DISPATCHES APRIL
A proportional response
Although not by any stretch a perfect game, Life Is Strange 2 felt to me like one of the most important I’ve played in a long time and I felt Edge’s review ( E341) perhaps underplayed its significance. It’s not unusual these days for games to be softly political, although there’s still a sense of trepidation from most publishers – look at Ubisoft going through contortions last year to avoid the semblance of having any views on anything. But so many videogames still tell stories which are only abstractly connected with the world and how the current climate affects people, particularly if you happen to be part of a minority. Maybe that’s not surprising – part of the appeal of playing is being able to escape the horrors of the real world – but it’s probably more important than ever that those with the least power have representation in mediums that can tell their stories, and it’s important videogames don’t swerve that just because they’re games.
It’s true that one of the protagonist’s superpowers in the game didn’t really have a purpose, but in a sense those powers were the least interesting part of it. The game tackled all kinds of issues head-on – racism, class politics, police brutality – and did so in a broadly nonexploitative and empathetic way. One scene halfway through which, depending on your decisions, results in your character being subjected to a prolonged attack felt raw to the point of being almost unwatchable, partly because social media evidences the fact that this is happening right now in the US, and not in the context of isolated incidents. There are real-life cartoonish villains, and their agenda is becoming bolder. Perhaps the best example of this was (spoiler alert) the appearance of ‘the Wall’ at the end of the game which honestly just hit me like a ton of bricks. I mean, in a way it was always going to be the end destination of the journey, and in that sense it shouldn’t have been surprising, but seeing it for the first time in the setting of a game felt to me like that moment at the end of the Wicker Man when you finally get sight of the film’s raison d’être. The fact that you were seeing this obscenely iconic physical structure from the literal perspective of a child (again to be separated at the border) was as shocking as anything I’ve experienced in horror games which are specifically meant to conjure up a feeling of dread.
Of course it’s not that all videogames have to connect with the real world in such a literal way, but the ones that do are important because it means that like other mediums we can tell the stories of our age just as effectively. I have to admit I cried at the end of the game for these boys – characters that in one way don’t exist but in another way exist in their thousands. The hope is that Dontnod’s confidence in telling this story, and indeed Square Enix’s bravery in publishing it, might encourage other developers to take more risks themselves in the future.
Mark Whitfield
“It’s probably more important than ever that those with the least power have representation”
Mark sent us a case of beer for Christmas, and the rest of you could all learn something from his example. We also like whisky, FYI.
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
As 2019 drew to a close, I decided to put together top-ten lists for each of the past three decades to see how the industry and/or my tastes had evolved, and because I like making lists. TL;DR: adventure games disappeared in the 2000s, but made a prominent return last decade. However, rather than discuss that resurgence, I instead wish to share my thoughts on how Dirt Rally narrowly missed the cut. One argument against its inclusion in the list was the idea
that if the game had never received its VR patch, it would not have been a contender. In fact, without the VR mode, I am not sure if I would rank the game ahead of Forza Horizon 4, a game that I did not consider in my shortlist. Similarly, WipEout Omega Collection was shortlisted, while no other WipEouts were. Dirt Rally and Omega Collection demonstrate the significant degree to which VR can elevate the experience offered by a game, and consequently the perceptions of its qualities. This then raises the question of whether a VR mode has made the game itself better, or whether it has merely improved the experience of the game? After all, any of the games in my top ten could be patched or modded to add VR, possibly redressing the balance. And what of games that are only playable in VR? Farpoint is a long way from being the best FPS out there, but in PSVR, and with an acceptably calibrated Aim Controller in hand, there are few as exhilarating. Perhaps at some point it will become standard for all games to offer both VR and ‘flat’ options, so games could be analysed fairly in terms of their mechanics, design, writing, etc, irrespective of gameplay mode. For now, VR implementation seems to be a trump card, but I am not sure to what degree I should allow it to elevate my opinion of a game’s quality.
