Penubra: Black Plague thoughts

Be warned, this game is old and I can't be arsed to dance around the spoilers.

So I'm maybe halfway through this second game in the series and I'm quite enjoying it. Yes, it's dated. But it's good gaming. I'll begin with a brief recap of the first, or rather my thoughts on it. I'd say Penumbra: Overture was a pretty good game. The atmosphere was good and though at times the nature of a computer simulation still broke the mood I was routinely pulled back in enough to have a surface level foreboding. The couple of instances of genuine fright I'd call a significant accomplishment. I scare easily at movies, but not video games since reload is always floating in the back of my mind. The pacing was good, though the storyline didn't really hold together for me. Good puzzles in general with a satisfying mix of modes with some find the foozles, secret codes, and a number of crunchy physicsy tricks. All in all, a good play though not outstanding.

The second one is getting more interesting though. It starts at about the same tone as the first leaves off (which is quite fitting) but rather quickly begins to change. So for background, it becomes quickly apparent that there's some kind of virus floating around turning living things into... other nastier things; as the game says 'zombies for lack of a better word.' Rather predictably (it is a psych-horror game after all) you are infected. This becomes apparent within the first quarter or so of the game. You follow the symptoms as described in the many documents you pick up. And then you get the voice in your head. It's creepy. It's a tad irritating. It's clearly awakening and you can literally see it progress in its growth cycle as the infection becomes more entrenched.

But that's not what made me type this out. What strikes me is the way the designers lead you along the path of the infection. In ep. 1 the character talks quite a bit. 'I should do this.' 'Maybe this will get me some answers.' Particularly at the save points (creepy artifacts whose place in the plot I haven't fleshed out yet, but which clearly have a place rather than simply being tired old game mechanics). In ep. 2 the character starts out talking just about normally, but once you get clued in that you're infected the player begins talking less. And the infection, 'Clarence' he calls himself though I don't know if that pronoun really applies, talks more. And more, and for the love of WASD would you shut up already... but I digress. But the art of it is in the way you don't really notice it while you're playing. Only if you think back do you clearly see that you're now playing what amounts to an automaton for an infectious disease that only has free thought when he moans about wanting to stay in the creepy artifacts forever while saving whereas before you were playing a human being with emotion, motivation, and an educated mind. This, this is what's well done (not that sentence, ugh, the game is well done). This elevates the series to a damn fine game. Neither game really deserves that moniker on its own merits, you have to play them both. Ideally back to back.

So, now I need to go see how Black Plague ends and what Requiem brings.

Epilogue: Thoroughly enjoyed the end of Black Plague. Always nice to see someone's sincere take on manipulative alien gestalt beings. Went on to Requiem looking forward to more of the same. But, ah, it isn't. I cleared the first level, was completely thrown by the female voiceovers. Looked around briefly at the second level then quit out and headed to the internet to do some research. Skimmed 2 or 3 reviews (which clearly I should have done before buying it but it was on sale, so meh) and quickly realized I'd been had. Ah well, at least I didn't buy it when it was new or at full price. Total playtime? 38 minutes according to Steam. Definitely not worth the trouble of a full playthrough. :(

¿Smart phones?

Blogging from a phone. Why do I feel like theres some cutesy new word for this that I'm missing? Phlogging perhaps.

Punishment

I think of clever, appropriate way to punish myself for the things I know I should not do. Ostensibly for the purpose of changing my behavior. And then on reflection I realize that they don't perform that purpose and serve to cause me further harm in somewhat counterintuitive ways. And I realize that punishment is neither necessary nor productive in a forgiven world. If God doesn't see a need to punish me why should I? By extension my children.

I am forgiven, my children are forgiven, by a higher power, knowledge, and wisdom than I could ever hope to achieve. What am I then to mete punishment? How then to effect changes in behavior? Faith, certainly. Love, and dialogue? Internal dialogue for myself, and serious discussion with my children I suppose.

Now... to change my behavior towards infractions... catch-22. Time to lean. :)

Psalm 111

This psalm begins with a call to praise God and a declaration of intent to praise God by the psalmist. What follows after is the very praise already discussed.

The debatable nature of God

Slightly misleading title. One thing that I keep coming back to is the problem of evil. Now, here we have a logic puzzle that seems to invalidate the Christian perception of God using its own terminology. How can God be omnipotent, omniscient, and completely good (omnigood?) at the same time and yet still create and allow to exist a world as flawed and full of evil as this. An all good God would eradicate the evil, given the ability and knowledge of it. So taking the omnis as given, poof there goes God in, as Douglas Adams says, a puff of logic.

Except, consider the following. Perhaps God set us up to fall. The world certainly seems rigged against us. Let's say he did, he set up the world in such a way as to deliberately predispose man to fall into evil and sin. And then, He took that fall for us. We still sin, we are still evil, but we are required to pay none of the long term consequences of that. Changes the equation a bit. Here I was thinking I'd never have even a hint of a crack of a solution to this thorny little chestnut, and I expect the average atheist will brush that off as so much religion (which I suppose it is), but I haven't been one of those for some time now and pop this little thought appears in my brain. God is good.

