Firewatch has been igniting its fair share of conversation among players and game critics alike. I’ve seen people discuss the “emotional impact” this game has had on them. Combined with how closely guarded the developers at Campo Santo were about its story and themes prior to release, I was intrigued. Now that I’ve finished my playthrough, I honestly can’t say that I completely agree with my peers who have nothing but adoration for it. While I did enjoy my time with the game, I have a big problem with it. This leaves me with a level of unease that has little to do with Firewatch itself and more the reception of games like it.
When people talk about these kinds of story-driven games, I rarely hear any form of praise besides something along the lines of “It made me feel”, “I was moved”, or something else that suggests that it invoked sadness or melancholy on the part of the individual. Rarely are any other forms of praise given on top of that. I fear that this suggests that when we see “walking simulators” (for lack of a better term), that we, as their audience, have this as our default reaction. I say this not to disparage the genre, but rather to show that perhaps we ought to expect more from them. They can be more than just a genre of games where players wander around an environment and get told a story. To do this, I’d like to compare Firewatch with a game, in the same genre, that more strongly leveraged the power of the medium to tell it’s tale: Gone Home.
When exploring the house of Gone Home, players are given clues as to the lives of the people occupying it. While there are notes and messages scattered about the house, there are other ways that it tells players about its cast of characters. Even if I missed the letter to the father of the house from his publisher, discussing how terrible the sales of his book were: I can still understand that he is a struggling, aspiring author by the fact that are boxes and boxes full of his crappy books in his room. Should I have blindly walked passed the diary entries that tell of two friends listening to rock music and playing old games: I can still glean a portion of this by looking into her room and seeing the CDs, radio, game console, and controllers are setup to convey this idea. I am certainly being told the story by the various texts being stored throughout the house. However, there’s more to it than that. The props in the space I occupy also, more effectively, chronicle the tales of the people who live in it, and are a part of it.
I don’t get this same feeling playing Firewatch. Instead of using context clues to discover what is happening in the lives of the game’s cast, I am moving my chosen actor around a game board so that he may explain to me what’s going on. When I walk protagonist Henry up to a camp, he immediately explains the significance of the props there before I have a chance to think about them for myself. I don’t need to figure out what kind of creature shredded the tent of two missing girls in the woods, because Henry has already come up with the idea that they may have been mauled by a bear. I don’t need to think about where the bedsheets found at the scene came from, because Henry is quick to remark that they were the same sheets stolen from his watchtower the night before. I don’t need to think, because the game is eager to give me an explanation before I even have a chance to explore the scene myself. I’m not the one poking around, seeing what the evidence left behind says. The only thing I am to do is bring Henry to his next destination so that he can tell me what he thinks about the objects and props therein.
The world itself also doesn’t help to assuage this notion that the player is just Henry’s driver. Between set-pieces, players will often end up doing a lot of walking, using a map and compass as their guide. Aside from the scant few supply caches, the area is surprisingly vacant. There isn’t even only a few woodland creatures in sight. It’s hard to hold this against the game, since the isolation inherent to being a Fire Watchman is part of the point. Yet, this does mean that there are long periods, sometimes of 10 or more minutes (more if the player somehow gets lost or doesn’t know where to go) where nothing is happening. Since my playthrough took only about 4 hours, that means that a significant portion of time is spent just walking without even a little interaction with the world. With a few good lines and a nice use of props, Firewatch could use some of this downtime to better sell the protagonist’s slowly developing cabin fever, bettering their time economy.
Again, I go to Gone Home as an example of the importance of compactness of level design. That entire game takes place in one single location: A house in the suburbs. Even though the house is a larger than the average home, it’s still not a big space when compared to the kinds of video game levels most players are used to. But despite it’s diminutive size, there are a lot of stories to learn about in this suburban home. This is because the area is compact, limiting the amount of downtime that players experience. Lacking downtime, the chances of players suffering boredom are reduced, keeping them more engaged in the events unfolding.
I’m not at all trying to suggest that Firewatch is a bad game, or a lackluster experience. Despite the problems I’ve talked about, the writing itself kept me hooked throughout my playthrough, even if it fizzles out towards the end. On top of that, the voice acting and direction are some of the best I’ve heard in a long time. However, it could be so much stronger of an experience than it already is. It could be more than just a story happening while players move from place to place.

