In Which It Has Been Burning Since The World

In the Brush

by ALEX CARNEVALE

Firewatch
Campo Santo Games
PC, Playstation 4

Henry (Mad Men's Rich Sommer) has fled the world to become a fire lookout in a large national park. He looks like this:

It is disgusting. Henry's boss is a woman, Delilah (Cissy Jones). Henry is lonely because he sent his wife Julia to her native Australia because of early-onset dementia. He was tired of Julia blaming him for everything. At times, Henry seems confused about what exactly his wife's problem was — is it Alzheimer's? Dementia? Perhaps she was only seeing another another man. Julia was forty and they had been together for over a decade. It could be that Henry simply became tired of her.

Henry wants something new, and his boss' throaty voice suffices. He flirts with her quite a bit, and she pretends to be receptive so they can get through the summer. If you try to take a cable car to see Delilah, she in no uncertain terms tells Henry that this is unsafe and she would not welcome this intrusion. The stunted relationship between Henry and Delilah is the core element of Firewatch, which was released this week on the PC and Playstation 4 console.

One of the creative minds behind Firewatch is Chris Remo, who was involved in a similar game that consisted of walking around different places and reading detailed notes that the characters in the story had written. This game was about teenage lesbians, and it was called Gone Home.

Walking through an empty house in the middle of the night offered a unique type of gameplay experience. There is something similarly creepy about playing through Firewatch; I guess part of it is that you are a ne'er-do-well sexist pig who was so turned off by your sick wife that you took this lonely job, and the other part is that you only see human beings twice in Firewatch.

The first time Henry is searching for two teenage girls setting off fireworks. They are skinny-dipping in the lake so Henry cannot get close to them. They tell him in no uncertain terms to stay away and explain what a creep he is for bothering them. Even though he is peeping them, he acts offended.

Later, Henry is told by Delilah that the girls have disappeared. He makes no effort to find them, and the two plot to conceal their knowledge of seeing the women.

The second person Henry sees in the startling wilderness of Firewatch is a man at the edge of a cliff, watching him. You see this man only once in the five hours it takes to complete the game, and it is scary that one time. Firewatch is not a game about that, though. It is not a game about being frightened, since its protagonist is a white male. It is a game about what is so frightening about everyone else.

The rest of the time in Firewatch you are utterly alone.

No one wants to see a sad movie, least of all me. The last sad television show that achieved any kind of actual success was probably Roots, I can't think of anything else particularly depressing that people enjoyed. The Killing? Six Feet Under? Sadness is being eradicated from the film and television medium because it does not sell very well. It is up to video games to pick up the slack and treat these important themes with the respect and comprehensiveness that they deserve.

Chris Remo and the other developers that make up Campo Santo are not the only one fetishizing this kind of darkness. Other independent games have explored such new subjects as depression, the Holocaust and prison. Bringing new perspectives into game development has resoluted into so many different types of games than were available in the past. In the USC video game design program, women now outnumber men, and their games will probably be pretty depressing too, because being a woman and a video game designer involves interacting with a young, misogynistic group of individuals.

The resulting creative anarchy and internet blowback can make the VG industry very difficult to endure. But it is also an exciting time for producing this type of entertainment, since the financial and artistic rewards have never been greater. It used to be that only a few people and companies could produce high quality games, but now the democratization of programming tools ensures that those with the right technical know-how can realize their ideas with a small staff.

Firewatch feels like a narrative constructed by a small group of people rather than something focus-tested to death. The script is single-minded and compelling, if overly jokey at times. Writer Sean Vanaman left Telltale Games after working on their episodic choose-your-adventure style adaptation of The Walking Dead, and he brings a similar philosophy to Firewatch. Much like in Sean's previous games, the interactive decisions you make are of no real consequence — it is more about the illusion of choice, the sensation of affecting how the characters behave.

