#if you care i also think that units (two squads) are most frequently designed in order to ensure that there is at least 1 medic per unit

[vyingeyes]

Clone Squad Compositions

In the same vein as my 5-trooper-squad (and subsequent Math Consequences) spiral, I have taken the liberty of establishing guidelines for what specialized training each clone in a squad may have.

Initially Domino Squad was my primary reference for this, but I also referenced Delta Squad (and the Bad Batch, to some extent).

For my own worldbuilding consistency, squads consist of 5 troopers:

2 of these troopers are standard infantry

1 information analyst per squad

2 "specialized" troopers per squad

Infantry are the "default"; all troopers receive the same standard required physical and weapons training, but if a clone is not in a special track, he'll have a training period dedicated exclusively to advancing weapons training, formation practice, endurance training, live sims, etc.

Information analysts are the designated "brains" of a squad. If they aren't their squad's lead, they'll work with their squad lead to build and execute plans. Most information analysts will have at least a basic understanding of concepts like splicing and have an advanced understanding of factors such as land formations and native wildlife. They may be less physically imposing than other troopers (by a standard likely unnoticeable by most natborns, but that is recognizable by other troopers), because their specialized training involves little physical strain.

Specialized tracks are a broad range of potential focuses for troopers. Like the other trooper types, these are assigned upon decanting and are only changed in examples of extenuating circumstances (for example, if a squadmate fails out of their original track and is "demoted" to infantry). This category includes tracks such as heavy gunner, engineer, ordnance specialist, medic, scout, pilot, sniper, etc. There are various expectations placed on troopers in certain tracks—scouts must be good runners, snipers have to have an eye for detail, etc. If a clone is incapable of meeting the standard of his track by their third cycle (approx. 6 years old, developmentally), he is removed from his track and becomes infantry. This may also happen to information analysts. In this instance, the original infantry of their squad will be evaluated, and one of them will be inserted into an appropriate track.

For the sake of showing my work:

The Bad Batch exemplify "advanced" versions of some of these tracks. It's presumably that more clones like them would have been developed had they been viewed as "successful" experiments earlier on. Hunter is an advanced scout. Tech is an advanced information analyst. Crosshair is an advanced sniper. I actually think that Wrecker would have been an advanced heavy gunner (big, bulky, able to take a lot and dish it back without too much delay), but found more love in ordnance than rotary weaponry (although he is certainly an expert at both).

Domino Squad is a little tougher, because of how little we see of Cutup and Droidbait (my poor boy barely even died). I think Echo is likely an information analyst, which is primarily due to his technological expertise in TBB (I simply think he would have a more "typical" prosthetic hand by this point if wanted one, so I think he prefers the scomp). I think it's also in line with his characterization in Rookies. He's the one to consider liquid tibanna as a method for destroying the base, solving the problem Hevy raises. Hevy was a heavy gunner, of course. (So is Commander Thorn.) I also believe Hevy was squad lead, and I will die on that hill. Fives is a fun wild card for me. I lean infantry, because nothing else stands out as obvious to me. And also because I think that Droidbait was the other tracked member of their squad. He's clearly got a knack for getting himself into precarious positions that ended up with him having a slightly unfortunate name; I think he's had a little less active-battle training than, say, Cutup and Fives. I imagine him as perhaps a scout or engineer.

And Delta Squad. Fixer is an IA, Scorch is an ordnance specialist, and Sev is a sniper. I would peg Boss as infantry, but I think technically you could make a case for few options since he's the played character and doesn't have a lot of solid character established in the current canon. I could make an argument here reinforcing my 5-squad rule by saying commando squads wouldn't need a second infantry trooper, but this is already long winded and rambling.

Every single trooper OC in my work follows these rules. My Obsidian vault is very convoluted.

[pregnantcornbread]

Mass Effect: Andromeda - Choices, romance, further questions.

