Massively Multiplayer: Gaming In The New Millennium
- Thread starter RySenkari
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Yay utada still on top, but also i really hope rap makes a resurgence under social consciousness and good lyricism. Already seeing Kanye at what was my otl peak.
Oh god yes. I was a fanboy before, but having interviewed the band? They have great heads on their shoulders, and in a better age, would be on every radio station in America
HP...maybe..maybe not as OTL but maybe something as awful would exist, maybe HP maybe not...dunno that is a bad fic stop giving it free press.
I remember that series...all my gut said this...MAYBE..dunno how british tv exist but something like that could exist but sheer butterfly say should not
Horrible fan fiction will always exist just like how awful novels will always exist. While that story, in particular, wouldn't exist I doubt that any amount of time would butterfly away the existence of amateur authors with an aggrandized view of their own writing capabilities.
AeroTheZealousOne
Monthly Donor
Hoo, boy! I've neglected to check this out this weekend, and as such I apologize for being mostly irrelevant. Well, what I (and probably you as well) learned from this and a few other miscellaneous posts is this:
* The Great Recession still happens ITTL, although it's timeframe, causes, and who/what it affects besides Six Flags is up to speculation.
* J-Pop and K-Pop make their way into the American mainstream, when they do is also up to speculation as is how long they remain popular before inevitably people tire of it and find another genre.
* The chances of Barack Obama winning the 2008 Presidential Election are as high as a country other than the United States having a Super Bowl win. But that's after sixteen years of Democratic control of the Executive Branch (and the fact that he's not running here).
Hopefully Geauga Lake stays open ITTL, living not too far from it it's kind of disappointing to see whatever ruins are left of it IOTL. I don't ever remember attending it but I remember a time when there were hundreds of cars in the parking lot when I was young, around 2007-2008 in OTL.
And thank goodness Cedar Point survives ITTL as well. (Well, it's still around IOTL, but I think the point still stands.)
(EDIT: Not sure why the quote above was spilt in two.)
Summer 2007 (Part 10) - Microsoft's Dog Days
Hell Ship
Hell Ship is a horror FPS that takes place on an abandoned space vessel that's being investigated by a squad of space marines sent there to learn how its inhabitants mysteriously disappeared. What they find are some of the most terrifying, nightmarish creatures imaginable, and they must escape the ship before their souls are claimed for the demons of hell. The game has some similarities to OTL's Dead Space, though it features significantly more horror and creature scares, taking elements from the recent Alien games as well. The game seems to relish in its scares, though this does lead to an over-reliance on cheap jump scares at times, with the tension sometimes broken a bit too soon. Still, the game also has plenty of psychological and body horror, with some of the scariest looking creatures ever seen in a video game. The protagonist starts out with some pretty fierce weaponry, but even though it tears through early creatures, later enemies aren't harmed by it at all, and he must comb the ship for some weapons and ammo that can actually harm the new beasts, running and hiding from them until he's sufficiently armed. The game, like many others of its stripe, gates off certain areas until certain objectives are completed, giving it a Metroidvania type of feel, though it's somewhat more linear. It features collectible power ups that will enhance the protagonist's abilities, most notably his sneaking and survival power, though later power-ups give him the ability to physically damage the demonic ghost creatures haunting the ship. The explanation for the events on the ship itself is that a demonic presence invaded the captain's mind, guiding him to steer the ship toward a space confluence where more demon hordes could invade the ship. Journals and video footage found throughout the game show that most of the passengers died truly horrific deaths, some at the hands of the demons and some at the hands of each other. The marines themselves begin dying off one by one, eventually leaving only the protagonist to try and escape, and as the passengers of the ship did, some turn on him and others are killed by the demons. The main antagonist is the ship's former captain, mutated into a ghostly hybrid of demon and man with the power to alter elements of the ship at a whim, but who is taken down by the protagonist with supreme firepower. The death of the demon captain causes the ship to self-destruct. The protagonist is able to escape, though the flaming wreckage of the ship crashes on an uninhabited moon, infecting it with demonic evil and setting the stage for a sequel. The Xbox 2's graphical power is flexed quite a bit with this game, with lots of detail in the ship and environs, and of course in the creatures. The excellent graphics contributed significantly to the hype surrounding the game prior to its release. The soundtrack is actually quite sparse, there's hardly any music at all, and the game uses silence and sound effects well. Voice acting is fairly minimal, limited mostly to journals/videos and scenes of the characters interacting, with long interludes between scenes with voice acted characters.
Hell Ship is released in August 2007, a busy month that sees the release of numerous other massively hyped up games. Hell Ship is projected to be one of the biggest Xbox 2 exclusives of the year, but like Ogrekill, the game is ultimately a critical and commercial disappointment. Unlike Ogrekill, though, Hell Ship is still seen as a fairly good game, with review scores coming in about a point lower than they were expected to be. Most criticisms of the game are toward its rather formulaic progression system, with one reviewer calling it a "cookie cutter Metroid clone". The cheap jump scares are criticized too, though other critics tend to like them. Hell Ship is seen as a decent game overall, but not quite what it could have been, and the disappointing sales are a reflection of that sentiment.
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The Fell: Damnation
The Fell: Damnation is the sequel to 2004's sleeper hit The Fell, a hack and slash title that came out for all three sixth generation systems and was most successful on the Wave. The sequel, however, is an Xbox 2 exclusive, and was seen as one of Microsoft's big gets for their new console. Though it shares the previous title's hack and slash gameplay, it takes on an entirely new plot unconnected to the events of the previous game. Damnation builds on the previous title's agility and strategy based combat with a sword wielding protagonist who can scale walls and who must strategize when battling certain difficult enemies. However, it does downplay the stealth and teamwork elements of the previous game in favor of a more solo-based quest. The game features a protagonist named Kuro, who seeks to overthrow a corrupt and powerful businessman named Mitandake. In order to do so, he steals an ancient and powerful sword from a museum and sets out to slaughter Mitandake and his assassins. However, Kuro finds himself plagued by a voice in his head, a voice emanating from a demonic presence within his sword. This presence trains Kuro in the art of fighting and guides him on his journey, but also tempts him to evil, and Kuro finds that he is fighting more and more ruthlessly as time goes on, until he can no longer tell his own thoughts from those of the sword's. As Kuro progresses through the quest, he gains access to demonic powers enabling him to perform superhuman feats of strength and deception. Kuro defeats Mitandake (about halfway through the game), but the sword tells him that there are more "evils" to conquer, and Kuro doesn't realize that he's being used to slowly conquer the world for demonkind. As Kuro starts to defy the sword's will, it unleashes demonic manifestations for him to battle in an effort to gain control of his will. Eventually, Kuro must battle a manifestation of the sword's evil itself if he is to be free of its influence and save the world. The game features slightly above average graphics for an Xbox 2 game, not as impressive as the graphics in Hell Ship, but decent for a beat 'em up. Though the game's plot isn't related to that of the original game, there are a few callbacks to events in the last title, implying that the two games could take place in the same world.
