I’ve been meaning to write this post for almost a year and a half. Every time I’ve tried to write down all my problems with this game’s story it ended up quickly escalating into a college dissertation-length affair. This is my last-ditch effort to just get this all out of my system.
Before I start I will say that all of my exposure to the game comes from watching streams. I don’t own any Apple devices and the PC port has been “a week away from launch” since October of 2015. To some that might disqualify me from writing anything critical of the game since I haven’t experienced it myself. Fair enough.
This is not a review of the game, since again, I haven’t played it. Whether anyone else wants to buy the game or not is of no consequence to me. Buy it if you want, don’t if you don’t. Simple, yeah?
There will be spoilers for Revolution 60 after the jump so if you want to avoid spoilers, do not read further.
Finding the one thread to pull on why this game is bad took several revisits. I watched numerous streams of the game and read the Lethologica in an attempt to make sense of what I was seeing. I can confidently say that the more you learn about this game, the more nonsensical the story becomes.
The major problem is that you aren't told information you need to know at the exact point it would be useful to know it and when you do finally learn it it's in a way that's completely nonengaging. Ideally in a game the story unfolds through player actions and discovery. The story 'happens' to them rather than being told to them. In Revolution 60 the bulk of the game's story is conveyed through, of all things, loading screens. Information like who the bad guys are and how the main characters know each other isn't woven into the game naturally through environmental details, dialogue, or even hidden items that can be discovered. Instead this information is laid out in one of the most unintuitive, unimaginative ways possible by just putting it up on a screen for you to read outside of the actual game world. Say what you want about games putting all their narrative into story pickups like audiologs or diaries, at least those are objects in the game's world that let you feel like you're actually a part of it.
The lore of this game is a mess. I read the Lethologica trying to make sense of what Fifth Column, the Snow Leopards, and Chessboard were (since, again, the game doesn't really tell you) and was inundated with information that not only made the lore more confusing but actually introduced gigantic plotholes in the game's story because of the absence of those elements. According to the Lethologica the backstory of the Revolution 60 universe is that an MIT class creates an AI that predicts a civil war in India and this AI becomes the center of a new government agency named Chessboard that predicts crisis and dispatches fireteams to prevent chaos. The villains of the game are a Chinese terrorist organization named Fifth Column that took over the Chinese government after stealing a doomsday spaceship with the power to destroy whole cities named the Death Lotus. I'm unsure why the Lethologica bothers to go into so much detail defining this massive conflict between Chessboard and Fifth Column when it isn't brought up in the game at all. The Death Lotus only comes up at the very end for a few minutes and is completely inconsequential, and Fifth Column has no real relevance to the plot aside from supplying cannon fodder. They're not even the main villains of the game.
There are numerous references to the Metal Gear games. The main location in the game is named N313. Tselinoyarsk is referenced. A critical scene is obviously ripped off from the bridge scene in Snake Eater. References in games are fine but the sheer volume of them in this game and their presentation makes them distracting. They're not commenting on the Metal Gear series, the shoutouts aren't endearing or comedic, so why are they even here?
There are lots of examples of ludonarrative dissonance. These would normally be forgivable except that major plotpoints revolve around them. Holiday has the power to punch through a spaceship’s reinforced cockpit but only deals small damage in hand-to-hand combat. A grenade that deals moderate damage in gameplay cripples a major character in a cutscene. A baffling amount of consideration is given towards rounds and explosives puncturing N313′s hull which is odd given that enemies use explosives constantly and it never seems to be an issue until the plot demands it.
The dialogue is a mix of awkward and often misused Metal Gear-esque military and techno jargon with inappropriate uses of smarm. Characters will frequently exchange snarky banter in the midst of dangerous situations, making it difficult to be invested in the drama. These issues are magnified by the poor direction of the voice actors. Each character has one emotion and every reading is done in that same tone, even in scenes that clearly would need different readings. Amelia is constantly self-absorbed when she should be scared. Minuet is cold and detached when she should be showing at least some empathy to people she’s worked with for years. Holiday is always angry even when she’s supposedly joking with her coworkers. Unknown, supposedly the centerpiece of the game’s main conflict, spends most of the game delivering her lines in a robotic monotone and is, ironically, the character with the least development.