So, I preordered Mass Effect: Andromeda to be delivered to me via courier on release day. Why? I absolutely loved Dragon Age: Inquisition, and loved BioWare’s style. The hard choices you have to make actually make a difference in the story, as do your personality and influence (not like TellTale’s Walking Dead series, who promote that your choices matter, when actually, they really don’t, the story continues regardless). In DA: I, I was a female hunter Lavellan, with not-so pointy ears (which made a difference how the other elves interacted with me), and a Ghilan'nain vallaslin (which endeared me to the halla herders). I originally romanced Blackwall, but when he left, I went full Cullen, a satisfying relationship filled with awkward coughs, innuendo, and drug withdrawal – and frequent visits to the ramparts for ‘alone time.’ I spent over 300 hours completing every side quest, relishing in new environments, killing everything bad in sight, trying not to whine when all the important choices somehow fell to me (including what is to be done with a man who is flinging goats at my stronghold) and taking down all the dragons. I never felt tired playing that game, the ‘fetch’ quests were fun due to the party banter (hint: if you have your romantic interest in your party, things get hilarious!), and the lovability of your party, well developed characters who don’t just rehash the same lines all the time (except in fight mode: “Solas needs help” is still ringing in my ears, after all this time). The DLC was quite well crafted as well (although The Descent is possibly my least favourite – why am I collecting mugs in the deep roads again? Trespasser had a great ending, and gave you another change to mix it up with your crew). So my expectations were quite high with ME: Andromeda.

After spending a quick five minutes deciding on a male or female Ryder, I chose the obvious. After having to play countless RPG’s as a man (Far Cry, Shadow of Mordor, Sleeping Dogs, GTA:V, Witcher), I chose a woman, because yeah, I am one. I spent an hour fixing my Sara to look like a human rather than whatever the preset was. My Sara, in the design part, sort of looked like a young Mary Steenburgen. Satisfied with my choice, I got on my merry way with the game. Upon waking up out of cryo, I saw everything that was wrong with my Sara’s face, the shading was shitty, the skin was terrible, her nose was way bigger, her eyes looked purple in some lights (instead of deep blue) and what was up with her goddamn eyebrows? But in some scenes, she actually looked like the Sara I had designed. Rather than spend another hour redesigning her face, I decided to roll with it and keep her. It was a good choice, because she looked like present day Mary Steenburgen with worse skin and a neck tattoo, and looked like she had seen some shit and could handle her shit, rather than some prim and proper pathfinder’s daughter who was only on the ark because her dad said so.

End game spoilers ensue, so please read at your own peril:

The following is split up into three parts: My choices in the game, romance, and post-game questions.

My game is at 111 hours and 98% completion. There were two quests that I did not finish before completing the game (excluding the medicine quest after Herbal Entrepeneurs, because it was bugged) – ‘Path of Hero’ and ‘Aid Apex’ (because I killed all the architects before I got the mission, and so had no option to scan them). Post game, these quests are no longer available to me.

My Choices:

Sometimes I would leave the game running for hours while deliberating on a choice. My first choice was whether or not to have a scientific outpost or a military outpost on the first world, Eos. As your advisors tell you, what you choose will reflect on how the initiative is seen in the eyes of possible intelligent life in the system, and will set the standard of what you intend to do in the system. I chose a scientific outpost – less “we’re coming to invade you”, more “we’re just here to live and learn.”

First murderer: I chose to release Nilken, because intent is not a crime, but I also didn’t speak to his wife outside the jail, so his secret was not exposed.

Vehn Terev: I gave him to the resistance, because interfering with Angaran justice wasn’t the right play.

Path of a Hero: I spoke to Kerri, but declined her offer, as I was just new to this pathfinding business, and didn’t feel that I could offer any nuggets of wisdom. Then I forgot about it and it failed the quest. Meh.

Reyes Vs Kelly: Both are terrible choices for leaders, but at the time, I wanted to see where a romance with Vidal would go, I played it out, and was disappointed, but in my do-over, I still let Kelly die, because she was quite evil. Even though Reyes was a tosser for cheating, he still seemed the better hand.

Angaran AI: I gave the Angaran the AI, because I didn’t feel right about keeping it for myself – and potentially angering the Angara.

Secret Water reservoir: I let the Angara merchant keep the water in reparations for the outcasts killing her brother, and to prevent the Nexus from becoming a thoroughly colonising body in Elaaden.

Drive Core: This one was a bit fuzzy for me, because I was also doing the quest with the AI saboteurs, and they were talking about Overload (I think), a program about a weaponised AI, and Drack was sending me emails about Overload Morda, so I thought that Morda was a weaponised AI. I ended up scanning Knight’s hideout a little too thoroughly, which made her people hostile to me, and she ended up being sniped on the Nexus. Alain vows revenge, which is unfortunate, because SAM made him walk again. After finishing a few more quests, I came back to Elaaden and I ended up trusting Morda with the drive core, because pissing off all the Krogan was not my idea of ‘peace among worlds.’ Also, after all the shit the Krogan have been through, the Krogan need a voice at the table – they didn’t even get their own pathfinder!

