Meaningful choice in Papers Please. (Papers Please review.)

This review has been a long time in coming. I've been a little worried about talking about this game because of how dark it is, but here it is. I hope you enjoy my review of Papers Please.

The Story:

Congratulations.
The October labor lottery is complete. Your name was pulled.
For immediate placement, report to The Ministry of Admission at Grestin Border Checkpoint.
An apartment will be provided for you and your family in East Grestin. Expect a Class-8 dwelling.
Glory to Arstotzka

Gameplay:

In Papers Please, you play as the border control officer of the fictional communist country of Arstotzka, and it is your task to view the passports of the people who wish to enter the country and decide whether or not to let them enter. Gameplay consists of you dragging paper, and passports around your small desk, checking for any discrepancies in the information given to you, and then using the appropriate stamp to either let the person into the country or not. It's weird because somehow the developer has managed to make a quite addicting "game system" out of one of the most mundane jobs known to humankind. I mean it's really fun, but man does it get hard later on!

People start giving you extra pieces of paper, they forge IDs, try to smuggle contraband through, not even to mention the fact that your government changes its rules concerning immigration every single day. Luckily you have a handy-dandy notebook to help you remember all the rules, a discrepancy detector for the IDs, and a full body scanner for the really androgynous people to if they are the gender they say they are. (BTW if you plan on playing this game, turn nudity off. That way you won't get any unwanted questions.)
       The problem is Papers Please lasts about five hours, and halfway through that fun Gameplay I mentioned before starts to feel like actual work. And if you are playing the game in one sitting, (like you should,) you start making the stupidest mistakes due to how hard the game gets. This is where you will want to throw your mouse across the room, punch your computer screen in a fit of rage, and wish to the heavens that you had never bought this forsaken game!

But then something beautiful happens, you start to see the real point of Papers Please. The thing that saves this game is the element of meaningful choice.

I can see you all looking at this post and saying, "But Vollmain, there are tons of games that do that.
This isn't that unique of a thing!" And my reply is "Yes, yes." There are lots of games that give the player the ability to make choices that change the narrative as a whole: Mass Effect, The Walking Dead the game, etc.

And while I do love Mass Effect for obvious reasons;

 (Liara T'soni: strong, smart, attractive, and an Archaeologist. She's that cool!)

I feel that Papers Please takes the cake on this one. Thing is in other games, the decisions you have to make tend to make huge changes to the story, and they also make a big deal out of them by pausing the game and making you choose between two options.

Papers Please doesn't really do that. The choices you make are part of the actual Gameplay, and they aren't going to be made into a big spectacle, or one of the selling points of the game. Let me try to explain this as best I can:

Your job in the the game is to ONLY let in the people have the proper paperwork, and not those who don't. And you are penalized for messing up. If you let in someone you are not supposed to, the all-seeing-eye of your superior will tell you how you messed up, and then will give you a warning not to do it again. If you slip up three times they will begin to dock your for every mistake you make for the rest of the round, and you NEED that money. In between rounds of the game, you will go home and will have to pay the bills in order to make sure that your family of four stays healthy, warm, and well fed. You will also have to pay rent for the house you are living in.

So there comes these times in the game where a family of two will be trying to enter the country, but only one of them has a passport. Do you split up the family in effect saving your own, or do you let them in knowing that you might be sending your family to their deaths? Some characters are trying to escape the violence and poverty of their own country, and if you send them back they'll die. You sometimes get the option to detain people. If you do detain them, you send them to a building that people enter, but never seem to leave, and there is an incentive to doing this. Suddenly the faceless paper pusher that you are playing will begin to become human, as you realize that the characters you meet in the game aren't really characters at all, they represent real people who you may well be sending to their deaths.

Music and Presentation:

The pixel art style of Papers Please and the seemingly limited color pallet make the world of Papers Please seem dark and hopeless. While there are some other colors in the game, the majority of the world is very, very grey.

But the game isn't without it's funny and lighthearted moments. About twenty minutes into the game you meet Jorji Costava, who will show up through out the rest of the game.

I won't spoil anything, but just know that Jorji is the kind of person I would want to hug.

In between each level of the game, The Anthem of Arstotzka plays. It isn't the only song in the game, but it is the only one you will hear until the end of the game. It also conveys a sense of hopelessness, but it also marches along like an anthem should. I like it a lot.

The Verdict and Final thoughts:

It starts off as a game that's fun to play, but after awhile Papers Please shows its true mission: To show a satirical allegory about a post WWII era by putting you, the player, in the middle of it. It baffles me that the type of things in this game actually happened, and continue to happen in the real world. Papers Please is a game that deserves to be played, not only because it is a fantastic game, but because of its insight into our world.

I'm giving Papers Please Nine out of Ten stars. Papers Please is a "Must Play" game.

"The Order Knows."

Support Net Neutrality

https://www.battleforthenet.com/sept10th/

News update for you!

Hey guys, I've been in Europe for the past month so that's why you haven't seen a whole lot of new posts. But I'm happy to announce two new things I'm going to be doing here on the blog.

