Second Sight (video game): Difference between revisions
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Projection is learned when John is faced with a laser grid blocking his progress, with the switch to turn it off on the opposite side, out of range of his telekinesis. John inadvertently projects his consciousness into an astral form, which can move independently. It is able to pass through the laser grid and turn it off. The projection ability is similar to [[remote viewing]], which is ostensibly used to spy, track someone down, or look out for danger. However projection also allows for limited interaction with physical things, enabling completion of a necessary task from a safe distance. In the game, these tasks generally involve using John’s projection to pass an obstacle which is impassable to John’s physical self, then somehow clearing said obstacle, such as the laser grid already mentioned, or doing things which would normally require the help of another person, such as using the projection to unlock a time-limited door, allowing John to quickly go through before it locks again. Additionally, the projection is invisible to both people and cameras, which can be quite useful for scouting enemy locations and their security systems. As with charm, the range of the projection is limited by the psi meter, and the astral form cannot punch, crouch, grab, or use any of the other psychic abilities at the same time, besides a very weak version of telekinesis. Also John's body is left unoccupied and immobile while he projects, leaving him vulnerable, but if attacked, the projection will disappear and you will retake control of John's body. |
Projection is learned when John is faced with a laser grid blocking his progress, with the switch to turn it off on the opposite side, out of range of his telekinesis. John inadvertently projects his consciousness into an astral form, which can move independently. It is able to pass through the laser grid and turn it off. The projection ability is similar to [[remote viewing]], which is ostensibly used to spy, track someone down, or look out for danger. However projection also allows for limited interaction with physical things, enabling completion of a necessary task from a safe distance. In the game, these tasks generally involve using John’s projection to pass an obstacle which is impassable to John’s physical self, then somehow clearing said obstacle, such as the laser grid already mentioned, or doing things which would normally require the help of another person, such as using the projection to unlock a time-limited door, allowing John to quickly go through before it locks again. Additionally, the projection is invisible to both people and cameras, which can be quite useful for scouting enemy locations and their security systems. As with charm, the range of the projection is limited by the psi meter, and the astral form cannot punch, crouch, grab, or use any of the other psychic abilities at the same time, besides a very weak version of telekinesis. Also John's body is left unoccupied and immobile while he projects, leaving him vulnerable, but if attacked, the projection will disappear and you will retake control of John's body. |
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Later John learns how to make his projection possess another person’s body and suspend their consciousness, meaning he can take control of their bodies for short periods of time. This is useful if faced with a group of patrolling enemies; John can possess one of them and use him to kill all his comrades, leaving John with only one person to deal with after exiting his body. It is also necessary for bypassing certain security features, such as hand print scanners; John can simply possess someone who has access and use them to deactivate the scanner. The same rules for projection apply for possession. You can fire the weapon that the person possessed is using, nothing more; the other psychic abilities are limited to John's body ONLY. As with projection, if John's unoccupied body is attacked, you will lose control of the person possessed and go back into his body. It is also possible to posses |
Later John learns how to make his projection possess another person’s body and suspend their consciousness, meaning he can take control of their bodies for short periods of time. This is useful if faced with a group of patrolling enemies; John can possess one of them and use him to kill all his comrades, leaving John with only one person to deal with after exiting his body. It is also necessary for bypassing certain security features, such as hand print scanners; John can simply possess someone who has access and use them to deactivate the scanner. The same rules for projection apply for possession. You can fire the weapon that the person possessed is using, nothing more; the other psychic abilities are limited to John's body ONLY. As with projection, if John's unoccupied body is attacked, you will lose control of the person possessed and go back into his body. It is also possible to posses a friend's body, sometimes letting you access weapons that Vattic cannot obtain, such as JC's minigun. |
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==Soundtrack== |
==Soundtrack== |
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Revision as of 02:20, 12 November 2007
 | This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. (January 2007) |
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Second Sight is a video game developed by Free Radical Design and published by Codemasters for GameCube, Xbox, PlayStation 2 and PC. It was released on September 21, 2004.
The storyline follows MIT parapsychology researcher John Vattic and his attempts to recover his memory as well as the secrets behind his new powers of telekinesis, mind projection, healing, and possession.
Story
| This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. (October 2007) |
John wakes up in a US medical facility with no memory of how he got there or who he is (the subtitles for the level even refer to him by his patient name of JV-034). He manages to learn how to use all of his strange psychic abilities before he escapes. He tries to find the patient records room early on to establish why he was brought here, but he is haunted by memories from six months ago. He experiences a flashback from this time, encompassing his training in a military facility in Bremen, Germany, in preparation for a mission.
