In terms of gameplay, Recompile sticks closely to the traditional Metroidvania format – you explore, solve the occasional puzzle, and collect abilities to open new paths forward. Recompile is an interesting study of how even noble endeavors can easily go wrong and how dangerous sentient AI can be, even in the “right hands.” This is one of the rare adventure games where collecting all the text files is actually worth your time. Hypervisor isn’t warped by any malicious villain, but by the everyday laziness, carelessness, and ego of the scientists working with it. The idea of AI run amok isn’t exactly a new one, but it is well-handled here. Slowly you’ll begin to piece together the true purpose of the computer you inhabit… and how everything went wrong. The computer is run by an advanced, seemingly sentient artificial intelligence known as Hypervisor, and as you explore this digital world, you’ll uncover a revealing series of chat logs between various scientists and the AI. Wrench Whack: One of the weapons Kent can wield against monsters is a monkey wrench.Recompile casts players as a plucky program tasked with infiltrating and repairing an ancient mainframe represented as a colorful Tron-like 3D world.The idea that the game world is one in which the 4th Dimension was unheard of and merely theoretical also ties into the real plot, where Kent is a delusional man playing a video game who due to brain swelling is unable to conceive of the year moving past 1995. When Dimensions Collide: You find a few notes throughout the game that seem to imply the monsters are creatures from the 3rd Dimension or 4th Dimension who are appearing in the world after the explosion of an experimental atomic collider built to study said dimensions.Take That!: By the end of the game, it's hard not to read the revelation that the year is not in fact 1995, but that the protagonist's cognitive ability is stuck in that year and refuses to process any information that indicates otherwise, or accept anything newer than things from 1995, as a dig at either the players of Retraux nostalgia, the creators themselves, or both.Spoof Aesop: The only coherent lesson that can be gleamed from the plot is Silent Hill 2 probably isn't the best game for a mental patient on suicide watch to be playing over and over again.Shotguns Are Just Better: The shotgun does much more damage than the pistol, while ammo for it is just about equally as common.In the normal ending, Kent responds by jumping off the radio tower. Sanity Slippage: By the end of the game, you find letters that reveal Kent is a mental patient who is delusional about the year being 1995, and likely much else, like the existence of monsters. Notably, while the weapons, enemies, and overall scenario are heavily inspired by Silent Hill, the graphics and interface are much older and cruder and more akin to the likes of the original Alone in the Dark or Doctor Hauzer. Retraux: The game is done in the style of Playstation and Sega Saturn Survival Horror games, with blocky graphics, appropriate camera angles, and even a screen effect meant to mimic the resolution on a standard-definition TV.Multiple Endings: There a normal ending, and a true one that's only achievable on New Game+. Mook Chivalry: The monsters are pretty bad at swarming the player and will often end up lining up to fight him one at a time instead.Misidentified Weapons: The game's interface calls a pretty obvious short-barrel revolver a "pistol".Gainax Ending: The real ending completely abandons any pretence the game had a plot, and instead reveals it was all a meta commentary on old survival horror video games and our relationship to them.The real ending spells out the not-so-hidden message of the normal ending outright. The normal ending arrives abruptly and consists of Kent leaping off the radio tower after finding the letters revealing his daughter committed suicide and he's on the mental health watchlist due to brain swelling causing him to develop a belief the year was still 1995. Excuse Plot: The game's story is essentially window dressing for its nostalgia, as it only consists of a few notes that barely even try to explain anything.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |