»Strange business, ours -- success and failure share the same rituals. Relevant parties stashed somewhere nice and chilled, records obliterated, impossible to say for certain what is or was.«

The prospect of adding a new entry to my website-as-storage-unit is not why I have been happily anticipating writing about »Zero Parades: For Dead Spies«, that joy is found further down the chain of causes and effects, before anything is published and where thoughts are analyzed and feelings understood. It is the great force of inspiration, of motivation, to read it and write about it, that has forced the object in question to be stashed into the soft space between the lines as the text descends and becomes subtext. I feel like a piece of camera film hung to dry on a thin rope of translucent material, something being developed on me, something that requires a mirror and spotlight to appraise. It is around this point in the text you should begin to wonder when a game review will take shape, but let me keep you a bit longer and allow me to grow the paragraph in height as I try to stumble into my points. It seems like the workers of ZA/UM have been busy developing a game just for me. I bought it around release, however for most people the game has been left to gather dust on the virtual shelves. It can be inferred from ZA/UM press releases that sales are very poor contra development costs, and considering the studio's history, I am not sure what was expected since the targeted customer is notoriously hateful towards the company. That history does not impact my enjoyment of this game, mostly because Disco Elysium was not that big a deal for me personally: My take on the game is pure, innocent, and delightful.

The World and the Story

The game takes place in a unique, new world inspired by different Cold War and neoliberal factions. You have the techno-fascist empire that is on a belligerent rise, the stagnant Communist bloc of states, the »Empire Without Borders« (which I can best summarize as a mega-corp), and a collection of independent city states. You play as a spy for the communists and must figure out and execute your assignment. That is all I will say, for a lot of fun in a game like this is to discover the lore and pick up the details in the world building - and for God's sake let yourself be surprised and defeated! You are not supposed to figure everything out instantly nor pick the optimal dialogue options at every instance. The lore can be contradictory and weird so let it mature, let the impressions wash over you and let the memory-emotions take hold in your subconscious as they grow older. I found the worldbuilding very fascinating, and especially the parts around HOLOCENE left an impression on me (yes, that was a spoiler in the meta-sense, I apologize). The story itself is great, I am driven to admit that I really loved every part of it. The game plays a perfect game of cat and mouse with your expectations and knowledge. I had multiple "a-ha!" moments, where I realized I had been conditioned to think the story was following one path only to have it, rather logically, take another turn. Again, this is an agent espionage intrigue game about intelligence gathering - any information I share with you will only dampen your own experience, squeeze it into some predefined shape (I now wonder if I am even writing this for anyone but myself). I will leave it at saying that the story is good and worthwhile, except for some odd pacing especially in the beginning. The game starts too slow, but picks up before it gets too bad.

Hershel and the Whole Sick Crew

The player character is Hershel Wilk (codename CASCADE), who is a washed agent who has been left out in the cold following the failure of her former mission in the very city the game takes place in. The stage is set for redemption for herself, the people she left behind, and her all-consuming international spy organization employer. You can spec Hershel into 12 different perks distributed over three main categories: ACTION, RELATION, INTELLECT each dragged down by their respective status modifiers: FTG, ANX, DEL. You can influence her way of viewing the world through THOUGHT CONDITIONING, which gives you bonuses to some stats and nudges you to take actions or pick dialogue options in correspondence with your conditioned thoughts.

Hershel is a wonderful character - she really grew on me as the game moved along. It is a roleplaying game and you can play her in different ways, but it resonated greatly with me to play her as this broken, sad, and honest former agent who is desperately grasping for some victory to rebuild herself and her dignity ---- finding forgiveness from the people abandoned, from the bureau she failed, but in reality from herself. Longing love over the telephone but never physically connected, not sure if the affection she receives is sincere or meant to turn-manipulate her, if her love is just some abstract symbol constructed by her own mind to get by, be that love for anyone else or herself. These emotions are explored through the people you meet in the world, former and new associates and friends. I feel like I have already said too much, but the game has an excellent support cast of characters: KINDRED, HOLOCENE, PSEUDOPOD, YO-YO, HAUZMANN, Melita, with more. Not to mention the smaller characters you can meet down in the city who build up the world-setting. The audiophile rantings drew a great smile on my face.

Aftermath

I think this is a really excellent game, which is unfortunately going to fly too low on most people's radar to pick up. The target audience will avoid the company's products due to its history with Disco Elysium, and it is a pretty weird game for a normie to get into - if they ever get to even hear about its existence. Zero Parades is, however, just right for me, and having finished the game and its review I feel some bittersweet aftertaste knowing that any future expansions to the game will be axed and forgotten. The game has inevitably been eclipsed by its company. It seems like the destiny of this game is to be stashed away somewhere nice and chilled to dwell on its failure - maybe, if enough time passes, it can return in force and redeem itself by virtue of its own qualities. Nonetheless, I will finalize my rambling by mentioning that ZA/UM has put together one of my favorite games ever. Luck and skill, operant.

Memorabilia

For the stuff left behind in my head.

Is my real face in there?
You're not sure. Hard to tell... you can't really remember what it looks like.

»What you know as the 'Operant Bureau' is nothing but a metaphysical conceit. Know this: if there is an 'Opera' there is also an inner Opera.«
»And what's within this 'inner Opera'?«.
The negative image of its outer intention -- silver salts burned by light then stained with dark. Fog and dream.

»Strange business, ours -- success and failure share the same rituals. Relevant parties stashed somewhere nice and chilled, records obliterated, impossible to say for certain what is or was.«

Like you, the eternal stranger. All safehouses, no home.

Fuck it, I'm going out to Music for Trams Volume 7.

»Hold on, before I lose you -- is all forgiven?«

Unfortunately, in the midst of all his rambling, he has discovered a point.

»So nothing. So everything. A tapeworm cannot appreciate the full terror of the human construction.«

Luck and skill operant.