Neon Labyrinth
Journey into the mind of an occasionally inspired gamer.
Let’s start this review off with a bold statement: I love Bionic Commando.
No, not Bionic Commando: Rearmed, although that was an amazing game in its own right, and no, not the original Bionic Commando, because that game was hard as pushing a sofa up 30 flights of stairs, and the sofa is lined with spikes. That are poisonous. And covered in black widows.
The game I love is this game, right here, the 2009 remake by GRIN simply called Bionic Commando. It’s the game whose name reviewers across the world smeared in the mud which caused so much fear in gamers that few people dared to try it out. In all honesty, as much as I like the magazine, I blame Game Informer mostly for killing off Bionic Commando. Their review ridiculed the game, stamped it with a low score, and essentially told people to avoid it at all costs.
From what I can gather reading most of the reviews against Bionic Commando, it seems that most reviewers did not like the game for one main reason: It was too hard. There are some complaints in there about the plot, and also some woes about not having the absolute freedom to go wherever you want, but I put those aside. Those are valid complaints that I can understand. Not everyone is going to like the same plot, and likewise, some people like games of a linear nature while others want nothing more than an open world to roam about in and do what they please. These are opinions, and opinions are welcome, and also cast aside depending on who says them.
But complaining that Bionic Commando is hard? Get over it. If someone says a game is “too hard,” it either means it’s ridiculously unfair or that they didn’t give it enough time to discover how it works.
Bionic Commando is the latter. It is a very challenging game, but one that comes with a great reward for mastering that challenge. Not only do you get the joy of overcoming your foes once you become more experienced, you also get the absolute bliss of mastering the bionic arm, which is akin to experiencing the biggest swing set in the world. I cannot tell you how many times a grin crossed my face as I dove off a high point, freefalling for a good 100 to 200 feet, and then attaching the arm to a ledge somewhere nearby, changing my decent into an enormous arc, barely scraping the ground, and flinging me back into the air again.
It’s exhilarating. No other game has made me feel like that. Ever.
I think that’s all people wanted from this game. They were excited at the prospects. Even the reviewers. But when those reviewers played the game, expecting a giant open world playground to swing and explore in, and instead discovered that the game had open areas that were more limited than they desired, they became bitter and hostile towards it.
Or maybe I’m just bitter and hostile towards them. With good reason. Those reviewers destroyed a game I hold dear, one of my favorite titles from 2009, a game I rebought just the other day for the sole purpose of experiencing the joy of playing it again. Not for achievements. Not for multiplayer purposes. Simply to have fun. It’s almost like that twinge of nostalgia that urges me back to an old SNES game because I remember it so fondly, yet the game is less than two years old.
Here’s the real deal. There are a few key points to remember when playing Bionic Commando.
The environment is not open world. The developers did this to keep you on track and progress the storyline and missions.
The game is hard. Even on the easiest difficulty, the game can be challenging. Take your time and play it safe and you’ll come out ahead. Running and gunning full force into a group of enemies and pretending you’re a tank will only get you killed.
The storyline is a little cheesy at the end. There are major plot twists that happen at the end. One of which I hated, the other of which I thought made sense. The game is still fun in spite of this.
If you can live with these key points, you’ll enjoy the game. If you go into it expecting something else, you’re only setting yourself up for disappointment, in which case, I don’t know why you’re still reading this review.
Not only was Bionic Commando a tough-but-fun romp through an assortment of environments, it also featured some of the best graphics I’ve seen on a console game.
Take a look at the screenshots from the game. Foliage stands out and feels alive. Character motions and actions are superbly animated. Environments are sprawling and awe inspiring, seeming to go on forever, even if you can’t actually access the entirety of them. There are so many details here and there that makes the world feel alive. It shows the developers really cared.
