Australian Larrikinism in Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow

June 11th, 2009

Turns out my latest column is out a few days early. It’s titled ‘Australian Larrikinism in Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow‘. This entry is similar to the last in that I discuss the way developers craft performances of their characters to push an implicit message. In this case how Sony Bend use Aussie Dane Bishop in Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow to introduce the player to larrikinism – an important part of Australian culture.

I’ve been thinking about this Australian larrikinism issue for about a week now as it was mentioned in one of my classes. It’s one of those ideas that’s always been at the back of my mind but never articulated that clearly. Being that us Aussies are a bunch of larrikins – simple eh? The effects of this can come out in intercultural contexts where our perception of a good time can result in a dire consequences in another’s culture. Well, that’s what the lecture was saying, I was too busy casting my mind into the pool of regret when thinking over some of my exploits in China. Ouch!

I’ve wanted to explore the Dane Bishop character for a while, and with larrikinism in hand, I could finally write something interesting about the guy. So please take a read, this entry is much shorter than my Portal analysis.

Lastly, I’m looking to write for external publications more than I have in the past. In fact, I hope that I’ll be able to migrate most of my content elsewhere. I find that writing for other publications ensures that I work harder on polishing my work and elevating my writing style; two areas that I wish to improve at. So look forward to more of that in the future. I wrote some thoughts on this here, if you’re interested.

Level by Level: Logan’s Shadow Episode #1

March 6th, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkjekoxHX4Y

“The Underseige of Video Games” – Daniel Johnson

Syphon Filter:Logan’s Shadow is a typical video game sequel, sourcing heavily from the original while tightening the screws of an already solid base. It’s for this reason that there isn’t particularly much that I have to say about this game which you probably don’t already know from my previous articles. Still, I want to talk about it – after all I’m a series fan. Although some of my writings in the past may have lent more closely to reviews than so called critique, I don’t (intentionally) do game reviews here, which is why I want to be a little more progressive and actually review this game in the same way music is reviewed; song by song. In this case, I’ll be discussing Syphon Filter:Logan’s Shadow as a series of interlocking missions, rather than a complete package. Such a style, where the basics come assumed, perhaps might make the review more favourable towards people that are familiar with the original title – or so I hope. Let’s see how it goes.

Pirates of Somalia

Logan’s Shadow surprisingly begins with a fixed positioned, gun turret scene preluding Gabe’s helicopter descent on board the U.S.S. Mt. St. Helens. As the title suggests, the navy ship has been over run by Somalian pirates after the mysterious contents in hold 5. The introduction movie is sure to set the scene for another typically uninteresting action movie script, this time the emphasis is on the history and partnership of Lian Xing as well as a “pencil neck” politician Cordell – he must have no first name. The narrative ensues in cliched fashion, there’s a few kickers but even for fans like me it isn’t much, that’s all I’ll say about the narrative for now.

syphon-filter-logans-shadow

Quick time events are subtly introduced as a first for the series. They operate when prompted to open tight doors and other such tasks that can’t be done with the standard skill set, as such the context you’re given for using them justifies their inclusion, rather than seeming like a faddish addition sporadically sprung on you at the worst of times.

Otherwise, the ship is a typical climb-to-the-top mission. The barrels in the game also seem to have been blessed with the gift of euphoria physics.

Going Under

You start off in the ship’s hull (some nice colours and lighting inside) and then move outside to the central part of the ship to catch a crane ride across to the other side. The music really starts to kick in once the fire fight gets under way, similar to the other titles, it’s very appropriate espionage music with beautiful undertones and exciting high points.

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Teresa messaged me a second time to alert me of what I was suppose to be doing after spending too long surveying the environment. Seems like a nice way to keep players on the right track. There was a cart pushing sequence mid-way during the mission which didn’t make a lot of sense considering Gabe could easily climb over the trolley.

Unsurprisingly the female chopper pilot introduced in the first mission dies. More reason for Logan to get angry at his enemies I suppose.

Ocean’s Five

You’re in the water this time by the side of the ship, ready to test out Logan’s Shadow‘s new swimming and diving mechanics. Wisely, this mission relies only on your treading water for the most part with one exception there is no need to dive underwater at all.

Being surrounded by water, the game begins to show off some of the new effects. The water for one looks fantastically liquidy and only continues to impress you move back inside the now damaged ship, pushing bloom, filters and a culmination of other effects in your face. Looking out from underneath the water the game binds blurred visuals with filtered sound and spread of bullets darting the water to create a convincing water environment. The water itself almost looks like full motion video, rendered in game.

Bullets stir up the water surface, terrorists can actually move into the water, swim towards you and shoot from underneath the surface. Their diversity is balanced nicely with your own electrical darts pulsate outwards when activated in water, covering significant surface area. The medium of water has extended the darts prior use, it’s a logical and clever way to add on layers to pre-existing mechanics by tying it together with the natural environment.

Besides that, this mission is fairly short. You just need to blow up a few small boats anchored around the navy ship and then make your way back inside the hull.

Sea of Darkness

This level is one of the significantly larger stages in Logan’s Shadow – includes a boss battle at the end too. You begin in the cargo holds, this time Gabe can jump into a button mashing sequence to open cargo doors, the level design of the first floor lacks direction, it fails to lead you in the right direction making it easy to get lost. Furthermore the cargo holds are tangled with trolleys and doors which can be lifted and pushed. Plenty of hidden evidence tuck away in the rummage though.

