Legacy Of Kain: Information Retrieval

 I always knew that the story told in the two Soul Reaver games had a deeper meaning than I had grasped because those two were the only games of the five-part saga that I have played, but for various reasons, one for example being that one of the other three games was based much more on combat than puzzling, I didn't feel the urge to play those. Because I hate this degree of combat/puzzle distribution in general. But with the help of Google, Wikipedia and YouTube I could feast on the story that is beknownst to the gaming world as the "Legacy Of Kain" saga. [...]
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Spoiler Alert: I won't spoil much - at least not deliberately - but if you still want to experience the story by playing the games then I don't recommend reading this.

I'm not here to retell the tale though, after I've read all this. I just want you to be able to acquire the same wisdom that I could acquire. The saga obviously depicts the "adventures" of Kain just as it shows Raziel's destiny. Speaking of which, there is a vague little difference between destiny & fate that I learned about during this excursion but it seems to me that it is so vague and unclear that it is hard to grasp. Or believe. Just like religion. But anyway, these two are not the only characters in this complex saga.

The saga itself consists of these five games created for several systems, spanning from Playstation One™ to Xbox™, Xbox 36o™, Playstation 2™, Windows™ and even the Dreamcast™, Blood Omen: Legacy Of Kain, Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver, Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver 2, Blood Omen 2: Legacy Of Kain and Legacy Of Kain: Defiance. While in the Blood Omen games you control Kain, in the Soul Reaver sub series you wander through Nosghoth as Raziel, whilst in Defiance you play as both of them.

Its story borrows ideas from different concepts, like the wheel of fortune or soul devouring fallen angels and the like. Or the aforementioned idea of destiny vs. the idea of free will. But because of these complicated features and many others - like time traveling which is always a big step to the genre "fantasy"/"surrealism" - there were quite a few story complications, paradoxes and similar things that diluted the saga a bit. Most of my questions that arose in that context vanished after I compared my new knowledge of the saga with this additional information though: firstly I found two timelines that describe the events of Nosgoth, an official one ^(source) covering only two games and describing history rather unbiased, and an inoffial one covering four games and describing the path of the Soul Reaver, Raziel as well as the blade in two parallel charts.

Secondly there is this Q&A session with Amy Hennig, the director & writer of three out of five of these games. It took place after (or in the course of) the release for the last game so far, Defiance. I guess this was the last chance for the developers to fill in some gaps for the fans. On an interesting sidenote, here you can see Amy's path through the videogame industry. It's not very long but all the more exciting. At least in my humblest of opinions.

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If you are a careful reader you might have noticed my phrasing "last game so far" which expresses my hope and strong feeling that there will be a next game some time in the future. It might be announced next year, it might as well be announced in ten years, but my stomach tells me that these developers want to add more betrayals and manipulations to this epic story. These easter eggs that can be found in Tomb Raider: Legend and Tomb Raider: Anniversary, two further games from Crystal Dynamics, the same development team of most of the Legacy Of Kain games, confirm my theory, although I'm absolutely clear about the possibility that these easter eggs could be merely a gimmick without further meaning.

Tomb Raider easter eggs


Last but not least, as I've played only two out of five, I still was very much interested in the whole saga and while reading is one thing, viewing the cutscenes is a completely different thing (completely in unison with the spirit of the cutscenes section of this website). What follows is the vid sub section of this article containing all the cutscenes (and therefore much of the story) from the first videogame, Blood Omen, the opening cinematic from the paradox Blood Omen 2 (or a trailer that could easily be the opening cinematic), as well as - what I believe is - all the cutscenes from Defiance, the latter being edited a bit carelessly so that you might be missing one or two seconds of dialogue. If the YouTube clips are down however - as it happens so often with these clips - feel free to try your luck here. I haven't included videos of the two Soul Reaver games, because of the selfish reaseson that I've played them already. Just recently. But again, feel free to try your luck here.

Have fun.

Blood Omen (2 YouTube parts)

• part 1
  
• part 2
  
  
  
  Blood Omen 2
  
• intro
  
  
  
  Defiance - The Fan Movie (7 YouTube parts)
  by Dunniebrasco
  
• part 1
  
• part 2
  
• part 3
  
• part 4
  
• part 5
  
• part 6
  
• part 7
  

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Lost Soul ... or just lost?

