Games You Probably Never Played: Majestic

I suddenly had a bit of nostalgia for this game/beautiful failed experiment called Majestic, which was released by EA on 2001. It was available online for a subscription of $9.95 a month and was sold at retail for $40. Majestic cited too small an audience and terminated the game and its components at the end of April in 2002.


The premise: You sign up online for a game dealing with conspiracies and shadow governments, but right after you finish setting up your tools for play something goes horribly wrong: The game studio burned to the ground and the servers are down leaving you with the promise of further information the next day. What do you find out the next day? The fire was no accident, and now the developers of the game are on the run. Why are they running? And from who(m)? The true game has now begun.

The technology: Majestic didn't run on an engine or have character models. The game ran mostly on technologies that many already possessed: web browser, phone, AOL instant messenger, fax, e-mail. The only addition was a small program you downloaded to manage and collect files (mostly video and audio recordings, but also pictures and notes). You progressed by solving puzzles hidden in webpages, e-mails, pictures, and other materials and the story was presented to the viewer through AIM chats and video messages from the characters.

The good: Majestic was as engrossing as the player wanted it to be. If the player didn't mess with the chat bots or scoff at some of the inconsistencies, the game worked well and immersed the player in a wealth of information that accompanied a decent story progression. Telephone calls could be spooky and it was difficult to discern which websites were real and which were built for the game. In fact, the makers of Majestic encouraged fans to build content and pass it around to increase the material for other players.

Majestic builds its plot from several conspiracy theories as well as many that were constructed purely for the game. It blurs the lines between reality and fiction using technology. For the player who wanted to be played by the game rather than play a game, it was an experience not to be missed.

The bad: Puzzles in Majestic ranged from super easy to super hard. All of the beginning episodes are filled with easy puzzles, poor chat bots, etc. and were sometimes slightly discouraging to the player who wished for more challenge. However, past the beginning of episode 2 of the 4, the puzzles became much more difficult and there were a small number of optional puzzles the developers introduced to keep the challenge up for the players who had already progressed through parts of the story and were waiting in limbo for the next event in their game.

And that's ultimately the big 'take it or leave it' elements of Majestic: The action throughout the game is on a time table. When someone says they will contact you the next day, they mean it. The game typically unfolds in real time. This means that the pilot can be finished in the matter of a couple of days, but the actual episodes are meant to unfold over the period of 2 to 4 weeks depending on how fast the player progresses through certain check points. This will definitely not satisfy gamers who are used to being under a barrage of imagery and stimulation for hours on end- those players will not stand the long periods of inactivity. This game was designed for the adult in mind, one that doesn't have much free time available to them and would like a periodic form of entertainment that they can build upon.

The ugly: Majestic was pulled about a year after it's release. Partly because they had to shut it down upon the September 11th attacks in 2001 and partly because they didn't keep an audience large enough to keep it going. Majestic is all but dead now and though the retail versions of the game can be found online for pretty cheap, the game itself can't be played anymore because the sites and servers associated are gone. If the game had been able to incorporate a fake browser with the websites and information, chat interaction, and maybe cellphone text messages or something, it could have kept going.

If you are interested in games like this, check out Missing: Since January and its sequel Evidence: The Last Ritual. Both games have you join an investigation and solve puzzles using web browsing, email, and the cd-rom to hunt down a killer and free his victims (you unlock videos and clues of his victims by solving his riddles and puzzles). And more importantly: both games will still work. They don't interact with your life in real time like Majestic does (no phone calls, IMs, faxes, etc), but you can still get a nice game/internet crossover akin to Majestic's.

Oh For the Love of Virgins

gasp

Clock Tower 3 and...Parthenophilia?

It was several years ago that I played Clock Tower 3. Filled to the brim with gruesome serial killers and running around in a weaponless panic, the game had plenty of material to keep the player on its toes. The protagonist, Alyssa Hamilton, fights a series of supernaturally possessed killers in order to release the murderous spirit residing within them. However, once the game was coming to a close, it seemed the game was less about a quivering teenager trying to defeat the forces of evil and more about how much her grandfather, Dick, seemed to be in love with her.

And not just her- her grandfather expressed much love for his own daughter, Nancy, and her abilities during her time as a rooter (extinguishers of evil, they typically peak at age 15 and then lose their powers by age 20). Then Nancy got married and gave birth to Alyssa, giving Dick yet another young rooter female to cast his admiration and obsessions on once Nancy fell out of his favor.

