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Here's an obscure trick you may not be aware of: you can use the silenced revolver to shoot the apartment door locks in this building and enter all the apartments. I vaguely remember that unless you save first you can get permanently stuck if you're not normally supposed to be able to enter that apartment.
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Oct 12, 2013 07:11
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I wasn't aware you could silence a revolver.
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Oct 12, 2013 12:11
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You can actually suppress a Nagant revolver, which has has an unusual moving cylinder construction. But I'd just as readily attribute it to the French developers not being gun nuts.
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Oct 12, 2013 13:12
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Mikser posted:You can actually suppress a Nagant revolver, which has has an unusual moving cylinder construction. But I'd just as readily attribute it to the French developers not being gun nuts. I was about to write a post on how it seems a bit odd that a 19th-century weapon would still be used by criminals in the early 90's (since I imagine TT's and Makarovs would be easier to aquire), but then I found this: Wikipedia, on the Nagant M1895 posted:It remains in use with the Russian Railways and remote police forces. Makes me wonder if any other countries are in the habit of arming their railway workers.
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Oct 12, 2013 13:47
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Comrade Koba posted:I was about to write a post on how it seems a bit odd that a 19th-century weapon would still be used by criminals in the early 90's (since I imagine TT's and Makarovs would be easier to aquire), but then I found this: Rukov had a KGB-issue Makarov, though it's misspelled Marakov in-game. Just wanted to post this article, which is what originally inspired me to play this game. It's a nice writeup by Quintin Smith, probably my favorite game journalist. It also gave me the idea for the thread title. I was holding off on posting it until now because one of the images was a spoiler for update 10.
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Oct 12, 2013 16:16
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Right, let's finally get around to talking about life for the average Soviet citizen in the late 80's. Actually, let's test my knowledge of Soviet history without any online references and talk about the 50's for a bit. The USSR didn't quite get the same economic boost as the United States - in fact, the country was still recuperating from the war damage (hell, I seem to recall being told that the economic situation was still partially the result of This might have been out of the goodness of his heart, because the economy could actually use some trade in consumer goods or because the carrot and stick of "endure a bit as we build communism" didn't work quite as well when the stick was less liberally applied. Err, Liberally less applied. Whatever the case, the USSR (unofficially) became a consumer society, one in which you could get a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, and could expect to get certain creature comforts for your pay. You could get some colourful clothes* (influenced by limited exposure to Western fashions), your own car (provided you waited in line like a good citizen) get your own tiny personal apartments in lieu of sharing one with a number of families in a Communal apartment (after a far longer wait), consumer electronics (presumably there was also a queue involved but I'm not sure on this count). * Did you think that Soviet fashion consisted entirely of grey fur coats and ushankas? I once read a newspaper article about a woman who slipped into a coma during the late 40's and awoke during the early 60's, and one of the lovely details was that she kept thinking that every day must be a holiday or something of the sort, since clothes like that used to be reserved for special occasions. Most importantly, this was all handed to you on a silver platter merely for doing your part. Sure, you could use proper connections to skip ahead in the line or get your hands on some Western goods, but you'd get your turn by hunkering down and plodding along. By Second World standards (how many people here don't actually know what that term used to mean? Don't be shy, many a person born after the 80's shares your ignorance) life was pretty good. (Caveat warning - all of the above may apply to a far lesser extent to people who didn't live in one of the large metropolitan centers. Russia is traditionally a highly centralized country and the difference between life "proper" and life "provincial" is quite extensive). The whole things comes to a crashing stop in the mid-80's as the party elite wakes up and discovers the economy is quite hosed. Why? Pick a theory - it could be because Reagan was a smart fellow who caused Saudi Arabia to flood the market with oil, thus dropping the prices on the main Russian export (presumably the only export Russia could provide that was almost untouched by the hands of the common Russian worker). It could be because Reagan was an utter moron who seriously believed that a defense program named after a space opera is going to work and give the US an undeniable edge, thus forcing the Russian economy to switch focus from consumer goods to military development, bankrupting itself in the process. It might be a simple failure of the Planned Economy that was inevitable once the Western powers grew tired of having to periodically bail the USSR out. It could be because pretty much every leader of the communist party was a Zionist CIA spy, sent to undermine Russia from within. There are a million and one theories - "the Russia that we lost, how and why" has been a favorite topic of discussion for a generation, and will probably still be debated in a generation from now. The first draft of this post (yes, I put way too much effort into this) accidentally presented the following as something new. However, everything I'm about to relate was already inherent in the system, merely aggravated into an all-pervasive practice by the collapsing economy (Or possibly merely finally extended even into Moscow and Leningrad). So let's talk about deficits - localized as "Дефицит", with a "tz" sound: Actually, let's continue this at another time, ending this post on a moderately optimistic note. I have to go do stuff, and I'd hate for an errant power surge to wipe this post out. Comrade Koba posted:I was about to write a post on how it seems a bit odd that a 19th-century weapon would still be used by criminals in the early 90's (since I imagine TT's and Makarovs would be easier to acquire), but then I found this: 2. In comrade Lenin's words, "post offices, telegraph centers and railway stations" - capturing these was enough to effectively overthrow the regime. Once the means of communication and movement are under the parties control, areas where no Bolshevik has ever set foot were taking orders from the VKP(B). More specifically, a number of attempts at counter-revolution were foiled simply because the railway workers were loyal to the party and simply didn't allow trains filled with soldiers to move into Peterburg. By now I suppose it's a merely a matter of practical caution, much like keeping guard over the Aurora cruiser.
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Oct 12, 2013 17:55
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Xander77 posted:By Second World standards (how many people here don't actually know what that term used to mean? Don't be shy, many a person born after the 80's shares your ignorance) It's me, I'm one of these people. I'd really like to thank you for these posts, by the way, they're absolutely fascinating.
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Oct 12, 2013 18:22
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Agreed. My Russian and Soviet history isn't as good as it should be and I've always been interested in the area and time period, so both the game and the info posts are really cool.
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Oct 12, 2013 18:25
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It's a little OT but if you're interested bout life in the Soviet Russia, I can recommend a very interesting movie about Russian counterculture in the 50's There's singing and dancing involved, so it's not 100% serious, but I think it's still interesting. Strabo fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Oct 12, 2013 |
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Oct 12, 2013 19:05
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Back to the subject of deficits and / or a day in the life of an average Soviet citizen in the 1980's. As the aforementioned citizen, you probably have a stable job. No, I mean a stable job that forms the foundation for your stable life. Chances are that you started working once you finished highschool / the university, and you fully expect to be employed in the same place / profession up until you retire. Your place in the social order and your place in line for various benefits (the aforementioned cars, apartments etc) is mostly determined by how important your job is. Your job, not your performance thereof, mind you. There are only so many working class heroes that the country really needs (various intellectual professions are a bit different, but even there your mastery of ideology / proper connections meant more than actually doing your job well) and in all other cases your encouraged to perform no better and no worse than your workplace average. The collective is what's important, not the individual. (People who are more familiar with Japanese / Korean workplaces can let me know whether it's worth making an analogy here) There's a small chance chance that you're working hard nine to five, but statistically speaking, you're more likely to devote your energy to imitation of hard work. Why? Might be because, as per the Russian Hell joke, half the time you simply don't have the necessary material to work with - and when it does arrive, you engage in a flurry of actual activity, make a bunch of cheap and low quality products in a hurry and then go back to lazing about. Might be because "we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us" (we'll get to what your pay actually means in a paragraph or so). It might just be because you're not going to get fired as long as you're maintaining the most minimal pretense of giving a poo poo - even if you do constantly show up for work blatantly drunk, or even miss work altogether, firing you is a black mark on your managers record. And most of the time you're not drunk or lazing about on your own, but as a part of the collective as a whole - in which case the manager is practically powerless. As you leave work, tired but satisfied after a productive day of doing absolutely nothing, your manager carefully falsifies papers to make it look like your department has not merely produced everything demanded from it according to the weekly / monthly / annual plan, but actually exceeded said demands. Every department manager hands over his falsified documents to the head administrator, who corrects the more obvious mistakes and reports that his sector is producing record results, exceeding or doubling the expected returns. Having done that, the administrators and managers load up whatever products they have carefully accounted as missing or used up into their cars, to take home or sell on the black market. Workers are limited to stealing by the pocketful, but managers get to steal by the car / truck / wagon load. Luxury goods, food items and electronics sell well, but pretty much anything can find a decent home on the black market / literally in someone's home. Anything is better than wasting said items by sending them out to be sold to any random person. Having received your pay (handed out in cash at the end of the month, with the stereotypical housewife standing by her husbands side to make sure he doesn't drink his pay on the spot), you head out to the shops. Ostensibly, you can buy anything at a really reasonable price ("Say, where's the shop that's called 'Theory'? I've heard that 'In Theory, you can buy anything'"). In practice, not only does the planned economy produce a whole bunch of needless rubbish for every useful item*, but the manufacturers, managers and sellers have already set aside a healthy portion of the useful stuff for their own needs AND when said useful stuff actually hit the stores, it would do so at random unannounced intervals. Huge queues were formed on the spot, with people sending word to friends and relatives even as they kept a spot for them - even if you don't actually need the stuff, you're going to buy it when you can since you may not get another chance. Naturally enough people would sell their place in line, pay others to stand in their place (a common source of employment for bored teenagers etc) - queues had a life and culture all of their own. * For instance, ideologically proper communist drivel floods the book stores even though no one is going to buy it. Meanwhile, sci-fi, detective stories and other items of interest come out in limited editions and are sold out on the spot. Do you remember that scene in Moscow on the Hudson with the huge line of people trying to buy toilet paper? Of course, that's not entirely realistic - if you didn't live in one of the major cities where shops were better supplied so as to cater to foreigners / local elites, you probably had no idea what toilet paper looked like, much less had a chance to stand in line to buy it. As a resident of Muhosransk (the proverbial Flyshitville in the middle of nowhere) you'd spend several days traveling by train to a major city / a friendly southern republic in order to get decent food / clothes / whatever. You'd get entire "sausage trains" heading into Moscow from the provinces, to the point that even the capital stores were emptied out. Non-residents were first restricted from purchasing too many items while away from home, then a rationing system was (re)instated, and then said rationing got a bit creative - if you'd like to get some soap and / or sugar, you'd have to buy a sack of coal to go along with them. Don't care for queues, ration coupons etc that run out before your turn comes along? The black market is always at your service. The prices are anywhere between 5 and 20 times as high as the official prices in the stores, so you're not going to buy much (unless you're one of the aforementioned managers), but you can trade in something from your place of employment - it's not like you paid for it to begin with. Edit - Spell-checked the post twice, missed "you has" in the very first sentence. Goooooood job. Xander77 fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Oct 12, 2013 |
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Oct 12, 2013 22:06
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Xander77 posted:Back to the subject of deficits and / or a day in the life of an average Soviet citizen in the 1980's.