 Recently I've finished Soul Reaver for the PS One™, part one that is, and I must say it really was some experience. The motivation was me waking up one morning with an incredible lust for this retro-cultural two-piece saga. It was not the first time I was hit by nostalgica-lust; a few weeks ago I felt the urge to replay Jak & Daxter, and also Beyond Good & Evil. Additionally I listened to the soundtracks ANUBIS: Zone Of The Enders and Shadow Of The Colossus: Roar Of The Earth which also made me reach for the discs. So I did gather them and actually created my nostalgia stack ... now I laugh at the people who suggested to sell the good ol' PS2™ ... [...]
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Of course I've had in mind that ancient masterpieces like Soul Reaver weren't made to be exhibited on a TV set as big as mine so I wasn't all too suprised with huge video artifacts and oversized polygon models but there were certain other things that I haven't had in mind and that made this experience so special. For instance I completely forgot that the default controller for this oldschool console was indeed pre-Dualshock (and pre-Nintendo-Trident most obviously) meaning that the (now somewhat self-evident) analogue sticks came later. Thus, all camera control the player had just had to be realized via the shoulder buttons L2/R2. Being able to push both buttons at once to create a first-person-perspective-mode therefore was quite big at the time.

Another thing I've observated about programming videogames in the "old age" was how often I completely lost track of where I had to go. I absolutely got lost, several times. There were so many times I didn't know which of two paths to go and when I did know which one of the two it was, I was already inmidst of a boss battle or something similar. There was this tutorial dude/force that seemed to accompany Raziel and give his comment every now and then, especially after earning a new ability, but it was either a rough hint to the next dungeon (which was good) or a story-related comment. Nothing in-dungeon, no short-range-ish advice. By the time I fought against Kain for the last time I hadn't activated half of all the portals. And besides the portals, I vaguely remember having had the ability to forge your Soul Reaver blade with a new color/element. And I'm sure it was already featured in this first part because I ran into an oddly isolated fireplace that had this very purpose. There was also this temple where I didn't know what to do so I left again, and all these glowing icons on the floor where I didn't know what to do either - long story short, I missed a lot of goodies, when I replayed the game this time around. I mean, I actually wanted to skip some optional stuff but I don't think that I really chose this option the way I played the game and got lost that often.

Anyway, when I look now at games like and trailers of Killzone 2 I think it's really sad that the graphics were pushed so hard over the last couple of years. I mean it's nice to look at but if you compare it with what might have be achieved instead - better AI, better gameplay mechanics, better sound, better camera AI - that would have really altered the experience we have right now.

I still wait for the game where you fight one single boss in a huge epic battle and eeeeevery single experience is totally different. Because the boss - the game - actually learns. Real artificial intelligence and not some pre-decided causes, animated pre-renderedly using pre-performed motion capturing and pre-recorded sound effects, that are falsely called "AI". I mean it could even borrow this online database aspect of spore. Well .... a boy can dream, right? ;^)

Next up, Soul Reaver 2.
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JavaScript Code Snippet Of The Week

 I'm so hooked by this small code snippet that I could scream for hours. For some programmers this may be old cheese but I just found out about it today. And I already thought about programming something like this on my own - because I often needed to know the exact term of a property or I didn't know which properties do exist. [...]
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Ever wondered How do I loop through properties in an object?

Look how easily you can display all your properties with this:
<<

 // given an already declared <div>-tag with the id "output"
  var Out = "";
  for ( x in document.all.output )
    Out += x +"<br>";
  document.all.output.innerHTML = Out;

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o8/o9 News from the wooden lands

 Despite the title I don't have very much (and new) to tell you, I'm just here to say that I'm still here. Somehow I made it through 2oo8. I don't know how though - I just sat here ;^p  Didn't move a muscle. [...]
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Recently I've heard about this new game that's about to be released in the near future, it's called Let's Tap. It's a rhythm game for the Wii™ that doesn't need any new peripheral - except for a cardboard box. At first I feared you needed a special box that came shipped with the game. Nintendo making money with the simplest most rudimentary peripherals again. But no, oh no, you can use any box. Apparently the box is just needed to transport the vibrations of your tapping on the box. The peculiar thing (to me) is that the Wiimote, that is to be laid on top of the box, doesn't have a microphone to process the tapping. It is solely using its motion sensor technology - how incredibly sensitive is that thing? After playing Wii Sports and other games I found the Wiimote to be rather inaccurate about the angle input. Well, it's not inaccurate about its movement input, I guess.

But I shouldn't have been all too surprised about that after having seen the scientific art of Johnny Chung Lee. Have you seen his usage of the Wii™? Maybe you have - I've wanted to tell you about his works for a very long time ...

Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays using the WiiRemote

sent by Mika77

As we can see each year the tradition of reflecting the last three hundred and sixty or so days around this time of the calendar you can see how the gaming community (or a gaming community) elected Grand Theft Auto IV to be the best Game Of The Year 2oo8 - come on!! The game was good but not at all the best one. Especially not the best PS3 game. But what's my opinion worth anyway?