Dick is not the first man to do this according to the game's story. One of his distant relatives, Lord Darcy Burroughs, was seemingly obsessed with his own daughter. In fact, he planned to kill her on her 15th Birthday, cut out her heart, drink her blood, and become an entity (a spirit which possesses serial killers, causing them to murder and then feeding off the life energy of their victims). In his way, he could be "one" with her for eternity. However, his daughter was killed right before her 15th birthday, causing Lord Burroughs to go into a murderous rage resulting in the death of nearly everyone, including his wife, with the exception of his son (who seemed to have been completely ignored considering how important he was up until the point his father went off the deep end). This son was then the man who Dick descended from.

Dick and Darcy share the same obsession with rooters in their family, so much so that they lose affection for their wives and the daughters who are no longer rooters. And how creepy is that considering Dick and Darcy were over 50 during their parts of the story? Ew. Dick intends to carry out the ritual Lord Burroughs never got to carry out, this time with Alyssa.

"Peaking" at the age of 15, the root (bad pun, I know) of the Rooters' power to extinguish evil correlates with their chastity and the height of their physical and sexual development (according to the game, it's all downhill from there for the Rooters). Women who do not fit into that age category will probably have their heads chopped off or smashed in during the course of the game. I haven't come to any clear conclusions on what the game is saying, if anything. Is the game story making a value judgment about virginal purity? Is it fetishizing the pubescent female? I don't know, but it looks like there are at least two characters in the game who do.

The Women of Parasite Eve

The following is essentially a rambling about Parasite Eve and the unique connections between the characters. Spoilers from more than one game are sure to follow.

Square's Parasite Eve and Parasite Eve II for the Playstation revolve around a phenomenon of destruction and mutating creatures as the result of a mitochondrial awakening (mitochondria being organelles which live symbiotically within cells). At the beginning of Parasite Eve, Aya Brea, a New York City police officer, is attending an Opera with a date. During the performance, the audience and actors burst into flames- except for Aya and one female opera singer, Melissa Pierce, who then flees. The first game chronicles Aya's search for Melissa, Melissa's connection to the ensuing chaos, and the connection between Melissa and Aya. The second game follows Aya out west as she leaves the New York City Police Department for the FBI and the team known as MIST (Mitochondrial Investigation and Suppression Team). She then discovers the depths of the reemerging mitochondrial threat.

Let's take a step back and examine the dynamics of the mitochondrial threat. In short, mitochondria are organelles which live inside cells and produce the majority of ATP, a source of chemical energy. It is believed that mitochondria are descended from bacteria (as they have a separate genome from cell DNA which is closely related to bacteria) and that they were absorbed into cells at some point along the road between primordial ooze and human life, oh some billion years ago. Mitochondrial DNA is also passed on solely through the mother to the child, therefore the theory is that in the early stages of homo sapien development, some female carried a strain of mitochondrial DNA which is the source of all mtDNA that exists in humans now. She is considered, then, the most recent matrilinial common ancestor to all human life. This female has been code-named Eve, and in Parasite Eve she is the consciousness which all mitochondria (who are considered dormant in their current symbiotic state within cells) share.

Now let's conclude the biology lesson and get back to the games (from now on, the science will be much less solid): During the first game, Eve (this ancestrial mitochondrial consciousness) takes over the weakened body of Melissa Peirce and begins the mitochondrial awakening which then transforms the inhabitants of New York City and begins a wave of events meant to bring about the extinction of the human race and the birth of an ultimate being which will inherit the earth. Aya, however, is immune to the effects of Eve- Eve's power or consciousness was held inside the tissue of a girl who's donated organs and tissue made their way into Aya and Melissa. Melissa became sick from the effects of Eve and, in combination with the immunosuppressants she was told to take and subsequently overdosed on, she caved in to Eve's influence and Eve took over her body. Aya, sharing the same tissue with Melissa in her body, is immune to the effects of the new Eve because she herself is part of Eve and is able to suppress it within her own body. The girl who's tissue is shared by Melissa and Aya is Aya's own sister, Maya, who died as a child. Therefore, Aya and Maya share a biological link which aides Aya against Eve- Aya's own body is genetically programmed to simultaneously wield and suppress Eve.

The three main female roles of the first game belong to Aya, Melissa, and Eve who play the parts of protector, vessel, and catalyst respectively. I would argue that the roles of vessel and catalyst are traditional roles for women based on centuries of myth, literature, social institutions and cultural practices- women are traditionally the catalyst for action and vessels for production. The Biblical Eve herself was a catalyst and a vessel as she was involved in the events which lead to the expulsion from paradise and also became the bearer of the children from whom the rest of humanity descended. Throughout history the stories and records have been filled with male heroes, hunters, and conquerors- categories which included few women. Women were instead something to be won, conquered, controlled, etc.