Avitus Rex: Rex became a pathfinder, because he was out finding Turians when the Turians weren’t.

Sarissa’s Fate: I couldn’t let Sarissa keep her position after all that dickery that got her Pathfinder killed. It may not have been the smart move, but although she was the best person for the job, a huntress without her squad’s support will not go far. Also, I don’t think I could have looked at Cora if I agreed to lie to everyone about it. If Tann (number eight in line) can be the director, why can’t Valderia?

Salarian doctor: Ehh, what a moral dropkick. He got jail.

Exaltation facility: I let it stand, for further help in the final mission.

Salarian Pathfinder: This one was heartbreaking. A female Salarian who is an actual trained pathfinder (would have been the only one in my crew), who is captured trying to rescue her people despite my commands to get the f out of there vs Drack’s dime a dozen Krogan scouts. I had planned on saving the Krogan scouts beforehand, and had Drack in my party, but while I was doing this mission, I was really torn. If I choose the Salarian, the Krogan won’t trust or respect me, but if I chose the scouts, I would get further support from the Krogan, with no real consequences on the Salarian side. Whatever I chose, I would be taking a side, with consequences down the line. I went with ‘Krogan lives matter,’ despite sacrificing the most badass Salarian, ever. I mean, every Salarian would want to mate with her just for the prestige!

Kill code: While it may come to bite me in DLC or sequels, I used it, just to get it out of the way. I don’t trust Primus to honour his deal in the future.

Ambassador: I loved Morda for the choice (just to spite Tann), and Bradley would have been a good second, but I ended up conceding power to the Moshae, I believe she was the smart choice. Although I had enough of a presence to unite the Angara and the Initiative, the Moshae would not be swayed by outside or inside influence. If I chose Hayjer, the Krogan would hate me, as much as “Krogan lives matter,” Morda would only act in favour of the Krogan and Clan Nackmor, and possibly make a heated attack against the Salarians/Turians in retaliation for the genophage, and Bradley, well, I could be accused of being specist.    

  Romance:

This is where I think the game could use improvements. It is pretty disappointing if you are FemRyder or a MaleRyder who doesn’t romance Cora (the extreme effort put in this relationship compared to the minimal effort of the others is quite disappointing – they actually kiss properly and there’s thrusting!).

Look at those two humanoids realistically kissing!

The lack of dialogue choices means that relationships become boring and quickly. While in DA:I, the cut away sex scenes did hold a little to imagination, that fact that you could go and talk to your interest during long, arduous missions and sneak away for a little kiss cut scene helped keep your interest in them, and having them in your party was always a hilarious time (“Keep your eyes off the Inquistor’s behind!”). While playing the game, you get a sense of your SO and your squadmates, their endearing and not-so endearing traits, it almost felt like they’re almost real people. DA:I is a well-fleshed out, well-written RPG, and the relationships are defining trait of this game – I’m sure that if all there was to do was going around killing things, I probably wouldn’t care. Instead, you help Cullen get off his lyrium addiction, let Iron Bull teach you your umm… limits, hunt around trying to find the perfect gift for Sera (much to the utter dismay of your compatriots), read terrible poetry to Cassandra, strong-arm a fop for Dorian’s pendant, save a spirit with Solas, challenge Josephine’s fiancée to a duel, save Leliana from spy assassins, and want to give Blackwall the coward another chance.  

The last major RPG I played that had multiple romance options was Fallout 4, and I romanced MacCready, Cait, Piper (just to shut her up – every time I’d talk to her, she’d want something more - ehhhhgghh), Danse and Curie (to also shut her up). Having one romance option in FO4 became too tedious, the only thing that changes is their scripted dialogue when they wake up next to you, so I romanced others to see what they said – because I honestly didn’t care about romance in that game because it was so flat.

Here’s who I romanced in ME:A (usually by flirting with everyone and then seeing what happens):

Liam – I started off flirting with Liam because he seemed interesting, until he quickly didn’t. His dialogue doesn’t change. You can’t really flirt with him in between missions after you’ve had a one night stand, and he’s so boring, I’d rather eject myself out of an escape pod than deal with him. If you go the whole game with Liam, he makes you a jump pack, but is it really worth it for being bored to death?

