Aya Brea’s date night at Carnegie Hall is tragically cut short when the show’s new singer eyes her in the audience, activating an unknown ability deep in her cells that lights everyone in attendance on fire except the stunned NYPD detective who chases the mutated Eve backstage. The theater is a perfect place to start Parasite Eve’s story, as the game, inspired by survival horror games of the time, was SquareSoft’s experiment with cinematic techniques, using digital actors on its virtual stage. Since RPGs are fundamentally about surviving dungeons and harsh environments with the resources you have in your inventory, Parasite Eve was a great opportunity to experiment with new ideas. Directed by Takashi Tokita, veteran of Live A Live and Chrono Trigger, Parasite Eve is a cinematic police procedural that merges game genres to tell of the six day quest to stop Eve’s genetic awakening before it changes humanity forever.
Continue reading “Parasite Eve (or, SquareSoft’s Experimental Cinematic RPG)”Category: Cinematic Presentation
Splicing Gen(r)es: Investigating Resident Evil’s Survival Horror
A Biohazard Outbreak
When Special Tactics And Rescue Squad’s Bravo team goes dark in Raccoon City’s Arklay Mountains while investigating grizzly murders, the Alpha team rescue party finds itself in a firefight against bloody claws and gnashing teeth, a scene Resident Evil brings to life with real actors dashing through the woods towards the safety of Spencer Mansion. Though primarily told through cinematic in-engine cutscenes framed by an static camera system, this live-action scene transitions the player into the B movie game’s world filled with zombies, mutated dogs, giant spiders, and, at the end, the perfect bioweapon, manufactured by the international conglomerate, Umbrella Inc. A controllable, branching B horror movie starring S.T.A.R.S.’ Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine and supporting characters, Resident Evil tests your delicious brain’s skills to survive a different kind of haunted house, discover the truth about a biological outbreak.
Continue reading “Splicing Gen(r)es: Investigating Resident Evil’s Survival Horror”The Snake’s Blueprint: An Analysis Of Metal Gear Solid’s DNA
For the third time, legendary agent Solid Snake destroyed the walking tank Metal Gear deep behind enemy lines and saved the world from Armageddon, this time from his old unit FOX-HOUND led by his newly-revealed twin brother Liquid Snake. Until then, Metal Gear Solid had been an action-packed bonanza told through expertly produced cinematics that rivaled Hollywood blockbusters. And then the story pivoted at its climax. What had been a politically charged narrative about Cold War era terrorism and the threat of nuclear war changed into an examination on genetics, using the very technology and rendering techniques that brought the game to life to reinforce its deep and complex themes. With MGS, Hideo Kojima merged his narrative and gameplay abilities into a deep metaphor about biology, technology, and destiny.
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Take That! Cross Examining Phoenix Wright’s Judicial Arts
Rookie attorney Phoenix Wright’s first case was a lively battle of wits. With the freedom of his client on the line, the lawyer pressed the witness about the crime and threw down evidence that contradicted his claims until his testimony crumbled, all while his mentor Mia Fey stood beside him. But at the start of his second case, the rookie’s fortune is flipped upside down when Mia is killed by a mystery man with curly hair and a loud purple suit, and her spirit-medium sister Maya is wrongfully fingered for the murder. With no other attorney willing to help, Wright vows to defend her against the notorious prosecutor Miles Edgeworth. With Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Shu Takumi and his team built a different kind of visual novel that turns deductive reasoning into a weapon to bring justice to the corrupt, while creating confident stories filled with energy, humor, and drama. A close inspection uncovers how.
Continue reading “Take That! Cross Examining Phoenix Wright’s Judicial Arts”
Treasure and Virtue in Sin & Punishment
Sin & Punishment’s single best setpiece captures the essence and versatility of its design. With your character Airan on a platform zipping around a naval carrier fleet, you evade the barrage of artillery fire from massive aircraft carriers, dogfight squadrons of enemy aircraft, and bat missiles back at their launchers, while unleashing a constant stream of shots to send them to the bottom of the ocean, all as the world soars and reorients in full cinematic splendor. It’s one of the most exhilarating action spectacles of the generation and combines the best elements of the classic shooter and brawler genres into one unique game. The scene ends with the freedom fighter chasing down a comet-sized missile shot from low-orbit as it hurtles at your ally-turned-monster Saki.
Policenauts’ Mise-En-Scene
Policenauts was the perfect game to introduce the world to Hideo Kojima’s visual style and keen eye for editing a trailer. Unlike other games at the time, every screenshot from the 1994 ‘Interactive Movie’ could have been ripped from an anime, this one the tale of a man lost in space for the first twenty five years of humanity’s move into off-world colonies. It’s Lethal Weapon in the Gundam timeline with an Aliens setup, starring a blue-haired Mel Gibson. The trailer claims Policenauts is ‘The Next Generation of Snatcher’.
The Cinematic Power of Final Fantasy VII
It’s no exaggeration to say that Final Fantasy VII had a major impact on me. It marked my introduction to JRPG’s and broke me of my N64 stockholm syndrome and its slow trickle of games to embrace the Playstation, the platform I look back on as the defining point of my gaming life. I spent so much time breeding chocobo’s and grinding that goddamn crashed Gelnika ship that I continued to play for months after I’d killed Sephiroth and avenged Aeris’ famous death. I hadn’t experienced anything like it. Then I came to despise it and what it became in the years after its release. I thought back on the tangled weave of Cloud’s angst and Sephiroths madness and the nonsense turns its plot takes. But when you can no longer remember why you dislike something, perhaps it’s time to return and look with fresh eyes.
Asura’s Wrath: The New Anime
Asura’s Wrath contains one of the most brilliant player-directed narrative sequences in videogames; a fist fight. The two brawlers dance about the screen, one trying desperately to explain his actions to the other among a flurry of attacks. To evade them, the player must nail the timing for the increasingly frequent on-screen button prompts as any mistake is punished with a fist to the face, interrupting the dialogue and completely ending the conversation.
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