Minerva's Den and Alan Turing

Bioshock 2

System: Xbox 360

Developer: 2K Games

NA Release: February 2010

Part of what makes BioShock such an engaging series is the way it incorporates real-world concepts and philosophies into its ruined utopian fishbowl. The world is a steampunk-like fantasy, but the very human ideas behind its creation and operation resonate with this vague sense of reality—giving Rapture a “what if” kind of feeling that not many other games come close to or even intend to.

So through what better means can one tie in the theories of mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing?

Alan Turing

Turing's work with technology and his powerful role in history almost feel tailor-made for the world of BioShock. During World War II, Turing and his team worked for Britain under top secret conditions, creating methods and machines to crack the Germans' complex Enigma cipher and turning the tides of war intelligence toward the Allies' favor. For Rapture, which canon says was established in the '40s, Turing's accomplishments would fit in well among the man-made marvels upon which the underwater city's purposes and ideals were inspired.

“Minerva's Den,” a DLC add-on story to BioShock 2, ferries in what may be Turing's most well-known contribution to computer science. The story centers around Charles Milton Porter, a fictional character who worked with Turing in besting the Enigma. Unfortunately, he returns to London after his work to find his wife, Pearl, died in the bombings. A broken man, he ends up in Rapture and creates “The Thinker,” a supercomputer that serves multiple purposes, the most important being the regulation of life functions in the city.

Porter sees another purpose with the computing power he has under his control and thinks to the ideas of his former partner in Britain—specifically, the Turing Test. Turing was fascinated with the concept that a computer could be programmed to “think” like a human. He considered a test in which both a real human and a computer would respond to questions. If another human could not identify which responses came from the computer, it would be considered able to “think” equally to a living being.

C. M. Porter

You might be able to see where this is going. Porter believes he can beat the Turing test, and with this ability play a sort of futuristic Pygmalion, recreating the essence of his late wife. The events surrounding this and what direction the writers take it are something I will leave to be discovered, but I will say it is quite amazing. The character of Porter and the voice acting that brings him to life are superb.

People are still working with artificial intelligence, trying to create a true “thinking” machine, and many are disappointed with the progress so far. But what we will want to do with such programmed personalities and how our human natures will react with them are things that may need more consideration. The ways the world of BioShock brings cold, calculated logic and the human element into constant collision with each other lends itself surprisingly well toward such philosophical thought.

One other way in which Turing and Rapture have some odd similarity: in 1952, it was found that Turing was homosexual, a crime in Britain at that time. He chose “treatment” over incarceration, and was subjected to large injections of synthetic estrogen to kill his libido, chemically castrating him. People who had different ideologies were criminalized and “processed” in Rapture, too.

Of course, at the end of the day, Rapture is the rendering of programmed computers. What happened to Turing was the actions of man.

Dust and Forgotten Time

Dust: An Elysian Tail

System: Xbox 360 (XBLA)

Developer: Humble Hearts

NA Release: August 2012

“For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” 

– Hebrews 8:12, The Bible (KJV)

“And stop worrying about who you are! You're Dust! You hear me? I don't care who you were, I don't even care if you used to work with that General guy, because you're DUST now!” 

– Fidget, Dust: An Elysian Tail

Amnesia, while sometimes considered cliché, can be a very effective mechanic in games. A playable character with little or no memories starts the game on a similar level as the player: aware of a certain potential as you figure out what the heck you're doing.

Games relying on the loss or manipulation of memories are tasked with weaving the factor into an effective plot to keep it from clunking along as an obvious gimmick. Some titles, such as BioShock, manage to do this quite well. Dust: An Elysian Tail does it so well that to consider it as a gimmick almost feels insulting. Not only is the theme told around the titular character compellingly developed, it made me think of memories and the past in a light I had never considered: that dispelling them can sometimes be a gift.

The past holds importance, of course. It is a well from which we can draw knowledge brought through experience and recall mistakes we intend not to experience again. However, it is also possible to carry so much of the past with us that it turns from a guide to a burden.

When Dust wakes up unable to recall who he was, his identities and decisions lie entirely in the present. His only personal resources are his observations of the world around him and how they resonate within his core—as much a shattered mystery as that is. His only other influences are the opinions of his two companions, a talking sword and a chatty, bat-winged fluffball named Fidget.

Using these points, Dust ultimately chooses a righteous path, helping a world he only knows needs someone with the skills he possesses. And yet, it becomes clear early on that there is some form of darkness residing in his past and part of who he was. Would he have been unable to choose to jump into good had he awoken with his knowledge? Technically, no. That's impossible. We have free will to make personal choices that can not be tangibly controlled by what has already happened.