The villain of this game is the highlight. Her performance is the best and her character is the most dynamic of the cast, but the conflict surrounding her is a gigantic contradiction to the game’s lore. The premise of the Chessboard AI is that it has several ‘shards’ which communicate and debate between themselves in order to come to a consensus on how to solve problems. One of the core tenants of the Chessboard agency is avoiding letting human emotions interfere with the mission, and supposedly there are harsh rules in place for violating Chessboard orders. Given that Chessboard is built on the idea of different shards communicating as necessary for the AI’s function and evolution and that the agency has a strict hands-off approach to human meddling in the AI’s operation, why would the main conflict of this game be based around destroying a Chessboard shard that humans deemed to be broken? One shard alone can’t take over Chessboard by its inherent design. The other shards would keep it in check. Even if it could, it would go against Chessboard’s entire philosophy of avoiding human bias.
Through a combination of poor exposition, muddled lore and incomprehensible plotting the characters end up being poorly developed. Aspects of each character’s personality brought up in the lethologica are absent from the game. Minuet is supposed to be a socialite but none of that comes across in the game, even though it’d make for an interesting contrast. Holiday and Unknown supposedly have a history going back years, but exchange literally one line of dialogue as friends before we’re asked as an audience to care about Unknown receiving a debilitating and ultimately fatal injury. Characters frequently spend long stretches of the game doing nothing, especially Unknown, who has entire scenes where her contribution to the story is literally standing in the corner.
The gameplay and environments do nothing to add to the narrative. You spend the majority of the game on an abandoned space station, but the station’s interior is so garishly colored with purple, yellow, and green panels of who-knows-what that it ruins any attempts at atmosphere. Obviously the brown and gray rusty ship interior for horror games has been done to death, and I’m not against the idea of more colorful locations in games, but effective use of color is the key here, not color for color’s sake. The game does feature a level-up system but it’s only confined to the combat and has no bearing on any of the dialogue or quick time elements of the game. There’s also no context for Holiday acquiring these new abilities. This creates a clear separation of ‘story’ and ‘game’ where the gameplay sections are arbitrary and exist for no other reason than justification for this game to actually be called a game.
I don’t know what I could really recommend to fix this game that wouldn’t necessitate a complete rewrite. The sheer depth of the lore presented in the Lethologica would indicate that some sort of origin story for Holiday would be the most effective way to introduce people to the world. As it’s currently written, there’s no reason for Unknown’s role to be a standalone character. Combining Minuet and Unknown and putting greater focus on their relationship with Holiday would be more effective. It’s baffling to me that in a world centered around a massive international conflict between America and China involving a giant orbital death cannon and an army of vat-grown monster soldiers that Revolution 60 focuses on a trite artificial intelligence plot instead.
So there it is, my condensed (if you can believe it) thoughts on Revolution 60′s story. I don’t like it and the more I think about it the more nits I find to pick. These are problems that I have no reason to assume will be fixed in the PC port, which is why I have no intention of picking it up.
Who is my favorite female character, and why is it Rookie Anderson?
"I talk a lot about gaming controversies of various kinds on this blog,"
First of all, before we can get into Anderson as a character, we need to look at her role in the story. What part does she play in the film?
Now for those of you who maybe haven't seen the movie, or even a few of you who have, what I'm about to say next might confuse you. Ready? Here it goes:
Rookie Anderson is the lead character in this movie.
But how can that be? The movie's called 'Dredd', right? Dredd is the guy on all the posters and DVD covers. So how can the movie be about Anderson? Anderson doesn't even show up for the first ten minutes, so how can she be the lead of this movie?
Well first of all, hypothetical-question-asker, we don't judge (heh) who the main character is based on who shows up on screen first. Just look at how long it took for Luke Skywalker to show up in Star Wars. Similarly, Judge Dredd takes up the posters in the same way that the Terminators always take up their posters, despite them not being the main characters in their movies either. Dredd is the name on the marquee because he's synonymous with the world of Megacity One. He is an embodiment of the world of Megacity One, the Judges, and their methods. We'll come back to this notion later, but in order to further drive home that Anderson is the center of this movie, let's talk about what happens in the movie before Anderson shows up.
