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.

Dear Esther and the Surrender of Control

Dear Esther

Platform: PC (via Steam)

Developer: thechineseroom

N.A. Release: February 2012 (retail form)

Story is an essential element to many games, but is almost never the one driving factor that defines them. There are many games that have strong and engaging plots—and I wish even more took the cue—but ultimately the story connects the processes that the player controls. It doesn't make sense to proceed to the next action scene without a good reason to be there, and it is what the player actually gets to do that tends to make or break a game in the eyes of its players.

Dear Esther is a different creature. It is a game that relies so dominantly on its story that some hesitate to call it a game at all. “Interactive story” and plain old “experience” get thrown around, and you can refer to it however you wish. I don't care about semantics as much as the reasons why this idea is so nebulous to people in the first place.

In simplest terms, Dear Esther has the player travel over and through a deserted island while a voice of a character (likely the one you control, but everything is open to interpretation) reads excerpts from letters written to “Esther.” That, in all honesty, is it—and why I believe it blows so many players' minds when they get into it.

The setting.

I love looking at the behaviors and expectations we've picked up through playing video games, and Dear Esther was a humbling lesson in stripping away how entitled I feel to have control over what is in front of me. Looking back, it is embarrassing to note that my first action upon opening on the shore of an island that is both strikingly beautiful and God-forsakenly lonely was not to admire or reflect, but to test the boundaries of the world.

“See if you can walk into the water,” my Gamer Sense told me.

I did. After a few feet, I went under, then was gently recalled back to where I began. Dear Esther is patient like that, and my Gamer Sense was appeased. Derp.

I proceeded along the island, eyes on the rocks and an occasional fence, and quickly discovered the narrator continued as I reached certain points.

“Aha!” my Gamer Sense piped up again. “Hit all the points. Find all the secrets. Make him talk!”

I started poking through nooks and crannies, zooming in on anything I felt could be important to the character. I did not find one damn trigger that was anything more than proceeding along the set path. Eventually, I gave up and carried on.

And then, along a beach, an interesting pattern had been drawn into the sand.

“PUZZLE!” my Gamer Sense squealed. “Get paper! Draw! You'll need this later!”

Nope. No puzzles, either.

Sounds positively dull from a gaming standpoint, doesn't it. Just walking along and listening to some guy read letters. And yet, as I continued, my gamer spirit yielded to the feelings and desires of this fictional person, crafted through an exquisite use of language. Looking back, I can see how I gradually stopped panning for items that would yield a response and just let the man continue when he was ready. When a path split, I would choose a path and stop doubling pack to see if I missed something. All roads seemed to end in the same place anyway, and it just seemed ridiculous for the man to travel like that.

There is never danger. Just the way further into the story.

Eventually, I ceased to see the island as a “sandbox” and more as a large, fully realized work of art that I was on tour within. When I passed something the man may have mentioned, I stopped and looked; not seeking answers for a solution to a game, but asking questions that often had no answers. What does this mean to him? What does it mean to me? What does its meaning to him mean to me? It was like a melding of minds; a form of gentle possession as I just wanted to lead the character to the end of his story.

Dear Esther is rigid like a book. Where we love to have choices in the stories of other games—and there is certainly nothing wrong with that—this experience is much in the hands of the creators. The only story forged by you through all of this is “wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww,” the button you hold down to move forward. At first glance it seems to derail the overall strides games have made to give players freedom, but there is actually an extraordinary freedom to be found in this game. It comes after the end, when the screen fades to black, and you're left for days to wonder and interpret what happened. Find a forum on the game and you can have some outstanding discussions with others who may have heard different parts of the same one story.

So Dear Esther may not be a “game” through certain lenses, but the potential it shows as a method of literary experience is incredibly exciting to this English major. The right stories, gently manipulated by the right hands through a rendered “game,” could have an amazingly powerful and captivating draw. And just imagine what a book that already pushes against the rules, such as Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves, could provide within the right interactive medium.

I'm not saying this will replace reading as we know it, but it's absolutely encouraging to see developers willing to try something beyond a digital Choose Your Own Adventure book.

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?

