In sweet harmony

Mastery, or the promise of it, is central to videogames’ appeal. When we first sit down with a new game we fumble around, dying to low-level enemies, bumping off scenery and mis-timing our jumps. By the end, we are in full control of our avatar, blasting through the hardest challenges the game has to offer with grace and class. Yet even during our early struggles, protagonists are perfect. We just don’t know how to use them.

So it goes in Marvel’s Spider-Man (p34), which kicks off eight years after Peter Parker got his powers. Our hero is fully formed, yet he’s only as capable as we are; we’re given a leg up by familiarity with similar games, but only later do we become the hero New York needs.

Things are a little more comfortable in Ori And The Will Of The Wisps (p42). When making a sequel, developers can expect a little more from their players, and Moon Studios has certainly built Ori’s sophomore outing with this in mind, expanding the game’s combat moveset. In Fist Of

The North Star: Lost Paradise (p48), meanwhile, protagonist Kenshiro is a martial-arts master capable of making enemies explode by simply touching a pressure point or two. Sega’s job, as such, is the opposite, in that it must make its source material’s invincible, tremendously powerful warrior feel vulnerable and challenged in combat, turning the master into something of a newbie. Familiarity with the Yakuza games with which Lost Paradise shares a developer and an engine helps, sure, but only so much.

Let’s hear it, then, for Control (p38), a game that puts player and avatar in lockstep on the learning curve. Our heroine is as unsure of her newfound abilities as we are, and together, over time, we come to terms with them, our grip on this strange world growing firmer as we become more accustomed to it. Mastery awaits, certainly, but here the journey towards it is the same for the person on the screen and the one on the sofa.