Yakuza 2: The Cultural Dynamite
February 20th, 2009
Yakuza 2 (Playstation 2) is a game that I probably would have overlooked if it wasn’t for the recommendations by several bloggers, billing this title as one of last year’s most overlooked gems. The recommendations alone piqued my interest, but the more I read into Yakuza 2 the more it revealed itself as the sort of game I’ve been looking to play.
For one, the game was caught in the trap of being a late release stuck on a console slowly on the software decline, the sort of game I can sympathize with. Secondly, Yakuza 2 appeared to adopt much of the detailed-world-and-exploration elements of Shenmue (Dreamcast); a game that I’ve always wanted to but never had the chance of playing. The most intriguing element though would undoubtedly be the cultural exuberance. As a student of cultural things I’ve always been keen to understand and discuss the ways in which culture is adapted to video games*. Yakuza 2 appeared to be a game which did this quite well. Appearances in this case are very telling as Yakuza 2 is cultural dynamite.
Yakuza 2 flaunts its culture on both macro and micro levels. The macro level implementation isn’t really worth talking about because it’s already very obvious from the outset – the game and all of it’s contents are made and set in Japan. But to just quickly form a small list of those, I’d include:
Japanese spoken dialogue during cutscenes
Japanese approach to detective/crime story telling
the setting; inner city Japan
Yakuza subject matter
authentic rendering of two respective cities including architecture, signage and products
Micro Level Implementations
I find the micro level stuff to be much more interesting as culture is most effective in it’s subtle undertones; the one’s that aren’t very often made aware to the reciever. In that respect, the mass combination of cultural subtleties are fundamentally Yakuza 2’s key strength.
Take the scene setting for example. In the frequent downtime between narrative based affairs you’ll spend a good deal of your time soaking up city life. The city environment likens itself to a real city by the way it connects the player to the street-side NPCs. Just by walking down the street, speech bubbles of text appear depicting the words of pedestrians populating the sidewalk. You can’t actually respond to the good majority of these people – and just like in real life, you probably wouldn’t intrude on the conversations of passers by – but their words create an air of atmosphere, rather than being rudimentary set pieces standing in for the sake of it. The sounds of city chatter and pictures of people grouped together in conversation complement the city vibe created by the text bubbles. Through these subtle techniques, life is injected into the city without way of graphic or sound.
The cultural relevancies of Japan are woven throughout those speech bubbles with people complaining about the differences between Osakan and Tokyo people or how the environment has changed from the way it use to be. These pieces of chatter (sometimes they are relayed through text bubbles or through player interaction) all act as a means to share cultural small talk with the player.
Within the Japanese cities are interior areas such as restaurants and bars accessible from the city hub. The internal areas are more or less avenues for spending money from your healthy yakuza bank account in turn being rewarded by your mild consumerism with experience points. The products and services in this case relate back to the culture, but again Yakuza 2 strives in the details. When it comes to food and beverages, waiters and bar tenders are keen to talk in detail about the item, how it was made and what ingredients were used to make it. These brief info-bites are chocked full of information and are delivered to you when either selecting or after purchasing a beverage/meal.
Services on the other hand come in the form of escorts, a movie renting service (in which you sit in a room provided to you and watch) and a sort of escort-like luxury service. The latter in which you go to a bar, drink and eat with a lady of your choice for a few hours. The fact that I don’t even know what to call this service (since we don’t have them in Australia!) perhaps speaks lengths as to the cultural strength of the title and how it remained unmodified for the western release. Most of these services differ from their western counterparts, some Japanese only. The fact that the game allows you to play around in such instiutions, opens up huge opportunities for cultural understanding.
Yakuza 2 graphically has a very murky, darkened look to it. It looks a little fuzzy and unclear as well. Unfortunately it does damage the experience a little, but it’s also something that I think harkens back to the cultural elements of the title. Densely populated Asian cities like Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo are all infamous for being surfaced with a layer of dirt and dust caused by the dense population and heightened industrialism. It’s hard to know whether the game is just a little dark or if it’s a reflection of one of the more menacing aspects of Asian cityscapes.
To finish off on my tour of subtle cultural quirks I want to talk about the game’s combat, specifically the animations and sound effects behind each punch, hurl and kick. Each attack available to Kiryu animates fiercely and with swift velocity. The rushed flow of animation combined with some cringe-worthy specials evoke a sense of style similar to the rough and tough fighting scenes from the GTO Early Years manga series and undoubtedly many other examples of Asian brawling media (Hong Kong action cinema etc.).
That wraps up my observations on Yakuza 2’s cultural quirks. I’ve still only scratched the surface of the game, so this post may be followed up with more of the same as I continue to play.
* Unfortunately there aren’t many culturally interesting games, nor am I much of a champion of the cultural games niche.
Syphon Filter:Dark Mirror Design Notes
February 18th, 2009
This is the third and likely final post that I wanted to make regarding Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror. Unlike the other two, this time I want to just jot down a few responses to some of the game’s more prominent design choices.
Syphon Filter: Dark Socom
The biggest difference between the PSP and PSone Syphon Filter titles is the reimagining of the control scheme and supportive mechanics built around it. The featured new addition is the ability to cling to walls for cover fire. You’ll need to constantly rely on sturdy cover to shoot your way out of most firefights. With movement fixed on the analog nub, aiming is mapped to the face buttons and can certainly become a slow process when co-ordinating between both axes to line up a shot. It’s an unavoidable hassle that comes with the lack of dual sticks, but minimized to great effect.
These new mechanics cullminate in a much slower, methodical game that rewards smart decision making teamed with solid shooting skills. It feels a bit like a hybrid of Syphon Filter meets the Socom games. The PSone games featured a generous lock on system which turned our secret agent into a highly effective one man army. The system is still present from the originals, but it’s effectiveness is toned down in favour of the duck-and-cover approach. Gabe also seems less able to absorb bullets which supports this grounding. There are rarely ever any situations where you can freely run into an area and win by pure bullet spaming. It’s all slow and methodical. On the flipside to this new upclose combat moves have been included and feel satisfying to kick people in the ass.
Neat Effects
Sony Bend must pride themselves greatly on their use of special effects on the PSP because Dark Mirror will take any excuse to exercise them. This includes explosions, fog, weather affects, smoke, water and so forth. The game constantly turns every moment into a display of technical muscle for the system. It looks great, sometimes feels superfluous but actually becomes a dynamic catalyst for mixing up the gameplay scenarios.
Goggles
The effects aren’t just the only way in which Sony Bend seem keen on showcasing graphical eye candy. Dark Mirror also places a heavy weight on using the 3 goggles and torch functions. EDSU goggles are used to clue you in on where to go next (alerting you of sensative spots) or can be used just to check for trip wire explosives and other nasties. Nightvision explains itself and is used ocassionally, sometimes in vents. Infrared goggles are used to see heat sources through walls and can become a good safe guard when trying to spot out hard to see targets. There is a torch which is also handy sometimes.
All four of these items are well integrated into standard play – particularly problem solving.. They are mapped to the left button on the directional pad and hide/cycle nicely just like the weapons.
Super Agent Man
You may remember that it wasn’t too long ago (I guess in the N64/PSone era) when many players started questioning the copious amounts of weapons and ammunition attainable in a typical action game. The argument was that it is physically wasn’t possible for protagonists to carry an armory of weapons, often including larger artilary (eg. Roket launchers). This defied the laws of realism and eventually designers looked at this and discovered a work around; limit the player to two weapons – thanks Halo.
Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror manages to work around this fangled trick while at the same time pouncing on a neat graphical opportunity. All of the items that protagonist Gabe Logan carries are attached to his suit. Small items like a taser and knife as well as ammunition are kept in pockets. Larger items like rifles are mounted at either the upper or lower half of the back of Gabe’s body suit. As you cycle through weapons Gabe will slot them back and forth between the various positions on his suit. When he collects ammo, an animation plays of him storing it in his pockets and so forth.