The mission six months ago was to travel to Russia with a small combat squad named WinterICE, which is under orders from the US Government, and establish why a supposedly dead Russian scientist wanted to gain political asylum in America. This scientist, Professor Victor Grienko, was said to have died during World War II after collaborating with the Germans and carrying out tests concerning psychic abilities in POW(prisoner of war) camps. The Russians stormed the camp he was in and they claimed he was killed in the siege. However, after the war ended Stalin started a project with the same goals as the Nazis, with a professor named Grienko leading it. This project in Russia was known as the Zener Project, based under a village called Dubrensk. John is chosen to accompany WinterICE on this mission on the advice of a psychic named Jayne Wilde, who also joins the squad. John is skeptical about Jayne's prediction that he will be crucial to the mission, but he goes along anyway.
In the medical facility John locates a computer containing patient records, and discovers that Jayne was killed in action. He has another flashback to the beginning of the mission, in which he saves her life. He then wakes up and finds the computer now shows Jayne is alive, but has been incarcerated in a mental institute in Rutland, Vermont. While finding and rescuing her, John learns more of his past.
Jayne tells John that the leader of WinterICE, Colonel Joshua Starke, was killed on the mission, but he has a flashback in which he saves the Colonel from death. During this flashback he sees projections of children that are trying to lead him to the village of Dubrensk. One of the children possesses the Colonel's body and asks John to go to the village and help them. The Colonel accidentally gets captured by the enemy while John is talking to a projection of one of the children. The child shows John that psychic powers really do exist and awakens John's own latent powers (at this point, the player has already got to grips with these powers in the 'present' levels). John saves the Colonel who discovers that the Russian enemy soldiers in the area are using American Special Forces equipment, meaning the US is somehow involved with the Zener Project.
After escaping the asylum, John and Jayne track down the Colonel who, like Jayne, apparently survived the mission thanks to John’s actions in the previous flashback. The Colonel now lives in an inner city area of Queens, New York, where he grew up. He tells John that the rest of the WinterICE team was killed. This prompts yet another flashback in John, and once again he manages to help the team survive, thus somehow undoing their deaths in the present. They discover that the soldiers have killed almost everyone in the village. However they find one survivor, a female scientist named Sasha Barranikov, escaped from the Zener Research Facility, who reveals that the children whose projections keep contacting John are psychic test subjects, but they too will soon be disposed of.
Back in the ‘present’, the Colonel gives John all his information regarding the failed WinterICE mission and the Zener Project, telling him how a man named Hanson, a director of operations at a US government agency called the National Security Executive (NSE) has taken Grienko's research files and started his own experiments in America, after killing everyone in Dubrensk to cover up, and using the WinterICE team as scapegoats to keep them quiet. The Colonel then helps John escape the area, now besieged by NSE agents. In the process, Jayne is captured and Starke is presumably killed (the levels final shot shows him firing his pistol down a hallway full of advancing NSE agents).
John infiltrates the NSE Headquarters, where he discovers that after the failure of the WinterICE mission, he himself was experimented on, and that the research from the Zener Project is being used to create a new breed of psychic soldiers. At this point John forces himself into another flashback, picking up where the previous one finished.
Dr. Barranikov warns that if the entire WinterICE team tries to rescue the children, the children will flee out of fear. However they aren’t afraid of John, as he shares their gift. John enters the facility alone, and succeeds in freeing the surviving Zener children. He finds Grienko, who confirms that Hanson is taking all his research to America for further development. Thus it becomes clear that the soldiers are killing everyone under Hanson’s orders.
The flashback ends, and John finds and confronts Hanson in the NSE Headquarters. Hanson reveals that he deliberately allowed John to escape the medical facility and evade capture as a trial run for the new psychic soldiers. John tries to kill Hanson using telekinesis, but Jayne is brought in with a gun to her head. Hanson mockingly says John can't change the past, but John says he's wrong.With that, John enters a flashback as a shot is heard with Jayne screaming, "John!".
Back in the Zener Facility, John tells Grienko about Hanson’s plans to kill the Zener children. Grienko reveals that Hanson is in fact inside the facility, on the lower level. Grienko is then killed by an NSE shock trooper. John makes his way down to the lower level to try and dispatch Hanson before he can cause all the future problems. At this point the game’s main plot twist is revealed; the 'past', or the WinterICE sections of the game are actually the present, and the levels set six months later are really the future, or rather possible futures that would result if John fails to help during the critical events of the WinterICE mission. This explains why John's actions in the 'flashbacks' seemed to affect the 'present'. What John is experiencing is the last of his psychic abilities; precognition: the ability to see the future.