They also cared about their characters. Nathan Spencer, the mechanical arm wielding hero, converses with enemies throughout the game. His attitude toward them changes as the game progresses. Likewise, the grunts of the game slowly learn who Spencer is through the game’s story, going from clueless and fearful at the beginning to aggressive and far more personal at the end. Instead of just cowering in fear because some unknown assailant is destroying their plans, they start calling out Spencer’s name, using more psychological warfare on him, and you, once they know more about him.
It’s little touches like that that really show me a developer put time and effort into a product where others wouldn’t. I like Halo, I do, but the Covenant feel the same from beginning to end. They never change, they act the same way, and if you’ve killed one you’ve killed them all. In Bionic Commando, you feel a more personal grudge against the enemies because they, like you, change over time, and show it both in action and in speech.
I realize that writing this review won’t change much. People who read prior reviews will probably still scoff at the game, or those who tried it and got frustrated will undoubtedly never give it a second chance, but I hope that someone, somewhere, will read this and think, “I’ve been looking for something different. And this guy has some decent opinions. Maybe I’ll give Bionic Commando a try.” Then I’ll breathe a sigh of relief and know that, possibly, GRIN can live on in the hearts of some, like myself, not as a failed developer who couldn’t make it in the business but as a group of people who cared about their products and produced at least one amazing game, even if nobody dared to try it.
Earlier I had intended to write a review of the exceedingly popular mobile game “Angry Birds”, and my intent for that review was to be something along the lines of the sentence “I hate Angry Birds” repeated approximately two hundred and forty times.
Before I did that, however, I decided to actually give the game another go.
You see, my initial journey with Angry Birds was a bitterly bumpy one. After hearing so much talk of it, I decided to try it out for myself and see what all the hype was about. After all, it was on the top of the iPhone charts for months on end. It had to be good, right?
Unfortunately, I’m an idiot. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s a part of me, so I have to accept it. In my idiocy, I purchased Angry Birds Seasons, which is the seasonal offshoot of the original game. Which means it has more levels designed for those who have already beaten the original. Which means it’s hard. Which I did not know. Maybe if I were smart, I could have put those little bits of knowledge together and come to that conclusion before spending my buck, becoming frustrating, flinging my raging wrath in the form of spittle and curse words at my iPhone screen, and vowing to touch the dastardly Angry Birds franchise nevermore, but again, I am an idiot.
After months of avoiding the game, a small voice once again spoke up in the back of my mind and urged me to give the game a chance. “Maybe you just need to figure it out,” it said.
This time I purchased the original Angry Birds, and my reaction was much more positive, although still filled with the occasional bout of spittle.
Here’s the deal: Angry Birds has its great moments, and after getting eased into the game rather than roughly shoved against a brick wall and — nevermind, I won’t go any further with that analogy — after getting eased into the game, I can see why people can become so addicted to it, but it still has some fundamental flaws that, as a wannabe game designer myself, bug the everliving piss out of me.
What Angry Birds does right is give you a goal and a fun method of achieving that goal: Fling birds of varying types at a stack of blocks of glass, wood, rock, and other miscellaneous materials in order to make the whole configuration topple down and destroy the rotund, smug pig bastards below. It’s satisfying to watch their smarmy green faces get flattened by a falling sheet of stone, but conversely you’ll point your finger at your tiny screen and yell expletives when they grin and snort, letting you know you failed because your tiny birds bounced ineffectively off the sides of their fortresses and they are still safe inside.
It’s a fun, quick distraction in any situation, and the plethora of stages gives the game more than enough content to warrant its popularity. After hours of play, and after draining my iPhone’s battery at least twice, I find that I’m only on world six out of a possible thirteen. That says a lot for a mobile app that’s only a measly dollar in price.
But while Angry Birds has some amazing lasting appeal, its flaws still peck at me like a limbless avian trying desperately to topple me over. It’s not what the game presents to you that’s the problem, it’s what it doesn’t tell you that causes frustration.