Anyway, as we are already here we might as well go the last step and discuss (lol) my very own VG MOY (that's Video Game Moment Of The Year for ... well, for everybody, I guess). For me personally there haven't been that many, only two to be precisely, and both originate from the same game: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots. Expect me to spoil.
For once, there was this gorgeous scene when you enter Shadow Moses and "The Best Is Yet To Come" by Rika Muranaka & Aoife Ní Fhearraigh commences, triggering wave after wave of nostalgia, both visually and auditive, mixed with the graphical new version of Shadow Moses. That was a very touching moment for me, and also quite impressive: in-game nostalgica features.
The other scene was the ending. Simply the ending. The end of this game which was also the end of four games (at least), a testosterone-laden ending that matched the preliminary action, an ending full of story twists, climaxes and conclusions. An orchestrated cutscene-feast. It forced you to push Old Snake through an ridiculously dangerous hallway of "microwaves" while you see in the split-screen the battles of your comrades, until he reaches the graveyard-like server room of Outer Haven where he passes out only to fight Liquid Ocelot on top of the giant submarine - but not right away. As if the game heard me say "Don't let me play the boss battle right away. The preceding cutscenes built up so much momentum - it would only destroy the atmosphere." the game listened to me and started with a cutscene version of the boss battle which only lead to the inevitable clash of the titan seniors that you had to control - followed by another long memorable dialogue scene on another graveyard - a real one this time - which culminates in the most incredible version of "Here's To You" (by Lisbeth Scott, originally by Ennio Morricone) that I've ever heard.
That - finishing MGS4 - was my most remarkable Video Game Moment Of The Year 2oo8 that no other game even came close to.

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[End of MGS4-Spoilers] Not even the new Prince Of Persia. I mean ... considering POP once made a personal VG MOY I was expecting quite a bit. Strangely enough I wasn't as thrilled of the visual look of the game when I saw it in-game (as opposed to in a trailer). I even disliked it at some moments while at others I adored the beauty of the corruption. But it's still a very good game. I just happen to be done with it because I got the platinum trophy. I'm just mentioning because it's my first one. Sorry ;^p  If you're playing it now or in the future, here's a tip: take the green power lastly and heal the land in front of the Warrior's black gates at the very end. I think the game is a bit easier that way.

Talking about videogames, a pal of mine, Foifur - one of my few loyal readers - is playing Secret Of Mana at the moment. Every now and then he asks me for advice which I then give him eagerly. Since then I feel this itching inside me .. this longing for nostalgic greatness that this game embodies, IMHO. I want to play it like I used to and re-live the joy I've had back then in the old days. I know though, that this is not possible ...

Just like with Street Fighter II: Turbo. There's this new version called Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (or SSFIITHDR for still-long-but-short) that is basically a refined version of this old game. But, oh refined it truly is: Capcom actually approached the fans over at OverClocked ReMix (okay, professional fans) to do the soundtrack for the game - because they would have remixed it anyway (>< ). Fans doing the soundtrack for a full-fledged videogame?!?! The mere thought of this is so awesome that I temporarily lose my eyesight, blinded by the joy of the little kid inside me. And it's completely for free! And it's online, the game I mean. It's an online version of a Beat 'em Up game that I liked, that I actually played back in the days, often too - that I actually *owned*. Yes, it was one of my "exclusive" six Super Nintendo™ titles. Oh, those were the days when you didn't have the money to buy them all.
The online part of the new game is even allegedly decent so I was indeed considering to buy it ... but to be true it would have been a waste of money. There's no way that I could play a Street Fighter game as joyfully and enthusiastically as "once". It's over ... ( ´.`)

But hey, look at the future: there's a new Street Fighter movie in the making featuring Kristin Kreuk, and it's called Street Fighter: Legend Of Chun-Li. It will probably be a disappointment just as many other videogame-to-motion-picture-conversions before but I sure as hell know that I'm going to check it out anyway. Here's a trailer. Judging solely by this footage I'd say it looks like an Uwe Boll movie, but if it was really was one it would have been his best (although I must say that I haven't seen all of his "work").

Another thing I might write (without having a gun being pointed at my head) is how cool Tycho from Penny Arcade is, IMHO. I mean, he's not just eloquent but his perspective on videogames has often surprised me one way or another, too. It's almost as if he could see right through the haze that distorts the image with which games are sold to the masses and pinpoint a big aspect of the core of a game that I often miss. Man, I wish I was like him. His "thing" is even more obvious with spoken words, I think, which is why I like their podcasts so much. My favourite so far is the one where they talk about how funny the idea of merging two specific universes is which ended up in this comic strip.
Also, I liked Jerry & Mike playing Dungeons & Dragons. I can't wait for the next round with Wil Wheaton.

This might be enough for now. Maybe I'll add something a little later. Now I'm headed to a thing called "Shadow Of The Colossus OST". # top #