Vidal – I quite liked having someone off the ship to avoid a HR nightmare, but it turns out that after you become exclusive and dance with Reyes, that’s it – that’s your big romantic scene. Reyes becomes a chatterbox of nothing after that.

Jaal – Jaal is interesting, and unknown, and kind of reminds you of a perfect, dreamy boyfriend who is too in touch with their feelings, and you stay with them because you don’t want to deal with the fallout if you break up with them, because they’ll probably kill themself. Rocking a sexy, deep voice, I was almost convinced to be in a relationship with him, if not for Jaal’s confusing switch between Vulcan logic and hopeless romantic during the course of a conversation. Jaal is a warm space Mufasa, and will tell you what you want to hear, but his sex scene kinda sucked. Although the post coitus (?) debrief with Lexi is quite hilarious.

Vetra – I’m not sure if I didn’t flirt enough with Vetra, or if she didn’t want to be with me because I told Sid off – a lot, but perhaps it was never meant to be. My codex reads that Vetra hopes that we can be friends, so perhaps admonishing Sid worked against me.

Suvi – I didn’t flirt with her at the beginning, and I decided against a relationship with Suvi because her sex scene was awkward/awful.

Which leads to my commitment for the game:

Peebee is the one with the purple jacket… not young Sarah Paulson rocking the undercut…

Peebee – Peebee is a thorn in your arse from the moment she joins your crew. Rem-tech this, remnant structures that. Tight-lipped, evasive, and a motor-mouth, she’s a bit like Sera from DA:I, but a bit more grown up. She has limited long-range fighting skills, so bringing her to anything bigger than a small raider camp firefight is pointless. She insults Vetra, Liam, and Cora, but has some quite funny conversations with Jaal (interspecies breeding) and Drack (about their age). Liam and Cora, even during the final stages of the game, relentlessly question her loyalty. I chose Peebee because her storyline was the most interesting, as opposed to other potentials (Liam – “Hey, I’m a boring human too.” Jaal – “I’m an alien, meet my mothers, I moisturise my neck flaps.” Vidal – bad boy Han Solo). I turned down Peebee’s offer of casual sex, because at the time I didn’t want anything to do with her, so I told her that I’d want more to get her to leave me alone, and I didn’t want a Liam thing – where you have a one night stand once and then all of a sudden they want you to commit. But I kept flirting with her, regardless, recycling the “I like it when you flirt” dialogue whenever I got on the ship. I couldn’t do that with Liam, Jaal, or Reyes. Turns out, the more I learned about Peebee, through doing her loyalty missions, the more endeared I became towards her. From being tight-lipped and evasive to slowly trickling out interesting snippets – like her relationship with Kalinda, and her rem-tech project, she started to grow on me as I realised that she was not like the others, who give you all the information up front and you spend the rest of the game cycling through dialogue that you first heard 70 hours ago, with minor changes mirroring your progression in the story. You have to prove to her that you’re trustworthy. If you do commit to a relationship with her, and reciprocate her trust - it leads to a pretty explicit sex scene – complete with Asari melding. While the mechanics of the scene are quite awkward with FemRyder’s weird facial features – she looks like she’s super confused and not enjoying it all – trusting Peebee enough not to leave you brain dead during the first time she has melded with someone, and having Peebee trust you enough to meld with you makes the relationship all that more worthwhile. While I’m all for space boinking, Peebee’s relationship was less about the physicality of the act of boinking, and more about the trust and emotional connection inherent in the relationship, which I felt was satisfying. Post-meld Peebee has some killer dialogue aboard the Nomad, inviting Cora over for a pyjama sleepover, faking extreme horniness to get Jaal to admit that he was faking being asleep, and at the end, when you ask her ‘what am I going to do with you?’ she offers to make you a list. But the relationship and closeness doesn’t really go anywhere near the level of a relationship that DA:I does, due to the stunted dialogue choices. Although, I hope I didn’t get Peebee pregnant.