Tetris and Lost Relics

Tetris

Platform: Game Boy

Developer: Bullet-Proof Software (original concept by Alexey Pajitnov)

N.A. Release: August 1989

The world-encompassing reach of the Tetris name is undeniable. Unfortunately, the wider a popular concept is spread, the shallower its real impact tends to become over time. The extraordinary stories of Alexey Pajitnov's conception of the game and Nintendo's battle to secure the rights to make the first blockbuster rendition of it still exist, but are long buried under sedimentary layers of adaptations, ports and free online knock-offs.

You can even play whatever this is, available now on the official Tetris.com website!

But I'm not going to tell those stories; they're already out there if you're willing to search. Instead, I'd like to tell you about the one Tetris game pak that would mean the world to me to have.

I never knew my great-uncle Jim that well, and he passed away early enough in my childhood that I don't have a great store of memories from which to draw of him. But there's one image I saw much too often to ever forget: whenever he and my great-aunt Rose visited my grandmother's house, he would sit in the same chair at the bar, beneath the overhead light, and huddle over Tetris on Game Boy.

I do mean huddle. He never actually held the system, as far as I can remember. It was always resting on the bar in front of him, with one of his fingers on the D-Pad and another poised over the B and A buttons. And that's how he would stay, tapping away with the intense confidence of a scientist at the helm of his nuclear powered robot.

The Game Boy almost never held anything else but Tetris. His children had tried to buy him other games to play like Qix and Super Mario Land 2, but I only know this because he let me play them one of the rare times I visited his home. He barely touched them himself, if he ever did at all.

The picture definition of "iconic."

No, great-uncle Jim's Game Boy was very much a Tetris-only machine, and the severity to which it had to bear this dedication still amazes me. The small grips that are on every Game Boy's directional pad were worn off completely, the entire pad itself somewhat sunken into the hole from which it protruded. The vibrant red of the B and A buttons were faded to a medium-rare pink in the center. This was all from the heat and friction of my great-uncle's large fingers over the many hours he spent playing a single cartridge.

Best of all, there was always a small strip of paper just below the screen, sealed into place with a piece of scotch tape: his high score. Occasionally changing, it was worn by that Game Boy like a badge of honor and always possessing a number I could never dream of getting close to.

It's not that great-uncle Jim was all-consumed with Tetris. He always took time to talk with the family, and he had no qualms about letting me play with his Game Boy once he had finished his current game—which often took an especially long time to an impatient 7-year-old but is something I can look in awe upon today.

If I had known back then how fondly I'd look back on that gray piece of plastic, I might have it today. Unfortunately, my childhood self never asked what had ever happened to the Game Boy and its treasured game after my great-uncle passed away. In fact, it wasn't until last year when I actually contacted my great-aunt, still living, and asked her if she had kept it with her all these years. She had not. She had given it away to another child whom she does not recall.

I wish I could run my fingers against that strangely smooth d-pad, or for the life of me remember that last high score and see how it stacks up on the Internet today. Sometimes I wonder if some kid now will feel this way in 20 years about an iPad he watched a loved one play Angry Birds on. Yes, I know that sounds silly now, but all I know is in a world full of so many ways, there's one game of Tetris I'll never be able to play again.  

The Blackwell Legacy and City Folk

The Blackwell Legacy

Platform: PC (experienced through Steam)

Developer: Wadjet Eye Games

N.A. Release: December 2006

Here's a riddle for you: How is New York City like an old-fashioned point-and-click adventure? They both exist under a set of rules that feel almost entirely outside the rest of known reality.

So if you're going to recreate all the for-better-or-worse traits of such games, why not set The Big Apple as your backdrop? Developer Dave Gilbert has made the city somewhat of his signature, creating games such as The Shivah, in which you play as a New York rabbi, and the Blackwell series, where a reclusive woman inherits a ghost.

She probably would've just been happy to get the dining set.

Playing through the first Blackwell title, The Blackwell Legacy, I find myself both fascinated by the main character, Rosangela “Rosa” Blackwell, and wondering if she's too stereotypically “urban.” See, playing as Rosa is setting yourself in the shoes of a neurotic and socially cringe-worthy character. This is not just to flavor the dialogue, although it certainly does; her anxieties also work into some of the puzzles.