Dredd 2012 BA: Before Anderson
There are two main sequences that occur before Anderson arrives in the movie: the first is the opening sequence leading into the title, which has panning shots of Megacity One with a voiceover from Dredd, and a scene in which Dredd chases down some drug-addled perps and dispenses justice.
These two scenes serve to establish the world of Mega City One and Dredd as a character (keep in mind that Dredd in this movie is a symbol of the current state of the Judges in Megacity One). From these first two scenes, we learn:
The scale of Megacity One and its population density.
The existence of Megablocks.
The fact that America is 'an irradiated wasteland', establishing the possibility of people being tainted by fallout.
Crime is the main problem facing Megacity One.
Judges are the only people standing between criminals and complete anarchy.
The functionality of the Judge's sidearm, the Lawgiver (both the DNA ID system and the multiple ammunition types).
Dredd's desire to work alone.
Dredd being a fucking badass.
The existence/function of Slomo.
The existence of 'Isocubes' and 'Resyk'
All of these elements play heavily into the plot and help to establish the world of Megacity One as a gigantic slum facing extreme amounts of crime held barely in check by the 'men and women of the Hall of Justice'. Based on Dredd's ability to stop the three thugs, we think the situation is at least partially under control. But it's not. It's really, really not.
The Failure of the Hall of Justice
After the superb 'hotshot' scene, we're finally introduced to Anderson. While there's a lot to go over in this scene in regards to her status as a mutant and her motivations, for now I just want to look at one key aspect of the scene: the fact that, on two separate occasions, tests administered by the Justice Department declared Anderson to be inadequate as a Judge: the aptitude test when she was a child, and her final examination. At first glance these failures are meant to provide us with suspense over whether or not Anderson can prove herself out on the field, but considering everything else that happens I think there's another aspect to these failures that's worth exploring.
What if these failures, rather than indicating a lack of ability on the part of Anderson, represented a wider failure amongst the Hall of Justice in their ability to recognize capable Judges? I mean think about it: Anderson failed the aptitude test, but the four crooked Judges who Mama pays off to kill Dredd and Anderson somehow not only passed, but have served for upwards of twenty years. What this indicates to me is that the current methodologies of the Hall of Justice (which, as a reminder, are represented by the character of Judge Dredd) are inadequate, and that Anderson's unique (if unconventional) methods are the key to overcoming those problems. We see this when Anderson saves Dredd from being executed. The movie takes great pains to show us how the Hall of Justice is failing to curb the rise in crime, such as when the Chief Justice flat-out tells Dredd that 'the Judges are losing the war for this city', or when we're told that out of the thousands of violent crimes that happen each day the Judges can only respond to about 6%. We even see the huge wave of incoming calls as a sea of red dots over Megacity One.
I've gone on a while without even talking about Anderson as a character yet, so let me sum up why her role in the story is important: Anderson's presence in this movie, along with everything else that happens, is meant to call into question the effectiveness of the Hall of Justice. Anderson's failure of the examinations says more about the Hall of Justice than it does her own abilities. Dredd, as the symbol of the ideal enforcer of the Hall of Justice, realizes by the end of the movie that despite Anderson's quirks or flaws that she is ultimately what is required in order to help win the war for the city. Any change or arc Dredd has is symbolic of a larger change within the methods of the Hall of Justice, but it is not the center of the movie. So what is the movie about?
The Part Where I Finally Start Talking About Anderson
So with all that said, let's start talking about Anderson. First thing we should talk about is the character's motivation. What is Anderson trying to accomplish in this movie? What is her goal?
You might say that her goal is to prove herself to Dredd, to pass her exam, and become a Judge. You would be wrong. You might say that it's to make her family proud, as Kay implies in his monologue before he attempts to execute her. You would still be wrong.
