Sword Art Online II- Mother's Rosario

Mother's Rosario, the final narrative arc to Sword Art Online II, was quite a positive surprise to me.  I'm not knowledgeable with notable directors and writers within the anime industry, but the narrative style had a distinct mechanical difference in its storytelling from Phantom Bullet that I had to check whether or not a change in production was made. Same writer and director as Phantom Bullet: Tomohiko Ito (who also wrote for a few episodes of Sword Art Online and the script for Death Note). A cynical part of me wants to attribute a portion of this success once again to the low bar the franchise set for itself, but more genuinely I thought the show had really developed with regards to structure and content. Mother's Rosario expands on Phantom Bullet's successful moments and distinguishes itself from the rest of the Sword Art Online franchise thus far.

they're waiting

I've stated this before in my response to Phantom Bullet, but the point becomes much clearer in Mother's Rosario: the biggest area of improvement in Sword Art Online II is its centralized narrative structure. Sword Art Online's episodes are self-contained and sometimes smaller narrative arcs exist in a span of two to three episodes, but Sword Art Online II's arcs take longer trajectories and are given adequate time to develop a complexity not found in the original series (which had six distinct writers for a course of twenty four episodes). This furthered development is aided by having Asuna as the protagonist rather than Kirito, who is demoted (or promoted, depending on your perspective) to being a brick in a wall somewhere. Where Sinon is the crux of the Phantom Bullet narrative, Asuna is the focal point of Mother's Rosario's narrative constructs.

Mother's Rosario parallels Asuna's desire to share the gaming world with her strict mother to her desire to help share the real world to a terminally ill friend who is confined to virtual reality. Asuna lives a life full of material comforts, from a large house in crowded Japan to having a housekeeper. Such a lifestyle is possible because of the hard work of Asuna's mother, an austere and ambitious businesswoman. Although living with a comfortable number of luxuries, Asuna is detached from her mother who is determined to get Asuna caught up from the two years she was trapped in Sword Art Online. To Asuna's dismay, this means transferring the young girl to a proper school and threatening to take away her virtual reality headset to get her away from Kirito who the mother sees as a bad influence. While she contemplates the possibility of never being to enter the virtual world again, Asuna meets and befriends a young girl online named Yuuki, who is revealed to be bedridden and deteriorating from AIDS in the real world. Yuuki had agreed to a clinical trial testing the use of a Medicuboid, a medically purposed virtual reality access point designed to improve the quality of life for terminally ill patients; Yuuki has been confined to virtual reality for three years due to her condition.

find that invisible wall sweet spot

Although Mother's Rosario barrows similar themes from Phantom Bullet, a distinct lack of antagonistic conflict leads to a sentimentality that is uniquely present throughout the narrative arc. Yuuki's efforts and the message she embodies to make just a small, but personally significant, mark on the world was inspiring and made the friendship between Asuna and Yuuki feel all the more genuine and delicate. A common point of criticism is directed towards Asuna's minimal character development, but I would argue that in her short time with Yuuki, Asuna realized the true impact of fighting for the happiness of others. Where she once sought to keep the virtual world as a means of escape, Asuna now values expressing and sharing her virtual world as a means of building understanding and trust.

Asuna as a character has taken on many roles and interpretations throughout the Sword Art Online franchise, but, admittedly, she isn't particularized in any way within Mother's Rosario. She's still known as the "Berserk Healer" within the gaming world but there aren't many defining adjectives that come to mind. Asuna's placid character is a valid point of criticism especially after how strongly and enigmatically she was presented in the first half of Sword Art Online, but such a mild approach to her character lends to the sentimental aspect of the series. It's reassuring to see that even the heroine badass doesn't have everything figured out and that she too has relatable problems. As an extension, one could even argue that Asuna isn't particularized because she's meant to represent an entire demographic of people where gaming has become a source of tension and trouble. Asuna confronts this issue by sharing the virtual world with her mother and revealing how she truly feels (about family, friends, school, expectations, obligations, hopes and dreams) and by doing so, bridges the gulf between her mother and herself. The world of Alfheim Online transforms from an escapist fantasy to a world that encourages and supports her in her endeavors and newfound determinations.

bunch of leaderboard try-hards

Mother's Rosario's success over the other arcs in the franchise comes from its better developed message about video game culture. The show doesn't aim to comment on or present games as solely a source of escapism, but rather paints gaming culture as a unifying force that brings people together, given the opportunity. Gaming is something that builds common ground across a wide number of peoples, like chess or soccer. The way Asuna leapt onto Alfheim Online to meet with friends right after school reminded me of the way that my friends and I leapt onto Minecraft or Team Fortress 2 right after school and all the adventures we had then, years ago. Even today we still periodically keep in touch in this manner. I didn't really think much of it at the time, but in retrospect I can see that we created characters for ourselves and entire worlds to share with others.  It sounds emotionally dramatic, but that's the depiction Mother's Rosario aimed for and achieved.

