I’ve always heard this is a super good game and I finally started playing it and I enjoyed the first little bit (heavily eyerolling at the, uh, “evil soviet” aesthetics), but that was ok, not enough to ruin it for me.
And then the day rolled around when you have to use a scanner on people. It’s basically a creepier version of the TSA body scanners, and I must say I’m really not into that. Also, and this could have just been RNG, but all except one of the people I was supposed to scan were women, and I found that a bit off-putting, honestly. But anyway, I finished the day, and was like, well, maybe I’ll get used to this, it’s only a game, these aren’t real people I’m creeping on.
But then, the next day, the second person to come up to my window “looked like a man”, but their passport said their sex was female. Now on an earlier day, I had gotten a violation for mismatched sex marker, which should have been a hint I was going to be in for a bad time later.
Well, the bad time was here, because I decided to flag the sex marker discrepancy, and wouldn’t you know it, the option to scan them came up. So I guess I get to decide on whether someone’s sex marker is correct based on their genitals.
I quit the game right then and there. I’d like to ask all of you whether you’ve played it, and whether it’s worth pushing through this very serious discomfort I feel. I’m a little worried that all the “tough moral choices” are just going to feel contrived and shitty, what with the “evil soviet” aesthetic and the pretty massive oversight on gender. Not to mention we’ve already an as introduction to a plot about a brothel, which I’m kind of also not into, unless it’s done well, but at this point, I don’t trust the game to do it well.
So what do you think? Anyone played it? Is it actually worth playing?
It’s a post-9/11 security simulator with dumb Soviet aesthetics.
So what do you think? Anyone played it? Is it actually worth playing?
I played it around the time it came out (I was a back then). I think I liked it ok, but based on my limited memory of the game I wouldn’t find it worth playing in 2023.
I’d recommend Return of the Obra Dinn (Lucas Pope’s other game) or Citizen Sleeper (another “mundane life” kind of game) instead.
The point of it is to make you feel bad, because you’re prioritizing yourself and your family and making immoral decisions to keep them alive at the expense of others.
Sure, but if I’m going to play a game that’s going to make me feel bad, I want it to make me feel bad in an interesting way, you know? And so far this one seems to be “soviets bad, no food, corruption”. But I have played and enjoyed games whose whole purpose is to hurt you. I absolutely loved Pathologic 2, and it devastated me at several different points in several different ways. But it was an amazing experience with a lot of interesting things to say about community, humanity, empathy, science, superstition, grief, you name it.
It was definitely a lot more likeable at the time as it was unique and at the height of the “Indie Game Darling” era in the Xbox 360 era, 07-2014 or so, when everyone was excited about every indie game that was different in vibe from the boring brown military shooters that were overwhelming the market at that time. Is it worth playing now? Nah. A huge amount of then-beloved indie games were actually kinda mid. This is one of them.
Nah. A huge amount of then-beloved indie games were actually kinda mid.
Y’all remember Braid? Lmao
Yeah, I only got around to playing that one in like 2015 and was like “that’s it? This coulda just been a miniclip flash game.”
More like Jonathan Blow Me.
There’s a game with similar mechanics called Mind Scanners, where you play as a psychologist in a dystopian future and try to determine whether people actually have a disorder or if they’re just struggling under capitalism.
I have no idea what perspective the author was taking when creating it, so this is not a defense, but I got the impression in several circumstances that the game was trying to make you choose between the safe choice (following the state regulations) and the risky but potentially rewarding choice (allowing dissidents / guy with the fucking crayon passport / people not matching their assigned gender identity) to pass through. I never made it that far, but I know the game has several alternate endings depending on some of these choices.
after doing some reading:
It does appear this mechanic specifically is something they put no thought into, which kind of sucks. You just get to be the gender police on top of everything else with no canonical payoff for subverting the established gender norms, while there are canonical results for subverting a handful of other protocols.