John finds Hanson on the lower level, protected behind bullet and psi-proof glass. There are also several cells in the area, containing more Zener children, who have been mutated by the experiments they were subjected to. While soldiers flood the area and attack, John frees the children who help him in this battle. Once the soldiers are all dead, the mutated children use powerful telekinesis to pull away the frame around the glass (causing it to shatter). Once Hanson is exposed, the children attack and presumably kill him with their bare hands, although it is debatable if the children actually cannibalized Hanson.
The game ends with American troops in helicopters landing in Dubrensk as the Colonel and Jayne help an exhausted John out of the base. Once in a helicopter, he is given a respectful nod from the Colonel and Jayne speaks to him, but we don't hear what she says.
Note: Though the audio is muted, it appears that Jane says, "You did it, John. You saved them." (Referring to the Zener children) This is however, only speculation.
Setting
The year in which the story is set is never mentioned, but considering the technology, weapons, locations and so on, one can assume it takes place sometime in the current decade, possibly around 2000-2001.
The two time segments portrayed are actually about seven months apart, not six as the game suggests. The earlier section involving the WinterICE mission takes place in mid-February, while the later section occurs (or would occur) in early October of the same year.
There are two mentions of a year - during the mission "Reliance" where a file on a computer mentions 1997 as if it where in the past (the file list staff records for the end of the year 1997), and during the mission "Infiltration" a note in one of the abandoned houses, describing the first arrival of the invading guerrilla troops, is dated March 1999.
Locations-Possible Future
Osiris Medical Facility
Vattic awakes in a Virginia medical facility only known as Osiris Medical Facility - a modern multi-story building with advanced security systems and a number of suspicious para psychological projects underway.There are also primate experiments going on, evidenced by a monitor which Vattic recognizes as primate brain scans, and dead primate bodies. He doesn't know who he is or why he is there. Soon after his escape, he begins to have more and more supposed flashbacks.
Penfold Asylum, Rutland, Vermont
Upon his escape from Osiris Labs, Vattic stole a car and ventured to the fictional Penfold Asylum - an outdated turn-of-the-century institute patrolled by hired security personnel - where his old WinterICE associate Jayne Wilde was being held. Upon arrival, he discovers a new telekinesis ability and he rescues Jayne. Jayne doesn't know who he is until they escape the asylum proper.
Storm Drains, Underneath Penfold
The N.S.E has released agents and SWAT teams into the sewers where Vattic and Jayne have escaped. Jayne finally snaps out of her delusion and recognizes John, telling him that Colonel Joshua Starke was KIA. John has a flashback and discovers where his abilities came from. Jayne and Vattic then escape through a series of twisting hallways and pipes filled with N.S.E Search and Eliminate Teams. They eventually escape to the streets, where they get ready for their next venture.
Queens, New York City, NY.
Jayne and Vattic arrive in New York in an attempt to find Col. Starke. John must go through the back alleys, buildings, and streets of Queens littered with gangs and N.S.E agents in order to find the home of Col. Starke and possibly get some answers. When in the alleys, Vattic does the gang some favors to get to Col. Starke.
N.S.E HQ, New Jersey
After the adventures in NYC, Vattic makes his move to the HQ of the N.S.E itself - a fortress-like building patrolled by heavily armed agents, containing key information related to Hanson and the Zener Project. He must be stealthy in order to get what he needs.
Locations-Present
Army Training Base Kastein, Bremen, Germany
A US military base near Bremen in Germany, WinterICE's base of operations. Vattic learns stealth and combat skills after he is summoned to Kastein from MIT.
Mountain Region, Tyumen Oblast, Siberia
The WinterICE team attempt infiltration into the Russian mountains to find a lab where Professor Grienko is said to be working on experiments. They are ambushed by guerrilla snipers while proceeding to a United States hydro carbon (USHC) refinery station.
Village of Dubrensk
After infiltrating the refinery and finding information on Grienko, Vattic and Wilde proceed to the village of Dubrensk where it is believed that Grienko and some of the Russian intruders are performing heinous experiments on children. One of these "Zener children", who psychically projected himself, awoke Vattic's psychic powers in the town's abandoned train station. While exploring the town, Vattic discovered an underground testing facility run by Grienko under orders from Hanson, full of psychically gifted children being tortured and experimented on and will eventually be killed if not stopped.
Psionic Powers
John uses psionic abilities to supplement his conventional arsenal; they are one of the main draws of the game. His psionic powers have many uses, for example Healing, Psi Attack, Telekinesis, and Charm.
Telekinesis/Psychokinesis
The first power John learns he possesses, the classic Telekinesis, allows him to move objects without physically touching them. He can use this to pick up objects and throw them at enemies, use them as shields or to distract or frighten guards so he can sneak by. He learns he has this ability by breaking some restraints that hold him to a stretcher in the medical facility. John can also pick up discarded enemy weapons and draw them to him.
