Starker on 1/9/2020 at 16:51
@Sulphur
I get what you mean by the Alien/Jaws reveal in terms of payoff, but games have also been doing this very same thing in other areas without there being a payoff whatsoever -- you don't need to have a spacewalk section with simulated weightlessness to convince a player that they are on a spaceship, for example. It's not so much about having a satisfying payoff than doing more with less under technological constraints, especially when you flesh it out with story and cutscenes and whatnot. I think what ends up hurting SS2 the most as far as horror is concerned is that the sound design and game design are leaps beyond what the visuals can keep up with. So in those terms, having a section of spaceship where the flesh intrudes the hull and pulsates and oozes and perhaps spawns creatures or creates environmental hazards might work much better for the purpose than a lacklustre simulated section of the Body of the Many.
Pyrian on 1/9/2020 at 17:21
Quote Posted by Starker
...you don't need to have a spacewalk section with simulated weightlessness to convince a player that they are on a spaceship, for example.
"It helps, though." -
PreySulphur on 1/9/2020 at 17:30
Quote Posted by Starker
I get what you mean by the Alien/Jaws reveal in terms of payoff, but games have also been doing this very same thing in other areas without there being a payoff whatsoever -- you don't need to have a spacewalk section with simulated weightlessness to convince a player that they are on a spaceship, for example.
I think it's important to clarify what those other areas are - if we're talking about mechanics or establishing things like threat level, etc., 'show, don't tell' is one of the central tenets of good design/storytelling, so no disagreement there.
There
does need to be a payoff in terms of confrontation with The Many as a secondary antagonist though, given that they've been established as pretty twisted from the outset; how that's done is up to working within the constraints of the engine and the game's design. I'm not pretending there were no better ways than 'slog through biomass to its core' - like I said, I'm not defending it. Whatever solution we come up with, though, it has to be true to the three act structure of the story where at this point the threat is faced head-on and dealt with, or there's a loss with a reversal built in. Anything less than that would be fairly unsatisfying, which is why the formula exists. It can be broken to subvert the structure and do something else instead, but SS2 is functionally and thematically a very traditional story, albeit well put-together.
@Pyrian - not just Prey, but Dead Space 1 as well with its excursion outside the Ishimura in all its heavy breathing but otherwise nearly soundless glory.
heywood on 1/9/2020 at 18:19
I liked going in there at first. It was properly creepy and mysterious even if it didn't look so good. But it didn't need to be that big or drag on so long. I had similar feelings about Xen in HL1.
They could have condensed the BoTM and designed it to be inside of the Rick. It didn't really need to be outside of the ship, which I thought was kind of weird for an organic creature. Also, they didn't have to take the body analogy quite so literally, including a digestive system, teeth, and a brain. Pardon me while I get really fan wanky, but suppose the OSA spooks on the Rick crew had some kind of secret super psi-amp, which the Many had commandeered to communicate across the ships as well as to project the voices and images to the player. The Many are protecting it within a biomass, and your objective for going into the biomass is to take it over, which breaks their collective consciousness, and then you use it to psi-hack into SHODAN which is how you enter cyberspace. Point is, there are ways they could have made it fit better into the rest of the game and not be such a slog.
ZylonBane on 2/9/2020 at 19:35
Your imagination really runs toward the mundane, doesn't it? "Why would the Many be outside? It's cold outside. They should stay inside, where it's warm and there's chairs." "Why should the Many be psychic? They should just use the Sooper Psi Amp those nice OSA boys developed. What nice boys."
