Negotiations between union and corporate leaders are at a stalemate, striking workers have shut down the harbor, scab laborers are picketing in the streets, and road transport in and out of town is at a standstill. The murder you're investigating at first seems tied to a months-long labor dispute. The small, seaside town you've been summoned to is in fact the neglected working class district of Revachol, a city built to "resolve history" in the wake of a failed communist revolution that now sees it governed by a coalition of foreign nations. It is a deeply political game that tackles issues of ideology, privilege, racism, and class in a thoughtful and provocative fashion. There's the more sombre tone struck by the at times repulsive descriptions of the body's state of decomposition, and threaded throughout is the satisfying accumulation of clues, the central mystery contracting and expanding as new information answers questions and asks further ones.īut Disco Elysium is not just a commendable detective game. There's playful humour as you make fun of the bureaucracy that requires such convoluted autopsy forms, and crude gags as you request Kim double-checks if he's missed anything inside the dead man's underwear. There are flashes of surprising camaraderie as you and Kim nod respectfully at each other's insights. The full range of the game's tonal spectrum is on display in this one scene. This scene, which should be aggressively dry, is instead wonderfully written, creative and entertaining, every new selection of dialogue options presenting you with little decisions about how to play things-do you agree with Kim's assessment or try to argue with him, or do you just crack a joke instead? And every detail you read about Kim's actions-his muttered asides, his matter-of-fact commentary on the decaying corpse, his raised brow in response to your nonsense-paints a vivid, indelible portrait of a man you've known for less than a day. It's a very lengthy back-and-forth between the two cops, you prompting him through a dialogue tree of step-by-step instructions and filling out the proper sections of the form, and Kim voicing his observations as he examines the body. There's a scene in which you and Kim are conducting an autopsy while Kim got his hands dirty, I opted for the paperwork. In his impeccably dry way, Kim will suggest this is not exactly appropriate behaviour, but he's also not going to stop you from reinventing yourself as a cocky superstar cop, a rude asshole cop, a wretched nihilistic cop, a bungling apologetic cop, a mortified repentant cop, or some tempered combination thereof.Įven during what could be considered rote casework, Disco Elysium provides so much opportunity to express yourself. As such, you're welcome to walk out of your shitty motel room with just one shoe on, and you're able to tell the manager you're not paying for the room, nor the damage you caused, and he can frankly go screw himself. Disco Elysium provides a staggering amount of options, letting you choose and role-play the type of cop-indeed, the type of person-your amnesiac detective is going to remember himself to be. Of course, you don't have to play it straight. You can call in to the police station and request they retrieve further information about leads you've uncovered and, if there's anything your booze-frazzled brain has forgotten, Kim is always there with a gentle reminder of the finer details of effective police work. You can grill suspects about their movements on the night of the murder and look for holes in their stories about what they saw. Played straight, there's a meticulous satisfaction in assuming the role of by-the-book cop. You and your new partner, the unflappable and eternally patient Kim Kitsuragi, at first inspect the body, interview potential witnesses and generally gather clues to identify the victim and track down the perpetrator. Your amnesiac cop quickly discovers he's been assigned to investigate a murder-what appears to be a lynching-in a small, seaside town. Yet in all kinds of other ways-thematically and mechanically-Disco Elysium is very unlike other RPGs. There are quests to initiate, experience to gain, levels to up, dialogue trees to climb, and skill checks to fail. It proceeds with the traditional top-down view of the world, your party members traversing beautiful, hand-painted 2D environments, pausing to inspect objects and talk to people. Indeed, it opens with a nod to Planescape Torment with a semi-naked figure lying on a cold, hard slab before slowly rising to his feet-only the slab isn't in a mortuary, it's in a cheap motel room, and the figure wasn't recently dead, he's just still drunk. By clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot'sĭisco Elysium presents as an RPG in the mold of Baldur's Gate or Divinity: Original Sin.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |