Hayden Wiseman's Blog

I recently finished Yoko Taro’s 2017 masterpiece Nier: Automata. Having never played any of the previous works in the series I decided to check out Nier: Gestalt on PlayStation 3. I was surprised to find that Gestalt, while it stands well enough on its own, feels in some ways like a rough draft of Automata. If you haven’t played at least one of these games this post probably isn’t for you.

Typically when we hear or read the words “rough draft” it is within the context of writing and so we assume that we’re discussing an early version of a story. However, video games allow for narratives to be structured differently through the use of gameplay mechanics, level design, and pacing that is more film-like in quality. Nier: Gestalt has its own unique characters and arcs and a lot of what happens over the course of its narrative lays the groundwork for the events of Automata. While it doesn’t map directly as a traditional rough draft, when I played it I noticed that certain things felt remarkably familiar. Combat, quests, and the thematic design of the world is at the forefront for why that is.

The first thing I noticed was how the game controlled. The buttons on the controller are mapped nearly exactly as they are in Automata. Melee combat in Gestalt is… serviceable. It is nowhere near as polished as what is on offer in Automata. I was surprised to find that magic plays a much more prominent role than it does in the newer game–to the point where all four shoulder buttons can be remapped to accommodate various spells. In Automata these abilities are relegated to one button and tied to the players pods. It is not unusual for a series to keep its control scheme yet make minor changes throughout, but I suppose I was expecting Nier to feel akin to Drakengard–a game more similar to the crowd-clearing hack-n-slash Dynasty Warriors–than to the finely tuned Automata. Similar controls are where the comparison ends, unfortunately.

While it didn’t take long for me to get used to, I thought multiple times while playing about how cool it would be if Platinum Games were to remaster this first game with a newer combat engine.

Outside of combat the structure of the world, too, was familiar. There was a central hub the player character called home that branched off into different environs/biomes: sea, desert, forest, etc. As I explored them I had the feint feeling that some of them actually were the same locations I’d seen thousands of years in the future. Especially with the desert. And I’d be remiss to ignore the use of a familiar building in both games. My jaw dropped when I entered the library at the beginning of Nier: Gestalt, having just seen it at the end of Automata–a feeling of nostalgia that was likely experienced in reverse order for many fans.

Despite this strange sense of retroactive nostalgia, I found that one of the original Nier’s biggest problems was in how it handled side quests. Often an NPC would want ten to thirty of a number of items, requiring the player to grind them out or buy them. I stopped doing Nier’s side quests fairly early on.

Automata handles side quests better. There are far fewer of them, and while they often amount to go-here-kill-this simplicity, the combat gameplay and the strength of the writing more than makes up for it. In other words, unlike in the original Nier, side quests in Automata help develop the world and don’t throw a wrench into the pacing.

The examination of mechanics here is not meant to distract from or call Nier’s story unimportant–I’d call the most important part of either game the characters and plot.

Plot twists revealed things I already knew about the world but added emotional depth because the events were happening to characters in front of me rather than being read about in a text log thousands of years removed–much the same way rewatching the cutscenes from the beginning of Automata with the context of its endings reveals just how carefully it must have been written. This isn’t the same as attempting to retroactively plug plot holes ala Kojima and Metal Gear. This is refinement I don’t typically see in games writing. Part of the reason Automata works so well in terms of its narrative structure is because it takes one of my least favorite aspects of the original Nier and repurposes it beautifully.

The original Nier has a barrier to its final endings that I absolutely cannot stand. To see the canon final ending the player must collect every last weapon in the game. Another game in this series, Drakengard 3, also does this. I quit playing Drakengard 3 when it requested that I do this. Its gameplay was so poor that going back through its bland levels wasn’t worth my time even if I did previously find its narrative compelling. However, with Nier this design decision hurts even more. Because the combat here is serviceable and the characters and story are so interesting I really wanted to see the true ending. I would advise anyone who goes back to play Nier: Gestalt after Automata to just look endings C and D up on YouTube. Unlike Automata, where routes C and D are very very different to route B, the original Nier essentially has the player running its B route three times in a row.