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Oct 12, 2013 23:35
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About the economic shift in the USSR with Khrushchev I humbly suggest reading Red Plenty. A great book with extremely instructive footnotes about the economic dream of the Soviet 60s.
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Oct 13, 2013 05:16
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Xander77 posted:Back to the subject of deficits and / or a day in the life of an average Soviet citizen in the 1980's. This is super-informative and I'm loving it a lot, thank you. Do you have any books/other sources you'd recommend for someone who wants to learn more about this? I am planning to check out the mentioned Red Plenty as soon as I can.
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Oct 13, 2013 06:20
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Nah. I got this simplified tale via osmosis while growing up around a Russian speaking environment, and I made sure to rely only on my own knowledge when writing the posts above. What else are you guys interested in? War, politics, movies, KGB activities?
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Oct 13, 2013 06:36
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Xander77 posted:Nah. I got this simplified tale via osmosis while growing up around a Russian speaking environment, and I made sure to rely only on my own knowledge when writing the posts above. Everything, but to keep this relevant to the LP, KGB activities. Specifically, how accurate is this game in portraying the KGB / GRU / etc?
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Oct 13, 2013 07:13
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Xander77 posted:Excellent posts. A lot of these sound very similar to the stories told by my elders, about the former communist regime in Romania, where I live. Especially the lengthy ration queues which you had no guarantee of getting something out of, and the planned economy leading to falsified production and stolen goods. Imports were horrifically limited here, so we this sort of mediocre-to-none production ended up leading to "We were producing every possible good by the boat-load, but the quality was horrible.". These posts really flesh out this thread. I tried finishing this game myself as a kid, but only got as far as getting locked into the room. I think I figured out I was supposed to flush the cocaine, but once I got out into the apartment, I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do to escape.
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Oct 13, 2013 08:42
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Update 11b – Bonus   What for? She deserves it, and she costs Verto too much in cocaine, I imagine. Okay, let's kill her. Hey, Verto! They're going to kill me!Later  What do you want? Let us out, Rita. Let you out? You wanted to kill me, remember? That's why I'm looking forward to watching you die!She doesn't like you. When you're talking to Rita in the cell: What do you want? The American is dead! drat! I was looking forward to watching him die. You stay alive! You can't imagine the thrill I get when they pop out the eyes.She doesn't like you. --or-- What do you want? Let us out, Rita. He'd kill me. The whole building is being watched. Sure. And the cossacks are coming to save you. So shut up and pray.She doesn't like you. --or-- You're making a big mistake, Rita. What do you mean? I can help you, Rita. Oh yeah? How? I can get you away from Verto. Why should I get away? He's dangerous, even for you. That's why I like him, moron. She doesn't like you. --or-- Why should I get away? He's cut off your coke supply. So? Let us out and I'll get you some. How? Where? We'll make Verto talk! Forget it, slushbrain.She doesn't like you. --or-- How? Where? I know people. Me too. Nice try, moron.She doesn't like you. --or-- How? Where? I know where the coke is. What do you mean? I'm the one who took it! Prove it. I hid it. Where is it? I flushed it down the toilet. I'm looking forward to watching you die!She doesn't like you. What happens if Rita doesn't like you?   If you try to run, or if you tell her you flushed her coke down the toilet...  If you waste too much time...   So that's the local method for getting addicts off drugs! You coming or staying? This place is too dangerous for me, mission or no mission! Let's go. Good thinking. Who wants to be a dead red!   [i]Back in Vovlov's office...[i]  Naturally we are pleased that you managed to escape, Rukov. The problem is that we have no leads to follow. Your friend Verto appears already to have changed address! We have no idea what he intends doing. Some might say you sabotaged the investigation. You certainly left it unfinished! We're disappointed, Rukov! Comrade colonel Galushkin had high expectations of you. Your inexperience is a serious handicap which prevents us from keeping you here. You are assigned to administrative duties on Novaya Sibir island. Get out.If you don't hide behind the door when Verto comes in...  If you hide in the studio room and don't hide Rita's body...  Wake up, you dumb female! Wha...?! Well, well!   If you hide Rita's body and hide in the studio room... Where's that dumb female gone?    Only time you see his talking head portrait in the entire game, by the way. If you hang around too long after knocking him out...    We run into the studio room, but he just follows us. We try to fight him off, but:   I'll show what happens if you shoot him in the next bonus update.
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Oct 13, 2013 23:31
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I'm surprised they actually spelled out the entirety of your inventory when you get it back.
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Oct 14, 2013 07:09
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That's a leftover from this game's IF roots. Given the amount of research Cryo probably had to do for this game, it wouldn't surprise me if when they started work on it they didn't expect for it to be a point n' clicker. I love this game (as can be seen by my comment in the RPS article as well). I love it so much that though I've finished it a couple of times, I'm still reading the thread because you seem to be pretty exhaustive in your coverage and that's great. The posts on Soviet daily life by Xander77 make this thread extra worthwhile. Thank you to you both.
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Oct 14, 2013 15:51
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Fair enough. In an ironic twist, let's actually talk about KGB in the KGB LP thread. To begin with, let's establish that everything is not KGB and KGB is not everything. I'm not being facetious - people tend(ed) to take an approach that's pretty much the equivalent of taking everything from FBI to military intelligence and through the local sheriff's department and attributing it to the CIA. The Internal Troops (the boys with AK's and slavering doggies guarding sensitive objects) are not KGB (at the time the story takes place). Pretty much anything related directly to the military is not KGB (ditto). Pretty much anything related to corruption among party functionaries is relegated to the Central Auditing Commission, and woe be to the KGB investigator who dares undertake such an investigation on his own instead of handing over all his evidence and stepping away. The KGB does not produce propaganda, whether within or without the USSR - special party organs deal with that as well. The International department of the central party presidium finances and organizes subversive / revolutionary activities abroad, and party leaders may truthfully claim that the KGB does nothing of the sort. The KGB does control the Border patrol ("пограничники") and (for some odd reason, as any properly paranoid Premier would have made that branch autonomous or directly under his control) the Kremlin Guard. In general, the KGB was extremely limited in the scope of its actions (though within that scope, which included the daily activities of every Soviet citizen, the organization was practically omnipotent), since the party learned rather well that giving the secret police too much power would allow said police free reign to attack the party. As one of my professors put it: If you know a little about the Soviet system, you may think that there was a certain system of checks and balances between the party, the KGB and the army. However, if you know more than a little, you'll see that the army and KGB were both (by necessity) the loyal (but unequal) arms of the party. The party may spy on and discipline both, but not vice-versa. The KGB has a bit of leeway as far as investigating army activities, but not the other way around. All this, however, is a (quote unquote) recent development. Up until 1954, the KGB had a finger in every one of those pies. Let's take a stroll through history, shall we? The USSR security services, CHEKA - the special commission, was established in 1917, right after the (second) revolution, so as to destroy the Contra. No, I meant the contra-revolution forces, shortened as contra by the communists (known as the defenders of monarchy / supporters of the true democratic revolution* / anarchists / whatever, all rolled into the singular category of "Whites" by Soviet history). A proper Chekist is always stylish. He has a long hands, a neat leather coat and a handy Mauser / Nagant ("A cool head, a flaming heart and clean hands" - The Iron Felix whose portrait must forever hang in every KGB office, including our own). The Chekist-Classic model is (pretty much) the only one you could portray in unabashedly positive / romantic terms in latter Soviet days, or even in the 21st century (for instance,At Home Amongst Strangers, a Stranger Among Friends. Mikhalkov may be a huge pos, but this is objectively an excellent movie you should check out). How come? Probably because that was the one time when the secret police was genuinely necessary / useful (let's put aside the relative value of KGB/GRU accomplishments during WWII The problem is that nobody wanted to stop when they ran out of real spies, saboteurs etc. Pro-Soviet / Trotskyist history tends to blame Stalin for subverting proper communist values and massacring people out of needless paranoia, but comrade Lenin himself was quite specific in writing that the notion of guilt being proven in the court of law is a liberal-bourgeois one. To the Marxist prosecutor, it matters not whether an individual has committed acts of treason / sabotage / etc - it matters whether that individual is a member of a class / group classified as enemies of the proletariat. Such membership a priori determines his guilt and allows the Soviet courts (the most humane of courts) to do as they will. Throughout the 1920's, the Cheka / OGPU exterminated those aristocrats / capitalists / NEP profiteers that were foolish enough to remain in the USSR - and that's the extermination that no one was particularly bothered by, as it seemed an inevitable and rather necessary consequence of of communist rule. Some of you may be familiar with Martin Niemöller's First they came. The USSR secret services did precisely that, well over a decade before the Fascists came to power. First they came for the classes outright hostile to the communists. Then they came for the people who weren't properly allied with the communists. Then they came for those allies whose loyalty was questionable. Then (in the 1930's, as the NKVD - The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs) they came for members of the party to the right of Stalin, to the left of Stalin, up, down, back and forth. Of course, one these people were eliminated, Lesser party functionaries / everyday workers were lucky - they would get arrested, beaten, asked to sign a confession - spying for England / Japan / both at once and also Germany, sabotaging the Soviet peoples attempts at industrialization / agrarian reform (the notion of "hidden sabotage" wherein the administrator seems to be doing his work properly up until an NKVD agent drops by to examine it is just brilliant), * Those of you looking for a bit of interesting reading can do worse than Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution which is extremely well written, if not a tad bitter. Specifically,"Five Days (In February)" is a really engrossing story about the forces of Good, Democracy and Enlightenment triumphing over stupid ignorant darkness. Shame that that's not where the story ends. I'm going to take a break here before going to chronicle the rise and fall of Xander77 fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Oct 14, 2013 |
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Oct 14, 2013 22:44
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red mammoth posted:Only time you see his talking head portrait in the entire game, by the way. I was wondering where you got his avatar from, I never saw that. I absolutely love this game. One of the few adventure games that I don't hate. I think it probably is because it doesn't treat you like an idiot, and with the clock always ticking the game doesn't wait for you to trigger the next cutscene, the world continues to exist and move without your input. It's got a bit of an immersive sim feeling to it.