Since Gabe is never really (once, for a few minutes) given large artilery weapons like rocket launchers he doesn’t have to worry about those weighing him down. The effect of this design decision not only conqueres the realism barrier but it also makes Gabe more visually variant.
The New People
Just as a fan of the series, I figured it was worth mentioning some of the changes in voice acting casts between the PSone and PSP titles. I won’t go into specifics/don’t know the specifics, but the cast is basically completely new. Gabe sounds more or less the same with some slight tonal differences. Lian Xing sounds less American-Chinese and much younger and adolescent. Teressa Lepan and Lawrence Mujari are similar approximations to their original self. Infact the former two don’t feature too frequently in Dark Mirror.
Canisters, Keys and More Rewards
In my last article about Dark Mirror I talked about the rewards system but I actually forgot a few integral examples to back up what I was saying. I’m nearing the end now of my second play through so a few of these have sprung back to mind when I’ve run into them. The first one being in one of the later episodes (group of missions) where weapons can be unlocked by destroying a series of canisters located in the levels. The hint area under the pause menu identifies what can be unlocked and the mechanic overlays ontop of the hidden evidence scavage.
In addition to this, some levels contain hidden objectives which open up more hidden objectives to new areas and weapons which string off the main mission. Think of it like Perfect Dark where more objectives are added with each difficulty setting, except in this case those objectives aren’t compulsory. Lastly is the use of night visioned secret messages to hide the codes to doors which contain additional bonuses.
Small Details etc.
Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror is seemingly packed with cool little touches that you probably wouldn’t notice hadn’t it come to you. I just wanted to briefly mention two of them. The first is that you can use your own medkits to heal partners who accompany you in the game. The second is that when you kick a door down (Dark Mirror employs the Resident Evil 4 open door mechanic) with a man on the other side, they will be stunned on the kick back.
Conclusion (yes, I’m done!)
I think I’m fresh out of ideas on Dark Mirror, which is probably a good thing. ^_^ I reckon that I’m slowly moving into deeper territory with every key game that I’m playing. I mean, I managed to draw three solid posts on this game alone and have a similar slew in the pipeline for the next game want to look at. I think I’ve exhausted almost everything worth mentioning about this game without formalizing it in a review manner. And it goes without saying that I’d recommend this title.
Remakes that Aren’t Remade
February 17th, 2009
I’ve noticed a bit of a trend in the past few years that’s slowly snowballed into a bit of an epidemic, that is the misuse of the term ‘remake’. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed it too. The misuse is most apparent on the portable platforms but the same applies for the consoles too. Take a look at this list of guilty suspects:
Valkyrie Profile Lenneth (PSP)
Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions (PSP)
Star Ocean: Second Evolution (PSP)
Chrono Trigger DS (DS)
Okami (Wii)
New Play Control! Series (Wii)
House of the Dead: Return (Wii)
Resident Evil 4 (PS2, Wii)
Resident Evil GameCubes (GCN)
Super Mario ports (GBA)
Final Fantasy ports (GBA)
Banjo Kazooie (XBLA)
All games that are nothing more than reworked ports of previous titles with a few significant spruce ups. No doubt the changes are pretty significant like redone script, new areas or new controls. But a remake? Probably not. How can we classify these games as remakes in the same vein as:
Resident Evil (GCN)
-overhauled graphics and sound
-new content added
-gameplay tweak
-redone script
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 (GBA)
-remade into isometric perspective
-many element downgraded for GBA
Tales of Symphonia II (Wii)
-same game world
-new story, characters, environment
-many original areas remixed
Prince of Persia Classic (XBLA, PSN)
-overhauled graphics and sound
-new game modes
-high score boards
I honestly don’t think that it’s fair to group the two together. For marketing sake though I guess the word ‘remake’ has a better sound to it and as such -like fish to water- the games media have wrote about the first list of games under the guise of remakes. I’m not convinced, where do you guys stand?
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