Gemini Rue

[Jaesun]

So, I finally played this... not that great. In particular, I think the entire build-up and introduction to the setting was weak.

How should the Introduction have been done then?

 

[Shadenuat]

It reminds me how one guy refused to play Arcanum, because you are "chosen one" there ("again!").

 

[Infinitron]

So, I finally played this... not that great. In particular, I think the entire build-up and introduction to the setting was weak.

How should the Introduction have been done then?

I don't know, more/better exposition? More interesting characters?

Barracus was just kind of uninteresting. The Center 7 introductory scenes were better - I got the feeling the game was aiming for some sort of stark dichotomy between the claustrophobic, sterile Center 7, and the gritty, violent New Pittsburg, only it didn't really work.

 

[MRY]

Good news! You are not exactly playing as a bad-ass, trench-coat-wearing, gun-toting, grizzled ex-merc named Azreil Odin.

Yeah, I know, but I don't think that explains the limited verbset, since both the character and the player thinks that's who Azriel is.

 

[Shadenuat]

Yeah, I know, but I don't think that explains the limited verbset, since both the character and the player thinks that's who Azriel is.

I think you judged character prematurely. Not to mention, there are multiple characters in Gemini Rue to play. You shouldn't let that stand in your way if you really want to experience why people believe GR is a good game.

And well, in Gemini Rue you play bad-ass merc who is not a merc and can't shoot every person on sight; and in Primordia you play a robot with glowing eyes who acts human in every way, and has to use lamp to see in darkness. So, fair game

 

[tuluse]

I thought Arziel was supposed to be more like Sam Spade. Yeah, he's a badass, but he doesn't go around just shooting everyone.

 

[MRY]

Hmm. I feel like I'm letting myself get drawn into being critical of a game whose success makes me very happy, and whose creators seems like a modest, talented, and all-around nice guy. So, just for the record, I'm mostly talking about my own idiosyncracies as a writer/consumer and not about the Gemini Rue being a bad game, which its success (and its popularity even in these critical forums) demonstrates it is not.

I thought Arziel was supposed to be more like Sam Spade. Yeah, he's a badass, but he doesn't go around just shooting everyone.

I'm no expert on hardboiled detective stories, but I will say that the way in which Azriel backed down when confronted by the doorman was totally unlike my recollection of Spade in The Maltese Falcon (I'm thinking of when Cairo pulls the gun on him and Spade beats him up, or when he repeatedly scorns and humiliates, and ultimately manhandles Wilmer Cook). Here's how Hammett describes Spade: "a hard and shifty fellow, able to take care of himself in any situation, able to get the best of anybody he comes in contact with, whether criminal, innocent by-stander or client." Or look at how Marlowe handles a comparably insouciant young man, Carol Lundgren, in The Big Sleep (go to chapter 17 (as fair warning, Marlowe uses offensive language)). Essential to these hardboiled detectives is their refusal to put up with sass from characters who fit the doorman's profile: physically inferior but outwardly blustering "beta males." The fact that the apartment lobby has a warning that the use of a gun would sound an alarm is basically just an invitation for Azriel to, say, crush the doorman's hands (like Spade does) or offer him the gun and then beat him up (like Marlowe does). In any event, I think we can agree that in the doorman encounter, Azriel proves incapable of "tak[ing] care of himself" (he has to call his buddy to solve the problem), and it is the doorman who "gets the best" of Azriel, not vice versa.

Even still, I feel like Azriel Odin, ex-organized-crime-military-assassin*, has to be even more outrageously hypermasculine (and violent) than Sam Spade, whose name doesn't include a demon of death or a god of war (let alone both!), and was not (as far as I can recall) an assassin. Moreover, if you're letting the player play Sam Spade, you probably need to have some degree of slop on either side of the character-as-written, which is to say, the player ought to be able to play Spade as a bit more violent than Hammett wrote him, or a bit less violent.

* My memory was incorrect when I described him as an ex-mercenary, I guess? Or was he a mercenary too?

I think you judged character prematurely. Not to mention, there are multiple characters in Gemini Rue to play. You shouldn't let that stand in your way if you really want to experience why people believe GR is a good game.

I certainly judged things prematurely, and I know there are multiple characters to play. I read the Wikipedia summary and watched some Let's Plays, so I have a pretty good idea why people like the game. The ending twist is certainly a clever one, and the execution was quite nice! (In a world where I had infinite time, I would've played through the whole thing, but I have almost no time at all.)

Still, introductory sequences matter, and as far as I can tell, there's nothing that happens later that would retroactively cure my complaint.

Good news! You are not exactly playing as a bad-ass, trench-coat-wearing, gun-toting, grizzled ex-merc named Azreil Odin.

I wanted to revisit this because I think Shadenuat's post sort of reopens it.

Spoiler

I was aware of the twist when I posted (though not when I quit playing the game). I'm not persuaded that the interaction with the doorman (or with the Boryokudan thugs in the apartment) plays out as it does because Azriel "is not a merc." In other words, if this was one of several subtle ways of showing that the programming he underwent was imperfect and they had failed to make him into a badass, then my criticism should be withdrawn and instead it is a clever move on the game's part. But given the way the game's action sequences and other plot points play out, I don't think that was the point at all.

In fact, you're allowed to try to threaten the doorman, it's just that the doorman frightens Azriel off by saying that he'll report him to the Boryokudan and they'll kill him. That is, indeed, the first option in the dialogue tree. Thus, it seems to me that the game acknowledges that the character should be able to threaten the doorman; it just doesn't know quite how to handle the scenario. But having Azriel threaten the doorman and then be the one to back down compounds the problem rather than addressing it because it makes Azriel out to be a blusterer. Instead, the option should have been -- dare I say it? -- to grab the doorman's collar and either boast about Azriel's own criminal past or point out that he can break every bone in the doorman's body before the Boryukdan walk halfway down the block or whatever. To me, that interaction was the perfect moment to say, "This isn't your ordinary adventure-game protagonist." I get that the "kick" command was supposed to achieve that, but I can kick open doors in real life; you don't need to be a super-soldier to do that. Regarding the thugs, Azriel is elsewhere in the game perfectly willing and able to shoot and kill opponents, so the inability to do so when he encounters them at the appartment strikes me as a design expediency, not a subtle character cue.

Thus, my impression wasn't (and isn't) that Azriel is having misgivings about his own toughness (or is simply a paper tiger) and for that reason is unable to stand up to a supercilious doorman or a pair of two-bit thugs. Instead, I think he reacts the way he does (by backing down and running away) for puzzle-design / gameplay-pacing reasons, and you thus end up with an awkward marriage of a hyper-masculine-badass character and a puzzle sequence appropriate for a traditional nebbish-adventure-game protagonist.

And well, in Gemini Rue you play badass merc who is not a merc and can't shoot every person on sight; and in Primordia you play a robot with glowing eyes who acts human in every way, and has to use lamp to see in darkness. So, fair game

I'm the first one to admit that Primordia has its flaws, but I'm not sure Horatio behaving like a human one of them. The lamp/eye issue is a fair criticism, but it's pretty tangential to his character, and his eyes don't illuminate anything when you see him walking in the dark, so maybe they're more like glowsticks than headlights. The fact that he is a robot "who acts human in every way" -- or better, who tries to act human in every way -- is not an inconsistency in his character, it is his character.

My point about Azriel is that the game puts spotlights on a neon sign declaring, "You are playing the ultimate badass." And then within fifteen minutes of gameplay, you are forbidden to do anything really badass with him (and indeed are compelled to do rather un-badass things), despite scenarios that clearly call for a badass solution (and indeed tease such a solution). I would've loved to see the early puzzles in the game play out like the iconic Indiana Jones gun-vs.-sword sequence: condescending doorman makes belittles you and makes an unreasonable demand; you break his hand and he gives you the information Azriel wants, perhaps while Azriel declares, Mark Millar-esque-ly**, "What did you expect from someone named Azriel Odin!?"