One of Rosa's first tasks is to get into her own apartment building, as the substitute doorman does not recognize her (and in fact believed her apartment to have always been empty). She must find her next-door neighbor, to whom she's never introduced herself, to vouch for her. As per point-and-clicks, it's of course no simple matter, but the reasoning does feel somewhat more “real” than you'd find in other titles. Rosa's neighbor is performing for a group of people, and repeated attempts to simply walk up to her will reveal a long, labored monologue in which Rosa tries to psyche herself up to make a scene in public and... just can't. It's a bit sad, really, and you have to find alternate means to make the neighbor come to you.

That's what she--no. Not doing that here.

As you might remember from my Blaze the Cat post, I adore the art of inner monologue and enjoy the depth it adds in The Blackwell Legacy, too. Put it in New York City, though, and something just feels a bit overdone about it.

Maybe I'm just a country boy who never got it, but it seems almost every “urban” female in media—and especially ones in New York City—are either skanky and manipulative socialite/professionals (hi, Sex and the City!) or the female incarnations of Woody Allen. You're either an insanely beautiful queen of the concrete or an adorkable hipster. There are few in-betweens.

Is that really how it is in the big city, though? How can a place with so many people, that is prided on being a mix of the world's cultures and ways, be portrayed in ways that always feel so similar?

Oh, well. This is just nitpicking, really. I doubt this will affect my enjoyment of the game as I continue. I especially love the old-timey use of Video Graphics Array (VGA). Not only is it classic, but its restrictive animation style melds very well with Rosa's awkwardness in socializing and showing emotion. 

But I'm keeping my eye out. If this game even shows me the word “appletini,” I will puke.

Mario Kart 7 and the Right to Win

Mario Kart 7
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Developer: Nintendo EAD/Retro Studios
N.A. Release: December 2011


If you want to incite gamer rage (and I don't say that like it's a hard thing to do), remember two simple words: Blue Shell.

Regardless of the teeming numbers of people who still adore this series, odds are you'll be bombarded with racers relating in huffy terms their recollections of  getting hit with one of these leader-seeking missiles just 2 feet (it's almost always "just 2 feet") from the finish line, costing them the win, and how and these game-breaking abominations should've been removed after Mario Kart 64. 

They're one of the most divisive items in video games, yet consider this: everyone in a Mario Kart race has the same objective. Some actual driving skill does apply in achieving this goal, but at any given time on the field, the person in first might've have been much farther in the pack and the player in last might've been the leader just 20 seconds earlier. Heck, they may have been a victim of a Blue Shell midway through the race, but that doesn't tend to draw much whining. It's the end where we have placed all the importance, and how dare we let luck or circumstance determine the victor there. That's skill's realm, even if every part of the race leading up to it has been a whirlwind of mindblowing wackitude.

This is what we consider fair; consider "real." Except it kind of isn't.

How many times have you heard of the more deserving candidate being overlooked for the promotion, or the obviously weaker team winning the big game through a fluke? In fact, let's take a second to look at real-life racing.

Carl Edwards took the lead with 1 lap to go in the 2009 Aaron's 499 at Talladega Speedway. His skills got him there--in-depth knowledge and experience with the track, his car, his team and the other races. He was poised to take the win going into turn 4, but the car behind him wanted to win too. That car tried to pass, accidentally got into Edwards and...

Edwards's number is 99, by the way. Not 66.

The second place car won, while Edwards took a trip against the upper sections of the safety fence. Thankfully, he escaped the crash with no injuries. 

It's obvious what he did next, right? Take every opportunity to complain about how he should have rightfully won the race if only that jerk behind him hadn't put fate into motion? Appeal to NASCAR to instill some sort of "fairness" rule that would give him the points for winning?

Nope. He got out of his car and ran across the finish line, Talladega Nights style.

He waited for the other cars to pass, of course.

Edwards was disappointed, naturally, but he had perspective. He knew that skill and talent can get you toward the front in the end, but it's by no means a guarantee of victory. He was denied this time, but there would be--and have been--other times when he would take the victory after the misfortune of others. That's just the way life works sometimes, and we're conditioned to put more emphasis on the times we've been slighted than the times we've unintentionally slighted others.

So when you're the one for whom the Blue Shell tolls, don't whine like you're the only one it's ever happened to. Just take them as part of the experience--especially when you know you'll be tossing them next race.

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.