Automata wisely treats its weapon-collecting-related ending as an entirely optional side mission/hidden ending (one that will really only resonate for those that played the original Nier anyway).

If the sudden appearance of random letters is confusing let me break it down: Nier must be played multiple times if the player wants to see the full story. The first time they play they will see Route A. The second time they will see Route B and so on until they are told to collect all of the weapons. I found that the best play through of the original Nier was Route B, which offered a directors cut of sorts in terms or providing previously obfuscated details. The remainder was a chore. Nier: Automata wisely treats each of its “routes” more like individual chapters that build on top of each other until it reaches its conclusion.

I really cannot emphasize enough how much better this is for the kind of story these games are attempting to tell. Yes, repeating Route B and collecting all of the weapons in Nier is very much something you’d expect of a video game, but it isn’t fun. It isn’t appropriate or thematically relevant to the structure of the game. It really feels as though Automata recognizes this. It uses its mechanics to progress a story, but doesn’t allow them to get in the way or keep you from seeing that story.

It’s for that same reason I’m glad, despite what I’ve seen some others say, that the combat isn’t as challenging as it is in other character action games (which for as long as I can remember have had abysmal stories). There are still, despite this, times where the game uses music and pacing to make the combat feel more intense than it actually is. There is a sequence towards the end of the game that jump cuts between two player-controlled characters as they fight their way up a tower that is unmatched. Sequences like that one and several others left me in awe in a way that only 2015 film Mad Max: Fury Road had previously done.

Nier: Automata is a masterpiece and easily one of my favorite games of all time. That being said I doubt that it would be as good as it is if the original Nier (or the Drakengard games for that matter) hadn’t had the problems that it did. And while this is the first time this kind of progression from one game to another has been glaringly obvious for me, I’m sure it is very common for developers to carry lessons like this from one project to another. But how rarely does a game really truly demonstrate it the way that this one does.

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The first Resident Evil game I ever played was Revelations on the Nintendo 3DS. The second was a re-release of Resident Evil 4 on Playstation 4. I didn’t play the original Resident Evil until after I had played those games and, again, it was an HD remaster on the PS4. All of this was done within the span of a month and as a result my perspective is probably going to be different from most critics. To me, Resident Evil is defined by its atmosphere, its action, and its fear generated as the result of gross corporate negligence and bad decision making.

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I wasn’t sure of what to expect from Resident Evil 7. The marketing I had seen made it look more like a game like Outlast and the preview coverage I had read made it seem like Jack Baker, one of the games’ primary antagonists, would be pursuing you for most of the game. Now that I’ve finally played through it (twice) I can say that I think it is a very very good game. One that I’d place right up there with RE4 as one of my favorites in the series.

[SPOILERS BELOW]

Resident Evil 7 starts strong, with an opening act that rivals some of the best horror movies. Sneaking around the main house and trying to acquire the pieces needed to solve a puzzle and escape without being caught is intense and individual moments that put Ethan, the player character, in direct conflict with Jack Baker are both fun and often ridiculous. Like some of my favorite horror films some of the things he did and said in these encounters prompted laughter and a vocal “wait what!?” from me. Always a good sign.

Unfortunately, the game only uses this tense game of cat-and-mouse effectively in its opening act.

Once the player leaves the main house and has to traverse the dilapidated “old house” the gameplay changes slightly. With the change in scenery comes a different antagonist–the second Baker family member Marguerite. The old house is a comparatively smaller environment and avoiding Marguerite–what would have been easy given the space–is offset by having to deal with large swarms of bugs that the game makes no attempt to explain. This is a minor gripe in the grand scheme of things, but every other instance of the virus has been represented as strength enhancement and a regenerative capability. That Marguerite alone can control bugs is confounding. I generally dislike bug sections in games to begin with and it is no different here. If no one implemented a swarm of bugs as an enemy type in their game ever again I don’t think we’d be losing anything. But to its credit, this section does culminate in a relatively fun boss fight that takes place inside a multi-tiered greenhouse.

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Once Marguerite has been dealt with the game is done with its chase mechanic entirely. While I didn’t hate the section that came next–pitting the player against the Baker’s surprisingly crafty son Lucas (and one particularly memorable set of puzzles)–it was a departure from what I had thought the game was going to be.