(** E.g., "Surrender? You think this A on my head stands for France?!")

I have no objection to a protagonist who is an ersatz badass and is incapable of doing any of the things you would expect an ex-assassin named Azriel Odin to be able to do. Such a character, beset by the anxiety of being uncovered and desperately trying to maintain the tough-guy facade that his work requires, would be very interesting. But that's not Azriel Odin, as far as I can tell; he's an ersatz badass in the sense that his identity is not historically accurate (and in this sense bear some resemblance to Cloud Strife, who I suspect played some inspirational role here), but, in terms of who he believes himself to be and what skills he possesses, he is a real badass (as in, say, the show Dollhouse). So he can do badass stuff when the plot requires it, and he can't when doing so would short-circuit the plot or puzzle design. To me, a fake badass (in the sense I describe at the start of this paragraph) would be interesting; a real badass would be fun (see Full Throttle). A real badass who has the same limited verbset as a fake badass was, for me, neither fun nor interesting.

Horatio, by contrast, is doing all these human things precisely because he is trying -- without knowing exactly the particulars of who or what humans are -- to emulate humans. And the game conveys that from the outset: the first thing you see about him is that he's wearing clothes; in the next room you see that he has a bed; within a few minutes you learn that he worships humans; you learn that he takes notes externally; etc. The character may be a cheat insofar as he's written to be a robot who nevertheless has to go through puzzles as if he were a human, but there's no bait-and-switch.

Again, just to be clear, I'm not saying Primordia is a better game than Gemini Rue, or that Gemini Rue is a bad game. I can't judge, but critics and the market can, and they clearly think Gemini Rue is a better game. Even if I did think Primordia was better, the last thing I'd do is go around trying to persuade people of that fact. The only reason I feel comfortable expressing my own misgivings about Gemini Rue is that I'm quite confident that its place in the adventure-game pantheon is very secure, and my voice as a doubter is very quiet.

--EDIT--

I should add that if I had played the game through, I'm sure the twist would've brought me great delight, seeing as how I adore Spider & Web and Dragonsphere because of their use of similar twists, even though the latter is really not a particularly great or creative game.

 

[tuluse]

You make a valid point, I recently played Full Throttle, and one of the first puzzles in that involves beating up a guy in a bar. I have some more half-defenses to throw at you, but I don't think they would be convincing or fix the core issue for you.

Anyways what attracted me to the game was the mystery. I had to know who these people were and how they were connected. The twist was ok, it's not the kind of twist where it reveals more about the first part of the story and thus invites you revisit it. It's more of a wrapping everything up twist.

I'm quite confident that its place in the adventure-game pantheon is very secure, and my voice as a doubter is very quiet.

I don't think it's place is very high. It's a nice game, but it's no where near the Lucas Arts games of yore.

 

[Shadenuat]

I'm the first one to admit that Primordia has its flaws, but I'm not sure Horatio behaving like a human one of them.

It's less about is it flawed or not, but the fact that both characters are not what they seem to be on the first sight, and one should give benefit of a doubt to try and understand why they behave in particular way. I never felt about Azriel as strong as you did, for me he just was a grumpy guy in a coat, who was searching for his brother, and it was implied by the game that we're sticking on the right side of the law, so I wasn't running around trying break people's hands.

 

[MRY]

I think there's a fair chance my hostility to the character was largely driven by his name. (And, to be candid, by envy toward the game's enormous success!)

 

[Sceptic]

In a world where I had infinite time, I would've played through the whole thing, but I have almost no time at all.

The game is short. VERY short. You could've finished it in the time it took you to write this wall of text.

