Monday, July 7, 2008

at 3:08 PM

The X-Files: Resist or Serve is a survival horror game for the PlayStation 2 video game console (the game was also supposed to be released for the Xbox video game console, but this version was cancelled) and is based on the television series The X-Files. This is the second game based on the series, after The X-Files Game.

Plot summary

Serving as three new episodes set during the show's 7th season, the game follows FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder (voiced by David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (voiced by Gillian Anderson) as they travel to a small town in the Rocky Mountains to dig into the source of some strange and unexplained murders. Sightings of ghostly apparitions, zombies and hints of alien presence lead them on a chase for an "inhuman" killer. During the course of the story, Mulder and Scully follow leads to a remote location in Russia and then discover, and search, a mysterious half-buried alien space ship. Players can play as Mulder or Scully as they desperately attempt to prevent alien colonization of our planet.

The game features the famous theme music from The X-Files series by Mark Snow, as well as voice acting by the show's actors. Additionally, bonuses with the game include "behind the scenes" footage (humorously featuring several of the male actors recording their lines while wearing bright red lipstick, a common practice used to get better enunciation and crisper sound) and commentaries from the series. The game follows the The X-Files series' established canon, including the themes of alien colonization and the "black oil". Players also investigate various sets from the series, including the FBI office, Mulder's apartment building, and the Russian camp where Mulder and Alex Krycek were subjected to the black oil. Many of the major and minor characters from the show make appearances, including Skinner, Kersh, the Lone Gunmen, Krycek and the Cigarette Smoking Man.

at 3:03 PM

The X-Files Game is an adventure game for the PlayStation video game console, PC, and Macintosh and is based on the television series The X-Files. The series would inspire a second game, The X-Files: Resist or Serve.

Plot summary

The game takes place somewhere within the timeline of the third season of The X-Files series. The story follows a young Seattle-based FBI agent named Craig Willmore (played by Jordan Lee Williams) who is assigned by Assistant Director Walter Skinner to investigate the disappearance of agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, who were last seen in the Everett, Washington area. Agent Willmore must use his state-of-the-art spy tools: night vision goggles, a digital camera, PDA (an Apple Newton), lock picks, evidence kit, a standard issue revolver, handcuffs and badge, to follow their trail. Along the way, he is partnered with a Seattle Police Department detective named Mary Astadourian (played by Paige Witte) and a minor subplot involves a relationship developing between the two.

Several of the actors from the TV series reprise their roles in the game, including David Duchovny (Mulder), Gillian Anderson (Scully), Mitch Pileggi (Skinner), Steven Williams (X) and - very briefly and depending upon the outcome of the game, William B. Davis (Cigarette Smoking Man). The game is set around Seattle and was filmed in that city. The TV series actors filmed their relatively brief appearances in the game just before entering production on the feature film. The game's plotline involves aliens taking over the bodies of humans and contains many references to the show's mytharc, during the course of the game the "present day" date of April 1996 is displayed alongside certain locations, placing this "episode" before the season three episode "Wetwired" and after "Avatar", which take place April 27th and March 7th respectively. This is also after the first incident with the alien black oil in the 'Piper Maru' episode of Season Three. The screenplay for X-Files The Game was written by Richard Dowdy, from a story by Chris Carter.

Game play

The game uses a point-and-click interface, uses full motion video technology called Virtual Cinema, and includes a large number of cut scenes. Included in the gameplay are numerous occasions in which the player can alter other character's attitudes and reactions depending upon responses and actions (or inactions). Dubbed "UberVariables", certain decisions made by the player can set them along one of three tracks: Paranoia (Willmore will start seeing things like twitching corpses and shadowy figures), Loss (messages from his ex-wife are kinder), and "The X-Track" (more details are revealed about mytharc-related conspiracies). The player can also affect Willmore's relationship with Astadourian positively and negatively based upon how he responds to her suggestions and ideas.

Production

The games developer, HyperBole Studios, had initially rejected the project when Fox approached them. They later became interested when they started to watch the show for themselves.

• The title's design document/DB was over 1000 pages, while the shooting script was 250+ pages.
• It was filmed between seasons of The X-Files and just before the feature film, Anderson and Duchovny were of course very busy, thus requiring the disappearance of Mulder and Scully and the introduction of the Willmore character.
• Around 6 hours of footage was filmed for the game.
• A former U.S. naval base, Sand Point, was used as the setting for the NSA facility at the end of the game.
• The boat used as the Tarakan is a training ocean going tug, which had previously been used in a drug smuggling plot.
• The 'melted blast effects' on the Tarakan were made using water-soluble paint, which caused havoc when it began to rain during filming."Tarakan" is Russian for cockroach.
• The game was filmed on Digital Betacam tape with Sony cameras and captured using Power Macintoshes running Adobe Premiere and Media 100.

Response

Reviews of the game were mixed, with many critics complaining about the large number of discs required to load the game (7). For the follow-up game, The X-Files: Resist or Serve, a more conventional videogame playing style was employed, similar to the Resident Evil games.