I admit, as I write this, I’ve no idea what the reaction to this article will be. What I do know is that I am not content with being a passive participant, eagerly ferrying my protagonist from one location to the next so that the plot can unfold without my influence. Doubly do I feel this when I’ve little other form of interaction with the world beyond that. This is not an article suggesting that so-called “walking simulators” don’t deserve to be called games. Rather, this is to calmly and constructively encourage them to do slightly more with their layout and world design to better engage players in the kinds of stories they wish to tell with that central mechanic. Strong writing is one thing, but the most important thing about an interactive experience is the interactive element.

(Spoilers for The World Ends With You)
In the New Year, people are wondering what kinds of fresh, interesting games will be released. Therefore, the absolute best way for me to start 2016 is to completely disregard the desire to do new things. Instead, I went back to 2007 to play a game that I missed out on: The World Ends With You (TWEWY). Back when this game first came out, I made the decision to get a PSP instead of a Nintendo DS. That meant that up until I purchased a 3DS, I wasn’t able to give it a chance.
Aside from the fact that it was a highly acclaimed RPG on the DS, I honestly didn’t know too much about TWEWY going in. I’m glad that I didn’t, because it gave me a chance to get to know the cast of characters on my own terms. Of particular note is the protagonist of TWEWY: Neku Sakuraba. Though not a particularly unique character on his own right, Neku serves as a great example of someone with a fully fleshed out character arc.
At the beginning of the game, Neku can best be described as an asshole. He often finds himself disgusted with other residents of Shibuya, making no effort to understand them. If you knew someone in high school that thought they was better than everyone else, and therefore no one was worth their time, then you’ve basically met Neku in real life. One of the first things that he notices is that no one else seems to be able to see him. Initially enjoying this turn of events, things change once he learns the reason for his newfound invisibility.
This is when he discovers that he’s a player in the mysterious Reapers’ Game. When somebody dies, they may give up the thing most precious to them as an entry fee to enter the game. If they win, they come back to life and reclaim their entry fee. Lose, and they surrender any claim they may have to life. As a player, he is forced to complete a mission each day for seven days. Unless at least one team completes a day’s mission in the allotted time, all players will be “erased” (read: killed). As he starts to complete his first mission, he is attacked by monsters spawning out of nowhere. By partnering with another nearby player named Shiki, he is able to both fight off the monsters and prevent further attacks.
And that setup is very important for Neku’s development. Until he realizes that the current circumstances make it practically impossible to avoid cooperating with others, Neku will do anything he can to avoid others entirely. He is naturally required to get over himself in order to survive, which sets him up on the path to greater character development.
Through his partnership with Shiki, Neku gradually starts to open up, eventually revealing that he can’t remember anything about his life before entering the Reapers’ Game. Eventually, this leads to him befriending other players aside from his chosen partner, like the pair Beat and Rhyme. Initially hostile to the two for “dragging him down with their problems”, the two partnerships grow into a strong team for completing missions. When a trap set by the Reapers, who control the game and attempt to halt all players’ attempts to come back to life, kills Rhyme. Rather than leave Beat to fend for himself, as he likely would have prior to the start of game, Neku is the first to step up and hold off the enemy long enough for Beat to make an escape.
On the seventh day, once Neku and Shiki beat the Game Master, the Reaper directing the game and the missions therein, they are told that only one person is allowed to return to life. Specifically, since she performed the best, Shiki is the chosen “winner”. However, since she, Neku, and Beat survived the game, their entry fees were returned. In Neku’s case, his memories were the entry fee. In order to get a chance to talk to Shiki in the real world, and spend time with his newfound friend, Neku agrees to once more participate in the Reapers’ Game. Unfortunately for him, this requires a new entry fee.
