Quick Catch Up

A selection of the things I’ve been interested in lately and wanted to share a little bit about…

Gone Home

 

 Billed as a first-person exploration game Gone Home, the first game from the Fullbright Company, is both familiar and unlike any game I’ve played. Using the familiar techniques honed in dozens of first-person shooters over the years the game sees you as Kaitlin Greenbriar, a young woman back from a year travelling in Europe, she returns home in the middle of the night to find an empty house and sets about discovering what has happened in the time she has been away.

From the setup it might sound like this is a horror game, and despite some very atmospheric presentation, and the notion of exploring this massive house on your own at night, that isn’t what the game is about at all. Instead by exploring the house, uncovering notes, diaries, receipts and clues you begin to piece together the story of the rest of Katie’s family, stories that are both sad and true, heartfelt and familiar and subtly, brilliantly, realised. Her sister Sam is the main focus of the game and at certain points she narrates dairy entries that help fill in the blanks. The game is only a few hours long, and outside of the exploration there isn’t a lot too it, gameplay wise, but the attention to detail and way in which the family secrets out themselves to you organically through your exploration make it a really unique and engaging experience. It’s the sort of game that is best unspoiled, but if you are interested at all in narrative techniques in gaming and engaging with smaller, more personal stories, then Gone Home is well worth checking out.

Searching for Sugar Man

Winner of the Oscar for best Documentary this year, Searching for Sugar Man is one of those stranger-than-fiction stories that is really best discovered for yourself. It concerns a small-time musician discovered in Detroit in the late 1960s and the surprising story of his unknown legacy. I really don’t want to say more as half the fun of this very enjoyable film is uncovering the pieces of the puzzle, suffice to say it’s a journey worth taking and is surprisingly life-affirming as well.

Fez

Back to games and Fez was something of a breakout indie hit last year when it was released on Xbox Live (it was also prominently featured in Indie Game: The Movie that I reviewed here), with its recent Steam release though I’ve finally gotten round to playing it, and it is wonderful. A charming mix of old school 2D platforming with a modern twist, the fact that you can rotate each world in 3D, turning one 2D level into 4 separate ones, allowing you access to new areas, doors and secrets, all in the name of collecting cubes. Wrapped up in it all though are layers upon layers of secrets, codes and cryptic puzzles that reveal elements of the game most people probably won’t find. The game works well enough as a relatively straightforward platformer, the graphics are great, the levels evocative of the 16bit era without being beholden to it, combined with the great soundtrack it makes the world a great place just to explore. But dig a bit deeper and Fez becomes something else entirely, and even if you need a bit of a push to uncover some of the extra content, it’s worth it just to see how far down the rabbit hole goes.

The West Wing

Yes it’s old, but it’s one of those TV shows that I never watched, for one reason or another, however now all 7 series are available on LoveFilm I finally succumbed and found myself watching the first 4 episodes in a row. Suffice to say I’m enjoying it and I’m sure it only gets better, but I just wanted to acknowledge the fact I‘m plugging one of the holes in my TV watching history, and having it all available to stream and watch whenever I want is wonderful, if dangerous.

So that’s it for now, not sure if this will become a regular article or not, may depend on what I find myself enjoying in the future, but it’s good just to put some thoughts down without the need for a full article, and to hopefully draw your attention to things that may be of interest. Normal service (whatever that looks like) should resume shortly.

Indie Game: The Movie

A documentary about three indie developers and the development of their respective games doesn't sound like the richest subject for anyone other than die-hard fans of the medium. Thankfully Indie Game: the Movie isn’t really what is pertains to be, there is little here in terms of in-depth behind the scenes information on how these games are created, or the technical aspects of design. Instead it is much more interested in the people behind them, what drives them, the fears, worries and neurosis that drive people to spend 18 hour days coding pouring themselves into a game with no guarantee at the end of it of any level of success or acclaim.

The film focuses on three games; Braid, a breakout indie hit that was celebrated as kick-starting a lot of the interest that such games have garnered in recent years, Super Meat Boy, an old school challenging platformer hoping to make it big on Xbox Live and Fez, a years-in-development passion project of one man, hoping to stay relevant in the fast paced world of modern gaming. They are three individual and interesting examples to focus on, and now having lived past the ending of the film as it stands (Fez was not yet released at the time of filming) it’s interesting to look back and see the trajectory that each of the games, and their creators have taken in the years since.

