Post-launch dlc has to be handled very carefully to succeed. Not only does every piece need to identify the strengths and weaknesses of its core game, but needs to be created in relation to the pieces that have already been released. In the two story additions to Mass Effect 3, we were given missions that were designed for very specific purposes- they expanded the universe fiction. Problem is, even though they do so in different ways, they’re both filling in gaps to a story that is already closed. The third piece is Bioware’s opportunity to get away from Mass Effect 3’s controversial ending and flex its creative muscle on something different. ‘Omega’ reminds us why Bioware are among the best storytellers in the industry.
Author: Dane Thomsen
Halo 4 Has 343 Problems and Cortana is Definitely One
Videogames were changed forever when Bungie released Halo: Combat Evolved in 2001. In that seminal release, the world met Spartan II cyborg Master Chief as he is awakened from cryo sleep to fight against the alien Covenant. We also met Cortana, the AI that would accompany Chief and become the voice in his ear as he fights. Among many of its revolutionary ideas was its holy trinity of combat that mapped guns, grenades and melee onto an intuitive control scheme that provided a deep and flexible options and allowed players access to large maps and vehicles. As the series progressed, it implemented a suite of online features and pared down gameplay into tighter design. At the end of Halo 3, Master Chief re-entered cryo sleep aboard the UNSC’s Forward Unto Dawn as it drifts aimlessly through space with Cortana watching over him. The trilogy complete, Bungie flexed their creative muscles on Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach, two games that would expand the structure with new modes and matchmaking options.
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Hotline Miami: A Grotesquely Beautiful Critique on Violence Entertainment
Hotline Miami wants you to hurt people.
With its over saturated neon colors aesthetic and ambient synth rock, Dennaton Games title wants you to think of violent action flicks such as Scarface and Drive, films rebelling against their own perceived places in the world with blood, guns and brutality. It’s 1989, a time of VHS cassettes and answering machines. When you check yours, you’re given a cryptic message with a location and a time. You’re going there to kill everyone.
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Resident Evil 4’s Silent Tutorial
Fifteen minutes into Resident Evil 4, Shinji Mikami and his design team test your comprehension of the mechanics they’ve been invisibly teaching you since you selected ‘New Game’. Former rookie cop Leon S. Kennedy had just fought his way through the Ganado’s Village and now finds himself catching his breath on an old dingy farm. Stray slightly from the beaten path and you’ll find a radiant pearl necklace enticingly suspended above a barrel of putrid water, patiently waiting for you to find it. Retrieving this necklace is your test. You can’t just reach out and interact with it, so you draw your handgun and shoot it loose- and immediately fail as it falls directly into the barrel of sludge beneath. When you pull it from the filth, your inventory lists the item as ‘Dirty Pearl Pendant’, its picture a grimy mess. Looking back at the barrel, you notice the 2×4 propping up the lid, so you shoot that next and watch it create a cover. Since you didn’t learn the lesson before, you do now: Resident Evil 4 rewards tactical gunplay.
Let’s study the notes:
Double Dragon Neon OST
The Dragon Uppercut to Your Girlfriend’s Stomach
Double Dragon Neon lands a first-frame hurricane kick to the junk with a virtuoso big-hair anthem that recaptures the lost spirit of the original ‘80’s arcade classic while reveling in the decade’s ridiculous excesses. As if powered by compositions spawned by some ancient Chinese magic, Jake Kaufman runs to the right and punches dudes in the face with the confident bravado of an action movie hero.
Mark of the Ninja
The stealth action genre has long been an echo chamber unto itself. While many games have integrated its core ideas, its pure form hasn’t evolved much since Metal Gear 2 on the MSX. It’s a genre that many critics have argued relies too heavily on trial-and-error, exists as puzzle games in action-game skin. Mark of the Ninja shrugs these distinctions off while living inside them. It’s a smart title that promotes a different kind of stealth: action not patience; the hunter, not the prey.
Mass Effect 3 ‘Leviathan’ dlc
Mass Effect 2’s post-launch content was among the best examples of the practice this generation. Not only did each flesh out the Mass Effect universe, they allowed custom built levels and their own cohesive story that could accentuate Shepard’s story while still existing outside of its confines. Leviathan is the first such piece of content for Mass Effect 3 but that games controversial ending hangs heavily over this even before you embark on its mission.
Jet Set Radio
Graffiti is art. However, graffiti as an act of vandalism is a crime.
Jet Set Radio is very nearly a complete metaphor for freedom. Smilebit accomplished the task by making its game small in scope and using every element of its design to construct a theme: it has a large, overbearing enemy in its fascist Tokyo-to and a graffiti mechanic that is an action-oriented, easily understood core concept that is itself a means to fight against the oppression. It gives characters the tools to move deftly through the world to leave their mark. With the guidance of free-wheelin’ DJ Professor K and his pirate broadcast, the youth are rebelling in the heart of Tokyo-to and the pressure is boiling up from the underground.
Mass Effect: Revelation
The Mass Effect saga is a sprawling epic that covers over a hundred thousand years of galactic history. In Bioware’s extensive fiction, we learn about people long extinct, meet dozens of new races, and come together to fight an enemy that threatens to destroy it all. It’s a complex timeline filled with personal conflict, social turmoil and galactic politics. And we got our first glimpse of it in Mass Effect: Revelation.
Bastion: The Kid’s Fairy Tale
A child’s eyes see a simple world. For centuries, fairy tales have been tools to give those eyes a view on the world they might not see on their own. They are a means of teaching lessons and giving metaphors, to see villainy and sorrow overcome by heroism and bravery. In Bastion, Supergiant Games has crafted a new fairy tale in videogame form, one that allows you to revisit your youth while celebrating the games you loved when you were small and the world was big.
