80's Electro-Lovin'

Recently while driving I had the pleasure of hearing one of La Roux's songs being played on the radio. I called the station, asked about the artist, and within a week have become thoroughly familiar with the album.

La Roux is a two person Electropop band, with Ben Langmaid as synth player/co-writer and Elly Jackson as the singer, co-writer and titular redhead.

Beyond being one of my new favorite artists, La Roux is one of now many channeling 80's chic into the modern era, though Elly Jackson is able to bring in a touch of Molly Ringwald that others cannot.

There's a certain freedom to be ridiculous and theatrical while still taking yourself seriously that hasn't been seen like this since Gary Newman's "Cars".

Along those same lines, Empire of the Sun and MGMT seem to be adapting that sensibility in their own ways; MGMT with their heavy rhythmic synth plus psychadelic videos and Empire of the Sun's... well just watch their music videos and you'll understand. Safe to say their visuals are striking in a Tarsem Singh kind of way.

So what I'd love to see is that same liberality and spunk applied to a video game. What would an FPS with a MGMT soundtrack be like? Or a game with Empire of the Sun's visual sensibilities? It's always important to look outside one's field for inspiration.

Dead Space pt ii: How Bad Guys are (sometimes) people too

The player's foil in Dead Space, Dr. Challus Mercer, is a very bad man. From one's encounters with him it's clear he's both insane and unrepentantly evil. I would argue that he's also one-dimensional.

Dr. Mercer fails to exhibit any emotional or human characteristics, and as a result the player simply wants to kill him. Nothing about him is memorable or provokes thought. Ironically System Shock 2, Dead Space's spiritual predecessor, has a far more human antagonist in Shodan the AI. Where Shodan exhibits hubris, avarice and vanity, Dr. Mercer is simply evil with a dressing of crazy on top. Admittedly there are messianic overtones there, but they're very much in the background.

A sidenote is that Dr. Mercer is remarkably well groomed for a crazy man marooned on a broken spaceship who stabs people with a metal spike.

That being said, here's my version of Dr. Challus Mercer:

His face is gaunt and heavily creased, hair overgrown and matted with layers of dirt, and his jumpsuit looks like he hasn't taken it off in weeks. His entire body is stained with a mix of fresh and dried blood that he no longer bothers to wipe off. The USG Ishimura is an abattoir, and he is its butcher.

When the Marker was brought on board, where others suffered bouts of paranoia and hallucination, Dr. Mercer had visions. He experienced the ecstasy of being one of the whole, of ascending beyond his mortal and corporal boundaries. Soon, a vision revealed to Dr. Mercer that he was to be the prophet of mankind's salvation. However, this task would be difficult and require great faith, like that of the biblical Abraham. A man must first die before ascending as a new being, and so Dr. Mercer must prove his face by sacrificing a crewman in front of the Marker to begin the entire ship's transformation.

Though his rational and moral selves rail against this call, Dr. Mercer cannot deny the profundity of this experience and revelation, and so the first victim is taken at the Marker. This victim then transforms into the first Necromorph, and the true slaughter begins. Dr. Mercer at first is taken aback by the grotesque and violent nature of the Necromorphs, but is assured by the Marker and called to continue his mission and bring the entire flock into the fold.

By the time the player arrives, Dr. Mercer has been left alone in the dark to ponder his actions. The Marker no longer speaks to him, and the entire crew is now dead or in hiding. Once he discovers Isaac's intent of containing the infection, Dr. Mercer moves to stop him, though without the conviction he once had. Without the divine assurances he once had, Dr. Mercer becomes a shell of his former self. When the player finally corners him, Dr. Mercer pleads that he be allowed to transform. After all he has done, he must know if he was right or if it was all an illusion.

The player would then be given a choice-- allow Dr. Mercer to seek out a Necromorph and be transformed, or kill him on the spot and disfigure the body so that there is nothing left for the Necromorphs to use. Ultimately this choice would have no effect on gameplay, but hopefully would be meaningful to the player nonetheless.