This new entry fee is one of the biggest signifiers of how much Neku has changed over the course of this single week. His first fee was his memory, the thing that he valued most. As the one in charge of the game explains, Neku valued himself over anyone else. Since one is most defined by their memories and experiences, taking it away is the closest thing one can get to truly destroying someone without killing them outright. Thinking that his would just lose his memories again, Neku agree to another round. To his misfortune, after his experiences with Shiki and the others, his self and his memories are no longer than which he most values. The most valuable thing to him is the life of his partner, which is why she becomes the new entry fee.
Entering the second Reapers’ Game with his memories intact and a firm goal in mind, Neku still needs a partner to fight and protect himself from monster attacks. This is when he forms a pact with the enigmatic Joshua. As a character, Joshua is a lot like Neku used to be. Often he will talk about how pointless it is for people to try to know and understand one another. Rarely does he ever talk about himself, choosing to hide his motives and agenda from everyone, including his own partner. However, he lacks the disdain Neku once had, instead demonstrating smug, self-righteous narcissism. In this way, the game highlights the change Neku has made by teaming him up with the logical extreme of his own previous personality traits.
This contrast even extends to their philosophies when playing the Reapers’ Game. Neku is anxious to complete every mission given as soon as he possibly can, because he understands that both his and Shiki’s lives are on the line. Meanwhile, Joshua doesn’t really care about anything other than himself and his own goals. He is more than willing to let other teams get their hands dirty in order to spare himself from putting in a modicum of effort.
At least, that’s how it first appears. As the week goes on, their relationship appears to change. Joshua begins to question Neku about his life and beliefs. However, this questioning isn’t to prove how much better he is compared to Neku. It instead leaves an impression that Joshua is genuinely curious about the person Neku was and is. In response to the answers, Joshua pontificates about the nature of people and their relationships with others. This paves the way for his heroic sacrifice against the new Game Master for this round.
Unfortunately, despite being the only surviving contestant, Neku does not return to life on the basis that he was aiding Joshua in matters that exist outside of the Reapers’ Game while playing the game. Since he still technically survived until the end, like last time, Shiki’s life is returned. However, Neku must play a third, final time to be afforded a chance to return to life. As he is once again playing the game, another entry fee is extracted.
As the game starts, Neku realizes that he can’t see any other players. After playing twice, he has begun to prize the partnerships and teams that have been keeping him alive. So much so, that this cooperation with other players has become the thing he values most, and the entry fee for this round. This is the same person who began the story as a misanthrope who couldn’t even begin to care if the people around him lived or died. By developing friendships and working with others in a situation where he had no other choice, he has significantly changed his outlook. Watching his entry fee change over the course of 3 runs means we are able to visibly see his character progression.
This leaves him alone in a world where those without partners can be easily picked off. Fortunately for him, the gameplay and story both demand that someone comes to his aid. Through circumstances outside the scope of this discussion, Beat steps in as his companion for the third Reapers’ Game. If the change in entry fees doesn’t highlight how Neku evolved through the story, then the change in his relationship with Beat certainly does. The arrogant, selfish Neku from before hated Beat after just 5 minutes of conversation. This Neku, who desires a team to work with, is different. He gladly accepts the company presented to him.