The Fell: Damnation is another fairly highly anticipated title for the Xbox 2. It too is released in August 2007, and sells somewhat well, a bit worse in its first month than Hell Ship but about on par with expectations. Despite this, the game's reviews are largely seen as a disappointment, averaging in the low 7s. The game's combat is seen as repetitive, the hero and villain of the game are considered fairly bland, and the combat system, which encourages charging into crowds of enemies, is seen as less innovative and complex than that of the previous game's, with enemies considered either too easy or annoyingly damage spongey. Though there are some fun boss fights and some worthwhile moments, Damnation is seen as a sequel that absolutely doesn't live up to its predecessor. What was expected to be one of the year's best hack and slash games can only be considered a disappointment.
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Multiple X-Zone Locations Shuttered As Attendance Drops
Since 2001 and continuing until late last year, Microsoft's X-Zone had been a massive, unprecedented success in the modern arcade industry. Featuring live entertainment, interactive experiences, and a place to try out new Xbox games and compete with fellow players, the X-Zone had reinvented the arcade for a modern age, and had been spectacularly profitable when compared to its counterparts, traditional arcades which were seeing rapidly declining attendance and profits during the same period. In more than five years, Microsoft had never closed an X-Zone, and was continuing to expand, with international locations opening as well. Microsoft is continuing to open new X-Zones, but just two weeks ago, the company announced the first ever X-Zone closings. Six locations in all, including two of the newest locations which opened just last year (Peoria and Huntsville) will be closing due to underwhelming revenue and a severe lack of attendance. The closings bring the total number of X-Zone locations to 58, with nine new locations added this year. According to a source at Microsoft, the company will be "dialing back its X-Zone expansions and focusing on international locations in the near future". Despite the closings, the X-Zone brand overall remains popular and profitable, with the Los Angeles X-Zone continuing to be North America's most profitable arcade facility, and success stories in new locations like Syracuse, New York, whose X-Zone near the Syracuse University campus looks to be one of the ten most attended facilities. Overall X-Zone attendance has seen a 4% drop since last year, with many blaming the flagging economy, and still others blaming the lack of quality Xbox 2 games to drive attendance. Microsoft is hoping to turn things around with Memory Hole, which will be released next week. A new interactive experience based on the game has gone live at 15 X-Zone locations and has been positively received by attendees, and the game has been available to play at most X-Zone locations this month as well.
Most arcade industry analysts attribute the recent X-Zone stumbles as a result of "aggressive overexpansion into unfavorable locations", combined with a "natural snapback after overperformance". With numerous X-Zone locations still raking in massive amounts of money, these analysts generally see the recent X-Zone closures as more of a speed bump than an ongoing trend, but it's worth watching to see if Microsoft can correct the ship and keep its unexpectedly profitable arcade experiment going as the Xbox 2 looks to pick up steam and stay ahead of its next-gen rivals.
-from an article on Games Over Matter, posted on September 17, 2007
Hell Ship is a horror FPS that takes place on an abandoned space vessel that's being investigated by a squad of space marines sent there to learn how its inhabitants mysteriously disappeared. What they find are some of the most terrifying, nightmarish creatures imaginable, and they must escape the ship before their souls are claimed for the demons of hell. The game has some similarities to OTL's Dead Space, though it features significantly more horror and creature scares, taking elements from the recent Alien games as well. The game seems to relish in its scares, though this does lead to an over-reliance on cheap jump scares at times, with the tension sometimes broken a bit too soon. Still, the game also has plenty of psychological and body horror, with some of the scariest looking creatures ever seen in a video game. The protagonist starts out with some pretty fierce weaponry, but even though it tears through early creatures, later enemies aren't harmed by it at all, and he must comb the ship for some weapons and ammo that can actually harm the new beasts, running and hiding from them until he's sufficiently armed. The game, like many others of its stripe, gates off certain areas until certain objectives are completed, giving it a Metroidvania type of feel, though it's somewhat more linear. It features collectible power ups that will enhance the protagonist's abilities, most notably his sneaking and survival power, though later power-ups give him the ability to physically damage the demonic ghost creatures haunting the ship. The explanation for the events on the ship itself is that a demonic presence invaded the captain's mind, guiding him to steer the ship toward a space confluence where more demon hordes could invade the ship. Journals and video footage found throughout the game show that most of the passengers died truly horrific deaths, some at the hands of the demons and some at the hands of each other. The marines themselves begin dying off one by one, eventually leaving only the protagonist to try and escape, and as the passengers of the ship did, some turn on him and others are killed by the demons. The main antagonist is the ship's former captain, mutated into a ghostly hybrid of demon and man with the power to alter elements of the ship at a whim, but who is taken down by the protagonist with supreme firepower. The death of the demon captain causes the ship to self-destruct. The protagonist is able to escape, though the flaming wreckage of the ship crashes on an uninhabited moon, infecting it with demonic evil and setting the stage for a sequel. The Xbox 2's graphical power is flexed quite a bit with this game, with lots of detail in the ship and environs, and of course in the creatures. The excellent graphics contributed significantly to the hype surrounding the game prior to its release. The soundtrack is actually quite sparse, there's hardly any music at all, and the game uses silence and sound effects well. Voice acting is fairly minimal, limited mostly to journals/videos and scenes of the characters interacting, with long interludes between scenes with voice acted characters.
Hell Ship is released in August 2007, a busy month that sees the release of numerous other massively hyped up games. Hell Ship is projected to be one of the biggest Xbox 2 exclusives of the year, but like Ogrekill, the game is ultimately a critical and commercial disappointment. Unlike Ogrekill, though, Hell Ship is still seen as a fairly good game, with review scores coming in about a point lower than they were expected to be. Most criticisms of the game are toward its rather formulaic progression system, with one reviewer calling it a "cookie cutter Metroid clone". The cheap jump scares are criticized too, though other critics tend to like them. Hell Ship is seen as a decent game overall, but not quite what it could have been, and the disappointing sales are a reflection of that sentiment.
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The Fell: Damnation
The Fell: Damnation is the sequel to 2004's sleeper hit The Fell, a hack and slash title that came out for all three sixth generation systems and was most successful on the Wave. The sequel, however, is an Xbox 2 exclusive, and was seen as one of Microsoft's big gets for their new console. Though it shares the previous title's hack and slash gameplay, it takes on an entirely new plot unconnected to the events of the previous game. Damnation builds on the previous title's agility and strategy based combat with a sword wielding protagonist who can scale walls and who must strategize when battling certain difficult enemies. However, it does downplay the stealth and teamwork elements of the previous game in favor of a more solo-based quest. The game features a protagonist named Kuro, who seeks to overthrow a corrupt and powerful businessman named Mitandake. In order to do so, he steals an ancient and powerful sword from a museum and sets out to slaughter Mitandake and his assassins. However, Kuro finds himself plagued by a voice in his head, a voice emanating from a demonic presence within his sword. This presence trains Kuro in the art of fighting and guides him on his journey, but also tempts him to evil, and Kuro finds that he is fighting more and more ruthlessly as time goes on, until he can no longer tell his own thoughts from those of the sword's. As Kuro progresses through the quest, he gains access to demonic powers enabling him to perform superhuman feats of strength and deception. Kuro defeats Mitandake (about halfway through the game), but the sword tells him that there are more "evils" to conquer, and Kuro doesn't realize that he's being used to slowly conquer the world for demonkind. As Kuro starts to defy the sword's will, it unleashes demonic manifestations for him to battle in an effort to gain control of his will. Eventually, Kuro must battle a manifestation of the sword's evil itself if he is to be free of its influence and save the world. The game features slightly above average graphics for an Xbox 2 game, not as impressive as the graphics in Hell Ship, but decent for a beat 'em up. Though the game's plot isn't related to that of the original game, there are a few callbacks to events in the last title, implying that the two games could take place in the same world.
