![]() It’s an outrageously fun hero shooter that would still be engaging if its battles were waged between gray blobs on a Unity playground. “Overwatch” is the intersection between ideal multiplayer gameplay and extraordinary cosmetic polish. ![]() Instead, “Firewatch” allowed me to see from a new perspective.Īs a general rule, I’m not a multiplayer guy but, having the time of my life with “Overwatch,” this is an exception I’m more than willing to make. Playing through a long summer as Henry felt more like acting than creating - reading someone else’s lines rather than making up my own, empathizing rather than expressing - so I understand if some people prefer games where the player is given more agency. Too often are game characters blank slates or surrogates for power fantasies. You investigate a series of petty crimes, find hidden secrets and fall in love over a radio, all from the perspective of Henry, a man who’s lost too much and can’t bear to face his real-life problems. How better can one learn about a character than by literally spending time in their head? Enter “Firewatch,” an adventure game from ex-Telltale developers in which you play as a national park ranger who’s running away from something. Many games allow their players to explore the environment using a first-person view, but few take advantage of that perspective’s ability to facilitate role-play. Bonding with random strangers over Nintendo nostalgia was one of the strangest and most interesting gaming experiences I’ve had. Only a franchise as storied as Pokémon could have facilitated a social experience so dependent on nostalgia and fandom. The “Pokémon Go” hype only lasted about three weeks or so in Ann Arbor, but spending that time over the summer catching Pokémon around town still gave me the chance to explore central campus, the arb, and even the botanical gardens with my friends and meet - quite literally - a few dozen other Pokémon trainers along the way. While it didn’t exactly have legs as a fully-fledged role-playing game like the other “Pokémon” games, Niantic’s absolutely genius technological marriage of GPS and AR created one of the most fascinating social phenomena that gaming has ever seen. Never in my life have I experienced real-world interaction so directly because of a video game. They’re looking for wonderful fantasies like “Stardew Valley,” spaces in which things can slow down, chaos becomes order, and you can just worry about potatoes and fishing for a while. This game has sort of made me realize that when folks play “simulations,” they’re not really looking for simulated reality. It’s impossible not to get sucked into the home-cooked majesty of the game, which pointedly celebrates a simple lifestyle in the face of the growing complexity of our technology-driven society. Somewhat ironically, my primary escape from thinking about Donald Trump this year was pretending to be a member of the rural working class in “Stardew Valley.” It’s a near-perfect farming simulator from the mind (and code, and art, and music, holy shit) of my latest indie hero Eric Barone.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |