Yet more evidence that this game would be much better if it were just about a poltergeist annoying people.
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When the camera went to Aiden’s perspective after Jodie’s “go away” rant, I was so hoping that he’d possessed Ryan but no.
Oh c’mon, I thought Ryan was supposed to be the creep, not Aiden xD
There will be something coming in the future that directly affects something that can happen to Ryan, so we’ll see how everyone’s feelings towards him change or… don’t.
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Who the hell goes over for a date and then leaves because dinner isn’t made?
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Content Warning
This video conatins the following:
- Lots of Death
- Simulated Suicide
15 - The Mission
There is not a beleaguered sigh good enough to accurately express how I feel about this chapter…
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Oh. My. God. This episode was LITERALLY shitty metal gear. A bunch of people with tragic and fucked up pasts? Check. Oblivious guards? Ya. Long cutscenes? Technically it’s all cutscene. And for the cherry on top: Ghost/psychic based superpowers. Amazing.
Also, did that kid lift up that AK with one hand?
EDIT: Oh almost forgot, Jodie is a monster. Like, sure the game tries to show she feels bad about it once she shoots up the room, but she didn’t even blink when she stabbed those people and took the car. Really though, for all the “war is bad for obvious reasons” the game tires to shove down your throat they conveniently ignore how the whole possession thing is the leas humane thing on display here.
And how the hell did she survive that fall?
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She knew that the Aiden shield would save her somehow?
Anyway, uh, yeah. Forgot that Ryan was involved in this, so good thing we avoided romancing him…
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I love it when adventure games feature poorly implemented stealth sections. At least B:TS doesn’t give you a game over if you’re caught unlike say, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey.
So Ryan goes from threatening Jodie, to just being a douche to Jodie, to trying to get into her pants despite being her boss (with th e author clearly wanting the audience to see this as genuinely romantic), and then being an even worse douche.
Why would the US want Somalia to be unstable anyway. I mean, the real life CIA is bad and has toppled legitimate governments in the past, but I’m pretty sure the real life US gains nothing from Somalia being anarchic, so…
Anyway, it’s a good thing that this game can’t be racist because Jesse Williams is in Detroit: Become Human.
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You’d be surprised my dude. You’d be surprised.
Anyway hey can I just say, this game went south HARD. While everything that’s happened post CIA training has been kinda trashy and weird, I could conceivably see it going somewhere. This episode though…what the fuck, David Cage. Though I will say, seeing Ellen Page’s precious, soft doughy face in combat paint like she’s cosplaying Big Boss is hilarious.
Also here’s a random fun factoid to lighten the mood. Ellen Page was in “I Downloaded A Ghost”, a direct to video movie no one cares about. But one of the main characters of that film was my art teacher in school. He was also a drama teacher, and made himself papermache Oscars for the above mentioned movie.
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If there’s one thing David Cage is good at, it’s his work not having a point no matter how hard he tries to make it look like it does.
I wonder if not immediately dying after taking painkillers and drinking alcohol is due to David Cage actually learning how that works, or if it’s just because there aren’t any game overs.
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So, yeah. Lots of strong feelings coming from the last couple of chapters, but more or less, the ineptitude dies down for a while in the coming chapters.
But that brings us to a bit of a milestone in the LP. With The Mission, we’re a little over halfway through the game (strictly in terms of the number of chapters), so I wanted to get everyone’s thoughts on the game as a whole.
- What have you liked about the game that you’ve seen so far? Specifically, what individual portions would you have liked to have seen more focused on?
- Though it’s been discussed a lot by now, what parts don’t you like? Taken as a whole (or half, in this case), what part(s) do you just not like?
- Where do you think/want this game to go? With Jodie and Aiden firmly established as characters, what do you expect or hope for in the coming chapters?
If you have any questions about chapters we’ve already seen or choices/content we didn’t see, feel free to ask them.
(Also, I’m not sure what’s really going on with the update thumbnails, so if you see a line separating the images, just, uh, imagine it’s not there??)
I actually really liked the super early stuff, of Jodie as a child trying to live in friggin’ garbage suburbia with an invisible friend who’s very much real, and Jodie in the science lab hanging out learning her powers. I’d also really would of liked to see them actually go indepth into what Aiden is and what all this nonsense Deadite stuff is. We’ve gotten the name drop of “Infraworld” a couple times and it makes absolutely no sense and I’d very much like them to explain what, exactly, is going on.