Post-Game Mysteries:

The ending scenes kind of set up the unfinished issues for the DLC/sequels – Primus wanting to kettify everyone, exploring Meridian, understanding the Jaardan, finding all the other lost arks, how many more useless solar systems are around, etc. Some questions remain, though. Say if I find a way to fix Ellen Ryder, what could she add to the story, other than my mother being there? She may be able to assist with new gadgets for players who chose a biotic route, or will she just serve as a ‘bringing your romantic attachment home to mum’ trope? Should we care about Jian Garson’s death and the mysterious benefactor? You learn during the game that the Milky Way has been fucked over by the Reapers, but we can’t save them, should we care?

After finding out why Alec Ryder made Sara the Pathfinder, all I wanted to do was talk to Cora about it – she wasn’t “looked over” and the promotion was to protect Alec’s secrets (i.e. Ellen on board, Milky Way gone to shit). I felt like my number two deserved an explanation, rather than sullenly assisting the other untrained Pathfinders on the Nexus (who did nothing, by the way – go out and bloody Pathfind – it’s not that hard!). I noticed that after ‘Journey to Meridian,’ Cora seemed cold, and would barely speak to me. Perhaps she was disappointed in me choosing Peebee, or perhaps SAM leaked what I found out to Cora. Will I ever get the chance to tell Cora about it?  

During the pre-prologue descision making process, you get to choose if you want a Male Shepard, or a FemShep (your ME:3 save has no bearing over this game). I went with a FemShep, like my ME:3 counterpart. Did I hear Jennifer Hale during the game? No. Does it even make a difference? Unknown.

After leaving Meridan and coming back to talk to everyone, some questions remain. During the epilogue, you meet the new crew responsible for Meridian. After you come back, the Australian implores you to go and find the sprog (a baby). Every time I see Addison, I ask about the baby that was born on a spaceship flying away from the Kett, who I suggested the family settle on Eos (no way was I going to get that lady on the Nexus – she’d have hated it!), but when I’m in Prodromos, I can’t find the baby. If that baby has been stolen by the Kett, I swear – I will hurt Bradley!

Further questions: Will Lexi and Drack ever get together? Will Vetra find love? Will Peebee take Jaal’s offer to try Asari-Angaran reproduction? Will the Nomad ever get some tunes? Will Drack live to see great-grandfatherhood? Will Cora hook up with Scott? If I agreed to sign up for Jill’s insemination program, and Peebee was carrying my child, could I raise them as siblings? How would my FemRyder deal with being a father?

What would happen if the Jaardan came back to Meridian to check on their experiments? What happens if the scourge takes over Meridian? Have I screwed over all of humanity by settling them there?    

[writingwell]

3 Words Prompt: SpyCastle, ArmyAU, Start

#262 (this is literally the very beginning of the AU of Spy Castle called Army Spy)

—–

Never leave a trace behind.

Well, it had worked. A little too well.

The son of Special Agent John Black sat hunched in the booth at the back of the room, his eyes sweeping and scanning the bar, cataloging every movement, unable to let go of battle-ready, combat alert.

He had no name, no passport, no driver’s license. He’d been an Army Ranger six months ago, but then his father had terminated the project when half the squad went AWOL after the rest had committed suicide. Yet, he was still here, ticking along without a problem, popping supplements like candy and drinking his gallon and a half of water like a good boy. He’d been trained to follow orders, and he didn’t see much reason not to.

It worked for him. Had worked.

He had no name now but it had once been Richard. Most people didn’t know that one, though his CO, Captain Eastman, must have been CIA Special Operations because he had known the truth. Eastman had let him go with a sigh, told him not to deal New York City too much damage.

Richard was on the hunt. For what, he had no idea. He just needed something… other. A taste of it. Just for a week, a week to stop looking and moving and answering like an Army Ranger, and then he’d be stationed in Ireland for a long-term mission, back to operative assignments where his father needed his services.

He wasn’t looking forward to Ireland, but he couldn’t go back to the Army either. It didn’t hold the appeal it once had, after the Towers had fallen, to get out there and do something about the evil in the world. Not when the guy he stared down the rifle scope loved his kids and kissed his wife, and the only intel Castle had on him was a word from some bureaucrat.

Not when half his unit had never gotten back-up, out there stranded, abandoned. No bureaucrat in sight.

Castle had been taught by the best at West Point, and in Afghanistan, he’d seen every wrong move and every shit tactical decision that went against the best ideas of commanders on the ground, not to mention his CIA training, and he just couldn’t go back to following orders.

“Soldier,” the waitress said, coming around with his drink. She placed the tumbler of Scotch on the scarred wood and nodded as she left, not bothering to force him into conversation. He appreciated that at least.