Mid-way through the game, John learns how to pick up living beings as well. He first uses this power to strangle a guard in the mental institute while he is trying to rescue Jayne Wilde.
John’s upgraded telekinesis uses rag doll physics to bend and toss enemies around the environment in a realistic way. Once someone has died, it is possible to use clipping to get them stuck part-way through solid objects such as walls. It is also very useful in one part of the WinterICE mission when John must defend a communications building with J.C. He can suspend a soldier in the air giving J.C a clear shot.
Healing
This is the second ability John learns that he has. It quickly restores John's health meter, but leaves him vulnerable to attack, as he is immobile while healing. The power is discovered very soon after the beginning of the game; John wakes up with serious injuries, so his health meter is almost empty, and he moves very slowly. After learning the power he is able to quickly recover.
John can also use this ability to heal his allies, as each has their own health meter which must be sustained.
Psi Attack
Psi Pulse
John accidentally discovers this ability when faced with an armed guard. The guard points his gun at John and tells him to get on the ground. John has a sudden headache and attacks the guard with a psi pulse, a focused bolt of mental force, sending him flying backwards and killing him instantly. This attack uses up half of John’s psi meter, but is useful for instantly and quietly dispatching a single enemy.
Psi Blast
Later John learns a variation of this attack, the psi blast. This discharges the same kind of energy into a large radial blast, stunning, but not (instantly) killing anyone caught in the radius. He discovers this attack during an ambush as he tries to get out of the Osiris medical facility. Again, it uses a large amount of psi power, but is very effective when surrounded.
However, these attacks have their weaknesses. The psi pulse is useless if it collides with another object when fired, so it’s difficult to hit guards behind cover.
The psi blast is notably effective for dissipating the psychic shields used by Hanson’s shock troopers and psychic soldiers, later in the game.
Charm
This is discovered by John after a guard hears his movements inside the Osiris facility, and goes to check what the noise was. John, without even realizing what he's doing, makes himself "invisible" to the guard by wrapping himself in psionic energy, manipulating the guards mind. Thus charm allows John to walk past any guards or other people without detection, until his psi meter runs out. However, trying to activate the power while someone can see John will instantly drain the psi meter. It also won’t work on security cameras, as the machinery has no mind to fool, or whoever is watching the camera is out of range of the psionic energy. Charm is very useful for sneaking up behind stationary guards and taking them out without being noticed.
John can also use this to calm another individual down from an emotional high. This is used during the asylum escape, where Jayne, under influence of mind-altering medication, will become scared by gunfire or other sudden shocks. John must calm her down using charm before she will follow him further. It can also be used to tell allies to follow John or stay put when need arises.
Projection/Possession (Astral Form)
Projection is learned when John is faced with a laser grid blocking his progress, with the switch to turn it off on the opposite side, out of range of his telekinesis. John inadvertently projects his consciousness into an astral form, which can move independently. It is able to pass through the laser grid and turn it off. The projection ability is similar to remote viewing, which is ostensibly used to spy, track someone down, or look out for danger. However projection also allows for limited interaction with physical things, enabling completion of a necessary task from a safe distance. In the game, these tasks generally involve using John’s projection to pass an obstacle which is impassable to John’s physical self, then somehow clearing said obstacle, such as the laser grid already mentioned, or doing things which would normally require the help of another person, such as using the projection to unlock a time-limited door, allowing John to quickly go through before it locks again. Additionally, the projection is invisible to both people and cameras, which can be quite useful for scouting enemy locations and their security systems. As with charm, the range of the projection is limited by the psi meter, and the astral form cannot punch, crouch, grab, or use any of the other psychic abilities at the same time, besides a very weak version of telekinesis. Also John's body is left unoccupied and immobile while he projects, leaving him vulnerable, but if attacked, the projection will disappear and you will retake control of John's body.
Later John learns how to make his projection possess another person’s body and suspend their consciousness, meaning he can take control of their bodies for short periods of time. This is useful if faced with a group of patrolling enemies; John can possess one of them and use him to kill all his comrades, leaving John with only one person to deal with after exiting his body. It is also necessary for bypassing certain security features, such as hand print scanners; John can simply possess someone who has access and use them to deactivate the scanner. The same rules for projection apply for possession. You can fire the weapon that the person possessed is using, nothing more; the other psychic abilities are limited to John's body ONLY. As with projection, if John's unoccupied body is attacked, you will lose control of the person possessed and go back into his body. It is also possible to posses a friend's body, sometimes letting you access weapons that Vattic cannot obtain, such as JC's minigun.
Soundtrack
In 2006 Free Radical placed the soundtracks for all of their currently available games up for download on the company website, including printable album artwork. The soundtrack for Second Sight can be found here.