If this game had JUST been the story of a girl with a ghost friend living through live trying to deal with the fact that at any moment the literal spirit protector latched to her soul will go berserk if she gets too mad, it might be interesting. It’s just so muddled with this random ass CIA plot, and their trying to set up that an organization that studies the supernatural just doesn’t actually work if they don’t devote time to it.
A friend of mine told me that, in the “proper” order, we’re shown more clearly that Aiden is presented as the actual main character, not Jodie, whereas in this “in order” order it presents the story as if Jodie is the lead. I suspect that as we get further along, Jodie will start showing signs of just being along for the ride while Aiden actually gets development and stuff. What I HOPE happens is that Jodie has at least one chapter of something positive happening without any nasty thing undercutting it.
A thing I’ve noticed watching this, and having seen Press X To Jason, and having played and watched some of Farnheight Prophecy, I think I can safely say that David Cage is someone you should ask for “general ideas” and then go find an actual writer to play with those ideas. He will give you some fascinating ideas, and maybe even some good ones (it’s stupid, but the ‘fail this QTE on purpose to avoid looking weird’ in Prophecy is actually neat, if executed poorly) but do not under any circumstances give him any actual power in developing the game. Take his story seeds and plant them yourself.
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I… I can’t believe I’m saying this, but so far the game exceeded my (abysmally low) expectations overall.
The good: The core concept of of a girl and her ghost having to face life (and probably save the world in the process) is something that has a lot of potential and so even when we are facing all of the tropes, the events are interesting enough to keep your attention. Story wise I enjoyed this whole CIA section the most since we finally get to see Jodie become a character rather than a walking trope. It was also cool to see Ryan not being a creep and leaving when he noticed that we didn’t want his “attention” in the apartment. Remember girls and boys, an implied no is still a “no”. As usual, the action sequences are excellently done and I think that it must feel really satisfying getting those direction sensitive QTEs right. I also really liked most of Jodie’s outfits, whoever did character design deserves kudos.
The bad: Over reliance on tropes. Of course the child with powers will get abandoned by her parents for being a monster and of course it’s the father who is a cold bastard and the mother is the sensitive one. The first social gathering Jodie goes to is filled with bullies… all of them. Her first night out Yeah everyone there is a rapist, lul. The CIA? Yeah, they are not the good guys, they are baaaad and manipulative. While the whole “US government is secretly a bunch of warmongers” recently became a trope, it’s not far from the truth, but I’m really pissed when every teenager has to be bully and every truck stop is full of rapists. That’s been done before in the 90s by 7th heaven, One Tree Hill, Dawsons Creek, OC, Beverly Hills 90210 and so on, things changed, get with the times Cage. I also don’t like how no one is questioning Jodie’s actions. The whole possession thing is really nasty. I also feel Aiden is too OP for this stroy’s sake. Healing wounds, controlling people, making shield that not only stops bullets, but apparently makes Jodie survive falls. I don’t see how she can be in danger when he is around.
Where we are going: A manhunt for Jodie is next, I’m sure of it and I think it’s in the trailers too. Either way that ghost portal device and the infradimension is Checkov’s gun waiting to go off and I expect it to be the finale. Considering this is a Cage game I expect the final choice being along the lines of “Aiden survives” and “Jodie survives”.
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I have to say probably the most frustrating aspect is how the story bits have a lot of potential, but there are so many different focuses it all gets muddled. I really liked the hostile ghost entities and the tidbits of information dropped about another dimension where creatures similar to Aiden live.
Additionally i do like that in some of the earlier chapters you can indeed listen to self-preservation and leave before bad things happen.
Which leads into what i don’t care for, namely that so many of the supporting cast are just awful people and are designed to just cause Jodie misery. The sheer amount of terrible things happening easily induces apathy in me at least. Along with what MrLucky7s said above with no one questioning Jodie. I’d really liked to see the consequences of Jodie having Aiden posses cole during the CIA chapter, namely in how cole felt about it.
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God that’s a thing that I wanted to talk on but I couldn’t put my finger onto how.
No one is reacting to Jodie’s LITERAL GHOST ESPER POWERS as if they’re actually A REAL FUCKING BIG DEAL. I get the idea that they all sort of already know stuff like this kind of exists, but still. Guys. React like humans, there’s a difference between intellectually knowing you have some evidence of the supernatural and actually seeing it happen in front of you.