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Oct 15, 2013 01:30
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Oh, my. I remember playing this game when it came out, I must have been about ten years old. I managed to get as far as getting the clipboard once and never got past the whole Buyer 2 / Hollywood scenario.  Edit: Having just finished the thread, holy crap. Looks like I got stuck just before the game takes a dark turn. TACD fucked around with this message at 13:51 on Oct 15, 2013 |
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Oct 15, 2013 12:06
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Update 12 – Performance Review  I think I figured it out. I tried putting the white code above the blue code. LNNRDU13MAOAAK EIGAAG6PLDGPR Next, I wrote down the first character of the white code, then the first character of the blue code, and so on. I got this message.LENINGRADAUG163PMLADOGAPARK Easy to figure out from there. Leningrad, August 16, 3 PM, Ladoga Park I've got enough information now, but I've still got one loose end. What should I do about Verto? If I killed him right here and now, I'd destroy the Moscow snuff film ring. No more innocent people would be hurt. On the other hand, Vovlov might be angry with me for killing without authorization. Then again, he might be angry with me for leaving such a dangerous man alive. It's hard to say, and the no killing rule's already gone out the window with Lyonka and Rita. Why not kill someone who actually deserves it? On the other hand, it's obvious at this point that Verto's not acting alone. He mentioned Romeo was going to some sort of meeting, and he has a secret message on hand. He is probably involved with a much larger crime organization. An organization that probably involves KGB agents. If I could track Verto to this meeting in Leningrad, I'd have a good shot at taking the entire operation down. I'll let him live... for now. If I want to track him, I can't let him know I stumbled upon his secret message. Just make it look like I knocked him out and then ran for it. We put the white paper back in the drawer.  Next, we put the blue paper back on Verto. I'll put back the snuff tapes, too. I don't like the idea of carrying those things around. I'll watch a couple minutes of the Maltese Falcon while I'm here. Not bad. I'll watch the rest when I get home.  Goodnight, Verto.  I can't believe I got out of there alive. Back at the bar...  Time to head back to Department P.    Time for my meeting with Vovlov. There'll be a lot to talk about. I did some questionable things, but I put my life on the line, and that's gotta count for something.  Needless to say, you are under suspicion of anti-Soviet plotting with foreign spies. And you allowed him to escape! You tread on thin ice, comrade! What feeble excuse have you? I observed his every move! Notably as he made his getaway! Despite your inexcusable failure to apprehend the foreign saboteur, you were fortunate enough to have discovered the nature of this Verto's activities. Before we go any further, I'm afraid I've received some negative reports concerning your attitude. Let me see... A possible obsession with sexual matters, needless complaining, questioning the correctness of your superiors, unauthorized investigation of your colleagues, an excessive taste for western ideas, foot-dragging attitudes, a tendency to deny approved historical facts, inconsiderate playboyerism, and a disregard for production in the agricultural complex!Yes, all of this is based on your actions and dialogue options picked in Chapter 1. How'd they get all that dirt on me? Must have been that bastard Belov. If I hadn't done so well on that last mission, they'd probably have kicked me out, or worse! A depressing evaluation, Rukov. Whoever pulled strings to have you transferred to the KGB forgot to remind you that privilege entails responsibilities! Endeavor to bear that in mind.  I think I like Galushkin much better than Vovlov. He's a lot less petty, for one thing.   The photographs showing your parents is a surprise. Let us hope that the future sheds further light on the matter. I sure hope the missing side of that photo is out there somewhere. It might shed some light on a few things. Your work so far has been of a high standard, my boy. I have decided to let you follow up the case. It's nice to get compliments from the higher-ups, for once.  I must go to Leningrad.  Ladoga Park.  3 in the afternoon, August 16.Galuhkin: Yes, I agree. Your mission will be a delicate one. Take the Leningrad train this evening. You will stay at the hotel Gostinitsa. We must learn what Verto's people do with their videos. Are they exported? And if so, how? In exchange for what? Who do they work with? I advise you to be wary of Leningrad KGB. Comrade colonel Kusnetsov is an ambitious man whose commitment to new thinking leaves a great deal to be desired. You will be contacted by your controller, in your hotel at 7:30 pm tomorrow. He will give you every assistance in clearing up this distasteful business. Guzenko is expecting you in equipment now. Good luck.    First of all, the transmitter and receiver. The transmitter includes a microphone of course, and transmits information in high-speed bursts, once every 30 seconds, which diminishes considerably the risk of detection. The microphone won't work if you are carrying it or if it's more than about 20 meters from the receiver! The receiver includes a tape recorder. It records voice transmissions on an audio-cassette designed to operate only in the receiver! Very clever. What is more clever still is the means of listening to the cassette in the receiver. The integrated playback can be manual or voice-activated! I have set the machine to recognize only your voice saying the word “TALK”. That is your password. You say “TALK” and the machine will play back what the burst transmitter has sent. The next item is a camera, a standard single-lens reflex, equipped with a 75-350 zoom, and a roll of extremely fast film which should allow reasonable photographs even in poor light. The shutter-release has been muffled, so you needn't be afraid of making too much noise. You are required to gather photographic evidence of any proof you uncover. As this is an official mission, you will have your KGB ID. This will allow you to visit colonel Kusnetsov in Leningrad KGB. He knows of your arrival.  That's the end of the first chapter. Next time, we're going to Leningrad/St. Petersburg.
