Second Sight (PS2 Game)

This is odd, you usually hear about people writing reviews to games, but you don’t usually hear of personal responses to them. I do them with books, so why not with games?

The game follows the main character, Vattic. He has been summoned by the US army to help solve a very deceptive conspiracy involving people carrying out horrendous experiments on children. The way the story is carried out is very clever. Half the game you are playing in the “present”, and half the time you are playing in the “past” (which appears in the form of flashbacks); finding out why the hell you woke up in a mental facility (where you start the game)! The way Vattic pulls through with this superhuman task of going through swoths of armed and trained guards is that he has crazy psychic abilities, like charm which makes you go invisible and telekinesis which lets you throw objects and people around (heh). You also carry an arensal of firearms, which can be used very effectively since the controls were crafted very intelligently.

Vattic’s character is pretty wild. If you ignore the constant murdering of the infinite amount of guards, he’s a pretty compassionate person. It’s interesting, the story is played out with the view on that you’re good and the enemy is evil (which is the case with a lot of stories), and on the way to saving the children, he probably has killed 100 times more than then the “bad” guys have done. Ignoring that, he cares for his imprisoned friend Jayne, and saves her from a psychic ward which was a huge act of courage. He also has the desire to do what is ultimately right, in trying to save the tortured children, even though he's not taking into account the lives he is ending. In a way, it's your typical slightly American conspiracy story.

It’s a bit harder to write about the story of a video game, because typically the stories in video-games are nonexistent or really badly done. The story for Second Sight isn’t THAT good if you think about it, but I still enjoyed it. It’s a great contrast to 90% of the completely crappy games. You can tell with Second Sight that they had fun making the game, and everyone’s creativity was used. The voice acting is superb, the music draws you into the game and creates a very eerie atmosphere. The visuals are also pretty well done.

An interesting thing to look for in a game is it’s message. Is there one in Second Sight? The title is most definitely referring to the physic powers your character possesses. The meaning of the game in general is semi-clear. The developers might have had some experience, or anger towards big corporations. The reason I say that is because in the game, the children (basis of the conspiracy) are treated like possessions by the big corporations who are managing the experiment. For example, there is one chapter where the guards are named “suits”, and they show no compassion and are not pleasant people to be around. It’s pretty hard to theorize a meaning when the line between good and evil is so clearly defined and so extremely carried out. Overall though, the meaning could be how we humans can get so greedy with money that we forget about love.

Overall, I really enjoyed this game. I felt as if the Playstation 2 controller was an extension of my body. This is how i want video-gaming to be, but it's not how most people perceive it.