Road 96
do I need to play road 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and [...] 95 before playing road 96?
this game french indie walking simulator about crossing the border on an authoritarian state, I overall enjoyed it but I kinda disagree with the core message of the game.
The gameplay is the following, you pick a starting point, and then you need to survive on the road until you reach the border, and then you need to somehow cross it, on the way to the border there will be events made by recurring characters that may help your or not
There are many choices in the game, some biggers one like trying to save someone or not, and a smaller set of choices that comes up when discussing politics in the game, you can either give a answer that is "the only way to fix this country is via revolution", an answer "The only way to fix this country is voting" and, the third, which is "I don't give a shit what the fuck happens to this country i'm just trying to cross the border so PLEASE get me out of here", these don't really have an impact in the game until the very end, where it kinda defines one of the most important aspects of the ending
While I like the initial set of big choices, I do not like the second, smaller set of choices, at least not the way they're implemented. The way I played this videogame is just do my absolute hardest to reach the border, because that is what my characters would have done, I did RP playing this game. And it just so happens that if you're on search and capture and you meet a psychopath or a police member on the road near the border, you're not exactly going to give away your own political ideals that freely. The game doesn't really account for that, since it counts every political choice equally, regardless of the context of the response
You may argue that a lot of different videogames track morality and politics in similar ways, for example disco elysium counts how many times you've chosen a answer of each ideology and copotype, but not exactly the intensity or context of it, the difference with road 96 is that in disco (in 9/10 circumstances), you're not on risk of getting dettained or dying because of giving away your own political ideals, in fact, the game allows you to lie about your political beleives to other characters in certain cases.
In fact, I have a little bit of problem with trying to RP in this game, because, even if it seems like so from the first time, this game really isn't a roguelike, certain skills do transfeer from run to run, but more importantly, knowledge. After a few runs, I know which characters and routes are dangerous, the politial ideas of each characters, the different ways to cross the border, after a while I don't really feel like someone trying to cross a border going on a really dangerous adventure, but more like a god who knows everything about everyone
Another problem i've had, is that if you in a single character do a event, continue on the road, and trigger another effect that references that initial event, there isn't really any different choices you can make because of the fact you've lived and been there in that event. Only in one circumstance in the game I was able to say "yeah I was actually there lol", which honestly kinda annoys me because it would have given more depth to each character and journey, the road stops feeling dangerous after a while.
The game overall message is that you should go vote, you should always go vote, because by abstaining or leaving the country, you're giving the group that makes you want to leave the country more power since they have less opposition. Every time you're going to pick a character you see the political polls, who is expected to win, but most importantly, the abstinence rate, and from that screen it's clear what they want to tell you, the rate of abstinence is sky high, and given that everyone who isn't voting is on the side of hey dictatorships aren't very cool, if everyone were just going to vote, everything would be fixed without any blood
I feel this game kinda misses the point of why people choose to leave the country instead of fighting for it or why people don't vote. In real life, political surveys don't feature the abstinence %, at least not where I live, you don't know how many people are going to vote until you get the results of the elections, the information that if everyone were to vote we would easily overthrow the bad government isn't really widespread.
Second of all, this is a two part system, you either vote for the political party of death and destruction that is going to keep murdering innocents or the party of rainbows and sunshine that will give everyone free candy. I live in europe, in spain, and here we have more than two parties which actually makes voting quite more difficult
You could vote for the political party you belive most in, but, what if they don't get the sufficient votes and have to ally with this other party you despise?, in that case, it would be better to vote this other political party, which you agree less with, but that you know it's more likely to gain more support, which will prevent that other bad scenario from happening, but wait... isn't that reason for deciding NOT to vote for that one political party what it keeps it's number low enough to where they can't gov on their own???
There is often infighting between parties of similiar ideologies, and a lot of times, voting for certain political parties that you know aren't going to win feels like wasting a vote, so, what's the difference between that and not voting?
