No Toys Here: More Videogame Talk

After writing my article “A Look Into the Notion of Games as Toys”, I felt like I sort of slacked on discussing the merits of the games I deemed mature and cutting edge. So, as a nice consolation prize, I decided to dedicate a blog post to a few games I think challenge the idea of gaming as a child’s pastime, in addition to the idea of gaming as something other than an art form. I haven’t played very many titles recently but I figured it was still worth a shot. It might already be overdone and moot, but again, reference the blog title. I also know at least one of my classmates is an avid gamer. You know who you are.

 Bioshock

I’ll be honest, it’s been a long time since I’ve played it, and my original run-through was incredibly speedy, but this is pretty much the go-to example for modern, intelligent gaming. As Jack, a seemingly unfortunate victim of a plane crash in the middle of the Atlantic, players explore the underwater utopia turned dystopia, Rapture, run by powerful business man Andrew Ryan. Ryan ostensibly grew wary of the government and social structure of the land-based world, so he used his vast wealth to fund the construction of an enormous underwater city with a sort of extreme capitalist bent, attracting scores of the world’s leading scientists, artists and other great minds. After nearly fifteen years, the discovery of unstable genetic enhancements, affording superhuman powers to residents with the necessary funds, drives most of the city’s inhabitants insane, following a civil war for control of the city.

In addition to having a premise that’s sort of difficult to summarize succinctly, the story is told in a really engaging way, with most exposition and dialogue provided through radio chat and tapes found around the city. What really makes this game, from my slightly foggy memories, is the intense atmosphere. There’s a constant fear of sea finally reclaiming the city. Mutated, overly aggressive citizens lie around every corner, and the city’s is filled to the brim with decaying sights that are both unsightly and still bear some of their former greatness. Also the story’s good, but I won’t spoil it (I also don’t remember most of it...)

Limbo

Kind of a left-field pick, but, as mentioned before, my recent queue of games is small. I think it deserves the recognition anyway. This little game was released on the Xbox 360’s online store, Xbox Live Arcade, last summer I believe. It’s largely a platformer (jumping and physical puzzles for the uninitiated; think Mario) following a little boy in a nightmarish world looking for his lost sister. You’re forced to navigate dangerous traps and puzzles in order to find her, with generally graphic results when you fail. The simplistic visual style prevents it from being too much though, as everything is rendered in a cartoonish silhouette style.

What really stuck with me and made me want to mention this title, in addition to the atmosphere, was the way the game’s end was handled, in addition to in-game deaths. Instead of giving you an over-the-top “YOU ARE DEAD” slide before putting you back into the experience, the deceased boy you play as will simply lie there, sink further, or keep moving, depending on the circumstances. It’s as if the game takes your unnamed character’s death seriously, instead of making you feel bad for failing some puzzle or falling to some enemy. Also, without spoiling anything, the game’s ending really makes a powerful connection to the idea of “limbo”, or what’s commonly referred to as Purgatory. It’s a real Sixth Sense moment, if that makes any sense.

Shadow of the Colossus

Team ICO’s spiritual successor to Ico is a moving game to say the least, and one of my favorites. Since I played it a long time ago and I find myself out of practice when it comes to writing about gaming, I figured I’d just quote a better piece that partly made me include Ico in my article. I’ll quickly just state that the premise of the game finds Wanda (or the more masculine Wander in the Japanese version) in an isolated land, desperately trying to revive his (female, obviously) lover. In order to do so, a mysterious being inhabiting the castle, which leads into the land itself, tasks him with slaying sixteen giants, or colossi, after which it will grant his lover life once more. This 1up blurb on the game, from their “11 Games That Made Us Think” article, puts it a lot more nicely than I can.

“Shadow of the Colossus isn't only beautiful, it's a treatise on the tragedy of the video game. Everything that makes games interesting enemies, stage design, narrative is only there to be beat. You have to kill an enemy to appreciate his challenge. You have to make the traps in a stage useless to appreciate their design. You must remove the mystery of a world to appreciate its mystery. Otherwise you're ‘stuck.’

“Shadow of the Colossus isn't just sad because you're ultimately the villain. It's sad because it showed us that, even when you're the brightest of heroes, your main goal in a game will always be to make the world less special.

“Whoa.”

That’s it for now, this has become a long read…next time I’ll choose a more universally interesting topic. I promise.