Category Archives: Games and Software

Game File, Games and Software, Indie Pennant

The Park: The Boogeyman isn’t Only for Kids

October 31, 2015 RaShaun Eshalomi

Funcom‘s (best known for the MMO The Secret World and the MMORPG Age of Conan) The Park takes place in the same universe as the The Secret World. If you haven’t played The Secret World—no worries, it won’t interfere with your playthrough—you’ll soon find out the Atlantic Island Park has a dark history of mysterious murders, unexplainable accidents and a seemingly crazy owner. Players control Lorraine, a woman who has lost her son, Callum, in the infamous park.

This psychological horror isn’t the run and hide—or shoot wildly at nothingness, hoping you made contact—kind of game I’m used to playing. There are no weapons, no monsters stalking you, waiting for the perfect time to attack. You’re just a spectator, watching a woman, mother unravel before you. The controls are simple: walk, run, look around and pick up random items. You can also call out your son Callum’s name and get a reaction/response.

The Park isn’t scary like Silent Hill or Outlast, it’s more of a creepy game with a few jump scares. I scared myself more than the game did. I spent most of the time expecting something to jump out and chase me, but it never happened. The sounds in the game raise the creep level even more: whispers, echoes, something that sounds like a speaker or radio in distance, the wind. The sounds are a nice touch, and there isn’t much music, which made the experience better for me. I did missed the scary, though. A creepy park at night is the perfect setting for terror, and I was expecting that.

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As you explore the dilapidated park, you’ll come across notes, reports and letters revealing bits and pieces of the park’s history. Lorraine will chime in with her thoughts and revelations about the park and her life. Riding the rides also causes her to give insight into her past and her decent. For someone who has lost her son, she is awfully calm: walking around, riding rides and contemplating. By the end of the game, I understood why, of course, but it did confuse me for a bit.

The story doesn’t get really interesting until the second half of the game; that’s when it gets juicy. Learning about the park and its dreary past is interesting, but as Lorraine reveals more about herself, the more I wanted to know about her and Callum. However, I felt a disconnect between the park and Lorraine. Because The Park is connected to the MMO The Secret World—which I haven’t played—developers had to tie in references, but it was still nice to learn a little bit about the park.

It’s a short experience (about an hour or two), but that’s expected when you are seeing only a glimpse of a woman’s life. The Park didn’t wow me or keep me up at night, but I did really enjoy the game. the story touches on a topic we rarely hear or know much about. I also like the short-story approach, peeking into a character we may have never bumped into during another game. I probably won’t play The Park again—maybe just to get the last two achievements I missed—but I would recommend it to a friend.

Games and Software

Bloodborne Origin Theory: Vicar Amelia

October 29, 2015 Alex McCumbers 1 Comment

Bloodborne is one PS4 game that continues to impress me. Not only is the game brutally difficult—making victories all the sweeter—but also the world carries a narrative that could make a classic horror novel. Much of Bloodborne‘s creatures and locale, seem to take inspiration from the works of Bram Stoker and H.P. Lovecraft, as well as modern works such as Berserk and the obscure film Brotherhood of the Wolf. While many of the game’s aspects can be traced back to these various works, one iconic beast may have inspirations from mythology as well as one history’s darker moments.

The clothing in Brotherhood of the Wolf is thought to have inspired the Bloodborne look. Weaponry used in this film are also similar to some of the weapons in the game.

It’s important to note that this connection is a theory; my basis for such is simply fun speculation. However, the points I’m about to lay out are hard to ignore.

For those who lack Bloodborne experience, or only made it to the first boss, Vicar Amelia needs an introduction.

From Bloodborne‘s lore, Vicar Amelia is a member of the Healing Church, a group who uses different types of blood to find ways to cure diseases. What the Church didn’t realize was that by discovering the blood in ancient tombs, they opened up the world to blood-induced transformations. Those closest to the Healing Church often became the most horrid of creatures during the Night of the Hunt.

Wendigo?

Amelia’s visual design has many layers, literally and metaphorically. First of all, the fact that the beast has the head of a deer, but the maw of a wolf leads me to think that inspiration was drawn from the Wendigo of Native American myth. Wendigo are beasts that were once humans, which emerged from an irresistible urge to consume human flesh. They are an abomination of natural order.

Robert Fiddler, son of Jack Fiddler — Robert Fiddler, Son of Jack Fiddler

In fact, many people were killed when it was determined they were changing into Wendigos. Jack Fiddler was a man who went from tribe to tribe killing these monsters as an act of mercy to save them from changing. The killing of a Wendigo was a practice taken quite seriously, to the point that Fiddler was legendary for his heroics. The Canadian Police, of course, found this behavior to be savage. Fiddler was later arrested for murder, but committed suicide before trial. Leaves one to wonder how many Wendigo went unscathed after his death.