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Oct 16, 2013 00:12
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Wow. This really is unforgiving, but as we've noted, it feels reasonable in its difficulty, if that makes sense. It isn't 'You can't use the pie to scare off the cat or you won't be able to hit the Yeti with it later' like in King's Quest, it's 'I need to leave no evidence that I know about his meeting if I'm going to track him', which is a hard leap of logic to make, but fits with the espionage thriller tone.
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Oct 16, 2013 00:42
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Night10194 posted:Wow. This really is unforgiving, but as we've noted, it feels reasonable in its difficulty, if that makes sense. It isn't 'You can't use the pie to scare off the cat or you won't be able to hit the Yeti with it later' like in King's Quest, it's 'I need to leave no evidence that I know about his meeting if I'm going to track him', which is a hard leap of logic to make, but fits with the espionage thriller tone. Yeah, I can see the logic here. It's not reading the game's mind as much as it is just not recognizing things that might give up the game.
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Oct 16, 2013 05:33
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I liked this game when I played it, even though I needed a walkthrough at a couple points. I think it shows a step on a path that adventure games didn't take; we can look back and see where Sierra, Lucas Arts, and all the rest went and eventually laid down to die and also the smaller studio games that branched off a bit with ideas that didn't take off then but seem a larger part of the resurgence of the adventure genre now. To me it always seemed like the mainstream of adventure games all had the same gameplay - it didn't matter if you were King Graham or Guybrush Threepwood or Leisure Suit Larry, you'd always be scrounging for poo poo to grab and then waving it around until the game progresses. It's not automatically a bad way to go but it means that making the game a fun experience rests almost entirely on the atmosphere, the theme, the internal consistency of the game, and the writing. When those are lacking or the well just runs dry in a series, they all branched out into better graphics or voice acting, or being 'interactive movies' and eventually collapsed into a moribund joke of a genre. And then there's games like this, and to a greater extent games like Quest for Glory and the like, where the role you're playing changes the gameplay around dramatically. The puzzle to solve is that you need to meet with Hollywood, and along the way you'll be scrounging up a clipboard to get into an apartment to go through dialogue puzzles, but then it's important to remember you're a KGB agent and that it's not just a matter of finding things to use or saying the right things; you'll have to kill thugs and keep your knowledge of the secret notes a secret and, above all, make it look good to your superiors. I think this game has a lot of problems from the bad old days of game design, and those pop up a lot thicker and faster later on, but it's still a neat game that did something very different from a lot of others in the same genre.
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Oct 16, 2013 06:19
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Ah, I love the feedback you get here about your suspect attitude. WendyO: Again, sorry to sound like a broken record, but the deciding influence is from text adventures (or as they are called nowadays, interactive fiction), here. That path for adventure games that you are rightly lamenting they didn't take was actually explored quite a bit in the pre-graphical days. I can't remember any spy games right now, but there certainly were a lot of private investigation ones, where you had to have figured out what was going on and to be at the right place on the right time, or you were walking dead, a la KGB. So you could play some of the Infocom classics for more of this sort of thing! Often IF players lament the move to point n' click graphics and call them 'pointless clickery' exactly because these latter games had puzzles you could brute force by clicking everything on everything until you found the one solution that worked. The one solution the development team could afford to create the assets for. Those IF players would have no such complaints about KGB, where (almost) everything the player does must be according to some preconceived plan and there's even variable, sub-optimal ways to achieve success. I think the main reason we didn't see a lot of that in the graphical point n' clicker days of the genre was twofold. On one hand yes, they're very difficult and require the player to wrap their mind around a completely different way of playing than either the winning Sierra or LEC paradigm. On the other hand, it's a matter of creative/programming limitations. If you play KGB you'll notice there is little to no animation. Characters enter and exit rooms via a weird rectangular form that puts their picture in and out of the background. When you want to use the verb HIDE, you get that weird icon of yourself hiding, you don't actually get your sprite walking up there and hiding behind a door or anything. When you drag a body from one screen to the next, it's again highly abstracted, that sort of thing. Portraying highly variable and dynamic situations and play-spaces is obviously not the strong suit for a graphical adventure game, at least one not designed by a small team. But it's considerably easier to do with a pure text UI. Graphical adventure games were the AAA titles of their time. They had gorgeous graphics and animations and stories and characters, that's how they got their audience, that's how they sold computers, VGA cards and soundblasters, not with clever puzzles and adult themes. It's no wonder the evolutionary branch of KGB became vestigial. Even in our modern times with the adventure game resurgence there's very few adult themes in the new crop of games and there's certainly no dynamic systems and ruthless walking deads like KGB's.
