Shallow Depths

I'm slightly ashamed to admit to how much I enjoy games featuring mental asylums (and similar locations). I suppose it goes with the territory when you appreciate dark themes, uncertain layers of reality, and an ominous atmosphere.

Pervasive ideas about mentally ill meaning creepy, dangerous, subhuman and so on... those aren't so cool.  I know I'm treading through problematic territory on this one.  I suppose I find creepiness here which has more to do with how patients are treated than the patients themselves.

Barbaric treatments for mental conditions are some of my top nightmarish-fears, with the additional frightening element that 'barbaric' doesn't always mean 'in the past'. Not having asylums anymore doesn't mean everything's rosy.  So, I disturb myself by playing around in virtual asylums, then worry about the treatment of (and respect for) people with mental illnesses in the real word.

One of my favourite asylum-like locations is from Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines (spoilers ahead). For the unfamiliar, VtM includes a whole clan of insane vampires: The Malkavians. It's that well-worn idea of insanity as a two-edged gift, balancing madness with unique insight. Bloodlines eventually sends you to the mansion of Dr. Grout, the head Malkavian who has mysteriously disappeared.

Even in Grout's absence the influence of a powerful, disturbing vampire on the mansion is tangible. He was also kind enough to leave audio logs lying around, just to add to the atmosphere. It actually makes some sense for a change, as a scientist recording his thoughts and observations. Grout's insanity doesn't make him incomprehensible, he's articulate and focused (if twisted).

Another unfortunate casualty to tide of time: insane asylums. I lament their loss not only as brokerage houses for the breadth and depth of human psychosis, but also I shall mourn the disappearance of that peculiar environment present only in an insane asylum. That palpable atmosphere of blistered brains and churning bowels, the odiferous melange of freely flowing bodily humours, that gently rolling cacophony of distant sobs and screams, the muttered cursing of perceived enemies and the blissful gurgling of the lobotomized like a new-born babe discovering the sky. I shall still find test subjects as surely as I find bloody sustenance in the night, but this climate, I fear, will never be replicated.

Dr. Grout is a psychologist from an earlier time, twisted by vampirism and the Malkavian condition. He hasn't taken too kindly to the developments made in his field. Dismissive of the new-fangled ideas of Freud, he is bitter about phrenology's fall from grace and continues his more physical approach to psychology in private.

The mansion is populated by Grout's experiments, presumably former patients who have undergone crude brain surgery. The women sob quietly in corners, but quickly pull a knife if you fall for their deception. The men are more openly violent. I wonder if Grout performed different experiments on men and women, due to some old-fashioned sensibility. But maybe I'm being too generous to the game designers.

Grout sits in that awkward place between doctor and patient as he tries to make sense of his own condition. More recently, hidden segments of The Chronicle of Arkham in Batman: Arkham Asylum were used in a similar way to Grout's audio tapes. Both look back into history to describe barbaric treatment of mental patients. Both feature a doctor who has themselves turned to madness and violence.

Amadeus Arkham is more openly malicious, dealing exclusively with the criminally insane and treating them like animals. He's fueled by revenge. Grout, for all his love of screaming and crying patients, seems oddly detached. Chillingly unemotional. And yet, he's still motivated by love for his wife.

These are tragic stories for everyone involved, without any real concept of 'good'. Just beings in various states of inflicting and receiving suffering. My Bloodlines vampire is still a vampire, motivated most by self-preservation. Batman's a hero, but treads close to the line between hero and villain.

I'll avoid a longer discussion of the inmates of Arkham Asylum or I'll be here all night.  What actually prompted this post was recently playing through the 1998 adventure game Sanitarium.  It seemed like something I had to play sooner or later, combining my virtual asylum hopping with my point-and-click adventure habit.  Good Old Games calls Sanitarium "one of the most immersive and chilling psychological horror games ever created" and describes the story as "incredibly good and enthralling". Many people seem to have good memories of it.
Playing older games means putting up with a few things, in this case particularly the awkward path-finding and shoddy voice acting.  The main character's over-acted lines tend to make me laugh rather than give me the creeps: "Oh God, it's horrible".

I take these elements in stride.  What I wasn't quite expecting was just how batshit erratic Sanitarium is.  It opens with its best trick, sending you from the run-down asylum to a delusion-induced world full of creepy, deformed children. There are hidden bodies in the boarded up school-house, and everyone's afraid of the pumpkin patch. Thus far we have the kind of atmosphere I was expecting. But it's all downhill from there.

