Artsygamer

Okay, i gotta say i’m quite impressed… I mean for years i’ve played Silent Hill games and i’ve gotten a bit imune to them, bored even…  and i didn’t really think they could make it fresh anymore… this does it for me. Not only do i not know of any fugitive game… okay, it’s probably not gonna be a fugitive game, but it starts with that vibe, and it feels like just teh right person to end up in silent hill for many reasons… and yet at the same time I can relate to his reasons for getting there, wanting his freedom… exciting.

I honestly probably wouldn’t get this game if I hadn’t played Yakuza 2… but with that context and if this one is anything like that: I’m not a big GTA fan… I’ve played through some, even enjoyed some… but Yakuza 2 was to me much more: i found myself sucked into the story… and though the world had pretty clear limitations I got quite immersed, because of catching characters, and a story that seemed believable in it’s moral and social complexities. Drawbacks that i’m expecting this one to have too is repetitiveness and fighting… but in the context it works and it’s worth it.

PS: yes, i’m posting it under the cathergory Literature, not because there might be quite a bit of reading there, but because, to me at least, it’s merit is not in it’s graphics, or gameplay, but in it’s amazing and moving story.

If there is one thing that i’ve found over the years guarantees I’ll play a game even if it should have flawed mechanics that is not it’s graphics but it’s story and to what degree i can relate to it… so i’m interested in this category in particular.

I’ll take this opportunity to recomend AVP 2. It’s a PC game from around 2000 I believe, which i won’t recomend like many others for the great shooter it is or the "most frightening to play (as a marine)" like a friend insisted (i still root for "Blood" on that one), but for the unique 3 point of view story. It’s one of my top 3 contenders of any medium in telling a intertwined overlapping story. The other two are: … wait for it… guesses? well, Starcraft and … forgot name… turn based game like Heroes… has 2 great expansions two… okay, it’ll come back to me and i’ll add it then… if not, remind me?

Edit: yep, it’s Disciples 2! Thank you Diana for reminding me!
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No wonder I liked 2…  the moral ambiguity, the choices… I must say I originally discarded the game because of all the fighting, but though that’s not something I like I was very happy to accept it as a means of action once I realized it’s just a tool in a much bigger expression of action and choices.

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Games come in all shapes and colors, and while you might think that we’re now in 2008 and text mode games have died in the ’80s that is not quite true: there are still those of us who love a good story and are even willing to read text for it… especially when, unlike books, movies, and unfortunatelly most games, it’s a story that at least seems to respond/branch according to your input. In comes the interactive fiction competition, the 2008 edition being it’s 14th annual incarnation.
And all this was just the intro for my favorite interactive ficiton: All Roads: this game totally took me by surprise… i don’t want to spoil too much of the story for you, but a game which starts with you being the person being hanged, involves morally strange situations and time travel paradoxes… all through a personal emotional veil… well… let’s just say I never thought a political conspiration in medieval Venice could be so immersive (the image of entering the room of conspirators is still so powerful in my mind).
Winner for best story, best game, best writing & best setting awards for 2001.

PS: forgot to mention: to read the story you need an interpreter, but ther are tons of them, for all OSs, devices and environments imaginable. To go through the story you just communicate simple action words like "look" "stand up" "open" "wake up" "go north" …

PS2: amazing the variety of the stories and settings, from horror to emotional, from action to abstract (btw, I once played a mindblowing abstract one… i couldn’t believe the imagery)
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Like I was saying in the past about games, and movies too, oftentimes I have to dig through tens of discardable works and some worth enjoying but not spectacular until I find something that, to me, is a true revelation! I’m happy to say that after recently having abandoning a bit gaming after a period of less fruition and digging into books again, after a couple of books discarded, including a few quite nice ones (Outbound flight if you’re at all into the star wars/Thrawn or Timothy Zahn‘s works) I am so very happy to have discovered a true earth mover for me. I’m also so very happy to have discovered it available directly online for our enjoyment:

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I must admit I had pretty much written The Witcher off. Not only did it seem like a lower budget product (engine, animation in particular, possibly not so great audio…) but besides forcing me to play through the point&click interface of PC RPGing when I have grown to like so much playing with a gamepad it committed what to me is one of the worst sins ever: yet another "been there done that" medieval world with the promisses of lots of hack and slashing. Why can’t people make a non-standard medieval world? I mean, town, inn, swords, outlands of the city infested with monsters… it’s been soooooo done. And then some. I don’t expect all the games to be as original as placing the setting in the Planescape universe, or constructing something as intricate as the Legacy of Kain mythology, but even other cliches would be better. Or a White Wolf setting? Vampire The Masquerade anybody… Or even better… something new, something creative. Or at a least something with a different aestethic feel. Morrowind for example managed to make a medieval setting feel somewhat fresh with interesting architecture types. The Witcher in the meanwhile besides putting me off with the promise of a combat oriented game showed me standard out of the box medieval houses. And inns!!!
So why I am writing about it? I certanly don’t like bashing things or being all critical like… The reason I’m writing this is because there’s new hope: this video… well, i had seen other videos that hinted the game might have a bit of that grey morality that would be so fresh given all the "be super good"/"be cruel evil" choice games… but this video promissed a lot more… it promissed options. Branches. They don’t even try to kid us with "there’ll be a kazillion gameplay modes"… but they do say 3 completelly different ones, and they do say something that I’ve dreamed of for so long: choices that matter. Choices who’s consequences show up hours after the decision sounds VEEERYYY goood. Then again my heart has been broken before by games which promissed choices and moral depth only to discouver that they were only for marketing or amazingly shallow… but if this is true, well, then all other faults of the game I may be able to forgive, I might even play it on the PC (should i one day get one that will play it well and be able to configure my gamepad to fake a mouse)… That makes 3 games I can dare hope will create choice rich experiences: Fallout 3, Mass Effect & Witcher. Now chances are (from past heart breaks and realizing what an incredible expense and unreasonable thing it is to create a choice oriented game) that 2 out of 3 will barely touch meaningful choices… but that still leaves 1 game i may hope will encourage self-expressing immersive gameplay in the next 2 years. Yeayyy!!!!
PS: I know the chances are slim, but wouldn’t it be cool if Final Fantasy XIII decided to so embrace western approaches that it offered choices or GTA 4 ended up having so much content that it pretty much turned into a self-expressing rpg type experience?
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