![]() there's a rare balance between the atmosphere and a logic to the progression, of throwing tricks at the player, but then providing a way out that actually makes some kind of sense. it's some cavern used for storage and some pretty gnarly torture that connects up to part of a castle. like level three, the setting seems to make sense on the surface. all of the strange things that seem possibly just incidental in the previous four levels actually come to fruition here. this level was done by Tom Hall, who did all of episode four. i'm going to go out on a limb and say that this is probably the level that inspired the careers of many game designers, at least if we're going by amount of keyboards smashed. i'm so deeply angered by the idea, and that's why i find it fascinating. The idea of an "impossible level", one that exists for mysterious reasons and never lets you beat it is ultimately a reason why i'm interested in game design as a thing. he said "why would the levels exist if you couldn't beat them?" he may have been right, but i still don't believe him. i had a friend in school laugh at me because i told him certain DOOM levels were supposed to be impossible. that carried over into my experiences with DOOM. maybe they're just there, floating in space, not ever meaning to have a solution. This is the level that planted the thought in my head, many years ago, that maybe some levels are just meant to be impossible. it gives you ample resources to beat it, like any other level, and just doesn't let you. it's like it's saying, go back to the fucking Kill Hitler episode to feel good about yourself, cause you're obviously not ready to deal with what's going on here. it's much more deeply unfair, because it breaks rules that the game previously lets on will never be broken. this is not unfairness in the sense that Kaizo Mario World, or I Wanna Be The Guy, or "challenge" levels are unfair. i say this despite it being totally manipulative and unfair. it's probably one of the best levels i'll ever write about, anyway. after looking through it again, i'm convinced that it's the closest thing the game has to a masterpiece. this is the only level to make me cry out of utter betrayal. With that in mind, i couldn't write an entry about level 3 of episode 4 ("A Dark Secret") without doing one about level 5. not to mention that there's so little critical vocabulary for games, and so few people who are even interested in looking at these things in any detail. that's an awfully all-encompassing term, but i think it has stayed that way because explaining all the ways an environment can affect a player is an impossible task. So i'll just compromise and say that "atmosphere" is the word that gamers use when they want to describe anything in the feel of a game that fits outside the gameplay mechanics. this is very far from the "atmosphere" of a Silent Hill 2, or Ico, which is part of the core of those two games. I feel like we've come to a point where the popular understanding of what that word means, among game designers, is making an environment evoke emotion by adding a lot of manipulative, gimmicky features into the game. i only imagine it being sincerely used now as an item on some checklist game companies have, like "necessary features to add before shipping". i have seen it in so many magazines and websites over the years that it seem like it's ceased to have an actual meaning. The rest of the level is still dense with enemies but the guards are easier to kill."atmospheric" is a popular staple word of the gamer vocabulary. Instead of using a secret to pick up the machine gun, it's faster (but way more risky) to mow down officers with a pistol and wait until you reach the SS to pick one up. The best way to deal with this situation is to get in a sneak-attack (2 frame window for officers) and fly through before the other officer gets in the way. The only way to survive is to keep moving, but there's a problem: an open tile between two enemies cannot be passed through without killing one of them, which is something that shows up in this hallway four times. Officers have an extremely short reaction time and will rapidly fill up the corridor if given even a sliver of time, so stopping and shooting some down is a losing strategy, especially if armed with only a pistol. The first hallway is flanked by a few dozen officers, which are mercifully deaf, for the most part. Episode 6 is a gauntlet of grueling levels packed with enemies, and it doesn't start you off with an easy level either. ![]()
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