Dead Space 2

Is a shark attack survivor lucky because they got to live, or unlucky to be attacked in the first place? This question might have crossed engineer Isaac Clarke’s mind when he wakes up in the middle of another necromorph outbreak, this time on ‘The Sprawl,’ a huge space station orbiting one of Saturn’s moons, three years after his first nightmare on the mining ship Ishimura.
The player might wonder what has been happening with Isaac over the last three years, and the game neatly averts this by making sure Isaac doesn’t remember either. He’s been kept on mental lockdown by the inevitable sinister government forces and therefore both Isaac and player will find their experience in Dead Space 2 following on directly from the end of the previous game.

That’s not all the follows directly on because Dead Space 2 is fundamentally Dead Space: Episode 2. The first game’s basic mechanics are expanded on hugely but hardly anything new of note has been added. Most of the weapons return, as do telekinetic and stasis manipulation and zero-g environments. Isaac’s suit now allows him to fly about in zero-g (an ability he apparently forgot about in the previous outing) and this allows some interesting multi-level exploration, while the stasis and telekinetic powers are used occasionally for puzzles but are now mostly necessary parts of combat. As in his first adventure, Isaac also spends a lot of time repairing broken systems and travelling on trams (apparently the 26th Century’s regular form of mass transit).

That Dead Space 2 is a direct update is not necessarily a fatal flaw because what the game does it does very well. Combat is tense and exciting and the weapons are satisfyingly meaty with plenty of opportunity for customisation. The enemy range is a little bland with only a few new types appearing, but these new opponents are well designed and introduced in exciting ways. The damaged space station conveys a damaged fragility with constant explosions and breakages. Windows can occasionally be shot out leaving a desperate scramble to lower the seals and stop Isaac from shooting off into space (it's also a good way to clear a room of enemies). There’s a tangible sense of danger from all around and this adds to what Dead Space 2 does best of all: atmosphere.

The game’s lack of a HUD makes for an immersive experience, as do the multiple layers of narrative: text and audio logs dotted about the rooms give insight into the well-created and well-explored background involving sinister religious movements and government shenanigans. The voice acting is excellent and the audio cues and score are creepily energising: screams and metallic clanks punctuate your exploration, and the space station has a variety of environments which all have nice audio details. The puzzles, while a little bland and simplistic, are all well conceived within the game-world. Isaac fixes or reprograms things for relatively well explained reasons. It certainly beats Resident Evil’s ‘place random item in convenient slot’ dynamic.

The game uses perhaps too many dirty tricks in trying to ramp up the suspense (Isaac tramps through far too many children’s bedrooms, for example), and this tries to hide Dead Space 2’s primary flaw: it’s not very scary (always a minor bugger for a horror game).

Partly this is the fault of the plotting, which in the middle section is extremely slow. It also owes something to Isaac’s re-invention as a talkie hero; he is now a bit too sarcastic and unflustered, nothing like the anonymous and helpless engineer from the first game. Gravel-voiced and laconic, he’s too badass to seem truly vulnerable. In the end, though, Dead Space 2’s failure to be frightening stems from the basic running of the game itself.


The weapons are all perhaps a little too effective in defeating necromorphs and though ammo is often scarce the ability to telekinetically hurl torn-off limbs means you never really run dry (a gimmick the game makes laboriously sure you know about).The enemies themselves are too numerous and ultimately too squishy to be terrifying; the fear diminishes each time you see and defeat them and you will be doing that a lot. The game is at its most terrifying in the very early sections where Isaac is disorientated, unarmed and on the run. The ability to fight back so effectively saps some of the suspense: this is Aliens rather than Alien or Event Horizon. Finally the plodding nature of the level design means that fatigue and repetition set in during the middle third, and it is this repetition that kills the fear.

At first glance Dead Space’s multiplayer might be accused of cribbing from Left 4 Dead’s online notes but the difference in play styles is enough to save it from cries of plagerism. Although the set-up is the same (humans versus monsters, with humans comparatively durable but less manoeuvrable and with fewer respawns), the difference between L4D’s smooth first-person flee-fest and Dead Space’s slightly clunky third-person view, with its focus on dismemberment, keeps the experience feeling fresh. It requires teamwork enough to breed some sense of achievement and has enough unlockables to stave off repetition. Like the single-player game it’s hardly revolutionary but competent and diverting enough that fans will probably keep a decent community going for a long time.

