The theme of trust in Ace Attorney 3. (not the original post from yesterday)

The last game in the Ace Attorney trilogy wrapped up a saga of love, law, and trust. (Obviously spoilers ahead)

I'm going to be focusing on the third game.  The first covers so many different kinds of love and the law in the Ace Attorney series is pretty messed up.

Trust, however, is a major point in the game.  Phoenix relies on trust because he may not always know what he is doing, but he knows what he is going for, an aquital.

He has trust in Maya, he has trust in Mia.  He has trust in Pearl, Miles, Larry, Gumshoe, and even Franciska has worked her way into his trust.

This all comes to a head in Case 3-5 where every bond he has built up gets tested.

Miles Edgeworth is the main testee.  Miles Edgeworth starts off in the first game as the rival.  As the unbeatable opponent.  As the man who would do ANYTHING to bring his opponent down.  He turns into someone much more complicated and worthy of the trust. I've talked about this before.   

Maya on her end always feels like she is never worthy of trust, but has fought and loved for the last three years so her trust can be given.  In the second game, it looks like nothing can help her, she doesn't even know if she is innocent, and yet she places her trust in Phoenix and he continues his eternal trust in her. 

Mia, despite being dead, has a large presence on the series because her family is a family of spirit mediums.  As a result, Maya or her cousin Pearl can summon Mia when needed.  As they can only have her there for limited times, Mia MUST be trusted because they can't really cross her or double check her information. 

Franciska throughout the second and a bit of the third games rapidly proves herself to be -while out for revenge- also interested in justice and does not cross lines.  While she may hide some information, she will never manipulate facts. 

Pearl is a little girl.  She can be trusted, partly because she has a horrible poker face.

Larry is an old school friend.  While he may unintentionally cause trouble, he will never intentionally act malicious or lie (even if he forgets things).  You may not like it, but you can trust him.

Detective Gumshoe works for the police, but he's also interested in justice being done to the right person.  He helps Phoenix out when he can. Sometime's it's physical help, sometimes it's information, but he does not lie and he has been fired for helping. 


This trust proves critical in the last case of game 3.  Maya has disappeared, her mother has been found dead in two places at the same time.  Pearl has also vanished.  Phoenix fell through a burning bridge and landed in a cold and swift river known for killing people, and no one is quite sure what happened.

Edgeworth trusts Larry enough when he says Phoenix is in danger to come back to the states. (Phoenix did have a bad cold but that's it.)  Phoenix trusts Edgeworth enough to have him do the work and help out in court despite how Edgeworth is a prosecutor.  And when spirit mediums and psychelocks come up, Edgeworth trusts Phoenix enough to just go along with it and accept it.  Gumshoe trusts everyone enough that they will do the right thing; that Edgeworth will protect the innocent, and that he will punish the guilty.  Franciska is trusted to help Phoenix when everyone is missing.  After all, she won't let anyone else get hurt.  Mia and Pearl have critical information that they can not reveal right away.  They are trusted when they appear that their witholding was not malicious or deliberate, and they know the truth.

If any of this was doubted, if anyone had lied.  If anyone was not worthy of the trust they were placed with when studying the case, then Maya would have been found guilty of matricide, the manipulator would have had the last laugh, and the killer would not have found his redemption.  (And, yes, that sentence makes sense in context.) 

I need to replay this level again.  The trust is heartbreaking and I'm lacking details. Though, you all should have played this game through before! It's worth it.

Started a post, found out it needed more research then I thought.

And then I thought about women in refrigerators.  But that's even MORE complicated.

(sigh)

So, I'll put some OC remix up for now while I work on tomorrow's post.

Rewriting History

If you watch Doctor Who, the idea of "You can't change history" has popped up.

If youtube cooperated, I would show you that.



However, the fact remains that games do frequently rewrite history when they take place in the real world. Let's look at Bioshock Infinite and their new trailer which has led me to this post.

Yes, I'm a sucker for Bioshock.  Anyway...

Any search in the history books will reveal that while the world's fair did happen, Columbia was not involved.  The Boxer rebellion did happen (it was a revolt in China against the British, Chinese Christians and other foreigners and foreign powers.)  but it ended in 1901 with an alliance of western nations defeating the imperial Chinese army and taking over Beijing. It's view over history is rather complicated so we're leaving it there.  However, China was very much NOT bombed in the original run.

