Editorial | World at War: Humanity at its darkest moment.

By Sam Coles:

The Call of Duty series is often met with a resounding sigh, where the user then takes a shot of whisky to brace themselves for the horrendous business practises, but I digress. Back in the day Call of Duty were war shooters that respected the subject matter, where they showed what war was like and it’s not just a game. Back in 2008 Treyarch produced one of the darkest games in the series, and that game was Call of Duty: World at War. World at War was an unforgiving depiction of the Second World War, where it showed the atrocities in unflinching detail and questioned the actions of what you were doing. I want to take a look at World at War’s depiction of war, and yes I did touch on it briefly in article a few months back, but I want to go into more detail.

Most World War 2 games generally show that America is the greatest country in the world, not to stomp on the efforts of the United States in the war but they do get a lot of attention in war entertainment. Not in World at War where it doesn’t even start with a patronising tutorial, no you are POW of the Japanese army where your friend is tortured and then has his throat sliced wide open redecorating the wall to his immediate left. I remember this opening absolutely shocking me back in the day, I was 15 at the time when this game came out and thought yes Call of Duty games are violent but not that violent.

Call of Duty: World at War sees the perspective of two soldiers, first there is Private Miller for the USMC fighting in the Pacific theatre and then there is Dimitri Petrenko a soldier in the Red Army pushing back the Nazi war machine in Eastern Europe. Before the Call of Duty series went on a week-long cocaine binge with Modern Warfare 2, it was a fairly grounded depiction of war. World at War is very unforgiving with how it shows the Second World War, the game goes I don’t care about your feelings, people get their arms blown off and get burnt to a crisp by flamethrower, that was what World War 2 was like. It’s this approach that makes the narrative haunting, coupled with the chilling musical score that adds to the oppressive atmosphere.

The game has two parts to it gameplay and narrative, let’s start off with gameplay which is emphasised more when you are playing as the Americans fighting through Japan. In most first person shooters at the time enemies would plink away at you from cover, but the Japanese don’t just shoot at you they Banzai charge you. Yes, what added to the gritty nature of Call of Duty: World at War was the fact that they used the battle tactics of the time when it came to the Pacific theatre. Enemies would use guerrilla warfare tactics, they would hide in long grass, play dead and snipe from trees, and it added an extra layer of depth and tension to the gameplay.

However when it came to the Russian side of the campaign the gameplay was standard, but this is because they put an extra focus on the narrative where the Germans would fight in a less barbaric fashion. The story focuses when the Nazis invade Stalingrad and the Soviets push back into the heart of Germany, at first it is for the people of Russia and Europe however when you get closer to Berlin everything spirals into darkness.

The hypocrisy from the Red Army shines true when they get to Berlin, because like the Nazis they start to execute soldiers in cold blood even when they are surrendering. To quote Sgt. Reznov “We will flush out every rat, the young, the old and the weak. If they stand for Germany, they die for Germany”. It’s this depiction of World War 2 that really got to me as I knew the Russians were ruthless in the invasion of Berlin, but to see it happen on screen in my favourite art medium was haunting and unflinching.

Even some of Reznov’s men start to question his methods, as what some of them saw what he was doing was unjustified and cold blooded murder. To quote Chernov “This isn’t war, this is murder”. Chernov is Reznov’s biggest critic throughout the campaign as he disagrees with his methods, such as shooting soldiers that are bleeding to death, shooting their enemies in the back as it is dishonourable and executing soldiers that are surrendering. They constantly but heads and Reznov sees him as a coward as he sees him constantly writing in his journal, to quote “What do you think will win this war? Fighting or writing about it? If you lack the stomach to kill for your country, at least show you are willing to die for it”.

At the end of the campaign of World at War you win the conflict, but I had similar feelings I had with Spec Ops: The Line where I thought were my actions justified? What makes this hard to stomach in this game is that this actually happened in human history, how humanity can be so cruel and twisted, to watch a fellow man suffer clutching open wounds is disturbing and haunting. World at War shows humanity at its darkest moment, where sadism was normal currency because it justified getting the job done.

Call of Duty: World at War is a game that you should experience, as it is an unforgiving, brutal and gritty depiction of the Second World War. Game designers do not have the gonads to release a game like this these days, as most would be immediately offended. It respects the era, however it does not shy away from the dark subject matter as it wants to show you how it was back then.

Editorial | Why the Xbox 360 is important to me.

By Sam Coles:

As the years go on I look back fondly on the Xbox 360, why I hear you ask? Well I was 16 years old when I received the console and I was finishing off my GCSEs, and then I had to start my A-Levels. It was the best gaming experience in my life as it was the first proper console that I could call mine, I played a wide array of games and experiences. I want to talk about why the Xbox 360 is special to me, and how the games shaped me as the gamer and person I am today.