'full zerk gear or kick'

I was curious about how others had responded to Mother's Rosario and to my dismay a lot of reviews focused primarily on the Phantom Bullet arc and simply mentioned Mother's Rosario in passing. After spending some time in sorting out Sword Art Online II, I can understand how when the series is taken as a lump sum it's only natural to compare it entirely to Sword Art Online without a closer look at each arc, but I was honestly frustrated at most of the reviews. I noticed that in a lot of online written and video reviews, technical presentation (which is great in SAO II, by the way) is overly emphasized and any attempt at analysis felt more like a gut reaction rather than a careful inspection behind the reasons and methods. Maybe it's just a hole that the Sword Art Online franchise dug itself into, but there's just constant focus on Kirito's romantic interests that detracts from a lot of the underlying values within the series. Sword Art Online II struggles in many areas, but I feel as if a lot of its successes are overlooked or simply dismissed.

In equalizing the entire Sword Art Online II series, the show is a conclusive improvement over its predecessor (again, low bar, yadda, yadda) and shows a definite maturation, especially in Mother's Rosario. Sword Art Online II as a whole marks a much needed departure away from a dependence on the romance between Kirito and Asuna to pursue an attempt at bringing forwards other, more relevant issues that makes use of its video game setting. While the show itself may not stand tall due to its repeatedly (and annoyingly) chanted flaws, Mother's Rosario is very much a solid narrative arc with distinguishable success in its trajectory and presentation.

'when is chest train starting'

--

So that's the wrap on the Sword Art Online series. I didn't really think the franchise was really anything spectacular because the various stories all had distinct issues and styles that it was difficult for the Sword Art Online universe to really take a strong, singular identity. This leads to that hole the series dug for itself that I mentioned, where a lot of misses and strikes against the show go unforgotten across seasons. Still, the Sword Art Online franchise left enough of an impression on me to want to take a closer look at some of the more interesting topics and ideas that I noticed, even if only for a brief moment. Here are two points that might interest you that I didn't really spend too much time on:

• The Medicuboid device and video games as a therapeutic utility
• Asuna's mom as a statement that marriage and having kids doesn't mean having to end a career (the working mom is an increasingly common character in anime)

Sword Art Online II- Phantom Bullet

After a mediocre-turned-terrible experience with Sword Art Online, I wasn't very keen on expectations regarding Sword Art Online II. Discussing Sword Art Online pretty much meant discussing the show's weaknesses, so needless to say, my expectations and standards for Sword Art Online II weren't that high. Sword Art Online II spans two major narrative arcs with a filler narrative separating the two. The setting and tones of the two arcs are so different I've decided to look at each arc individually.

welcome back

Sword Art Online II improves upon the first series by being able to experiment with the dichotomy between reality and the game world. The biggest setback experienced by Sword Art Online was its inability to use its setting to any great effect. The virtual world is set up by displaying MMORPG conventions and although the narrative was focalized on Kirito's perspective of the game world, the show never really made a statement on video game culture, which is what I expected out of a series about players being trapped in a video game. Risk-free MMORPG conventions are thrown around and what resulted was a straightforward and cliched fantasy.  Fortunately, Sword Art Online II isn't bound by characters being stuck in virtual reality as characters are able to interact and travel between the two worlds. This is crucial because it finally allowed the show to craft a statement around video games regarding how they are perceived and finally dares to imagine what might become of them in the future other than "it's virtual reality." To the future forecast effect, one could say the series took in a little bit of science fiction in some respects. In the first series, the video game setting could just have easily been a journey from point A to point B and the developments that follow; the story in Sword Art Online was more about an isolated population rather than the video game setting. Sword Art Online II adds importance to the fact that people are in a video game and is able to convey social problems by removing video games from its own isolated world, making the world and setting more relatable than its predecessor's.

ggo is actually destiny but with better loot drops

The Phantom Bullet narrative once again focalizes around Kirito (who is perhaps the most static character I have ever witnessed), but this time the Japanese government is asking him to dive back into the virtual world of Gun Gale Online (GGO) to investigate the real-world deaths of prominent players. Why the technology hasn't been banned after the deaths of thousands of consumers and why the government is entrusting Kirito is beyond me. GGO as a setting is a huge tonal shift from the fantasy settings of the first Sword Art Online series. A gritty, cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic cityscape populated by a demographic of big guns and burly bros greets Kirito, so naturally he bumps into the only girl who plays the game: Sinon (pronounced She-non).

'it's a grillll ecks dee kappa' 

Sinon is a powerful character in the sense that the preceding anime set such a low bar for characterization, any kind of backstory and development for any character was a sign of relief from the underworld of blandness that is Kirito and his irrelevant gang. Sinon does, however, come off as a dramatically successful character with real problems and real struggles. Whereas Kirito just pulls off feats of sheer willpower because he defies every rule set out by the game and "fuck you I'm Kirito," any challenge against him loses agency. Sinon's story is the crux of the arc's narrative and it paints her in a rare vulnerable light. Sinon is confronted with challenges like Kirito but what makes it easy to cheer her on is her fight to become stronger. Sinon didn't land on the powerhouse square for the sake of having a protagonist like Kirito. Instead, she is in a position for development as she fights childhood trauma and the resulting years of being a social outcast. Phantom Bullet revolves around what it means to be strong and how to find that strength. The message is epitomized within Sinon and actively places GGO as a setting where meek Asada Shino, the player, becomes Sinon, one of the top snipers in GGO. Abstract introspective moments in which Asada faces her game avatar reveals that they are different facets of personality: Asada Shino seeks to learn from Sinon's strengths so that she may become strong enough herself to confront reality. The show displays the fruits of potentials in being able to comment how people can reinvent themselves in video games as a form of expression, inventing characters, personalities, and even entire worlds. Sinon's characterization is without doubt the strongest point in Phantom Bullet.