He never drank. Another rule he hadn’t cared enough about to break until now. His father never drank, and so Richard had never touched it until West Point. In order to blend in, he’d started a habit with his friends of drinking just enough. He’d acquired the officers’ taste - Scotch on the rocks. He swirled it around the glass now, watching the amber diffuse across the ice.

He took a long swallow and let it burn.

It was enough. He’d nurse it for a few hours, he decided, and then he’d find the CIA safe house near Harlem, sleep long enough to forget upon waking where he was.

Right. That never happened. Still, it’d be nice to try. Sleep so hard and so long that when he came to in the darkness, for just a moment he could be anywhere at all.

He remembered that feeling, that disorientation upon waking. He’d been five and his father had stuck him in a bunk house on the training grounds at Clayton that Christmas break. He’d woken alone, no understanding of where he’d been, no clue or hints in the darkness, only the starched sheets under his cheek. He’d been with his father for a week by that time and the sense of maybe it was all a dream had been so fierce that the sensation had been pleasant and appealing.

If he could do that again, he thought maybe his life would make sense for him.

He wasn’t a kid any longer. He wasn’t even a fresh-faced recruit or an Army Ranger on a mission; he was a 32 year old guy whose whole point of existence was Leave no trace behind.

It was fucking him up a little. He just needed a week to be nothing and no one before he dove into Ireland and Foley again. He couldn’t forget what Colleen had done to him there on his very first mission out of training years ago, and though he’d matured since then, figured out his shit, he couldn’t help feeling like he was doomed to repeat his past.

And then the door opened and summer sun walked right inside the bar.

Doomed had a whole new meaning.

—–

She stepped inside like she owned the place, but he saw - because he was trained to see - that she wore her confidence like armor and below that, in the glints of green in those brown eyes, she wanted nothing more than to not be here.

In this bar.

She approached the bartender with a discreet tuck of her hand into his, and Castle watched the man glance at the paper he’d been palmed. She had worked the exchange professionally, even if the bartender had not, and Castle admired the skill.

She wasn’t a professional, he didn’t think, but it did make him pause.

Middle twenties, early side, probably twenty-four. Young enough to be cautiously optimistic, old enough to think she’d seen it all. Dark hair pulled back into a pony tail in deference to the heat, a sleeveless shirt with a long v-neck so that those tantalizing glimpses no doubt smoothed her way in any conversation with the opposite sex.

Her jeans were well-worn but her shoes were black boots with heels that were expensive and probably recently purchased. She had the look of a woman who was outside frequently - summer kissed and golden - but she wasn’t rough around the edges. Smooth, polished, sophisticated. He was getting two different vibes from her: both well-bred New York money with a promising career in the law or medicine, and also a former street rat who had been starved for opportunity.

One led to the lifestyles of the rich and famous, the other led to crime. Or.

Police work.

Ah, that was it. She was a cop. A fresh cop, because she didn’t quite know how to hold herself when she wasn’t carrying heat, and because she had made an effort with her civvies. Hair, make-up, lip gloss so that those pale, pink lips shone. She didn’t smile; she didn’t look like she had many smiles left in her today. But her eyes were alert.

They caught his and held. He studied her. She studied him, unflinchingly, assessing, and then she must have seen the army on him, because she forgot him and looked away.

He somehow didn’t want her dismissing him so easily.

He watched her because she had dismissed him, and she didn’t even bother trying to lower her voice or keep it private; she spoke at a normal volume, designed to wash away in the white noise of the bar.

But Richard heard. He always did.

“I’m sure you know him,” the woman resumed. “I know you know him, Trout. He talks about you. So please, when he comes in-”

“I’m not refusing him,” the bartender said. (His name was Trout? How awful. Score one for living under the name of a legend.) “If he comes in here and wants a drink, I’m serving him. No right telling a man he can’t drown his sorrows.”

“Don’t be a cliche,” she muttered. “All I’m saying is that you call me. When it’s bad. Call me and not the taxi service, not the guys patrolling this block, not his asshole friend, George.”

“George is-”

“I’m telling you - I’m not asking you,” she cut in. “You call me. I don’t want my father in the tank again.”

The tank. She was a cop; she used cop lingo and she knew how to get around the guys on patrol. Richard put his elbows on the table and lifted his drink, swirled it around and around, studying her instead of the Scotch.

