Or Psycho-Pass and then The Last of Us, I don't know. What I do know is that the third guy down in the above picture has perhaps the worst haircut ever. It's short in the back and long in the front. What?
Anyway, the picture above is of a police division in the anime "Psycho-Pass", which I finished watching a few days ago. I would definitely recommend giving it a shot, provided you can stomach some pretty rough violence and some early absurdity. It takes place a century from now (well, 2112, a century from when it was shown on Japanese TV, also the name of a Rush album) in an isolated and entirely self-sufficient Japan. Every person is constantly being given a scan that assesses their likelihood to commit a crime with a single number - the result of this scan is an individual's "psycho pass". The name doesn't really roll off the tongue that well, but it makes sense and fits in with the setting just fine. The show starts off as a "crime of the week" story, where the group above tries to solve a crime or chase down a criminal. The story slowly starts to expand into a single narrative depicting a cyberpunk dystopia that limits humanity's potential and free will. It isn't just a person's likelihood to commit crime that's judged. Their role in society is also judged, and those deemed unfit to make something of themselves before they've even been given the chance are locked in less than desirable circumstances. Even the police have to have their actions authorized by Sibyl, the name of this central judging computer. It's not exactly new ground to tread, but what is? And it's used quite well. The big question eventually becomes, what happens when people find ways around this "psycho pass" system? The police aren't prepared to deal with such major things since it's all in the hands of a computer and everybody's safe, right? Nope. The automation of everything around us is a theme that keeps coming up and this show is definitely against it. Technology should be a tool, nothing more. Remember that bit about needing to "stomach violence" above? Psycho-Pass pushes its TV-MA rating pretty hard, so be prepared for that.
That said, the early parts of this show seem to waver back and forth in tone. Instead of using its TV-MA rating to deliver on a fairly heady theme, or several of them, some bits of the first few episodes come across as absurd and strangely out of place. The police use guns called "Dominators" that are connected to the aforementioned Sibyl system. They're not allowed to fire a deadly shot unless the person they're pointing it at is judged with an extremely high psycho pass, but when they do, the unlucky fellow on the other end explodes into chunks. It's obviously messy (and, frankly, kind of hilarious), but it's used less and less as the show settles into a more serious tone. When it is used, its, um, "effects" aren't really shown. This isn't really a big deal and doesn't cause an inconsistent plot, but it does feel a little bit like the creators weren't a hundred percent certain where to take the show at first. My only other real complaint is the occasional overly long exposition dump. Otherwise? Pretty great. Special props must go to a compelling villain, who manages to have ideals that you sometimes have to agree with (free will is a good thing) but he's still very much a terrorist and very much an evil guy. The story twists and turns while maintaining consistent, sensible character growth and, more importantly, a firm grasp on its themes and messages. It's even available on Netflix!
Anyway, the picture above is of a police division in the anime "Psycho-Pass", which I finished watching a few days ago. I would definitely recommend giving it a shot, provided you can stomach some pretty rough violence and some early absurdity. It takes place a century from now (well, 2112, a century from when it was shown on Japanese TV, also the name of a Rush album) in an isolated and entirely self-sufficient Japan. Every person is constantly being given a scan that assesses their likelihood to commit a crime with a single number - the result of this scan is an individual's "psycho pass". The name doesn't really roll off the tongue that well, but it makes sense and fits in with the setting just fine. The show starts off as a "crime of the week" story, where the group above tries to solve a crime or chase down a criminal. The story slowly starts to expand into a single narrative depicting a cyberpunk dystopia that limits humanity's potential and free will. It isn't just a person's likelihood to commit crime that's judged. Their role in society is also judged, and those deemed unfit to make something of themselves before they've even been given the chance are locked in less than desirable circumstances. Even the police have to have their actions authorized by Sibyl, the name of this central judging computer. It's not exactly new ground to tread, but what is? And it's used quite well. The big question eventually becomes, what happens when people find ways around this "psycho pass" system? The police aren't prepared to deal with such major things since it's all in the hands of a computer and everybody's safe, right? Nope. The automation of everything around us is a theme that keeps coming up and this show is definitely against it. Technology should be a tool, nothing more. Remember that bit about needing to "stomach violence" above? Psycho-Pass pushes its TV-MA rating pretty hard, so be prepared for that.