In 2009 I was 15 going on 16 and I was in the final stages of secondary school, to be honest it was a time that I didn’t particularly like due to me getting bullied a lot due to my love for video games etc. On the 16^th of March (my birthday) I got an Xbox 360 with a copy of Mass Effect and Halo 3, before I went to school I played the first level of Halo 3 and I fell in love. 2009 was a beautiful year for video games for me as I experienced games from a few years prior; I fell in love with so many experiences. I was hooked on games such as Call of Duty 4, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, Assassin’s Creed II, Bioshock and many more. It was the console that made me realise that games could rival the film industry with storytelling, and writing this retrospective today the industry has surpassed film with storytelling.

As I began my A-levels I felt comfortable again and felt like I was accepted for who I was, it was around this time in late 2009 when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 came out. This is how I made a lot of friends at sixth form as we used to play the game well into the night, sometimes until the birds would emerge in the morning when we would realise “Oh dear we have to be in class in 4 hours”. It’s these beautiful relationships I established through Xbox Live is what makes the 360 special to me, when I was making friends at sixth form we could find an interest and talk the nights away.

However the 360 was one console that also got me through tough times, you see my academic years were tough and it was somewhere where I could escape. In 2010 my childhood dog passed away it was tragic time, to remedy this situation I would boot up Red Dead Redemption which I had just bought at the time. It was the beautiful deserts of New Austin that had me captivated, where I could ride endlessly with nothing more than the ambient music and wildlife in the background keeping me company. The 360 gave birth to my love affair with certain franchises Red Dead being one of them, it was during this time that the gaming industry were still experimental with games and took risks and didn’t chase trends.

Often during this era I would visit my local Blockbuster (yes that long ago), during a particularly hard day at sixth form I was perusing the shelves and there was a game that stood out to me. That game was Dragon Age: Origins, at the time I didn’t really follow the gaming news but I recognised the Bioware logo as I had finished Mass Effect 2 the year before. Me being an impulsive buyer at the time bought it without hesitation, and what I played when I got home was beautiful and I fell in love. The thing about Xbox 360 there was a game for everyone, not into first person shooters then pick up an RPG, not into RPGs then play a third person action game etc. In my physical collection which is nearly at 200 games as of writing, I have a wide array of games spanning different years and genres from shooters, role playing, racing games to the more experimental.

This was also the console where I got into writing about video games too, back in 2013 my writing started to take off where I was starting to get games sent to me by notable publishers. When I got an email back in 2013 from Rockstar Games saying if I wanted to play Grand Theft Auto V for review I was happy and shocked, I thought in my head This little white Xbox 360 I got 4 years ago is helping my excel my career. That is truly special!

These days obviously I use my 360 as a means to relax or to go to my safe place when I’m sick or upset. The console is truly special to me as I’ve had so many great memories with Xbox Live, local multiplayer and times where I could just get lost in a world. I will never forget the time on my 16^th birthday where I tore open the wrapping paper and saw the Xbox 360 logo on the box, and I’m still creating memories on that machine as my collection grows.

Editorial | Micah Bell: Sadistic, evil and a snake. (spoilers for RDR2) .

By Sam Coles:

Writing intentionally unlikeable characters can be a hard task, as most of the time they can fall into typical archetypes where they are a moustache twirling villain. Red Dead Redemption II has one of the most unlikeable characters in any Rockstart game produced, and that character is Micha Bell. Rockstar have written one of the most unlikable characters in this game and I want to talk about his character, and why we hate him. There will be spoilers for Red Dead Redemption II.

The first time we see Micha is at the start of the game in a chilling blizzard, rather fitting given his personality but I digress. When we see that sneering grin from him we know from the start that there is something not right about him, but we just think that he is a bit of a loose cannon and nothing else. That is until the first firefight with the O'Driscolls in the cover of darkness is where he shows his true nature, after the bloodshed he is chasing a woman around the cabin hoping to get his way with her. Dutch being the calm and collective person (at this point) tells him to stop, where they then take her in and look after her. It’s this moment we see that Micha has no remorse for his actions, he does not care for human life and won’t flinch shooting someone in a brutal fashion.

Even after the events that transpire in the mountains you still see Micah as a reliable but a madman, as he generally has a good plan and can hit the on switch of a lamp from 500 yards away with his duel revolvers.  However it’s one moment where we see him for his true colours, where we see the monster unleash and it’s at this point where we and the main protagonist Arthur Morgan start to question his tendencies.

