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Thursday 29 October, 2009
After having exited the game and restarting, the glitch of appearing in the grass and being stuck there finally went away.
After the bombs were planted in the cafeteria I had to go to a nearby park overlook where a long discussion took place over the degradation of the local culture in the Denver area, from Eric and Dylan’s perspective. It’s quite repulsive the way they talk, as if by simply living your own life, you can make someone hate you. Sounds more reminiscent of an international culture war, not really domestically that often.
When the long dialogue ends, you continue back to the parking lot where you try aimlessly to figure out what to do next, before randomly landing on a spot in the grass where it triggers another dialogue session. Eric and Dylan discuss the bombs they are about to blow off, all three of which fail to detonate, much to their dismay. They both quickly grab their gear and let you loose to kill anyone and everyone.
At this point, from a game play perspective it’s all about finding the cues that allow you to progress in the game. From a gamers perspective you’re turned loose with an arsenal of weaponry and bombs to kill and cause mayhem. Anyone who “gets in your way” is entered into a fight with you in an RPG manner. The opposing NPCs are all very much your typical high school kids, jocks, preppy girls, nerds, etc. When you kill them, their bodies remain on the floor wherever you killed them, never disappearing. It’s not long before there are bodies everywhere in the school and the parking lot just because people ran into me.
What I did find very interesting was the use or portrayal of actual students in the game, for example the kid named Brooks who they allowed to escape, and a girl who they asked if she believed in God. Although rudimentary in many ways, it did show a lot about the day, the back-story, and reality of the events that unfolded. I’m fairly confident it was the creator’s intent to recreate the events with as many details about it as possible so we can better understand what happened and why.
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