Tag Archives: celtic culture

V is for Vindictus

by

2

V

 

The aim of my Blogging From A to Z Challenge is to find the origins of online games, some relatively modern and some with ancient roots. Gaming might well be a modern take on an art that is almost timeless – storytelling. A perfect excuse for a writer to delve a little deeper.

[Visit here for links to other A to Z participants.]

Game: Vindictus is an action-dungeon-crawling hack & slash MMORPG, and a prequel to the popular MMORPG Mabinogi, so the game is known as Mabinogi: Heroes in Asia.

Release Date: KOR: 2010-01-21; NA: 2010-10-13; EU: 2011-10-05; JP: 2011-11-30; TW: 2011-12-23; AU: 2012-11-15; THA: 2015-12-02.

Developer: devCAT; Publisher: Nexon

Genre/gameplay mechanics: FTP with shop/paywall; fast-paced combat, cloth physics, and the ability to weaponize objects in the environment; players choose one of twelve gender-locked characters, each of which has different combat skills and abilities; crafting; customizable & enchantable gear; dungeon quests.

Setting: Vindictus takes place in the same Celtic-themed setting used in Mabinogi, but is placed chronologically several hundred years prior to the first game during a period of war and strife. Semi-anime fantasy world with a few historical references.

Storytelling: Straightforward. “A malevolent force shrouds the land and monsters terrorize the last bastions of humanity. All seems lost and yet one hope remains: you.” Loosely based on Celtic Mythology, the goddess Morrighan has promised that all who aid in the killing of the Formor (the enemies of the land) will go to the promised land, Erinn, the land of Paradise. The story uses a mix of traditional dialogue accompanied by still images of character portraits, along with fully animated cutscenes during certain quests and missions. Some of the quests, characters and the chapters/updates are influenced by other genres, like steampunk.

NOTE: Formoroi appear in several video games, including my K game, King Arthur: The Role-Playing Wargame, where the Formorians appear as antagonists.

Formats: Microsoft Windows

Origins (Chronological):

  1. 2004 – Nexon released the fantasy-anime MMORPG Mabinogi. Although the name of the game is taken from the Mabinogion, a Welsh anthology of legend and some names are Welsh, the settings for the game are loosely based on Irish mythology.
  2. 12-13th centuries – The Mabinogion, compiled in Middle Welsh, covers a collection of eleven prose stories of widely different types. There is a classic hero quest, “Culhwch and Olwen“; the historic legend in “Lludd and Llefelys” glimpses a far-off age, and other tales portray a very different King Arthur from the later popular versions. The highly sophisticated complexity of the Four Branches of the Mabinogidefies categorisation.
  3. 11th century – Lebor Gabála Érenn(The Book of the Taking of Ireland) is a collection of poems and prose narratives that purports to be a history of Ireland and the Irish from the creation of the world to the Middle Ages. It tells of a series of invasions or “takings” of Ireland by a succession of peoples, the fifth of whom was the people known as the Tuatha Dé Danann (“Peoples of the Goddess Danu”), who were believed to have inhabited the island before the arrival of the Gaels, or Milesians. They faced opposition from their enemies, the Fomorians, led by Balor of the Evil Eye. Balor was eventually slain by Lug Lámfada (Lug of the Long Arm) at the second battle of Magh Tuireadh. With the arrival of the Gaels, the Tuatha Dé Danann retired underground to become the fairy people of later myth and legend.
  4. 11th century – The Fomorians are a supernatural race in Irish mythology. They are often portrayed as hostile and monstrous beings who come from the sea or underground. Later, they were portrayed as giants and sea raiders. However, their relationship with the Tuatha Dé Danann is complex and some of their members intermarry and have children. It has also been suggested that the Fomorians derive from an older group of gods who were displaced by a newer group. The Fomorians have thus been likened to the jötnar of Norse mythology.
  5. 7th – 8th centuries – The Morrígan‘s earliest narrative appearances, in which she is depicted as an individual, are in stories of the Ulster Cycle, where she has an ambiguous relationship with the hero Cú Chulainn. The Morrígan was a tripartite battle goddess of the Celts of Ancient Ireland. She was known as the Morrígan, but the different sections she was divided into were also referred to as Nemain, Macha, and Badb, with each representing different aspects of combat.

Vindictus01

Recommendation: Vindictus was nominated for best MMO at E3 2010 that was held at the Los Angeles Convention Center from June 14 to 17. IGN awarded Vindictus Best Free-to-Play MMO Game of 2010. Metacritic gave a score of 76 averaged from 6 critics. In their 2010 review, MMORPG.com gave it 8/10, while users gave it 7.8.

3.5 Stars: Vindictus is one of those games that failed to pull me in, although the combat with the ability to pick up and use ‘the environment’ was cool. However, the game felt repetitive and the storyline felt shallow compared with other games. The game controls were not intuitive, or clear, and the basic functional NPC interaction was dull. The game feels dated and, for me, lacks a reason to reach the end.

