Droids make for good game partners on the moon
CHENNAI: The Earth doesn’t really look like itself anymore. The only colour you see is a mix of cement powder and beach sand. Buildings have collapsed, and there are no humans in sight. The only movement is that of these huge mechanical beings that have taken over your home. Apparently, these machines can “physically manifest” themselves — like a real steel version of human multiplication; personalities can be stored in a local network, and then transferred into new bodies.
‘NieR: Automata’ has a weird premise. It’s very unlike the only dystopian future that I foresee, which involves two mega-computers that takes in the entirety of human reactions on the internet and keep running codes that generate fake news topping the other, indirectly resulting in destruction of humanity. After that’s done, I think the trees will take over Earth. So, the idea of giant shells of robots built with indestructible metal, while making for a good game, seems little over-the-top.
However, as the gaming world recaps the best of 2017, NieR: Automata which is set in this machine-dominated dystopian universe emerges as the unexpected candidate. NieR is a multi-genre game with hack-and-slash and RPG components to the campaign mode. In the game, humankind flee to the Moon, and send armies of Androids (which are very human-like) to reclaim the Earth, even though it doesn’t look like it could ever sustain human life.
The game mechanics are fluid, and the colour tones atmospheric — which almost immediately means that we should await some very emotionally demanding and dark in-game sequences. I’ve lost count of the number of games that use the same colour tone for mental impact, and surprisingly this technique still hasn’t lost its efficiency.
Apart from the robot-induced drama and dialogues from humourless droids, the fight sequences are something to look forward to. The parkouring, sliding down buildings and the smooth camera angles makes for a very open-world like gaming experience. The sound effects of the clanging rusted iron are also very satisfying. You should try this game if you’d like to work on your in-game Ninja and Katana swinging skills — it is a machine-eat-machine world out there.
Anusha Ganapathi
Twitter @quaffle_waffle
(This economics graduate spends her leisure time preparing for the zombie apocalypse)