Colossal indeed

Recently I have been dealing with some bad health - hence my blog being neglected of late. Strangely, being confined to my bed would mean more time to work on the Hall of Shame but not this time.

Anyway, some posts ago, I mentioned I was playing Shadow of the Colossus a second time through. I have completed a second time but this time around, I paid particular attention to the ending.
You see, there's a theory going around that the connection between Wander and Mono is questionable at least: He loved/respected her but she didn't return similar feelings. The most telling sign is when Agro reappears but Mono doesn't show any sign of recognition. Looking back at it now, it is quite clear that this theory has indeed weight with Mono's body language and her facial expressions.

This is of course one moment in a game loaded with subtleties (which is indeed something that is lacking in a lot of game today). And thus the theory becomes clear:
Wander, an underling of the priest Emon, sacrifices Mono for the greater good - but is left overcome with remorse and questioning his faith. Thinking back to the stories of his faith, he recalls a long-forgotten god Dormin and heads out. he eventually arrives at the forbidden land long abandoned by humans. There, Wanda arrives at a temple where sixteen giant statues stand. Laying the body of Mono on a plinth Wanda is then instructed by a heavenly voice, Dormin, that in order to achieve his goal, he would need to slay sixteen colossi that inhabit this land - and even then there will be a terrible cost involved. Wanda agrees and, accompanied by his horse Agro, ventures through the land.



He eventually meets the colossi one by one. Some are hostile, some attack on instinct and others don't ever fight back. With each colossi defeated, their bodies become rock and earth and their essence bursts from them to engulf Wanda, corrupting his body and transport him back to the temple. And in the temple, the statue of the defeated colossus crumbles and a white dove comes to rest next to Mono's body.
With each colossus defeated, Wanda's body deteriorates with each colossus' essence. Towards the end of Wanda's quest, Emon, and some men enter the land and, on the way to the last colossus, Agro plunges into a ravine but not before saving his master's life. With the defeat of the last colossus, Emon and his men enter the temple. They see Mono, the remnants of the statues and, finally, Wanda's body.
Recognizing him, Emon's men try to kill him but suddenly Wanda's body is taken over by Dormin. However Emon banishes the entity, leaving only Wander's body being pulled into the pool of light. And then, when Emon and his men have left the land forever, Momo wakes up, sees a horse she doesn't recognize and then an indication that Dormin will return: A baby, with horns sticking out of it's head, where Wander used to be. This arranges a line of descendants that will eventually lead to the character of Ico.

With such a dissection, I just dread to think that the anti-religious activists will have a field day with this game.

Subtle as a kick in the crotch

Now here's a question for the modern gamer: Does subtlety have a place?

The appeal of games, as I can see it, is to go into a world spawned from someone else's imagination and solve one or more crises in various forms, shoot some dudes and basically muck around. Thus gamers appear to have this willingness to go along with anything that can be handed to them.
So what happens when the gamer designer tries to challenge an audience's perceptions by throwing in subtly? What happens when our actions are being challenged and gamers need to step back and look at things in a different light?

One thing I have noticed is that games involving blowing so many dudes away are successful - as are games that involved going into an open world and just abusing the freedom an open-world offers. This offers a degree of freedom and pleasure that normal life can't offer. Thus, if any restrictions are going to placed on the player, they won't be taken lightly.
Thus it seems to me that if a player is going to placed in a position to think about their actions, it would be frowned upon. Likewise, challenges of perception are going to be missed and, in some cases, greeted with confusion (no doubt quickly followed by anger).



One of my favorite games ever is ICO on the PS2. A great puzzle based game which succeeds through its use of subtlety, ambiance, emotion, lightening effects and by showing what happens when one decides to experiment with such powerful hardware. And why not? When one wants to try something new, what’s there to stop them? Sadly however, ICO was a poor seller and, despite universal acclaim from the critics, it never reaped the numbers it deserved. It raises the question whether the strengths of ICO has any home in gaming today. Indeed, ICO may have militant fans (like myself) but it is still game one has to ‘get’ – a tall order when the action genre appears to rule the roost. It maker me wonder if some gamers are so passionate about their tastes, that they will go out of their way to condemn anything that does things differently.