Quite frankly refusing to finish the game because you expect badass hero and he wasn't badass enough is so asinine I don't know if I should bother with this post. There's plenty to dislike about Gemini Rue: the puzzles are laughable, the interface is awkward as hell in places (use the foot icon to get on a crate... and then get off it using the hand icon. WTF), the popamole (LITERALLY fucking popamole) sequences are some of the worst and most misplaced action scenes to ever enter a supposedly traditional adventure game (and I used to think Hand of Fate was bad), the writing is way too cliche in places (particularly the ending... don't know why people like it so much. As much as I liked the rest of the game, and though the twist was very well done, the writing breaks down at the very end). Incidentally, the popamole sequences completely destroy any "not badass enough" arguments that you could come up with. If Azriel gunning down those that stand in his way is not badass enough for you then I don't know what to say.

The game has faults in just about every single aspect of its gameplay. I loved everything else about it: graphics, music, atmosphere, voice acting, writing (for the most part). Seeing criticism that ignores gameplay (or even worse praises it) in favour of one narrative element (which you got wrong anyway) is just... what the hell man? I used to like you.

Also, "power-fantasy that Gemini Rue's character represents". lol.

 

[ghostdog]

I'm not a big fan of the game either. Graphics and atmosphere were great, but I thought the puzzles were weak, action sequences were weak and the story and characters didn't do it for me, even though I like this kind of setting.

 

[Infinitron]

I never saw Azriel as that much of a badass honestly. Maybe it's because I avoided reading about the game's characters before playing it.

I remember pretty early in the game trying to shoot somebody (probably that doorman) and he said something like "I don't do that kind of stuff anymore." That line was enough for me to realize that he wasn't a badass. An effective enough defining moment.

 

[MRY]

Seeing criticism that ignores gameplay (or even worse praises it) in favour of one narrative element (which you got wrong anyway) is just... what the hell man? I used to like you.

Now I know how the Dragon Pharaoh felt!

In all seriousness, I'm sorry to have disappointed you. My tastes are idiosyncratic and no doubt often indefensible -- for example, I love Death to Smoochy and Lufia and the Fortress of Doom (almost solely because of its cold open) and couldn't play more than ten minutes of System Shock because the interface was too hard for me to figure out. But still, they are my tastes.

That said, I think you may have somewhat misunderstood my criticism, which isn't a narrative one, but rather a gameplay one. It's that when you're given a character of a certain type, you should let the player do the cool stuff they would expect that character to be able to do when they want to do it. It's like giving them Hulk and not letting him SMASH his way past an obstacle. My beef with Azriel isn't that he's not bad ass enough; it's that the game conjured him as a great bad ass and then didn't let me play as one; that you can later do bad ass stuff like shoot through popamole gangsters supports my point -- why can you shoot them then, when the game wants you to, but have to stand there and let them kill you in the apartment if you don't go run and cower outside? Has some personality change happened? (It was the apartment sequence, not the doorman, that made me give up on the game.)

Also, "power-fantasy that Gemini Rue's character represents". lol.

If you don't think that being a brooding ex-assassin gone-straight named Azriel Odin is a power fantasy you haven't spent enough time with Japanese entertainment products!

The game is short. VERY short. You could've finished it in the time it took you to write this wall of text.

It took me like half an hour to write! The game is at least four hours long! In any event, why would I forgo doing something I like (bickering about game design) in favor of doing something I wasn't enjoying?!

I remember pretty early in the game trying to shoot somebody (probably that doorman) and he said something like "I don't do that kind of stuff anymore." That line was enough for me to realize that he wasn't a badass. An effective enough defining moment.

Maybe I misjudged the character (or am misremembering). I'm not sure that explains why he would let the thugs shoot him to death, though.