I find/hope that this interpretation of Dr. Mercer would make for a more thought-provoking and significant experience when playing Dead Space.

Who is Player 2?

Having older siblings as interested in video games as I was meant that growing up I was always Player 2.

And I hated it.

Player 1 spoke of power, skill and leadership. He's the prime mover, the one everyone looks to for help, and invariably the one who gets the girl. Part of my perception had to do with channeling my 'little brother syndrome' into Player 2, but it also seemed the logical conclusion-- Player 2 had to be inferior in some way, otherwise he'd be Player 1.

Eventually the anger and disdain turned to empathy. Player 2 and I had much in common. Being younger, I usually ended up as the backup, just as Player 2 lives in the shadow of Player 1. But there was a steadfastness there. Player 2 wasn't in it for the glory-- that was Player 1. Player 2's there to make sure the job gets done. For every step Player 1 takes, Player 2 is right behind him. He's the Chewie to Player 1's Han; the Ajax to Player 1's Achilles.

I now identify with Player 2, and given the choice that's who I'll play as. It's almost a badge of honor, that readiness to accept the secondary roll, and I know that in any other Player 2's out there I'll find a kindred spirit.

Dead Space pt i: Girlfriends

If you're reading this and you haven't played through Dead Space, then stop. Give yourself a weekend, burn through it, and then come back-- it saves me from explaining plot points and you from spoilers. Or if you don't care, just wiki the plot and follow along.

To preface, I really enjoyed Dead Space. The controls have a nice, weighty feel and the gameplay is fun. There were just a few points that I felt could have been better, particularly the character Nicole, Isaac Clarke's girlfriend.

In Dead Space's finale, it's revealed that Nicole was a psychic manifestation of the spire. The spire uses her as a guise to lead you through the ship and return the spire to the planet. Or something like that.

It's evident early on that she's either an hallucination or batshit crazy, and neither of those possibilities is very endearing. As a result, the player doesn't form any attachment to Nicole. She's just a plot device, as opposed to your terrified girlfriend whom you're trying to save. I think that part of the story could have been done in a more meaningful way.

When the first message players receive from Nicole is the cryptic "make us whole again, Isaac", they're immediately keyed into the ruse. One of the complaints about Dead Space is that Nicole is a throwaway character, and this is why; the player is never given a chance to develop the relationship. If the player's interactions with her were frequent and entirely normal for the first few hours of play, then the discovery of her true fate becomes all the more potent-- by that time the player has (hopefully) formed an attachment and worked hard towards her rescue.

Trying to find Nicole would then become a game of cat and mouse for the player's subconscious. When Isaac finds something that points to her true fate, like the fact that she's never where she says she'll be or how neither Hammond nor Daniels can pick up her comm signal, his subconscious immediately fabricates an explanation that allows the ruse to continue. For example, Nicole explains to you that her access to the meeting area was blocked off, or that she's using a coded signal and that's why Daniels can't pick it up. Further into the game, the player's suspicions are raised by being continually stymied and by Hammond and Daniels' increasingly worried communications, asking if you're alright etc. At first, the player should feel resolute over Nicole and suspicious towards Hammond and Daniels, but by the end it should be clear that things aren't quite right. It would take incontravertable evidence to dispel Isaac's delirium, such as the discovery of Nicole's clearly long-dead body or access to footage of himself talking to a vidscreen that isn't there. Hopefully this discovery would come as a severe shock to the player and help the game to climax in a more meaningful way.

The thing is, I don't think Dead Space (with the exception of the last 10 seconds of the game) really addressed how traumatizing the experience of surviving the USG Ishimura would've been for the Isaac, the player character. Understandably Dead Space as a game is first about the combat and second about the story, but I think that little changes such as what I've suggested here could have gone a long way towards getting players more involved in the plot and happenings within the Dead Space universe.

As I said, I enjoyed Dead Space. I only wish that the horror plot could have had a more significant and emotional impact.