Of the three sections the pieces with Jonathan Blow reflecting on Braid felt the least compelling, but also seemed to serve a different purpose than the others, which were focused more tightly in games being finished and marketed and eventually released into the wild. Instead Blow reflects back on how his game was received, and the reasons behind making it in the first place. All three games come from very personal places from their respective developers (and two are single person projects) and the way these people open up and reveal themselves through their work, and lay themselves out is both fascinating and engaging. I wouldn't say the documentary has an agenda as such it merely found some interesting people and wanted to tell their story.

In the case of Super Meat Boy we had my favourite parts of the film, the work of just two guys, living hundreds of miles apart it is a testament to hard work, skill and good fortune, a real underdog story that builds a surprising amount of tension towards the end through some skilful editing, but also because you find yourself invested in these people. Throughout the film similarities between the personalities are revealed, they are all slightly awkward, and self-critical, each drawn to games creation for slightly different reasons but with a shared passion, and desire to bring a part of themselves to the table, and to produce something that others will enjoy and engage with.

It’s an affirmation of gaming as an art form and means of expression, but also of humanity itself, in all its forms. Phil Fish, the creator of Fez is a divisive figure, and watching him almost implode several times in the film is sometimes hard to watch, but he lays himself out in a way that still garners sympathy. He can be volatile and obsessive, but it’s those qualities that allowed him to make a game as impressive as Fez single-handed. There’s a moment filmed at the annual Penny Arcade Expo is Boston where Fish is showing off the game and you just see the faces of the PAX visitors light up as they get their hands on his demo. There in the background Fish stands, making notes, but a sly grin soon emerges onto his face. It’s a fleeting moment but one that speaks volumes to what drives him, and also to the wonder that gaming can ignite; that spark of imagination that captures people of all ages and backgrounds.

For those unfamiliar with the world of video games there should still be enough here to enjoy, much like King of Kong before it, the games themselves work as metaphors, a gateway into a community or a life. Of course not detailed here are the many similar artists that work on projects without seeing much success, the failures and the bankruptcies, but this isn't a piece focused on the economics of game development. Instead it celebrates the capacity it has to unite people in shared experience.

As one of the creators of Super Meat Boy, exhausted from weeks of non-stop work and years of worry, sites back on his sofa and watches YouTube videos of people playing, loving, hurling abuse at, but always embracing his creation, his wife breaks down. After spending a couple of hours in this world, of fragile dreams and heartfelt expression, you might well do too.

The Forgotten Future

The future is grim. At least that’s what a lot of the media I consume has been telling me for a while now. The apocalypse is coming, and when it does things won’t be pretty. Zombies, nuclear fallout, mutants, death and destruction, these themes are prevalent today. The reasons I’m sure are multitude, our lives today often eschew real danger, that desperation for survival has been neatly curbed by modern life so abundant at times with Maslow’s basic needs that on some level we just take this for granted. If the power goes out for a night, or (heaven forbid) your internet stops working, it’s as much an inconvenience as anything. So the idea of suddenly having nothing, of fighting just to survive one day to the next has a certain morbid appeal. But equally this trend could be symptomatic of a world that often seems on the verge of a collapse, from the banking crisis to nuclear threats, terrorism and global warning there is a very real fear permeating society that the current status-quo may not last.

These are fascinating subjects to think on, they mine deep and rich wells of human psychology and moral conundrums. They allow a form of escape, as so much of our media does, but in a world unbound by the rules we encounter every day. And yet… and yet I worry that the desire for, and volume of such scenarios has been to the detriment of other, potentially more relevant and interesting ideas. Fight or flight is easy, and exploring the depths of moral depravity in desperate situations an effective way of emotionally engaging players / viewers, but I’ve been wondering lately to the actual value of this, not that media has to be valuable, as such, or teach us things, but when it all seems to be visceral, shock tactics and barrel scraping I often crave something more subtle. Not as a rule, but as a counter-point, hegemony in any subject belies a certain redundancy in ideas and in message.