The game gives you next to no instructions whatsoever. You’re given single-image sheets showing what each bird can do. These aren’t enough, however. There are a lot of depths and strategies to the game that the developers leave for you to discover, and while I admire that in most games, in Angry Birds it feels vile and intentional, like they want you to be helpless and clueless in order to keep you playing longer, hoping that if you fling enough birds at that structure, eventually it will crumble, even if it takes hours.
Which, now that I think about it, is probably the intent after all.
Regardless, it bothers me. It’s just bad game design. The developers don’t tell you that the yellow birds are strong against wood blocks and weak against glass, or that the blue birds are the opposite. They don’t tell you that sometimes destroying the blocks in the stage are worth more points than any birds you may have in reserve stock, resulting in better scores and more stars. And they certainly don’t tell you what any of the freaking menu buttons do. They leave everything up to discovery, and while some discovery in a game is part pleasure, too much of it is pure frustration, especially when I touch an icon to find out what it does only to be whisked away to my phone’s internet browser and prompted to buy the game again. Why did you not warn me before closing the app, Angry Birds? Why did you let that happen? Do you want me to be mad at you?
It’s little things like this that, if improved, could make Angry Birds an almost perfect hand held time killer. Adding in a bit more info wouldn’t kill the fun. The game would still be about flinging fat birdies at a poorly-constructed house of glass, but I think it would allow people to give it more thought than most people probably give it now. In my time with the game, 70% of the stages are completed with planned skill, while the other 30% is blind luck of a bird hitting at just the right angle and position, toppling over every structure on the screen, obliterating all the oinkers, and leaving me smiling in my confusion with the knowledge that, even if I tried my damnedest, I’d never be able to recreate that same reaction again.
There will pretty much never be a time I will call a game “perfect” or “flawless.” Every game has something in it that makes it irk one person or bother another, whether that flaw is the same for both or different. Regardless, no game is without flaws.
However, it’s rare that I, personally, will say a game was so incredibly good that nothing in it bugged or irritated me at all. These are the games that I consider the best games I have played in my life. These are the games that did everything so well that throughout the journey I never felt pushed or prodded or dragged along. Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 is one of these games.
Yes, that means I rank it up there with the likes of Super Metroid, Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy VI and a select few others that will be viewed in my mind as All-Time Greats.
What does Ninja Storm 2 do that is so fantastic?
- It has a fantastic main story that, if enjoyed properly, will entertain you for 15-20 hours. This isn’t just a recreated, shortened version of the anime. This is a fully-fleshed out, at times heart-wrenching tale that really draws you in, even if you have no idea who the characters are. I’ve watched a bit of Shippuden, but not a lot. That said, when new characters were introduced, I found it hard to be as attached to them as I was to characters I knew more about. But Ninja Storm 2 draws you in. It teaches you these characters, shows you their strengths, and, more powerfully, shows you their flaws, and then makes you care for them. I won’t lie: I cried at least three times playing this game.
- The graphics in Ninja Storm 2 are, hands down, some of the best graphics I have ever seen in a video game. The entire product, from the moment you start it until the very moment you finish the game, looks like an anime. You don’t get sidetracked thinking “those faces look too static” or “they should have worked on this animation more.” In fact, if I could call one thing about Ninja Storm perfect, I’d have to place that title on the visuals. Every moment feels like playing an episode of the anime, and even moreso, the gigantic main battles are so breathtakingly fantastic that even watching them time and time again, I cannot believe how superb they look. Fluid animations, extravagant effects, and over-the-top showmanship that continues to amaze. These are all perfect, and are the best cel-shaded graphics I have ever seen in a console game.
- Battling in Ninja Storm 2 is fluid, dynamic, and constantly entertaining. Even when you know all the combos, tricks, and strategies, the combat never gets repetitious or frustrating. In fact, if I had someone who had as much experience with the game as I did, I’d imagine I’d be battling against them in the versus mode as much as I have with other fantastic fighting games, such as Smash Bros. and Street Fighter 4.