  1. Setting: 3.25*
  2. Storyline: 3.5*
  3. Gameplay: 3*
  4. Entertainment: 3*
  5. Genesis: 4.75*

Alternative ‘V’ thoughts:

V is also for Vikings as in the TV show and in the 1958 Richard Fleischer movie – and in other media. Yes, there is even a game, Viking: Battle for Asgard that I haven’t had the urge to play. Instead, I gave you a post on Hellblade that tangled with Norse Mythology, and another on LOTRO with its Northern European and Anglo-Saxon roots.

 

Enter this portal to reach other Worlds in my A2ZMMORPG

Hela da

 

 

H is for Hellblade

by

16

 H

 

The aim of my Blogging From A to Z Challenge is to find the origins of online games, some relatively modern and some with ancient roots. Gaming might well be a modern take on an art that is almost timeless – storytelling. A perfect excuse for a writer to delve a little deeper. [Visit here for links to other A to Z participants.]

Game: Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is an intense psychological action-adventure game which PCGamesN rated, “a miraculous technical feat made by a team just a fraction the size of the ones that typically dominate the triple-A space.”

Release Date: April 8, 2017

Developer/Publisher: Ninja Theory

Genre/gameplay mechanics: Award-winning game – dark fantasy action-adventure; hack and slash; puzzle-solving; psychological horror. Voice-acting integral to unique, 3D binaural audio design. Cutscenes combine motion/performance capture by video editor-turned-actress Melina Juergens and live-action performances by other actors.

Setting: A rendition of Helheim, the Norse underworld – effective use of audio and visual to submerge players in Senua’s nightmarish journey and her accurately-portrayed mental world. The world feels horrifyingly real as the sounds and graphics seem subtly distorted.

Storytelling: Hellblade follows Senua, a Pict warrior who journeys to Helheim to save the soul of her dead lover from the goddess Hela. Also, the character struggles with her mind, and the game revolves around her condition. Senua suffers from psychosis but believes it to be a curse. She is haunted by an entity known as the “Darkness”, voices in her head known as “Furies”, and memories from her past.

As Ninja Theory said in 2015, “Senua experiences psychosis, including hallucinations and delusions, as well as suffering from anxiety and depression. As a player, you will witness Senua’s living nightmare through her own eyes… Developing Hellblade independently gives us the freedom to tackle a subject as challenging as mental health. It is a subject that we are handling with all the respect it deserves, ensuring that our portrayal of Senua’s condition is both accurate and sensitive. To help us with this we are working closely with Professor Paul Fletcher, a professor of Health Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, as well as arranging to consult directly with people who have experience of mental health difficulties. We are also very proud to say that Hellblade is being supported by Wellcome Trust, which is a global charitable foundation which aims to build a greater public understanding of science and in particular health.”

Releases:

  1. August 8, 2017 – Windows, PlayStation 4
  2. April 11, 2018 – Xbox One

Origins (Chronological):

  1. 2010 – Ninja Theory released Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, a video game that saw the Ninja team develop their motion capture with Andy Serkis.
  2. 8th century – The Roman Empire was unable to conquer a group of Celts in the northern reaches of Great Britain known as the Picts. Towards the end of the century, the first Vikings arrived in the islands of Orkney and replaced them as the main population of the land. Senua is portrayed as a Celtic warrior on Orkney.
  3. 793-1066 – Norse Mythology in the Viking Age: “Before the Norse (a.k.a. the Vikings) were converted to Christianity during the Middle Ages, they had their own vibrant native pagan religion that was as harshly beautiful as the Nordic landscape to which it was intimately connected.”
  4. The 1st century and earlier – The main inspiration of Senua’s character was the Iceni queen Boudica, while her name came from Senuna, a Celtic whose name was at first read incorrectly as Senua. The team researching Celtic culture and the Celts’ views on mental disorder, found out that they used the term ‘gelt’ for a man or woman who had been driven mad by a curse, grief, or the trauma of a battle. A gelt would take to a life in the woods in search of penance, punishment and purgatory. The team decided to make Senua a gelt, who had left her home in exile for those reasons.

Recommendation: Hellblade was a commercial success and was well received by critics, who praised it as a work of art and applauded its uncommon choice of revolving around psychosis, the quality and uniqueness of its approach of the condition, and its story and main character. Reviews included this  7 August 9 stars review from IGN: “An incredible atmospheric story reinforces Hellblade’s serious subject matter in this vivid tale of harrowing darkness.” 2017 Players were equally enthusiastic in their reactions.

Hellblade_02

4.55 Stars: Before I played the game, I watched numerous video reviews, diaries and walkthroughs, and I was excited. The game ticked so many boxes, and elements tied into my current WIP, whose second protagonist suffers from a form of psychosis. The actual experience was intense. As expected the voices-in-the head and confused images created a disturbing atmosphere, at times nightmarish. The combat should have been simple, but not for this nerve-jangled oldie who can’t hit the right keys fast enough – so died repeatedly…frustrating. I’ll keep trying though.

  1. Setting: 4.5*
  2. Storyline: 5*
  3. Gameplay: 3.75*
  4. Entertainment: 4.5*
  5. Genesis: 5*

Alternative ‘H’ thoughts:

H is also for Philip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials, but I’ve yet to find a suitable game. Is there one?

+ ‘H’ Games played: Heroes of Might & Magic – but that comes under M.

Hela da