Anderson's motivation in this movie is to make a difference in Megacity One. She says as much in the scene when they first arrive at the Peach Trees Megablock. Like the two Marvel Captain America movies (which I also adore) and Disney's Hercules, the hero's motivation is not to become skilled or powerful, since they are powerful from the beginning, or even to defeat a single antagonist. Rather their goal is to find the right outlet for their power in order to help others. This is crucial because her desire to make a difference in people's lives directly contradicts with her mandate to 'dispense Justice'. If it were up to Judge Dredd, then the techie hostage who was threatened and tortured by Mama throughout the movie would have been executed on the spot for 'being an accessory to her crimes'. Because of Anderson's gift, and because of her desire to be a positive impact in people's lives, she lets the techie go and states that she's willing to accept the fail offense and that she knows she isn't cut out to be a Judge. Which is true, inasmuch as she'll never be the kind of Judge that Dredd is, but the point to take away is that for all Dredd's effectiveness, he isn't perfect, and he most definitely isn't the solution to all the crime in Megacity One.
So that's her motive. How about her actual character?
Anderson is a Fucking Badass
That much is certain, but what does it mean to be a 'badass'? So often, and especially with regards to a lot of female action leads, someone being a 'badass' simply means being someone who can do cool things or spits out the occasional pithy one-liner. While Anderson does both things in this movie, that's not what makes her cool, and the reason goes into how I define someone as being a 'badass'. It has to do with the proportionality of their actions versus their limitations. So for example, Superman running across a battlefield with bullets whizzing by his head isn't near as badass as, say, a regular soldier. The more limitations a person has, the more impressive their feats become and the more admirable we find them.
Anderson actually has quite a few limitations. For starters, she's a mutant, a class in Megacity One that faces persecution from both criminals and the Hall of Justice. It's implied in the movie that Anderson is the first mutant to be trained in order to be a Judge, and it's clear from both the graffiti in Peach Trees and the way Kay talks to her that mutants (or 'muties') are extremely undesirable in Megacity One. Anderson is also a rookie, and while she is by no means incompetent or unskilled, it is her first time out on the field, and Megacity One is a fucking hellhole. I mean, when you have fellow members of law enforcement telling you to consider suicide as opposed to capture...I'm no expert, but that's a sign things are stacked against you. It's also stated that Anderson grew up in a slum similar to Peach Trees, which forms an interesting point of contrast between her and Mama (which I'll get into later). All of these things make her already impressive actions all the more amazing.
Another aspect of the movie which I enjoyed was how the movie used exposition. Usually in movies like this, characters like Anderson are used as the audience proxy, the character who has to have everything explained to them so that the audience knows what's going on. While that does happen a few times, it happens just as much to Dredd as it does to Anderson. Simply put, Anderson is shown to be an inquisitive, intelligent, capable person as soon as she's introduced. These are just a few of the skills Anderson demonstrates before they even arrive at Peach Trees:
Perfect mastery over her ability to read minds, which bails both her and Dredd out of multiple problems throughout the movie.
An encyclopedic knowledge of the Megablocks and their populations,
The ability to accurately judge people (such as the vagrant at the Peach Trees entrance).
All of this is before they even step inside the building. When they do arrive, she further demonstrates her skills by deducing that the three bodies in the lobby are a public killing meant to 'send a message'. The only thing that comes up in these opening scenes that she doesn't know about is slomo, and that's justified by virtue of the drug having only 'just hit the grid'. Even then, seconds later Dredd is caught asking about who Mama is, so it's pretty clear that even the great Judge Dredd doesn't always know everything that's going on in Megacity One.
The only real times where Anderson is shown to be less than stellar are scenes involving violence and murder, but even then those scenes hit the right balance between displaying competence while giving her flaws. Anderson is more than capable with guns, but gets anxious about being in actual combat for the first time. She's an accurate shot, but doesn't like having to execute a perp who's begging for mercy on his knees in front of her. She's good at thinking on her feet and isn't easily distracted or fooled. She isn't a burden. Even when she gets captured, she not only escapes, but manages to save Dredd in the process. She tells Dredd to stop abusing a prisoner, not because she's squeamish about violence, but because she can interrogate him better. And in the end, she stands up to Dredd in order to let the techie escape when she realizes that the techie is a victim. Keep in mind, in the course of this movie, Dredd has done all of the following:
Shot a perp with a heated bullet and watched his skull melt from the inside.