Why do companies change the past for their stories?


Partly because it makes it easier to set in an alternate continuity.  We know that Columbia didn't actually bomb the Boxer Rebellion.  We know that the US won the American Revolution.  We know that King Henry the Eighth created Anglican Protestantism in order to divorce his wife.  These are very much facts.  So when something significant changes, we take it not only as an "Alternate Universe"  but because something is wrong. This is something we know is false but presented to us as true.

Bioshock Infinite had hinted at it previously.

 Seeing "Revenge of the Jedi"  is quite a shock..  Return of the Jedi part of our culture.

Most video games present an alternate future.  It's usually a dystopian since utopian futures can get boring for a game.  Fallout can be considered the main Dystopian future game that takes place in our timeline. In Fallout, a nuclear war is started over the lack of non renewable resources.  In the end, civilization collapses, humanity is hanging on by shreds, and most of the rest of the world is instead heavily mutated from the nuclear fallout.  I have the game on my GOG account so I'll have to play it sometime and then give more details.

An argument can be made for Command and Conquer, but it seems to heavily involve timetravel so that's both a past and future game.  Again, something I need to play.  According to Wikipedia, it's set in the future of an alternate timeline where Albert Einstein went back in time to kill Hitler which then led to an unchecked Soviet expansion in the 1950's.

But while Bioshock Infinite is the most obvious example, there are others. Gunparade March, Iron Storm,Resistance,  and Enigma: Rising Tide are among others.  (according to Wikipedia.  I will admit I've only heard of Resistance.) 

Gunparade is about life when Aliens invade before the end of World War II. (The historical difference should be obvious).

 Iron Storm takes place in 1964 in the fiftieth year of World War I.  In this world, (Looks over history) Okay, long story short a Russian General was NOT defeated and instead is trying to make a Russian/Mongolian empire and the war depends on the allied nations stock market.  I need to learn more about World War I.

Resistance is again Aliens invading, but this time it's during World War I.

Enigma also involves World War I, but with the Lusitania never sinking.  As a result, the US does not enter World War I so Germany takes over Britain and France.

Wars, especially the World Wars, have a dramatic effect on history and the World Wars are the most dramatic wars in recent memory.  This is probably why when it comes to alternate histories, these are the defaults.  Even if we don't know all the details (glares at Iron Storm)  we do know that things did not end up that way.

But, no matter the reason, an alternate history gives weight to the story.  We want to fix it, we want to get back to "our" history.   It gives the story writers a freedom while not explaining everything and still giving it weight.  The writers get to explore what could have happened if something changed.  So much of history depends on near misses and oversights.  What if things HADN'T come to pass.  What if Amelia Earhart wasn't the first woman to fly solo.  What if King Henry had stayed married to Catherine of Aragon?  What if Disney stayed with Oswald?

That still doesn't mean the game will be good, but it does make it a bit more interesting. 

Musical Monday

Musical Monday: Zelda version.

Because Zelda is awesome and I don't have enough of it. 

Especially Gerudo Valley

The legalities of Black Mesa

Half Life came out in 1998.  The game was owned and created by Valve. In the fifteen years (well, fourteen) years since the game came out, technology has increased dramatically.

For example, here is the Half Life 1 original trailer:

Here is the Half Life 2 trailer:

As you can see, a big jump in quality, people on screen, AI tactics, etc. 

One day, around 2004 some fans decided to remake the game.  An upgrade is always nice. Technology had improved, and Half Life 3 didn't look like it was coming out.  So, they started.  They realized they would have to give it out for free, but they kind of knew that coming in.

And then they did more research and found out that they couldn't use ANY pre existing assets from Half Life or Valve.

"No big deal" you may say.  "That was the point."

Let me reiterate.  This means, no programming, no skinning (I'm not sure about models.  I thought not, but some might), and no sounds or voices.  They would have to make it COMPLETELY from scratch. Though, they could use the Source engine since Valve lets anyone use that to mod.

Much like Valve, they had to push the date back, a lot.  It was originally supposed to in 2009.  In fact, the game still isn't done.  The Black Mesa mod lacks the Xen chapters.  The Xen Chapters are well thought of to be the weak point in Half Life (as they are repetitive and require a completely different style of gameplay)  but the group promises they will be finished.