She was amber on ice herself.

And much more interesting, especially since he seemed unable to get drunk.

“Fine, fine, fine,” the bartender said, throwing up a hand to ward her off. He waved the piece of paper in front of her face and then turned around, tacking it to the corkboard just behind his head. “I’ve got your number, sweetheart.”

He saw her face ripple with it, that instinctive fuck you for the casual tossed-off endearment. But she swallowed it down and thanked the bartender, backed away from the wood. As she did, she shot him a hot, frustrated look, as if he were allowed to see it even if the bartender couldn’t. As if Richard were safe.

He didn’t want to be safe. But he did want… something.

She turned and left the bar, her pony tail stiff and not swinging an inch, but her hips moving probably in spite of herself, giving him a glimpse of how good it could be.

She slid her sunglasses down on her head and moved up the sidewalk and out of sight.

He sat there for five seconds, the longest he’d ever been indecisive, and then he jerked to his feet and strode towards the bar. Trout gave him a bleary what the hell do you want kind of glance and Richard pushed right past him and out with one long look at that board.

He’d memorized her name, her number, and her address.

Kate.

—–

[casualarsonist]

ArmA 3 review

NB: This is a review of the base game only – it doesn’t include anything regarding multiplayer or Apex, so take that as you will.

Arma 3’s single-player campaign is one of the most terrifying of any game I’ve ever played. It makes me wish that I’d trained in the military, because perhaps then I’d spend less time getting my ass handed to me. Perhaps I’d have a better eye for noticing details on the battlefield that alert me to danger. Perhaps I’d spend less time in loading screens waiting for my last save to boot up again, or clutching my fists in frustrated rage at how close I’d been to defeating the enemy before taking a bullet to the skull.

Now I skulk around corners. I dread urban combat and all the possible hiding places for enemies. I hit the deck or scramble for cover the second I hear the crack of a rifle, and if I don’t, I’m usually dead soon after. Arma 3 is good at making you dead, and if I played the game accepting the consequences of my poor decisions, I’d be having a much worse time - the enemy AI is whip smart at times, almost too smart, and most of my problems occur when I assume that they won’t act like a human, such as the time I was driving a pickup up a hill and a sniper started taking potshots at me from across the valley; there was little chance that I was going to find him before he wounded or killed me, so I kept driving and ignored him, assuming that he wouldn’t be able to hit us. I lost a man that day. However, a lot of problems also occur when I assume that my AI companions will act like humans, for not all AI is made equal, and this is but one of the unbalanced, unintuitive aspects of Arma 3 that still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

The game is at its best when it’s allowing the story of the player to unfold as a dynamic result of the player’s unpredictable interactions with the pieces the developers have put on the playing field -  stumbling across a patrol while on foot can spark a desperate life-or-death skirmish, clearing out an urban environment is a terrifying game of cat-and-mouse, and there’s always the choice to fight or flee that allows for spontaneous, varied, and tense interactions. Emergent gameplay is where Arma excels, and in the spirit of a good military sim, it plays best if you to plan ahead, adapt to the changing battlefield, and suffer with the wounds you sustain; that is, unless it kills you outright, which is so often does, which then prompts either sober reflection on your mistakes, or bitter frustration at the janky design choices that left you floundering.

Yes, janky design – a term synonymous with any Arma release, and present here as always, for one of the main issues with the game is that so much of the end result of any confrontation in Arma 3 can come down to a number of factors that could be perceived as clunky design, or simple unfairness, particularly: how well you understand the many, many unexplained mechanics, how preternaturally accurate the enemy are at any given time, and often, simple random luck. At its best the game teaches you how to play by punishing you for failing to abide by its laws, but sadly, at its worst it punishes you for not knowing what the laws are.

For example,  I didn’t know that my character could sustain damage in a car crash until I crashed my car into a tree and got out with a limp about 5 minutes after the fact – there was no feedback when I hit the tree, and the game didn’t tell me up-front that I’d be injured, so how was I to know the rule before I made the mistake? Sure, I knew about it once I had done it, and I could’ve reloaded, but setting players back 5-10 minutes every time they discover a new inconvenience built into your system because you’ve simply failed to tell them how your game works is not good design. Similarly, AI teammates often won’t tell you when they’re injured, and you’ll only realise they’re hurt when your character melds minds with them telepathically and asks for a SITREP seconds before they die. The fact that this moment of automation comes with far too little warning to heal them only incites frustration – if a squad-mate needs help, I shouldn’t have to wait for them to keel over after minutes of silent bleeding in order to know that they needed to be fixed. This ‘trial and error’ vibe that requires you to fall into a trap before you know that the traps can even exist seems at odds with the game’s desire to encourage you to ‘adapt and survive’.