Supernaturals Wendigo — A Wendigo in an early Supernatural episode.

Modern Wendigo have been recently portrayed as having the wolf-like features with the antlers of a deer or moose. They’ve also appeared as skinless, vicious, humanoids with yellow eyes. In media, Wendigo have appeared in the television shows: Supernatural, X-Files and more. Many also believe the Cleric Beast in Bloodborne to be a Wendigo as well.

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Vicar Amelia oddly shares a name with one of the most prolific serial killers of Victorian Europe, Amelia Dyer.

Those who met Dyer during the late 1800s, probably saw her as a caring, motherly figure who took in unwanted infants to give them a home. She would often appear as a nun, or a teacher, taking on the burden of caring for many children. A fee was always charged for taking such responsibility, but money had to be made to survive, so most folks obliged to pay her without much thought. Unbeknownst to her customers, there was a reason Amelia Dyer could take in so many infants. The children were killed. Their clothes were often used on the next victims or were sold at various shops.

It is believed that hundreds of children were murdered this way.

Dyer continued to run her baby farms for many years, until she was eventually caught. During the time of her trial, the Thames was searched to find more corpses, babies strangled with white tape. The white tape was typical in Dyer’s murders as she admitted to authorities that’s how they would know which bodies were of her doing. She was hung, like most criminals of the time.

Notice the bandages and ribbon-like hair, all of which are white.

Being that the game takes place in Miyazaki’s impression of that point in history as well as the general darkness of the game’s world, it’s a possibility that the designer wanted to represent the creature hiding beneath Amelia Dyer’s skin. Ironically, Miyazaki’s Amelia is covered in the white ribbons, the second visual aspect of the monster’s design.

Empathetic Mother Figure?

The third visual feature to point out is how Vicar Amelia cradles her holy symbol. She’s found sobbing over it, the beast blood finally overwhelming her, a prolific member of the Healing Church. However, when she transforms, she continues to carry the symbol, holding on to her belief that the Healing Church is doing good in the long run. The monster cradles that symbol like a baby.

Even when she becomes a beast, she holds on to that pendant.

It was this mannerism that solidified the connection between Bloodborne‘s Vicar Amelia and Amelia Dyer for me. The slaughter of infants for financial gain is definitely a trait that was monstrous and Vicar Amelia personifies these sins in history. Yet this motherly stance of the beast continues to hammer in the idea that these monsters were once normal people, proving that there are few one can truly trust. Pity conflicts with the need to hunt in Bloodborne, making encounters like this one all the more memorable.

What started as mere name association became an interesting web of details and design elements. It goes to show that the minds behind Bloodborne and their previous titles are putting tons of detail into each aspect of their games, while also leaving enough blank space for imagination to fill in the holes. Miyazaki has claimed that his games usually pull from how he approached literature as a child, reading the gist of the words and filling in the blanks with his own musings. In Bloodborne, the vagueness of the story and the dark world of Yharnham forces players to fill in these holes with dark thoughts, often leaving true, residual horror.

Game File, Games and Software, Indie Pennant

The Forgotten City Tells a Story for the Ages

October 22, 2015 Alex McCumbers 1 Comment

Bethesda Softworks often has the best support when it comes to post-launch modification. Such has been the case ever since Morrowind, adding hundreds of hours to an already time-encompassing game. Skyrim has also left open its proverbial bed chambers, accepting anything from Thomas the Train as a dragon to all manners of nudity.

All jokes aside, there is still plenty of life left in Skyrim on the PC, at least as long as people like Nick Pearce have something to say about it.

The Forgotten City adds a whole new area for players to explore, packaged with its own narrative and a plethora of top-notch voice acting. A quick download and a bit of a walk leads hopeful dungeon divers to a gorgeous scene of a cave mouth just behind the veil of a waterfall. What lies beyond the entrance are mysteries beyond typical logic.

Charred corpses lay strewn about broken Dwarven architecture, husks of their former grandiose. After delving deeper to the heart of the underground city, a desperate girl looms over a massive well, her face in obvious despair. She approaches Dovakhiin, asking him to help find her brother, who has been exploring the ruins. Accepting the quest feels simple enough, but after the exchange is over, one quickly realizes that in order to find him, one must take a leap of faith.

Falling through that shaft felt like a mistake, but luckily a deep pool of water lies at the bottom. Once again the player gets to explore a destroyed city, eventually coming across a lake house. Inside is a broken soul gem, and a note that tells of the tragedy and pleads for help. Magic then swirls about the only doorway, giving the player no choice. Stepping in flings the hero into the past, before the tragedy.

Stepping out of the lake house is a powerful moment. The sheer beauty of the place, after witnessing what will befall it, immediately plants seeds of wanting to save the city. There are several little moments like this in The Forgotten City that demonstrate the modder’s keen understanding of using the environment to tell the story. Frankly, this first moment is brilliant. Invested in the story already, players are introduced to a host of characters as a simple farmer leads the Dragonborn to the Jarl, or Mayor of the city.