ggo is actually a dating sim with rhythm mechanics

Sinon's story is framed within Phantom Bullet's overarching murder mystery that necessitates Kirito's involvement, and wherever Kirito is involved, unnecessary sexualization always seems to follow. It's easy to point to the tasteless fan service that immediately targets Sinon (even Asuna survived for some number of episodes) and Kirito's girly avatar as nothing but a shallow theater act to please certain demographics, but the gender role and sexualization discussion becomes controversial in the scenes depicting Asada being sexually assaulted by her close friend before Kirito enters for a timely rescue. The topics of online stalking and harassment are subtly present within the Phantom Bullet narrative and mostly lies dormant until the concluding moments. The most striking aspect was the fact that the perpetrator was Asada's closest friend who lost inhibition after being rejected from a relationship. The aftermath of the scene in question has Asada confronting her fears again in relapsing moments and she discovers that her experiences throughout the series has indeed brought her newfound emotional strength and supportive friends. It's a delicate subject matter and I'm still not sure if the show handled it with enough gravity as there are a number of interpretations people can perceive depending on their own experiences and beliefs. It is my personal belief that, although Phantom Bullet drops the occasional fan service, Sword Art Online II has matured from Sword Art Online in staying away from its predecessor's absolutely tasteless moments.

strength comes from microtransactions

Phantom Bullet saw improvement in the two areas I found lacking from the first series: directing a statement and character development. By opening up the Sword Art universe to the real world instead of confining it to the virtual world, more complex developments and comments became possible. Phantom Bullet looks into a small window of how players define themselves from past experiences and future hopes, both beneficial and harmful, in virtual spaces where the freedom to become any persona exists. Pay close attention to how Sinon and Asada are individually characterized despite essentially being the same person and how the two interact with and mirror each other in Asada's mind. I have no hesitation in stating that the Phantom Bullet arc of Sword Art Online II is a vast improvement over the installments in Sword Art Online.

Up next: Mother's Rosario- what? Yeah, I'm skipping the middle arc because there wasn't much about it that stood out. You want to know what the middle arc is about? Here:

google image 'sao2 sinon'

See you in Mother's Rosario.

Sword Art Online

With the advent of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset coming up in the first quarter of 2016, I thought it'd be fitting to take a look at Sword Art Online, an anime featuring a virtual reality massively multiplayer online role-playing game (VRMMORPG) experience as its primary backdrop. The Sword Art Online franchise is built from a series of light novels released in 2009 which were then adapted into manga and anime formats. A number of video games, extra anime features, and a full-length animated film in the making attests to the commercial success of the franchise if the 16 million light novel copies sold doesn't convince you. The original televised run was from July 2012 to December 2012; once again I'm rather late to the party, but that does confer some advantages in formulating a response. After finishing the series, I've had a chance to read over and watch some initial reviews, even a few critiques, with the goal of better understanding how SAO was received and where SAO stands today across genres and mediums.

welcome

Sword Art Online takes place in the near future in which virtual reality technology has advanced far enough to create fully immersive experiences by essentially plugging people into the Matrix via hardware known as NerveGear. The analogy is apt because players of the newly released platform soon find themselves unable to logout, thus trapped in the virtual world and becoming pieces of amusement for Akihiko Kayaba, the creator of both NerveGear and the show's namesake video game, Sword Art Online. Kayaba reveals that the only way back to reality is by completing the game's 100 floors of increasing difficulty and also tags a side-note that should a player die in-game, they will die in the real world via NerveGear overload. You'd think that someone would eventually come into a person's room and remove the NerveGear, freeing them from the game, but the headset functions similarly to a Matrix jack-in: if the user isn't properly logged out, the severed connection kills the user (how such a product passed quality assurance, I have no idea). With all angles seemingly covered, Kayaba sits back as panic and fear initially sets in to the 10,000 players who managed to get their hands on a first release of SAO.

At the outset, an interesting piece of commentary from the SAO world manifested when Kayaba also stripped players of their customized avatars, replacing them with real world images scanned from NerveGear sensors. I got a good laugh when an attractive young woman was turned into a nerdy plump kid, but it also showcased how in a world where you can seemingly become anyone and anything, people are still tied to real world insecurities and fears when their in-game avatar acts as a reminder of the real world. This topic is never really developed further than the scene with the nerd transformations for laughs and that lack of development is what really began to influence my impression of Sword Art Online: simply put, mishandled potential. The series continually displays glimmers of potentially insightful explorations of the different facets within video game culture (both positively and negatively perceived), but very little, if any, are ever fully developed. What we're left with instead is a rather generic fantasy setting which fails to truly make use of its virtual MMORPG aspect.