But don't worry about Valve striking back.  Valve actually did some promo work for Black Mesa on steam, let it be downloaded from Steam for free and they said they were excited to see it play out.

And, as Valve is known to hire people that impress them... I'd say quite a few of them got e-mails inviting them to work at Valve....


Here is Half Life's "Inbound" level

Here is Black Mesa's

 Can we sit here for a bit and be impressed with how legal issues forced people to improve? 

Wind Waker HD (And remakes in general)

I WAS going to talk about the Half Life Source and the reason why it is what it is.  There's a lot of legal and technical reasons why and it's fascinating.

Then Nintendo Direct had their conference and everyone starts talking about this:

They are remaking The Wind Waker in HD for the Wii U.  To compare, here is Wind Waker run in HD on the Dolphin Emulator (this is NOT mine)

Yep, it's being entirely remade.  New models, new backgrounds.  There's not much done in the way of programming or models yet.  (The woman with the jar is from Outset Island, but the location is Windfall.  We also never see Link, Tetra, or Jar girl move)  but the little we can see is beautiful.

Now, why are they remaking it and what is the minor controversy?

The official explanation for remaking the Wind Waker is that they are working on the next proper Zelda title, but they are reevaluating what makes the series "The Legend of Zelda" and so the next game will take a long time to make.  (One of the things they are reevaluating is the game progressing in a linear order, the other is if  it needs to be single player.  Personally, I love linear games since it allows for characterization to grow (though I will say FFXIII was a bit TOO linear.  I would like to go back and look at things, listen to things, pick up items I have missed) and single player games are a necessity in this day and age. People do want to play by themselves sometimes.  Mandating multiplayer might dissuade players from buying it.  Now, if it's optional like Journey, that would be okay.) 

So, in the mean time, they are giving us this game.  There's probably another reason.

They want to get familiar with the Wii U software and programming. 

When new software comes out, the games fall one of three ways.  Very original games, remakes, (Practically) Simultaneous releases, and sometimes new sequels. 

Okay, that sounds like every game ever.  Sorry.  But with a new system, everyone has to relearn how to program.  So, they either make a completely different game that will let them figure out how to program without dramatically hurting their brand (See Catherine, The World Ends with You, Devil May Cry, etc)  or a remake/sequel where they already have at least some art and assets that they can reuse.  And, even if they don't, they know what things will look like anyway.   This allows them to focus on the ins and outs of the programming without worrying too much about other art and assets unless they conflict with the programming. 

End result, they know more about the programming as they go onward. 


That's not always the reason for remakes though.

As should be obvious by now, I'm a Kingdom Hearts fan.  Kingdom Hearts celebrated it's tenth anniversary last year and it's gotten REALLY confusing.  (Time Travel has been added to the series.  The rules make very little sense.  It turned a few minor things into major plot points.  Other things got MUCH more confusing)  Sly Cooper has also celebrated it's tenth anniversary, but all of the games were on the PS2 and no game has come out for a while.

How does Kingdom Hearts put all the information in one place while Sly Cooper boosts awareness for the (at that point) unannouced fourth game?

Remake time!

The Sly Cooper Collection was released a while ago and gave the new series creators a chance to go over the games, art, and gameplay on the PS3. The Kingdom Hearts 1.5 (a 2.5 is presumed to come out)  Covers Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, Re:Chain of Memories, and a movie of 358/2 (It was to be the full game, but they didn't have time to program it.)  While Square has worked with the PS3 before, they haven't used it for Kingdom Hearts, and the series needs a refresher anyway.


Team Ico?

The Last Guardian will be completely different from the first two, but the first two games are hard to come by, and practice for the PS3.

Devil May Cry Collection?

Most of the games were on the PS2,  and a new game is coming out. 


However, most of these games are reusing a lot of assets from the original games and just upgrading the textures.  As you can tell from the Wind Waker Wii U games, it's a complete upgrade.  New models, new backgrounds, new programming (otherwise they would have more people around and more action) 


The minor controversy around the Wind Waker remake is... why wasn't it Majora's Mask?  My best guess is that either they didn't want too many remakes and Majora's works better for the 3DS.  They already have the assets from Ocarina of Time, and Majora's Mask in the Nintendo 64 reused most of those assets.  Since they already have the work done from Ocarina 3D, it would fit there. 