I had thought the game was going to really play up its invulnerable antagonists and chase mechanic, but instead that idea gets ditched towards the end and a great deal of time is spent either fighting or avoiding an enemy called the Molded. The Molded are a totally fine stand in for traditional zombies. They appear to be covered in tar and their heads separate into gaping maws that you wouldn’t want anywhere near you. They are effectively creepy when they descend slowly from the growths on the walls or ceiling. They become much less fun when, while dealing with Lucas, a new four-legged variant is introduced. The four-legged Molded have a smaller head than their bipedal counterpart and move much more quickly, scurrying at the player and reducing the time allowed for lining up valuable headshots. While this ratchets up the intensity level slightly, I could have done without them. Likewise with the larger mini-boss style Molded that vomit everywhere.

For all my complaints about my initial playthrough of RE7, I didn’t think I would find myself having any more or less fun my second time through. I was wrong. There are two things I attribute to my heightened enjoyment of the game: I played on Easy difficulty–making enemies I previously thought of as annoying less of a hassle–and I attempted (and succeeded!) to speedrun the game.

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On a first play of Resident Evil 7, because the player doesn’t have knowledge of where any of the enemies or items are going to be, it would appear to have pacing issues. Some would say that not knowing is ideal for a horror game, but because I found some of the enemy and combat encounters to be irritating as opposed to scary, going in to each with knowledge of what they were going to be allowed me to prepare and create fun for myself. This knowledge of where items are and where to go also greatly reduces the amount of time spent in each area and made me realize that the pacing issues–with some exception–were on me. My disappointment in lack of a persistent enemy like Jack also went away. Each discrete area, approached with the pressure of time, presents a new and unique challenge. None of which are tedious or overly repetitive.

Speedrunning Resident Evil 7 is a rewarding experience that further reveals strengths and weaknesses of the game. Luckily there are more strengths than weaknesses. While I wish that playing through the game on normal at a regular pace was as fun, I struggle to think of ways that could have been changed. Early in the game the player character has his hand cut off with a chainsaw by his possessed wife, Mia. Maybe they could have leveraged that moment and said, “You have four hours to get this done.” Regardless, Resident Evil 7 is well worth playing.

This year, despite the intense workload required of finishing my criminal justice degree, I somehow managed to play a number of good games. Say what you will about escapism with regard to getting stuff done, but from a self-care standpoint it is important to shut all of that out from time to time. Games are a good way for me to do that. I wanted to write a bit about each of those games, but I realized that writing overly detailed lists is boring and I don’t want to just write why I like each of those games. I want to look at specific things in each of them and write more critically than “hey, this game is good because x.” So instead, here is a bunch of words about Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 which kind of do what I said I didn’t want to do for the other games I liked.

I don’t know why, suddenly, at the very end of 2016, I decided I needed to replay Team Ninja’s Ninja Gaiden series. The past several years have been made up of Souls-like games occupying the space where this series once sat. It was a point of pride to be able to say you had completed a Ninja Gaiden game. I played the hell out of the original Xbox release of the first game, and played even more of the first Sigma when it was released on PS3. However, not having access to an Xbox 360 I never got to play Ninja Gaiden 2. Somehow, but probably because of college and a combination of other things, I missed out on Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 on PS3.

I am really glad I decided to go back and play this game. Holy shit. Ryu Hayabusa is every bit as much of a whirl-wind demon-mulching machine as the Doomslayer is in DOOM. The combat is extremely fast and challenging and violent and I’ve surprised myself because I’m not bad at this game. The story is absolute trash, a loose series of events that act as justification for ninja violence and that’s totally fine. In fact its part of what makes it great. Early on in the game Ryu goes to New York, fights a demon on top of the statue of liberty and then when that demon dies it transfers its power to the statue and you FIGHT THE STATUE OF LIBERTY. Then there are just dumb little details like when you’re standing in Times Square and you look up at the stock exchange ticker and instead of fake stock information the word “BANK” just scrolls repeatedly across a mostly black bar. Later in the game you’re destroying an airship from the inside and a man on a loudspeaker announces that “The armadillo is overheating” and you don’t know what that means until you’re on the ground in a snow-covered arena fighting a giant armadillo that proceeds to go nuclear once you’ve killed it. It doesn’t make any sense what-so-ever and it’s perfect because of it.

