Natural Selection

Torment must surely now give Bioshock, the Void and Braid a run for their money as the best game I played this year. This is what computer roleplaying games should always have been, and yet what they never have. It stands alone as a true roleplaying experience. You control who you are, and who you are really matters, because Torment is also packing a hell of a story. A richly thematic story about identity.

You wake up with no memory, and a few scant clues to your past life, and you strike out to learn who you were, and how you came back from the dead. But your search for your past presents dilemmas, and how you solve them says much about you, and a new question starts to become apparent. Who you were matters, but perhaps what matters more is who you are now. And if those two people aren't the same, well, doesn't that beg another question?

Opportunities to carve out your identity present themselves at every turn; the game is rich with layers and paths you can take, and it's all richly presented. The writing in the game is among the best in the genre - perhaps THE best. Certain dialogue scenes, not even voiced, are a greater thrill than any cutscene in Final Fantasy or Dragon Age. The story plays itself out with a perfectly measured pace, first unwinding mysteries steadily, letting the questions drawing you in one direction, then another, then beginning to drop revelations, twists, and turns - and some of the reveals are truly striking - before you emerge from a pivotal encounter with a goal in sight, and all of your answers - except for one, catalysed to seek out your destiny and show who you truly are once and for all.

The Planescape setting is one of the most vibrant and imaginative presented for D&D, and given license to make a game with it, it is to the boundless credit of Chris Avellone and his team that they sought to match its creativity, rather than carve and staid a traditional path through it. In a world where belief affects reality and creatures from an infinite number of worlds gather in the pub, Avellone and co capitalised fully on the richness of a universe prone to its own identity crises, and told the story of a man, and everything that could mean.

It's a nearly perfect game. It manages to transcend almost every flaw of the classic Infinity Engine system. Even the 1. 2. 3. dialogue boxes seem to fade from view under the strength of writing. It briefly stumbles when you take an excursion from Sigil, the central city, to some of the surrounding planes. In these places some of its fetch-quest, hack-n-slash roots briefly show, albeit still dressed in a phenomenally colourful trimming. This is the one and only time the game ever tired me, and otherwise I remained completely engrossed. I could, even now, go back and play through it again, and despite knowing its secrets from the start, despite having only just completed it, the opportunity to seek new answers to its questions would hold interest. I'll be sure that I do play it again a couple of years down the line, when memory has dimmed a little, and I'm sure I'll be transfixed a game.

This is what RPGs should be. This is what they never have been. A nearly perfect game. 9/10

Only one question remains...

What can change the nature of a man?

If You Believe There's Nothing Up My Sleeve

Moon slipped by the popular consciousness rather quietly; I'm not even sure what it was released against, but it didn't make any big news. It got a few mumbles because director Duncan Jones is David Bowie's son, but these were mostly years ago, when it was first gathering momentum. As such it joins a pantheon of low-budget, high-concept, under-the-radar sci-fi movies that are really, really good.

Whilst not quite a one man show, Sam Rockwell is at the center of events, and the film's success rests on his shoulders. It must have been a treat of a part to get, providing some unique challenges, and Rockwell rises to them admirably, allowing one to become entirely embroiled in the conceit of the story. It's not always the most subtle of performances, but it's real and slightly, surprisingly, heroic. By the end Sam has not only our sympathy, but our cheers.

None of which is to dismiss Kevin Spacey, whose contribution is more understated, but wholly neccesary and pitch-perfect. In a manner which will remind the majority of HAL 9000, he imbues the robotic Gerty with just a hint of constrained emotion.

Gerty itself is a total coup on Jones' part. Whilst most will focus on Rockwell's character, there's is a great depth of interest in his mechanical companion. The design is ingenious: A chunky boom arm suspended from ceiling rails, with effector arms on seperate units, there is no semblance of humanoid silhouette at all. A tiny little LCD screen is the token attempt to create a human bond, displaying a smiling emoticon which briefly flashes other symbols when it wishes to express something. Whether Gerty is nothing more than a machine with a contrived display of humanity, or whether the strained companionship represents something human which is constrained by its medium, is an intriguing question.

Still, fascinating as it is, the question is essentially a sideshow, whilst the plot proper is concerned with Sam. There's not a great deal of story - it could be summed up in a paragraph - instead Jones is content simply to set up his concept and follow it as it unfolds, with events only falling into a more paced narrative toward the end. It's exploration and character examination, not SF thriller.

It's also pleasingly, if mildly, subversive. Halfway in, the film has a very familiar feel to it; it might almost seem like a pleasing blend of derivations, a variation on an old theme. But then threads go in unexpected directions. Not shockingly so - This isn't a Christopher Nolan flick - but enough to be refreshing.

Indeed, that is the ultimate feel of Moon - Not shocking or extreme, never coming on strong, but content to be subtle, and to subtly wander into interesting areas. Refreshing is a good description. This tonality is carried through into direction and production. The film is beautiful and serene. This is a good niche for Jones to be carving, and I await his next eagerly.

9/10

Living Beyond Means

It's a great success of the Conservatives' rhetoric that they have convinced a lot of this country that 'Living beyond one's means' is the crime of the benefits claimants. This has been accomplished simply by the old staple technique of twisting definitions.

At the heart of the misconception, there is a conflation of this nebulous idea of 'means' and income. This is a misconception only on the part of the public who have bought into the idea. The Conservatives who have spun the story should not be seen as a piece with the accepting public. The public are mistaken - fooled - but the Tories are wilfully misdirectional.

The Conservatives have spun the story - sadly accepted in many quarters - that to live beyond your income is the great sin that has triggered the depression. They are able to gain credibility from pundits across the spectrum citing 'living beyond means' as the trigger for the depression. But note the distinction: Means, not income. To equate the two is the Conservative falsehood. Those without income are living beyond their means if they live at all, and those with absurdly overinflated incomes would struggle greatly to live a lifestyle that actually exceeded them.

The truth is that those 'living beyond their means' are comitting the excess at the point of income - their income is wildly beyond a reasonable level. And likewise, viewed in this light - the true light - we see that it is preposterous to accuse the benefits claimants of living beyond their means. If they have an income of zero, how can they possibly be living in excess of anything?

Of course a lie like this is insidious. Nobody explicitly draws the connection underpinning it - indeed, to do so is to expose the strings. Instead it is simply made a tacit assumption, an unspoken underlying definition. That way there will be many - those who are not already scrutinous but who assume veracity - who do not even notice an assumption is being made. And the best way to reinforce the false equivalency is simply to take it for granted, as if there is nothing even to dispute. But there is, and not just in this case. And those who assume veracity on the part of those in power are going to find themselves deeply confused down the line as to how things have gone so bad.

More to the point, they'll be responsible.

Apotheosis to the Death of Personality, and Everything in Between

"As a man, I could never have contained such forbidden truths. But each of us is so much more than we once were. Gazing out across the plains of possibility, do you not feel with all your soul how we have become like gods? And as such, are we not indivisible? As long as a single one of us stands, we are legion!"

"In the end what separates a man from a slave? Money? Power? No; a man chooses, and a slave obeys! You think you have memories. A farm. A family. An airplane. A crash. And then this place. Was there really a family? Did that airplane crash, or was it hijacked? Forced down, forced down by something less than a man, something bred to sleepwalk through life unless activated by a simple phrase, spoken by their kindly master. Come in."

The same theme, attacked from two opposite ends of the spectrum, from two of my favourite games. So a game that sits atop that spectrum and straddles the whole question, you'd expect that to go down well, would you not?

Why yes, I am enjoying Torment, now that you ask.

(One day soon I need to make an actual blog post. And also a LoK retrospective. Vae victis!)

And It Was Good

Oh fuck yes Trine 2.

Now You're a Hero

This week, I have been mostly playing Hero Core. Another freebie indie game that's compulsively addictive. It merges the exploration of Metroidvania with shmuppy gameplay. I'm not generally a shmup fan, but Core is far more about interesting rooms and enemies that absurd difficulty ramps. In fact the smoothly challenging curve is one of the games best features. Also has loads of replay value among its many modes. Retro art style is kinda neat, and the amusing Engrish language option is cute.


Also got hooked hard on Fringe, which seems to have a more protracted, defined arc than Abrams' Lost, which I could never get into. I hope this is the case; if things start to seem more in a general 'mysterious stuff that's never resolved' vibe it'll lose a lot of its value. Not sure I'd have gotten into the show if not for John Noble (Denethor) who is pretty much show stealing/defining as the disturbed genius Walter Bishop. Plot has some uncanny parallels with Half-Life, but it's probably just coincidence. The cases are frequently preposterous, which seems somewhat at odds with the vision of the show (or my perception of it) which seeks to try and rationalise or credibilise them. Also, one of the recurring characters is a cow.