Wind Waker had a different art style, was one of the debut gamecube games, and did a lot of for the series.  Wii U would be a different fit.  It would make a great impression.

Besides, the Cell Shading is always timeless, but improving it makes a GREAT impression.

Why I love Brigid Tenenbaum Part 2

When we left Tenenbaum yesterday, she had survived World War II by joining the Nazis for science and survival, discovered ADAM and ignored the consequences, helped create Jack with the specific purpose of overthrowing Andrew Ryan, and had created the Little Sisters in order to create more ADAM and again ignored the consequences such as increased insanity, the fact the little girls would get killed, and how Rapture was tearing itself apart throw increased emotions and super powers.

You'd think this woman is the lowest of the low and I've grown to love a villain.

It's the next part of her life that makes her fantastic.  She changes. 

The Little Sisters reawaken her maternal instinct and she realizes just how much she HATES herself.  So, she takes a step back, reevaluates her life, and begins to change.

And by begins to change, I mean kidnap the little sisters, develop a a Tonic that allows you to remove the slug from the Little Sisters without killing them, kills any Splicer who tries to harm them, sets up a safe house in Rapture where the Little Sisters can grow up normally until she can get them to the surface, and works with the main character of Bioshock in order to beat Frank Fontaine so the Rapture nightmare can end.

And that's just pre/during Bioshock 1! 

She makes her first real impression after the first boss battle of Bioshock 1.  You have to be detoured through a room.  When you walk in, a splicer is threatening a Little Sister, and Tenenbaum shoots him.  Brigid Tenenbaum offers Jack the plasmid to save the Little Sisters.  Atlas says he should kill the Little Sisters.    She then offers advice and items (if you save the Little Sisters) throughout the levels as you learn more.  And when you are almost killed for Plot reasons, she saves your life. 

She comes up with the idea to stop Fontaine, and she gives the ending commentary.


But that is NOT the end of her journey?

Nope, because in Bioshock 2, she RETURNED to Rapture.  She figured out someone was kidnapping girls to be Little Sisters again.  She could have stayed where she was.  She could have said it wasn't her problem.

Nope, she heads down to rapture, contacts Eleanor Lamb, the first Little Sister, and resurrects the first Big Daddy with the express purpose of saving the Little Sisters and stopping Sofia Lamb from continuing her path of destruction. (I've talked about Sofia already.) 

Then, THEN, she works out a way to SAVE a Big Daddy, to turn him back to being a human (a feat thought impossible) and will use that research to find a way to...

Cure Rapture from ADAM

Tenenbaum really managed to turn herself around.  She's done war crimes, caused the downfall of society, rewrote the laws of nature...

and she also saw that all she did was wrong, should be corrected, shouldered the burden herself, and went above and beyond in order to save the city and the people she destroyed.


THAT is why I like Doctor Brigid Tenenbaum.  She's incredibly smart,  incredibly flawed, and works on fixing every problem that she caused.  She hopes for a redemption she feels that she can never grasp.  Who knows?  Maybe she can't.  She'll probably always torture herself over this.

But, the fact that she does try, and gives it her all, speaks volumes about her character.  She does whatever she decides to do, and she does it with focus, with energy, and with a growing compassion. 

Why I love Doctor Brigid Tenenbaum.

When I started to pay attention to Bioshock, it was because of the moral issues presented in the story. 

After I started to play the game, a character stood out to me.  Doctor Brigid Tenenbaum.  She's one of our main viewpoints throughout Rapture.  She's a genius, she's a holocaust survivor, she caused the downfall of Rapture.  She's working on fixing it. 

We have a very flawed woman at the core of the Rapture story.  And in those flaws she can explore every side of Rapture.  Her backstory has her as a Holocaust survivor, but she was a bit more than that. She joined the Nazis because they offered her science and survival.  Even though she was Jewish.  Even though she was a woman.  Even though she was trying to do genetics.  And survive she did.  She went along with experiments on her own people because she wanted to find out why people were the way they were.  Smart, dumb, strong, weak, blond, brunette.  What was genetics, how did it control who we were, and could it be changed?

