HomeReviewsDisaster Report 4: Summer Memories
Wot I think - Disaster Report 4: Summer MemoriesAll sowing, no reaping
All sowing, no reaping
Renowned children’s TV presenter Mister Rogers once said, “when I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would tell me to look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” The red-cardigan-rocking moral compass of a nation offered this small succour in the face of tragedy: that whenever disaster struck you would also find the irrepressible compassion of humanity not far behind.
That generous spirit is a little harder to spot inDisaster Report 4: Summer Memories, a bizarre soap opera in which you careen about a disaster-struck city pawning bento boxes and first aid kits, grifting injured strangers out of their last thousand yen and generally acting like a roving sex pest, combing the rubble for downed hotties. Had Mrs Rogers witnessed this kind of aberrant behaviour, she’d have guided her son towards a successful career in the prison sector.
Consistently choose the most audacious, cruel, stupid or diabolical responses – agree to help the teacher because you want to perv on her students, or attempt to convince a grieving woman that this natural disaster was somehow all her fault – and you’ll simply rack up a currency called “immoral points”. These accrue in some invisible compartment of your inventory, like bad marbles to be tallied at the game’s conclusion long after it actually matters, like getting a bill for your TV licence the day after you’ve moved out.
Without having been in one myself I can’t say with any authority that Disaster Report 4 isn’t an accurate representation of the kinds of things that happen after a real earthquake, but I’m willing to guess that it falls short of a true simulation. It’s certainly about as ridiculous as the unfolding apocalypse happening outside our own windows – where society has seemingly ejected its collective mind to stockpile eggs and demand that the army open fire on joggers – but it’s about as passive as our lockdown too. Disaster Report 4 depicts a strange and consequence-averse crisis, in which you’re usually little more than a hapless observer.