That supposedly "good and enthralling" story jumps between insects trying to take over the planet, battles between Aztec gods, an abandoned fairground and various other locations. Admittedly fairgrounds have spooky potential (nothing is scarier than clowns), but it's garish next to everything else, highlighting the inconsistency even more.

Leaving aside any problematic ideas here about what it means to be insane, the major issue is playing with different concepts of reality while making it very clear which parts are real and which are delusion. Throwing in the likes of aliens, comic book characters, and a goddamn giant squid boy will do that. When elements of reality creep in it tends to be obvious. I was hoping to be proven wrong: a twist at the end at least to make reality murky, perhaps, but it never happened.

Without that meaningful confusion what's left is a mess with no coherent vision. It's like a bunch of short adventure games strung together with a crude plot attempting to tack everything together. This isn't even B-grade material, which might not have surprised me except for some people's raving praise. I've played worse adventure games, mind, but there's really nothing special here. Sanitarium made me question my love of asylum games.
After my disappointment with Sanitarium I could at least find a more consistent asylum in Lylian Episode One: Paranoid Friendship. It's a side-scrolling platformer, featuring a girl beating things up with the untied arms of her straight jacket. It's not my best genre, and if it were I'd be complaining about uninspired combat, but it gets the atmosphere right. I gather episode two will be more puzzle-based, which would suit it much better.

Lylian fights her way through Hacklaster Hospital armed with her heavily starched sleeves and an over-active imagination. Exploring different versions of the world never feels wrong (or only in the way it should feel wrong). The creepy asylum and reality-shifting is quirky without degenerating into stupid. Lylian herself is disturbed enough to justify her odd reality.

In Lylian reality is suitably unknown. Lylian and the protagonist of Sanitarium both provide an imperfect viewpoint, but in Sanitarium's case our own sanity lets us see past his limitations. With Lylian we're stuck with her warped view of the world, and although we can assume a lot of what we're seeing isn't real it's impossible to determine what might have some basis in reality.

There might be conspiracies going on here, or just a whole lot of delusions. Episode one was too short to say too much more, but I will be looking out for future Lylian installments.

I've been a bit sick over the last week.  That hasn't been conducive to a lot of posting, but did mean some quiet gaming time.  I should probably be tackling my stack of shame but, as often happens, I was tempted by shiny new experiences instead.

Firstly, I downloaded a copy of Trine, gladly snapped up on sale for $5 on Steam.

Trine is a game I almost love.  I was charmed by its beauty and fairytale atmosphere.  The graphics have a sort of intimate quality.  Everything feels a little bit shiny and fantastical, but with a softness to it.  The overall vibe really works for me.

Unfortunately, I soon became frustrated, especially with the combat.  I keep wanting the skeletons to go away so I can focus on navigating the levels, which is really the better part of the experience.  The controls felt just a little bit off and, having been a little fuzzy in the head recently, I wasn't well equipped to deal with them.  In truth, I've only made it through a few levels so far.

For the unfamiliar, Trine is a 2D platform puzzle game, in which you swap between the three main characters to take advantage of their different abilities.

The Wizard is a sleazy character, who is normally more concerned with impressing the ladies than developing his magical aptitude.  He can conjure or levitate objects, but has only very limited combat utility.  The Thief fights using a bow and arrow, and has a grappling hook for swinging from wooden objects.  She is the quiet member of the group, patiently biding her time and looking for an advantage.  The Knight is our well meaning (but not very smart) melee-focused character.  He has dreams of proving himself a hero, but isn't actually sure what "undead" means.

Yes, the characters are all classic archetypes.  This is an unashamedly fairytale setting, and I don't think that diminishes the experience at all.  I was enjoyed the initial game scenes, and was happy to be drawn into this decaying fantasy kingdom.

I really wanted to love this experience, but it falls just a little bit short.  It feels like a great game in potential.  I hope that when I sit down and try it again as a healthy person things will go better.

The thing about a new console is the sudden exposure to a bunch of new games (often just new to me, but never mind). So, I've been working on speed-reviews, for the fun of it.

In alphabetical order...

Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice (PS3 exclusive)

This is more my partner's interest than mine. I understand Disgaea games are valued for their stories, humour and playing with stereotypes (and the fact that the level cap is 9999). It's not my sort of humour, the stories don't interest me much, and the gameplay is unashamedly repetitive. That said, I am enjoying this more than previous Disgaea games, and turn-based can be good when my brain is tired. Also, there are War Slugs, so that wins points.