And of course, in every war there’s the poor grunt that sets off the tripwire and, in becoming mincemeat, informs his companions that they need to be careful, but in Arma 3 you’re that poor grunt - if you die, it’s game over, too bad, try again. It’d be mitigated slightly if you could take control of a companion after your death – in that case, your team would continue on and you’d truly be forced to adapt as circumstances unfold, but you can’t adapt if you’re dead, and re-entering the area knowing where the dangers are takes away some of the feeling of spontaneity and realism. So, as is the norm with Arma, there are many frustrating design aspects that still apply to the game, even in its third major iteration.

I’ve vented my frustration, but it’s true that Arma 3 is like no other FPS out there. I must reiterate the visceral thrill the game gives you – there’s a mission in the single-player campaign in which you’re dumped on a beach with a pistol, and must make your way to a squad of men about a kilometre away. How you get there is up to you, but between you and the squad lies a village crawling with smart enemy soldiers. It’s possible to sneak by the enemies patrolling the area, but there are quite a few to avoid, and just as you get by one group, you’re likely to run into another. You can scavenge dead bodies for weapons and ammo, but shooting attracts other soldiers. I had to restart at least a dozen times if not more as it was so easy to die, but once I got over the rage-quit-inducing frustration of the mission, I found myself crouched at the corner of a building, my heart racing in my chest as I prepared to cross a road blind. I knew that if I was attacked and killed, I’d have to replay 5-10 minutes again, and I was almost paralysed with anxiety – I feared my death in the game in a real, tangible way, in a way that made me mentally prepare for the task I was about to undertake. This kind of deep emotional impact is so rare, and whilst some games can instil fear in a player through stress, I found the thrill that Arma 3 gives you is one of adrenaline. Killing the last enemy in an encounter, reaching your waypoint, fleeing the helicopters that are scanning the landscape, all these accomplishments are met with a sigh of genuine relief and a feeling of real achievement.

It’s also worth noting that the best time I had as a player was when I was given the chance to stray from the narrative missions and take a team into the open world and complete small scouting tasks. Perhaps the joy I took from the freedom to create my own story is an indication that multiplayer is where the most fun will be had? In any case, being injured and stumbling across a township in which there were entrenched soldiers that need to be removed, skulking around the streets, getting brained once, twice, stepping on a mine, checking every single doorway from then on out…it’s an exhilarating experience. Again, marred a little by the fact that it felt like trial and error (I didn’t know the enemies used mines until I stepped on one), but exhilarating none-the-less.

If the goal of the Arma 3 single-player campaign is to teach you the skills and caution required to be a real-life soldier, it succeeds admirably. If the goal is to make you feel like the leader of a unit of capable human beings, it fails miserably. It’s true that you can order and position your men wisely, and pull off an attack flawlessly, but this is undermined by the far more frequent occasions in which the enemy spots you or a teammate first and kills someone before you can navigate the fiddly command menu and order your puppets to do anything other than soak up bullets. Overall, the single-player content of the game is a very mixed bag; the best memories I have of the game lie at opposite ends of the spectrum - either elation following a rare engagement that’s successful on the first try, or fear-soaked nightmares of bullets cracking, whipping by my head, and pelting the ground around me. If it sounds like I’m in two minds about the game - torn between wonderful moments of realism and frustrating moments of design - I am. Ultimately though, I know that the former trumps the latter because sometimes I stop running and rest in the shade of trees because it feels hot out. Sitting down and trying to objectively rate the game, I find myself wanting to give it a lower score than it probably deserves. I’m not blind to the face that I give almost everything here a ‘7′ or more, because I review a lot of games that I would say are good-to-great, and honestly, some aspects of Arma 3′s design feel like ‘5′. But I think that, as a single-player game, it’s better than the sum of its awkward parts. It puts you through the grinder, and forces you to become the best possible player in order to succeed, and despite the frustration, most of the time it’s worth it for the glory and the one-of-a-kind thrill.

7/10  

Good