Addendum: I have questions about the DOA/Ninja Gaiden lore and universe as a result of this game that I might explore in writing later on.

Some other games I played this year that I thought were very good include:

Dark Souls III

DOOM

h a c k m u d

Salt & Sanctuary

Let it Die

Watch_Dogs 2

Quadrilateral Cowboy

Superhot

Mafia III

p.s. I lied about this list you’ve just seen it

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SPOILERS FOR FALLOUT 4

Fallout 4 is another Bethesda game. That’s not to say its bad. It’s quite good. But it continues the trend of games made by Bethesda that strip features out because it seems like the freedom that adds to the game is what players want. In conflict with desire for player freedom, like in past games, is the idea that the main story has to be mandatory. Player choice isn’t valued within the parameters of the story like it is outside of it.

In The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the best role playing game Bethesda has ever made*, players could join a number of factions and complete quests. At a certain point in each of the questlines for those factions, the player would have to make the decision to side with one group over another. If the player wanted, for example, to become the leader of the Fighters Guild, they would have to assassinate a critical member of the Mages guild, locking themselves out of the rest of that guilds quests and potential rewards.

However, in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Bethesda eschewed this design philosophy to pursue a player experience that, while more user friendly, eliminated any meaningful consequence for player action. Even going so far as to make non-player characters critical to that games lackluster plot invulnerable and allowing the player to become the leader of every faction. As a result, the political tensions found between guilds in Morrowind were gone. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim had similar problems and continued streamlining systems by changing the way level progression was handled.

I cannot continue this topic without bringing up Obsidian’s Fallout: New Vegas. That game focused on the interplay between groups of people in a way I could only dream that Bethesda’s own games could, but even that game isn’t without fault. New Vegas held the players hand and took them on a tour of its landscape before setting them loose, whereas a game like Morrowind said, “You’re a prisoner being freed, here’s a thing you can go do. Or not.” Oblivion and Skyrim did the same. It didn’t put any sense of urgency on player action in the way the Fallout games do. In Fallout 3, the player leaves the vault with the goal of finding their father. In Fallout 4, the player leaves the vault with the goal of finding their son and getting revenge. Those are goals that have urgency inherent to them. Meandering is counter-intuitive to accomplishing those goals.

Fallout 4 tries to split the difference. It ditches the wasteland tour of New Vegas, giving the player the aforementioned “find son” objective, while dropping them into an open world and saying “have at it” like in the Elder Scrolls. It is a bizarre amalgamation of previous systems. Somewhat aware of the freedoms offered by Obsidian in New Vegas but not reflective on them. It is a Frankensteinian monster, conflicted about whether it really wants the player to be free to do what they want (as demonstrated by settlement building and how crucial resource gathering has become combined with the increase in number of radiant quests) or whether the player should be tethered along and made to experience its story as mandatory (as demonstrated by invulnerable NPCs and more limited dialogue trees).

The majority of the 34 people who voted in this poll agreed with me.

Bethesda’s primary stories have never been the draw for me. Because of this, immortal characters that aren’t literal gods, eliminating meaningful dialogue choices, and funneling the player character down what is essentially a linear story experience, robs the newer Bethesda games of what I had hoped they would become post-Morrowind. Exploration, meeting people unprompted, hearing their stories, and discovering quests and things to do in the game without being told to do those things were always the better aspects of that game.

But the Fallout series and The Elder Scrolls are not the same. They don’t share an origin point and the newer games in both series are only similar because Bethesda knows its formula and knows it well. The Elder Scrolls have always been first person games with a focus on exploration. Fallout started out as an isometric role playing game in the vein of tabletop systems. Chris Franklin talks about that and makes excellent points in his video about Fallout 4 with regard to how Bethesda’s systems limit the ability to play a role while encouraging player experimentation. Fallout 4 is not a game about playing a role. Neither are the Elder Scrolls games that have come post-Morrowind. I would contend, however, that Morrowind‘s role playing was not just based around a classic tabletop-esque rule system. It was the other systems that allowed for a different kind of role playing. I have that same desire for the Bethesda Fallout games as well.