It would be a little unfair to criticise Visceral Games for their choice in essentially updating the first game, seeing as for the most part they have done very well. Newcomers to the series will find probably the most competent over-the-shoulder third person shooter available. Fans of Dead Space will probably find enough new content to keep them involved (although are unlikely to find the game particularly challenging except on high difficulties). It seems as if Visceral have listened hard to the reviews of the first game and then done their best to address the criticisms. It is their decision to avoid trying anything new that handicaps Dead Space 2, leaving a fantastically polished experience that lacks true terror. In engineer parlance: the first Dead Space was hardly broke, and this is about as fixed as it’s going to get.

Co-operative schmoperative.

One of the best things about finishing a draft of the book (especially since I’m probably never going to make any money off of it, so I need to take the positives where I can), is that I can start playing games again relatively guilt free. I’m pretty stoked that this freedom coincides neatly with the release of Gears of War 3 on the Xbox. Normally I’m not one for threequels, either as a concept or a portmanteau, but the Gears series holds sentimental value for me beyond the fact you get a chainsaw attached to the bottom of your gun. (Gunsaw. Now that’s a wordwhich. I mean portmanteau.)

Gears is a co-op game, and I’ve played through the first two with my long-suffering and now sadly ex-housemate Joe (I moved out, he didn’t die). The games themselves are fun to play (gunsaw!) but I enjoyed them primarily because it was a diverting and occasionally hilarious bonding experience. I sincerely hope Joe feels the same way – it won’t be nearly as fun playing it without him – but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s dreading the experience. You see, I’m a terrible co-op player.

When it comes to Gears I have a specific condition known as ‘chainsaw blindness.’ If I’ve got the gunsaw, I feel like I really ought to use it, and the satisfaction of slicing a big monster into chunky salsa is much greater than just plugging him full of bullets from across the room. The satisfaction is roughly the same each time, which means I feel compelled to do it to every enemy I see. The only problem is that in a game designed almost completely around taking cover behind things and shooting at other things, wandering around the room waving your gunsaw (still not getting tired of that) at monsters tends to get you shot. A lot. And that means your co-op buddy has to bring you back to life. A lot. Or get swarmed by bad guys you were supposed to be helping with and dying himself. A lot. Which sends you back to the next checkpoint. A lot.

Joe, saint that he is, mostly suffers this in silence. He also kindly ignores my tendency to throw explosives at his feet, when I begin personal vendettas with specific bad guys at the expense of everything else, my shameless thieving of all the good weapons and ammo, and my categorical refusal to snipe people even when the game demands it (“but it’s booooring!”).

I also play co-op games with my youngest brother, whose patience (perhaps correctly) is far more limited. We therefore tend to play the sort of hack-everyone-to-pieces fighty games that don’t really require a huge amount of teamwork bar you being on the same screen. Rather than a pairing of valiant heroes fighting side by side, we operate as two desperate individuals fighting against impossible odds... several feet apart from one another. We’ve made an executive decision to stay away from co-op shooters (his preferred name for ‘chainsaw blindness’ is ‘Joshua being a dick’).

I’ve also been known to deliberately sabotage team efforts for the sake of humour. Which is fine if everyone else finds it funny, but as I have what might charitably be described as an individual sense of humour, it’s really only me that sees the funny side. Imagine my joy when I discovered that in Little Big Planet one could grab onto the other players as well as ledges and buttons and suchlike. It looks like I’m not going to make that leap! And now neither are you, because I’m clinging on to your shins!

This problem with co-operation stems not from competitiveness (I get it world, I suck at stuff), but from what might be termed ‘fun-blindness.’ In that, I’m blind to everything that isn’t fun. Fun for me. The most important guy in the equation. Pick that thing up! Hold that checkpoint! Leave me that medkit! Pass me the ball! Um... sorry, can’t hear you over my GUNSAW! Wait, we’re dead again? Shit, sorry mate. It happens in real life too: I’m that guy that runs backwards and forwards in the penalty box, demanding the ball, even though you know, the referee knows, everyone knows that the opposition goalie has a better chance of finding the net than he has.

It’s not that I’m ignoring other people’s needs, I’m just... not exactly paying attention to them. Which is weird, because I much prefer co-op games to anything else. And it’s a bit of a shame because when I can be forced to concentrate I can be a useful team player, both in sport and in video games. I have all the basic skills, I just need to be reminded to deploy them in a way that actually benefits... anyone at all. That’s when the whole thing gets more rewarding, because it’s about group achievement as well as individuality, and when it comes to individual achievement in video games you can really do that all by your onesie.

Joe’s got it figured. He uses me as what he generously calls a ‘diversion,’ but perhaps might be better described as ‘bait.’ We (and when I say ‘we’ I of course mean ‘he’), beat the final boss in the original Gears with a sublime headshot, while I crouched behind a barrel, out of ammo, blindly dry-firing my pistol and muttering “dontkillmedontkillmedontkillme.”

