apollo

They create worlds: Outer Wilds

Matt3 Comments

One of the things that video games can do magnificently is create worlds. These posts are an occasional exploration of games that I love because of where they take me.

One of the biggest differences between computer games when I first started playing them, back in the 1980s, and modern computer games is scope. Open worlds of the kind that we’re used to nowadays didn’t exist on the 8-bit and 16-bit computers of yore, but these days it’s not rare for a game to feature a world many square kilometres in size. In 2001, Grand Theft Auto III let us rampage in a Liberty City that measured 9 km2 in real-world terms; Grand Theft Auto V, which came out in 2013, covered an area of 127 km2. Things get even more insane with the possibilities of procedural generation, so that we got a 1:1 scale simulation of the Milky Way galaxy in Elite Dangerous (released in 2015). As game worlds get bigger and bigger, though, it becomes increasingly difficult to fill them with meaningful content, and arguably Elite‘s in-game universe is several light years wide and a nanometre deep. Which is one of the reasons why the toy-box solar system of Outer Wilds is so engaging.

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What is the man in the moon afraid of?

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Damien Chazelle likes protagonists who have one defining goal. They are driven and they are ready to sacrifice in order to achieve their goals. Their ambitions are jealous gods and don’t allow for any other gods beside them. Relationships? Happiness? Love? These take a backseat. Chazelle’s characters’ pursuit of excellence requires them to be singleminded. You don’t get there by being good at many things, you get there by being excellent at the one thing that gets you there. And there’s a price to singlemindedness.

Looking at it differently, you could also say this: Damien Chazelle’s protagonists are frightened, of their feelings and responsibilities – and if you want to run away, what better destination than the moon?

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Reaping the whirlwind

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Battlestar Galactica is an odd sci-fi series. On the one hand, it’s much more down to earth than any other series in the genre; in terms of the world it depicts and the atmosphere it evokes, it is remarkably un-SF. Life aboard the Galactica doesn’t seem to be that different from life on some 21st century aircraft carrier (except for the lack of blue sky, fresh air, water and a home port, that is).

At the same time, though, it is perhaps the series I’ve seen that is most interested in metaphysical issues, sci-fi or not. And at least for some of the fans, this element has become too dominant in series 3. I won’t say anything more, because not everyone reading this blog knows how season 3 ends (bode, bode)… but suffice it to say, things go in a direction that makes it impossible to ignore the metaphysical strains of the series as an aberration and that BSG is really about space warfare and about man vs. robot.

Cylon & Garfunkel

***Warning: Spoilers for “Maelstrom” to follow. If you don’t know what happens and are interested: all three seasons of BSG are available on DVD! What’s keeping you here? Go to Amazon and buy, buy, buy! Or get it on Netflix, if my cheap consumerist less-than-subliminal messages fail to do their dirty job on your synapses.***

“Maelstrom”, better known as “the episode in which Starbuck goes kablooey (and this time not in a metaphoric way)”, does something interesting with the metaphysical world of Battlestar Galactica. Are we watching a long, drawn-out suicide that is couched by Starbuck’s mind in spiritual/psychological gobbledegook, because she is too much in denial to face her death wish? After all, much of the series has shown us just how self-destructive she is. Or is there something to Leoben-or-is-he? and his allegations of Kara Thrace’s special destiny? Is there a Cylon Heavy Raider ducking in and out of the clouds – or is it but a Raider of the mind, conjured up by Starbuck’s constantly eroding psyche? (Good thing they didn’t throw Birnam Wood at her while they were at it.)

In search of a bad cover band

Either option is possible – but just like we don’t know about the Final Five, or what exactly Baltar’s mind-Six is (a delusion or a chip?) or the Cylon God, we are denied an answer about Kara, as her Viper goes kerSPLAT! right in front of Apollo’s eyes. Are the series creators intent on frustrating us? Are they, as the characters might put it, frakking with us? Or do they, as they claim about the Cylons, have a plan?

Do Cylons play “Trick or Treat”?