The Fell: Damnation is another fairly highly anticipated title for the Xbox 2. It too is released in August 2007, and sells somewhat well, a bit worse in its first month than Hell Ship but about on par with expectations. Despite this, the game's reviews are largely seen as a disappointment, averaging in the low 7s. The game's combat is seen as repetitive, the hero and villain of the game are considered fairly bland, and the combat system, which encourages charging into crowds of enemies, is seen as less innovative and complex than that of the previous game's, with enemies considered either too easy or annoyingly damage spongey. Though there are some fun boss fights and some worthwhile moments, Damnation is seen as a sequel that absolutely doesn't live up to its predecessor. What was expected to be one of the year's best hack and slash games can only be considered a disappointment.
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Multiple X-Zone Locations Shuttered As Attendance Drops
Since 2001 and continuing until late last year, Microsoft's X-Zone had been a massive, unprecedented success in the modern arcade industry. Featuring live entertainment, interactive experiences, and a place to try out new Xbox games and compete with fellow players, the X-Zone had reinvented the arcade for a modern age, and had been spectacularly profitable when compared to its counterparts, traditional arcades which were seeing rapidly declining attendance and profits during the same period. In more than five years, Microsoft had never closed an X-Zone, and was continuing to expand, with international locations opening as well. Microsoft is continuing to open new X-Zones, but just two weeks ago, the company announced the first ever X-Zone closings. Six locations in all, including two of the newest locations which opened just last year (Peoria and Huntsville) will be closing due to underwhelming revenue and a severe lack of attendance. The closings bring the total number of X-Zone locations to 58, with nine new locations added this year. According to a source at Microsoft, the company will be "dialing back its X-Zone expansions and focusing on international locations in the near future". Despite the closings, the X-Zone brand overall remains popular and profitable, with the Los Angeles X-Zone continuing to be North America's most profitable arcade facility, and success stories in new locations like Syracuse, New York, whose X-Zone near the Syracuse University campus looks to be one of the ten most attended facilities. Overall X-Zone attendance has seen a 4% drop since last year, with many blaming the flagging economy, and still others blaming the lack of quality Xbox 2 games to drive attendance. Microsoft is hoping to turn things around with Memory Hole, which will be released next week. A new interactive experience based on the game has gone live at 15 X-Zone locations and has been positively received by attendees, and the game has been available to play at most X-Zone locations this month as well.
Most arcade industry analysts attribute the recent X-Zone stumbles as a result of "aggressive overexpansion into unfavorable locations", combined with a "natural snapback after overperformance". With numerous X-Zone locations still raking in massive amounts of money, these analysts generally see the recent X-Zone closures as more of a speed bump than an ongoing trend, but it's worth watching to see if Microsoft can correct the ship and keep its unexpectedly profitable arcade experiment going as the Xbox 2 looks to pick up steam and stay ahead of its next-gen rivals.
-from an article on Games Over Matter, posted on September 17, 2007
It's a downturn in the business finally affecting the X-Zone arcades.
I kept Geauga Lake open ITTL for the same reasons. It's a shame what Cedar Point did to it IOTL and it has a bit of a special place in my family's heart, too. My grandmother grew up in the Cleveland area during the 1930's and 40's, and she remembers going to some kind of theme park as a kid, which I have assumed for years was Geauga Lake. For years, I actually would come back to plans for rebuilding the park, including all new coasters, fixing up the Big Dipper, etc... Unfortunately, that will never happen due to Cedar Fair tearing down the Big Dipper and closing the water park they only built a fraction of up (they had a lot more planned that was never built). Cedar Point, OTOH, has a place in my heart as well. It was one of the parks I waited years to attend. Also, I can't exactly kill off the second oldest theme park in the US, especially since Kings Island is closed. So I kinda reversed the roles of the two Cleveland area parks ITTL, though both will stay open as of ITTL 2018.
Summer 2007 (Part 11) - Memory Hole
Memory Hole
Memory Hole is a first-person shooter/adventure game developed by Looking Glass Studios and published by Microsoft as an Xbox 2 exclusive. It's TTL's counterpart to Bioshock and shares many gameplay and thematic similarities to that game, as well as previous games System Shock and Junction Point (TTL's System Shock 2), which Memory Hole is considered a spiritual successor to. The game features many of the same moral quandaries of OTL's Bioshock, but rather than being a criticism of Randian objectivism, the game is instead more of a criticism of humanity and morality in general, and of the effect that both real and false memories have on our sense of self-worth. It also heavily touches on the subjects of pride, shame, and regret, and what memories people choose to preserve and what they choose to hide away. While Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead were the books that most influenced OTL's Bioshock, Memory Hole is influenced by Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, which coined the term that lends the game its title, as well as the Lois Lowry novel The Giver, considered by a number of critics to be the greatest Newbery medal winner and one of the best young adult novels ever written. The game's primary protagonists are David, the character who the player controls, and Lea, an 11 year old girl who David discovers early in the game and who follows him throughout as the two explore a mysterious underground city and are pursued by the Erasers. David battles his enemies with a combination of weaponry and superpowers, with the powers being somewhat similar to the Plasmids from OTL's Bioshock. These powers are gained through the absorption of the memories of others, memories that enhance David's neurons to enable his body to perform superhuman feats. The exploration in the game is somewhat more open-ended than OTL's Bioshock and reminiscent of OTL's Metroid Prime in a way, with certain powers helping him complete tasks and proceed through the world. As David progresses through the city, he earns various colored "keystones" that serve as the game's currency, with some keystones acting like money to buy supplies, others enabling him to unlock special powers, and still others allowing him to progress through the game, with the ability to trade certain keystones for others. There are 18 different colors of keystones in the game, and 10 different keystone functionalities. The system seems intimidating at first, but as the player gets more familiar with it, they soon become accustomed to what keystones can be used for certain things and which ones are best kept for later. Keystones and memories are intertwined greatly: the player and David soon learn that memories themselves were used for currency in this mysterious underground world. David himself is a man who starts the game with no memory: though he vaguely remembers being a prisoner of some sort who was experimented on, he has no knowledge of his past before awakening underground in a mysterious but impossibly massive cave, and reaching the surface, where he very vaguely remembers a woman from his past, is his only goal. Though David doesn't have much in the way of memories, he has a good deal of knowledge about various things, some of which surprises even him, though as the player progresses through the game, David's memories, and ultimately his purpose for being in the vast cave complex and the underground city it contains, become starkly clear. Like the OTL Bioshock, Memory Hole is a pioneering game from a visual perspective, having some of the best graphics yet seen in a console game. Unlike OTL's Bioshock, the game's visual motif isn't based on a sort of Art Deco 1950s, but is instead a mix of many different types of visual motifs, ranging from ancient Roman architecture all the way up to a sort of cyberpunk future look. The game's soundtrack is a mix of real world songs from the 20th Century, 1920s at the earliest but including a variety of eras and genres of music, with even a few modern hits included to surprise the player (For example, Janet Jackson's "Doesn't Really Matter" shows up in a memorable scene toward the end of the game that many critics highly praise). The anachronistic music and visuals are meant to engender a sense of disconnection and disorientation in the player, making them believe that their own memories are becoming unhinged. The game also includes an original score that accentuates the current mood of the player. Voice acting is included, and unlike OTL's Bioshock, the protagonist speaks: David is voiced by Phil Morris, while Lea is voiced by acting newcomer Annasophia Robb, who had done a couple of small television and film roles and who has her first voiceover role in this game. The game's villain, a fiendish doctor named Sarkel, is voiced by Rene Auberjonois. There are numerous other characters with minor roles in the game, most voiced by fairly well known character actors or voiceover veterans.
