Suicide Girls Column: inFAMOUS
My Suicide Girls gig keeps rolling along. I’m pleased as pills with this week’s, about new PS3 exclusive inFAMOUS. I took the tack of focusing on one specific game mechanic that I really liked and that I thought worked really well, to the exclusion of beating up on the game for everything it did that was silly:
Don’t get me wrong: this ain’t Watchmen. The story crams 50 pounds of nonsense in a 5 pound bag, and the hero is just some guy with a squeaky messenger bag and a rechargeable battery for a brain. But the game puts its stubby little finger square on how it feels to be the ubermensch. Nobody can judge you, because nobody can stop you. And yes, all those little people matter — but they only matter a little.
Over to the right, I now have a link to all of my SG columns so far, so go back and read ‘em! What else were you doing tonight?
Just to talk process for a sec, I’m loving this gig because it gives me an awesome audience and a new professional pressure to live up to. I feel like I don’t sound as natural there yet as I do here. This column took a few hours of polishing and chopping and scraping, whereas, say, my post yesterday about Milo was knocked together at lunch with time to spare for E3 tweets. But on the other hand, this blog is a place where I can give in to blogghorrea and hyperreferentialism; over there, I’ve got a wider audience to hook, and it’s not like they have all day to parse me.
This stuff is all neither good nor bad, obviously, but just a way of learning to work. And I like to keep working. Especially for them. I haven’t mentioned super-editor Nicole Powers before, but she is a joy to work with and passionate about a lot of great stuff. We bounced some ideas today that I look forward to tackling.
But tonight, I have a night off and Zach’s insisting that we put down the controllers and watch a James Bond. There’s a promo of a super-hot indie game burning sectors on my hard drive right now. But it’s just gonna have to wait!
08/06/2009 at 6:26 pm Permalink
That websites comment culture is awesome. If I register I get to see models?
The best morality system I’ve seen in a game so far still has to go to Mass Effect, which consists of choosing between being an asshole or following the rules. There are plenty of situations I’ve seen so far where being an asshole works because, quite frankly, sometimes the person in charge has to be a little mean.
Fallout 3’s karma system is interesting but needs work. Being cruel just becomes a calculated loss, like buying an expensive weapon or armor. As a consequence I didn’t bat an eye at turning Megaton into a pile of smoldering glass. Sucking the life force out of an evil gang member should, according to InFamous’s own wonky system, be a good act. Instead the mere activity itself is evil, docking me points for not restraining them instead.
The problem with labeling things as good or evil is that they are matters of perception. The best morality system would be one that simply makes you aware of that. In Mass Effect if I cuss one of my crew out, they won’t talk to me because they now think I’m an asshole. Apologizing fixes that, being a prick makes it worse. The ideal system, to me, should ask the player how they would feel if someone did that to them.
08/06/2009 at 8:00 pm Permalink
L.B. - That’s a good point. A game about management styles would be more interesting than a game about total evil. That’s why, given a chance, I prefer the paragon vs. renegade or lawful vs. chaotic sliders instead. Call me a jerk, but don’t call me a monster.
And yeah, it’s too bad non-members can’t comment on Suicide Girls articles. But come on, you can spring for $4/month. And yes, apparently members get access to some kind of an image archive. Though Zach tells me he just borrows my login for the articles. Apparently there’s something he really had to say to Wil Wheaton, but he just can’t get the comment right.
09/06/2009 at 5:17 am Permalink
Hrm…alright. I always loved alternative girls back in college and later when I was wandering around in my car. Ever since law school though…it’s like they can smell it or something. I try to make the whole “Lawyers are punk as Hell” argument but I think I’m just trying to convince myself more than anything.