That said, the early parts of this show seem to waver back and forth in tone. Instead of using its TV-MA rating to deliver on a fairly heady theme, or several of them, some bits of the first few episodes come across as absurd and strangely out of place. The police use guns called "Dominators" that are connected to the aforementioned Sibyl system. They're not allowed to fire a deadly shot unless the person they're pointing it at is judged with an extremely high psycho pass, but when they do, the unlucky fellow on the other end explodes into chunks. It's obviously messy (and, frankly, kind of hilarious), but it's used less and less as the show settles into a more serious tone. When it is used, its, um, "effects" aren't really shown. This isn't really a big deal and doesn't cause an inconsistent plot, but it does feel a little bit like the creators weren't a hundred percent certain where to take the show at first. My only other real complaint is the occasional overly long exposition dump. Otherwise? Pretty great. Special props must go to a compelling villain, who manages to have ideals that you sometimes have to agree with (free will is a good thing) but he's still very much a terrorist and very much an evil guy. The story twists and turns while maintaining consistent, sensible character growth and, more importantly, a firm grasp on its themes and messages. It's even available on Netflix!
The Last of Us was widely considered one of last year's best games, and will probably be one of the PS3's last great exclusives in a long line of great (or at least interesting) exclusives. Persona 5 will hopefully be pretty great too, but if it isn't - well, at least this game sends the PS3 out on a high note. I have finished it before, but I didn't like playing it the first time around. Several places around the internet, from forum posts to at least one games site, recommended starting it on Hard. Don't do that. I dreaded trudging through the last half of this game on Hard. Oh, God, it just got frustrating and annoying. It wasn't fun or engaging on Hard. I just wanted to see the story, but the firefights edged too close to Uncharted for a game with so little ammo. And how come more enemies spawn in when you're caught stealthing around? There were several times where I would know how many bad guys are near me, I'd get caught, and several more would show up. Sometimes they would run up behind me even though I had already cleared out everything behind me. On Normal, those issues aren't so bad. Ammo is a problem, but not too much of a problem. You need to be creative to preserve it, you don't need to be creative because the game just won't give you any even though all of the bad guys are shooting at you like they've got all the ammo they would ever need. Balancing this game properly on Hard required walking a thin tightrope that Naughty Dog just couldn't do right, they fell over into "frustrating" too often.
So, yeah, play this game on Normal. It's actually fun on Normal, which is the conclusion I was hoping to come to after replaying it.
Even before replaying it, I fully believed that this is a game well worth playing through for the story. By "story", I mean everything associated with that - writing, plot, world, characterization, atmosphere, tone, and mood. All of those things are top-notch throughout and plenty engaging on their own. It's one of the best stories ever told in a video game, and one of the best bleak apocalypses that I've seen. It does several things that I'd like to see more games do. For instance, there are long stretches of this game where the only things that are happening are conversations, mostly between the game's protagonist, old and grizzled Joel, and Ellie, the 14 year old girl he needs to protect on a journey from Boston, Massachusetts to Salt Lake City, Utah. Sure, it's another piece of zombie fiction, but it's also proof that that isn't yet a complaint on its own.
So, yeah, play this game on Normal. It's actually fun on Normal, which is the conclusion I was hoping to come to after replaying it.
Even before replaying it, I fully believed that this is a game well worth playing through for the story. By "story", I mean everything associated with that - writing, plot, world, characterization, atmosphere, tone, and mood. All of those things are top-notch throughout and plenty engaging on their own. It's one of the best stories ever told in a video game, and one of the best bleak apocalypses that I've seen. It does several things that I'd like to see more games do. For instance, there are long stretches of this game where the only things that are happening are conversations, mostly between the game's protagonist, old and grizzled Joel, and Ellie, the 14 year old girl he needs to protect on a journey from Boston, Massachusetts to Salt Lake City, Utah. Sure, it's another piece of zombie fiction, but it's also proof that that isn't yet a complaint on its own.