It made sense with her parents since they’ve lived with her for who knows how long, they’d get used to tables and chairs randomly being stacked together, but even in a world where the government lab kinda already knew the supernatural exists, I still think they should of emphasized just how astonishing it is that this stuff is really happening, for real.
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What I like: This game is really pretty and has nice environments. Jodie and Nathan actually look like Page and Dafoe, which is impressive considering how bad modeling characters after their voice actors can turn out. And Page does a fantastic job with the mediocre material she’s given. My favorite parts of the game are where Aiden gets to mess around with people. I would have focused this game more on the implications of Aiden’s powers.
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What I dislike: How the narrative treats Jodie. Cage seems to think that tormenting female characters automatically translates to good writing. I also find the government stuff to be at best boring.
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I want this game to turn into Jodie and Aiden conquering the US as revenge. But what I expect is more of Jodie suffering.
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Like others have mentioned, the basic concept of the game is cool: a “girl with amazing but terrifying powers” story where the powers themselves are their own character is actually something I’d like to see more of! Willem Dafoe seems intent on portraying Nathan as a flawed but ultimately decent person and his big weird face feels like the perfect match for that; his affection towards Jodie feels warm and natural but there’s just enough background strangeness going on that we’re never entirely sure how genuine he’s being/how much he isn’t telling her, and I think the game could’ve done more with that.
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Boy oh boy but this game has a problem with how it treats its female characters. Jodie is the plot’s punching bag who gets treated like a potential trophy by half the cast (including Aiden, ugh), Nathan’s wife and daughter are tragedied out of existence before we even get to know them as characters, her mom is a weepy dish towel, she utterly traumatized that poor woman taking part in the card-picking test, any peers around her age tend to get shown as bullies or flakes…at least there’s the mysterious agent she meets up with in the bathroom during the embassy affair, but she herself is in and out so quickly it’s hard to get a feel for her. Sure, most of the characters in the game are indifferent to her at best, but given how much Jodie suffers it gets exhausting when she isn’t allowed to have any fun or bond with people who aren’t father figures or CIA superiors. Also while the “no game overs” approach might work in theory it just feels like there’s even less agency for the player to hustle the plot along. Why aren’t we watching a movie or TV show if we can’t even CYOA ourselves into an alternate timeline or weird bad end?
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It’d probably be too much to ask for this game to become supernatural slice-of-life (will Aiden get the tool box off the top shelf? will Aiden open the jar of pickles?) or more focused horror (does Jodie’s presence aggravate the monsters? does Aiden look like that, too? what happened to that plot line, anyway?), or even both, but I’d like to see the game go for one of those options. I’m hoping we can learn more about what Aiden’s deal is, at least in terms of motivations and how he views Jodie, and it’d be nice if this could be done in a way that isn’t possessive and creepy (ha ha, yeah, I know). I’d also like Jodie to catch a damn break for once.
Aside from stuff you’ve mentioned like optional kidnapping scenes, the Worst Relationship, and parts where you can just nope out of a scene before anything actually happens, is there a way to play this game that significantly changes or recontextualizes the plot? I don’t think a story on rails is necessarily a bad thing, but are there ways to interact with B:TS in ways more involved than what we’ve seen here?
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I have this image now of something like Third rock from the sun or home improvement except staring Jodie and Aiden. This is a pretty good image.
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This actually makes me wonder if Aiden’s whole deal of saving Jodie serves as much more of a way of preventing Game Overs than it normally would. Since Cage has such a weird aversion to “failures” in his games, was Aiden and his ghostly protection almost entirely just a means to avoid having to code them?
Yeah, this is so something that I keep thinking about. Like, the government and the DPA are so keen to keep things like this under wraps, but Jodie is also allowed to just go out and show everything she can do to a bunch of teenagers? I guess no one was recording any of this for posterity…
Not to spoil too much, but you are going to continue to be disappointed about this.
Nope! The closest the game gets to having meaningful choices is a throwaway line or two in later chapters, like Jodie mentioning the bar from Like Other Girls in The Dinner. If you are prevented from getting to the bar, she doesn’t have any reason to bring it up.
Think of this game less as on-rails and more like a series of figure eights. You can derail the story a little bit with your choices, but you are always going to be led back to the plot points required for you to progress. The next chapter is highly indicative of this especially.
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