i'll bet some of the vistas are infuriating to reach

The most powerful tool that Sword Art Online has at its disposal is its virtual setting on top of its fictitious reality. One might think that such a buffering would allow for a multitude of unique perspectives regarding characters and their experience with Sword Art Online to be explored but it soon becomes clear that the virtual MMORPG setting doesn't matter. It's easy to create the dichotomy between the real world and virtual world using a virtual reality setting, but it's another aspect altogether to really see purpose instilled into the themes created from the dichotomy. For example, in episode four, titled "The Black Swordsman," the protagonist Kirito confronts a member of a player-killing guild, Rosalia. While Kirito cannot fathom why anyone would want to kill another player in such dire straits, Rosalia states that there is no proof that death within the game kills the player in the real world. In the first episode, Kayaba present media articles and videos of player deaths in the real world as proof of the dangers of NerveGear, but it's clear that some players do not buy into his claims (perhaps thinking forgery is at play) and engage with the game as if it were any other game. Video games that incorporate permanent death to the point where players cannot return to a game exist; what is to say that Sword Art Online isn't one of those? Questions regarding the origins of belief, faith, motive, and how a game world shapes all three of those within our characters immediately come to mind. I thought Rosalia's statement brought forth an interesting topic but the entire ordeal is simply swept away and never revisited.

Another moment that could have really engaged the virtual setting can be seen in episode eleven, "The Girl of Morning Dew." This episode begins to showcase how players have built a functioning society after years have passed in both the virtual and real world. Kirito marries a girl named Asuna in-game (after the usual tsundere routine) and the two decide to take some time off from fighting at the front lines to focus on themselves. At this point in the story arc, Sword Art Online is expanded to show that the world isn't all about fighting for survival: a system of education for younger players is created, basic forms of governance are installed, and basic living continues. It goes on to show that some players have found contentedness inside the game and it isn't difficult to imagine that some do not wish to return to the real world despite knowing their real bodies are deteriorating.  Real world parallels can be seen; I'm sure you've read articles or have heard stories about people who play video games for so long they've seemingly neglected everything else. What's the point of returning to the real world if every condition about the virtual world is better than its real world counterpart? What happens when a video game takes over life to such an extent? These questions and their exploration may have given a glimpse into the distinct video game and anime culture in Japan and how it affects its consumers but the show prefers to take the easy road again in this occasion by presenting the issue and then never really detailing anything about it.

they actually grind this mob for 2 months

Outside of those two burning issues that I had with the show, what's the net effect? Again, Sword Art Online is rather generic in its premise and it probably uses up a lot more deus ex machina (to the point of it becoming simply lazy writing) than should be allowed for a coherent cause-effect relationship between key plot points to take root and grow. The show doesn't utilize its video game setting to any real effect, which is a real damn shame, but I still enjoyed the retelling of a timeless story, no matter how cliched or overdone. Focus primarily sits on common fantasy elements and that's okay; there's plenty in the show that'll make you want to cheer Kirito and Asuna on and just as many moments that make you wonder how a stage in the story got a green light from production. Smart? Intellectual? Not so much. Predictable? Formulaic? Perhaps a tad bit, especially when it becomes difficult to imagine Kirito in any kind of danger as he always ends up blowing up any enemy in his path some way or another; the true tension comes when Kirito takes it upon himself to protect others. For me, Sword Art Online was fueled by its potential to pass generic boundaries with relevant and timely statements on video game culture.

'buying gf'

While far from satisfying, Sword Art Online is an interesting discussion starter, especially as virtual reality technology develops and online gaming experiences become increasingly popular. The show is everything and nothing in particular at the same time; a lack of focus predominates and leaves many logical gaps in its traditional style of storytelling. Still, Sword Art Online crafts a commendable level of romantic fantasy escapism that piques our curiosity and appeals to the senses with its Holland-like meadows, harrowing dungeons, and just about everything in between.

-

There's a second arc to the first season that I've left out? What second arc?

not every mmo can be smart

LISA

Women are dead, perverts abound, and drugs are turning people into monsters in LISA: The Painful RPG, a side scrolling RPG developed and published by indie studio Dingaling Productions. Initially released back in December 2015 for the Windows platform, the game has also seen a OS X and Linux debut. Prepare to wander through a gritty post-apocalyptic world filled with curious odds-and-ends.

"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD BE CAREFUL NEAR CLIFFS OR YOU WILL HATE YOURSELF"

I hadn't heard of LISA until about a month ago when I saw it pop up during the autumn Steam sales. What drew me in at the time was the seemingly straightforward pixel graphics and plain backgrounds in the preview screenshots (which indicated to me a low-budget work) combined with the overwhelming amount of praise found in the Steam reviews section. Normally, the Steam reviews on a game rarely affect my decision in making a purchase, but after reading some of the reviews and how emotionally charged they were in praising the game for its narrative and style, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to take a closer look. So does LISA hit hard "right in the feels," as one reviewer would have it?