But still, if he had remembered...

This is the haunting nature of the past. The same mistakes and regrets we strive to learn from are also the ones that try to seep into our identities in the present. They breed doubts, fears and hesitation into choices that could otherwise be plainly made. Is this enough to atone for what I've done? Will they take me seriously? Am I a hypocrite? How would failing affect the future me?

We take events we can not change and fetter them to ourselves at the only time we are able to have any effect on the world whatsoever. And as significant as it feels to us to lay our lives out this way, it's a fool's endeavor. I know I've spent enough time milling about pieces of my past, putting them together and imagining I know how my life would be now if I had made one choice over another and lamenting this non-existent path. Of course, my real present never changes this way. If anything, it just makes me overly cautious and paralyzed when it comes time to make my next choices.

It's a hard habit to break, however. Even after Dust blazes a trail across the world of Elysian Tail, throwing his own life in danger to save many others, coming into the full scope of what he did in the past brings him his moment of greatest uncertainty and an instant dive into the mire of redemption. How could he have expected to redeem himself so quickly, he asks himself, as if his new deeds have to bury his old sins before they can count. It takes Fidget to snap him out of his way of thinking, basically screaming at him that the only thing that matters now... is now.

In a world that weighs everything against itself, it may feel flippant or even wrong to abandon our pasts “unatoned” or “unresolved” in order to give the present the concentration it deserves, but as Dust demonstrates, we are needed when we can make real change. True repentance is not “making up” for past wrongs, but turning your back on them toward a new path. True forgiveness is not deciding someone has compensated for their offenses, but treating them as though they had never committed them in the first place.

As we move on, we will have regrets. We will fail even when we thought we did what we should have done. We will even willingly choose wrong. That's all part of our identities as human beings we will never escape. Learn what you can, then leave it and move on. While we may not awake in a beautiful meadow every time, we still have the same gift that was bestowed upon Dust. Every second that slips into the past resets our chance to choose the right thing and become a new person.

Super Meat Boy and the Days

Super Meat Boy

System: Xbox 360

Developer: Team Meat

NA Release: October 2010

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume? --T. S. Eliot "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Super Meat Boy is a crash course in balls-to-the-wall berzerkerism and trying again in spite of the odds. Dying feels somewhere between 99-99.9% of this game; something it lovingly reminds you of by playing all of your attempts on a stage at once when you finally beat it. Scores of little, hopping, optimistic meat beings are put through the grinders, exploding in a mix tape of squishy demises until your one success remains at the end.

Are these ballets of carnage a cheap shot at your lack of skills or a badge honoring your perseverance? It probably depends on what kind of player you are, but thinking about it recently made me surprisingly philosophical for such a corporeal game.

Imagine every day of your life plays out at the same time, just like a replay of Super Meat Boy. What would we see? Now certainly we won't start in the same spot every time, depending on moving to new places, waking up with no clue where you are and the name “Chris” ambiguously scrawled on a napkin in your underwear, etc., but odds are there will be a lot of overlap. Some events, like your morning commute, might look like a blur of yous. The various beds of your night might look like a deranged Tetris block of yous for 7-8 hours of each period, if you're lucky.

Is that depressing to think about? Again, it might depend on what kind of player you are. Personally, it's bittersweet. For each representation of us on these replays, there's a near infinite number of routes he or she could have gone, mostly depending on our desire to break routine and break from our imposed obligations. Some of those choices could have brought us incredible gains. Others, who knows? They could've put us in the path of a drunk driver, or put many of our next days out on the street.

Because when that one “you” of each of us blinks out, it's all over. Maybe it will be in a bed at a nursing home. Maybe it will be on that same blurred line we took successfully to work so many days. You can play the statistics but it's never possible to know for sure.

We're the opposite of Meat Boy and many other video game characters. While they expend their lives endlessly for the pursuit of that one time at the goal, we nurse ourselves along in hope of reaching the goal as many times as we can. Each new day we receive, in essence, is an extra life—our reward for surviving yesterday's level. But if we don't live with that Meat Boy berzerkerism sometimes, are we truly winning? 

Stacking and the Constructive Sandbox

Stacking

System: Xbox 360

Developer: Double Fine Productions

NA Release: February 2011

The most memorable puzzlers allow players to take familiar concepts and accomplish goals well outside the realm of real-world familiarity. For me, however, the true joy comes in knowing that while I gain a great sense of accomplishment in mastering the physics of Portal, I can feel just as much of a genius by farting into a ventilation shaft in Stacking.

Let's try to keep it as classy as possible in here.