First off I'm thinking of having a new style of post. Some of you may have guessed but I'm really into anime. I like it a lot, so I thought I would start talking about it! These posts won't exactly be reviews of the shows, as they are just me recommending anime I like to you. So that should be fun.

I will go in depth into the story, the history of the particular anime, the animation, and the music as I try my hardest to get you hooked to some of the best shows the art form has to offer.

I will also be talking about some of the anime that changed that genre of anime as a whole. I'm pretty excited for this myself!

This piece of news should be even more exciting for some of you! Starting sometime in September I will began publishing posts three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And if I can't post them on those days I will post the day afterward. And if I really mess up and miss a whole week or something, I will post extra on the following week!

I hope you guys are as excited for this as I am!

See you Space Cowboy... (Crap I actually have to start writing!)

Dawn of the planet of the apes! (Short and sweet review)

APE HAS KILLED APE!

I love the planet of the apes movies, ever since I was a little kid. The original movies were brilliant pieces of science fiction. Then they tried to reboot it in the early 2000's, and failed. That movie is terrible.

Lucky in 2011 another reboot by the name of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," succeeded in bringing the greatness of the original movies to the average moviegoers.

 This is the Short and Sweet review to that movies sequel: "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes."

The movie in the shortest possible manner:

It's been ten years since the Simian flu wiped out most of mankind. Now a small outpost of humans in California is running out of power. Their solution is to activate a dam in the middle muir woods. The only thing that stands in there way is a large group of intelligent apes led by Caesar (Played by Andy Serkis.)

Will they be able to make peace with the Apes, or will they be forced to fight? Maybe prejudice will force them into conflict. But if they do fight, both sides will lose everything.


I love this movie. The stakes are really high, if they fight (which they do,) both sides will really lose everything. The Humans have a great setup in there outpost, and the Apes have created they're own little world in the forest.

The Apes look amazing! This is some of the best motion capture ever put in film.

 Andy Serkis gives a stand out performance in this movie, you see him and you see an ape! Not one moment in this movie did I see him as Andy Serkis, he WAS Caesar.

The action is top notch, guns, explosions, it's all here.

 But there is also a lot of smart questions about family, and what it means to be human.

I won't tell you anything else. Go see this movie.

Dawn of the planet of the Apes gets ten out of ten stars.

You are no Ape!

Shovel Knight First Impressions

So I've been waiting for over a year for this game to come out, and I was stoked to try it out. Unfortunately it hasn't come out on Mac yet so I couldn't play it. But a friend of my was kind enough to let me try it out on his computer, so I am able to now tell you about this game.

Shovel knight is somewhat of a tribute to the 8-bit classics of the 80's. It is easy to notice this because it borrows lots of elements from games like Castlevania and Megaman. But unlike other indie games that are just collections of references, and gameplay copied from the good ol' days of gaming, Shovel knight is it's own game. It stands on it's own instead of relying on the legacy of the games that give us nostalgia. There is enough gameplay here that is original that it doesn't live in the shadow of any other game.

That being said it also looks, and plays like one of those games. Granted it couldn't have some of the graphics that does if it was from that time. But if you sat someone down who had never heard of this game before they might mistake it for one of those games.

The gameplay is solid, I have loved every minute that I have played. I feel that I am in complete control of my character when I am playing. If my finger so much as lifts from one of the controls, Shovel knight will stop what he is doing. This makes dying in this game your fault. If you miscalculated a jump, or used the wrong move on an enemy, your death is all on you.

In each level of Shovel knight you jump, and fight your way to the end, where you will be able to fight one of the games many bosses. All of the levels are themed to the particular boss i.e. so Spector knight's stage is a giant graveyard. Each level also has it's own unique mechanics, and enemies that change up the gameplay. On Mole knight's stage you will bounce of a giant beetle as it makes its way across the screen. And on Propeller knight's stage you will have to deal with the way the wind flings you around.

Each boss is pretty tough, I died several times. The reason they are tough is they don't have attack patterns. In games like Megaman it was always about memorizing the pattern of how the boss attacked, and then exploiting that pattern. In Shovel knight however this is not the case. Each boss has several attacks, and uses them depending on what is happening in the battle, rather then just in a set order. This makes the battles WAY more challenging than in other games. Now you have to learn to recognize an attack, rather than a pattern.

Unlike the other games of it's kind Shovel knight relies a lot on loot. Money is everywhere, and you need it all! Everything costs money, boosts to your health and magic, upgrades, and the relics that are found in chests. But Shovel knight does have many ways of acquiring money on his journey. He can dig in dirt piles, defeat enemies, and find chests. There are secret areas EVERYWHERE in this game, these usually have the most loot. The other thing is that the upgrades you buy are more useful than just boosting your attack damage. One makes it easier to use magic, at the cost of you taking extra damage. And another lets you have a super swing after two successful downstabs.

One of my favorite parts of the game is the way the balanced the game for newbs, and experts alike. Each level has several checkpoints making the game easier for losers. But if you are pro, (or an idiot) you can destroy the checkpoint for money. If you do that checkpoint is gone for the rest of the time playing the level. And if you die you start back farther back in the level. You also lose money when you die, which you can get back as long as you don't die again. This adds this extra dilemma to the game: more money, or restart further back.