Memory Hole begins with David awakening in a lightly furnished stone room with dim lighting. He is interrogated by a mysterious masked man, but he is unable to answer any of the man's questions, and after being roughed up a bit, is left alone. After the player unsuccessfully tries to escape, a second person enters: a meeker looking man who treats David much more gently. David kills the man and when he does, he gains a light form of telekinesis. He uses this to escape the room and begins to flee, being pursued by masked man like the one who roughed him up before and wondering how he acquired his powers and how he got down here. As he flees through the caves, a voice speaks to him in his head, instructing him where to go. David (optionally) kills some of his pursuers and discovers a room with a video archive, where the player can choose from one of three basic powers (the other two can be acquired later). Eventually, David sees lights peeking through cracks in the cave walls. After more searching, he discovers a locked gate. The voice unlocks the gate for him and he steps into a massive but beautiful underground city with futuristic looking scenery and buildings. The voice identifies the city as Synapse, and explains to David that he is originally from there and that he is returning home. The voice instructs David to go to a certain building, but the player can explore fairly freely and collect some treasure if they wish (in a sequence somewhat similar to the opening segments of Lobotomized where the player was able to explore the asylum, though in Memory Hole they're limited to the opening area of the city). However, when they try to go to the place they were instructed to go, a terrifying creature with drills for hands attacks. David is pinned down and his head is partially drilled into, which causes him to no longer be able to hear the voice. He uses his telekinesis to escape, and flees into a strange laboratory with a 1940s era science lab motif. Deep in the basement, he finds a girl suspended in a tube with wires hooked up to her. He frees the girl from the tube, and she wakes up with a gasp, consumed with terror and screaming about things that aren't happening but that seem to have happened to her before. David is able to calm the girl down, but she has another flashback and passes out from fright. David is able to escape the lab and finds an old hotel, where the girl wakes up and is calm. She identifies herself as Lea, and is able to explain to David that she sees people's memories, that it feels like her mind has a thousand people trapped inside of it. She's usually kept drugged to calm down, but she says that she's been learning to control the visions and stay calm on her own. She says that the last time she was awake, the city was full of people, but now it's empty. She thinks she might know a way out, and begins to guide David to it. Here's when the game properly begins, and when David can begin to find keystones and get more powerful. There are numerous types of enemies in the game. The basic enemies are the Hunters. They're the common "mook" type enemy, similar to the Splicers in OTL Bioshock but with more control of their faculties. The Hunters are tasked with finding Lea and bringing her to the Erasers. The Erasers are the game's "Big Daddy"-type enemy, but sleeker and more agile, like the Big Sisters in OTL's Bioshock 2. They're actually humans from Synapse who had their memories taken away, and when defeated, David can restore their memories to them or choose to keep the memories himself and the power they hold. This is morally complicated for a number of reasons: there are a total of 36 Erasers in the game, and David must deal with 22 of them, with 14 of them being optional. Each Eraser is a distinct character with their own story, and they run the gamut of morality: Some Erasers are paragons of virtue: innocent peace activists, a charitable art teacher, a kind mother, a down on his luck firefighter. Other Erasers, however, are quite evil: one of them is a serial killer, another is a war criminal. It's not so simple as sparing the good ones and killing the bad ones: if David absorbs the memories of some of the evil Erasers, it corrupts him to an extent. In other cases, the player might get the impression that an Eraser is a bad person, but then later on after dealing with them learns that no, they were actually a good person and the information was mostly misleading. Sometimes it's the other way around. The one factor that every Eraser has in common is that they had something they wanted to forget, a regret from their past life, and were given the Eraser procedure as a way to move on (though some of these people were tricked into the procedure and tried to back out once they realized what it entailed). Other enemies found in the game include those masked soldiers from before (whose purpose is explained at a point later on) and other random humans who are found as David and Lea explore the vast reaches of Synapse together. For the most part, Synapse is in a better physical shape that OTL's Rapture: it wasn't violence that destroyed it, but the terrifying machinations of Synapse's creator, Dr. Alexander Sarkel.
David and Lea explore Synapse, evading danger and venturing through the city's various areas as they slowly reveal its purpose. The world of Memory Hole takes place in the future, at an unspecified time in the 21st Century (but implied to be some time in the 2090s). Synapse is located in an underground cave complex built by the United States government during a period of civil unrest that led to the Second Civil War. The war was one of the most brutal conflicts in human history, but not because of the weapons used (miraculously, both the government and rebels avoided the use of weapons of mass destruction for the most part, save for one infamous chemical attack perpetrated by the rebels). Instead, it was brutal because of the sheer hatred both sides had for one another. Horrific atrocities were committed on both sides. Eventually, the war ended and the United States survived with many dead but with much of its infrastructure intact. However, there were millions of traumatized people who could no longer forgive themselves for what they had done during the war. Suicide rates were astonishingly high. However, a psychologist named Alexander Sarkel offered a solution: a city would be built in the abandoned government caves, and people could move there to escape the society that reminded them of what they'd done in the war. Millions of people agreed to move down into the city, using their own money to fund its construction. However, as people were preparing to move to the city, Sarkel and his inner circle of scientists were plotting to use the people for their twisted experiments, most of them based on memory. Sarkel had pioneered a device designed to absorb the memories from a person's mind. This device was said to be used for benevolent purposes, but Sarkel at the same time was working on a bioengineering device that could infuse a person's mind with memories: memories with powerful enough emotional connections could be directly infused into a person's brain, enhancing their mind and body with incredible power. Sarkel decided to use his own young daughter Lea as a test subject, but the memories didn't give her any powers, instead, they overwhelmed her, and she was eventually forced to be imprisoned in the hopes that her latent powers would awaken. David was implied to be another of Sarkel's early test subjects, though he only ended up going mad and slaughtering his family. During this time, people who began to realize Sarkel's nefarious purposes were rising up against him, forcing him to implement measures to slaughter those who opposed him and his inner circle. David used an Eraser device on himself to eradicate his own memories, though he did so without becoming an Eraser himself. He fled to the surface, where he tried to live for a time, but Sarkel's psychic connection to David brought him back to Synapse after years in exile. By this time, most of the rebels have either been killed, imprisoned, or gone deep into hiding, while Erasers and Sarkel's loyalists patrol the streets. Sarkel himself is nowhere to be found, though he is still psychically connected to numerous people inside Synapse. David and Lea learn this as they explore, though Lea does not yet know that Sarkel is her father. David and Lea eventually find some of Sarkel's prisoners and manage to free them, though most of them are slaughtered after Hunters descend upon the area. The Erasers get more and more aggressive in their pursuit of Lea, who is increasingly learning to control the memories trapped inside her head. About 3/4ths of the way through the game, after David and Lea have found enough rebels and prisoners to start a war in the streets of the city, Lea learns her true purpose: she was intended not as a superpowered soldier as she initially inferred from the information she and David gleaned about Sarkel, but as a human storage device for the memories of every human being in Synapse. Her mind has the unique ability to filter a memory and process the negativity out of it, for eventual extraction and re-implantation into a human brain: in a sense, Lea's mind was to be used to help people move on from their trauma. However, this process would have caused an unimaginable emotional burden on Lea in the process, and at some point, the experiment was sabotaged and Lea was placed in her chamber. David and Lea resolve to find out who sabotaged the process and then to stop Sarkel, who plans to create an army of superpowered soldiers to unleash on the surface world and restart the civil war.