Shutter Your Face

I saw Shutter Island at last on Thursday night, through a funk of sickness. It is a good movie - good, but not great. Where it succeeds is in its visuals, texture, and performances. I have not seen Scorsese and DiCaprio's other projects, but on the basis of this they seem like a strong pair, and I'm now inclined to check out both Gangs of New York and the Departed.

DiCaprio makes the film, and, I think it is fair to say, in places he carries it. It's been a good year for him, and though Island is nothing like as good a film as Inception, DiCaprio's performance is actually better. Nolan's film did not offer him the time to decompress the character as he does here. Indeed, to an extent Teddy's character may be the point of the film.

It's odd the DiCaprio would choose to make this movie back to back with Inception, so similar are the roles. I am given to assume that he has a particular penchant for these characters who are in some way disconnected from reality, as was also a facet of Abagnale and Hughes. To be sure, he's good at playing them.

Ben Kingsley is also superb as the doctor who does not judge his criminally insane patients, and whose caring is shown through a very firm hand. At times he has to be the villain, at times to suggest a sinister edge, but at other times he needs to show a genuine caring. A tricky line, but one he walks well.

Mark Ruffalo adds the final element as DiCaprio's partner, Chuck. It's the sort of performance that will probably be overlooked, as it never steals any scenes from the other two, but it's a strong and credible showing which provides a solid third column for the piece.

It's the plot that prevents greatness being achieved. I can imagine that in novel form it may have been a stronger affair, but as presented on the screen, it's flawed. For one thing, the film is immensely predictable. Within the first five minutes, most of the audience will know exactly where the next two hours are going. Yet it maintains a sort of half-hearted pretense of playing with the audience, and at the end of the time you wonder whether you were ever meant to be decieved. The red herring plot threads - clearly evident as such even as they play out - seem to lack a point. In fact, events are so predictable, that I wonder if this was actually Scorsese's destination, or whether his actual goal was not the 'reveal', but that final line shared between Teddy and Chuck. Without that scene, the film would feel rather empty, but with it, it retroactively reinvests the film with some meaning, and a rewatch, treating the film as a study of Teddy, with the outcome in mind, and focussing on the way in which he interacts with and judges the other patients, may disclose some of the obfusticated point of the earlier scenes. If nothing else, it is in that final scene that the performances hit their highest notes.

So, anyway, like I said, good, but not great. Worth seeing once, at least, and maybe twice, particularly for the feel of the thing and for DiCaprio. 8/10

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Also watched Magnolia, which I have had kicking about the place on DVD for years now. It's hard to find a time when I feel like sparing 3.5 hours, you know? Anyway, having settled to watch it the other night, lights off in the settling twilight, I was initially enjoying it a great deal. It certainly has a brilliant opening. Paul Thomas Anderson claims to have structured the film after the Beatles' track A Day in the Life, with its swelling peaks and crescendos which build, then ebb, then build again. I can certainly see the similarity. My problem with it is that it feels like one swell too man. It's being asked to emotionally invest one too many times, so by the end I felt a little bit of apathy. Certainly for the first 1:45 of its running time it keeps things pacy, lively, and changed up enough to be exhilirating. I quote '1:45' because that's the point when the film reached its midpoint crescendo and I was enjoying it so much I checked to make sure it wasn't going to be ending soon. Well, it wasn't, but shortly after this point it descends into its deepest trough - not in terms of quality, but in terms of emotion - and it doesn't quite sustain enough flourishes of pace and style to maintain the entertainment level as it coasts through. It's a pretty bleak film, and it gets a bit bogged down on the way into that final act.

In many respects it's akin to Benjamin Button, being long and sweeping in grandeur, and attempting a meditation on life through a considerable fixation on death, as well as love. But where that film was mawkish and tawdry, Magnolia succeeds, perhaps because it is inherently more vibrant to follow a tapestry of characters for a day than to follow one for a lifetime. But also generally, Magnolia simply creates more compelling, sympathetic characters than Button with its overly idiosyncratic weirdos. In particular Tom Cruise actually bothers to do some acting as a sort of heightened version of himself, and Julianne Moore provides the strongest showing as a messed up woman breaking down as her husband dies. There really isn't a weak link in the cast, though, and it'd be ephemeral of me to name everyone in turn. I'll give one final named credit to Philip Seymour Hoffman, though, who is excellent, like he generally is (also, I recommed seeing Capote).

All that, and it has Supertramp on the soundtrack, so you know it can't be bad (Although at present I have Aimee Mann's opening rendition of One is the Loneliest Number stuck in my head). 8/10, again.