PC Gamer - UK (2022-01)

(Maropa) #1
with the lab. I’ve a bioweapon and its creators to destroy,
otherwise I can’t go home.
I complete the original mission in under ten minutes.
I’ve nailed the combat now, and just walk round and
round the mansion killing as I go, silently, like the Grim
Reaper in a white suit. It’s exhilarating, but amongst all
the macho nonsense and comments about my clothes that
the guards bellow in inappropriate accents, I hear, “Ours
is not to reason why!” Do the goons need to work
themselves up? Are they assuming death and having
second thoughts? Surely, some reluctance must be
creeping in now there’s a pile of bodies in the hall so tall
that they have to walk round it? I am overthinking this.

QUALITYOF MERCY
And again, it’s the unarmed employees that make me feel
queasy. So much so, that as I emerge into the sunlight and
walk towards the gates to continue the reign of terror, I
pause at the brink. Behind me is a charnel house. Blood is
trickling past me towards the town square, where people
are resting, drinking coffee, and sunning themselves. It’s
beautiful. Believable. And I can’t do it. There’s no rationale
I can apply to the process that makes sense in-game. The
massacre thus far is a message for bad people. The spree
killing of a whole town would obscure it. Meanwhile,
back in the real-world, I don’t want to do it.
I drop the rifle, holster my ICA chrome and step into
the square. There I find Rocco’s sister, the mansion
employee, still calling up to wake her shiftless brother. He
can’t be bothered to go to his job in the kitchens – and I’m
supposed to steal his chef’s whites – but she wants him to

make something of his life. She’s missed everything. I let
her go, the one and only survivor of the vengeance that
Ether had brought upon her place of work.
On the one hand, A Guilded Cage (or in this form The
Legation Negation) seems to offer some clearer moral
choices. The corrupt army, the scheming general, and
white-collar master-thief Strandberg are all malevolent,
and the Swedes are harbouring a criminal on a
technicality. So, I clear out the consulate and the old
school, but the population have seen me kill a lot of
soldiers by now, and they’re anxious to let everyone know
about it. As I move through the market that becomes
irritating and, flippantly, I turn an assault rifle on the
crowd. What follows is truly distressing. It’s a well-
rendered window onto hell. Too real. I quit out, load up
an autosave, carry out the plan and leave.
I wonder at myself, playing a game and simply
refusing to do what I’d said I would do, again. I tell
myself the next level will be different.
Club 27 in Bangkok offers me some respite. Yes, the
murdering rockstar, his bottom-feeding lawyer, and their
friends are fair game, but how to approach a hotel full of
other guests and staff? Not being as familiar with the
destination as the other levels, I walk around to
reacquaint myself. As I doI listen to the guests talk... and
realise they are all terrible, terrible people. They are
dismissive or patronising about the country, affecting
boredom with it, and rude about the staff. They are bored,
rich and entitled idiots. So, all the guests die. Round and
round I circle the hotel and its corridors and gardens,
wiping out the security. The staff get to go home. The

BODYCOUNTDOWN

Who’s Top of the Popped Off?

Down at # 5 , it’s Sapienza
with ‘Just the Mansion’

Hakkaido are in at # 4 with
‘Everyone in a Small Map’

Holding at # 3 is ‘No
Civilians’By Marrakesh

New at # 2 , it’s Bangkok
with ‘Don’t Be Our Guest’

At # 1 , it’s Paris with ‘Every
Living SoulExtinguished’

Guest Eradication. I am fine with
all that, apparently.

JAPANESE HOSPITALITY
By the time I reach the Japanese
hospital of dubious morals for the
super-rich, I am tired and grumpy.
And armed. I don’t care who the
targets are, but it’s something about
involuntary organ donation. I have
zero sympathy for the medical staff,
guards, or guests, merely wincing a
bit with the cleaners and sushi
chefs. I call it The Sod Everyone, or
Min’na mechakucha. Am I just
desensitised by playing an
interactive version of Alan Clarke’s
Elephant non-stop for days on end?
Or is that process making me more
discerning somehow? It’s easy to
see Bangkok’s waiters as real people,
just getting by, whereas the hospital

PERSONAL ADVENTURES IN GAMES


DIARY

I’m not
ruining their
tranquillity.
Free download pdf