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 The PlayStation 3 launch title, Resistance: Fall of Man was a great game, with a surprisingly good story. It involved an alternate 1950s world where World War II never happened, yet the world was still engulfed in the chaos of war. Russia had closed off all contact with the world after the Tunguska Event, and America had further entrenched themselves in xenophobia. Toss in a mysterious race of seemingly unstoppable creatures who invade (and destroy) all of Europe at once into this painstakingly detailed backstory, and you have the makings of a great piece of fiction.
Yet, the majority of people who played Resistance would never experience this throughly fleshed out mythos, since most of it was never explained in-game. Gamers who merely popped in the Blu-ray disc would miss out on most of the story, since Insomniac delivered the majority of it online, using the game's main site to act as an extensive history guide of the circumstances leading up to the game. Dozens of events across the world were explained in excruciating detail, lovingly creating a believable, terrifying alternate world. Yet, because of the disconnect between gameplay and backstory-- it is likely that most who played Resistance never found out about the site and never learned the full backstory of the game. Insomniac seems like they've learned this time around though. For Resistance 2, they've brought in the big guns -- rumor has it they're using 4orty2wo (the guys behind ilovebees.com) to run a massive network of alternative reality websites that rely heavily on user interaction. On one of them, a video appeared recently showing an attractive blonde doctor (Katee Sackhoff of Starbuck fame) leaning over a patient being wheeled through a hospital corridor, whispering words of support to the clearly dying man. It was followed up with videos of the doctor being chastised for risking 'the project' and her inability to follow through with what must be done -- murmurs of a mysterious 'European Influenza' were mentioned and the expendiability of the patient in the first video was emphasized.
Eventually, the site (www.projectabraham.com) went dark except for a countdown -- when it came back up we were greeted by the medical and war records of seven soldiers picked for a secret experiment on an Army base in Alaska, as well as the personal musings and inbox of the doctor from the first video. There were also taped meetings between her and some of the soldiers, where they were asked why they would sign up for an experiment that they know has a high chance of killing them. The different responses were interesting and ran the gamut from personal bravado (I fear nothing) to sense of responsibility (to help the greater good). The videos did a fantastic job of adding a level of emotional connection to these soldiers, and made what came next that much harder.
See, the blonde doctor (Dr. Cassie Aklin) is a psychiatrist -- and is not used to making life and death decisions for other people. Yet, following the violent and fatal failure of the first test subject, she is tasked with picking the next soldier to go into the experiment. Following a crisis of faith, she realizes that she's unable to take on this task alone and records another video (which you can view on the front page of Project Abraham), where she asks us -- the viewers, to go through the records and videos of the soldiers and decide who lives and dies so that she doesn't have to. So now, every week, we as viewers can vote on which of the soldiers is next to try out an increasingly unsuccessful experiment and depending who we pick, we get a video showing the results of that soldier when injected with the 'cure' for the mysterious plague. The results so far have been... messy.
Here's the interesting thing though, I -- like many other people, assumed that Project Abraham had to do with the storyline in Resistance 2. It's a safe enough assumption too, considering Resistance 2 is coming out in a few months and is based in America -- where as the first one was based in Europe. Also, we already knew that America had been staying out of the conflict as much as they could, so it would make sense that they were trying to work out a vaccine or cure for the infection that turns humans into Chimera before they engaged in any full blown confrontations.
Yet, as I was going through the various nooks and crannies of the site, I noticed a couple things. First off, one of the soldiers in the experiment was none other than Nathan Hale, the protagonist from the first game. While this didn't immediatly raise any flags (since he is capture by American special forces and brought back to America at the end of the Fall of Man), I noticed something about the dates on the various documents in Dr. Aklin's inbox. They were from 1950, a full year before the start of the first game. That's when it started to click. There was always some mystery surrounding Nathan Hale's ability to withstand the Chimeran virus -- no other human had ever been able to. Not only did he survive it, he gained creepy gold eyes and the ability to regenerate. A lot of people assumed this was just a convenient plot device -- I mean, the method of regeneration is the exact same as in countless other games (stand still and don't get shot for a bit), so there wasn't any reason to assume there was something deeper going on. And yet, there had always been this subtle implication that maybe there was.  That's where Project Abraham comes in. While Nathan Hale hasn't been subjected to the experiment yet, it is looking more and more likely that he will undergo it soon and that he'll be the first person to survive it. And what better way to test the vaccination than to send him to England under the guise of helping the English survivors fight the Chimera? Once Nathan Hale survived the virus, America would have the empirical evidence that the vaccine works. And not only did it work, it granted him powers that made him considerably stronger than a normal human, allowing him to survive situations nobody else could. The scientists behind the experiment must have been ecstatic! Which brings us to Resistance 2 and the Sentinels, a group of soldiers who mysteriously are resistant to the Chimeran virus as well and have similar abilities to Hale's. While nothing has been confirmed yet, wouldn't it make sense that the American government would be using the vaccination to create a new form of soldier? Clearly the vaccine is too volatile to work on the general public, but a small army of these Sentinels could be a major factor in the coming Chimeran war.
And this is why I love alternate reality websites -- it gives people a chance to geek out in the mythos behind the videogames / movies / TV shows, and in the best situations, actually get involved. I've currently gotten two different phone calls from Dr. Atklin, thanking me for helping ease the pain of her job and bemoaning the ethical issues of the experiment -- and each time it raises the hair on the back of my neck. Something about it just makes the game seem a little bit more real. For more Resistance 2 ARG goodness, check out the following sites:
www.getawarjob.com
www.projectabraham.com
www.terminal-srpa.net
www.americafirstamericaonly.com |