Near the start of the game when you are slowly moving out of the mountains into a warmer location, Dutch sends Micah and Lenny off to scout ahead. This sounds fine and normal for the time being, however Micah gets arrested and capture in the town of Strawberry. Arthur is tasked with rescuing him and things go to plan, until Micah flips out and massacres 90 percent of the town, where he also butchers a woman all in the name of getting back his guns. Arthur by this point wonders what kind of man he is, well one can wonder if you can call Micah a man.

As the plot continues the player and Arthur start to see Micha’s manipulative and snake like personality crawling into Dutch’s mind, this is one of the contributing factors of Dutch’s decent into madness. We see a man who is unflinching with his approach, where he will doing anything to get rich no matter the cost, he starts to gun down people without hesitation and sell out his friends to the law.

Near the end of the game Arthur has to save John Marston’s partner from Agent Milton, it’s here that he finds out that Micah was the one telling the Pinkerton’s about their heists and robberies. Arthur being extremely angry finally puts the pieces together and rides angrily to confront the traitorous snake. When confronted he of course denies it, but Arthur trying to convince Dutch of Micah’s betrayal is unsuccessful as Dutch is clouded by madness as Micah has crawled into his subconscious. When Arthur and Micah have a confrontation fist to fist, when talking about talking to Agent Milton he says he is merely a “Survivor”. At this point the player and Arthur want to unload every bullet they have into Micah and eventually one will, but alas it is not Arthur to perform the task.

When confronted by John Marston years later back where it all began, on top of a frost laden mountain. Dutch has his trepidation about the situation; however he assesses everything and then turns his gun on Micha and puts a bullet swiftly into his stomach. It’s here where we get the satisfaction of unloading everything we got, where he then staggers and then finally that sadistic maniac dies in a brutal fashion.

Micah Bell is an interesting case of a character, yes he is an unlikable character but he is written so well as that character he doesn’t fall into typical archetypes of the “hateable” character. He is a sadistic, evil and a snake, who wants nothing more than to get rich and he doesn’t care who he hurts or murders in the process. We slowly grow this hatred throughout the plot, and it is so satisfying when he finally gets his comeuppance at the end of the game.  

Editorial | Remembering Dead Space.

By Sam Coles:

Horror games can be something that is hard to get right, it can be predictable with constant jump scares or it can be a wolf disguising itself in sheep’s skin and it turns out to be an action game. Dead Space is an interesting case as it is an intense horror game but plays like a functional third person shooter; it has jump scares but also misleads you with fake outs. Why is it that gamers still think about this game 11 years later, what is so special about it. I want to talk about in an editorial format, and just delve into it.

Dead Space starts off slow enough where you are on your way on a maintenance job, where a space station has gone dark. You slowly walk through the corridors and something doesn’t seem right, things go wrong quickly and you are then attacked by deformed monsters that look as if they were torn apart and put back together again where body parts are put in the wrong places. It’s this situation we find the main character Isaac Clark in a panicked state, because he is not a soldier he is….. well a normal person. This is what separates Dead Space from most horror games because you’re not a police officer, soldier etc. You are just a normal person on a mundane job, it reminds me of Half-Life this set up, but those parallels quickly deviate after a few minutes.  

The atmosphere is what sells the original Dead Space, where the music is minimal and you can hear nothing more than the metallic hums and Necromorphs growling in the distance as you stomp your way through the space station. It’s this layer of tension that really got to me when I first played this game when I was 16 years old, it was late, and everyone was in bed and I was alone in the darkness with nothing more than subtle glow of my television. It was the sound design that really got to me, where it was the creaking floorboards in my house started to get under my skin. It’s this level of paranoia that Dead Space evokes, that will have you creeping in dark with a torch where if someone tapped you on the shoulder you would clock them in the face.

The deep and dark atmosphere is what makes Dead Space…. well Dead Space, I remember buying it and the clerk behind the counter said “It is Resident Evil 4, but in space”. While the parallels do draw a somewhat comparison to Resi 4, it slow deviates as Dead Space takes a more subtle approach even with the jump scares. This is where the game also shines because it will play with your expectations, the game will toy with you with corpses as they will not always get up, where you start to get paranoid and pre-emptively curb stomp dead bodies.  