Killed dozens of people, including other Judges, without a moment's hesitation once it was clear they had broken the law.
Scorched a half dozen perps with an incendiary round and watched them burn.
Punched another Judge in the throat so hard that it left a dent.
No seriously that actually happened it left a dent I MEAN JESUS
And despite all of that, Anderson stands up to Dredd and lets the techie go.
Bad. Ass.
Anderson and Mama: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Without getting too much into Mama (this is supposed to be a post about Anderson, after all), I feel that her character is a perfect mirror to Anderson. Both of them started out in the slums of Megacity One, endured hardship (Anderson being trained since childhood to become a Judge, Mama being forced into prostitution), and experienced a personal tragedy (Anderson lost her family, Mama got attacked by a pimp), and then tried to better their lives (Anderson tried to find an outlet for her psychic abilities, Mama became a criminal mastermind and turned to slomo). Both Anderson and Mama were created by the same broken society of constant crime, and the rampant flaws of the Hall of Justice. This further strengthens Anderson's arc by illustrating the kind of person she could have easily become had she not been picked up by the Justice Department after her parents had died, or even if she had just been dumped off somewhere after she had been first deemed unsuitable following the aptitude test.
This is part of the reason why, even though Anderson is the lead of the movie, she isn't the one to sentence Mama. Anderson's arc concluded the second she stood up to Dredd. By having her be able to dispense justice in her own way, Anderson was able to find a way to make a difference. Having her kill Mama on top of everything else would not have added to her character. If Anderson had killed Mama, then that would have gone against the entire point of her arc.
Anderson as a Person
So okay. We've talked about how Anderson is the lead of this movie. We've also talked about her motives, and some of the themes and parallels the movie uses to add depth to Anderson as a character. But what about Anderson just as a person? How does she fare on the Plinkett Characterization Test (describe the character without saying what they look like, what they wore, or what their profession/role in the movie was)?
Anderson is an empathetic and caring person who tries to make a positive difference in people's lives. She gets believably anxious in tense situations, but not to the point where she becomes a constant liability to those around her. She's both intelligent (as shown in the 'gas grenades' scene as well as her knowledge of Peach Trees) and clever (dodging a patrol into an apartment, tricking Kay into using her Lawgiver). She has a dry sense of humor, as shown in the scene where she enters Kay's mind. She's brave, courageous, and strong while dealing with remorse regarding some of the things she has to do, and fear of death (or worse). Overall she's a strong-willed, good-intentioned person who stands up for herself and others in spite of whatever risks she has to face.
Pretty well, I'd say. Anderson in this movie is a well-rounded character. A lot of this has to do with Olivia Thirlby's great performance and the chemistry she shared with Karl Urban as Dredd. While I'm not a major Thirlby buff, I think it is interesting that besides from The Darkest Hour her roles have mostly been more drama-oriented and think that being an actress used to starring in human dramas may have helped bring a lot of the more emotional aspects of Anderson's character to the front. I'm not an expert when it comes to analysis of acting, so I can't get deeper than that, but I do think that a lot of Anderson's appeal in this movie owes itself to Olivia's acting.
Why Anderson Is Important
Now you know why I think Anderson is awesome, but everything I've just written is subjective, and while I can cite numerous examples from the movie to support my analysis it is still just my interpretation. So why did I write this post telling you why I think Anderson is such a great character?
I think it has to do with my own personal confusion over what movies become viral among certain communities in terms of how characters defy tropes or gender roles. From where I stand, movies/games/other media that defy tropes and are praised are just as arbitrarily selected as movies/games/other media that play into them and are condemned. I feel like a lot of times when something comes out that does something right, that everything else in the immediate vicinity that did something vaguely similar is ignored in order to make the newcomer seem like a much bigger deal than it actually is (Frozen and the meme of 'the princesses don't actually get married' comes to mind).