Many people are introduced, giving hints to their story and background with expertly crafted dialogue. Even the characters’ tone is used to add more to each exchange, something that vanilla Skyrim often failed to achieve. In fact, much of the appeal of The Forgotten City is uncovering each character’s unique story.

After a strange meeting with the Jarl, in which the player presents him with a letter written from his future self, the Dwarven Law is introduced. After this conversation, the Jarl tasks Dovakhiin to find out who will trigger the calamity that ends their utopia and to stop them by any means necessary. He looks out at his city from his perch at the top of the Citadel, desperately wanting things to stay how they are.

“The many shall suffer for the sins of the one.”

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As the story progresses, the Dwarven Law reveals itself as being quite the moral dilemma. Many characters call the Jarl’s leadership into question, leaving many to ask just what is against the Law. Others sought refuge from the brutal world outside, seeing the Law as a saving grace. This idea of morality is paralleled with the characters.

One such example is that of Vernon, a produce vendor in the city square. He seems to enjoy his work and is happily ready to sell his wares, but his mood drastically changes when a note comes from under the door. The note calls Vernon an abomination and threatens him, all in blood red ink. Players can take this note straight to the Jarl and sentence him to death, yet a more interesting option lies in showing the letter to Vernon. Vernon, seeing this treatment before, reveals that he is gay. Players are then left to find who would write such a letter and try to resolve the issue.

This focus on characters and narrative permeate the entire game. There is little combat to be had; only a few situations lead to a sword being drawn. Where the mod shines is how its narrative proposes an interesting “Who will do it?” detective scenario, while also elaborating on the mysterious Dwarves of Tamriel. Truly the story is worth exploring, especially when factoring in the multiple ways to finish the quest and return to the present. Learning a character’s motives through looking at what they have in their home, or their subtle shift in tone rewards players who pay attention to detail.

The Forgotten City also sports a polish that many mods fail to achieve on their first few versions. Other players have complained about certain events not triggering correctly, but I found no such problems during my six-hour playthrough. I did spend a lot of time walking back and forth in the area when trying to solve a puzzle, wracking my brain to think outside the box. When I finally succeeded, I felt that I was rewarded for my cleverness and laughed at my fear of destroying the city. I would reload a save every time I accidentally stole a carrot or hit the wrong dialogue choice. The cataclysm can be reversed by revisiting the lake house and going through the portal again, creating a Groundhog Day-esque time loop.

Dr. Who would be proud of Pearce’s use of time travel and the theories associated with it.

The Forgotten City’s final moments are truly epic as the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. Things are clarified in interesting ways. To get the best ending, one has to use what’s been learned in order to do something absurdly brilliant. Finishing the game, for me, was a bittersweet moment. Bringing closure to the characters of the city brought true joy to my heart. I’ll even go as far as saying I teared up a bit. Yet, I was left feeling hungry for more adventure, wanting to discover other things lost to the destructive nature of time.

This adventure is an excellent example of game modification being used to its true potential. The atmosphere adds layers of depth to the expertly crafted narrative, while talented actors and actresses give a flawless performance. Like a giant puzzle, solving the mysteries of this long-forgotten city is rewarding both on a mechanical level and on an emotional one.

The Forgotten City is the candle I will hold up to all other mods that follow.

Game File, Games and Software

Blizzard’s Absurdly Good Customer Service

October 16, 2015 Alex McCumbers

After my girlfriend procured the Summon Loot Crate, I was left with the stuff she didn’t want. There were two things she tossed to me: a Hearthstone stress ball, shaped like the stone that has teleported many a WoW player to sanctuary; and a Hearthstone coin with a free pack of cards on the back. I let those free pack of cards sit for about a week before I decided to fire up my old account and sling some cards around. It was then that I ran into a bit of a roadblock. . .

JWG9XU3O6ZBX1409164793621 — I get locked out of my account a lot. . .

Unfortunately, Battle.net hasn’t been a service I’ve kept up with. The last time I tried to make an account, I had to create a new email, which is never fun. Frustrated and wanting to use my normal email, I hopped into Blizzard’s Customer Service Chat, looking to get my password reset.

Awesomely enough, the helpful folks behind this service role-play the whole situation. These Game Masters choose names that would fit among the people of Azeroth and use dialect when typing. It took a bit of poking around, but after some time, we finally got my account linked to my preferred email. While opening up my Hearthstone client, a thought occurred to me.

Game Masters usually speak in character, making that experience more personalized.

“Can you help me get into my old World of Warcraft account? I kinda want to see how my old Rogue is doing,” I asked the Game Master with obvious doubt.

