Dead Rising 2 vs Mirror's Edge

I'm an achievement hound. I don't consider a game truly finished until I've gotten all the achievements. I'm even doing this for Dead Rising 2, a game with which I have a lot of complaints (mostly about its depictions of race and gender, its hackneyed story, and its mediocre gameplay... frankly, everything but the fact that it never freezes or crashes).

However, I'm never going to get all the achievements for Mirror's Edge. As with Dead Rising 2, I have a lot of complaints about the game, all stemming from gameplay and none about the story or representation. And there's nothing hackneyed about it! I love everything about Mirror's Edge except actually playing it. It was a great attempt, a beautiful innovation, and I'll never be able to, by my lights, finish it.


Dead Rising 2 is kind of crap all around. It feels like the game is trying really hard to be sharp social commentary about... something. A mall that's also multiple casinos, zombies still standing in front of slot machines, a gameshow about killing zombies... But it all falls flat, not least because everything the enemies are doing, you the player are doing. The dialog is flat, the villains predictable, and the depictions are racist and sexist all over the place. I came close to hurting myself several times I rolled my eyes so hard.

By contrast, Mirror's Edge doesn't try too hard with its story. In fact, like the environmental style, the story is minimalist. You're presented with a world and only the bare bones of the full story are laid out. You're a small player in a much larger situation. It's a story begging for a sequel, and it's getting one. Unfortunately, they're sticking with what was, for me, the only thing about the game that was disappointing. The actual gameplay.

I love the Assassin's Creed series, so you know I love me some city-hopping parkour nonsense. Problem is, Mirror's Edge is first-person, so you can't see your feet. That's kind of a big deal when you're running around jumping off rooftops. Mostly because when you can't see your feet you often don't jump off the rooftop and instead just fall off it. Or you jump off it and don't land on the next one over. The game is all about timing your jumps and slides and stuff; it would be great but that timing is hard when you don't actually have a body. I really want to love the game, but it ends up being incredibly frustrating every time I pick it up.

With the first game, they didn't solve the myriad of obvious problems facing a first-person parkour platformer. Maybe this time they will. Not holding my breath, though.

Where does the flame go when the candle's out?

Someone you love has died, and you're looking at her body. She looks like she's sleeping, like she could just wake up. Where is she?

She isn't. The person you loved has gone. The person you loved wasn't a physical object. All that is left of the beautiful, vibrant person you knew are the ripples she left in passing. You have your memories, you have your love, your grief, but she is gone. The physical thing before you used to be her dearest possession. Now it's not.

The person you loved was not a physical object, she was the result of physical objects. She was a process, she emerged from a collection of physical objects, she sprang into being from their interaction. Their motions created her, continuously, moment to moment, and when they ceased to cooperate, she ceased to be.

Your loved one was not the molecules of her body, she was their reaction. She was not the cells of her body, she was their cooperation. She was not an object in motion, she was the motion itself. And now that motion has ceased.

Except for the echo of that motion in you.

Behind a Veil of Ignorance

So, as per usual, I've been translating wikipedia articles into English, and I've been learning about John Rawls. So far he seems awesome (but dead).

Those of you who adore The West Wing may recall that the less-handsome replacement for Sam Seaborne mentioned to his unpaid, inexperienced writing staff something about a "veil of ignorance".

John Rawls came up with that.

Essentially, the principles and laws for a just society should be constructed from The Original Position, behind a Veil of Ignorance. Everyone would naturally want to set up a system where the king gets everything and then make himself the king. But the original position and veil of ignorance say that you don't know what position you'd be born into. You don't know your social class or economic status. You don't know what sort of abilities or talents you might have. You don't get to choose to be king.

Rawls argues that, from behind the veil of ignorance, everyone would instead set up a fair society based on two principles:

1) Everyone has access to the same extensive liberty, with that liberty being conditional on everyone else also having access to that liberty (that is to say, rights and liberties will always come into conflict and have to be balanced).
2) a) Any inequalities must be structured to give the greatest benefit to the least advantaged. (the principle of difference; for example, progressive income tax at the higher income brackets balanced with a negative income tax [or a tax credit] at the lowest brackets)
2) b) Everyone must have access to positions, offices, and opportunities (equality of opportunity)

Legislators and others in power should be guided by the original position and veil of ignorance in that they should set aside their own positions and privileges and structure society so as to accrue the greatest benefit to the least advantaged.

This just seems so darn sensible. How is it that not everyone is a socialist?