I haven't even finished playing the game and I already know what I am going to rate it. This game is by far the best game to come out this year. You guys can't stop me, I'm giving Shovel knight ten out of ten stars. Shovel knight is a "Masterpiece."

Shovel for Justice!

So there's three villains, but one of them is only onscreen for about 5 minutes. (Amazing Spiderman 2 review)

Here is my full length review of Amazing Spiderman 2. If you want less info but still want to see what I thought of the movie, please check out my short and sweet review below this one.

Anyway let's do this thing.

The Story:

Peter Parker aka Spiderman, misses the graduation of his girlfriend Gwen Stacy because he was out fighting crime. Max Dillon an employee at Oscorp, his saved by Spiderman when he is nearly run over by a large truck that the "Web head" was chasing. After Peter tells Max that he is Peter's eyes and hears, Max becomes obsessed with Spiderman. On his birthday Max has to stay after hours, to fix a electrical issue. But he gets electrocuted, and falls into a vat of genetically engineered electric eels. When he wakes up, he finds that he now has blue skin an electricity flowing through him. Spiderman confronts him after he attacks several cops. Max now using the name Electro discovers that Spiderman doesn't recognize him, and they become enemies.

The Movie:

So yeah Spiderman 2 is awesome, go see it. I'm not kidding, stop what you're doing and go see this movie. I'll wait until you come back.

...

What are you still doing here? I told you to go see it! Fine I'll finish reviewing the dang thing.


So I guess I'll start out by saying that Amazing Spiderman 2 is vastly superior to the original. And The Amazing Spiderman was phenomenal film. I think though that this one is also much darker than the first movie. There is literally a scene in this movie where a guy is killed, only to be brought back 3 seconds later so that he can be killed again, well sort of. The villain's need the guy to get something they want.

And while I'm on the subject the villains are awesome! Well all except Paul Giamatti as the Rhino. It's not that he is a bad actor, and it's not that he is bad at the role. He's only on the screen for about all of 5 minutes in this movie. There just isn't enough of him in this movie! You get the feeling that the only reason he's on screen at all is because they're setting up for the next movie.

Jamie Foxx as Electro is great. You really feel for this guy. He has a crappy job, with a boss that treats him like dirt. And to top it all off they don't acknowledge him for designing a giant set of power generating poles which powers the whole city. No wonder Max turned evil, everyone treated him like crap when he was good.

But hands down my favorite of the villains is Dean DeHaan as Harry Osborne/The Green Goblin. He wants a sample of Spiderman's blood, because he thinks that it will save him from a disease he inherited from his father. Oscorp is also taken from him, leaving him with none of his fathers research into the disease. Dean makes Harry into a very tragic character who is grasping onto what little time he has left. And when he turns into the Goblin, he got the evil smile and laugh down.

Blurred because I don't want to spoil how evil he looks.  

Oh and before you ask the villains are handled better then in Spiderman 3.

Oh man it's so STUPID.

Emma Stone is still great, and she has great chemistry with Andrew Garfield. And its pretty much because they are dating in real life.

Andrew Garfield is still really awesome in his role. He's got the role of Spiderman down to a science. And he's got the humor down as well. He is Spiderman. Forget Tobey Maguire that never happened, because Andrew Garfield is the only person I want to play Spiderman now. He's that good.

(Smaller because Andrew is Superior to Tobey.)

Btw the secret scene in this movie is just a trailer for Xmen: Days of futures past, so you can just skip the credits because it was kinda underwhelming and stupid.

Also what the heck happened to some of these scenes that are in the trailer? You know the Part where Harry says "Oscorp had you under surveillance." That scene isn't in the movie. I mean what the heck? They did the same thing in the trailers for the first movie. Its a marketing ploy, and I want them to stop doing this in the future.

The Music and Presentation:

The Music in this movie is good as usual. I don't know what it is about new movies but I feel like the music is good, but not really noteworthy. I guess it sets the mood? Yeah thats what it does. Theres also this song that plays whenever Electro on screen thats pretty cool.

There is a lot of slow motion in this movie, and I don't mind it that much. Probably because the fights move really fast that some of the time it can be hard to tell whats going on. Neither it going too fast or too slow is that big of a problem though.

The action was pretty cool, but that's a given.

I really like the way that Electro, and Green Goblin look; I think the studio did a lot of work on them.

Rhino not so much, but he's only there for 5 minutes anyway, so whatever.

The Verdict and Final Thoughts:

The Amazing Spiderman 2 has taken the place of Capt. America 2 as my favorite Marvel movie. The acting is great, the action phenomenal, and the Villains just plain awesome. They are definitely setting up a Sinister Six movie, and I'm excited about that. The only thing I didn't really like about the film was the marketing campaign. So with all this in mind I give Amazing Spiderman 2 nine out of ten stars. It's a "Must see" movie.

Seriously what was with that secret scene?