- As if those key points weren’t enough, the game also brings forth a ton of side quests, collectibles, replayable main fights, challenging after-game-completion battles and missions, and a ton of other things to do. I imagine that taking the time to complete everything in the game will wrangle in a good 40-50 hours. The amount of meat in this game is baffling to me. Which brings me to my next point.
- The game has heart. Not often do you get the sense that the developer of a game truly cared about their product. Certainly they have some level of dedication to see a project through until the very end, but with Ninja Storm 2 it’s different. Every moment of it is positively dripping with passion from the developers. You can tell during each minute that you play that the guys at Cyber Connect 2 genuinely cared about this product and the Naruto series in general, and wanted to make the best, most comprehensive game that could possibly be made. Every character is unique and authentic to the series. Every moment is nearly perfect with what is in the show. And even the extras, which include memories completely unrequired by the main story line, are fleshed out with so much detail and care that you can’t help but think the developers at Cyber Connect 2 much be the biggest fans of the show the world has.
The worst part about the game? That most of you will say, “but it’s a Naruto game.” That, right there, is the biggest flaw the game has. People will see this as a child’s game, or as another typical anime game, and blow it off. They’ll pass it up for something more mainstream because it carries a stigma of annoyance to most people, and they’ll never get to experience this truly phenomenal game.
It’s sad, but true. Thus why I write this review. I’m not doing it so that I can simply give my opinion. I’m writing this so that I may ask everyone who is a fan of well-made games to give Ninja Storm 2 a chance, just a slight chance, and hopefully they can share that same experience that has me grinning with delight even an hour after I’ve finished playing.
I literally approached Puzzle Quest 2 with equal parts excitement and fear. No, I wasn’t afraid this new experience was going to be terrible; quite the contrary. The game scared me because I was afraid it, much like its predecessor, would break my productive will and leave me with little choice but to obey its song of oblivion, sweet and melodic, it the siren and me a hapless sailor on my pitiful boat destined to shatter upon a pile of mana jewels and skulls.
Oh how right I was.
Puzzle Quest 2 doesn’t break the formula. Everything from the first game is back and just as hungry for your soul as before, aside from the world map, which has been replaced with towns and dungeons for you to explore at your adventuring leisure. The same rules still apply here: This is Bejeweled mixed with an RPG. Instead of selecting an attack command, you match up three or more skulls on the board to deal damage. Or you can save up a reserve of mana by matching gems of the same color to use spells and abilities.
If you’ve never played Puzzle Quest, the idea sounds absurd. It’s not until you see the game in action that you realize just how brilliant it actually is. This is not a simple line-up-the-colors game. It’s a thinking man’s venue. You need to play carefully and strategically. Every gem on that board is important in some way, and if you fail to recognize that importance, the computer AI will make sure to punish you for it.
It really is quite amazing.
And Puzzle Quest 2 would have done just fine had it been nothing more than more of the same, but the developers at D3 infused their new succubus with a plethora of enhancements, many of which seem to have some inspiration drawn from games such as Diablo II.
You now have access to a vast array of weapons, potions, shields, poisons, armor and pendants. Each item boosts your character’s stats, such as defense and intelligence, and every stat helps you in some significant way during battle. Weapons are the biggest improvement to the combat from what I can tell. Now in the battlefield are fist gems, and lining up these gauntlets grants you points toward using the weapon you have equipped. All weapons are unique, and once you have the required gem count necessary for that weapon to be activated, you can use it for a solid amount of damage against your opponent.
Likewise, shields and armor help you to block against incoming attacks. The game even seems to block high-damage attacks more often, which may sound cheap, but when the AI begins its rampage of continuously lucky attacks without giving you so much as a chance to retaliate, you’ll be thankful for that defense skill.
Items can even be upgraded with materials you scrounge from battles and treasure chests. Oh, yes, there are treasure chests now, which contain different loot depending on how well you play the assigned mini game. Which is, once again, Bejeweled. But with treasure.