And when she arrived in Rapture, it was for the same reason.  Survival.  A Jewish ex Nazi female scientists would NOT have done well in the world outside. The Jewish People weren't that well respected, and the fact that she was a female Ex Nazi scientist would have kept people from hiring her anyway.    So, Andrew Ryan offers her another option.  Survival.  Survive in the underwater world of Rapture. Survive in a world where you can do your science no matter what and no one knows who you truly are.  She accepts.

She arrives in Rapture and in a chance walk along the docks she discovers what will change Rapture forever.  ADAM.  She knows that there is a dock worker who had injured his hand in World War II.  She knew that as of yesterday that man was still injured. She knows that today she is watching him play catch with the injured hand.  He gives her a slug, and she begins her research.  This is her way to survive here.  In the world of Rapture, your life is dependent on how much and how hard you work.  She doesn't run a shop, she doesn't work in a hospital.  Her job is to do science.  That may not always pay.  Especially when you are a female scientist in the strange and new world of genetics.  So, she goes to Frank Fontaine.  The man with the money.  The man with the ties.  The black market man.  More importantly, money is survival.  It's her way to work in Rapture, otherwise, she'll be ignored and beaten by the masses again.  Like always, she chooses survival.


And, eventually, chooses her own.  She makes the discovery of several lifetimes.  ADAM.  Something that can rewrite anyone's genetic structure.  Something that can fulfill her wildest dreams.  It also causes physical degregation, insanity, increased rage, and addiction.  She still goes through with it.  She gets her money, Fontaine gives her protection.  She, as always, SURVIVES.  She survives at the cost of Rapture, at the cost of the little girls. 

Yes, the Little Sisters.  she creates them.  ADAM is starting to run thin, the insanity is starting to break out so they have these ADAM filled bodies.  And Tenenbaum figures out that putting the slug that creates ADAM into a young female hose will cause it to yield three times the ADAM when the host ingests it.  It guarantees her job, so she tries to perfect it.  She is probably involved in the Big Daddy side of it, where they turn political prisoners into mindless and ADAM drenched beasts.  It guarantees her survival.

Until she spends just a BIT too much time around the Little Sisters.  When she finds people who love her no matter what she's done.  People who will probably die soon because of how she put survival before everything.

She changes then.  Slowly, but significantly, she begins to unwind her ideology and begins to put the other children first.


I'll finish this tomorrow. 

Musical Monday; Kingdom Hearts "Night on Bald Mountain"

There's been a lot cut out of Kingdom Hearts.  This guy is in fact a minor miracle. 

The first game was originally going to end with Chernabog (as either THE darkness or a personification of the Darkness)  attacking Sora.  Sora would fight his way up Bald Mountain and then the light from Kingdom Hearts would vanquish Chernabog like how the sun/God defeated him in Fantasia.

Lack of time, memory, and system power kind of squashed that idea.  Which is a pity, it sounds AMAZING.  However, they HAD finished the Chernabog model so it got thrown in as a boss fight in the last world.  But, you just flew around and attacked.  It was still cool, primarily because of this:

(Better quality on the KH3D soundtrack)

They played Chernabog's song. 

Play Station All Stars Character notice

   I'm still very surprised at the list of PS All Stars Battle Royale characters.  Cole, Sly, Ratchet, Nathan Drake, Jak, etc.  Those were no brainers.  Raiden making it in over Snake was interesting but understandable.  He has a game coming out. Big Daddy is a very happy pick.  I adore Bioshock and he is the best option.

Except for Evil Cole (another character could have taken his spot)  and a lack of female and PoC characters, the line up is pretty good.

So, why are some series lacking?

Lighting (and Final Fantasy) Have a few new games out, but so far we haven't seen Lightning, Tidus, or Cloud anywhere in the game.   Cloud is their symbol, Final Fantasy X is being remade, and Lightning has FFXIII-3 coming up.

No one from Silent Hill or Resident Evil made it in.  While the games are cross system, they debuted on the Play Station.  Jill, Leon, Wesker... all would have been interesting concepts.  Admitedly, all three also fought in Marvel Vs Capcom 3, but I don't know how much effect that would have had on the game now.  And Pyramid Head from Silent Hill is always open.  He might have been too similar to a Big Daddy though.

Atlus has it's own fighting game, but the Personas didn't make an appearance either.  Neither did a stage from Catherine. 

