Remember when you were a budding post-adolescent and started having this almost instinctive urge to start “raging against the machine”? That feeling of needing to fight The Man, whoever That Man may be, though in retrospect probably juvenile and almost assuredly stupid, has become the basis for untold stories, films, and video games, though none have been created with such bravado and outright Japanese insanity as one of my most treasured experiences from my youth, Jet Set Radio Future.
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First things first lets address the elephant in the room: A big reason why I feel compelled to write this article this week is because Beyond Good and Evil is as of Wednesday available on Xbox Live Arcade, for the pauper’s sum of only ten dollars. If you’ve never played it before, man go and download it right the hell now. It’s okay I’ll still be here when you get back.
Anyways. Beyond Good and Evil was an overlooked 2003 classic by Ubisoft and Michel Ancel (creator of the Rayman series) that managed to synthesize some of the best aspects of previous gaming masterpieces. Do you enjoy The Legend of Zelda games? Of course you damn well do. How about the crazy, “the government is watching me through my dental fillings”-styled conspiracy-theory story akin to that of Metal Gear Solid or Deus Ex? Again, that’s a yes. Oh, and do you like collectibles? But not just pointless baubles or macguffins but rather items that take work to find and give you real, tangible rewards for their discovery? As a gamer that sounds like my drug of choice. Beyond Good and Evil manages to wrap these elements together and place into a world that can only be described as heartfelt.
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Since I enjoyed the last article so much I’ve decided on doubling down with the concept of “Games You Should’ve Played”, and so for this second installment I’m going to tell you about the hidden beauty that was Deathrow for the original xbox.
Developed by Swedish outfit SouthEnd Interactive (the same guys who I just found also made the recent super-cute puzzler ilomilo, a fact which caused me to stop in my tracks for a few seconds), produced by Ubisoft, and released in October of 2002 to spectacular indifference, Deathrow was a unique creature in that it actually went about creating a an entirely new sport for the player to learn and master.
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I’ve decided that I need to start making some public service announcements in regards to this confused diatribe of articles I call a blog. Hence a new series of articles, based around games that I loved, but for some reason few others acknowledged. I’m coming to the defense of the defenseless! The little games that don’t have a voice to speak for them! Etcetera, etcetera!
To inaugurate this fine new establishment I’m discussing Breakdown, a much-maligned gem by Namco and one of my favourites for the original xbox. Released in 2004 to overly mixed reviews, it was something of an enigma to the general public.
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As it’s now officially that time of year, when under-sized children wear witch costumes and fiend for sugar, over-sized children wear slutty witch costumes and fiend for Bacardi, and I invariably get stuck inside reading about international war law (who sets up a midterm for Nov. 1, I ask you!), I’ve decided to get into the “spirit of the season” and talk about some of my favourite video games, both classic and contemporary, that managed to scare the hell out of me. Though some of these titles may, by current standards, seem outdated, when I had gotten my hands on them they scared me shitless.
I’m also trying to focus on some titles that are somewhat “off the beaten path”, so to speak, in the horror genre, and I’m hoping to get away from the more well-known Silent Hill’s and Resident Evil’s in exchange for games you don’t always see written about ad nauseum during this time.
So here are, in no particular order, a couple of games that caused me to shake, shiver, and sleep with the lights on.
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The concept of “Video Games as Art” has been a hotly contested topic, with its origins coming into the mainstream only within the last decade. Many see gaming as nothing more than the puerile pursuit of young boys and bloodthirsty, mal-adjusted teenagers, and have been quickly dismissive of the “Games as art” belief. Roger Ebert himself wrote that he believes games could never be as artistically worthy as literature or cinema. Many others, myself included, beg to differ, and can attest that there are moments within video games that have struck us with such sadness, passion, or joy that no other word but art could possibly describe what we had been playing.
To be fair, the definition of “art” is a bit…murky, and depending who you ask could mean any number of things. And to be even MORE fair, there are an exceeding number of games out there which are most certainly NOT art… at least from my opinion. For every “Shadow of the Colossus” that gets released we get dozens upon dozens of forgettable first-person shooters. But the point of this article, as I fumble to get back on topic, is to display a couple of games, in no particular order, that I feel are unequivocally “art.” These are solely choices of my own opinion, and if you disagree with my opinions, or are absolutely horrified that I missed your favourite piece of gaming art, feel free to call me a moron.
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