 

[Sceptic]

In all seriousness, I'm sorry to have disappointed you. My tastes are idiosyncratic and no doubt often indefensible

I don't care about your tates. I mean I care enough about them if they can sprout into an interesting discussion. But I don't go around telling people what they're allowed to like, I've said this many times over the years. What I took exception to was your stated reason for not liking the game, because it doesn't make sense, and because it's based on a perception you have of the character that is not even true, and you cling to it despite being told, repeateadly, by people who HAVE played the game, that it is in fact not true.

That said, I think you may have somewhat misunderstood my criticism, which isn't a narrative one, but rather a gameplay one.

No I do understand your criticism, and it's not a gameplay one. "I wanted my point and click adventure game to be a hack and slash kill 'em all shooter because I'm playing a guy named Azriel Odin" is not a valid gameplay criticism. You picked a single, minor point from the narrative, twisted it out of the game's context, decided on what genre the game should belong to, and then dropped the game because it in fact doesn't belong to that genre, as any casual look at the game could've told you. Except of course the game DOES have shooting bits where you get to be "badass ex-assassin Azriel Odin", and in fact they're the shittiest part of the game, and you of course just brush them aside with "why can't I do this all the time?" Because guess what? it's a fucking adventure game, not a shooter. This is what I'm calling you out on, not your tastes.

If you don't think that being a brooding ex-assassin gone-straight named Azriel Odin is a power fantasy you haven't spent enough time with Japanese entertainment products!

If you think that the character is there to set up a power fantasy then you haven't played the g- oh right, you in fact haven't.

I'm guessing the Japanese thingie was a joke, but that doesn't adress the main point. Which is that this is not a power fantasy. I don't care if you decided it was - the entire game's narrative supports the opposite. Me, I didn't pick the game because I WANT TO BE SHEPARD AZRIEL! I picked it up because the art looked great, I dug the atmosphere, and although the gameplay pissed me off the presentation kept me going through what I knew would be a very short and easy game (4h? more like 2-3h. And that's if you listen to every spoken line).

Maybe I misjudged the character (or am misremembering). I'm not sure that explains why he would let the thugs shoot him to death, though.

Maybe he only shoots when he has no other option?

I mean OK, we get it, you wanted to shoot things, but this is really, really, really asinine.

 

[Infinitron]

Heh, MRY is a bit too sensitive to things he deems "cheesy". You could see that in my interview when we talked about KQ6 and GK2. Fiasco!

But hey, he's a busy man. Let him play what he wants.

 

[MRY]

What I took exception to was your stated reason for not liking the game, because it doesn't make sense, and because it's based on a perception you have of the character that is not even true, and you cling to it despite being told, repeateadly, by people who HAVE played the game, that it is in fact not true.

Well, if I'm wrong as a matter of fact, I'm happy to withdraw my criticism, but I'm not persuaded that I am wrong. Let me lay out my understanding of the plot, and you can correct me:

Spoiler

The protagonist is a cipher (D6/Charlie) whose mind has been programmed to have the memories (and skills) of a fictitious person named Azriel Odin. Under this false identity, D6 served successfully as as assassin for the Boryokudan, including during a war. After he left the Boryokdun, a fictitious memory about a brother he needs to rescue is used to bring him back, so he can be rewiped and rereleased as an assassin again.

Is any of that wrong?

If not, let me explain where I go from there:

Spoiler

My criticism doesn't rest on whether the protagonist "really is" Azriel, or merely believes, in error, that he is Azriel. In that sense, the twist is quite different from the twist in Resonance. There, a character may have engaged in actions that seem out-of-character, but it turns out that's because the character you think he is isn't the character he thinks he is. He is behaving in-character given his actual psychology. With Azriel, there's no cognitive dissonance between the player and the character. Both "Azriel" and I thought that he was Azriel, a hard-bitten ex-assassin with a gravelly voice and a big gun and the ability to kill as many thugs as he needs to whenever he wants to. (For example, TV Tropes says: "Professional Killer: Azriel's previous profession. He still has his old tools and instincts.") We were both wrong. But since we both believed him to be Azriel, then it's reasonable to expect him to act like Azriel too.