Bashing down a door? Play Bejeweled. Picking a lock? Match those gems!
Puzzle Quest 2 is really nothing more than the same line-up-three-or-more-objects game presented to you in a repeated fashion, but the amount of depth, strategy, and slight variations to the mix continuously create a fresh experience. It’s a Trojan horse in game form, only instead of a horse it’s disguised as one of the best puzzle games of all time, and instead of soldiers inside it’s filled with shiny objects that grasp at your attention span and cling for survival.
You will lose two, three, maybe four hours at a time to this game. You will become obsessed. You will say, “just one more battle. I swear to God, just as soon as I clear this room I will be done. Is it really 2 a.m.?” And you will love it.
This evening we watched Julie & Julia. What a wonderful movie. I suppose some individuals out there may view it as a “chick flick.” Others, who lust after the thrill of action from their cinemas, may have seen it as rather dull affair. I, however, adored it.
Not only was it an insight into the lives of Julia Child and Julie Powell, but it also provided an insight into my own life. This blog is meant to be about video games, and I stand strong to retain that theme, but I may get off topic here, to which you have my utter apologies. I do hope you’ll forgive me.
Watching Julia Child say so casually that a task would take at least two years to complete struck an unknown chord in my mind. I realize it wasn’t really Julia Child on the television screen: It was Meryl Streep (and what a fantastic job she did), but I believe that hearing any person say that would make me furrow my brow in confusion. This is not just a day-to-day affair, nor is this setting up plans for the weekend, both of which I am adequately accustomed to performing. This is, rather, a two-year-long endeavor to complete a lofty goal. An ambitious, superb goal that may or may not be successful. Whew.
There is something to be said about living your life from day to day. It provides you with less stress and less worry. Instead of contemplating what the future may bring, you simply accept the lemons life gives you and make lemonade.
Lemonade is delicious, but what if you want more than lemonade? You cannot sit around and wait for more to come to you. The day-to-day life no longer works to your advantage. You cannot aspire without proper planning, or at the very least, proper goals. Without goals, there is nothing to work toward. Life may be easier, but is it truly fulfilling?
Somehow in the course of my life, I developed this sense that any time not spent at work should instead be spent at play, which is why I so often pursue video games. Certainly I have a fascination with them - the coding, the development, the theories behind good game design - but the simple fact is that instead of being productive with my time and working toward a goal that may ultimately make me much happier in life, the easy, effortless task of gaming, the now, is far more appealing. It requires less commitment. It requires less responsibility.
It requires work. And who wants to work in their free time?
Suddenly I do.
Perhaps it’s that euphoric thrill that a good movie fills you with that is guiding my fingers as I type this, but I believe I need to take some action in my life. This blog, this Tumblr account, is a fantastic idea, but so far I’ve simply sat upon it, thinking that tomorrow, tomorrow I will get these ideas out of my head.
Why not start now? You cannot go anywhere if you refuse to move. Sitting still and taking it easy are becoming dull anyhow.
So, this just happened.
The bell dinged and a man walked into the store. Confident and cool, he made his way to the counter, placing his elbow upon it and looking up at me.
“I need a 360 wireless adapter,” he said. What a surprise, I thought. Nodding to him, I turned around and grabbed the requested item from the shelf, placing it down on the counter. “Last one,” I joked, moving to the computer to ring up his transaction.
And then he shouted. He shouted in the store. “A hundred bucks? What the hell, I’m not paying that much.” My expression of sudden confusion was met with his own of disgust. I figured, as I always do since I do so myself, that he had researched this information. I assumed that the $100 price tag was common knowledge, not a surprise. Ass out of you and me indeed.
“I’ll stay with the PS3,” he scoffed, once again his confidence showing through in his decision. I responded appropriately, asking if I could help him with any other matters and putting the product back where I got it, and then continued on with my day.