David and Lea eventually come up against the final Eraser, and in a twist, it turns out to be Susanna, Lea's birth mother AND the woman that David recognizes as his wife, who he thought he killed. Susanna explains that her biggest regret was giving up her claim to the infant Lea, because she believed she might hurt her due to the sins of her past (killing her last three children in a drug-induced stupor). David realizes that he never killed any of his own family: Susanna killed their children, not David. However, Susanna is also Lea's mother, and Lea wants to get to know her. David must choose between killing Susanna (and not only getting revenge for his children but gaining considerable power) or allowing her to live and possibly become a mother to Lea (and also, David still loves Susanna despite what she did). What the player chooses to do has enormous impact on the remainder of the game: if David kills Susanna, the final battles are a lot easier, but Lea will HATE him, but if David lets Susanna live, he'll have to face a myriad of difficult fights AND an extra and difficult quest after Lea is kidnapped by Sarkel. Whatever the player chooses, the final mission either pits David against a very powerful boss fight: an awakened, superpowered, and furious Lea, or a squad of well armed Hunters directed by Sarkel to kill David. In the midst of all of this, David learns the truth: he only ever had one child: Lea herself, and all three of them were manipulated by Sarkel via memory implantation: David and Susanna were both led to believe they killed their own children. It was part of a manipulative lie that Sarkel intended to use to turn either David, Susanna, or Lea (in Sarkel's own words, he didn't care which) into the ultimate supersoldier via triggered emotional trauma, a revelation so shattering that it would break the victim's mind and awaken their latent superpower simultaneously, allowing Sarkel to take control of, in his words, a living god. The final boss of the game is Sarkel, who takes the same form in both branching paths: an elderly but psychologically enhanced madman hooked up to a mind machine, sort of like a twisted evil version of Professor X and Cerebro. In the "kill Susanna" version of the fight, David is able to use the memories given to him by Susanna to damage Sarkel directly, while in the "spare Susanna" version of the fight, David can't damage Sarkel, but Susanna (with her Eraser suit) and Lea (with her awakened powers) can, and the player as David must direct them to use their powers at the right times. Both versions of the fight are fairly close in difficulty. Either way, however, the ending of the game can go one of two ways. In the "kill Susanna" ending, David is able to make peace with Lea, and sacrifices himself to defeat Sarkel once and for all. Sarkel is destroyed, while David and Susanna's memories flood into Lea's mind, purging the bad memories but also letting her have the memories of a real childhood with them even though she never actually got to experience it, allowing her to escape to the surface world alone but at peace and with the intelligence to find her way on the surface world despite her young age. In the "spare Susanna" ending, Lea is the one who sacrifices herself, flooding Sarkel's mind with her memories to kill him but also causing her to become an empty shell: David and Susanna carry Lea's body to the surface world, leaving it ambiguous as to whether they plan to bury her or find some way to bring her back. HOWEVER, there is a third ending: a variation of the "spare Susanna" ending where all 36 Erasers are found, defeated, and spared: the Erasers, led by Susanna, use their own memories to destroy Sarkel's mind, sparing Lea. Susanna is seemingly killed by psychic feedback, but she awakens and in this ending, the family escapes to the surface together, resolving to begin a new life as father, mother, and child. No matter what ending happens, the survivors of Synapse have all their memories restored, but are left to decide themselves what to do with their emotional baggage.
Memory Hole is released on September 25, 2007 for the Xbox 2, and two weeks later on the PC. The game is immediately praised for its graphics, gameplay, and storyline, garnering a similar critical reception to OTL's Bioshock and proclaimed one of the best games of the year. One of the few slight criticisms of the game is the mechanism for getting the best ending: though it is very subtly implied that it's best to spare all the Erasers, it's definitely difficult to do so, particularly some of the really evil ones, and though both of the other endings are considered quite good, if very bittersweet, the "golden" ending where Lea and her parents get somewhat of a happy ending is definitely optimal and it infuriates players who decide to kill just one Eraser and lock themselves out of that ending. The other common complaint is the game's lack of a multiplayer mode: Ken Levine claimed that a multiplayer mode would distract from the game's story and be too difficult to implement, but many players still would like to have had one. Despite these complaints, the game is still extremely popular amongst Xbox 2 owners and quickly becomes a best seller: apart from the megahit Pokemon Black and White, it's the month's top selling new game, and drives Xbox 2 sales to some extent, though it's not really a major spike. Still, after the disappointing Ogrekill and Hell Ship, it's seen as a breath of fresh air, a much needed killer app, and a step in the right direction for the Xbox 2, while also showing just what the seventh console generation has to offer. With one major fall hit out of the way, Microsoft next looks to The Covenant 3 to provide the second hit of the one-two punch it needs to get a jump on the Sapphire and possibly deliver a crushing blow to the iTwin.
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Next Gen Console Sales Remain Flat, Sapphire Blamed
Despite continued strong software releases, the Microsoft Xbox 2 and the Apple iTwin have seen their sales largely remain flat over the summer, with month-to-month sales holding steady but not climbing. Both systems are selling at a slightly slower than expected pace, and industry analysts are pointing to the impending release of Nintendo's HD system, the Sapphire, as a likely cause.
"The Sapphire is coming out in March with an extremely strong lineup of games, and is also at a technological advantage over the iTwin and Xbox 2," said industry analyst Michael Pachter in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. "Consumers are waiting to see just what Nintendo's new system is going to do, and that's holding down sales of its competition. This is likely to continue even over the holiday period as many people are holding onto their cash until the Sapphire is released."
Though Apple is primarily blaming supply shortages for the iTwin's slightly disappointing sales, systems have begun trickling into North American stores in enough quantities to keep most shelves stocked, despite continued reports of hard to find iTwin consoles in certain urban areas. As for the Xbox 2, that console did see a small bump in sales due to the release of highly anticipated FPS title Memory Hole, though sales still lagged slightly behind the iTwin's in the month of September. The console's HD-DVD capabilities haven't proved as strong a seller as Microsoft initially hoped: Blu-Ray still controls 55 percent of the high definition video market, a proportion likely to increase once the Blu-Ray capable Sapphire launches. It's been rumored that Sony may be lowering the price of certain models of Blu-Ray players to undercut sales of the Xbox 2, though Blu-Ray player manufacturing costs have slowly dropped during 2007.
No matter what the case, sales of both the iTwin and Xbox 2 are likely to pick up during the holiday season, especially with the releases of highly anticipated exclusives Sonic Duo and The Covenant 3 coming in November. Whichever console wins this year's holiday battle will have strong momentum in the weeks leading up to the Sapphire's March 2008 release.