An entire summer passes watching for fires, and avoiding getting into trouble. Henry is not the most sympathetic protagonist, and he projects misery at everything that happens to him. Paranoia grips him when he discerns someone is listening to the sexy conversations he and Delilah have been having over the walkie-talkie. The magnificent art direction in Firewatch, realized by artists Olly Moss and Jane Ng exceeds the depth of the characters. You forget about Henry and Delilah. It is just you yourself in a deadly, gorgeous landscape.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording.

"Surrender to Mountain" - GoGo Penguin (mp3) 

In Which We Feel Appropriately Subdued Until Dawn

The Telltale Towel

by JASON ARTIS-CHO

Until Dawn
Supermassive Games
Sony Computer Entertainment

When Sam (Hayden Panettiere) emerges from a long, hot bath at the winter escape of her friend Josh Washington (Rami Malek) her clothes are gone. She wraps herself in a towel, holding it together with one hand, and begins to go find a suitable outfit. Panettiere has never exactly been much of an actress, but it would be a lie to suggest she was not suited for this role.

Evening at the Washington lodge lasts about nine hours. No one eats or sleeps at all during this time, because when an intruder is not sedating them with sleeping gas, other strange events unfold. When she reaches the lodge from a decrepit cable car station, Sam immediately feels subdued. It was one year earlier that a cruel prank drove her friends Hannah and Beth out in the snow, where they were never seen again.

Tongue-in-cheek horror was appropriately retired by Joss Whedon with The Cabin in the Woods. There is not much to make fun of here anymore, so the only silly parts of Until Dawn, which released this Tuesday for Sony's Playstation 4 console, are watching the clearly older actors and actresses in the cast of the interactive game snipe at each other with ridiculous insults and lame flirtations.

Surprisingly, Until Dawn features no sex. The most nude anyone ever gets is that white towel, and a pair of intensely tight exercise pants that Sam puts on when she feels like the towel meme has run its course.

Instead the game is mostly focused on atmosphere. At first all the teen characters are incredibly selfish and unlikable, but moving through a series of bleak, gorgeous landscapes changes our perspective on them. Emily (Nichole Bloom) is a half-Japanese princess of entitlement when Until Dawn begins — by the end her facade is peeled away to something darker and more sympathetic. No film could accomodate the kind of slow, subtle character development accomplished through a game that is the actual length of the events described.

Although there is some noticeable frame hitching when the game functions under heavy load, for the most part the extensive motion capture with this talented group of actors allows Until Dawn's visuals to really shine. Some of the underground spaces become a bit generic, but the amount of locations is sufficiently diverse and impressive given that the initial expectation is one night in one house.

The main activity for the player consists of collecting clues to the year-old disappearance of Hannah and Beth Washington. The lodge was built in close proximity to a sanatorium and a set of no longer operative mines, both of which figure prominently in the game's mystery. One of the game's women has a tattoo meant to reference the butterfly effect.

It is not clear how the wings of a butterfly could ever cause a hurricane, and the choices you make in Until Dawn never emerge as very consequential. Like in similar games from Telltale and Quantic Dream, this aspect of the narrative is meant primarily to engage you with the story rather than affect the outcome in any specific way that would make the journey substantially different from what it might have been.

Given that, Sony has blocked Twitch.tv streamers from archiving their broadcasts of Until Dawn, feeling it will discourage possibly buyers of the game. It is possible to get a sense of Until Dawn from watching someone else play it, but the remarkably lifelike visuals are heavily impacted by the artifacts that streaming introduces at all but the highest resolutions.

The resolution of Until Dawn's story is appropriately satisfying, and the action at the end that results in the survival of some but not all of these teenagers makes for a nice payoff. Still, the outcome is nowhere near as memorable as the desolate landscapes of Until Dawn's abandoned buildings and unforgiving wilderness. These isolated moments deepen Until Dawn by providing the desperate echo of another experience, one that is primarily about fortifying yourself against loneliness.

Jason Artis-Cho is a contributor to This Recording. He is a writer living in Chicago. This is his first appearance in these pages.

