This game has a special place in my heart, probably always will. Ever wished you could turn back time, stop something bad from happening, fix it, make it just right? Turn back the clock and be there for someone when you weren't? Control fate, interrupt the causal order? Now, you can. What will you do with that kind of power? rating: 9.0There's not much more I can say, really. I would recommend it- play it like a movie, pay attention to the story. Let me know if you play it. I think the philosophy of time is one of the most fascinating topics there is, and it's interesting to see the patterns that emerge in different media sources that speak on it (eventually I'll make a post on bioshock infinite). The Butterfly Effect is so dated, but when it first came out I was pretty young still and it was my first favorite movie. I wouldn't call that a piece on the philosophy of time but it was about interacting with the causal order and the brain's responses to grief (like this game). It was one of the sparks that led me to want to study neuroscience, actually -- I wanted to be like the doctor. I wanted to study patients like him. I'd still be fascinated to do that (but I'm not sure 'fascinated' is the right frame of mind into which one should go into neuro-psychiatry...). The rest of this post isn't entirely about the game, just something it reminded me of. When I played it I read into it as being a larger symbol (for responses to grief), in particular the choice made at the end. if you read on, spoilers, and potential tw
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"I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? No, says the man in Washington, it belongs to the poor. No says the man in the Vatican, it belongs to God. No, says the man in Moscow, it belongs to everyone. I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture. A city where the artist would not fear the censor. Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the great would not be constrained by the small. And with the sweat of your brow, rapture can become your city as well." Overall Rating: 7.1I just started playing this game so I'm only a couple hours in as I am writing this-- I wanted to write a quick post to recommend it because I'm loving it so far (even though I may never get time to finish). You wake up in a futuristic apartment, littered with books and computer screens with hints of the new world of "neuromods." You really have no idea what is going on for a lot of it, since, you know, it's the age of being able to completely rewrite memories and cognitive abilities - so there's this entire future you forgot.
I love the story (so far) and the gameplay/controls are very intuitive (I play on PC). There also seems to be quite a bit of freedom and potential for side quests - I just found a terminal with names and locations of like 20 people around the terminals that I could save if I want, but it doesn't seem like it's part of the main game. I can't wait to see the rest of it, how the monsters progressively get more intense, and how the story develops. Rating: 5.2
This game isn't going to make it on any must-play lists, but it was pretty fun for what it was. It gave me about 6 hours total of playtime, maybe a bit more if you include all the time I spent wandering around lost in the forest. Basically the premise of it is that you are hired for the summer to work at a forest park in a lookout tower watching for fires, and managing the grounds. Of course you then stumble across various clues to a mystery of sorts, and even start to wonder if you yourself are going insane (mostly due to the isolation of the forest). It didn't leave my with any kind of big philosophical insights, but read on (spoilers!) for more detail about the story and my thoughts on it. (this post has been copied here from my old blog)
Ok, I just got done playing the game "SOMA" last night, and I made this blog specifically to write a blog post about it, because I loved it so much. This post got quite long because I kind of just go through the whole story so there are definitely spoilers. Also, don't expect philosophical rigor; this is a mainly creative outlet. |
AuthorJenelle is a grad student interested in philosophy of mind. Categories
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October 2020
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