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The environments have a great blend of vibrant yellows and greens, giving the whole first area a very atmospheric sort of feel This is rammed up when you transit into the lower claustrophobic corridors where water is flooding in as high as your knees, steam pipes exploding and gun shots everywhere. Again, it’s a snow dome of visual effects, that in turn the environment into a hazardous playground.

By now it’s kicked in how the use of water has diversified the gameplay from the Dark Mirror formula. There’s also a greater inclusion of environmental variables, gas tanks which send fire raging before they explode, even the subtle environmental kills like banging someone’s head against a crate. So far it looks like there is a good deal of variation to distinguish Logan’s Shadow from its former.

Conclusion

Wow, still have five more episodes to go. I never intended to drone on so much about these two games. Oh well, there’s hardly enough video games coverage that looks at a single game for more than an article or two, so I guess my super analysis is quite distinguished then, is it not? I like writing like this anyways, allows me to get into all the undisscussed nooks and crannies.

Posted in Game Discussion | Comments (2)
Tags: psp, Syphon Filter

Can’t You Just Be Fun For Once!

March 1st, 2009

zelda-midna

Sitting just above the top brim of my laptop’s monitor is a list of unfinished games blutacked to the wall with little dashes put next to the games that I’ve played but haven’t completed to my personal 100% satisfaction. What I’ve discovered recently is how resistant some of these buggers are to complete. Having done some backlogging in the past 2 years, I have quite a bounty of games now, so it’s easy to switch over to a different game every time another one throws up a roadblock. The problem is getting back to the previous game, getting unstuck or just brushing aside the last few challenges holding me from a 100% completion rate. I love playing games, but some of these games have become intolerably frustrating at forfeiting progression, whether it be compulsory or not. Here’s a few examples of some negative criticism, something that you don’t hear too often from me:

Zelda: Twilight Princess

I haven’t even reached the water dungeon* yet and I’ve already encountered more moments of dumbfounded frustration and cluelessness than I have in any previous Zelda game. This is a Zelda game, I am an N-fan and as those things would have it; I hold my chops when it comes to Zelda adventuring. Furthermore – just like any game – I want to enjoy Twilight Princess, I want to be caught in its charms and whimsy but despite these things I’m still stalling my adventure.

Some examples, please?

I’d been semi-stuck in Twilight Princess a few times near the start of the game, particularly with some of the more menial tasks like fishing (which wasn’t really explained) but I guess you can chalk those up to a long leave of absence from elfish adventuring.

Unfreezing Zora’s Domain had me stumped, big time. Wolf Link and his annoying-but-supposively-I-will-fall-in-love-with-this-sidekick Midna reached the frozen thrown room and mouth of Lake Hylia in Zora’s Domain. Being the hero you must snuff out some way to unfreeze the area, allowing the water to flow again. After randomly fussing about in that area for a few hours, I consulted a FAQ which told me that I had to warp to some previously visited area, on arrival Midna would see a giant molten stone which it would then warp back to the thrown room. Excuse me, but how is one meant to guess that for themselves? Did Nintendo just assume that people would automatically warp to this place for some unforeseen reason?

zelda-wolf-link

The same applies shortly after when killing all of the bugs in the Twilight Realm to free the area of twilight**. The game does little to inform you of where to go to meet the area’s overseer who will grant you the item which you can use to kill the bugs and hence restore the area. I wandered around a bit, found a few bugs, sang a song on some context sensitive area which yielded another wolf to appear on the map in a completely different place, on a mounting too high for me to reach. I eventually stumbled upon where I was suppose to go and began tearing through the various nasties as outlined on the game’s map. My container was filled with the exception of two light sources that I needed from the bugs. This time the map didn’t display where they were located, which seemed rather cruel at the time. So I again spent hours hopelessly running around the area, before consulted my FAQ to discover that one of the eight or so bugs was located away from Lake Hylia, residing in an interior area of Hyrule Castle Town. No wonder I couldn’t find him, he was in a completely different area! And so I killed him, the final one magically appeared back in the lake – Midna’s psychic abilities somehow sensed it.

I honestly cannot understand how a player’s meant to draw these long winded connections.

Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror

You’ll know that recently I’ve been playing Syphon Filter Dark Mirror. I’m a big fan of this series and therefore put a lot of effort into the way I played the game. When I play I try to take advantage of everything provided in my toolset. Now despite having thoroughly played the game in both normal and hard difficulties, collecting all of the secret evidence and simply playing in a pretty effective manner, I’m still a long way from unlocking all of the additional missions. The badge system the game employs is great, but the requirements of killing every possible agent in every possible way to the highest degree possible is a downright strenuous way of holding content from a player. You’d have to play through each level at least half a dozen times to get close to filling in the series of micro-stats. You’ve already given so much to me, why do you have to hold me at ransom for the final push?

Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams

Like the others, Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams did this to me recently which is why I switched over to Yakuza 2. I’ve reached a point, relatively early on, where the game simply won’t provide me with enough information to progress. I’ve spent ages walking around this underground cavern, through 3-4 rooms and the game still refuses to throw me a hint. I mean, there are less than four rooms, how difficult can it be?

^{*I haven’t reached it, so I don’t know what it’s called yet!**How ridiculous is it that a bunch of bugs have such authority over the respective landmarks of Hyrule?}

Posted in General Gaming | Comments (6)
Tags: onimusha, Syphon Filter, zelda

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