It’s natural for characters to evolve as they go through whatever journey or adventure that is thrust upon them. We are far from the days where video game protagonists were little more than cyphers for the player to impact their feeling onto. However, it’s difficult sometimes to find good examples of character development with a very clearly defined through line. That’s why I want to bring attention to Neku and The World Ends With You as a whole. In growing from a misanthropic teen to someone who respects and values others, he can show how characters can slowly, gradually, and plausibly change as they react to stimuli.

I’d say it’s a shame that the audio desynchronized, but this level sucks, so who cares?

So what remains to be said about Mirror’s Edge? Despite all the complaining we did during the second half of the game, I’d still recommend it to stranglers who still haven’t played it after all this time.

It’s an experiment. And like all great gaming experiments, it succeeded in many areas and failed in others. Hopefully, DICE learned from the lessons this game taught when developing Catalyst. More free-running, less precision platforming and combat.

What better way to say goodbye to this game than to listen to that amazing theme?

For some reason, this episode’s footage came out in slow-motion. Not even Sam is sure why that is.

It’s probably for the best that the footage messed up, because we wouldn’t have much more to say at this point.

I’m also really glad that soundtrack is here for the tower climbing segment. Without that music, it would be really hard to think of good things to say about it. In a game about fast-paced parkour, we spend a level slowly climb up a tower in order to reach a Sniper perch.

Yeah…

At least Sam was able to partially clean up the audio in post.

This is Sam’s least favorite level in the game. That’s partly because he had to record it far too many times, but also because it’s just poorly designed.

One thing you’ll notice in this level, more than any other, is that Sam was stopping and looking around frequently. Sometimes it was to look for which platform he had to get to. Sometimes it was to get his bearings or to redo a failed jump. However, every time is a damning statement on why this level sucks.

On top of that, you’ll also notice several times where after failing a jump, he had a redo a decent amount of climbing in order to get to a point where he could try again.

And then we get to a sniper battle and subsequent duels. I can’t fathom why they were in the game. They actively discourage movement by forcing you to stand behind cover to break line-of-sight. Because Celeste has trained her sights on you, this is actively worse than the subway section from earlier.

I just don’t understand. This game was so good at the start, and I wish I knew exactly what went wrong.

Welcome to the start of the worst half of Mirror’s Edge:

Almost on queue, the footage desync while Sam is recording, meaning he had to record this awful segment several times. Even still, he ultimately could not get any footage where the audio and video were synced.

So if Sam sounds particular bitter about this second-half of Mirror’s Edge, now you know why.

Another day, another discussion on the decline of Mirror’s Edge.

As I said at the start, Sam and I really love this game. However, there’s no denying that it gets visibly, appreciably worse with each level.

I would like to have a conversation with the people who worked on this game just to know what happened as the development went on. It could be that pressure from on high forced them to include more stereotypically “shooty” segments. It could be that the game was rushed. It could be that they were trying to see what works and what doesn’t work given this core concept of free-running. It could be any combination of those three and/or something else entirely.

But we’ll probably never know that. And that bums me out.

In this episode, we take a moment to talk about Mirror’s Edge’s approach to platforming.

The subway section best emphasizes why Mirror’s Edge’s first-person platforming works, by taking away a lot of what makes it work.

When this game is at its best, precision isn’t a huge issue. It’s much more about looking around and quickly making a decision about which path to take. It’s not about timing, it’s about identifying and executing on an opportunity.

This subway section directly contrasts that. There’s no high-speed decision making going on. You’re not being directly chased by cops hot on your tail. It’s about waiting for something to go past so that you can get across to the next segment of the level.

I can’t really fault DICE for doing this, though. On the whole, Mirror’s Edge is and was an extremely experimental game. It’s doubtful that anyone would have even been able to figure this stuff out without first having Mirror’s Edge as a point of reference. For that reason, I can’t honestly be too mad about it.

In this episode, we beat up a former wrestler and jump off a crane.

This is still a decent level, but it’s not hard to notice that it’s not quite as good as the first few levels in the game. As Mirror’s Edge goes on, the overall quality of each level, in terms of their design, starts to noticeably drop.

Despite that, we’re still on the top good side of the curve in this portion of the game. It doesn’t get really bad until another 2-3 missions from this point. Once they begin to introduce more and more precision platforming and combat, the game deteriorates.

Yet still, even when this game starts to suck, it is so unique that I can’t help but to recommend it.

In this episode, we get down and dirty in the cleanest, most pristine sewers on Earth.

It feels weird to criticize this game for anything involving its story content. I say that mostly because it clearly wasn’t a major focus of the game. It’s not accident that the cutscenes are all less than 5 minutes. Like I said in the episode, it’s a well-documented fact that Rhianna Pratchett was hired after all the levels in the game were made.

There’s also the fact that this game was made in the late 2000s, back when storytelling in games was just starting to be a thing that people began taking seriously. It was probably assumed that Mirror’s Edge didn’t need much of a story, so long as the game played well enough.

In that way, I can’t blame it for being a product of its time. While indeed unique among its contemporaries, even today, it still has signs of being developed in the era where “Call of Duty” was a phrase that wasn’t nearly as divisive.

That said, I would have loved it if the game did a bit more to tell players about the world and the people in it.
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