My favorite addition to Fallout comes in the form of settlements. Building towns, telling its inhabitants to do specific tasks, and generally having a use for all of what would have just been junk in previous games is fun. But the implementation of settlement building and management would have been even more interesting if something akin to the political rivalries present in Morrowind or New Vegas appeared here as well. If the other factions, not just the Minutemen, had the capability of establishing small towns, it would enhance the scale and the stakes of the late-game faction conflict. One repeatable quest for the Brotherhood of Steel hints at this possibility: Proctor Teagan, the man who sells the player weapons and armor if they’re affiliated with the Brotherhood, asks them to go and procure farms for Brotherhood use. If you do this you lose access to that farm as a possible Minutemen settlement. Coming close to this is one solitary mission for the Railroad that has the player establish an old drive-in movie theater as a safehouse for synths. That same location can be used as a base for the Minutemen.

I find it telling that the faction associated with settlements, the Minutemen, is decidedly neutral to the other factions in the game. The game can be completed by siding with any of the four factions, but if the player fails one group or another they can fall back with the Minutemen and get an ending anyway. Because Bethesda wants to allow freedom, but also wants the player to experience their narrative, they made narrative and settlement building, for the most part, separate. It’s a missed opportunity for a unique blend of player interaction and systems-based role playing.

IGN’s Jared Petty thinks that Fallout 4 should be the last Fallout game, and I don’t necessarily disagree. I would love to see what Bethesda could do with this formula outside of Fallout or even The Elder Scrolls (make a cyberpunk game pls), but I’m worried that if they created a new franchise they would once again focus on making their main quest mandatory instead of allowing the players the freedom to choose not to participate in it, ala Morrowind. Role playing through intersecting systems is a powerful capability that games alone have access to. It would be wonderful to see more developers explore that.

*Morrowind may not hold up as well as I’m describing.

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Gunman Clive is a game that knows exactly what it’s trying to be. The trailer for the game says as much: It’s a generic action platformer, but even though it’s remeniscent of Mega Man, it’s art style and level design make it just unique enough to recommend. Especially for only $2.

When you start a new game you can choose to play as either Gunman Clive or as Ms. Johnson. Depending on which of the two you select the other is kidnapped by generic cowboy/bandit facsimiles. And then you shoot them. You shoot a lot of them. Truth be told, when I started the game, I thought that all I’d be doing was shooting the same bandit over and over again until I rescued Ms. Johnson. Then, on the third level, I realized Horberg’s probably knew how to design levels fairly well and was hooked until I finished the game. As the game progresses it becomes less and less about shooting bandits and more about the platforming. This is something the game does well. It starts off simple and layers more and more elements on right up to the end of the game, but these new elements are never confusing or too difficult to deal with. Never does a tutorial window pop up and tell you “press a to” or “hold y to.” The game assumes you know how to handle yourself because it’s drawing from such a long lineage of games that do exactly the same things.

The controls are similar to those old games as well. It’s literally just B to jump and Y to shoot. The rest comes down to timing and direct control. While maybe not having as much finesse as, say, Meat Boy, Clive definitely feels better in the platforming department than a game like Little Big Planet. It’s just a more precise affair. I never felt frustrated with the control I had over the character and whenever I died (stage 13 initially gave me a bunch of trouble) I knew it was my own fault. There are some differences between playing as Clive and Ms. Johnson that I should mention. Ms. Johnson controls very much like Peach in Super Mario Bros 2. If you hold down the jump button mid-air she will float down instead of just dropping. She retains the Mega Man-esque gun play that Clive has.

The art style is brown. Very brown. I know that this is a complaint that a lot of people have with modern games, but here it works to Gunman Clive’s favor. The game has an almost hand-drawn art style and the brown only adds to that sketchbook feel. Sure, there is color used sparingly throughout -Ms. Johnson is colored Pink, electric traps are purple, some enemies are yellow, etc- but over all the game looks nice because of it’s lack of major details.

