Roundup

[jaggedwolf]

Jade Empire

Finished it! It's definitely a game that has interesting parts, but rather clunkily put together. The combat system is a bit of a pain - clicking repetitively that much can suck. The big reveal works, as does what happens after. You can tell Bioware's still finding it's feet when it comes making game mechanics and storytelling work together, because there's some really awkward or rushed parts.

I wouldn't mind Bioware returning to this IP. I'd love to see how the Jade Empire would look with uh, better graphics and combat, along with the type of companion storytelling we know Bioware for now. Alas, I'm afraid Bioware is lost to the siren call of open world games, and so their days of story-focused RPGS with a completionist playtime of ~50 hours are long gone. :(

Some stray observations:

• The fight to free Death's Hand? Super cool setup I didn't expect, with us controlling the prince fighting against the armor
• I successfully pulled off romancing both Dawn Star and Silk Fox, which had a decent enough resolution. I would have been a lot more sold on it if they'd managed to stop sniping against each other, especially Silk Fox. You told me you guys bonded while I was dead, why are you still calling her a peasant girl???
• It's been a while since I played KoToR, but the companions here feel less naturally integrated than any of the KoToR ones. Sky, Dawn Star and Silk Fox all have strong motivations to follow the Spirit Monk. Wild Flower and her guardians, eh. Henpecked Hou and Black Whirlwhind??? I suppose "avoiding my wife" and "likes killing" are motivations, they're simply not very interesting ones. Poor Hou might be the only one who doesn't get a proper character resolution, but he is basically a joke story-wise.
• I like that while we're in Fantasy China, it's got all sorts of steam-powered machinery around, from golem assembly lines to flyers to Lord Lao's Furnace. Not only magic and spirits.

Tacoma

This on the other hand, is a game that knows exactly what it wants to be. It's really well-crafted. You play Amitjyoti "Amy" Ferrier, a subcontractor who has been tasked with retrieving the AI from Lunar Transfer Station Tacoma. You're the only one in the station, but you keep stumbling across these AR recordings of the former station crew. You can watch and listen to them, physically follow a person from a group conversation to a private one, see their paths cross and uncross.

Like Fullbright's earlier game, Gone Home, there's no real-time events here. Just you, walking (and sometimes floating) through a space station, investigating all the little bits of these six people's lives with no real player objective other than understanding the crew. Unlike Gone Home, however, the voices you hear are diegetic, and there's a reason you're hearing them.

It's great environmental storytelling, and I'm so curious to see what Fullbright's next project ends up being.

• The creepy corporation vibes are super strong. Hello, employment Loyalty, and corp-run universities.
• The political situation on Earth is very different from our current one. Singapore keeps popping up because it's where the space elevator is, with prices often listed in SGD. Hindi and Tamil are major enough languages to repeatedly appear on people's IDs, but there's no sign of Spanish. The countries have split off and rejoined in different ways.
• I do like the entire crew a whole lot, as designed, and thus was indeed hit by that analysis statement by Juno that you read in the final room, again as designed.
• The space station rendering was so, so cool. Sometimes I'd just look out a window and watch the arms rotate, or spend a while floating in the hub.

Television

I caught up on Brooklyn Nine Nine and my two thoughts are 1. RIP Captain Kim, they did not deserve you 2. I don't think we've ever had a Holt-Rosa-Amy plot before and I don't know why, because that was so good :D

Film

Portrait of A Lady on Fire was very good! Good faces, good shots, good words. I have nothing intelligent to say about it, just that I can't believe I was fucked up over an Orpheus and Eurydice metaphor of all things.

Links

The Hidden Bigotry of Crosswords

On Tacoma's Ending - spoilers, you've been warned