Like Mako from Pacific Rim, for example. Now I liked Pacific Rim. I also liked the character of Mako. I thought she worked well in that movie. But while the internet blew up with excitement over the fact that Mako didn't actually kiss the man that she obviously had a romantic attachment to, I was rewatching Dredd, a movie where Anderson and Dredd's entire relationship is one of professional respect. Or the gigantic fuss over the fact that Maleficient very obviously touches on the subject of date rape and sexual assault, while Dredd had a main character who had to deal with the threat of sexual assault just as a part of her job. Or the continuous praise that the mediocre Hunger Games movies get for having a female lead when Anderson is a better developed character and a far more compelling action lead.
I'm not blaming anyone for celebrating these characters, and I think that what all those aforementioned movies are doing are good things. I'm just confused over why the same people who praised all four of those movies aren't also gushing over Dredd (at least not nearly as visibly). I guess that's the real reason I wrote this post. I see Anderson as perfectly addressing all the various complaints that come up in discussion of modern cinema, and I think it'd be a shame if we didn't see more movies like Dredd (or even sequels to Dredd) simply because it was ignored in order to make bigger movies seem even more important. I'd like to think that the movie's poor marketing is more to blame, and would love to be proven wrong.
All I can really say is this. I've been a fan of female action leads since I was at least 13. I've seen countless female action leads in movies and games over the years, and a lot of times they came off more as pandering (in one form or another) than actual people. Anderson is an actual character first, with motives and ambitions of her own, rather than a flashy sex object or a weak attempt at gender equality appeasement. That makes her special to me, and aside from being just a great character on her own, is why she's the character I remember the most fondly.
So let's give more credit where credit's due to one of the best female action leads in recent years: Judge Anderson. And then once we do that, let's continue our fervent pleas for a Dredd sequel.
The Only Thing About Papers, Please That Isn't Perfect
Just finished playing Papers, Please (thank you Steam Summer Sale!) and I really, really liked it. If you're like me and haven't played it yet, please try to snag it in the next few days, because it is a really good game. In terms of what it's setting out to do it's pretty much perfect, and it's probably going to be my go-to example of how games can tell engrossing stories through gameplay for a long time to come.
But there's just one area in the game that I feel could have been improved. It's a little thing, but I feel like it could have made a huge difference.
This screen comes up after every day of work, and is your main incentive for performing well at the border checkpoint. The money you make at your job is used for feeding, heating, and caring for your family. This is extremely effective at generating tension with the knowledge that too many mistakes will result in your pay getting cut down, which could mean huge problems for your family.
The problem is the part on the right. Aside from a family photo you find later in the game, this is really all you get to see of your family, which is a bit of a shame. I feel like a really promising bit of potential world building was missed by showing our family in such an impersonal way, and listing their ailments as just circles smacks a bit of 'show don't tell'.
Personally, I would have had it so that this screen comes up over a cutaway of your apartment showing your family going about their day to day lives. Like maybe show your son doing schoolwork at the table while the uncle reads the newspaper, with the mother-in-law and wife doing laundry or preparing food. Drive home how shabby your little apartment is so that players may feel more invested in the idea of upgrading. When the heating goes off or people get sick, show how it effects them rather than just telling us via a circle. Do they have a radio or TV? If so, what would they listen to or watch? I feel like little details like that would have added even more to the world this game creates. It also would go to make choices like turning off the heat or not buying medicine all the more difficult when you see how they actually affect people. Considering that part of the inciting incident of the game's plot (which, by the way, was really excellent in its intrigue and overall suspense) relies on the initial difficulty in making ends meet, it would serve to add a little more desperation if we could really see how dire things are getting at the opening.
Obviously implementing this would have some complications, depending on who lives/dies and other choices the player makes throughout the game. I also know that considering how minimalist the game is and the fact that it's an indie title in general, it's likely that something like this was probably considered but ultimately scrapped for time. I just think it's a shame that it wasn't ultimately there when it could have made a world of difference.
Ah well. Still a great game regardless (as if you needed me to tell you that).