That is what is perhaps most interesting about Parasite Eve: Aya is a woman who is facing essentially female foes. What's more, Aya can be seen as embodying traits of both Melissa and Eve while simultaneously rising above their roles to become the protector and vanquisher. Juxtapose this against the role of Harry in Silent Hill 1: Harry is a male character with no physical, biological or psychological connection with Alyssa or the Mother of God that she becomes, but the stories are greatly parallel otherwise in that he eventually destroys the Mother and the God. Aya does essentially the same task by destroying Eve and the Ultimate Being she birthed, but Aya is part Eve and part Melissa on a social and even genetic level which Harry could never share with Alyssa or the divine being she became. Aya is Melissa and Eve. A male hero in that same situation cannot have the same connections to the antagonist(s).

Any thoughts?

In It to Skin It

Howdy, Ms Game and Watchers. LT here with a couple of mini rants. Before you decide that your opinions are better than mine and you want to tell me so in the comments, recall that less than 40% of people are actually entitled to their opinions. xD

What's Pissin' LT Off Right Now

1: Boobs in Okami

Alright, and I'm sorry I'm too lazy to insert a picture here but you are all probably very familiar with this brilliant game released a few years ago (PS2) and recently (Wii) that is basically Japanese Mythology: The Game! I'm not here to gripe about the story, the gameplay or the script. I'm here because I didn't see the point of all the jigglage in the game. It was stupid, annoying and frequent.

The first time I played through this game I made the mother of all : [ faces at EVERY. SINGLE. REMARK your little pervert accomplice makes whenever he encounters a girl. Seriously, here's a sample scene:

Rao: So we need the Fox Rods to seal away the demons' power! Oh, Amaterasu I have no doubt you're strong enough to defeat them blah blah blah.
[Boobs]: JIGGLE BOUNCE WOBBLE TIT
Issun: WOW THOSE ARE SOME HUGE BAZONGAS! DO YOU HAVE A FOOD DRIVE FOR THOSE CANS OR WHAT! BOINGA BOINGA!
Rao: Huh? Anyway, please hurry to [location] and [do some worthless stuff to advance the story so we can get to the awesome fight with Ninetails].
[Boobs]: WHOA, LOOGOUT! NOTHING CAN CONTAIN US! WHY DON'T WE SKATEBOARD DOWN SOME STAIRS IN SLO-MOTION? A GOOD IDEA; GREAT MINDS, AFTER ALL.
Issun: HAH I just can't STAND IT! BOOBS ARE AWESOME HUH HUH Oh yeah, story stuff. Let's go do that thang. BUT WAIT LET ME SQUEEZE THEM ONCE MORE WOO HOOOO IT IS LIKE A ROLL OF TOILET TISSUE... OR SHALL I SAY, 'TIT-SUE'? HAH HAH AMMY A JOKE!

This kind of behavior continues even after Rao is shown to be actually very dead and not Rao at all. Upon returning to the graveyard outside Ankoku Temple, we visit what we think is her grave. But oh no, not one to actually have some respect for the dead, our little perverted bouncing warrior says "Aw, I bet this is where the real busty babe is buried. May she and her two best friends rest in peace forever."

COME ON.

2: BLACKIE FUNKY KONG
So, I could turn this point into a rant about Japan's hilarious xenophobia and unrealistic expectations of other cultures (exceeding normal, harmless generalizations) but it's common knowledge enough to not warrant a repeating or detailed explanation.

Having accepted (in the loosest sense of the word) Japan's attitude towards others--especially black people, I can still say this: FUNKY KONG IS ANNOYING AS SHIT.

I could be referring to any number of games he appears in, but for the sake of this rant, I'm referring only to Mario Kart Wii. Holy fuck, after you unlock him, you are subjected to his ANNOYING, 'being raepd by an epileptic jellyfish while driving' yelling and his Lil' Jon impression.

Japan, how can you do this?! How can you turn a respectable video game monkey into nothing better than a polygon-rendering of Chris Tucker at his most irritating? And STILL make a character as despicably stereotypical as perhaps Little Black Sambo (a character/book which, by the way, enjoyed a modest revival not too long ago). Only in Japan my friends.

I would provide an audio sample of Funky but here's a description instead, followed by a phonetic guide:

You're stuck in a burning elevator plummeting at 150 mph (and gaining speed!) from the 300th floor, and expect to squish in the elevator shaft's bottom at any moment. With you is Chris Tucker and he is FREAKING. OUT. Instead of his usual Rush Hour "WE'RE GONNA DIE WE'RE GONNA DIE" schtick, he can only use the letter 'A' and a few consonants. So he is panicking, and sounds something like: YABLAWAAWAWANANBABABYWAWABLALAYAWANAWAWAAAAAA.

Strangely, using a red shell on this annoying asshole in a kart is not satisfying. I don't even think a blue shell would do the trick either. An atomic bomb, perhaps.

TOO SOON.