The Game Master said, “Sure, just give me your character’s name and any other detail you can remember. We’ll try to find him.” Of course, I spouted everything I could remember. Sardeth is a Forsaken Rogue who I hadn’t seen since 2003. I had only spent about four months in Azeroth before moving on to other games, but I had fond memories of following my friend through dungeons, picking up stuff everyone else wanted. They called me a Ninja or something, it’s been so long.

Sardeth's adventures were happening right as the Lich King grew to power. — Sardeth’s adventures were happening right as the Lich King grew to power.

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Being that I hadn’t much attachment to anything that character had, I wasn’t surprised or upset. “Tell you what,” the Game Master said, “Let me transfer him and your other characters to your preferred account.”

Needless to say, I was blown away by this service. I asked about Sardeth on a whim, not caring if it couldn’t be done, but on sheer curiosity. The Game Master assured me that, “Sardeth is alive and well. Well, as much as an Undead can be. . .”

Azeroth's Undead have always been a lively bunch. — Azeroth’s Undead have always been a lively bunch.

This whole endeavor happened around 2 a.m. Not sure what time it was there, but the fact that Blizzard’s services are this helpful gave me a new respect for the company. Just because of this Game Master’s kind gesture, I’ll be logging into World of Warcraft soon for a long awaited visit with an old friend.

Blizzard has the best customer service of any company I’ve ever dealt with. My thanks knows no bounds. Helping players out, especially when it comes to an MMORPG, is an aspect Game Designers and companies need to take into great consideration. Blizzard makes for an excellent role model.

Game File, Games and Software

Mario Maker Hands Players the Keys to the Mushroom Kingdom

September 23, 2015 Alex McCumbers

Ever since my early days of squawking at my cousin Axl to let me play Super Mario Bros 3 during his summer visits, I’ve wanted to make my own Mario levels. I even drew out a few during those humid months, using crayons, markers, anything I could get my hands on. The toys in my room were usually arranged in some sort of level as well. Needless to say, Nintendo hit me in the childhood with Mario Maker.

Mario Maker has that weird Japanese feel to it. It’s off-beat with its menus and sound effects, but its goals of being a tool to make Mario levels are met with unprecedented success. Never before has the act of game design been so simple. A concept can rapidly become a product in a matter of minutes. Will the level make players cry for mercy or make them smile?

wiiu_supermariomaker_9uul0 — Enemies can be stacked to create towers of mayhem.

Being able to build levels in four different Mario styles is a blast. What’s interesting is that many assets mix into styles they were never in before. For example, Bowser Jr. is available by giving dear old dad a shake, which can make for an interesting boss fight or just an obstacle to clear. Even new ways to play emerge with items like the Clown Car or Latiku’s Cloud. These items open up free flight, giving a whole range of options to builders.

Making levels isn’t everything though. Players who seek insane challenges will also find enjoyment with Mario Maker. The game supports many of the Wii U’s controllers, so players can grab their favorite and have a go at some levels in Course World with comfort. Filters can be used to find the hardest or most appreciated levels. You can also follow Makers like any modern social media site. Personally, I enjoy finding my favorite YouTube personalities through Twitter; their levels are usually pretty cool!

wiiu_supermariomaker_o2ubt — Pipes are now the homes of all sorts of things. . .

Of course, the major complaint behind Mario Maker is how the assets are unlocked. The more time you spend making levels, the more you unlock. Supposedly, a patch was added to speed up this process, but no matter how many levels I made, it seemed like I still had to wait until the next day for the shipment of assets to arrive. This does, however, force the player to build upon schema by using what’s available. Sometimes, the best concepts would come to me by being limited. I don’t think I would’ve messed with the New Super Mario Bros U mode if it wasn’t for that initial limitation; however, by doing so, I made some interesting levels involving the wall-jump mechanics in that mode.

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There are tons of unlockable sprites for use in the original Super Mario Bros style. A mystery mushroom grants makers the ability to put one of a hundred Nintendo characters into play, each with their own sound effects and animations. Unlocking these quirky characters can take a lot of time by playing the 100 Mario Challenge in Course World, but every Amiibo currently available unlocks a sprite, which is great for those of us addicted to the hunt of plastic figures.

Well, some are more quirky than others. . .

All in all, Mario Maker is a charming game that gives players the chance to build levels for Mario to traverse. The excellent interface and flawless execution shows off Nintendo’s quality seal. There are tons of unlockables to find, and being that this is a community-driven game, it can hold unlimited hours of play. The joy of this game comes from its potential as millions of makers set out to create unique levels.

wiiu_supermariomaker_zou6k — Already, millions of levels have been made. Click this to play more!

Lastly, I challenge all of our Giga Makers to send us some levels. They could show up in a YouTube video or Twitch stream. I’ll be devising my own to share as well.

The future of Mario Maker is bright, but first, it has to be built.