Now, if the reason he can't rough up the doorman or defend himself in the apartment is that he was programmed that way, or the programming was failing, or he was trying to reform himself and become a man of peace . . . then you're absolutely right, I'm absolutely wrong, and my criticism is meritless. I apologize for it.

But nothing I've read, and nothing anyone has said, has persuaded me that that's the explanation. As you note, elsewhere in the game Azriel is perfectly willing to shoot Boryokudan thugs to protect himself. And in the doorman sequence, you are able to threaten the doorman, just not very effectively.

Let me try an analogy. Say you have this bad ass character, and he's got this huge pistol and a stubble and a voice like Clint Eastwood, and across the room from him is the villain and Clint's wife. Between them are a bunch of steel bars, a few inches between each bar. The villain says, "Hey, Clint, I'm about to do such and such to your wife. Enjoy the view!" Clint doesn't shoot him. Terrible things occur. Later in the movie, Clint catches up with the villain, puts his gun at the villain, and pulls the trigger. There's a loud bang. But the villain isn't dead! Clint is staggerd. WTF?! It turns out that unbeknownst to Clint or the audience, the bullet was a blank all along. That's why the villain was comfortable taunting Clint in the barred room, even though Clint easily could have shot through the bars.

Well, that explains the villain. But why didn't Clint shoot? If your answer is, "Because the bullet was a blank, what's the point?" then you've misunderstood the problem. Especially because later in the movie, Clint does shoot. There has to be some other explanation, or else, WTF is wrong with Clint?

As best I can understand it, your problem with my criticism is "because the bullet was a blank." Now, some people may not care about the issue at all (in my example, the plot hole is so gaping as to be disastrous, while you may be perfectly right that the scene I'm harping on is a small and tangential one in Gemini Rue. By all means, then, my criticism may be idiosyncratic (i.e., things I care about that others don't), but it's not "wrong." Despite playing a character who is an ex-assassin bad ass, in a scenario that calls for bad assery, you can't actually behave the way the character should behave. That you can later be a bad ass is totally beside the point.

Which brings me to:

No I do understand your criticism, and it's not a gameplay one. "I wanted my point and click adventure game to be a hack and slash kill 'em all shooter because I'm playing a guy named Azriel Odin" is not a valid gameplay criticism.

No, that's not my criticism. It seems like I've offended you enough for you to want to paint me as a lunatic idiot, so whatever I did, I apologize. In the meanwhile, let me try to explain my criticism again.

The character is named Demon of Death God of War. He is an ex-assassin. He wears a trenchcoat and stubble and speaks with a gravelly voice. The game promises me a world "where life is cheap." Everything about the setup screams that the protagonist is the ultimate bad-ass.

I find the setup excessive and I don't particularly like to play that kind of character. It doesn't matter if they have an Inner Secret or a Heart of Gold or a Dark Past or whatever else. The name is part of what turned me off (see also "Cutter Slade" in Outcast), but it's only a part of the whole package.

Spoiler

I understand that it turns out that Azriel Odin turns out to be a constructed identity. But it's not like he's an absurdity within his own universe; he is completely consonant with Barracus and the villains who inhabit it. After all, his partner Kane is not a construction; he's just another cool guy named after the original murderer. In other words, this isn't Homer Simpson coming up with the action hero name Max Power; the joke isn't on the Director, as far as I can tell.

Provided that I am going to play a character like that, though, the fun of playing that character is being a bad ass. So, for example, one of the reasons why I loved Blood Omen is that even though it's quite over-the-top to ask me to play a reanimated vampire named Kain on a quest of vengeance, you actually get to do ludicrously bad ass things that a vampire named Kain on a quest of vengeance would do, like drain the blood out of people as they scream in agony and so on. The same is true of Ben in Full Throttle, to use a specific adventure game example. Playing Ben isn't fun because of the lame Road Rash segment (which is analogous to the shooting segments in Gemini Rue); it's fun because within the adventure game parts, he behaves like a motorcycle gang tough guy.