Personally, I champion any game that utilizes subtly: They are contributing to the evolution of gaming through challenging perceptions and doing things that would be unthinkable. They are building universes that ultimately challenge the idea of building a world for people to mess around in. They are doing things that defy convention without any concern of making a profit.
After all, fortune favors the brave.

The Crack of Knuckles

Today, another game has been struck from my Hall of Shame: Sonic 2 with Knuckles.

Considering every Sonic game that hasn't been a Megadrive one has been pretty much rubbish, it's hard to think that once upon a time, this series had a bunch of really good ideas. And one of those ideas were the Sonic and Knuckles Dual cartridge, where, upon incorporating the Sonic 2 or Sonic 3 cartridges on top, anyone could play through those games with Knuckles.

And it certainly was an innovative idea: playing through a familiar game with a different character was appealing enough - but the real strength in the idea was that it required the player to adopt a completely different play style and adopt new tactics in dealing with particular bosses.

You now that I think of it, this is probably the first time ever in the history of gaming that such a thing came about (well as far back as I can recall anyway). And it least that's an achievement indeed in a series whose disasters have far exceeded it's strengths.

Don't doubt what he can do, Sonic the Hedgehog

I recently had the pleasure for striking another game from my Hall of Shame. This one being Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

I loved the Sonic games when I was a kid. I remember seeing them on the Megadrive and being blown away by the speed of it all, the agile abilities of the lead, the swanky graphics and the unforgettably catchy tunes.

 Playing it nearly twenty years later, I'm amazed to see they actually hold up pretty well. Like a fine wine, Sonic's Megadrive games have aged well and are still damn fun to play. Sure, Sonic's recent games have been total rubbish and the 8-bit games were just as bad (I am of course playing Sonic 2 off the PS2 Collection disc) but playing Sonic now was just as fun and pleasurable as it was when I was a young lad.

It's does seem unfortunate that Sonic has had many more failures than hits - I personally am fuming that the Gems Collections had those crummy 8-bit outings when they could've had Knuckles Chaotix or the Sonic Arcade Game. But I've always had a soft spot for the blue guy and I'm just glad that the Sonic games that did work were truly tremendous.

Kill Your Television

No matter how big TV's get, no matter how better the picture quality can get and no matter how gamer needs are incorporated into TV design, the end result will still look weird with using the Virtual Console

Put on a trenchcoat

Today I installed Deus Ex to my hard drive with the intention of playing it (not that's much else you can do with a game). Funny, it's been sitting on my shelf for a very long time and it's only now I've decided to take a look. Of course, it's not easy to take a game boasting ten year old graphics seriously but I'm still keen.

Strangely enough, when the title came up, along with that unforgettable opening theme, I immediately began singing along using the words Yahtzee came up with (see the Zero Punctuation review of Guitar Hero World Tour if you have no idea what I'm talking about). It's strange: I had not played the game before and yet I was already connected with it through the satirical videos of a grumpy web critic. It was one of those things that just happen - and I'm certain I'm not the only one who has done this.



All together now:

"...Put on a trenchcoat
and fight some conspiracies
Get experience
and level up abilities
Will you pick rifles
or computers?
Don't pick swimming, because
it's fairly useless
It's a shooter
and a role-playing game
The levels are ugly
and everyone looks the same
We're not the same Ion Storm
that made Daikatana
Our games are good
and they
stay on schedule

We made a sequel
that no-one liked
'cos we dumbed it down too much
'cos we're thick..."

Phinal Phantasy

Further work is being done to my Hall of Shame: I have recently returned to Phantasy Star 4.

 I've been playing this game from the Sega Megadrive/Genesis collection released on the PS2 but boy, has this one been a problem and a half! Twice so far I have had to restart from a certain point due to the save file dumping me into a point from which there is no escape. I can imagine this type of thing has happened to other gamers out there - sucks doesn't it?!

Other than that, I am enjoying this game very much. I've had little knowledge of Sega's once glorious/pioneering RPG series and, looking back from that angle, Phantasy Star certainly had a lot going for it. Phantasy Star 4 is indeed an entertaining game where a lot of effort has gone into it, with the music, presentation, graphics and playability. It's indeed a great game that can stand on it's on two feet when Final Fantasy seems to rule the roost.