We shared the credit equally, because that’s the kind of guy he is. I can’t wait to play it again.

Stone Junction

Stone Junction by Jim Dodge

Stone Junction invites counter-culture comparisons, singing as it does a flipside requiem for everything beautiful that came out of American subculture, from the Wild West to the present day, but paying special homage to the hit-the-road-and-don’t-stop freneticism of the Beat Generation and the spirit-quest-or-die narcotic prose of the late sixties and seventies. So: Stone Junction is like every amazing war story you ever heard, at every amazing party you ever went to, from every hip cat that you ached, just ached, to be like, and of whom you never saw the dark side to taint the beauty of everything you thought you learned. Stone Junction reminds you that the world keeps going and going everywhere you look, that “the mind is the shadow of the light that it seeks,” and that there are enough road warriors, Boy Poets and mountain visionaries out there for you to stumble across one if you keep travelling hard and fast enough.

This book does not simply rely, however, on the fast-burning sentiment of rock-and-roll and the stories that it births. Dodge’s writing is breathless, direct and profane, but always beautifully balanced and candid. The multiple shifts in voice and cadence are handled effortlessly, allowing the reader to flit between psychological and spiritual discussion, punchy, stichomythic and occasionally deliberately puerile dialogue, and roustabout description without ever feeling dislocated or lost. Jenny Raine cocks a laconic eyebrow at such changes (“Am I to take this radical change in diction and voice as an indication of candour?”), but Dodge does a good job of letting his characters speak for him without making them puppets (it takes nearly 400 pages to elicit that remark, although it has doubtless been on the reader’s mind a good deal longer). We are taught without being talked down to, kept at a breakneck pace without being pushed, always understanding without needing our hands held. One wonders if there is a story or subject Dodge cannot make his prose fit, such is the ease with which he turns myriad styles and tones to his own usage.   

In his occasional protagonist Daniel Pearse, Jim Dodge has created the ultimate literary subversive: born to the world’s most self-aware teenage tearaway, taught from birth by a ludicrously varied but sublimely drawn and rounded range of magicians, thieves, terrorists and gamblers, Daniel is finally imbued with the spiritual self-actualization to vanish from the material trappings of the universe (this is less a spoiler than one might imagine). That Daniel’s characterization does not vanish with his physical form is testament both to Dodge’s boisterous but sensitive prose, and to the care and time taken to establish Daniel’s development as a shaman and as a man. Daniel appears on the page as a newborn and leaves it as only a young man and the time in between is examined thoroughly, sometimes at the expense of pacing. Dodge seems to have so many stories to tell, so many inflammatory rebels with which to dazzle us, that the central narrative of Daniel’s development seems to sometimes lack momentum. This is not to say that Daniel’s story is not fascinating, bizarre, hilarious and occasionally very sad, only that the subcast of dreamers and prophets around which Dodge hangs his narrative are sometimes too big for the story to hold.

In fact, it seems like perhaps the story itself is too big for the spine to contain. The pacing of the central narrative – lugubrious elsewhere – increases dramatically after Daniel’s spectacular theft of the book’s MacGuffin. The cast of glittering outlaws keeps getting bigger but by now it seems that there is simply not enough time to explore these characters with the same depth and affection Dodge has devoted to those that preceded them. Comparatively minor characters from the books early stages – for example the drug-addled but sense-talking hedonist Mott – elicit more pagetime than some of the key players in the book, among them the seemingly significant but underused escapee Jenny Raine. The savage Debritto is introduced too late to be a truly useful villain (a reader needs time to build the inverted affection for a baddie that will make their eventual destruction cathartic), and even the magnificently damaged revolutionary Volta’s presence is somewhat staccato.

Stone Junction asks big, important questions, and seems like it might deliver the answers in a manner that will stick with you always, but in the end it seems that there is just too much for Dodge to address. Daniel’s bizarre sexual peccadillo is humorously explored but never explained, and his eventual fate is just obtuse enough to leave the reader frustrated: something important has happened, something we want to understand but are unable. Stone Junction feels like it is making a promise, a promise to reveal something fundamental, and while what the reader takes away spiritually from the novel is certainly not Jim Dodge’s responsibility, his caginess in regards to certain important events is sure to leave many bewildered, if not necessarily dissatisfied.  

     

Stone Junction is a sublimely written, incredibly compelling and fantastically imaginative novel. Its only flaw is that it fails to quite deliver on its sense of scale, and when a book is talking primarily about the way we perceive reality and our own place and happiness within it is difficult to begrudge Dodge this. To finish with a final nonconformist comparison, Stone Junction is like the drug-related vision quests and realisations it contains: while you are reading you get the sense of something larger than yourself, a sense of understanding beyond yourself, but when the comedown hits that understanding fades, leaving a memory that is too fragmented to be communicated.