You picked a single, minor point from the narrative, twisted it out of the game's context, decided on what genre the game should belong to, and then dropped the game because it in fact doesn't belong to that genre, as any casual look at the game could've told you.

Well, it happens to be all of the game that you can play in the demo?

Except of course the game DOES have shooting bits where you get to be "badass ex-assassin Azriel Odin", and in fact they're the shittiest part of the game, and you of course just brush them aside with "why can't I do this all the time?" Because guess what? it's a fucking adventure game, not a shooter.

When did I say I wanted a shooter? I would rather not have action segments (not that I got to any of them). What I wanted was a game where among the adventure-game verbs the character had were "intimidate" and "shoot." The ability to intimidate is integral to a character like Azriel Odin. So, of course, is the ability to shoot. But it shouldn't be in an action sequence. f you give me a character whose defining trait (per the marketing material, the character's introduction, and in fact the game's plot) is that he's a hard-bitten ex-assassin with a gun, then the puzzles you present should respect the possibility of trying to resolve them through those qualities.

The problem with the small part of the game that I played was that it presented puzzles where use of "intimidate" or "shoot" were clearly plausible solutions (sometimes the best solutions), but they weren't valid verbs. So, for example when thugs burst into the apartment, rather than standing there and being shot to death, Azriel should be able to kill them. Whether that's accomplished as a cutscene or as a "use gun on thugs" interaction isn't that material (I'd rather the latter). What is material is that Azriel shouldn't stand around and die as if he were Roger Wilco confronted by the Terminator robot. That violence was an option only in the non-adventure-game portions of the game is completely backwards. If anything, it highlights the problem I had rather than alleviating it.

more like 2-3h

The leading Let's Play is 14 parts, the parts averaging about 40 minutes. The second most popular is 8 parts, each about 32 minutes. The third most popular stops midway through the game (not sure how far) after 10 parts, which are 30 minutes each with one 40 minute exception. I guess they could all just be super slow though, or have some kind of filler.

Anyway, I'm not going to belabor this any more. I'm sorry if my criticism of the game annoyed you, destroyed your respect for me, etc., etc. I'm happy to read whatever devastating takedown you're going to unleash in reply, but I'll let you have the last word. There's no upside for me using more time on this (as you've pointed out).

 

[Infinitron]

MRY

Under this false identity, D6 served successfully as as assassin for the Boryokudan, including during a war.

Actually, Azriel's memories from the war are almost certainly implanted, since he says he knew "Matthius" from the war. In fact, he couldn't have been constructed before the war, since it's only after the war that Gemini's rehabilitation centers ran out of budget and became corrupt.

 

[MRY]

Got it. But he really was an assassin, right?

 

[Infinitron]

Got it. But he really was an assassin, right?

Yeah, but it's never made clear for how long or if he ever really killed that many people. The only thing you're told ingame about Azriel's past is that he and Kane have spent the past months busting up various criminal organizations. Azriel actually has more of a "badass" rep from his work as a cop than his work as an assassin.

 

[Sceptic]

As best I can understand it, your problem with my criticism is "because the bullet was a blank."

No. Actually, you nailed my problem with your criticism in the following sentence:

Now, some people may not care about the issue at all (in my example, the plot hole is so gaping as to be disastrous, while you may be perfectly right that the scene I'm harping on is a small and tangential one in Gemini Rue. By all means, then, my criticism may be idiosyncratic (i.e., things I care about that others don't), but it's not "wrong."

This is exactly how I felt about it: it's such a minor point, that I couldn't wrap my head around the fact it put you off the game. As I said before I liked the game well enough, but found way too many flaws in the gameplay (I've touched on most of them) so that I'd never rate it as an amazing adventure game. TBH, the main reason I was so bewildered was because, at first, I thought "oh boy, I'm not the only one who disliked many elements about the game!" only to be rather surprised that you major (and only?) problem with it was something that seems so minor. Saying it was asinine was not right - I should've just said "nitpicky". Way, way waaaaaaaaaay nitpicky. What threw me off as well were your analogies, which bring up examples that are NOT nitpicking and are therefore not in the same league as what happens in the game.