The game is nothing new, but in the short time I spent with it I had a lot of fun. It really did remind me of playing an old Mega Man (or a new one like 9 or 10) game, albeit a lot less difficult. If you’ve just dropped a bunch of money into your e-shop wallet and bought something larger and you’re left with a little over $2 then I completely recommend spending that money on Gunman Clive. Or don’t. It’s your two bucks. What do I care?

Behold the sleek and sexy cover.

No, not the scifi novel I wrote last November. No, not Cannibal Dwarf Detective 2. I’m going to begin writing the second draft of my NaNoWriMo2014 book soon and because my co-author is writing his own novel (currently at 49k words or something), CDD2 is on hiatus. But I’m not against smaller side projects in the mean time!

So, seeing as how I am a totally qualified authority on the subject. I saw fit to write a short book on Western Economic theory. You know, Capitalism! More specifically the form of Capitalism taught in economics programs in colleges and practiced in our markets. Neo-classical capitalism. The book is called How Neo-Classical Capitalism Raises the Poor from Poverty and Maintains a Sustainable Environment.

This is my first non-fiction book and actually putting research into something that wasn’t for a paper for school was new to me. But it was also pretty enjoyable.

Both the Kindle edition and the physical edition are edited, formatted, and fancy as hell. I’ll be getting a proof copy of the physical edition around Friday and after that both versions will be available for purchase.

Is this a serious book? Is it a joke? I’ll leave that up to you, the reader, to decide.

More details can be found here. And yes I’m linking you to my store page because I want more traffic. lol. Links to Amazon will appear there.

I thought it would be interesting (not to mention helpful for myself) if I started writing brief recaps of what I’d learned in my bachelors program from time to time. I do not expect anyone to find these posts as useful or as interesting as I do.

My assignments have to be capped at specific word counts. My blog, obviously, does not. This means I can write at length about the various lessons I’ve learned and get more in depth with my thoughts.

Last week was my first week back in school. Because I’m taking classes online I’m able to pace myself and work rapidly or slowly depending on my mood. Although I’m enrolled in three classes, I only have to work on two because the third doesn’t start until February.

My favorite of the two so far is my American courts class. The other class, Juvenile Offenders, is interesting but it isn’t quite as engaging. The court class has people on the dedicated forum discussing law, where we think the system needs improvement, is so-and-so getting due process, and do we think such-and-such action by defense/prosecution was ethical?

Here are the two posts covering various aspects of what I learned last week:

American Courts Recap 1/15/2015

Juvenile Delinquency Recap 1/15/2015

I’ll try to do another one of these types of updates next week too.

Juvenile Delinquency

The following is from my assignment for the first week of my Juvenile Offenders class:

“The harsh punishment of children is interesting yet troubling to read about. Especially regarding the “adultification” of children. In the Frontline episode “Inside the Teenage Brain” it was shown that the brains of youth are still actively developing. That development must be impacted by the environment around them, including such influences like their friend groups and how their parents work to raise or discipline them. Placing the weight of adulthood on a still developing child is an unacceptable response to issues created by the society in which the youth lives.

Fix the environment the child lives in before they act out in criminal ways and they would be less likely to participate in these behaviors. For example, if police were to investigate the homes of child offenders what would be the odds that one or both of the parents would also be involved in criminal activity? What percentage of these parents are abusive? Is the youths criminal behavior related? Are they acting out because of it?

I do think that in extreme cases, like murder, children should face more punitive responses, but I don’t think that extreme punitive measures like extended stays in prison or being tried as an adult for minor infractions are a good response. Measures should be taken to aid youths and minimize the potential risk of more serious crimes happening.”

This was written as a journal assignment. It was meant to be my initial reactions to the reading for the week. I’m sure my perspective will adapt and grow as the quarter goes on.

The following is not an exact re-post of my assignment for my courts class. Rather it is a collection of thoughts and questions I had while reading.

American Courts

The way the law works on TV shows is so narrow. It would have us all believe that every case goes to trial. That just isn’t the way it works. There are supposed safeguards of “due process”; that system of which a persons constitutional rights are honored until the gavel comes down and they’re proven guilty or innocent.