Such thoughts were largely brought to life playing through Naughty Dog’s excellent PlayStation 3 game, the Last of Us. As an example of game story, technical accomplishment and moral ambiguity it sits unparalleled in recent memory. It is also a rather grim and increasingly brutal experience to play through; largely because it features such well realised and rounded characters that you form strong attachments with. Despite this as I reached the end of the game it almost felt like a tipping point. Like it was the pinnacle of this kind of narrative. Stepping into another ruined, crumbling post-apocalyptic world doesn’t hold much appeal to me at the moment, and I don’t think it’s just because the Last of Us drained my empathy supplies. I think it’s because of a lack of balance, in the genre and across the media. Put more specifically, where is light to balance the dark? Not necessarily in terms of the issues raised or emotions dealt with, but there seems to be a distinct lack of ambition and belief in us as a species, and the possibilities for our future. We are at risk of seeing a generation’s views on the potential of society being boiled down to unavoidable death and destruction.

Back in the 1950s and 60s, when the space-race was afoot and optimism abounded both here and in America the results of this were born in shows like Star Trek. These presented a view of a united future, a vision of progress and harmony that still managed to engage with the big questions of the day. They may look antiquated and silly now, but there is something about that optimism and vision that I miss nowadays. Maybe this is part of the reason that JJ Abrams recent reboot of the franchise seemed to strike something of a chord with people, it found that lightness of touch and positive tone that imbued the future with a sense of fun so often missing from the dour, grey blockbusters of recent times. And it’s not like the world 60 years ago was such a wonderful place to live in, the legacy of two world wars and numerous other conflicts left their toll, but the possibilities of science and technology to reshape the future was enough to inspire a generation to reach the moon, an otherwise impossible-seeming task.

Maybe today we lack this (some would say naïve) belief. Those that lived through this era and didn’t see the radical changes promised grew disillusioned, and whilst I would argue looking back and comparing modern life to what it was shows many of these revolutions have indeed happened, just gradually and in differing ways to those that were envisioned, I also understand the feeling. I am not endorsing happy-clappy whitewashed visions of a future filled with unrecognisable people. What I want to see more of is people chasing something other than pure survival. Something bigger than us individually, a goal of betterment, that speaks beyond the individual. You could make the argument that some recent games, such as Mass Effect work more on this side of the spectrum than the irradiated wastelands of Fallout and Stalker. Indeed Mass Effect is modelled a lot on the Star Trek notion of co-operation between races and galactic conflict. It’s no surprise then maybe that the best parts of those games are frequently the mini stories it manages to tell, outside of the wider galaxy-in-peril narrative, just regarding characters and how they interact.

This wider issue is also intertwined with a general desire to move away from more galaxy-spanning narratives to smaller scale, more human endeavours, but even with this they often use nightmare visions of the future as a way in; an easy shorthand for dropping the normal pretence of behaviour and morality. It’s harder to craft more nuanced stories, or envision futures without such eye-catching visual backdrops, but I also think there is greater potential for empathy, and for the players and viewers of the media to engage with the moral questions they may actually face, in worlds less alien than we typically see.

So by all means give me moral quandaries, represent the full spectrum of human emotion but don’t limit yourself to the negative just because it is easier. There is an exciting and invigorating vision of our future waiting out there for someone to capture it. A world in which the best as well as the worst in us is explored, and our potential celebrated. I’ve seen the end of civilisation. I’ve walked its ash-strewn streets and bombed out buildings. Fought its wars and done what needed to be done in order to survive.

And I have emerged unsatisfied, wanting to see the other path.  

Kentucky Route Zero

When is a game not a game? And does it matter? Unlike other forms of mass media, which are much more easily identified and categorised, video games straddle an uncertain line with the label of ‘game’ being almost increasingly outdated and unrepresentative of the breadth of experiences currently available.

This is especially true in the indie scene at the moment, and one of the most esoteric and talked about games to emerge this year is Kentucky Route Zero. Describing it is tricky though. It features an old antique delivery driver in his quest to make his last delivery, along the fabled Route Zero, a road that isn't really like any other road. Presented in a stark geometric art-style with a heavy emphasis on mood and atmosphere it is less a game, and more an interactive story, a Lynchian tale populated by strange characters and undercut by a heavy dose of melancholy. Each Act of the game (there will be five, so far two have been released) is split into scenes, usually labelled as you move from place to place. So far each of the Acts has been relatively short, but perfectly suited to the game's needs. Any longer and the sparse, often dreamlike dialogue and lack of interactivity may have rankled, as it is the game raises endless questions and draws you in to whatever is still to come.

