Dear Esther, a Half-Life 2 mod, developed into a standalone game by Robert Briscoe and the team at TheChineseRoom. The premise is as follows: You are alone on an island. You explore said island, and the game progresses in a linear through said exploration of said island. The story is relayed in poetic prose by a narrator as you traverse the desolate wilderness. There are no enemies to kill, and no puzzles to solve (not in the usual sense, anyway). It has the first-glance appearance of a game, but a more accurate descriptor would be an interactive story. I mean, you can complete it and all (it's about 2 to 3 hours in length), but unless you are, for some reason, missing most of your fingers, then you can't really say you've 'beaten' it. That would be missing the point.
It's out now on Steam for the price £6.99 ($10 for you yanks), and I heavily imply that
you should buy it ASAP. That is, of course, if you haven't already. And if you have fingers.
Now, Dear Esther has already become divisive among gamers because of the fact that it is, by and large, devoid of actual gameplay. Like I said before, there's nothing to bash, shoot, push, pull, run away from, kill, or kill you. Your character does nothing more than walk and turn on a torch in dark areas. Some think this makes it rubbish. These people are idiots. They're perfectly entitled to be idiots, of course, but that doesn't change the fact they are... well... idiots. Taken in the way it is meant to be taken, Dear Esther is a beautiful and absorbing work that challenges our notion of what a game can be. Yes, I felt like an absolute cleft typing those words, but they shall be touched upon again, and bring us neatly to why I set out to write this article: What qualifies as a 'game', and should we really care?
Naturally, when we think of a game, most of us will either picture a small plumber jumping on turtles, or some ridiculously manly caricature grunting in an octave deep beyond register while shooting the ever-living asparagus out of anything which comes within his peripheral line of vision, depending on who we are. Combat is almost always a definite, and story is placed in second to gameplay. These are games after all, you big silly!
This state of mind is why a lot of die-hard gamers tend not to like it when games, to put an analogous spin on things, straddle their loyalties. They take issue with heavily film-inspired titles like MGS4 or Uncharted. They do not see a cinematic approach and drawn out cutscenes as something to be commended, rather as control that has been removed from them as the player, and, in a way, they are correct; games shouldn't try to be something else, right? However, to counter that question, is it really wise to limit the parameters of entertainment like this? In my humble opinion, the line between games and film, scratch that, any other form of entertainment, is a line that can, and should be blurred.
You could say games are defined by control, the role of the player being to inhabit the world and become their character. But this, it seems, is not enough. As mentioned before in the case of Dear Esther, many gamers don't consider it a game as there is very little 'game' to it. I think this is rather unfair, not because I think Dear Esther should be classed as a game, but because I don't think any form of interactive entertainment should be judged against what it is not, as opposed to what it was intended as. Dear Esther was not intended to meet our preconceptions of what a game should be, and nor should any other title. In fact, I think the term 'game' can be an incredibly limiting term to use for anything that just happens to be interactive.
Obviously, I can see why people didn't like MGS4's extensive use of cutscenes: they didn't come to watch, they came to play. But were the cutscenes really that bad? As far as I can remember, no. In fact, they were pretty decent. The narrative and characters were fleshed out, motives explained. Hell, if the cutscenes were shorter, you probably wouldn't have the faintest idea of what was going on! It would have been a legitimate problem if the cutscenes were badly executed (they weren't), or if the game was broken (it wasn't), or if story didn't make sense (it did... as far as I know). Kojima clearly made the product they intended to make, regardless of what it was.
Here's another thing: if you were just to look at the parameters which most AAA titles work within nowadays, you'd probably think it impossible that a game could ever achieve the same affect as, say, a film drama, because without anything to kill or physically solve, it would be boring. Basically, you wouldn't be able to make a drama game. This is wrong, and titles like Dear Esther prove it. It is just that our perception of what should be, as opposed what actually could be, is governed too much by the way things are at the moment; meaning most only think in terms of what the AAA titles are allowed to do. Interactive technology can simply be another way of telling a story. It's just that not many people know, or even want to acknowledge that yet.
To finish, I shall say just this: if something entertains, shocks, inspires, or leaves a lasting impression on us in any way, shape, or form, it hardly matters the extent of which we had control over it.
See also:
Asura's Wrath
To the Moon
This state of mind is why a lot of die-hard gamers tend not to like it when games, to put an analogous spin on things, straddle their loyalties. They take issue with heavily film-inspired titles like MGS4 or Uncharted. They do not see a cinematic approach and drawn out cutscenes as something to be commended, rather as control that has been removed from them as the player, and, in a way, they are correct; games shouldn't try to be something else, right? However, to counter that question, is it really wise to limit the parameters of entertainment like this? In my humble opinion, the line between games and film, scratch that, any other form of entertainment, is a line that can, and should be blurred.
You could say games are defined by control, the role of the player being to inhabit the world and become their character. But this, it seems, is not enough. As mentioned before in the case of Dear Esther, many gamers don't consider it a game as there is very little 'game' to it. I think this is rather unfair, not because I think Dear Esther should be classed as a game, but because I don't think any form of interactive entertainment should be judged against what it is not, as opposed to what it was intended as. Dear Esther was not intended to meet our preconceptions of what a game should be, and nor should any other title. In fact, I think the term 'game' can be an incredibly limiting term to use for anything that just happens to be interactive.
Obviously, I can see why people didn't like MGS4's extensive use of cutscenes: they didn't come to watch, they came to play. But were the cutscenes really that bad? As far as I can remember, no. In fact, they were pretty decent. The narrative and characters were fleshed out, motives explained. Hell, if the cutscenes were shorter, you probably wouldn't have the faintest idea of what was going on! It would have been a legitimate problem if the cutscenes were badly executed (they weren't), or if the game was broken (it wasn't), or if story didn't make sense (it did... as far as I know). Kojima clearly made the product they intended to make, regardless of what it was.
Here's another thing: if you were just to look at the parameters which most AAA titles work within nowadays, you'd probably think it impossible that a game could ever achieve the same affect as, say, a film drama, because without anything to kill or physically solve, it would be boring. Basically, you wouldn't be able to make a drama game. This is wrong, and titles like Dear Esther prove it. It is just that our perception of what should be, as opposed what actually could be, is governed too much by the way things are at the moment; meaning most only think in terms of what the AAA titles are allowed to do. Interactive technology can simply be another way of telling a story. It's just that not many people know, or even want to acknowledge that yet.
To finish, I shall say just this: if something entertains, shocks, inspires, or leaves a lasting impression on us in any way, shape, or form, it hardly matters the extent of which we had control over it.
See also:
Asura's Wrath
To the Moon
No comments:
Post a Comment