A few moments later, he appeared behind me. “You got Modern Warfare 2?” Sure, I nodded, we got that. I grabbed the PlayStation 3 copy and once again proceeded to the register to get him taken care of, but what happened next threw me for a loop. He didn’t want the PS3 version of the game. Strike two for me and assumptions today.
“I’ll get it on the 360. And I’ll take this three-month subscription card. And that wireless adapter.”
What? After that fit he threw earlier? After he shouted? Let’s get this straight: Here was a guy who refused, loudly I might add, to bow down to Microsoft’s exclusive wireless technology bullshit and stay with his PlayStation 3 system for his Internet game play needs. He was adamant, steadfast. Nothing was going to change his mind, no sir.
And yet the power of Call of Duty made him do a complete 180. I watched as his resolve crumpled faster than a paper chair under Kevin Smith. This man, who was resolute in his decision to not spend $100 on a single accessory, instead spent nearly $200 on that which he refused plus more.
What I love about working in retail is watching human psychology in action. I could almost imagine the struggle in his head: The peer pressure his friends would pummel against him, the conflict his lethargy and resilience would present against his efforts to have a wired connection strung throughout his abode. It was entertaining to say the least. I understood without knowing. I could sense his turmoil.
Yet my only response to it all was to stare blankly at him and think to myself “what the fuck?”
The world abounds with curiosities. That is, to say, things are curious. There are so many phenomena that I cannot explain, although I’m sure they have a very reasonable explanation.
Take, for example, the phenomenon I have dubbed “The Ripple Effect,” defined by some thing that is casually known about suddenly becoming highly sought after or unattainably popular. We’ve all witnessed this. Most people see the common cases, the shortages talked about, such as the Wii, or more commonly this year, the PlayStation 3. Another example is the New Super Mario Bros. and, in conjunction, Wii remotes themselves, which I entirely blame on Nintendo. Every year, a product from that infernal company is so incredibly popular that no one can get their hands on it. It’s not shortages. It’s a trickle, a planned pressure to the pipes so that the flow continues to move, product continues to sell, and interest continues to remain high. They run out on purpose, confound them.
But, that is a discussion for another time, a time in which I want to be frothing with rage.
Anyway. These situations don’t baffle me. People want a system, people buy a system. A popular model becomes increasingly popular by the vehicle of voice. That is not a phenomenon. It’s not even noteworthy any more than it is exhausting. No, what I’m referring to when I say the The Ripple Effect is a sudden interest or desire for an object that has been around for a while and had no such interest in it before.
The flow of desire moves from game to controller, controller to accessory, accessory to game, rarely with explanation. Most recently, the “hot” item has been the wireless network adapter for the XBox 360. Why now? Has Microsoft been advertising these things with a fervent intensity never before seen? We cannot keep these things on the shelf. Regardless of the insanely high price of the enabling device, people are nearly throwing their money at us to get their hands on them.
We’re talking about a product that has been on the market for over four years. It hasn’t just popped up on the scene. There it sat, for years, for the same price, unable to sell because it was too pricey or not necessary enough. The occasional gamer would purchase one because cords were infesting his house and his interest in winning that war had been heightened, but most people blew it off. Now we can’t sell them fast enough.
It’s this sudden resurgence in popularity that baffles me, as if people just now discovered they existed. The last four years never happened. “The 360 has a wireless adapter? Sweet. I’mma get me one ‘a them.” You could have had one four years ago. Wireless bliss could have been yours. I would say “welcome to the party” in a sarcastic tone, indicating with my wit that the party had already dissipated and you, slowpoke, were left by your lonesome, pointing and laughing at you with my words and not with my actual fingers or voice, but it hasn’t. You’ve arrived at just the right time. Apparently.
I wonder if Microsoft is just as confused as I am.
Sometimes it’s a matter of perception, such at the recent Ripple Effect with Mini Coopers. Never in my life have I seen so many four-wheeled scooters on the road as I do right now. I literally cannot go a day without seeing one, where before it would be months before I would say, with surprise, “oh. Look. A Mini.” They are everywhere, almost torturous in their presence, like giant sentient roller skates stalking you from afar, and a part of me questions if they were always there, my eyes oblivious to them, or if Mini dealers are suddenly rolling in the sales.