Eternal Sonata (also available on XBox 360)


I was attracted to this game purely on concept. The story takes place in a dream sequence that Chopin has on his death bed. It also includes interludes about Chopin's life, the first of which was about his relationship with George Sand, who seems a very interesting woman. Eternal Sonata is a very pretty game, in an anime, non-realistic way. And the music is of course very beautiful. The people and places are all named after musical terms. Beyond that it's probably a fairly standard JRPG, but I'm enjoying it despite the fact that they usually drive me a bit mad (mostly due to linearity and annoying repetitive special attacks).

flOw (Also available on PSP, or as a Flash game here, at least for a couple of creatures)


flOw is a simple game, but it works. I think it's probably much easier to control in the flash version than using SIXAXIS, but that wouldn't be nearly as much fun. You are an aquatic micro-organism, and your goal is simply to eat, grow and evolve. It can be quite relaxing to float around "om nom nom"ing away. Though some of the creatures you encounter also include some challenge - things that run away quickly, or fight back etc. It's the sort of game you can either play aggressively and try to reach your goal, or just sit back and enjoy a sort of interactive screen saver. There is no actual death of your organism possible and trickier things can usually be skipped.

Flower (PS3 download exclusive)


I'm a little bit in love with this game, though there is a bit of debate about whether it is actually a game, or perhaps more of a technical demonstration. It probably has to be experienced - screen shots and descriptions don't do it proper justice. Flower is something of a successor to flOw, though you are now a breath of wind in a 3D landscape. Your aim is to pick up flower petals, and you will gradually build up a long trail of them. I think of it a bit like being a nature spirit tasked with making flowers open, though I doubt that was the intention. There is a potential for using this as a relaxation game, and happily whooshing about the landscape. It also takes some interesting turns, but I don't want to spoil it.

Folklore (PS3 exclusive)


This is probably the PS3 game I was most enthusiastic to track down, and was glad I did. In order to solve the mysteries in a small, Irish town it is necessary to travel to the netherworld and recover the memories of the dead. Different realms are based on concepts of the afterlife: the pleasurable faerie realm; a war zone created by modern people who experienced a violent death; the Endless Corridor representing the concept that nothing exists after death; and so on. Combat occurs by capturing, training, and controlling "Folks" (the creatures of these realms). It takes a bit of getting used to, but it works (arguably training folks gets a bit tedious, though I personally enjoy this sort of thing). Using SIXAXIS to suck the souls out of creatures is fun and appropriate, if sometimes hard work.

LittleBigPlanet (PS3 exclusive)


Cute, fun and has a great soundtrack. Things are made even cooler by Stephen Fry's narration. I also appreciate games with good co-op mode. LittleBigPlanet is also surprisingly challenging in places - cute does not equal easy. I found the level creator a bit cumbersome, but the scope of potential creations is huge. You could have a lot of fun with this as an engineering-geek.

Motorstorm: Pacific Rift (PS3 exclusive)


I don't play racing games often, and probably never would have gone near this if I didn't get it for free. But, occasionally I do enjoy racing around and I guess this is my current-generation replacement for Powerslide. I like my racing games to be fairly unrealistic, and this fits by allowing me to tear through jungles, fall into lava and so on. It has a fun range of vehicles, from big trucks through to motorbikes. And each track has multiple pathways, with the best option varying for the different vehicles. I can't comment on how it compares to any other current racing game, but it's a bit of fun.

Noby Noby Boy (PS3 download exclusive)


It's a $AU7 download, so I would have had to really hate this to feel ripped off. It is extremely strange though. Even stranger than I expected. There is no real goal - just stretch and eat things. It's kind of cute, but again in a very strange way. I'm not sure what more I can say really. I do appreciate the idea of playing around with less goal-orientated games though. It is probably another thing that is better to just play instead of trying to explain it.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3 exclusive)


I am actually a terrible person to review this. Every now and then I get the urge to buy a game with a lot of shooting or other action in it, even though I know my skills in this area are probably not going to be up to the task. That said, so far I'm getting by. After fighting with camera-angles in Tomb Raider that tempt you to risk leaps-of-death this is a rather nice change. And the scenery is pretty. I would probably prefer something with more puzzles and less action, though.

Valkyria Chronicles (PS3 exclusive)


Mixing genres sometimes results in a horrible mess, but I think this successfully pulls off a combination of RPG, RTS and FPS. All of the potential troops have personality. This necessarily means some of them are annoying, but I'll still take that over commanding a bunch of anonymous mooks. The strategy is interesting and the challenge level is good. The setting feels a bit ridiculous (JRPG issues surfacing again), but once you overlook that and run with it it's well worth it.