![]() ![]() In contrast to the darkness of the story, the world of Shadow Fall is jaw-droppingly beautiful. I like a good war allegory as much as the new pretentious art game fan, but sometimes you just want to have a bit of fun shooting some guys. Even so, the whole thing ends up horribly oppressive and dismal. I suspect this ambiguity is a deliberate storytelling choice, drawing attention to the ways in which warfare and racism and make bitter enemies blind to each others' humanity, and the wall is a clear allegory to the divided city of Berlin and the vast concrete barriers that carve up Israel and Palestine. After a while it's all just jingoistic noise. As the game progresses, it becomes harder and harder to distinguish the "inspirational" pep talks from the Vektan military brass with the "evil propaganda" being spewed by the Helghast. Both sides of the conflict are genocidal ideological extremists who view the other as dangerous animals who need to be put down. Nice to know that everybody involved learned a valuable lesson. Thirty years later, the Vektans are trying to engineer a super-virus to wipe out the Helghast, and the Helghast are killing thousands of Vektan civilians in terrorist bombings. The Helghast repay this kindness by executing hundreds of Vektan civilians who didn't evacuate quickly enough as soon as they are given rule over their new homeland. Yes, literally half of it - they built a wall around the entire planet, splitting it in half, and offering one half to the Helghast to settle their civilian refugees on. Bizarrely, after this attempt at genocide, the Vektans had an attack of conscience and offered the Helghast half of their home planet of Vekta.
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