tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post7510864693142026149..comments2024-03-28T10:31:45.644-07:00Comments on Vigaroe: System Shock 2: Audio LogsVigaroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02405424233776571308noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-34350892013391842612023-07-22T04:57:13.960-07:002023-07-22T04:57:13.960-07:00Korenchkin gets less attempts to suggest he's ...Korenchkin gets less attempts to suggest he's a good fellow than his corporate counterpart, but they're there, and... well, there's something like circular logic here, in that Korenchkin is presented as notable in part for being so open to the corporate partnership, where it's implied the UNN military types are mostly hostile to such a thing. If SS2 was properly cyberpunk like SS1, this would be damning of Korenchkin, because in cyberpunk anybody pushing to get in corporate pockets is a problem, whether through cluelessness ("Evil Mcbad Corporation can't be horrible like all the evidence suggests") or stupid greed. But SS2 isn't properly cyberpunk, doesn't present Tri-Optimum as a morally dubious cyberpunk megacorp, and in fact tries really hard to frame SS1's events as an unfortunate anomaly not at all representative of the broader corporate practices. So Korenchkin buddying up to Tri-Optimum has heavy shades of suggesting Korenchin is 'unusually reasonable for a military man', or some similar line of reasoning.<br /><br />In general, SS2's writing really suffers from 'the people making this didn't really understand SS1's themes' and/or 'the people making this completely disagreed with SS1's themes', and it's worth noting this carries forward into Bioshock 1, which has its base idea as very punk ("The bad guys are wealthy high society types"), but then does a lot to directly contradict that thrust. (And Infinite's Burial At Sea DLC continues this!) Which is bizarre given SS2's origin story is, roughly, a company going "We love SS1, can we work on a sequel with you?"Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-493294387960492902023-07-22T03:35:41.230-07:002023-07-22T03:35:41.230-07:00I don't think Korenchkin is meant to come acro...I don't think Korenchkin is meant to come across as noble at any point in the story, and there are some subtle hints that the Von Braun was launched too early due to corporate pressure, but otherwise, yeah, I agree with you. They failed to sell the idea of corporate greed and dysfunctional management screwing up things even before the catastrophe. Which is especially amazing considering how well SS1 did this, but as you pointed out already, SS1 generally does storytelling much better, by far.Second Duke of Aeria Revierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01176472368597390177noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-69909125632245000842023-07-22T01:49:40.732-07:002023-07-22T01:49:40.732-07:00I don't think that take is intended by the gam...I don't think that take is intended by the game itself at all, is the thing.<br /><br />In System Shock 1, we get a CEO making a dubious decision (Having SHODAN hacked) because somebody is going to investigate what's going on at the company and said CEO is expecting such an investigation to get him in trouble. The narrative is blunt that he's making bad decisions for bad reasons, and that this is a longstanding standard for him; he wouldn't be turning to hacking SHODAN if he didn't have obviously bad decisions in his past to get him in trouble, after all.<br /><br />In System Shock 2, we have this joint expedition going out to do whatever they're supposed to be doing, and through sheer blind chance they stumble upon The Many, who promptly use mind control that works however the writers want it to work in the moment to take over the top people of the ships, both of whom the game makes no particular effort to suggest were prone to bad decisions. (And in fact the game makes some attempts to convince the player these people are actually noble individuals where it's tragic that they've been randomly mind-controlled into being evil) The narrative is constructed as basically just pure bad luck where nobody involved had any reasonable way to anticipate the problem they ran into.<br /><br />The game world certainly feels like it's one where maliciousness and incompetence have to rule for anything to make sense, but this is clearly a result of widespread failures in the creative process. For example you *can* headcanon that malicious incompetence is how The Many's psychic infiltration was entirely missed by the literal thought police explicitly stationed aboard both ships, but this is not an angle the game itself suggests in the slightest, and it's quite clear that this exists purely because the dev team didn't think about how the literal thought police are a giant obstacle to psychic infiltration getting to be completely missed. And this is true of basically every example where the only way to make in-universe sense of what you're seeing is to assume maliciousness and/or incompetence; this isn't a theme the team constructed intentionally.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-16158931821986619152023-07-21T22:21:57.967-07:002023-07-21T22:21:57.967-07:00TBH, I think the general premise of SS2 is that th...TBH, I think the general premise of SS2 is that the Von Braun's voyage was doomed by the start, as it was controlled by corrupt, dysfunctional officers atop the command chain, presumably supported by a bunch of loyal mooks. In such a setting, it makes perfect sense that a man would sigh in frustration about having been made to work an illegal, intrusive and risky operation on someone against their will. I definitely think this point is a bit undercooked though, and could've stood to be elaborated upon.Second Duke of Aeria Revierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01176472368597390177noreply@blogger.com