the therapy sessions and Harry died in the car crash years ago – changes everything that has happened along the way. It was Cheryl watching those tapes, longingly viewing the few moments of a happy life she never had.

Even before this reveal, it was difficult to trust everything unfolding in front of Harry. He stumbles across characters that seem unrealistic – a far too-friendly nurse who dies soon after being introduced, a teenage girl who shows up to a school reunion alone – and mysterious. He often complains of memory problems and seems confused more than not. There are even shifts in time lines that make no sense. Even when I didn’t know Harry was a memory, I never trusted him.

It’s this first (even third, with some degree of skill) -person perspective where video games have a chance to really push the boundaries of story-telling, especially the tactic of using  an unreliable narrator. The nature of being locked into a first-person view is we are limited. We see everything (and only what) Gordon Freeman sees. We experience Jack’s (and only his) discovery of the secrets of Rapture. When done well, story-telling in the first-person can push immersion to levels unavailable in other mediums. By simply putting us in Harry’s perspective, we assumed we were in his even when the perspective shifted. Memories took learned behavior in gaming – that we trust our character, we are alerted to character shifts – and turned it on its head. But the genius of the game was sprinkling the world and Harry’ character with doubt, without giving away the reveal until the game’s conclusion.

A piece of entertainment such as Memories is only effective as a video game. The cuts to therapy sessions would not make sense (since the camera would have had to pan to whoever was on the couch at some point) in a film. The sense of confusion would have been lost in novel, where you were not in charge of exploring the world around you, questioning what was real and was not.

Menace or victim?

While other games – most notably Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, but also the aformentioned Bioshock – have dabbled in using an unreliable narrator, it is a tactic that begs to be explored in the medium. Why is it we trust every single thing told to us in a video game? Are the Locust from Gears of War really a barbaric race hellbent on the destruction of humanity? Or are they an oppressed people fighting back against an imperialist regime? Are we so foolish as to accept every order, command, incomplete piece of information as truth in games?

For all it’s warts, Kane and Lynch: Dead Men uses an unreliable narrator sidekick, to varying degrees of success. Lynch is a schizophrenic prone to violent outbursts. In single-player, this barely registers as anything creative, as you play as Kane. But step into the shoes of Lynch in co-op, and the game will cause you to hallucinate, seeing civilians as cops whom you will be compelled to shoot, unsure of who is innocent and who is a threat.

This is a brilliant move, and one that is not explored nearly enough in games. Sure, mental illness is an easy way out. But what if the Covenant didn’t actually look like they do in Halo, it’s how they look to Master Chief – the killing machine sent to destroy them all. Or if in Mirror’s Edge you were actually a drug courier simply moving the package along, instead of some First Amendment freedom fighter. Pretentious game ideas aside, developers should screw with the one thing that they have easy control over: perspective.

Main characters can be so much more than puppets used to lead us through a narrative. They can be self-obsessed liars with their own motivations, goals, and faults. They can be – as we are – people who don’t always see, remember, or process things going on around them clearly.

Perception is reality, not the other way around.

Always Wanting More

Note: This piece is currently up on Popmatters.com.

When an entertainer dies, it’s always a strange event. Suddenly, millions of strangers mourn the passing of someone they never knew, simply because they made a few movies, starred in a TV show, or cut a few albums.

I never “got it.” Until a few days ago.

“The most devastating entertainment death of my life” was the text I sent to a friend when I heard of the death of Jay Lindsey, a.k.a. Jay Reatard. Only four days ago, early Wednesday morning, Jay Reatard, age 29, was found dead in his Memphis home. When I read the news late that night, it took a few seconds longer than usual to process what I was reading.

Jay Reatard was dead.

It’s tragic that it may take death for people to discover Jay Reatard. But better than never discovering him at all. His music is a lot of things – loud, fuzzed out, ramshackle, lo-fi, abrasive, angry, emotional, therapeutic. In only two official full-lengths, along with hundreds of recordings dating back to when he was 15 or so, Reatard managed to marry a punk spirit with traditional rock, along with a healthy dose of pop and a sprinkle of blues.