You never quite know what to expect next out of Tim Schafer's Double Fine studio, and Stacking plays much like a cross between Ghost Trick and Scribblenauts. As the smallest in a world of living Matryoshka dolls, you are able to climb into—and essentially possess—progressively larger dolls, using their individual talents to solve the various puzzles in your way. Each problem has several different ways to approach it and, like Scribblenauts, you are encouraged to wrack your imagination and find them all.

It is games like these that make me a bit sad to think the term “sandbox game” is largely commandeered by titles that emphasize speed and violence more than anything else. Not that there is anything wrong with those games. It's just that when I think of a sandbox, I see the greatest freedom in the minds of those using it; not the sand. Stacking fires the synapses by setting its toys in the box and asking the player to use them for more than their original purposes. The fact it's designed like a goulash- and Little Rascals-fueled fever dream adds just the right whimsical element that goads you to be a little more “child-like” in your cleverness.

The Fine Art of Seduction in the world of wooden dolls.

Perhaps one of the concerns we first had as gamers was feeling too childish in the shiny new sandboxes developers made for us, so we started off happier to run about kicking and smashing cities in an ironic showing of "maturity." And really, who doesn't want to have fun and blow off steam that way at times? But we've also come to learn that it feels better sometimes to sit down, take some time and actually be more like a child in heart; imagining, building, and feeling free to play in more fabricated worlds. Thankfully, games like Stacking, Scribblenauts and Minecraft are giving us chances to do that as well.

Portal and Selective Safety

Portal 2

System: Xbox 360

Developer: Valve

NA Release: April 2011

I hope we find extra-terrestrial life someday. In fact, I hope we find a number of diverse species out there; a whole universal network of cultures and species. And I hope, out of all them, we get to be known as the only ones who've invented things just for an excuse to strap them to our bodies and fling ourselves around in various ludicrous and high-speed manners.

As a race, we seem to love challenging the old adage of “If God meant for us to _____, he would've given us _____.” We give ourselves the blank to do blank all on our own. We were not supposed to fly, but we created the hot air balloon. Then the airplane. Now we're tweaking jetpacks. But each technological advance we make almost always comes with the need for a bunch of safety measures to ensure our adventures into defying our own forms don't end up with our insides oozing out custard-like onto the pavement.

No matter how many times we try.

Video games don't really have to worry about this reality at all. Mario was able to fling himself off the highest block in the Mushroom Kingdom and land with all bones unbroken. It was a land of pixels and innocence back then, but as games have become more realistic we've come to wonder a little more about the survival of our characters. Or maybe we just get envious of their indestructibility.

This is why I love the “long fall boots” of the Portal series.

You hardly ever see these things in the games, but heck if I'm not constantly reminding myself they're strapped to the main character and test subject, Chell. When it all comes down to it, the boots are nothing more than an excuse for Valve to “allow” the player to plummet great distances without penalty. They could just not be there at all and we could've gotten used to the fact that Chell can fall without getting hurt, but then it would've nagged at us, wouldn't it. I mean, we have no problems at all making Chell play with lasers, automated turrets and deadly water, but letting her drop without deus ex Reebokinas on her feet? That's just ridiculous!

It's a bit funny how we can have such daring spirits yet are soothed by the security of a little safety net, even in a completely fabricated realm. And yet, what great exercises for our minds these conditions present! As we push our bodies to limits and purposes previously unrealized, we're in an endless mental race to design ways to protect ourselves and overcome the fears of our own fragility. Within every new helmet, protective suit and roll cage lies engineering brilliance and maybe just enough of a confidence boost to break the barrier into something new and amazing! And even the fiction of Portal may inspire new devices in our reality.

We'll let the aliens decide if any of it's actually worth it when we find them.

Bastion and the Great Mosaic

Bastion

Platform: Xbox Live Arcade

Developer: Supergiant Games

N.A. Release: July 2011

Every game has pieces, but there are few games like Bastion where every piece is sacred.

And no, I don't mean that you have to hoard or conserve everything in the way many games have flippantly employed the term. That's an external importance; one assigned only to you. The sacredness in Bastion is intrinsic, and comes from the meaning that has been ascribed to every last one of its elements.

Everything is something.

The world the player gets to experience in Bastion is the shattered remains of civilizations, ruined by a great “Calamity.” You are thrust right into the aftermath of all this with absolutely no backstory, and the game takes great pride in this fact.

“A proper story's supposed to start at the beginning,” says the voice of a narrator at the opening of the game. “Ain't so simple with this one.”

The narrator is a constant presence and serves as the glue that holds what the player finds together, offering his perspective and knowledge. He only progresses as the player finds the pieces, but pieces is really all there are to the land anymore. The land literally rises and falls into place around you bit by bit, forming the path ahead. Every object found is linked to the people and a way of life that no longer exist.