Whilst the game can certainly be described as weird, it all feels of a whole. This is a game with a clear vision, aesthetically and thematically and it works so well in communicating this through its narrow focus. A version of this game with more traditional mechanics wouldn't have the same impact, the same haunting quality. At times the distorted eerie music coupled with some of the games striking yet simplistic visuals (it does some amazing things with implementing 3D spaces into an ostensibly 2D game) evoke a mood and a feeling unlike any I've played in recent times. Aside from observing locations and talking to people there is not much in the way of mechanics here, though in the dialogue you are often presented with multiple answers to questions, or lines of enquiry but there seems to be no consequence to your choices. Instead they allow you to internally paint a view of the characters, like a choose-your-own adventure game you find yourself building up a back story through these options, and that in turn filters through to how you play the game. Naming your dog Homer might not impact the game per-say, but that small aspect of customisation is enough to invest you that much more in the story.

This is very much an art-piece as it were, but it's not so wrapped in up pretensions to make the experience dry, in fact it is often absurdly funny, the question seems to be whether you are up for taking the plunge and seeing where the game decides to take you. Time will yet tell if the ideas will dry up, or whether the ending will provide a satisfactory conclusion to the groundwork laid so far. Certainly there is the possibility for it to all fall apart, but based on the Acts released so far this is a confident and intimately designed game with something to say, I just look forward to wherever the journey takes me next.

Seven Psychopaths

Following up In Bruges was never going to be an easy task for writer/director Martin McDonagh, after coming seemingly out of nowhere his debut film became something of a deserved cult hit, mixing black humour and a surprisingly touching story of a pair of mismatched hitmen hiding out in Bruges. In Seven Psychopaths McDonagh’s preoccupation with violence remains, though the film itself is a very different beast tonally to its predecessor. Lacking the deeper emotional undercurrents of Bruges, Psychopaths instead delves deep into meta-commentary regarding the notion of violence in movies and our collective enjoyment of it. Colin Farrell stars again, this time as Marty, a struggling screenwriter with a premise for a new film (called Seven Psychopaths) but not much more. His best friend Billy (Sam Rockwell) is a dog-napper, who runs a scam alongside Christopher Walken’s Hans, who uses the money to support his cancer-ridden wife in hospital.

But, following the accidental theft of a dog belonging to renowned gangster Charlie (Woody Harrelson) things start to get out of control as the psychopaths Marty seems so interested in for his proposed script start impacting on his life. There’s a certain unreality here that McDonagh plays up far more than he has done previously, the almost cartoonish violence and hyper saturated LA locations suit the larger than life characters that populate the film, Rockwell and Walken are the stand-out performances, the former initially seeming to fill his usual role as the unhinged outsider, only to have the character become something much more interesting and deranged by the end of the film. Walken embodies Hans with a lifetime’s experience with nary a word, and his stoic and deadpan sensibility give the film its emotional core, what of it there is. Farrell does a great turn embodying the cliché’s alcoholic Irish writer with pathos and his trademark bewilderment, and Tom Waits needs only two scenes to risk stealing the film, playing one of the titular psychopaths who stops by for some tea.

Structurally interesting the film starts at a pace and then slows towards the end, finally giving the characters and ideas time to breathe. Whilst it is fairly constantly entertaining and engaging, there is a certain surface level enjoyment that pervades throughout. The conceit of having characters discuss the clichés of cinematic shootouts and corny dialogue, whilst participating in the same scenarios themselves, has potential but never quite feels fully realised. The act of pointing out your own flaws never works as a way to excuse them; an aside regarding Marty’s script’s lack of female characters, and its objectification of women feels knowing, until you realise that the film itself suffers from this same issue, and no effort is made after the fact to correct this. 

It’s perhaps the curse of trying to be too knowing and ironic, but the lack of empathy hurts the film in the long run. It’s often very, very funny as well as shocking and unexpected, but ultimately somewhat hollow. Marty’s dilemma throughout the film is how to make a film about psychopaths that is somehow uplifting and promotes peace, if McDonagh had managed to solve this conundrum then the film may have had something to say. As it is, it remains a somewhat glib but nonetheless enjoyable romp but one that never quite gels into a cohesive whole.