djkr and friends take on Life

i completed bioshock 2, which is the first game of 2010 i have finished playing (and also the first on my ps3) (band hero doesn’t count: you can never finish playing band hero)

the sequel to the critically acclaimed 2k game, bioshock, bioshock 2 is more of the same old goodness. there were a few technical  changes from the original game: the ability to dual wield plasmids and guns, and hacking from a pipe puzzle to stopping a needle at the right time. but the main draw (for me at least) of bioshock has never been the gameplay, it has been always been about the story.

bioshock 1′s story blew me away. the writing was solid, something i rarely encounter in a video game (even more so in first person shooter!) and the setting of rapture, an art deco inspired underwater city, was stunning.

essentially, bioshock 1′s story touches on philosophical questions of self and the pursuit of excellence. andrew ryan, waiting to rid the constraints placed on him by government and religion, recruited the best minds from around the world and built rapture, a supposed underwater utopia. ryan didn’t take into account human nature, and with the discovery of ADAM, a chemical that could modify genetic material, this so-called utopia turned into a hell hole. the enemies you face in rapture are mutated and scarred caricatures of humans. and to think that these people were the cream of crop when they were invited to come to rapture, now reduced to violent, hideous addicts of ADAM.

even you, as the player character, play an essential part of questioning the philosophy rapture presents. in an incredible twist to the story, you are revealed nothing more to be a mere pawn to the main antagonist of the story. what makes this twist so powerful is the fact that something gamers take for granted in every game, guidance, was used in an effective and stunning revelation.

while bioshock 1 was all about self, bioshock 2 is about the converse. bioshock 2 talks about community. the sacrifice of one’s self for the betterment of the whole. the main antagonist in bioshock 2, sofia lamb, sees you as a threat to her ‘family’ and hence of course, you must be purged. as the story slowly progresses on, the theme of sacrificing one’s self for the overall good comes out clearly.

the theme of family is further emphasized as you play as a big daddy. as a big daddy, you can choose to adopt little sisters to harvest ADAM for you, protecting them in the process. strangely, i felt strong paternal feelings during this process (should i be afraid?). this father-daughter bond presented in the game also serves as mirror to the cult like influence of the antagonist.

bioshock 2 does suffer from ‘sequelitis’ though. the story is not as strong as bioshock 1, which led it to become slightly tiresome towards the end. however, the philosophies it presents are nonetheless intriguing and it is a game worth playing.

i have ffxiii and god of war 3 in my sights next. i am particularly hankering of some good only bloody god of war action. it has been a good 3 years since the last edition and the demo cannot satiate my thirst for it. bring it on!

everyone who has been on the internet over the past few month must have seen them; those ads advertising for the latest online game evony. after seeing (for the umpteen time) another one of those ads boxed into a small square on the webpages i frequent today, i realised that the ads have actually evolved.

if you have been actually been living in a cave the last few weeks, evony is (supposedly) an online browser based game that the advertisements tout you can: 1. save the queen!, 2. play ‘discreetly’ 3. and will be free forever. and oh yes, the advertisements feature boobs quite prominently.

after doing a wiki and google search on it (ah, yes what would i do without dear wikipedia), i realised that the ads did evolve as time went by. i won’t post the pictures here but you can see for yourself here.

to be honest, i did not really notice them when they featured just the knight; it looked too generic and boring. who wants to play a game where the feature is a boring rusty stale old knight. the next ad with a sword pointed at a vulnerably posed, well endowed computer generated maiden DID capture my attention. you can’t really ignore phallic advertising can you. but no, still not interested.

not working?  lets put up real women on the ads. so now we have stock images of the generic model wearing a white dress staring longing out at you, asking you to ‘save’ them. no, still not catching my attention.

this is when the makers of evony decided, well, %)@# it, lets just put a pair boobs there. surely that will entice people to click on the link! they are boobs after all!

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evony’s advertising campaign reeks of desperation. there is plenty more i can go into (like how they are apparently run by a china WOW gold mining company) , but lets just focus on 2 aspects here: advertising and gaming.

from an advertising standpoint, the ads are actually meant to capture attention, and quite successfully so, even though there might be a  misrepresentation of what the game actually is. from what i have read online, there is no actual queen in the game. the official faq also writes:

How do I get my queen?
There is no queen in this game, the ad you saw is for marketing purposes and seems to be highly effective by the number of times this question has come up.

curious (or horny) individuals will feel compelled to click on the link to check out what it offers. if it has done that, the evony ads have done their job, as it is up to the main page to further sell the game. however, but using increasing amounts of cleavage in their adverts, they have earned the scorn of bloggers worldwide for their extremely distasteful ads that have nothing to do with the game. also, the adverts are becoming increasingly more and more like those web banners advertising for adult services.

i once read in the new paper (of all places) that neil french called ‘bad publicity’ the ‘holy grail’ of advertising. while it is true bad publicity (like that of the phallic burger king ad) will drive consumers to try your product, your product must be strong enough to sustain this interest.

this is where i delve into the gaming viewpoint of the game. and rip it apart to pieces.

i am gamer and i take pride in playing good games. and from what evony has shown me in its advertising, i can tell that the game is going to be of slip shod build. if a gaming developer cannot take pride in creative advertising for its games, what is to say that the game will be good? it is insulting to any decent gamer by propositioning the game like this. you don’t want to force dribble down my throat if i don’t want to play it. if you do so, i will reject it even more.

from ripping off the font AND gameplay from civilization, i expect them to get sued pretty soon.

/end rant.