Even the enemies you face have a history intertwined with the past world.

Even the game's most basic unit, the fragment, is treated as essential to the mythos. Where in other games it would just be considered a form of currency, it is implied that fragments are the world itself. Things are not exchanged for fragments, but made and restored from them. So, for example, you collect fragments to create an object from the old world (that you are told about) which is used to modify a weapon from the old world (that you are told about) that belonged to a certain class from the old world (that you are told about). It all builds on itself, and all carries a certain weight of importance.

The way Bastion diffuses its story across every component of the environment makes it very much an archaeological experience. Everything you find or witness must not only be considered in itself, but as part of one overall picture. The player is charged with piecing this great mosaic together--with help from the narrator, but also through his or her own imagination--and must eventually make an enormous choice based on their own interpretation of the image they've pieced together. It's a powerful conclusion, and I had not been so hung up on an in-game choice for some time.

It's a little disconcerting to consider this piece-by-piece philosophy against our reality. In one sense, there is something relieving in thinking that who we've been and who we are is influenced by so many different sources, such that no one can ever have full sway. The responsibility is lessened that way. And yet, if our world were ever blown apart, what pieces would the future find and what would they say about us? Should we be more responsible, regardless?

Rayman Origins and the Case for Classic Eclecticism

Rayman Origins
Platform: Xbox 360
Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier
N.A. Release: November 2011

There is no doubt this season has been bountiful with games--an onslaught of quality year-end releases that has pushed many gamers to joyful bankruptcy. Yet in all the festive frenzy, one poor, deserving game has fallen by the wayside; a game whose performance may very well influence the creative future of the industry.

Rayman Origins is a critically adored 2D platformer whose whimsically oddball style coats an extremely well composed level design. This game is quite frankly a joy to play, but according to sources, only 50,000 copies of it were sold in the first month.

I can't begin to describe what is going on here, but let me assure you it is glorious.

It's easy to blame these criminally low sales numbers on getting lost in the holiday shuffle, but it's worth asking: of all titles, why this one? Rayman isn't exactly on the top tier of mascots, but the brainchild of Michel Ancel has held his own pretty well, if merely by the fact he's not occupying some circle of gaming hell with Bubsy and Blinx the Time Sweeper. Recognition is there, as are the glowing reviews and some good deals on Black Friday (which I took advantage of). So why did this game get overlooked?

Do we just not give 2D platformers the same recognition we used to?

Oh sure, we still have the kings, Mario and Sonic, hanging around, but they just can't seem to stay out of 3D (for better or worse) and their modern 2D offerings tend to get treated as nostalgic sidelights rather than main entries to the series. Donkey Kong Country Returns did relatively well for itself, but it's tough to call it a blockbuster. The only other character who seems to remain consistently 2D is Kirby, and bless his little pink soul for it.

But those are the good memories. Back in the SNES and Genesis days, 2D platformers were in abundant supply; and while there were masterpieces, there was also a slew of copycats who just didn't provide as satisfying an experience. You couldn't swing a Super Scope without hitting some "me-too" critter with obnoxious '90s attitude and a set of phoned in stages to stumble through. Poor controls and redundant design killed a lot of these titles and may make us subconsciously gun-shy when even a semi-familiar friend returns in 2D--or at least think a game is not beefy enough to warrant a price similar to its 3D brethren.

Check out the above screenshot. If you were around to play it, I wouldn't be surprised if it reminded you of Earthworm Jim. Now that was a game that also had a unique character and an incredible art style, but honestly, I didn't really consider it that much fun to play. It has its fan-base, but the series is kaput--the fodder of iPhone ports and small murmurs of possible-maybe-one-day comebacks. Origins might be the same, right? Another "classic" character fading into the mists of obsolescence, flailing in a desperate yet mediocre attempt at relevance?

Take in the animation and ambiance of this scene in action and it's as engaging as any 3D world out there.

No. We must not allow ourselves to treat the terms "classic," "artsy" and "2D" as remnants of a bygone era and handheld-only appearances. To do so would be denying crucial elements and amazing experiences when someone manages to combine them all correctly. There are certain artistic and mechanical licenses 2D games can employ more effectively than 3D; creators and developers that can flourish much more brilliantly on a flat plane. And as methods evolve, both forms have and can continue to benefit from each other's breakthroughs.

Please at least try Rayman Origins. The gaming industry needs now more than ever the confidence to put its money behind artistic and creative exploration. An ocean of indie developers with the potential to do extraordinary things to the fundamentals of gaming is out there just waiting for green lights. And when something as right as Rayman Origins comes along, all the important people are watching.