Maybe a little of both. I never made it a point to keep a mental log of the number of Mini Coopers infiltrating the roadways. In retail, though, you know. You work nearly every day, and even though you don’t purposefully keep track of stock and popularity in every product, you know something’s up when five people come to you in a two-hour span asking about a wireless adapter as if it’s the lost treasure of El Dorado. You begin to question things.
As each subsequent person pesters you about the same product, you start to wonder if you’ve missed something. The Awesome Train has boarded, and guess what? You missed the whistle.
The reality is that there is probably a perfectly good explanation to all these events being intertwined, causing the cascade of curiosities to collide, and I suppose if I dug deeper I might uncover these truths, but instead I prefer to be entertained by them. I delight in the unknown, acting irritated by it’s happenings, but secretly laughing inside and developing conspiracy theories to explain it all.
Your 360 is sending you subliminal advertising messages and you must go buy a 360 wireless internet adapter. Fact*.
*totally not a fact
Sit down. Let me tell you a wonderful story.
One day, a small creature named Juni received a letter. The letter told her of a once beautiful land suddenly changed into a lifeless wasteland by a terrible machine built to absorb life. Reading of this tragedy, Juni left her home in search of the machine. She traveled to gusty plains. She ventured into dark caves illuminated by tall, bright lamp posts. She explored cramped mechanical corridors surrounded by creatures of the sea.
Eventually, Juni came upon the machine, menacing and dark. She turned it off. Click. And like that, the hum of the machine ended and life slowly returned to the landscape. The hills were beautiful once again.
Of course, you’d know this story if you had played Knytt Stories. But you haven’t, have you?
Knytt Stories is an independently developed freeware PC game by Nifflas, a.k.a. Nicklas Nygren, that is more a work of art than it is a game. It functions as all games should, with tight controls, precise platforming and challenging landscapes to traverse, but where it truly excels is in its atmosphere.
Within the world of The Machine, the standard game packaged with Knytt Stories, you’ll discover all the areas mentioned earlier, and part of what makes this game such an experience is discovering the love and dedication put into creating this small world. There are animals that romp in the fields, posing no threat to you. They exist merely because they should, as most animals do. Wind blows with a quiet howl, tossing blades of grass through the air. Insects stir as you run past and waterfalls churn with a melodic babble.
Playing through Knytt Stories isn’t about the challenge, it’s about the delight you feel as you explore scene after scene of intricately designed sections, sometimes devoted to nothing more than the scenery itself. Often you’ll run through several screens of empty caverns or lifeless fields, but they are there for a reason. They exist to stir emotion in you, or to sometimes show how the world can change.
Some people may take a look at the game and become confused, conflicted. “Neon,” they say, “those graphics look blocky and simplistic. How can such primitive visuals evoke the emotions you speak of?”
They do. And this is why I write this article. Knytt Stories is a game that is and isn’t about its visual aspects. Though the composition of the graphics are simple in nature, the way they are used in combination with the sounds and fantastic music creates an atmosphere I have rarely seen achieved. You feel a sense of wonder as you wander. The base feels familiar while the variation keeps you fascinated.
As you explore, soothing and perfectly crafted music fits the atmosphere. It isn’t jarring, nor is it loud or repetitive. The music, just like everything else in this game, exists to further develop the world in which Juni lives, not detract from it.
I cannot speak highly enough about this game. If I wanted, I could go on about its greatness. I could write about how the game comes with a custom level editor. I could talk about how players can download new stories to try out that others have made. These are important features and shouldn’t be omitted, but they are not what I feel make this game an experience.