However it doesn’t leave you completely vulnerable as it makes you powerless at the start, but when you reach the final chapters of the game you have the power of a B52 carpet bomber, raining death on anyone who gets in your way. The gameplay was this juxtaposition from the atmosphere as you tend to have so much ammunition that it would make the NRA blush, well on normal difficulty if you play on higher difficulties ammo becomes finite. When you do play the game on higher difficulties the game emphasises accuracy, because in Dead Space you couldn’t kill enemies by traditional means you had to dismember them bit by bit. It added to the gruesome factor; however it encouraged you to be accurate instead of firing like a madman on a caffeine binge as cutting off limbs was the only way of killing them or fleeing.

The presentation is something that sticks out even to this day, for a game that came out in 2008 it is still a visually stunning game even if you were to play it on the Xbox 360 and PS3. The dynamic shadows and lighting sell the deep, dark and oppressive environment. Not only that the monster design is truly disgusting, in a good way of course they look as if someone tore someone apart and stitch them back up with nothing more than a needle and ball of yarn made of rotten flesh.

Dead Space is a game that is still fondly remembered, and looking at the current state of EA at the moment with their focus on more live service games I don’t see a new one coming out anytime soon. Who knows, maybe from the ashes of the series we can see a phoenix rise from what was one of the best horror franchises. It does not seem like 11 years ago that we were presented with this terrifying horror classic, but low and behold he we are. If you haven’t I urge you to go back and play this game if you have a 360 or PS3 knocking about, it is also playable on Xbox One via backwards compatibility.

Editorial | Hellblade: The fragility of the human mind.

By Sam Coles:

The first time I had played Hellblade in 2018 when Ninja Theory sent me the Xbox One version I wasn’t expecting much, however when the game started I was tense and almost scared with its thick atmosphere. It’s one of the few games where it has the main protagonist suffer from a mental illness, and it’s done in a respectful and convincing manner where it has stuck with me a year later. The game’s atmosphere is dark, oppressive and somewhat calm in some areas, I want to talk about Hellblade’s atmosphere and why the game is special. Not only that I want to take a look at Senua’s descent into madness.

Hellblade starts off slow and quiet it is almost relaxing before we see Senua appear in shot, then the gentle tones of the narrator cut in, but it’s not the narrator it’s one of the voices in Senue’s mind. It’s as if we are getting a look into her mind and are on this journey with her, the voices can be calm, soothing and helpful while at the same time they can be spiteful, hateful and can ridicule you for not performing a task to full capacity. It was one of the aspects that really got to me when I reviewed this game last year, the voices can really get under your skin as they talk to each other, laugh at you and scold you throughout your endeavours. I didn’t get a chance to play this game with surround sound headphones, but I have spoken to people who have and they said they couldn’t last 10 minutes due to the voices.

As you continue your journey with Senua we see her mind slow go on this downward spiral, as she slowly descends into madness as the voices in her mind are becoming more hostile as you progress. She starts to see old friends from a lifetime ago not as an antagonistic force, but instead they function as a guide throughout her endeavours. However as you slowly descend into the pit of madness that support dwindles, and they start to taunt and antagonise her where she suddenly shots stop! It’s this moment when the voices disappear and it’s this moment she doesn’t know what to do, up to this point she has gotten use to voices in her mind whether they are supporting or ridiculing her. Senua falls into a state of panic, as she is now truly alone and isolated on her journey to save her love’s soul.  

What sells this experience is the performance by Melina Juergens it is very convincing; you would think that she herself suffers from psychosis as she constantly looks at the screen with an intense stare and subtle twitches. Her acting ability really shines in this game as it really got to me, games don’t often get to me on an emotional level but this made feel things that would not usually feel in games. I felt disturbed, scared, sad and even happy by the end of the story, we see Senua go through so much in this journey and it is heart-breaking when she wants to end it all at one point. However her determination makes her pick herself up and carry on, all in the name of love for her lover who has long since pasted.

It’s not just the performance from Melina Juergens it’s also the atmosphere and environments, this game can go from dark and foreboding to sombre and calm. There are moments where you will feel the weight of oppression, as you can hear nothing but the distant moans and grows of entities unknown, it’s something that genuinely had my skin crawling with how terrifying the claustrophobic environments can be. However there are moments where the game becomes quiet and has a calmer and sombre tone, where you see the sunshine seep through the trees and you can hear nothing but nature going about its business. It’s a great breather from the more intense moments, where you hear the crickets chirp and the birds sing as you see the flora flourish.

I know I reviewed Hellblade last year, but I just want to express my emotions in an editorial format in a few paragraphs. It’s a game that has stuck with me ever since I finished it back in 2018 on Xbox One, it’s a dark and twisted look of how fragile the human mind is and Ninja Theory did a superb job of portraying mental health in a respectful and convincing manner. If you haven’t I implore you to play this game, it is easily one of the best interactive narratives of the generation, if not of all time.