The response from the mainstream and non-computer game press was quite positive, while many hard-core computer publications took the design to task for not allowing the player to control Mulder or Scully or for allowing a "more gameplay." Note the difference in these review scores:

• Science Fiction Weekly • Windows • Aug 26, 2002 • A out of A+ • 100
• Adventure Gamers • Windows • Mar 19, 2004 • 80
• PC Player (Denmark) • Windows • 1998 • 8 out of 10 • 80
• WomenGamers.com • Windows • Jul 02, 1999 • 5 out of 10 • 50
• GameSpot • PlayStation • Jun 19, 1998 • 5.1 out of 10 • 46

at 2:58 PM

Season 9

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Season 9, Episode 1: Nothing Important Happened Today

Original Air Date: 11 November 2001
Doggett's investigation of Kersh and the FBI isn't making him any friends, especially Brad Follmer, a new Assistant Director who has a romantic past with Reyes. Meanwhile Scully denies to tell anyone where Mulder has gone while a female super soldier is on the loose and may give Doggett the clues he needs to make his point known.

Season 9, Episode 2: Nothing Important Happened Today II

Original Air Date: 18 November 2001
While Reyes and Skinner try to convince him otherwise, Doggett practically goes rogue for his own pursuit of the Truth. His findings, and help from the female super soldier Shannon McMahon, may lead to answers critical to the status and health of William Scully. But Knowle Rohrer is back from 'the dead' and stands in their way.

Season 9, Episode 3: Dæmonicus

Original Air Date: 2 December 2001
A professor/inmate in a psychiatric ward may be influencing other men to kill ritualistically. Though Doggett sees it as pure manipulation, Reyes can't help but suspect none else but the devil himself possessing the professor's body.

Season 9, Episode 4: 4-D

Original Air Date: 9 December 2001
A killer murders Reyes and mortally wounds Doggett...in another dimension. Reyes, under investigation for a nearly killed Doggett realizes the killer can shift dimensions to fill out his disgusting fantasies.

Season 9, Episode 5: Lord of the Flies

Original Air Date: 16 December 2001
Doggett and Reyes are unsure whether a boy intentionally or unintentionally can control the habits of flies; during the investigation Scully acquires a new 'partner'.

Season 9, Episode 6: Trust No 1

Original Air Date: 6 January 2002
Mulder contacts Scully which sets off a chain of events involving an NSA man obsessed with speaking and giving information to Mulder.

Season 9, Episode 7: John Doe

Original Air Date: 13 January 2002
Doggett wakes up in Mexico and can't remember his name or what he is doing there. His only clues are small flashbacks of a child (his son) and two mysterious marks on his head.

Season 9, Episode 8: Hellbound

Original Air Date: 27 January 2002
Reyes finds herself inexplicably connected to a case involving ex-cons who are being skinned.

Season 9, Episode 9: Provenance

Original Air Date: 3 March 2002
A man is chased from the Canada/US border and reportedly burned alive though his body is not found. Meanwhile, in the burned remains the FBI finds papers with the same UFO markings Scully found in Africa.

Season 9, Episode 10: Providence

Original Air Date: 10 March 2002
Scully's baby becomes a bargaining chip for a psychotic UFO cult that feels the baby is ultimately connected to a UFO they have uncovered.

Season 9, Episode 11: Audrey Pauley

Original Air Date: 17 March 2002
Reyes is seriously injured in a car accident and finds herself in a hospital similar to purgatory with other hospital patients suffering from serious traumas. Slowly they all begin to disappear. Meanwhile, in the real world, Doggett refuses to accept his friend's 'mortal' wounds and uses a bizarre hospital employee to both connect with Reyes in the other-world and capture a 'Dr. Death.'

Season 9, Episode 12: Underneath

Original Air Date: 31 March 2002
After thirteen years in prison, a man named Fassl is released and cleared of murder charges when DNA evidence proves he had nothing to do with the murder of an entire family though he was present on the scene. Doggett, who made the arrest, refuses to accept Fassl's innocence and pursues the case again.

Season 9, Episode 13: Improbable

Original Air Date: 7 April 2002
Reyes, Doggett, and Scully are pulled into a bizarre serial murder case involving the number '3', numerology on a whole, and an eccentric man who likes to play checkers.

Season 9, Episode 14: Scary Monsters

Original Air Date: 14 April 2002
Reyes and Doggett, with the aid of a young Mulder-worshiping FBI agent, investigate a father who is exhibiting bizarre behavior regarding his son who he has kept hidden from the outside world.

Season 9, Episode 15: Jump the Shark

Original Air Date: 21 April 2002
The Lone Gunmen, with the (unwanted) aide of Morris Fletcher, must stop a destructive virus from entering the populace.

Season 9, Episode 16: William

Original Air Date: 28 April 2002
A disfigured man attacks Doggett trying to retrieve X-Files for Mulder...but he might be Mulder himself.

Season 9, Episode 17: Release

Original Air Date: 5 May 2002
A Frank Black-esque cadet in Scully's class directs Doggett to a current murder case that may have something to do with a case that went unsolved 9 years prior...the murder of his young son.

Season 9, Episode 18: Sunshine Days

Original Air Date: 12 May 2002
Reyes and Doggett investigate two murders revolving around a house that is, at some points in time, identical to the Brady Bunch house.

Season 9, Episode 19: The Truth: Parts 1 & 2

Original Air Date: 19 May 2002
Mulder's return leads to his being tried before a military tribunal that seeks to justify and prove the very existence of an alien conspiracy -- and the X-Files.