Slow and steady wins the race, and tripping right out of the gate isn’t necessarily a death knell.

(Picture suprisingly related)

Reflecting back on my post yesterday, while I know in my heart of hearts, there are definitely some pearls of wisdom to be harvested from the watery depths of my submerged vessel of thoughts, it is clear that amidst aquatic allusion and amusingly absurdist wordplay, I was clearly pissed off, as I really ripped into the industry and the “composite” gamer with reckless abandon. The saving grace about the whole affair, is that I merely attacked the vague visage of villainous stereotype, reaching far into the hollows of exaggerated personification of tragic malevolence in man-flesh form. This means that the odds of someone being offended are uniquely dim, as this hypothetical other would actually have to possess the tragic madness to identify with said description to own up to said outrage, which would be a distilled sadness akin to telling on yourself in the most gratuitously unfathomable of ways.

Obviously, if you didn’t read yesterday’s post, all of that is going to make absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever, but it likely sounds fun, which is half the point. Part of the fun of ATE is that it remains a flowing narrative, almost as if a living organism in and of itself, burdened with a glorious past, and an even more majestic future, (I optimistically broadcast). I usually try to leave the trail of breadcrumbs to help those pirates of imagination sail curiously, and for everyone else just along for the distinguished purity of enthusiastic standard involving the literary ride, I attempt to spoil thee with wordplay abound, never faltering to ebb and flow with a likewise vibing mindscape starving for poetic respite. Ideally, at least…realistically speaking? Welcome to the tea party, and a very merry unbirthday to you.

In semi-related news, I come back from the virtual front bringing tidings of dubious joy, as I am more than knee deep in My Friendly Neighborhood (MFN) playthrough, which, I’ve described as “Resident Evil set on Sesame Street”, and I’m pleased to report it looks like I’m going to have to eat crow on this one, as this game has successfully avoided Death Stranding itself into the oblivious farce of comic repetition, and actually risen up to the challenge of its own premise. I have some excellent thoughts about the title, and I think there’s a large part of me that wants to save the heavy lifting exposition for when I finish it, which may be next play session. I will say that inspite of the game coming into its own, MFN actually commits two cardinal sins that other games are guilty of, and I can think of a pair of heavy hitters in particular I could briefly discuss.

I’m of the mind that, while it is a lovely theoretical idea of a fancy freeing detail to be treated to an artistic endeavor in as raw a format as possible (or consumer product, depending on ones perspective), I am also of the mind that the creators should not necessarily develop their project in chronological order, just like in a famous example borrowed from another medium, a director shohldn’t shoot movie scense in consecutively successive order, first scene rarely being the actual first scene worked on. There’s obviously a number of benefits to this, more so in the department that if the team isn’t as familiar with each other, still gaining perspective on the project, or even entirely new to the medium at large, this awkward fumbling, and lack of polish there after, will be the very first thing the user is going to experience, in all of the games gawdy greeness. This more purile, innocent, amd improvosiational approach might work on some level at some time for some projects, but not for the majority of entertainment standards. The places this approach work I’m thinking of, would more along the lines be unavoidable but appropriate in performance art, which, would obviously be quite a thing to pull off in the realm of video games, though something like a “Game Jams” evebt would likely count as an equivalency, as creators have a limited amount of time to create a game on the spot over a limied span involving X amount of time. Quite a fun event to be hold, but obviously, that is an extraordinarily specific example, and not applicable most of the time.

So, with the citation of perhaps overlooking polish on earlier parts of the game (possibly) developed at an earlier time, but certainly not revisited enough in terms of an effective spitshine, there still remains something to be said, even aside from cleaning up, the successful vibe of what effective order setpieces should be used in. MFN falls victim to the “rough start syndrome” RSS, which usually entails the beginning of the game feeling weirdly rough around the edges, as if the devs worked on it first. In most cases, there isn’t necessarily a way to prove in what order they did work on parts of the game, which is why I have to assert the notion “feels like”, and or in a more realistic deconstruction, perhaps an under tested or under focused part of the game, not quite getting the same level of quality as the rest of the title, seemingly so, at least. Fittingly enough, and as an excellent acknowledgement even good games fall prey to this pitfall, another survival horror game of note is a victim of the very same RSS that I mentioned prior, and that is Silent Hill 2. I might not be speaking truth to power for everyone who enjoys the title, but the early part of that game is kind of a slog, point in fact, and regularly turns me off of replays when I desire to do so, very much the same as happened quite recently. The initial exploration of the town is way too brief, and those fucking apartments are such a genuine challenge to suffer through, I am in honest disbelief Team Silent did not remix the beginning of that game to accommodate for a much smoother introduction to such a classic experience.

Another game that is far more out of left field in reference to the rough start syndrome, but not entirely estranged from being used as a point of comparison, as it is also a first person shooter (like MFN), is Halo 2, funnt enough. I’ve gone on in the past about the metaphysical reality that pervades one game, and that this same essence can have a similar sense of intrusiom and abstracta invading another, and sometimes a paradoxical reversal therein etc., whether it be attributed to engine similarities, design flaws, or some mechanical happening that mirrors the viscera and circumstance of another virtual reality wholesale, such matters of import do exist, and I always enjoy being emphatic about the queerness of their shared existence. To this point, Halo 2, interestingly enough, shares the RSS with MFN, not necessarily the cinematic intro, which Halo 2 has par excellence, and MFN resembles more of an MGS4 in that surreal metaphysical regard, but kind of the mechanical introduction to the premise of Halo 2 in general. I think Cairo Station is a poor simulacra (stand-in, what have you) for the Pillar of Autumn, and in no way, shape, or form helps to sell the mission statement of how the game shines like the Autumn did for Halo 1. If you throw in the absolutely phenomenally fucked 2nd boarding party on Cairo Station on Legendary, and anyone who was there at launch likely just had brief flashbacks of minor PTSD shakes, in regards to stomaching the whole affair. Truly gruesome, in the most fetchingly innocuous manners imaginable.

The sound stage envirnoment works in a lot of amazing ways in MFN, but it should have been tucked away for way later in the game, I feel as if they really should have started you in the Offices, and worked from there, as I think it represents a much better rational flow of events that blends more seamlessly in terms of progressive horror, and maybe not just in the way it wears its Resident Evil inspirations on it’s sleeves, loud and clear.

Hmm, would you look at the time? In spite of typing this up last second, and sweating bullets I wasn’t going to get this piece out quick enough, I just positively blazed through this post, and right past the 1000 word mark, too…to the point where I had to switch from my phone to the laptop, as my fingers were simply not able to fly fast enough to get the ideas out in a similarly expeditious nature. To that point and further even, I have a wonderful habit of “going out on top”, and that’s due to the fact I find it most appropriate to leave “them” wanting more, and ending on an out of nowhere cliff hanger of sorts, abruptly challenging the flow of status quo that has been readily established.

~Pashford