J'eanne D'Arc, Rayman, Street Fighter, Sonic, Tekken, WildARMS.... 

These are all Play Station branded games that would get some play.  Why aren't we seeing them in the game?

At least we have DLC.  Best of luck to Emmet and Kat.

The increasing characterization of Luigi

When Luigi debuted on the NES, he had one role, he was the second player  in a two player game.  He was a palate swap, an option for friends to play together.

As time went on, he evolved into so much more.

Super Mario Brother's and SMB2, Luigi begins the first attempts to differentiate himself.  His sprite is a bit more different and this begins his long standing twist of being able to jump higher while having less traction.  This generally was his only role.

Until the Paper Mario series started.  In the first game, Luigi keeps a diary.  While he doesn't go on any of the adventures,  he does talk about them, and how he's scared of ghosts.

That one line has had a dramatic effect on the rest of his characterization.  Mario RPG was on the 64.  The first game for the gamecube was "Luigi's Mansion"  In it, Mario is captured and Luigi captures ghosts in order to save him.

The game was very good, if a tad repetitive and short.  It also was the first Mario series game to let Luigi take a starring role.  (Yes, we are ignoring Mario Is Missing) And, in it, we do see that Luigi may be braver than Mario.  Mario has no problem with going into pits of fire to save Peach.  Luigi is terrified of ghosts and still does it anyway.

In Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, we see glimpses of him having his own adventures, that he continually lies about.

In Super Paper Mario?  He's an outright villain.  Okay, he was brainwashed, but he still attacked the heroes and was part of the final boss.  The reason why he was the perfect host for the final villain was never said... but Super Smash Brothers has a few hints.

But before I get there, there is one other aspect to Luigi.  His job in the Mario and Luigi series is to provide a comic relief. However, in doing so, he also reveals various aspects of his personality.  He is either  a heavy sleeper or is completely unfazed by Bowser.  He will try to save his brother.  He doesn't like it when he is lied too (though, again, he does lie himself)  and he has some sort of dark secret in his past.


Now, onto Brawl.

While Luigi debuted as a palette swap of Mario in the first game (with his normal jump higher/less traction schtick) , his skill set in Melee grew a bit more diverse.  In Brawl, he only has the basic Mario moves, he is faster than Mario, and his Final smash involves weaponizing "The Dark Side he embraced in his brother's shadow."  Yep, Luigi has an evil side and he CAN conciously use it to distort reality.



So, to recap, we went from "a bit taller than his brother while jumping higher with less traction" to "A comic relief character with a penchant for lying, who will face his worst fear in order to save his brother, has become a villain at some points, and can distort reality through the power of his evil side."

Makes him a bit more awesome, BA, and frightening.  Doesn't it? 

Why I am a predominately console gamer

Yesterday, IGN released an article on why the PC version of Bioshock Infinite would probably be better than the console version.  A lot of the talk centered on how the effects would look better and the game would run smoother.

What goes unmentioned is how PC gamers need to pull that off. Namely, they have to invest in higher end PC's or build their own.  While I have no problem with that, I do have a problem with the continual investment.  In order to play games so they look their best, you must always have the top of the line PC.  And this level is constantly increasing.  When I bought Psychonauts off of GOG for my laptop, it was unplayable due to my processor not being up to snuff.  4 years later, my standard House PC can play it fine.  There's no stuttering, the images are smooth, and I can finally enjoy it. 

With a Console, you make a one time investment.  Okay, you could upgrade every six years or so, but at that point things will have improved dramatically. Here is Castlevania on the NES:

Here it is on the SNES:

Here is the N64:

And now, I'm skipping to the PS3/Xbox:

Will the PC version look better?  Probably.  I'm not denying that point.  Do I play PC games?  Yes.  I love GOG.com and when I can bust out steam, I do. 

But, in the end, does the particle effects truly effect the story? No.  Will it effect your ability to play the game?  Nope. 

Someday, I may invest in building my own PC that I can upgrade.  Steam and GOG has quite a few exclusive games I do want to try.  I learned how to play chess thanks to Lego Chess, which has no Console equivalent. The mods for PC games can be fantastic and it's a lot easier to find deleted content with a PC than it is with a console.

But until then, I'll be quite happy with my portables and my consoles.  It gives me exactly what I want to do at a less, overall, cost.