Red Dead Redemption

There are a few occasions during Red Dead Redemption where Rockstar achieve what could be argued to be the point of computer games in general: the complete and total immersion of the player in the setting. Desperately rounding up stampeding cattle during a thunderstorm, turning down a hooker’s advance as you confidently stroll into a seedy saloon, honky-tonk piano in the background, even loading a save point to find the player character – scarred and gravel voiced John Marston – kicking apart his campfire and tossing aside his cigarette as the sunrise sets a pastel sky afire. It is these moments that demonstrate the love and research Rockstar have put into Red Dead Redemption, and what elevates a solidly created sandbox offering into the realm of classic.

Red Dead Redemption has been both marketed and reviewed as Grand Theft Auto in the Wild West and the comparisons are so obvious that Rockstar haven’t bothered to hide them, and have in fact borrowed elements wholesale from the GTA series. The sandbox set-up is a mirror of GTA’s, with mission hubs separated by comparatively sparse areas requiring player travel. The two games are so close in terms of style that the player HUD is actually a copy of GTA’s, with the compass and map showing mission start-points, side quests and shops, and the world map being divided into sections which are locked off until story missions are completed. The system of crime and punishment is essentially the same, with players accumulating more ‘Wanted’ stars (and being chased by progressively more dogged law-enforcement) based on their level of skulduggery and violence.  

What saves RDR from being a cowboy clone is the simple fact that the western genre actually lends itself to the outlaw sandbox mechanic far better than GTA ever did. The morality system in the game is a perfect fit for the Wild West, if only because there is a compelling reason to gun down individuals while remaining on the side of angels. If you want to be bad you can be bad, and if you want to be good, you can still shoot people in good conscience, something that the cops and robbers setting of the GTA games has attempted but never really realised. Rockstar’s Wild West is both a generous one: covering big-sky plains, stunning deserts mesas and pine-covered mountains, and a sensitive one. The game’s late 19^th century setting allows Rockstar full access to about every Wild West trope while also allowing them to explore the end of an American era and the development of a modern nation. The GTA games have become more emotionally developed and aware – the plight of Nico Bellic in GTA 4 is a far more difficult and ambiguous than that of San Andreas’ CJ – and Red Dead Redemption is a fitting continuation.  

The open-world setting itself is even better than GTA’s – swapping cars for horses and crowded streets for open ground makes travel far more interesting, and makes the environment itself the real star of the game. Although the option to fast travel returns (this time by stagecoach), players are much more likely to find themselves riding from mission to mission on horseback. This is partly because of the spectacular visuals: no longer hemmed in by buildings and traffic the player is treated to stunning vistas and dynamic weather, but mostly because exploration now provides more content. As well as a bevy of collection and hunting based subquests, John Marston will encounter a myriad of people in need. Many of these are ‘Stranger’ missions: subquests that provide entertaining, morbid and often hilarious glances into Rockstar’s version of the old west, but there are also constant real-time occurrences. Robberies, horse thefts, rustling and beatings occur throughout the world and it is up to the player to decide whether they want in or not. All this creates a setting that is more obviously alive than any of Rockstar’s previous offerings.

The gameplay mechanics themselves are solid. Not since Spider-Man 2 has locomotion been so enjoyable and Rockstar have cleaned up the shooting and cover mechanics of GTA 4 to provide competent and exciting gunplay. This is necessary because you’ll be doing a lot of shooting in Red Dead Redemption: Rockstar’s version of the old west is sparsely populated, but John Marston will still gun down a ludicrous number of opponents during the game. Several story missions involve gunfights with scores of foes and it is here that Red Dead Redemption reveals a slight lack of storytelling and focus. Like previous Rockstar games the story missions almost all involve riding to a location, murdering everyone in sight and then moving on. While enjoyable the sheer repetition weighs down the game and robs narrative significance from Marston’s quest to track down his former gang-mates and secure the release of his family: aside from a diverting time spent assisting a Mexican rebellion you spend the entire game searching for particular individuals, gunning down mooks on the way, and it often feels like Rockstar were stuck for a compelling way to tell this story, or for a more interesting way of structuring the missions. In fact, it is the story tasks away from gunfights that are the most compelling: rounding up cattle, discouraging rustlers and robbers, roping and taming steers, in short, actually being a cowboy. These missions are woefully few and although they make a welcome return towards the end of the game it is the lack of variety in mission content that is Red Dead Redemption’s biggest flaw.    

