Don't forget Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines. Everyone always seems to when this topic comes up. Troika had an interesting take on what Deus Ex did before them.
Another connection between these games - the protagonist does not start off soaked in blood, or even actually violent. Garret from Thief actively abhors violence, and views leaving a trail of bodies as unprofessional. JC is a police officer who hasn't killed anyone in the line of duty (yet), and the hacker of SS1 is a nonviolent criminal (so far as we know). Although character creation in System Shock Two is through the military, it can be through rear-area assignments, not combat. Most of the initial encounters with the enemy are self-defense. The first splicer/mutant/etc. engages the player simply for being present. Contrast this with games such as Wolfenstein and Call of Duty start the player off as a experienced agent/solder. The mission structure of the game is built around intentionally and aggressively entering the enemy's position.
Frequently yes. The (attempted) examination of ideologies relies on you being a normal-ish person. But that's not always true (Deus Ex, potentially System Shock 2, Dishonored). Sure, you may not start out as a serial killer but you can absolutely have a violent military background. They're not all Far Cry 3/This War of Mine.
Garrett pretty clearly straight up kills a dude in the opening cutscene of Thief and not for self defense. He also threatens violence on several occasions. I feel like fans have ghosted Thief so many times that they have created a fanon version of the pacifist Garrett. He carries a sword and lethal arrows to nearly every job, his best move is clubbing someone on the back of the head. Violence is only forbidden on higher difficulties and the logic is always that killing is sloppy or will reveal you were there. Not anything about "abhoring violence," which sounds more like a moral stance.
I was playing prey and was told that the key card number was 0451 and typed it in the RU-vid search bar so I would memorize it and this video came up. I ended up learning about this awesome Easter egg when I was just trying to memorize a code lol.
Strat-Edgy Productions I'm not surprised you listen to this guy. I really enjoy your reviews by the way and your insight into video games. Your content on the problem with open world games was one of the best I've ever seen.
Larry Psuedonym The idea is that the magic powers that the outsider gives you are funner and easyer to use in lethal playthroughs. He interperpates this as the outsider having a preference for chaotic outcomes, which bears out in the way he describes the various endings. Even Emily's powers in the sequel, while more useful in a non-lethal playthrough, are really really fun in a lethal one. And so the main religion in the world of Dishonoured is centred around trying to remove his influence, to a fanatical extent, and the main character, in a position of power, in the low chaos endings, is a balancing force, trying to use the magic to restore things to a healthy kind of governance (of which the Spymaster and Duke, in the first and second games, represent bad governance)
I'm super late to the party but most of the powers are far more interesting and you only really get that beautiful emergent play with lethal play. If you go non-lethal, it's basically just blink, choke, blink, choke...
... while killing zombies (or "Weepers") does count as killing people, and adds to your chaos. I'm still trying to sort out my feelings about this. Why am I so bloodthirsty... XD
Funny coincidence: 451 is by far the most used chord progression in western music. This is since Baroque over classical music over Jazz to todays pop-music. It's usually written as IV-V-I in music theory.
Wasn’t she voiced by the lead developer’s wife who at the time was a keyboardist for the band Tribe? I seem to recall hearing that somewhere, but I’m unsure whether it’s actually the case.
I love all your videos, however I must say that I really enjoy this one more that the other ones, mostly because it feels fresh or new since you're talking about a specific idea in many games instead a single game with many ideas
Definitely. I hope he carries on making this sort of content where he pulls back the lens from his usual single-game-focused ludo-thematic conversation (which is always awesome by the way) to show how they're shared and how they differ across games and genres. His video on Civ is one of my favourites because of this sort of analysis. This is one of the better gaming channels on youtube without doubt.
This video was so good! I'm really glad that you criticized your own conclusion. It's so important for analysts to be honest about the filter they put on the available data.
That's sort of true but there's more to it than that. These settings tend to have "gone wrong" internally from an extremist ideology built into the core structures of that society. So yes, any game with enemies needs to have some issues. But in most games, either the big existential threat is external (Doom, Half-Life, Halo, Mass Effect, Gears of War; any zombie apocalypse...) or it isn't really an existential threat at all, just a nuisance in that setting (pirates in Mass Effect; raiders in Fallout; bandits and goblins in most fantasy games; terrorists in modern military shooters).