"Birch Tree" - Foals (mp3)

In Which We Feel This Is Best For Max Emotionally

White Light

by MIA NGUYEN

Life Is Strange
developer Dontnod Entertainment, publisher Square Enix

x A moody afternoon is matched with an obnoxiously lit living room. In the background, the tea kettle is calling for my attention. With the sound of my robotic voice, I command the Xbox to power on.

x Berating electronics with our voice is part of our future.

x Prefaced with a warning I must choose my answers wisely.

x Caught in a torrential downpour, Max, is disoriented. Why is she lying in the mud without a tent? More importantly, why is she alone? She appears lifeless in form. In order for Max to feel safe, she needs to scurry up a set of stairs to the lighthouse for safety.

x There’s an ominous spiraling tornado heading towards the town. She expresses her awe with the phrase, “Holy shit…”

x Flashes of white light permeate the screen.

x Max wakes up in her art class at Blackwell Academy. Mr. Jefferson, a Dylan McDermott doppelganger, focuses his art lecture on Surrealism, the Beat Generation, and the self portrait. There’s a natural condescension in the sound of his voice when he says phrases such as, “selfie” and “your generation.”

x I open Max’s journal to gain insight on her personality. Her first entry expresses her excitement on accepting a scholarship to attend the “unique private school for seniors.” The journal also reveals her burning crush for Mr. Jefferson.

x Opening the journal also reveals a polaroid scrapbook, character biographies, a game map, and a text messaging app.  

x Mr. Jefferson is eloquent and sensual, wearing a white button-up under a form fitting black blazer. He leaves a quarter of his chest slightly exposed, ravaging teenage hormones on campus.

x In a failed attempt to crack teenage colloquialisms, the writers of the video game use “krazy” instead of “crazy” in one of Max’s journal entries. Swear words are integrated seamlessly.

x I become suspicious when Mr. Jefferson ends a statement regarding The Beat Generation with, “You dig?”

x “Geek cred."

x With a clunky polaroid camera in hand, Max snaps a selfie at an unflattering angle. It's the anti-selfie selfie.

x The fluidity of dialogue between Max and Mr. Jefferson is natural, but the timing is off. He doesn't hesitate to slam hand against the table to express his alpha male aggressions when Max fails to answer his question about the selfie in 2 seconds. Give the girl a chance to talk.

x I navigate through the halls of Blackwell Academy to the song “To All of You” by Syd Matters.

x I don’t rush. I’m nosy. I explore every crevice and object from top to bottom.

x There are numerous missing person posters regarding a girl named Rachel Amber. Top three most generic names. Hands down.

x For an upscale private academy, the bathrooms are pretty grimy and eerie. “Rachel Amber is a bitch” is scrawled with a Sharpie on one of the bathroom stalls. How quaint.

x A cerulean blue butterfly comes in through the window and piques Max’s eye.

x Nathan Prescott, one of the richest boys in the academy, walks into the bathroom alone. Shortly after, a girl with flaming blue hair walks in behind him. The scene aggressively evolves into a malicious verbal argument, which turns into someone getting killed. A camouflaged gun is fired.    

x Rewind. Rewind. Rewind.

x Max is now a human time machine making the game more compelling. The ability makes her paranoid.

x Does she have the power to twist fate?

x In addition to being the archetypal teenage punk, Chloe is Max’s childhood friend uses the word “hella” a lot. It’s trite characterization.

x Arcadia Bay has a lot of secrets.    

x I meet a weird girl on the quadrangular who enjoys flying her drone around campus.  

x I feel conflicted when it comes to making decisions in the game. The level of uncertainty rides on what I feel is best for Max emotionally. Do I hide in the closet or fess up to the joint left on her desk when her stepfather walks in? The 18-year-old me decides it's best to hide in closet and watch the argument play out.

x Three hours have passed. There are no wrong answers, just different outcomes.

x I'm emotionally invested, but I tell myself it's only a video game. Am I Max Caulfield?