Reatard’s standing in the musical landscape had yet to take hold right up to his untimely death. His first major label record – Matador’s Watch Me Fall - was released in August of 2009. With a much pop-ier sound and widespread critical praise, it seemed as though Jay Reatard was poised to make some sort of breakthrough. At least as much as an “indie” musician can make these days. Jay Reatard had a lot of music left to make. And maybe, just maybe, there was a chance he could become big. Not Jonas Brothers big. But White Stripes big? Possibly. But now we’ll never know.

“It Ain’t Gonna Save Me” – Watch Me Fall, 2009

Jay Reatard the performer had a reputation. He fought fans and band mates alike during shows. He smashed things. He was generally a jerk on stage. He had broken up with his band a few months ago over who knows what. Jay Reatard was a very divisive personality.

There’s an undercurrent on many music blogs’ comment pages that somehow Reatard’s death was expected. He lived too hard. Didn’t take care of himself. Was asking for it. This is further complicated by the mystery surround the circumstances of his death. “Died in his sleep” is what you’ll read if you look the news up. A homicide investigation was whispered, now since removed from the Memphis paper’s site. Some four days later, and we still know very little.

I was musically conscious for the death of Kurt Cobain. I regard Nirvana as the reason I got into music in the first place. But that death feels like a million miles way. Every angle and theory has been discussed. The band has been cemented in history as important.

“See Saw” – Matador Singles ’08, 2008

But Jay Reatard’s death feels like a taunting mystery. Something that, as the days go on, I wonder if it will ever be solved. Taunting me further is the music of Reatard’s I am left with. Songs like “Let It All Go,” “I Know A Place,” and “Not A Substitue” take on a much more tragic meaning now. Here was an artist with so much to say, so much creativity, so much drive to be great. To have that taken away, at only 29, is a true tragedy.

Prior to the release of Watch Me Fall, a 20-minute documentary (the spectacular “Waiting For Something”) about Reatard surfaced online. Watching it now is eerie. Near the end of the film, Jay talks about the fear of death and constantly racing against time to keep making music. “I know I won’t be able to make records when I’m dead,” he muses, “and I’m not dead right now, so I want to make records.” It’s heart-wrenching to see how prophetic he actually was.

Jay Reatard the person was not a part of my life, Jay Reatard the musician was. And that is no longer.

Jay Reatard was the definition of a throwback. Someone who grinded away on tour, put out records as often as he possibly could, and held his artistic vision above all else. He also made some damn great music.

I guess my biggest fear is that Jay Reatard will be forgotten. In a few years, maybe we’ll all forget about his two great albums. We’ll forget about the maniac on stage who bared his soul – for better and worse. We’ll forget about the workman-like approach he took to simply doing what he was put on Earth to do: make music. Don’t let that happen.

From all of us who have been affected by your music, we will miss you Jay.

“My Shadow” – Blood Visions, 2006

Salutations

I hate intro posts on blogs. Especially writing them. They feel so…self-aggrandizing.

But the facts: I’m 24 years old. I work as a freelance writer for a magazine on Cape Cod. I write about video games, sports, music, and the ways they interact. I consider myself somewhat of a gaming expert. It’s the industry I follow the most and feel I know the most about. I also review games semi-professionally (in that I get to keep the games I review. Wheee!), so it’s what I have the most reps with.

But I also love sports writing to death. I am an amateur stats nerd, but I also love iconographies, origin stories, and profiles of athletes. Super-humans fascinate me.

As for music, I covered a summer of indie shows around Boston for a time, reviewing concerts (which is as odd as it sounds) in exchange for being on the guest list. It was a great time. I also review albums in my spare time, but again, I like the people behind music as much as the music itself.

So if you’re here, I hope you’ll enjoy reading about the NFL and nationalism. Or how the 80s film “Major League” changed the closer position forever. Or why Lady GaGa is approximately 1,000 times more important than you think. Or how video games are art, dammit. And other such topics.

Thanks for reading

Jason