@@Robert399 what's your take on the reapers then? I'd say mass effect handles them really fucking stupidly but at the core there's much the same deal of "synthetics overthrow organics" "organics oppress synthetics" with shepard as a possible balancing force between them
@@freddiekruger3339 ME3 is so bad I'm going to ignore it. In ME1 and ME2 the Reapers are very much an external, unknowable threat (Sovereign says as much in ME1, which I think is a cop-out - though given how bad the explanation was, I miss the days of not knowing). I don't consider the potential fall of the setting to be the result of an ideology. I get what you're saying about the Quarians and the Geth but I'd consider that more a point of interest than core to the setting. It doesn't really have anything to do with the Reapers; it's just a coincidence that the Reapers and the Geth happen to exist in this setting. (at least until ME3 tried, literally in the last 10 minutes, to make "organics will always create synthetic and then go to war and be destroyed by them but ooh there's a better way" the main point of the whole series - which again, so stupid I'm not even going to consider it)
Pretty sure the connection to *Farenheit 451* was debunked by either Warren Spector or Harvey Smith during a postmortem, though. I recall one of them saying that it was just the door code for their office at the time.
Warren Spector says the numbers just happened to be the keypad code for their building at looking glass. When you rent a building you don't necessarily choose your keypad code, since your landlord might choose it so they can get in. It's very possible it's literally just that and has nothing to do with the Bradbury book. I don't know why Spector wouldn't have explicitly said they chose it as a reference, rather than saying it was just the key code to their building.
I didn't think that Bioshock Infinite was saying that the truth was in the center. I thought it was trying to hold Booker responsible for his actions and forcing him to come to terms with all of the awful things he did. Booker wasn't ever trying to move people towards the center. And by making Comstock another Booker it calls into question all of Booker's own supposed beliefs and viewpoints. The game ends with him making sure that none of the events of the game would ever happen. At least in theory.
Bioshock Infinite's plot just kind of nullifies itself, though. If there is a new universe/timeline for every possible outcome of every event, then there are infinite universes where Elizabeth prevents Booker from doing those evil things and infinite universes where she doesn't, rendering the whole time travel thing kind of moot. For every Elizabeth that kills Booker, there will be one that doesn't.
If by "kill whitey" you mean "kill the man who is the most responsible for my ongoing economic misery and class-based segregation." The game clearly paints the revolutionary violence of the oppressed working class of Columbia as both reprehensible and equally as wrong as the ongoing system of largely racialized economic exploitation and segregation. The game ignores that the latter is responsible for the former, and that the social system it's set up in Columbia leaves the working class with no other recourse short of waiting for some upper-class savior to come along and fight for them in high society.
The game doesn't "ignore" that at all. It's clear what the Vox Populi is revolting against. But history is replete with revolutions that were just in spirit but corrupt in action. Your argument is the same one Mao used to justify burning libraries and killing clerics.
I just said something incredibly similar and scrolled down to find your comment Nazrega. I don't see many people acknowledging this central theme, though. It's probably because in the time we live in, racism is the more juicy topic than personal responsibility.
0451 memes aside, the immersive sim genre is probably my favourite genre of the last few years, right next to the 3d hyper combat of Platinum Games' games
This opening with the system shock 2 ost is amazing.. Engineering 2 is probably the best song of the whole ost and one of the best dnb track from the late 90s !! Amazing vid btw
3 years old video but I came back because I found another reference. It's in, of all games, Accounting Plus from Crows Crows Crows. It's on a dumpster in the alley way level.
shinobody why? the new deus ex games play completely different from the original and if you design a remake to be just like the original then i doubt it'd sell well
I find it interesting that technology is associated with individualism and nature with collectivism in System Shock 2. It's usually the other way around, especially in sci-fi.
8:06 9:00 This is an unflattering and almost deliberately false portrayal of Infinite's themes. Infinite was written as a personal story. It's not about fighting for any ideologies, it's about two people who get caught in the middle of the conflict. In interviews leading up to the game's release, Ken Levine made it extremely clear that neither Booker nor Elizabeth want to save the world. Their goals are to get out of the city and live her life (Elizabeth)/ repay his debts (Booker). Infinite is not saying revolutions to racism are just as bad as racism, but that people are bad and can corrupt anything, even the purist ideology. You praised The Last of Us for making a similar point with Joel (Even though one could argue that the sacrifice at the end would have been for the greater good). The point of this narrative, for Infinite, is that both sides, if they fight long enough, will go over the deep end and enter tremendous extremes. You can argue that Infinite did not do the best job (personally, I think they could have done more with portraying the Vox Populi's corruption), but that's not the point. The point is that both sides became rotten and began to have negative effects on two people who wanted nothing to do with it. Two people who desperately want to escape it. That's the story.