-from an article posted on Games Over Matter on October 16, 2007
Memory Hole is a first-person shooter/adventure game developed by Looking Glass Studios and published by Microsoft as an Xbox 2 exclusive. It's TTL's counterpart to Bioshock and shares many gameplay and thematic similarities to that game, as well as previous games System Shock and Junction Point (TTL's System Shock 2), which Memory Hole is considered a spiritual successor to. The game features many of the same moral quandaries of OTL's Bioshock, but rather than being a criticism of Randian objectivism, the game is instead more of a criticism of humanity and morality in general, and of the effect that both real and false memories have on our sense of self-worth. It also heavily touches on the subjects of pride, shame, and regret, and what memories people choose to preserve and what they choose to hide away. While Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead were the books that most influenced OTL's Bioshock, Memory Hole is influenced by Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, which coined the term that lends the game its title, as well as the Lois Lowry novel The Giver, considered by a number of critics to be the greatest Newbery medal winner and one of the best young adult novels ever written. The game's primary protagonists are David, the character who the player controls, and Lea, an 11 year old girl who David discovers early in the game and who follows him throughout as the two explore a mysterious underground city and are pursued by the Erasers. David battles his enemies with a combination of weaponry and superpowers, with the powers being somewhat similar to the Plasmids from OTL's Bioshock. These powers are gained through the absorption of the memories of others, memories that enhance David's neurons to enable his body to perform superhuman feats. The exploration in the game is somewhat more open-ended than OTL's Bioshock and reminiscent of OTL's Metroid Prime in a way, with certain powers helping him complete tasks and proceed through the world. As David progresses through the city, he earns various colored "keystones" that serve as the game's currency, with some keystones acting like money to buy supplies, others enabling him to unlock special powers, and still others allowing him to progress through the game, with the ability to trade certain keystones for others. There are 18 different colors of keystones in the game, and 10 different keystone functionalities. The system seems intimidating at first, but as the player gets more familiar with it, they soon become accustomed to what keystones can be used for certain things and which ones are best kept for later. Keystones and memories are intertwined greatly: the player and David soon learn that memories themselves were used for currency in this mysterious underground world. David himself is a man who starts the game with no memory: though he vaguely remembers being a prisoner of some sort who was experimented on, he has no knowledge of his past before awakening underground in a mysterious but impossibly massive cave, and reaching the surface, where he very vaguely remembers a woman from his past, is his only goal. Though David doesn't have much in the way of memories, he has a good deal of knowledge about various things, some of which surprises even him, though as the player progresses through the game, David's memories, and ultimately his purpose for being in the vast cave complex and the underground city it contains, become starkly clear. Like the OTL Bioshock, Memory Hole is a pioneering game from a visual perspective, having some of the best graphics yet seen in a console game. Unlike OTL's Bioshock, the game's visual motif isn't based on a sort of Art Deco 1950s, but is instead a mix of many different types of visual motifs, ranging from ancient Roman architecture all the way up to a sort of cyberpunk future look. The game's soundtrack is a mix of real world songs from the 20th Century, 1920s at the earliest but including a variety of eras and genres of music, with even a few modern hits included to surprise the player (For example, Janet Jackson's "Doesn't Really Matter" shows up in a memorable scene toward the end of the game that many critics highly praise). The anachronistic music and visuals are meant to engender a sense of disconnection and disorientation in the player, making them believe that their own memories are becoming unhinged. The game also includes an original score that accentuates the current mood of the player. Voice acting is included, and unlike OTL's Bioshock, the protagonist speaks: David is voiced by Phil Morris, while Lea is voiced by acting newcomer Annasophia Robb, who had done a couple of small television and film roles and who has her first voiceover role in this game. The game's villain, a fiendish doctor named Sarkel, is voiced by Rene Auberjonois. There are numerous other characters with minor roles in the game, most voiced by fairly well known character actors or voiceover veterans.
Memory Hole begins with David awakening in a lightly furnished stone room with dim lighting. He is interrogated by a mysterious masked man, but he is unable to answer any of the man's questions, and after being roughed up a bit, is left alone. After the player unsuccessfully tries to escape, a second person enters: a meeker looking man who treats David much more gently. David kills the man and when he does, he gains a light form of telekinesis. He uses this to escape the room and begins to flee, being pursued by masked man like the one who roughed him up before and wondering how he acquired his powers and how he got down here. As he flees through the caves, a voice speaks to him in his head, instructing him where to go. David (optionally) kills some of his pursuers and discovers a room with a video archive, where the player can choose from one of three basic powers (the other two can be acquired later). Eventually, David sees lights peeking through cracks in the cave walls. After more searching, he discovers a locked gate. The voice unlocks the gate for him and he steps into a massive but beautiful underground city with futuristic looking scenery and buildings. The voice identifies the city as Synapse, and explains to David that he is originally from there and that he is returning home. The voice instructs David to go to a certain building, but the player can explore fairly freely and collect some treasure if they wish (in a sequence somewhat similar to the opening segments of Lobotomized where the player was able to explore the asylum, though in Memory Hole they're limited to the opening area of the city). However, when they try to go to the place they were instructed to go, a terrifying creature with drills for hands attacks. David is pinned down and his head is partially drilled into, which causes him to no longer be able to hear the voice. He uses his telekinesis to escape, and flees into a strange laboratory with a 1940s era science lab motif. Deep in the basement, he finds a girl suspended in a tube with wires hooked up to her. He frees the girl from the tube, and she wakes up with a gasp, consumed with terror and screaming about things that aren't happening but that seem to have happened to her before. David is able to calm the girl down, but she has another flashback and passes out from fright. David is able to escape the lab and finds an old hotel, where the girl wakes up and is calm. She identifies herself as Lea, and is able to explain to David that she sees people's memories, that it feels like her mind has a thousand people trapped inside of it. She's usually kept drugged to calm down, but she says that she's been learning to control the visions and stay calm on her own. She says that the last time she was awake, the city was full of people, but now it's empty. She thinks she might know a way out, and begins to guide David to it. Here's when the game properly begins, and when David can begin to find keystones and get more powerful. There are numerous types of enemies in the game. The basic enemies are the Hunters. They're the common "mook" type enemy, similar to the Splicers in OTL Bioshock but with more control of their faculties. The Hunters are tasked with finding Lea and bringing her to the Erasers. The Erasers are the game's "Big Daddy"-type enemy, but sleeker and more agile, like the Big Sisters in OTL's Bioshock 2. They're actually humans from Synapse who had their memories taken away, and when defeated, David can restore their memories to them or choose to keep the memories himself and the power they hold. This is morally complicated for a number of reasons: there are a total of 36 Erasers in the game, and David must deal with 22 of them, with 14 of them being optional. Each Eraser is a distinct character with their own story, and they run the gamut of morality: Some Erasers are paragons of virtue: innocent peace activists, a charitable art teacher, a kind mother, a down on his luck firefighter. Other Erasers, however, are quite evil: one of them is a serial killer, another is a war criminal. It's not so simple as sparing the good ones and killing the bad ones: if David absorbs the memories of some of the evil Erasers, it corrupts him to an extent. In other cases, the player might get the impression that an Eraser is a bad person, but then later on after dealing with them learns that no, they were actually a good person and the information was mostly misleading. Sometimes it's the other way around. The one factor that every Eraser has in common is that they had something they wanted to forget, a regret from their past life, and were given the Eraser procedure as a way to move on (though some of these people were tricked into the procedure and tried to back out once they realized what it entailed). Other enemies found in the game include those masked soldiers from before (whose purpose is explained at a point later on) and other random humans who are found as David and Lea explore the vast reaches of Synapse together. For the most part, Synapse is in a better physical shape that OTL's Rapture: it wasn't violence that destroyed it, but the terrifying machinations of Synapse's creator, Dr. Alexander Sarkel.