It seems like I've offended you enough for you to want to paint me as a lunatic idiot, so whatever I did, I apologize.

We've sorted this out on PM I think, but no, I am not even remotely offended, and I certainly didn't think you were a lunatic idiot. I did think you were being too nitpicky, the kind of nitpicky that drops something with major good things because of a tiny insignificant not-good thing. Clearly it's not insignificant for you though, so there's no point telling you to ignore it and play on anyway. Especially since you've already spoiled the story :p

Well, it happens to be all of the game that you can play in the demo?

I never actually played the demo, jumped immediately into the bought game. I wonder if that was part of what put you off - with the full game there are a lot of things to do and many more facets to the character, whereas in the demo you're stuck with this handful of locales and puzzles, and if they don't fit your expectation there's nothing else.

The problem with the small part of the game that I played was that it presented puzzles where use of "intimidate" or "shoot" were clearly plausible solutions (sometimes the best solutions), but they weren't valid verbs.

I've been playing adventure games for so long with a puzzle gamer's mentality (as opposed to.... well, an adventure gamer's mentality I guess) and I'm so used to "guess what the developer intended" that I slip into this mode for puzzle-solving too easily. I don't remember the details of the puzzles you mentioned or what I was thinking when I solved them, but maybe it's me who's too lenient with lack of versimilitude, and not you who's being too nitpicky. Something for me to ponder I guess.

I guess they could all just be super slow though, or have some kind of filler.

10h? good lord. I remember it taking me ~3h because I started it in the afternoon and finished it in that same afternoon (ie before evening). Maybe I play too fast without realizing it...

Anyway, I'm not going to belabor this any more. I'm sorry if my criticism of the game annoyed you, destroyed your respect for me, etc., etc. I'm happy to read whatever devastating takedown you're going to unleash in reply, but I'll let you have the last word.

Sorry to disappoint, no devastating takedown. In fact I was ready to let this lie after seeing Infinitron's reply to my earlier post, but I couldn't in good conscience let you have the last word thinking that you actually annoyed me or that my respect for you is destroyed (yes I know I said "I used to like you." Typical Codexian hyperbole. I still do). So uh, here's my last word I guess :p

And now this whole discussion has made me think I should try Primordia...

 

[Jaesun]

Got it. But he really was an assassin, right?

Yeah, but it's never made clear for how long or if he ever really killed that many people. The only thing you're told ingame about Azriel's past is that he and Kane have spent the past months busting up various criminal organizations. Azriel actually has more of a "badass" rep from his work as a cop than his work as an assassin.

Must everything be explained in a games story? People that bitch about that grates on my nerves... just my own opinion.

 

[suejak]

This is one of my favourite modern adventure games. Possibly my favourite. The art is beautiful and the atmophere stellar.

The gameplay is novel, if a little dry; the story is a little hamfisted, but good enough. I don't really know how you can criticize it. It's definitely not the absolute best writing even in games -- even in indie adventure games -- but it's exciting and thought-provoking in that somewhat drab Wadjet style.

 

[MRY]

Yeah, I created a tempest in a teapot by the length of my initial post. I really was trying to correct a misimpression that I had called G.R. a bad game; in the interview, I had just used it as an example of the challenges with having a character whose reasonable actions exceed the typical adventure game verbset. I tend to quit games quite easily, due to limited time and patience. Probably a bad habit.

And now this whole discussion has made me think I should try Primordia...

I'm happy to try to dig you up a Steam key or WEG download code, if you'd like!

 

[Name]

Primordia>Resonance>Blackwell=Gemini Rue>Shivah