This game presents a very simple scenario which never actually happens IRL, it completely misses the nuances of what makes that topic hard and what led to that situation in the first place, plus, you're in the context of a videogame where you KNOW your actions will determin things, What your political choices in the game determine is the OUTCOME of the elections, but again, your own character doesn't really have the knowledge that they will also control the choices of so many other people, if they were to know, maybe they would have acted differently, or you can just completely give up on the idea of RPing and just do what you, the omnipotent god known as the player understands that must be done to get the best ending
Also, the idea of your choices really having that big of an effect on the final elections, often feel a little bit absurd, the impact of saying your true political ideas to a psychopath who isn't going to listen to you anyways is way overstated, that in reality would have 0 effect on the elections, but in the game, it matters a lot, (also, i'm a little bit dissapointed that saving zoe and letting them carry the information that the one big terrorist attack was actually an inside job to news networks in foreign countries didn't have much effect on the actual elections, that is something that feels like it SHOULD have been a big plot point but one that we never really saw the consequences of.)
But, for as much I disagree with the core message of the game, it turns out, that, ocassionally, as you're moving ahead on the road, you will spot brief moments of beauty (haha see what you did there I did a reference I did a reference joke now laugh this is how comedy works right you do pop culture references). This game is absolutely BEAUTIFUL in every sense of the word
The graphics are amazing, but more important than that, the actual scenarions are beautiful, I'm not only talking about the natural wonders of the world, but everything in general. The characters you meet, they're really amazing, I didn't dislike a single character, and I find wonderful how people will still strive to help other people even on the most dire of circumstances. The music on the game is phenomenal, I also loved the little moments after you finish doing whatever the fuck you were doing and you now have to choose how are you going to traverse the next following kilometers
I'm willing to forgive everything that i've said about this game just on the basis that this game is just overwhelming with beauty. In many ways going on the road felt... relaxing, and not even on the later runs where I knew exactly what to do, but even on the first run that everything still felt dangerous I could appreciate those little things. I loved that aspect of the game so, so much
so yeah, I appreciate this game even if I disagree with it, B rank.
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next: prototype
still haven't watched zootopia.
do I need to play road 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and [...] 95 before playing road 96?
this game french indie walking simulator about crossing the border on an authoritarian state, I overall enjoyed it but I kinda disagree with the core message of the game.
The gameplay is the following, you pick a starting point, and then you need to survive on the road until you reach the border, and then you need to somehow cross it, on the way to the border there will be events made by recurring characters that may help your or not
There are many choices in the game, some biggers one like trying to save someone or not, and a smaller set of choices that comes up when discussing politics in the game, you can either give a answer that is "the only way to fix this country is via revolution", an answer "The only way to fix this country is voting" and, the third, which is "I don't give a shit what the fuck happens to this country i'm just trying to cross the border so PLEASE get me out of here", these don't really have an impact in the game until the very end, where it kinda defines one of the most important aspects of the ending
While I like the initial set of big choices, I do not like the second, smaller set of choices, at least not the way they're implemented. The way I played this videogame is just do my absolute hardest to reach the border, because that is what my characters would have done, I did RP playing this game. And it just so happens that if you're on search and capture and you meet a psychopath or a police member on the road near the border, you're not exactly going to give away your own political ideals that freely. The game doesn't really account for that, since it counts every political choice equally, regardless of the context of the response
You may argue that a lot of different videogames track morality and politics in similar ways, for example disco elysium counts how many times you've chosen a answer of each ideology and copotype, but not exactly the intensity or context of it, the difference with road 96 is that in disco (in 9/10 circumstances), you're not on risk of getting dettained or dying because of giving away your own political ideals, in fact, the game allows you to lie about your political beleives to other characters in certain cases.
In fact, I have a little bit of problem with trying to RP in this game, because, even if it seems like so from the first time, this game really isn't a roguelike, certain skills do transfeer from run to run, but more importantly, knowledge. After a few runs, I know which characters and routes are dangerous, the politial ideas of each characters, the different ways to cross the border, after a while I don't really feel like someone trying to cross a border going on a really dangerous adventure, but more like a god who knows everything about everyone
Another problem i've had, is that if you in a single character do a event, continue on the road, and trigger another effect that references that initial event, there isn't really any different choices you can make because of the fact you've lived and been there in that event. Only in one circumstance in the game I was able to say "yeah I was actually there lol", which honestly kinda annoys me because it would have given more depth to each character and journey, the road stops feeling dangerous after a while.