 That said, the missions are presented with Rockstar’s usual polish. The voice acting is superb, the cutscenes are atmospheric and well-staged (though occasionally buggy and prone to clipping) and the character design and modelling is memorable. John Marston is the perfect cowboy hero: gruff and violent, but laconic and witty enough to be worth liking. Rockstar’s off-kilter sense of humour returns and the authentic and sardonic scripting is a joy to hear.

Although its popularity in print and on film has waned, it is perhaps a little surprising that the western genre is underrepresented in video games. Considering the ease with which the setting lends itself to shooting games in particular one might expect a glut of cowboy inspired shoot-em-ups, jostling for space amongst the military and sci-fi offerings that clog the shelves. But there have been only a few games set in the old west released in the last decade, and of those released it has been mostly third-person, sandbox affairs that have been best received. Rockstar’s previous offering (and spiritual prequel) Red Dead Revolver was linear but atmospheric and competent enough as a shooter, and Neversoft’s Gun – certainly the most similar title to Red Dead Redemption – was well received. But it is the sheer scope and depth of a game like Red Dead Redemption that demonstrates the difficulty of playing with the western: any attempt to represent the genre without the love and diligence shown by Rockstar Games is doomed to fall far short, and there are enough mediocre, by-the-book shooters on the shelves without adding poorly contrived cowboy games.     

Next step by next step

I return, moderately triumphant.

Actually, I got back to England half way through July, but I had some extra tasks to be getting along with. First and foremost among these was convincing a very pretty young woman I'd been romancing (ineptly) since Christmas to be my actual, all-the-time, meet-the-parents, hold-hands girlfriend. I will forgive you your scepticism, as I was similarly pessimistic about my chances of success. I would like to take this opportunity, therefore, to pat myself on the back and give you, dear reader, a jolly good raspberry, because said femme is now my (already regretful) GF. So there.

I also needed to graduate from my Masters, the academic component of which finished over a year ago. But my parents wanted to see my walk the walk, and since they financed the whole thing both financially and emotionally, I thought it only fair that they get to see me dress up like a gay wizard and stumble across the stage clutching at my mortarboard.

Finally, I had to finish my book. Remember that? The thing I was talking about in my very first post, all that time ago? Well I'm as surprised as you are, but I finished the bloody thing. At just over 80,000 words it's what is known in the publishing trade as a 'short book,' but hopefully when I get some feedback it will get a little longer.

The only problem is that now I've finished the trip (did you look at the tumblr? You really should, I never thought windfarms could be so beautiful), and got the certificate, and finished the book, and most importantly won the girl (although I better do some shaping up and flying right in that regard from now on), is that I have to get a J-O-B.

I can hear you lamenting on my behalf, internet, and I thank you for it. My time from now on will be filled with formulating interesting and coherent answers to the question: "why do you want to work here?" I cannot, of course, let slip the true answer, that I don't want to work there, or anywhere, except in the coffee shop writing fiction, or possibly lying around in my pants playing Dead Space 2 on my father's flat-screen TV (a task to which I am no doubt suited, but am unlikely to find financial remuneration for).

Since writing is the only thing I'm particularly good at, it makes sense to seek employment in some sector that might benefit from my skills, and not drive me to immediate and violent suicide. So before I move to London to seek my fortune, and as I wait on feedback for the book (and begin the slow and lonely toil of editing and changing a skimpy, poorly-plotted piece of speculative fiction into something people might actually pay for), I'm going to start looking for copywriting positions, either freelance or part-time. Most employers will rightly be looking for examples of people's work before considering paying for it, and this website is the primary writing platform I have, which means three things for this blog:

1. I'm going to have to start using fewer parenthesis, and probably shorter sentences too. I'll keep splitting infinitives, because screw you, that's why.

2. I'm probably going to have to start proof-reading what I write, instead of just half-heartedly gabbling away while I watch Nicktoons.

3. I'm going to have to start reformatting some of the posts I create to fit with the copywriting positions I'm applying for.

What that means in basic terms is that I'm going to be broadening the scope of Verbal Slapstick, at least in the short term, and also attempting a much more regular update schedule, possibly as often as once or twice a week. Whether this is a positive development if up to you (it's certainly going to appear on your Facebook feed a lot more), and the same goes for the change in content. I'm going to start doing more reviews, mostly albums, books and video games (because they're the only things I know anything about), and mostly older texts at that (because until I have a job I have no money, and new games are prohibitively expensive).

So in short: Verbal Slapstick: Coming to a cover-letter near you. If you have anything you'd particularly like me to talk about or review do email me at verbalslapstick@gmail.com, and if you think the writing stinks, let me know why.