One of the key aspects of immersive sims is emergent gameplay, which, I believe, is the most common feature of the games bearing 0451 mark. Oh, and I wrote this and thought it's pretty accurate: 0 wrong approaches 4 impendent threats 5 tools at your disposal 1 way to lose, it's death
four is the minimum amount of things a person can hold in their mind without forgetting -> suits well for emergent threats as if you can hold the vars in your held, you can also manage it and make a plan. five is about having more instruments to deal with threats, than the amount of threats -> basically, you always have several ways out of any situation you got yourself into.
I really enjoy your videos, ever since getting directed to your channel from the guys at Extra Credits. I love listening, and understanding these topics, and hope to see way more from you in the future.
Too bad about the guy from Extra Credits abusing the other writers and staff, real shame we all watched his videos and thought he was cool when he was actually hurting other people at work every day.
I think there's often an underlying theme of the road to hell being paved with good intentions, with those good intentions being synonymous with traditional objective-chasing at the start of these titles. The recontextualisation that eventually reframes those good intentions is usually an expression of the possibility space for player agency through play that immersive sims represent. It's the "medium is the message" schtick all over I guess.
There's also a redefining twist in Prey, when Alex shows you the looking glass video in the Arboretum, but January calls it out just a couple of minutes later to monologue about the nature of purpose.
I just re-watched the intro to Another World and noticed that the code Lester uses to enter his lab is 4511932. Could that be the true originator of this lineage?
Fun fact, I animated on a kids show, and I got a shot where the boy enters the correct combination on a safe, so having the opportunity, I animated 0451.
After watching this, I'm really interested if you'd do a Playing as a Vampire video for Halloween. Yes, I know: That'd be a big episode, (Legacy of Kain, BloodRayne and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines all in one video), but I think it'd work. Plus: Vampyr is coming out the following month, so it'd be kind of necessary groundwork.
Mad props for mentioning Arx Fatalis. One of my favorite games growing up, and I based my college final project on it. Would love it if you did a review of the game!
Immersive sim has been so clunky, I've usually called them shock-likes. Knowing about this thread of 451, and it's original reference, think among my friends I'm just going to call them Fahrenheit games from now on.
I'm glad I found this video and your channel, it was an interesting watch that bears discussion. I feel like debating with you about Infinite woul be fun and productive.
I feel like Thief should also be considered as having three paths (if you add T3:Deadly Shadows into the mix). You can view the entire game as a commentary on the moderating force being just as bad as an extreme one, if allowed to fester or have too much control.
I've seen mixed messages on this. www.polygon.com/2015/4/6/8285529/looking-glass-history Here Tim Stellmach (Who was credit on Ultima Underworld 1/2, Systemshock, Thief, etc) says it was. And I've seen other bits that suggest it was, as well. I guess at this point whether it was or was not a reference is apocryphal?
I really like this video. Looking Glass' lineage has always been of great interest, of course, though I'm not sure if you could have just referred to all of these games as immersive sims or immersive sim-inspired games. That being said, l like the concept of this little number, a tiny reference linking all of these games together. It's just nice. I'm reminded of the role 413 plays in _Homestuck_.
That duality is about the only part of Infinite that is worthwhile. Though, duality is putting it wrong. You aren't fighting the Racists and then their Victims, you're fighting the Dominant Racists (for reasons entirely unrelated to their acts, which only serve to make them cartoon villians) and then finding out you helped the Racists of the Underclass. Who, like the majority of violent revolutionaries, destroy everything they touch and retroactively prove that those keeping them down were right to do so. Especially as they turn on themselves and their allies in the frenzy, because their actual goal was not a redress of injustices, but the reigns of power so they could commit injustices themselves.
I finally got around to playing the 2017 Prey and I really enjoyed it. I could easily describe it as Bioshock in space but I wouldn't compare the lead characters brother to Andrew Ryan. About the 'after the fall' thing I really did appreciate in the more recent Deus Ex games that society wasn't a compleate mess like in Bioshock or Prey, it might actually be interesting to have a game that is set during the fall... which Deus Ex kind of is... I guess?