The game overall message is that you should go vote, you should always go vote, because by abstaining or leaving the country, you're giving the group that makes you want to leave the country more power since they have less opposition. Every time you're going to pick a character you see the political polls, who is expected to win, but most importantly, the abstinence rate, and from that screen it's clear what they want to tell you, the rate of abstinence is sky high, and given that everyone who isn't voting is on the side of hey dictatorships aren't very cool, if everyone were just going to vote, everything would be fixed without any blood
I feel this game kinda misses the point of why people choose to leave the country instead of fighting for it or why people don't vote. In real life, political surveys don't feature the abstinence %, at least not where I live, you don't know how many people are going to vote until you get the results of the elections, the information that if everyone were to vote we would easily overthrow the bad government isn't really widespread.
Second of all, this is a two part system, you either vote for the political party of death and destruction that is going to keep murdering innocents or the party of rainbows and sunshine that will give everyone free candy. I live in europe, in spain, and here we have more than two parties which actually makes voting quite more difficult
You could vote for the political party you belive most in, but, what if they don't get the sufficient votes and have to ally with this other party you despise?, in that case, it would be better to vote this other political party, which you agree less with, but that you know it's more likely to gain more support, which will prevent that other bad scenario from happening, but wait... isn't that reason for deciding NOT to vote for that one political party what it keeps it's number low enough to where they can't gov on their own???
There is often infighting between parties of similiar ideologies, and a lot of times, voting for certain political parties that you know aren't going to win feels like wasting a vote, so, what's the difference between that and not voting?
This game presents a very simple scenario which never actually happens IRL, it completely misses the nuances of what makes that topic hard and what led to that situation in the first place, plus, you're in the context of a videogame where you KNOW your actions will determin things, What your political choices in the game determine is the OUTCOME of the elections, but again, your own character doesn't really have the knowledge that they will also control the choices of so many other people, if they were to know, maybe they would have acted differently, or you can just completely give up on the idea of RPing and just do what you, the omnipotent god known as the player understands that must be done to get the best ending
Also, the idea of your choices really having that big of an effect on the final elections, often feel a little bit absurd, the impact of saying your true political ideas to a psychopath who isn't going to listen to you anyways is way overstated, that in reality would have 0 effect on the elections, but in the game, it matters a lot, (also, i'm a little bit dissapointed that saving zoe and letting them carry the information that the one big terrorist attack was actually an inside job to news networks in foreign countries didn't have much effect on the actual elections, that is something that feels like it SHOULD have been a big plot point but one that we never really saw the consequences of.)
But, for as much I disagree with the core message of the game, it turns out, that, ocassionally, as you're moving ahead on the road, you will spot brief moments of beauty (haha see what you did there I did a reference I did a reference joke now laugh this is how comedy works right you do pop culture references). This game is absolutely BEAUTIFUL in every sense of the word
The graphics are amazing, but more important than that, the actual scenarions are beautiful, I'm not only talking about the natural wonders of the world, but everything in general. The characters you meet, they're really amazing, I didn't dislike a single character, and I find wonderful how people will still strive to help other people even on the most dire of circumstances. The music on the game is phenomenal, I also loved the little moments after you finish doing whatever the fuck you were doing and you now have to choose how are you going to traverse the next following kilometers
I'm willing to forgive everything that i've said about this game just on the basis that this game is just overwhelming with beauty. In many ways going on the road felt... relaxing, and not even on the later runs where I knew exactly what to do, but even on the first run that everything still felt dangerous I could appreciate those little things. I loved that aspect of the game so, so much
so yeah, I appreciate this game even if I disagree with it, B rank.
--------
next: prototype
still haven't watched zootopia.