David and Lea explore Synapse, evading danger and venturing through the city's various areas as they slowly reveal its purpose. The world of Memory Hole takes place in the future, at an unspecified time in the 21st Century (but implied to be some time in the 2090s). Synapse is located in an underground cave complex built by the United States government during a period of civil unrest that led to the Second Civil War. The war was one of the most brutal conflicts in human history, but not because of the weapons used (miraculously, both the government and rebels avoided the use of weapons of mass destruction for the most part, save for one infamous chemical attack perpetrated by the rebels). Instead, it was brutal because of the sheer hatred both sides had for one another. Horrific atrocities were committed on both sides. Eventually, the war ended and the United States survived with many dead but with much of its infrastructure intact. However, there were millions of traumatized people who could no longer forgive themselves for what they had done during the war. Suicide rates were astonishingly high. However, a psychologist named Alexander Sarkel offered a solution: a city would be built in the abandoned government caves, and people could move there to escape the society that reminded them of what they'd done in the war. Millions of people agreed to move down into the city, using their own money to fund its construction. However, as people were preparing to move to the city, Sarkel and his inner circle of scientists were plotting to use the people for their twisted experiments, most of them based on memory. Sarkel had pioneered a device designed to absorb the memories from a person's mind. This device was said to be used for benevolent purposes, but Sarkel at the same time was working on a bioengineering device that could infuse a person's mind with memories: memories with powerful enough emotional connections could be directly infused into a person's brain, enhancing their mind and body with incredible power. Sarkel decided to use his own young daughter Lea as a test subject, but the memories didn't give her any powers, instead, they overwhelmed her, and she was eventually forced to be imprisoned in the hopes that her latent powers would awaken. David was implied to be another of Sarkel's early test subjects, though he only ended up going mad and slaughtering his family. During this time, people who began to realize Sarkel's nefarious purposes were rising up against him, forcing him to implement measures to slaughter those who opposed him and his inner circle. David used an Eraser device on himself to eradicate his own memories, though he did so without becoming an Eraser himself. He fled to the surface, where he tried to live for a time, but Sarkel's psychic connection to David brought him back to Synapse after years in exile. By this time, most of the rebels have either been killed, imprisoned, or gone deep into hiding, while Erasers and Sarkel's loyalists patrol the streets. Sarkel himself is nowhere to be found, though he is still psychically connected to numerous people inside Synapse. David and Lea learn this as they explore, though Lea does not yet know that Sarkel is her father. David and Lea eventually find some of Sarkel's prisoners and manage to free them, though most of them are slaughtered after Hunters descend upon the area. The Erasers get more and more aggressive in their pursuit of Lea, who is increasingly learning to control the memories trapped inside her head. About 3/4ths of the way through the game, after David and Lea have found enough rebels and prisoners to start a war in the streets of the city, Lea learns her true purpose: she was intended not as a superpowered soldier as she initially inferred from the information she and David gleaned about Sarkel, but as a human storage device for the memories of every human being in Synapse. Her mind has the unique ability to filter a memory and process the negativity out of it, for eventual extraction and re-implantation into a human brain: in a sense, Lea's mind was to be used to help people move on from their trauma. However, this process would have caused an unimaginable emotional burden on Lea in the process, and at some point, the experiment was sabotaged and Lea was placed in her chamber. David and Lea resolve to find out who sabotaged the process and then to stop Sarkel, who plans to create an army of superpowered soldiers to unleash on the surface world and restart the civil war.
David and Lea eventually come up against the final Eraser, and in a twist, it turns out to be Susanna, Lea's birth mother AND the woman that David recognizes as his wife, who he thought he killed. Susanna explains that her biggest regret was giving up her claim to the infant Lea, because she believed she might hurt her due to the sins of her past (killing her last three children in a drug-induced stupor). David realizes that he never killed any of his own family: Susanna killed their children, not David. However, Susanna is also Lea's mother, and Lea wants to get to know her. David must choose between killing Susanna (and not only getting revenge for his children but gaining considerable power) or allowing her to live and possibly become a mother to Lea (and also, David still loves Susanna despite what she did). What the player chooses to do has enormous impact on the remainder of the game: if David kills Susanna, the final battles are a lot easier, but Lea will HATE him, but if David lets Susanna live, he'll have to face a myriad of difficult fights AND an extra and difficult quest after Lea is kidnapped by Sarkel. Whatever the player chooses, the final mission either pits David against a very powerful boss fight: an awakened, superpowered, and furious Lea, or a squad of well armed Hunters directed by Sarkel to kill David. In the midst of all of this, David learns the truth: he only ever had one child: Lea herself, and all three of them were manipulated by Sarkel via memory implantation: David and Susanna were both led to believe they killed their own children. It was part of a manipulative lie that Sarkel intended to use to turn either David, Susanna, or Lea (in Sarkel's own words, he didn't care which) into the ultimate supersoldier via triggered emotional trauma, a revelation so shattering that it would break the victim's mind and awaken their latent superpower simultaneously, allowing Sarkel to take control of, in his words, a living god. The final boss of the game is Sarkel, who takes the same form in both branching paths: an elderly but psychologically enhanced madman hooked up to a mind machine, sort of like a twisted evil version of Professor X and Cerebro. In the "kill Susanna" version of the fight, David is able to use the memories given to him by Susanna to damage Sarkel directly, while in the "spare Susanna" version of the fight, David can't damage Sarkel, but Susanna (with her Eraser suit) and Lea (with her awakened powers) can, and the player as David must direct them to use their powers at the right times. Both versions of the fight are fairly close in difficulty. Either way, however, the ending of the game can go one of two ways. In the "kill Susanna" ending, David is able to make peace with Lea, and sacrifices himself to defeat Sarkel once and for all. Sarkel is destroyed, while David and Susanna's memories flood into Lea's mind, purging the bad memories but also letting her have the memories of a real childhood with them even though she never actually got to experience it, allowing her to escape to the surface world alone but at peace and with the intelligence to find her way on the surface world despite her young age. In the "spare Susanna" ending, Lea is the one who sacrifices herself, flooding Sarkel's mind with her memories to kill him but also causing her to become an empty shell: David and Susanna carry Lea's body to the surface world, leaving it ambiguous as to whether they plan to bury her or find some way to bring her back. HOWEVER, there is a third ending: a variation of the "spare Susanna" ending where all 36 Erasers are found, defeated, and spared: the Erasers, led by Susanna, use their own memories to destroy Sarkel's mind, sparing Lea. Susanna is seemingly killed by psychic feedback, but she awakens and in this ending, the family escapes to the surface together, resolving to begin a new life as father, mother, and child. No matter what ending happens, the survivors of Synapse have all their memories restored, but are left to decide themselves what to do with their emotional baggage.
