Ratings and Reviews by Jimmy Maher
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A psychological study in constraint, April 28, 2008Rameses is a day in the life of a disaffected, alienated teenager at an Irish boarding school. Appropriately enough given its protagonist, it's a study in constraint. As you pass through a series of increasingly squirm-inducing scenes, you the player will try again and again to break Rameses out of the rut his life has become, only to have the game -- or, rather, Rameses himself -- refuse your requests with a variety of lame excuses. The game thus manages the neat trick of using its facade of interactivity to make its point -- said point being Rameses's refusal to recognize the control he has over his own life. The game is as railroaded as they come, but the mechanics serve the theme of the game.
None of which means this is a pleasant play. There are no happy endings here. Rameses is unlikable even to us who have privledged access to his real thoughts, and exasperating in that way that only a clinically depressed person can be. And yet, even as we want to slap him repeatedly, we also can perhaps begin to understand what it must be like to live in the prison he has made for himself. His one saving grace is that, unlike the bullies and fawners who surround him, he at least feels shame at his repeated moral failings.
I never want to play another game like this. Its central gimmick -- and I don't mean that word perjoratively -- will work exactly once. Here, though, it works brilliantly, even movingly.
Not quite the masterpiece it's often touted as, but still well worth playing, April 12, 2008This is easily one of the half-a-dozen or so most important games of the modern IF era. Importance does not always equate directly with quality, however. I played it again recently out of a desire to know how it holds up a decade later.
Well, it still plays reasonably well, although it's by no means without problems. Most of the complaints one can level at the game have been discussed ad nauseum by this point: it is minimally interactive (often little more than a short story with occasional > prompts), absolutely linear, and offers its player no plot agency whatsoever. Just the idea of a puzzleless work was quite bold in 1998; in 2008, it's old hat, and thus Photopia must completely live or die on the strength of its story.
That story is a pretty good one, but doesn't move me to the extent it does some others. From a purely literary perspective, it's a bit heavy-handed and emotionally manipulative. Alley, the teenage girl at its emotional core, is more of a sentimentalized geek wish-fufillment fantasy ("She's beautiful and charming and she likes science!") than a believable character. Still, and even if Cadre's literary reach exceeds his grasp a bit, the story is head and shoulders above the sort of fantasy or sci-fi pastiche that still marks most IF even today. And there is one moment when the story and gameplay come together beautifully, a moment that still stands for me as one of the most magical in all IF: that perfect guess the verb puzzle in the crystal maze.
Disturbing and difficult to like, but this brave work demands to be played, April 11, 2008It's hard to write a review of The Baron using conventional computer game metrics. Did I like the game? No, not really, but then I wasn't really intended to. The game deals with a very difficult real-life subject and manages to handle it with maturity and even a certain degree of understanding, to the extent such a thing can be understood. I was nevertheless left with conflicting emotions toward the person you play in the game. His crime is SO monstrous that even understanding cannot bring forgiveness.
There is at least one notable formal innovations in the game. In keeping with the focus on ethics, responsibility, and morality, you will occasionally be asked not just WHAT you wish to do but WHY you have done so. The game does a reasonably good job of keeping track of your choices and bringing them to your attention later, although there is only one fairly linear path through the game, and the only real global player agency over the outcome comes with your final choices.
The game is unfortunately plagued by a constant trickle of typos, and in various places its author chooses awkward phrasings that no native English speaker would ever employ. It's by no means a perfect work, but it is a very brave and important one. I don't expect you to enjoy it, but I do highly recommend that you play it. (I should note in closing, in case the above hints were not enough, that the game deals with a VERY sensitive, difficult subject. This is definitely one for adults only.)
Grappling with age-old questions of ends and means, April 5, 2008Fate initially appears to be a somewhat typical text adventure. As you play, though, more layers begin to appear as you decide just what you are willing to do to protect yourself, your unborn child, and your country. Your first couple of choices are quite morally unambiguous, but later choices are not so easy at all. Are you willing to sacrifice an innocent life to save a country? Does a man who committed a murder decades ago and sincerely repented still deserve to be punished for it? These are the sorts of questions you find yourself grappling with. You always have the choice to say no, to say that the end does not justify the means. However, the stakes are high for you and yours as well.
One might argue that the game is a bit manipulative. At several points when faced with what the game obviously wanted me to regard as a stark binary decision I thought of a more morally acceptable third way, but was refused the freedom to act on my idea. Nevertheless, Fate dares to ask the sort of big questions that conventional IF seldom gets near. A must-play for everyone.
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