Drenched in black comedy, LISA introduces players to Brad Armstrong, a broken man in a broken world. As a child, Brad had to deal with schoolyard bullies and an abusive father. Now a grown man, Brad carries his life experiences with great burden and difficulty, resorting to a drug called Joy in order to numb his mind and body. The world Brad lives in experienced an event simply called "The Flash" in which all women died, rendering repopulation impossible and effectively dooming the human race (similar in style to Children of Men, in which infertility is the cause of the apocalyptic backdrop). Brad lives his life in a dirt hovel with some childhood friends until he discovers an abandoned baby girl in the middle of nowhere. Seeing the child as a second chance to redeem himself from the shadow of his father, Brad takes it upon himself to raise the girl, christened Buddy, and to protect her. Several years pass and Buddy grows up and one day the secret is out; raiders come and take Buddy away and Brad places responsibility upon himself to rescue the girl.

"my dads [sic] in this game"

Inspired by Earthbound, LISA presents a return of older RPG conventions in its game mechanics. However, by emulating something of an NES experience, the game suffers a great deal when it comes to technical use. Equipping and managing party members quickly becomes a chore and the general lack of a streamlined user interface had me wondering why I couldn't just use my mouse instead of having to go through multiple motions in order to bring up one screen. Such a design decision may create a more authentic RPG experience for some gamers, but there is a reason why outdated conventions are outdated. The lack of a quick save feature outside of fights creates irritating moments where a player may be forced to load from a checkpoint multiple times, making the trek back to a fight, all while praying to the RNG for good rolls in order to defeat a boss. Combined with the infamous cliffs that result in instant death placed in strategic locations, there will be a great deal of revisiting the same areas over and over again, ultimately cumulating into a frustrating gaming experience.

The game suffer's from a general lack of feedback, an important aspect to indicate to players what works and what doesn't. There are two culprits in this case: navigation and combat. Navigation doesn't suffer as badly as the combat; the backgrounds are plain and the paucity of landmarks boils getting from point A to point B to memory as passages and doorways look similar. The ultimate villain is the combat system where so much information is hidden from players. Certain status effects such as burning, poison, bleed, stun, and tripped are self-explanatory, but others are more vague in their function. Crying, weary, stink, and weird are some of the more enigmatic status effects that may take some time to understand; even then it may just be better to consult a guide. Moreover, something as simple as enemy health isn't displayed, leaving players to wonder how far into a fight they must plan for. Some enemies harbor resistances to various effects in varying degrees and there doesn't seem to be any logic conveyed to players as to what kind of tactics are working, often resulting in the aforementioned prayers to RNG. You may never find out an enemy has 40% resistance to stunning attacks and simply think you're getting bad rolls when attempting to stun the enemy. This lack of information leads to a deficit in the player's tool belt when trying to solve a problem and reduces some areas of the game to brute force trial and error.

"Cons: fucking snakes"

There is a large emphasis on "ruthless choices that that permanently effect [sic] towns, characters, life" as stated by the game's Steam page. I cannot express how untrue this is. The choices to be made are ruthless, I'll give it that, but they aren't emotionally motivated or impactful as most of the decision making prompts are there to simply fuck with the player in a gameplay sense, not a narrative one. For example, one fork forces Brad to choose between the lives of his party members or all of his hard earned items. But here's the major problem: for all the weird, quirky, and cooky characters there are, none of them are characterized beyond one or two traits that make them eclectic. Ultimately, any value you attach to your party members is going to be motivated by how much utility they present in a fight. Your party members are essentially walking bags of numbers and you'll feel sad and angry that your bag with the biggest numbers died in order for the game to up the emotional ante. Any kind of backstory or exploration of motive from all the unique characters is essentially nonexistent and any kind of investment into the characters is impersonal; I truly wish the party members were more fleshed out in their relationship to Brad. 

Technical gripes aside, LISA offers a bold exploration of depression, domestic abuse, drug addiction, and gender roles to name just a few themes. A Mad Max-esque vision of the darkness in human hearts is complimented by the carefully limited color palette and dirge-like music and in other sections contrasted by the bright colors and strange rave-like music as some celebrate to the end as they lose inhibition and control of themselves. An intriguing exploration of Brad's past, his mental image of his father, and motives for saving Buddy is examined, but the weak pacing of the game places all the interesting story elements in the far back as the first two-thirds of the story is narrative cannon fodder that focuses more on the environment and its inhabitants rather than Brad. I feel that the storytelling could've been more homogenous rather than having a stark break between sections as it would streamline the storytelling process and prevent elements of the plot from being forgotten or becoming stale.

"All I got from this game is that humans are trash, life sucks, and anything good that comes to you is taken away"

Ultimately, LISA is a clear example of an intriguing narrative executed poorly as frustrating mechanics and a lack of technical polish tarnishes the game's victories. Suffering is another theme conveyed in the game, but the game seems to feel that frustration and suffering are the same thing. Brad's suffering mechanically translates to a series of difficulty spikes in-game but the game backs itself into a corner when the game has neither the complexity nor the depth required to create a smooth spectrum of difficulty. Instead, what we have instead is essentially a numbers game that artificially increases the game's difficulty. This effect is exponentially made worse when you simply can't care enough for your companions to really make a meaningful choice when, for example, choosing which companions should live and which should die.