These safeguards start when a person is arrested, but violations of their constitutional rights can also begin at arrest as well. For example, if you were to receive a knock at your door, answered, and found police on the other side, it is your IV Amendment right against “unlawful search and seizure” that requires them to present a warrant.

This seems to be largely ignored today. SWAT teams burst into homes at the whim of hackers (an act called ‘swatting’), convinced that the person inside is in possession of narcotics, has murdered a spouse or child, or is plotting an act of terror.

But you are supposed to be informed of your rights, and if you are informed and arrested you’re to be taken to a judge within 48 hours for your first appearance, where you’ll be told why you were arrested and bail will be set. Your rights can be violated here as well.

The VIII amendment states that “excessive bail shall not be required” but bail is often set higher than is needed. Supposedly, when setting bail a judge considers two factors: risk of the individual running away and the chances of them committing another crime (that is, their risk to the community). But what if the person doesn’t have the means to run away? Or have no prior history of crime before this one?

If you can’t make bail you sit in jail until trial. While you’re waiting your attorney and the prosecution debate plea bargains, your time in jail the tightly clenched fists of the law, twisting your arm to get you to say you’re guilty just so you can get out.

These are just a couple of the ways an individuals due process can be tainted.

But these plea bargains appear to have been invented for these reasons:

1. There are too many cases to go to trial.

2. The court has to try and honor the VI Amendment right to “a speedy trial.” Even though taking a plea subverts trial altogether.

3. The prosecution refuses to lose and will get a guilty plea no matter what, even if that plea forces a potentially innocent person to say they are guilty.

It’s an interesting problem. If you didn’t do the crime you are accused of doing, yet your lawyer presses you to take the plea, would you?

Even if you take the plea you can be hit with court fees and fines you probably can’t afford. Sometimes there is a “sliding scale” that adjusts these fines, but they don’t always take your other expenses into consideration.

It’s no wonder some people choose to go to prison instead. At least there they get three hots and a cot.

I’ve started school again. I’m taking online classes through Portland State University and working towards my Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice. I’m one week in and I’m ahead of my homework.

I had this concern that I would be unable to do schoolwork, look for work, and continue writing books.

I’m glad that doesn’t seem like the case now. I mean it’s only week one and it could still change but I feel like if I can keep on top of my homework like this I’ll be okay.

As for the kinds of things I want to do in 2015 that aren’t school:

I want to work on this blog more. I want to turn it into more of a showcase for different kinds of writing. More short fiction and alternative games criticism. I know I just put up a bunch of joke video reviews but I want to get away from that and approach my criticism of games differently.

There will always be a place for traditional games journalism. By traditional I mean “consumer reviews” that answer the question “should I buy this?” And that’s fine. That’s not what I want to do. I want to take the opportunity to blend my field of study into my hobby. With that in mind I’ve begun replaying games where the law or crime are central themes. My goal here is to write about games and their approach to these topics and where they get it right or wrong.

It won’t just be fun to write. It will hopefully help me retain the information for my classes.

I’m also interested in game development. I’m starting with Twine. I’m already a little way into developing an “open world crime game” in the vein of Grand Theft Auto with a focus on choice and consequence. Except… It’s a text adventure. You’ll see what I mean when I finish it and post it on here.

I’ll also be adding a very simple “store” page to the blog. It’s already made but it’s not visible to the public yet. It contains one item.

And of course there are the book projects. Cannibal Dwarf Detective 2 is being worked on slowly and the NaNoWriMo book I wrote is something I want to do a second draft for. There are some other projects I have written down in a note on my phone but I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself.

I created a Patreon but don’t have any plans on using it for the time being. I just don’t have a large enough audience yet. Everything I’ve written on that page is subject to change because I’m not entirely sure how I plan on using it if ever. Besides, I’m still writing for me.

SEGUE

I would like to write for other people. Either as a ghostwriter or whatever else. If you happen to stumble across this post and are the kind of person who wants to work with a writer on a project or two hit me up on Twitter.

…See you, Space Cowboy.