Edit: Oh that's hardly a complete solution, nor by any means airtight I'm sure. But, it's a start. It's a crack in the wall. And one that I'd never have found alone.

Edit 2: Coming back to this some time later, I think a little clarification is necessary. He paid our sins, and by that act cleansed the world of evil. Evil is still in the world doing it's best to wreak havoc, but every evil act was paid before it even gets commited, it is no longer evil; God doesn't permit evil in His world, He only permits humanity to suffer trials in order to give Himself a chance to help us. Interesting ramifications.

Matthew 5

Yeah, so, I could blame the delay in writing this on the fact that it's a very meaty chapter and my brain kept glazing over and reading on without stopping to think about it. But that would only be part of the truth. The rest is that I'm just a recovering world-addict with a serious relapse problem. Obviously. Moving on to the important part.

5
Ahh, the sermon on the mount. Starting with The Beatitudes, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." I think it reads more clearly as blessed in spirit are the poor. Surely those that are poor in spirit, or spiritually weak, aren't particularly blessed? Unless I'm reading something wrong. So, the poor are blessed (or happy) in the spirit. Simple enough, and more true than your average American is willing to admit. Logically, their kingdom is heaven, they are less attached to this world by their belongings and can look forward more clearly to the day the Lord comes. Or perhaps, can see more clearly because they aren't hiding behind a pile of stuff, which is wonderful imagery that I'm going to have to try to remember for later use.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." The last part suggests to me more than just human symathy. Which is where the blessing comes in, of course, but it further suggests that one should bring one's mourning before God to receive His comfort. Which only makees sense, but it's the sort of thing you forget when you need it most. Which is probably one reason why Jesus makes it the second thing he says in this very important sermon.

"Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth." Pretty straightforward. Though one assumes that 'gentle' is more of a path than a destination, given humanity. At least, I sincerely pray so since gentle isn't exactly what I'm known for. My wife is much better at that.

I think I need to move swiftly through some of these. Any words which Jesus spoke recorded in the Bible are undoubtedly packed down and overflowing with meaning and valuable insight. But if I sit here and write a great long paragraph for each and every sentence... well I know me a little bit. I'll never get out of this chapter and this will never get posted because I'll get discouraged by my own lack of 'progress.' It's silly and incorrect, but true. So, moving past the Beatitudes let me touch breifly on verse 13. "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men." Wow. So, my study bible has one short line for this. Salt preserves, creates thirst, and cleanses. All true. And if we Christians aren't doing these things then the only thing we're good for is... could that be a reference to martyrdom? Getting ourselves persecuted for the cause? Or is that a simple and straighforward "I will spit you out of My mouth" (REV 3:16) sort of statement? (And I just noticed an interesting numeric coincidence to JNO 3:16.) Hard to say, but based on the 'how can it be made salty again' the throwing out may be an answer to His own question. Suffering has a way of bringing us face to face with God, and that would be sort of a prerequisite to being properly salty. Moving on...

Verse 19 implicitly states that there will be a heirarchy in heaven by comparing those who offer false teachings of the Law ('called least in the kingdom of heaven') with those who keep and teach the commandements ('called great in the kingdom of heaven'). I've thought about this before, simply because we are forgiven doesn't mean that (as an example) not keeping the proper Sabbath isn't a sin. In other words, sin is the same A.D. as it was B.C. So, should we all be keeping the Law as best we can because it is sin to do otherwise? That would require a careful study of Jewish history, culture, tradition, etc to determine how much of that religion is based on God's word and how much is built up from the religious organization and social tradition. In short, how much is God's and how much is man's. But to do that would be mind bogglingly difficult and the mere thought paralyzes me with uncertainty and fear. So, perhaps Jesus will call me sinfully lazy when I stand before Him, but I think he'll understand just the same. I must accept that I will inadvertently (and in some cases knowingly, since the Jewish Sabbath is Saturday as I recall) sin over and over again, but being human and knowing that Jesus counts even the thought as sin it's plain that sin is purely unavoidable anyway and if I can't accept Jesus' absolute forgiveness at face value and get on with it then the whole gift might as well have been in vain for me.

So now that I've pounded out I-don't-know-how-many words on that one verse... I think I'm just going to have to split chapter 5 over 2 posts. I'm about 6 verses short of half way through, but it's after 1AM right now and if I don't post this and go to bed it's liable to languish for another week. I've got to develop a habit here, and not posting simply because I can't absorb the material fast enough is simply not acceptable. So, a-posting I will go, and I've got to try and finish tomorrow.

Psalm 110

Short and to the point. The first verse indicates in no uncertain terms, even for the OT, one member of the Trinity talking to another. That or it presumes that God talks to Himself, which is technically I suppose the same thing, but without the Trinity you'd have a pretty bizarre image of God having a little fireside chat with a hand mirror. Which makes me wonder what the Israelites make of this one, then and now.

Moving on, it's basically the Father telling His Son, very breifly, about the content of Revelation, essentially. Jesus (not named) sits at God's right hand, will have no shortage of warriors in His coming dawn, will rule as priest and king (Melchizedek) and so forth. There's a bit of imagery, but for the most part it seems fairly straighforward.