LISA is certainly a dash of the strange. It's eclectic style and oftentimes clunky revivals of old technical tropes found in older RPGs makes for one peculiar game. I have to praise the game's humble beginnings as a Kickstarter project and the subsequent follow through to see the game onto Steam, completed and even expanded upon with an additional DLC storyline which builds upon the original game's plot. Still, I hesitate in recommending the game. I don't think LISA is for everyone; the game isn't broadly appealing but the game does have a strong cult following within the gaming community. If you're looking for something close to home in terms of an RPG but strange and different in unsettling ways, LISA may be the game you're looking for.

Spec Ops: The Line

Spec Ops: The Line is a narrative-driven, third-person shooter developed by German indie studio Yager Development and published by 2K Games. Set to the themes of the horrors of war, this surprising title made its debut in June 2012 for Windows, PS3, and Xbox 360 platforms. Since then, Spec Ops: The Line has been released on OS X and Linux.

"Gentlemen, welcome to Dubai."

Spec Ops: The Line has been praised by critics and casual gamers alike for setting a different tone within the modern military shooter genre, a genre previously saturated with military hardware pornography and the wholesale destruction of any nation not speaking English. This game was a unique experience to me with respect to the previous military twitch-shooters I've played and one that defiantly rose up to take its place within the genre.

Enter an alternate timeline, one where Dubai, the glimmering diamond of the Middle East, has been ravaged by monstrous sandstorms large enough to engulf skyscrapers with winds hurling sand fast enough to strip paint off cars and flesh off bones. The 33rd Infantry Battalion of the United States Army, commanded by Colonel John Konrad (an homage to Joseph Conrad), volunteered to detour from returning home to aid in an evacuation effort of the city. The 33rd never returned. Players will take on the role of Captain Martin Walker, commander of a squad of Delta Force operatives tasked with investigating a radio broadcast that originates from Dubai six months after the city was declared a desert catacomb devoid of life.

"If you were a better person, you wouldn't be here"

In essence, Spec Ops: The Line can be considered to be an adaptation of Conrad's Heart of Darkness; the themes of the book are presented in a modern-military setting, much like the film Apocalypse Now. If you're familiar with either the book or the 1979 Coppola film, you may have a working sense of the plot and the imagery you'll witness as you play the game. A majority of the game's spirit comes from Walker's descent into madness and cognitive dissonance having witnessed the terror and suffering within the storm-wracked Dubai. What was supposed to be a simple reconnaissance mission suddenly spirals into a desperate attempt by Walker to seek answers in the hopes of vindicating what they have witnessed and done.

Having found a war zone within a supposedly dead city, squad mates Lugo and Adams try to convince Walker to call for evacuation and report their findings. As Walker becomes more and more obsessed with finding Colonel Konrad and finding out just what is going on, Lugo and Adams become ever more worried and doubtful of his leadership. Nightmarish images of mass executions, gruesome torture, and Hell-on-Earth use of white phosphorus take their toll on the squad: vigilant players will notice the squad member's speech patterns becoming more crude, execution finishers becoming more violent, and even loading screen messages turning from gameplay tips to more personal and attacking messages directed at the player as the game progresses. Talk between squad members transitions from light-hearted banter to hostile blame for the consequences of their action or inaction in a scenario. Walker becomes flooded with guilt and delusions as hallucination and other symptoms of trauma become apparent during gameplay.

"Do you feel like a hero yet?"

Gameplay elements in Spec Ops: The Line satirize modern-military shooters and their over-the-top action sequences. Shots to the head with any kind of weapon will cause the enemy's head to explode in a shower of gibs (even slowing down time for a brief moment for you to gawk at your marksmanship) and the proverbial turret sections present players the opportunity to mow down countless combatants in a way that would make Rambo proud, all set to tunes popular during the Vietnam War. The gameplay itself isn't anything spectacular for a third-person shooter and the game is aware of it: the shooter cliches are a disconcerting reminder that, in the end, it's just another video game. One of the loading messages in the game points to this in a frank manner, stating "to kill for yourself is murder. To kill for your government is heroic. To kill for entertainment is harmless." Additionally, the Radioman, an antagonist in the game, taunts Walker as the Delta Force assaults his holdings, asking "Where's all this violence coming from? Is it the video games? I bet it's the video games," referencing Walker and his men's learned brutality. The game seemingly asks players what their response might be, just how much of that response is guided by the fact that the events are unfolding in a world of fiction, and just how much that changes things, if at all.

"The US military does not condone the killing of unarmed combatants. But this isn't real, so why should you care?"

Spec Ops: The Line places players in high pressure situations where the stakes are immeasurable and the consequences are devastating no matter the action taken. So what is the game about, then? One of the key aspects of any medium is the audience's ability to take away however much they want; the audience can choose to make the experience as meaningful or as a thoughtless as they want. Spec Ops: The Line acknowledges this by showing two facets: yet another military shooter with little questions asked or a view into the savagery of man. Conrad, in Heart of Darkness, depicted how there is no difference between the uncivilized and the civilized and here in Spec Ops: The Line, the player can view Walker and the men of the 33rd as just faceless soldiers in a fictional conflict or a representation of what desperation can bring out of humanity.

But ya' know, it's just a video game, too. Right?

