DISPATCHES JANUARY
Wake up
I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to find the seemingly constant announcements of game remasters/reboots disconcerting. The news that the Mass Effect trilogy is to undergo this treatment triggered this. I loved those games the first time round–except forth ea,b,c ending s which we were promised wouldn’t be happening. And I’m as guilty as anyone else for purchasing and playing various remasters over the years – the Ezio trilogy, Final Fantasy VIII, IX, X and X-2 – so am complicit in the perpetuation of such things.
While it’s great that games like this will be (re)introduced to a new generation of players, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater might be a good example. I can’t but help feel a sense of fin de siècle lack of originality and creativity. I had the patience ten to 15 years ago to get my FFVIII characters up to level 100, but never beat Omega Weapon. Do I now have the patience to play these games to completion again, with slightly better graphics, faster loading times (the lift in Mass Effect)? Will I make different choices that affect Shepard and her team (that in itself raises some existential questions as to what kind of person I might have become in the last ten years)? Is Liara still the best companion character (I think so)? Does all this say too much about me instead of the games themselves? (Probably.) Even so, in a world that is all about new and instant experiences, it does feel like a ‘new’ and slightly polished-up version of something old is a step backward in terms of pushing new gaming architecture, and more importantly, crafting original and engaging stories that players want to be a part of.
The thought of a gaming world where we are subjected to rehashes of the same old content but just slightly better, is exaggerated admittedly, but is it unappealing? The popularity of indie games suggests otherwise, as does conversely, the ever-increasing number of remasters. And yet. Are we on the verge of some kind of Orwellian reduction to an Untitled One Game that we are all doomed to play over and over and over in its various iterations?
E352 really got to me. Is this the beginning of the Oasis of Ready Player One, but without the freedom (or prison) of Oasis? Are dogs and cats going to start living together?!
…I think I have been in lockdown too long. I will return to praying, hoping, Hades comes to Xbox/PlayStation; the concept of live, die, repeat is appealing right now. That being said, I did enjoy the letter in E351 about lockdown stories #57 and the nostalgia of playing Ninja Gaiden. Perhaps in the world of 2020 where new and instant experiences have been denied to us, we are in need of more nostalgia. An Oxford University study suggested playing video games is good for your mental health (although most players could have told them that); pairing that with the fond memory of when the task of defeating the Reapers, Ultimecia or finally unlocking the final seal to the Altair armour in Monteriggioni were the most pressing issues of the day might be just the thing we need.
Nick Croman
We’re tempted to agree, but when classic games that blossom via player collaboration (such as Demon’s Souls, p108) are remastered, both new audiences and old benefit. But if you’re really bored, as ever, you need only look beyond the mainstream to find the true originals.
Butterfly effect
“Are we on the verge of some kind of Orwellian reduction to an Ultimate One Game?”
Despite two next-gen consoles being released at the end of the year, I suspect
most people’s videogame-related memories of 2020 will be of what games they played during the various degrees of lockdown (which here in Liverpool has felt pretty much like the whole year). For me, there were two games which really stood out and both because of their different ways of dealing with loss
If Found… was just two hours of my life spent on a wet afternoon but I can’t get it out of my head. It’s a really positive sign that videogames are beginning to include transgender characters without their being on the periphery or novelties. But more than that, the intimacy of reading someone’s diary before erasing each page was such a simple mechanism but one which made for such effective storytelling. I lingered on each image and development knowing that they were about to disappear – the good along with the bad. I read a lot of graphic novels and was trying to work out what the mechanism added to the storytelling and I think it was the fact that in order to progress you had to lose what had gone before, forever. A kind of permadeath for memories but which made each one feel all the more important.
The other very different game was Bird Alone, which in some ways was just a slightly more philosophical Tamagotchi but ended up breaking my heart. (Mine was called Clutz). The drawing and writing poetry together, the constant affirmation, but perhaps most of all the bird’s self-doubt – it was obviously all scripted with a preordained ending but somehow it moved me more than any other game this year. After finishing it, I felt a sense of longing for one more conversation, one more interaction with my orange eating friend.
I probably would have ended up being affected by these two beautiful lowkey games in any year, but in this particular year they felt perfectly pitched, a welcome respite from the adrenaline of the outside world. In a medium in which loss often feels synthetic, it’s good to experience games which can help us to live with it, however difficult that might feel right now.
Mark Whitfield
Beautifully put, Mark. Escapism can be great, but it’s often the games that help us process reality that really leave an impression.
Goosebumps
It is widely accepted by many that the Holy Trinity of casual gaming (at least here in the UK) is FIFA, Call Of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. For a long time Edge reader and devoted advocate of videogames being one of the greatest and coolest art forms ever (as Phil Fish would also put it), hearing these three titles in one sentence breaks my heart.
So when my flatmate admitted to only playing those three games, I couldn’t let this one slide. Not this time at least. I felt partially responsible with my friend’s gaming illiteracy if you will. I sat him down, dimmed the lights, pushed an Xbox controller into his hands and booted up Inside, the crown jewels of last-gen indie games.
Seeing my friend’s reactions to these new experiences was almost as exciting as playing the game myself for the first time, four years ago. And what was supposed to be a 10 minute intro of ‘what lies beyond your mainstream triple-A game’ turned out to be a full playthrough of the game in one mesmerising sitting.
Sharing is caring as the saying goes. Of course, it hardly applies these days – it’s pretty much impossible to bond over a cup of Earl grey, let alone basic human touch. But as long as there’s a way to touch someone’s soul without any physical contact (what a way to encapsulate 2020) – videogames are the way to go. Just make sure to wipe off your controller afterwards.
Ignas Vieversys
The rest of the truly lovely letter aside, Ignas, we’re giving you our letter of the month prize simply for (correctly) calling FIFA, Call Of Duty and Grand Theft Auto casual games.
Can’t say
I realise ‘Best Of’ lists are very subjective, and I don’t usually (publicly) complain about how they are put together. But in this case I can’t help myself: why does Red Dead Redemption 2
appear on your Games Of The Generation list? Yes, I understand that the game is a technological marvel, but is it really much more than that?
The UI is the least user-friendly since the uncategorised item lists from the first Mass Effect. The protagonist controls like a drunken mule (don’t even get me started on the whole weapon-holstering business). The basic mission and activity structure hasn’t really evolved since Grand Theft Auto III. And with the exception of Dutch’s arc, the story is mostly a bloated, self-indulgent mess that appears to be about friendship, or social progress, or something else very serious, but it’s actually mainly about killing enough stuff so you can move to a different safe house – like in GTA III.
You acknowledge the “slow, painful trudge” through the prologue, but you don’t comment on the awful Call Of Duty-esque hours in Guarma or the tedious attempt at videogameHemingway in the epilogue. You wonder how Rockstar can top it, but I think they already did: GTA V offered comparable levels of detail and technological wonder on older hardware, and didn’t forget to pack in some fun gameplay and humour (however juvenile).
It’s a particularly puzzling choice given the abundance of other titles this generation (The Witcher III, cough, Half-Life: Alyx, cough), or alongside the other things you’ve included. Especially alongside something like Breath Of The Wild, whose elegant design, strippeddown narrative and playful systems are almost the antithesis of Red Dead Redemption 2. The rest of the list is cool though, thanks.
Leo Tarasov
Honestly, the current Edge team might not entirely disagree with you, but there’s no going against the sanctity of a [10]. Not if we want to keep our kneecaps.