I put this off for a while because I forgot: I love point and clicks, especially mystery cyberpunk point and clicks.
I say that, but there's always a problem with film noir sci-fi dramas. They're always so brooding and focus on these sad dad cops while rambling on about technobabble concepts. That is still very true with Lacuna, but I think it has enough of a heart that it manages to circumvent a lot of normal problems. The game doesn't care much about technobabble or big sci-fi inventions that can hack the brain. The biggest sci-fi changes that the setting seems to allow is that space travel exists and cancer is eradicated. Its real interest in its sci-fi setting in the political scheming of the future and how those decisions trickle down. And its that focus that gives the game the heart it needs to keep your focus.
As far as sad cop dad Conrad, the game gives you a lot of choices of what kind of cop to be. I specify "cop" instead of "person" because, well, those decisions are limited within the scope of being a cop. The Conrad I played seems to really think the CDI (sci fi FBI) has an "intuition" for morality and that they're all doing their best to do the right thing. Even as scandals emerge, he argues whether or not its something the organization can be blamed when it was "the CDI of the past" that did the scandals. But its especially glaring when the game sets up your partner Gary, who's pretty eager to arrest anyone even tangentially related to a crime and spouts off the occasional insult to the minority groups or poor in the setting. When circumstances offer you the opportunity to screw over Gary's chances of becoming the next Chief, I leaped for it while Conrad moaned about "this job is his life, I can't believe I'm doing this!" It tries to have Conrad argue about morality with a friendly criminal, but its reasoning tends to be kinda vague on actual meaning or substance.
Still, I think the game has the right intentions, even if its struggling to figure out what those intentions are in the wider scheme of things. It's interested in why crime happens and who funds crime and different political agendas and occasionally gets to the point of questioning the institutions Conrad belongs to. Its a solid mystery game and it really gripped its teeth in me for a bunch of hours.
I say that, but there's always a problem with film noir sci-fi dramas. They're always so brooding and focus on these sad dad cops while rambling on about technobabble concepts. That is still very true with Lacuna, but I think it has enough of a heart that it manages to circumvent a lot of normal problems. The game doesn't care much about technobabble or big sci-fi inventions that can hack the brain. The biggest sci-fi changes that the setting seems to allow is that space travel exists and cancer is eradicated. Its real interest in its sci-fi setting in the political scheming of the future and how those decisions trickle down. And its that focus that gives the game the heart it needs to keep your focus.
As far as sad cop dad Conrad, the game gives you a lot of choices of what kind of cop to be. I specify "cop" instead of "person" because, well, those decisions are limited within the scope of being a cop. The Conrad I played seems to really think the CDI (sci fi FBI) has an "intuition" for morality and that they're all doing their best to do the right thing. Even as scandals emerge, he argues whether or not its something the organization can be blamed when it was "the CDI of the past" that did the scandals. But its especially glaring when the game sets up your partner Gary, who's pretty eager to arrest anyone even tangentially related to a crime and spouts off the occasional insult to the minority groups or poor in the setting. When circumstances offer you the opportunity to screw over Gary's chances of becoming the next Chief, I leaped for it while Conrad moaned about "this job is his life, I can't believe I'm doing this!" It tries to have Conrad argue about morality with a friendly criminal, but its reasoning tends to be kinda vague on actual meaning or substance.
Still, I think the game has the right intentions, even if its struggling to figure out what those intentions are in the wider scheme of things. It's interested in why crime happens and who funds crime and different political agendas and occasionally gets to the point of questioning the institutions Conrad belongs to. Its a solid mystery game and it really gripped its teeth in me for a bunch of hours.
4 Comments
@Whom I'll at least grant that Gary chills out later in the game and apologizes for being a bit too harsh in his methods.
Something I think a lot of stuff that is riffing on either the popular noir books and movies of the 40s and 50s and/or Just Bladerunner is that in either case the protagonists are fuckass shitheels who are not generally meant to be sympathetic people and these works are like fundamentally critical of the systems the characters operate within or adjacently to. It’s nice that this game at least seems to be trying in that respect?
It definitely has a greater grip on the anti-government themes than a lot of other Blade Runner imitators, even if I think its ultimate thesis is a little muddled.
Whom
2 years ago