Attack on Titan

I’ve never been too interested in anime and for a long time the only title I’ve watched in its entirety is Gurren Lagann. When I was younger, Mega Man, Transformers, Doraemon, and the proverbial Myazaki films enthralled me, but I’ve never really caught up with more recent anime series and franchises until I began watching Attack on Titan about a month back. Since then I’ve also completed Legend of Korra (which I thoroughly enjoyed and can’t wait to write about), but I figured I should write about my thoughts and reactions regarding Attack on Titan before I forget details.

i'm sure you've heard this somewhere

Attack on Titan, or Shingeki no Kyojin (進撃の巨人), is an anime based on the manga series written by Hajime Isayama and first aired in 2013. I’m not too familiar with manga artists or anime production studios so I really didn’t have any baseline standard going into the series except for the hysteria generated by anime fans and community members. Attack on Titan has since exploded in popularity not just in Japan but abroad as well, spawning many enthusiastic fans of the franchise and even a live action film in the making (I wonder how that’ll go).

The series is set in an indeterminate time period featuring elements of medieval and steampunk technology in which humanity has been nearly wiped out by titans: giant humanoids whose seemingly sole purpose is to eat humans despite lacking a need to do so. Titans are big, stupid, and present a horrendous mock-up of humanity. Humans have lived alongside titans for over a century now and the remnants of human civilization shelter themselves within a nest of three ridiculously large walls which are about fifty meters tall and encircles a landmass equivalent of modern Germany (sure, why not). The walls create a social hierarchy where the less fortunate live in the outermost ring where it is more dangerous to live and work whereas those on the high road get to live in comfort and safety in the center. Between human-looking titans and the ability for humanity to still retain its problems despite a common enemy, can you spot the “humanity-is-its-own-enemy” setup?

kinda like the earth kingdom

If you’re asking yourself “Where did the walls come from—did people build them?” or “Who are the titans? Where did they come from?” I’d like to answer by telling you how the series runs on cliffhangers and unanswered questions, almost to an unhealthily expected degree. The Attack on Titan universe is dark, primal, and mysterious, tantalizing viewers to find out more about the world and its inhabitants with each episode, only to lure the views further with more questions than answers.

Enter our three protagonists, the paragon trio of archetypes: Eren Jaeger, his adoptive sister Mikasa Ackerman, and their friend Armin Arlert. Let’s keep this short: Eren is vengeful but inexperienced and learns to temper and trust himself and, more importantly, others; Mikasa is brooding yet sensible and is the female protagonist badass who excels at just about everything except her only exploitable weakness is her will to do anything to keep Eren safe; Armin is the nerdy wuss who is at first ready to give up on everything but is then inspired by his friends through their mutual suffering and perseverance despite the horrific genocide they live through.

armin, eren, and mikasa

Anyhow, the walls have never been breached for as long as anyone can remember and most humans have never seen a titan until one fateful day when the titans upped the ante of the human’s ridiculously high walls with a ridiculously high titan. This Colossus Titan is different: its actions and motions are filled with purpose and meaning, hinting at a higher level of intelligence. The Colossus wrecks the outermost wall and disappears, prompting a horrific attack on Eren’s hometown. The attack demonstrates to Eren just how powerless and weak humanity is compared to the titans. As a titan kills his family and destroys his home, a young Eren escapes with Mikasa and Armin, vowing to become stronger to enact vengeance on the titans by hunting them down, one-by-one.  

The series follows the three anti-stooges as they confront horrid reality and decide to take the fight to the titans by enlisting in the military. Joined by other people from around the walls that have heard about the attacks and people from their own devastated hometown, the three protagonists and a cast of red-shirts begin their training and learn how to combat the titans. What follows is a series of trials ranging from character relations and tensions to practical combat experience and the horrors of war. By the way, when I say that a cast of red shirts follows Eren, Mikasa, and Armin, I don’t mean disrespect by insinuating that the background cast isn’t fleshed out or interesting. The supporting cast members from various backgrounds with a variety of attitudes increases the scale and stake involved, showcasing that the battle isn’t just a regional issue, but one that all of humanity is involved in. However, when you do have that many characters in a dark fantasy setting, it’s hard to not see it coming.

Much like how fans of The Walking Dead might say that the show isn’t about the gory, tense action that comes from killing hordes of zombies, Attack on Titan is much the same. However, when it does become time to kill hordes of titans, Attack on Titan does it spectacularly and in a maximalist fashion. Although conventional weapons like muskets and cannons are utilized in the Attack on Titan universe, the primary method of fighting titans involves the use of Maneuver Gear that allows its user to fly through the air using a system of wires, pulleys, and gas propulsion in order to close in on a titan to deliver the killing blow. The resultant action sequences are vertigo inducing, physics defying acts of combat acrobatics with astonishing animation quality and direction that takes the audience along with the characters through the Maneuver Gear motions.   

it feels like they use a repeating tile set or something. but it's pretty cool!