Memory Hole is released on September 25, 2007 for the Xbox 2, and two weeks later on the PC. The game is immediately praised for its graphics, gameplay, and storyline, garnering a similar critical reception to OTL's Bioshock and proclaimed one of the best games of the year. One of the few slight criticisms of the game is the mechanism for getting the best ending: though it is very subtly implied that it's best to spare all the Erasers, it's definitely difficult to do so, particularly some of the really evil ones, and though both of the other endings are considered quite good, if very bittersweet, the "golden" ending where Lea and her parents get somewhat of a happy ending is definitely optimal and it infuriates players who decide to kill just one Eraser and lock themselves out of that ending. The other common complaint is the game's lack of a multiplayer mode: Ken Levine claimed that a multiplayer mode would distract from the game's story and be too difficult to implement, but many players still would like to have had one. Despite these complaints, the game is still extremely popular amongst Xbox 2 owners and quickly becomes a best seller: apart from the megahit Pokemon Black and White, it's the month's top selling new game, and drives Xbox 2 sales to some extent, though it's not really a major spike. Still, after the disappointing Ogrekill and Hell Ship, it's seen as a breath of fresh air, a much needed killer app, and a step in the right direction for the Xbox 2, while also showing just what the seventh console generation has to offer. With one major fall hit out of the way, Microsoft next looks to The Covenant 3 to provide the second hit of the one-two punch it needs to get a jump on the Sapphire and possibly deliver a crushing blow to the iTwin.
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Next Gen Console Sales Remain Flat, Sapphire Blamed
Despite continued strong software releases, the Microsoft Xbox 2 and the Apple iTwin have seen their sales largely remain flat over the summer, with month-to-month sales holding steady but not climbing. Both systems are selling at a slightly slower than expected pace, and industry analysts are pointing to the impending release of Nintendo's HD system, the Sapphire, as a likely cause.
"The Sapphire is coming out in March with an extremely strong lineup of games, and is also at a technological advantage over the iTwin and Xbox 2," said industry analyst Michael Pachter in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. "Consumers are waiting to see just what Nintendo's new system is going to do, and that's holding down sales of its competition. This is likely to continue even over the holiday period as many people are holding onto their cash until the Sapphire is released."
Though Apple is primarily blaming supply shortages for the iTwin's slightly disappointing sales, systems have begun trickling into North American stores in enough quantities to keep most shelves stocked, despite continued reports of hard to find iTwin consoles in certain urban areas. As for the Xbox 2, that console did see a small bump in sales due to the release of highly anticipated FPS title Memory Hole, though sales still lagged slightly behind the iTwin's in the month of September. The console's HD-DVD capabilities haven't proved as strong a seller as Microsoft initially hoped: Blu-Ray still controls 55 percent of the high definition video market, a proportion likely to increase once the Blu-Ray capable Sapphire launches. It's been rumored that Sony may be lowering the price of certain models of Blu-Ray players to undercut sales of the Xbox 2, though Blu-Ray player manufacturing costs have slowly dropped during 2007.
No matter what the case, sales of both the iTwin and Xbox 2 are likely to pick up during the holiday season, especially with the releases of highly anticipated exclusives Sonic Duo and The Covenant 3 coming in November. Whichever console wins this year's holiday battle will have strong momentum in the weeks leading up to the Sapphire's March 2008 release.
-from an article posted on Games Over Matter on October 16, 2007
Xbox 2's sales issues makes me very curious how this changes Modern Warfare's release. OTL that overtaking Halo 3 as the go to MP game didn't hurt MS in the short term since 360 was the place to play online. But since Apple has a stronger online presence than Sony did with the PS3 and a Wave version could still be enough to convince a lot of people to not jump to XB2, that could hurt them. Of course, The Covenant being a third person shooter and the political climate ITTL could also change both games' success.
After a long dry spell, may I present the next installment of Game Over Quotes!
This time, we're taking a look at some of the great stuff from OTL that sadly have been butterflied away in the Multiplayer-verse. Also, Post #90 was posted in the period between November 30th, 2005 and June 24th, 2007 IOTL...
#90.
#89.
#88.
#87.
#86.
I hope you all enjoy! If anyone can come up with some awesome quotes they think their alt-self would post in Game Over, please message me with your suggestions! You might just see it in a future update.
SEND ME YOUR QUOTES!
This time, we're taking a look at some of the great stuff from OTL that sadly have been butterflied away in the Multiplayer-verse. Also, Post #90 was posted in the period between November 30th, 2005 and June 24th, 2007 IOTL...
#90.
Soundwave said:Well, I was downright pissed when you guys literally screwed the Invasion. However, after seeing a lot of things in the latest update on WWE, I can honestly say that you guys did the period from 2002-2005 very well ITTL.
Don’t get me wrong, a lot of it is pretty crappy (that “Katie Vick” angle sounds like literal shit, and it’s a shame Lesnar v. Goldberg worked out like it did ITTL), but a lot of it was damn good. One of my favorite parts was how you treated Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit ITTL. Having Eddie dethrone BROCK F***ING LESNAR to become WWE Champion was EPIC, and having Benoit outlast everyone at #1 in the 2001 Royal Rumble was almost perfectly done. It’s a shame I’ll never see that hug between Guerrero and Benoit at Wrestlemania 20. It sucks that you couldn’t save Guerrero, but at least he doesn’t die in the ring ITTL, creating all that bad publicity they had to endure. I'm not sure how you guys will address Benoit's suicide, but it almost certainly can't end any worse than it did... I also love how you saved Randy Orton’s career, I always thought he was an underrated guy. The “Evolution” faction with Triple H, Flair, Orton and Dave Batista also sounds really nice—very reminiscent of the Four Horsemen.
Oh, BTW Rysenkari: I PM’d you a suggestion about Lesnar and Goldberg, should they ever be in the WWE at any point at the same time in the future. Let me know what you think of the storyline I pitched!
#89.
Windex20 said:
Soundwave said:
Anonymous said:
Soundwave said:
#88.
JokeLord said:
Green Lantern said:
JokeLord said:
Tripathi VI said:
Green Lantern said:
JokeLord said:
Green Lantern said:
#87.
JokeLord said:
TheQueensKnight said:Definitely. Kim also sounds like amazing waifu material.
Neoteros said:For sure. Red hair, kicks ass, and voiced by Christy Romano? Yes please!
#86.
Owweed said:
RySenkari said:
Soundwave said:
I hope you all enjoy! If anyone can come up with some awesome quotes they think their alt-self would post in Game Over, please message me with your suggestions! You might just see it in a future update.
SEND ME YOUR QUOTES!
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But what about all those sweet dank memes? ...yeah, also probably not so good.
I'm glad we're seeing more terrified reactions from our other selves looking at Game Over. Seeing all those quotes has made me decide to take a stab at it myself, if that's alright with y'all. Seeing as how the period of November 30th, 2005 to June 24th, 2007 is right when all the seventh generation consoles launched, I'll go ahead and talk about what my other self has to say about 'em.
Xbox 360
Amber said:
Playstation 3
Amber said:
Wii
Amber said:
Looking forward to seeing what happens with the Sapphire! We'll see if it hits the same snags that plagued the Playstation 3...hopefully not!
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