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Oct 16, 2013 11:01
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A proper show trial did not begin with an arrest and a fabricated accusation - that was the last act of that particular bit of political theater. First, your former comrades make clear that you are politically isolated, and urge you to publicly confess all your mistakes - thus far, merely errors in judgement rather than active subversion. You're demoted to a irrelevant position and left alone for a while, then you're asked to make yet another speech explicating your many ideological deficiencies, and denounce a number of comrades, most of them already disgraced, who shared you errors. Now you can be arrested. Enhanced interrogation methods were officially condoned in the mid-30's, but interrogators had ways and means before that (and afterwards as well, since the condemned still had to appear in public after their afterwards) - such as arresting your family (who aren't really going to do well regardless of your cooperation). Sign a confession implicating ten to twenty of your comrades, make a speech acknowledging your guilt at the trial, and find a convenient wall to lean against. The show may have been a bit repetitive, but probably necessary - it wasn't just any odd politician being executed, these were revolutionary heroes. People revered them, taught their children to be like them, named cities after them (on one particular occasion, a city was named after a revolutionary, then renamed after his executioner. When he was un-personed in turn, the city was named after the local ethnicity, under the rational assumption that at least some of those are going to survive). When men like that are revealed to be Finno-Japanese spy at every step, it's much easier to accept that you own little remote village / town / city is also swamped with saboteurs and spies. Even if you're unwilling to accept this, a friendly NKVD agent will prove you wrong - they have a certain arrest and execution quota to meet on a monthly basis. At this point the NKVD could investigate and lead to the near-guaranteed execution* of ordinary workers, party leaders and military heroes (in the height of the Great Terror, this could be done without a trial, within days). Men would be recalled from Spain or the Chinese front to face charges of being Francoist / Trotskyist collaborators or Japanese agents (for best results, switch the two around. Nowhere was Franco's spy network quite as active as on the Mongolian border). A commissar could execute a unit commander on the spot and lead the men in an attack himself (yes, as per W40K tabletop rules), being sure that his faithful comrades in the заградотря́ды would stop or shoot any men trying to flee. Agents would travel abroad to assassinate political opponents, enemies of the Soviet people or dissidents. The NKVD was at the height of its power. * On occasion comrade Stalin would take a personal interest in the life of an anti-Soviet writer or some former comrade - a mark of power, so to speak. That's pretty much the only reason Bulgakov lived as long as he had, and anecdotal evidence attributes Budenny's survival to a last minute phone call. Of course, pretty much any condemned comrade and / or their families would write protestations of innocence to Stalin, trying to arrange a personal meeting to plea their case - to no avail. And at the same time, the NKVD itself was purged from top to bottom, several times in a row. Coming home from a hard days work repressing the proletariat, they would find a group of former subordinates in plain-clothes waiting on the spot. Said subordinates would carefully explain that their former superiors were German / English spies, lead them to a nearby wall for a hasty execution, then take over their office - only to come back home the very next day to their very own surprise party. If a small number of party leaders managed to survive the 30's by sticking to Stalin like glue and posing absolutely no threat, NKVD members had no such recourse - their very position meant they were too threatening to be left alive. When Yezhov was sentenced to be executed, a part of his speech went "I have personally purged 14000 Chekists, but my fault was not purging enough - enemies were everywhere." Agents abroad had a slightly higher survival rate, but their time would certainly have come as well if Beria didn't come into power. Honestly, I don't know that much about Beria. He's a bit of a divisive character, so a brief summary of the relevant facts leaving the conjecture At this point, Kruschev and co (re)separate the secret police functions into the Ministry of Internal affairs (MVD) and the Ministry of State Security (MGB, later the Committee of State Security, KGB) and make absolutely, positively, 100% sure that state security will never again be able to touch a member of the part elite. MGB/KGB leaders now come from within the party / Komsomol, and the KGB apparatus is full of party agents (and not vice-versa). When Kruschev faces a conspiracy to demote him, he deals with it using party resources - calling up those members loyal to him into the forum and denouncing the people involved, who are left alive and unharmed. When he is demoted and replaced, the conspiracy acts via a party vote, and the corn grower gets to spend more time with his family. Things improved for the average Soviet citizen as well - though informers were everywhere(particularly among the creative class), the secret service no longer had an arrest / execution quota, which meant you had to actually say or do something in order to fall within the scope of their attention. You could even protest in public, whether for the enforcement of the Soviet constitution (as our comrade stated, it is indeed theoretically the best constitution in the world), the right to bugger off to Israel etc. You don't get hauled off to the Lubyanka basement on the spot, and friendly KGB agents will in fact warn you to leave off repeatedly before putting you on trial / making sure you're diagnosed as a lazy schizo.