Ian Thompson
Allow it, as we believe the kids say. After all, what would Wii Sports have been were it not played with the Wii Remote?
The war at home
We’re gearing up for a new console generation, where we now at least know that Xbox Series X looks like a Dyson-designed air freshener and yes, the PS5 logo does look just like the PS3 and PS4 logos before it. While we wait for something more tangible, fever pitch has consumed any gamingrelated information, including the coming and going of a great pretender in the form of Stadia. Or at least, as so many online news outlets and Twitter feeds (both of whose job is to react instantly rather than reflect) would have you believe. The client choked under thousands of people attempting to play. There were concerns about software ownership. Sales volumes couldn’t come close to established channels. These three examples, however, aren’t from Stadia’s launch but from another online service which people may have heard of – Steam, which we now know is the biggest PC gaming distributor on the planet. Sure, it would’ve been nice for them but Google doesn’t have to get everything right at launch – it has more than the resources and data to iterate, far more so than Steam did. YouTube Gaming has just signed three major gaming (bleurgh) influencers from Twitch who have a combined subscriber base of 21 million. If or when Stadia starts working as promised, those three alone could post themselves streaming a game and link at the end for millions of others to instantly play it too. That still doesn’t mean that Google will make a success of its service but that alone is an early advantage that Valve, Microsoft or Sony could only dream of. We’d be fools to dismiss it in the long term – even if saying so does generate a few less hits.
Lee Hyde
We hope Stadia is here to stay. There are glimmers of hope – its acquisition of erstwhile columnist Alex Hutchinson’s studio suggests it hasn’t given up the ghost yet. Not the best of starts though, is it? Enjoy your new controller.
Celestial navigation
It’s been years since I stayed up late to continue playing a videogame. The Witcher III, despite being meticulously thought out, I had found to be a rather paint-by-the-numbers adventure. That was until I went after a map marker on a mountain I couldn’t seem to climb. Encircling it, I found a harbour with no boats, next to a vacant town with unseemly high level monsters. With my curiosity sparked, I spent considerable resources (and a couple of hours) trying to beat them. My reward? A door to a cave I could not unlock.
I am reminded of the first time I saw that yellow dragon in Breath Of The Wild. It flew in the distance, was huge, it changed the weather and music. It didn’t attack me, and I couldn’t hurt it. Best of all, the nearby NPCs didn’t even acknowledge its presence. It was so out of place! Later on a quest ordered me to shoot a blue dragon with an arrow to collect its scale. Ah, that’s what they’re for. When I came across the red dragon, I didn’t see a majestic, god-like entity, but an ore node with wings.
Perhaps my favourite place in all the virtual worlds I’ve visited is to the east of the Arathi Highlands in World Of Warcraft. Swim to the edge of the world, turn north around the mountain range and you’ll find a dwarven village. The buildings look like inns and stores, but don’t have their facilities. There are a bunch of cats. The dwarves greet you yet don’t give you any quests. As real estate, it’s completely useless. And that’s why I love it so much. I can’t help wondering if this was an unfinished project. Perhaps somebody at Blizzard just felt like creating a place for adventurers to relax and do nothing. I don’t know, and I don’t mind not knowing.
People lament Castlevania II for being esoteric as hell. To this day, its nonsensical mechanics, areas and dialogue leave me in an uncanny state. I like to believe FromSoftware does something similar. But everything in the Souls games tends to have an answer lying somewhere. This creates great lore, but as Neil Gaiman wrote: “It’s the mystery that endures. Not the explanation.”
Is there a name for such cryptic design? Is it a conscious part of videogame culture? I rarely hear anybody talk about this. Maybe it’s just me. Anyhow, I presume I will eventually come across a quest-giver who tells me where the key is and sends me back to that village, and the spell will be broken. But for now, I’ll enjoy The Witcher III with a new sense of adventure. Robert August de Meijer
We could try making the magazine like this. Reviews spread across multiple issues? Oh, we tried that already. People seemed quite cross.