Playing Knytt Stories is an adventure. It leads you around with a golden carrot on a stick, and you happily chase, soon enough forgetting that the carrot even exists. It is a game that, for me, sets a standard for what professional game developers should strive to achieve. No, I do not believe that every game needs to be artistic or thought-provoking, but I do believe that if you are going to create a world for the player to explore, it should feel like exploration instead of a standard.
Games give us the ability to create fascinating places we couldn’t experience otherwise, and Knytt Stories embraces that, adding life to what would otherwise be pixels on a screen.
Go. Play it now. It’s free. You have nothing to lose.
Let’s discuss the reason I’m here, shall we? This will be fun.
My ultimate goal is to become a better writer.
Scratch that. My ultimate goal is to become a video game reviewer. My short-term goal is to become a better writer.
Improving the ability to write, like any skill, takes practice, determination and critique. This I believe. I also believe that an innate talent in a particular field of interest is bull hockey. Talent is imaginary. It’s an excuse for not trying hard enough. Certainly someone may be raised to have a pronounced interest in one subject more so than another, but to be popped out of a vagina with the marvelous ability to draw, write, compose music or perform any other skill with little-to-no practice reeks of fantasy to me.
No, developing an ability takes time and effort, success and failure. Where one person may become frustrated with their output, another may see their lesser work as a stepping stone toward a greater achievement. Those are the people who become good at what they do. Those are the people with skill, not talent. They earned it.
Laziness can also affect progress, which has been much of my problem in the past. I aim to rectify this. Like I’m doing now. I’m rectifying.
In order to achieve my short-term goal, I plan to write reviews on games I take an interest in, regardless of whether that interest is positive or negative. A good friend asked me once to write two reviews for him: one based on a game I loved and the other on a game I disliked.
I realized I couldn’t do it. I tried. While it’s easy to remember the games you adore, how often do you force yourself to play through a game you hate? Could you sit there, disgusted and aggravated, and push forward through the majority of the experience? Game reviewers have to do this on a regular basis, bless their hearts. How else would we know which games are gems among the stars and which are grotesque abominations of the digital entertainment world? Reviewers wade through the poop so we don’t have to.
Which, of course, means I’ll have to do the same. I’ll have to purposefully pick a game, a terrible, awful game, and play it, complete it, and then give my thoughts on it. I imagine the experience will leave me traumatized. That abysmal game will leave me scarred for life and possibly a bit hostile. But scars are cool, right? Scars are tough. People with scars have been through some shit, and the results are regularly admired, though the shit itself is often feared.
This is how experience is gained. Developing a skill is never an easy road. It’s challenging, time consuming and tasking. You need to have determination and the will to succeed, both of which I lack. Severely, and I’d much rather sit on my rear and waste my time doing nothing constructive at all, imagining that one day all my dreams will come true. But they won’t. Not unless I attempt to work for them, which will be my greatest hurdle. I’m not scared of the writing, oh no. I’m scared of my laziness.
But, as a great fortune cookie once told me, “success is a journey, not a destination.” That was the smartest cookie I ever met.
Hello, Tumblr.
I have some words to say. Not right now, no, but later. Later there will be words. That’s why I created this blog. To say words, and trust me, those words will be awesome.
For now, let’s get the formalities out of the way. This is my spot on Tumblr. I claim it as my own. If I could hike my leg and pee on a virtual asset, I would, just to prove it to you. But I can’t do that. That would be silly.
Instead, I’ll say that I am a new writer. Sure, I’ve written in school, and obviously I’ve written in other blogs, but this time will be different. This time I plan to write reviews and thought-provoking articles, but in a way that is my own, to make my mark, however small that may be, on the internet society, so that one day in the future, archaeologists will use those little brushes they have and dust the grains of earth off a tablet that contains my words, because some idiot decided to print the entirety of the world’s web blogs onto millions of feet of marble, just because they could.
Yeah, it’ll happen. Like a memorial or something. And everyone will stare at it and shake their heads and say “what was he thinking? He could have used that money to cure cancer.”