Beyond its audio-visual presentation, the themes presented in Attack on Titan are striking and resonate within human history. The article “A beginner's guide to 'Attack onTitan,' the most intense anime of 2013” from The Daily Dot summarizes it pretty well: “the giants in Attack on Titan are allegorical, serving as the gruesome pallette [sic] for an exploration of war and human injustice.” Furthermore, the titans themselves were inspired by 19^th century Spanish artist Francisco Goya, who presented much of the same themes regarding the horrors of war through giant, terror-inducing beings. In the truly dog-eat-dog world of Attack on Titan, the hunter-prey relationship is made apparent enough and it’s hard not to cheer for our human counterparts to succeed in their quest for freedom from the reign of titans, and in doing so, perhaps finding a way out of the hunter-prey relationship.

goya's the colossus and isayama's titan

The military drama angle also added commentary on fascism within the series. Another hallmark theme of Attack on Titan is sacrificing oneself for the good of humanity. The parallels with nationalism and the walls representing a failed isolationist policy are significant; the ideas expressed in Attack on Titan feels like a call-to-arms that glorifies nationalism with appeal to the hip young kids the more I think about it. Here’s an interesting article from Twitch Film that discusses the nationalism aspect in greater detail (although I can’t agree with the stupid title it has). I don’t know if Isayama had a nationalist angle going into the creation of Attack on Titan, although the details that point to it are significant enough to warrant a brief mentioning. Whether or not the nationalist angle was one of the series utilities, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were one of the sources of appeal to its audiences, at least at a subconscious level.

Speculation and interpretation aside, that’s Attack on Titan: a dark, fantasy action anime series with an effective dose of war drama. The brooding tone of terror and the depiction of a cruel world may dishearten some, but the perseverance of the characters despite the circumstances and the sacrifices they make are inspiring. Mikasa couldn’t have said it any better when she states, “the world is cruel, but it’s also beautiful.” The conflict between the savagery of the titans and the humans depicts the worst of wartime atrocities from both sides, but at the same time sees the best of humanity coming through. Attack on Titan was inspiring and gut wrenching, if not terrifying in its messages and themes. 

Team Fortress 2: The Gun Mettle Update

Ever since the day that unusual hats were first summoned into our plane of existence through a money burning, tear harvesting ritual, an isolated cult has had their members waving their hands to and fro, hoping to appease the Lovecraftian entity that is the Team Fortress 2 development team, praying one day for an ability to finally lift their buckets of paint, incant some nether spells, and gorge their weapons in bright pink and lime green. Also the blood of their enemies. The unholy lights brought about by the unperfected and unstable versions of the above ritual has lead to many environmental and personal hazards. After many police hearings, the TF2 team decided to intervene, reasoning that demonic paint rituals were better handled by professionals, lest anymore people get hurt; enter the Gun Mettle Update!

wait what

The Gun Mettle Campaign: 

i.e. Collector's Canadian strange unusual kill-streak weapons

The update's primary focus is the introduction of a three month long contract system in TF2. Upon purchasing access to the Gun Mettle Campaign, players will be able to attempt two contracts each week. Upon completion, each contract will award players a decorated weapon with a skin system similar to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's. 

Liking the new skins or not aside (because we've lived through painted hats, kill-streak-fire-from-eyes, and Australium weapons), I think the new contracts are a lot of fun and remind me of daily reward systems from MMOs. The week long span for two skins limits the contract content, however; it would've been nice to see an unpaid contract system by which players could earn weekly item drops in a guaranteed fashion if they hadn't received their random drops yet.

several hundred million dollar paint jobs

New Maps:

i.e. Cactus Canyon and Asteroid are still in beta.

Three new community maps have been added to the official support list: Borneo, a single stage payload map; Suijin, a Japanese themed, rooftop fighting fetish, king of the hill map; Snowplow, a "well-that-wasn't-so-complex-after-all" control point map. To round the new maps off, the TF2 team has also created a map of their own: Powerhouse, the spiritual successor to Hydro.

Community mapmaking is a powerful asset to the TF2 community and it is always great to see continued love and support.

build on the roof

New Taunts:

i.e. the conga is now for peasants.

Gameplay Changes

i.e. still no one uses the Panic Attack

A full listing of the gameplay changes can be found at the bottom of the update page. 

Prior to this update, I was having a lot of difficulty pinning down what direction TF2 was headed in. Unfinished maps (Asteroid, Cactus Canyon) and beta game modes (Mannpower), to me at least, seemed like an experiment in trying to orient game updates to be driven more by players instead of developers by including players in the quality assurance step, en masse. Even after all the talks of a competitive matchmaking coming along, there weren't many signs of it coming along- until now.

In general, Spy and Heavy received buffs to make them more survivable in extended confrontations and Engineer's buildings deploy quicker; these changes all seem to gear them up for competitive gameplay where the firepower and mobility of Scouts, Soldiers, and Demomen seem to dominate. 

Additionally, weapons from fallen enemies can now be picked up if it is a weapon usable by your class. Your dreams of destroying your enemies and then taking their prized heirlooms away as a constant reminder to them "I HAVE KICKED YOUR ASS AT LEAST ONCE" are finally going to come true! If you can kick their ass at least once.

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Source 2 is around the corner with Dota 2 Reborn having been announced. Perhaps the matchmaking update for Team Fortress 2 will occur after the Gun Mettle Campaign is over? Until then, we have a very nice and easy update to once again continue breathing fresh air into this eight year old game.