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Oct 16, 2013 21:50
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I don't get one thing: we were looking for Holliwood because we picked that trail from Golitsin. But did we abandon our main mission, to find out who murdered him?quote:A proper show trial did not begin with an arrest and a fabricated accusation -... CarrKnight fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Oct 16, 2013 |
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Oct 16, 2013 23:21
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Update 12b - Bonus If you wait in the apartment until a certain time... Light footsteps... Someone is climbing the stairs.  It's Roman Nakhimov, the guy living in Apartment 3. Let's go see what Roman's wife thinks about him visiting Zhanna and Klara in the middle of the night.  The door opens.   I thought...Uh...Roman's out, I'm afraid. Comrade Nakhimova, I'd like to talk to you. May I come in? My daughter's asleep. Come back tomorrow. Fine. Just a few questions. Who are you? I'm a private detective and I'd like to ask you some questions. It's about Roman! What's he done? Nothing too serious. For the moment. I have a few questions. What do you want to know? Where is Roman now? He's with th... I don't know. Come back tomorrow.Different answers to Vovlov's question:  I exploited all available resources. Not bad. But your answer implies a superstitious fatalism!--or-- He was a mere pawn in my strategy. Excellent, Rukov! Except that he got away.--or-- I admit to failure, comrade major. Your orders did not include failure, Rukov!--or-- He is of no consequence. Do not imagine you can fool me with ill-founded blustering certitudes!--or-- He was armed, comrade major! Precisely! And you weren't. Your whining incompetence is disgusting.Here's what happens if you kill Verto:   We're disappointed, Rukov! Comrade colonel Galushkin had high expectations of you. Your inexperience is a serious handicap which prevents us from keeping you here. You are assigned to administrative duties on Novaya Sibir island. Get out.Get one answer wrong when talking to Galushkin, and... This is a surprise, Rukov! I was not inclined to believe comrade major Vovlov's assessment of you. I realize now he was right. You have clearly inherited nothing of your father's superb talent! Naturally, there can be no future for you in department P. I shall see to your transfer to guard duties on the Sino-Soviet border. Perhaps you may yet serve society in a positive way!Here's what happens if you don't put the hidden messages back in their place after taking a photo of them.   They appear already to have changed address. We will find them again, of course. Your incompetence has cost time, however, and is a source of disappointment to comrade colonel Galushkin. For my part, I expected no better of you. Your transfer to border-guard duties on the Sino-Siberian border is effective as of today. Get out.If you didn't take pictures of the secret pieces of paper, but still put them back:  
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Oct 16, 2013 23:22
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CarrKnight posted:I don't get one thing: we were looking for Holliwood because we picked that trail from Golitsin. But did we abandon our main mission, to find out who murdered him? I'm not sure what you're asking. Verto, the snuff film guy who captured us, is Hollywood. We haven't found out who murdered Golitsin yet, but Verto suggested that the KGB is involved.
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Oct 16, 2013 23:25
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Yes, but we knew that Golitsin had been killed by the KGB from the start, right? Golitsin knew he had been hired by somebody in the KGB (Jealous Husband) to investigate Hollywood, said so in his tape. And we suspected from the start that Golitsin died when he tried to find out more about Jealous Husband BEFORE going to Hollywood. So I guess we are focusing on who helps Hollywood and ignore entirely Jealous Husband?
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Oct 16, 2013 23:32
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Xander77 posted:At this point the NKVD could investigate and lead to the near-guaranteed execution* of ordinary workers, party leaders and military heroes (in the height of the Great Terror, this could be done without a trial, within days). Men would be recalled from Spain or the Chinese front to face charges of being Francoist / Trotskyist collaborators or Japanese agents (for best results, switch the two around. Nowhere was Franco's spy network quite as active as on the Mongolian border). A commissar could execute a unit commander on the spot and lead the men in an attack himself (yes, as per W40K tabletop rules), being sure that his faithful comrades in the заградотря́ды would stop or shoot any men trying to flee. Agents would travel abroad to assassinate political opponents, enemies of the Soviet people or dissidents. The NKVD was at the height of its power. Don't get too sensationalist. Blocking squads were there to reform fleeing soldiers and send them back into battle (arresting those that would not), not executing anyone that they saw. Also the only account of a commissar doing anything like that I have read of was one where a commissar allegedly shot the only remaining soldier in his battalion for trying to surrender, and then himself (but then, who told the story?).
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Oct 16, 2013 23:40
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CarrKnight posted:Yes, but we knew that Golitsin had been killed by the KGB from the start, right? Golitsin knew he had been hired by somebody in the KGB (Jealous Husband) to investigate Hollywood, said so in his tape. And we suspected from the start that Golitsin died when he tried to find out more about Jealous Husband BEFORE going to Hollywood. Golitsin believed that he was being targeted by the KGB, true. Our bosses don't really give a poo poo about Golitsin or Jealous Husband. They want to take down Hollywood because they believe some KGB members may be involved in his gang somehow, based on what we learned from Golitsin's tape. That's my understanding, anyway. The mission Galushkin gave us was to go undercover and find out Hollywood's identity. We were interested in the circumstances of Golitsin's death, but finding out more about that isn't our job right now.
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Oct 17, 2013 00:00
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Even if Verto still believes that "Kruglov" is a mere private investigator, wouldn't he relocate anyway considering that both you and the American "journalist" escaped and is likely to draw heat on his activities, like tipping off the militia anonymously? Not to mention what would happen when the garbage collectors find the body of that thug - or are we ment to believe that his connections means that he has absolutely nothing to fear from the militia?
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Oct 17, 2013 00:01
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Ensign Expendable posted:
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Oct 23, 2013 10:42
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: Beware irresponsible sensationalism, comrade.
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Well, it's been a week since the last update. Clearly, comrade red mammoth is too busy indulging in decadent pleasure-seeking.  
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Oct 23, 2013 11:33
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Xander's big effortposts got me thinking, maybe a couple of well-versed goons could get together and make some sort of a A/T Eastern Bloc thread? Also, this LP is great and this game is hilarious, thanks a lot for it, red mammoth.
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Oct 23, 2013 19:36
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Tevery Best posted:Xander's big effortposts got me thinking, maybe a couple of well-versed goons could get together and make some sort of a A/T Eastern Bloc thread?
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Oct 23, 2013 20:24
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Yeah, I'm just putting an idea forward, since it seems like a real lot of people want to read such things. If I could get someone to do some write-ups about Soviet Russia, the Baltic SSRs, Czechoslovakia, Hungary etc. then I could set such a thread up. I've got a concept of how it could be organized and what I could write about, but I'm kinda discouraged by the fact that I don't have a formal educational background in history (I'm just a Pole who spends way too much time with history books).
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Oct 23, 2013 20:38
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