The god-CEO element also brought that relationship into the mix, very true. The lack of indication concerning events inside buildings puts a focus on the uncertainty of the “everyday life” of the characters, which actually goes hand in hand with cyberpunk’s own take on uncertainty regarding relationships and the future.

As for translating text, there’s no need to. I usually write two versions of the same post – one in english, the other in portuguese – so as to accomodate both sides of the readership. What little is not translated is actually a handful of posts regarding Smash!, a portuguese videogame magazine which I currently write for, with a quick note highlighting part of an article of mine and a reminder of when the next issue hits the streets – so you’re not losing out on anything

And thank *you* for your words – hope to see you again

Lamento que ainda só tenha disponível uma versão em inglês – regra geral costumo submeter uma versão em cada língua, mas como o tópico tinha um prazo limite, fui “forçado” a condensar o texto e a trabalhar na versão inglesa primeiro. Espero que até ao final da semana consiga deixar aqui uma versão em português.

De facto, com as mudanças que têm vindo a acontecer nos últimos anos – quer em termos de tecnologia disponível, quer em termos de preferências da audiência – torna-se difícil imaginar que boa parte dos jogadores troquem a apresentação e os valores de produção actuais por algo que a indústria tem vindo a abandonar e a decretar como antiquado. Resident Evil começou de modo bestial e foi sendo reduzido a besta (por assim dizer) ao longo dos anos, em parte pela ideia de que a perspectiva em uso era antiquada. Diablo 3 tem sido vítima das mesmas críticas.

Gosto de pensar que não existem mecânicas de jogo ou perspectivas antiquadas, mas sim escolhas criativas mais ou menos adequadas à visão dos criadores. Mas a meu ver não é, infelizmente, um pensamento partilhado por muitos.

As for debating that angle in RPGs, it is a trickier subject since most of the time perspectives have been used as a technical means to handle gameplay, with not much investment in perspective as a way to explore narrative relationships or possibilities. But as soon as I have the time I’ll try to look into it further

In particular, Syndicate takes advantage of the “god-CEO” perspective (assuming by some kind of remote control) in an interesting way. When you send your agents into a building to assassinate a target, the interior of the building is never revealed. Thus you never get to see what each agent sees – you’re limited to the perspective of the CEO. This aspect of the game (whether intentional or not) not only cements your perspective as the player, but adds to the emotional tension of walking an agent into an office building and murdering people – you’re never *quite* sure what’s going on inside.

I had not made the connection between Fade to Black and Gears of War – but you’re absolutely right. While the control/camera system does share much with Gears of War, it also seems to have an equal influence (perhaps more aesthetically) upon the Deus Ex series, both in terms of visuals, narrative style, and combat. It’s too bad that this successor to Flashback (one of my favourite Delphine titles) never received much interest.

Thanks for the great post. Looking forward to more (Looks like I’ll be using Google Translate for some of ‘em!).