Review: Journey (PS3)

I used to persistently need the latest video games simply because I was driven to have the new thing.  Now, I'm content to wait months, even years after a game's release to pick it up, knowing I'll pay significantly less for it.  Despite this, I stay up to the minute on the ongoings of the game industry and see a renewed value in playing games upon release that have significant online integration or a collective sociocultural metagame.  The third-person wandering/jumping simulator, Journey, is one of those critical zeitgeist titles that not only has everyone playing, but also musing about.  In what has become a rare case for me, I actually got to spend a decent amount of time with a truly contemporary game; enough to play it through more than once and watch other people play as well.  It's a special game that strengthens and validates my convictions toward games as an artistic medium.

Journey is thatgamecompany's third PS3 game, and also their best.  You play as a robed figure with a glyph-laden scarf which determines how high you can jump based on its length.  The measure of your scarf can be increased by finding hidden glowy things throughout the world.  Other than that, the basic task is to explore the sand-covered landscape, traversing platforms toward a shining mountain top that seems many miles away.  If online, sometimes another human player will join your game and play along, but you don't have to stay together if you don't want to.  There are a few pitfalls and some light puzzle solving, but the bulk of what makes Journey special is what it does with this seemingly bare-bones design.

The easiest parallel between Journey and works from a different creative medium is film.  I can't think of another title that has executed cinematic gameplay to such a loyal extent as Journey.  Given 2011's proclivity towards silent film, the comparisons are all the easier.  Journey contains no dialogue, just chirp tones that can be used for communicating with an anonymous online partner.  Much like Melie's fantastical works, thatgamecompany created a world of constant visual wonderment: a cinematographer's utopia.  You have control over the camera most of the time, but at key moments the game takes over.  This could be to show a particular action sequence from a flattering angle where the sunlight optimally beams through archways making your sandy path glisten, or to frame the mountain top that serves a your destination in a way that makes it seem ever-distant.  The game's duration is on par with a typical full-length feature, making replays feel like rewatching a beloved film out of your home video collection.  You know how the plot goes, but it's exciting when your favorite scenes pop up again.

The multiplayer component of Journey seems like the kind of mechanic that would be at odds with this cinematic flair, but it actually supports it.  Because players' interactions are so limited, there's no way to grief your partner that will ruin their experience.  You could chirp a lot, which would be strange, but there's even a stage in the game where that ability is all but shuttered.  At worst you could attempt to leave the other player in the dust or simply disable the online feature.  At best you make your way through Journey and complete it as a twosome.  There's something to be said for playing Journey solo.  It's a solemn, contemplative experience: quiet and a little sad.  As a pair, there are plenty of scenarios that, ironically, I can best describe as dialogues:

"Wait up."
"OK, I'll stay here."

"Let's do this."
"I'm ready."

"This is crazy!"
"I know!"

"Where did you go?"
"Over here.  Coast is clear."

"Hello?"
"..."

"There's something down there."
"Follow me."

"Oh man, this is it."
"Let's go together."

The way in which I generated theses words in my mind is akin to writing speaking parts for characters in a painting.  Imagine Seurat's Sunday Afternoon where you get to play as the pet monkey.  If only a phoenix made of ribbons would emerge out of the water.  The point is that Journey stirs your imagination, during play, to fill in the gaps it purposefully creates with its minimalist approach.  I haven't played another game that does that.  You build a relationship with the other character making completion of the game's trails more emotionally resonant than the solo experience.

I've noticed a number of critics not just reviewing the game, but recounting their playthrough(s) of Journey, as if there's significant variation in the stories to tell.  I mean, how different could they be from mine?  It's not like Journey has MMO levels of complexity to its online interactions and player agency, yet people are compelled to spin their personal tales.  I only refrained myself because I've seen so many other writers touch on the subject, and people are saying rather similar things.  Surely this is an intended outcome of the game's design, making the player feel like they've taken on some sort of trek, albeit virtual, that had them invested enough in the game world to empathize and identify with the characters.  Are some players just being sentimental or is Journey designed to evoke sentimentality from those willing to participate in the silent melodrama?  For me, it's the latter.

Part of what makes Journey open to these types of responses is that it limits the number of technical hiccups that could possibly break the mood, shifting the focus on the characters literal forward progress.  The action moves with a serene fluidity, allowing you to build momentum and glide along with an exaggerated tangibility that feels just superhuman enough.  My main gripe with thatgamecompany's previous title, Flower, was how much time I spent missing my targets and having to stop and slowly turn around, with only the Sixaxis controls at my disposal.  With Journey, not only are motion controls optional, but when speeds do ramp up you can simply enjoy engaging with the slope instead of having to meet some objective all the while.  The resulting achievement is that moment-to-moment gameplay in Journey maintains a consistency in your character's relationship to the world and keeps players' attentions focused on those interactions.

At the end of Journey, the game tells you the usernames of the actual humans you played with, which is the right amount of metadata to allow into this game, and presented at the right time.  It's as if the game knows you could be about to disconnect with its world, and pulls you in one last time to say, "Yes, you just finished a video game, but something real happened here."  My reaction to this was to press "start" and do it all again.

Review: Kirby's Epic Yarn (Wii)

So, I was just about to head to the fabric store when I got a message from my friend Zeke; he said he wanted to come over to my place and hangout.  I briefly popped in at the fabric shop and picked up some new patterns before taking the short walk to my apartment.  When I got there, Zeke flew in, paid some compliments to my interior decoration and then pleasantly milled about the space.  I decided this would be a great photo opportunity seeing as I just reupholstered my couch and carefully balanced a trio of pizzas on top of the piano.  I snapped the picture which I suppose I could've kept forever, stored somewhere on the Wii's internal memory.  These Animal Crossing-like circumstances are actually just an aside to the main quest in Kirby's Epic Yarn, but ones that allowed me to literally invest in the game world (with fake in-game currency, mind you).

Kirby's 2010 adventure transports Nintendo's pink cream puff to an enthreaded world of fabric, seams, and buttons.  Instead of inhaling enemies and stealing their abilities, Kirby has a lasso that he can use to unravel his foes.  The lasso is a multifunctional tool that is also used to traverse across the patchwork 2D levels, swinging from buttons, pulling open zippered compartments, and ripping off tabs to reveal hidden items.  The world plays like an exquisitely designed playground.  Individual levels offer a breezy play-space where the largest penalty is having to regather collectible beads strewn around you after getting hit or falling down a hole.  There's something very Montessori about the whole experience.

Accordingly, Epic Yarn has a very kid-friendly visual style that probably makes it appealing to the early childhood set, but shouldn't dissuade adult players from diving in too.  I prefer to think of the game not as "for kids" but rather of a childlike aesthetic akin to a Michel Gondry video.  If the gameplay fell into the overly simplistic and repetitive realm of something like Dora the Explorer where characters pedantically beat mechanics and clues into you until you can recite them backwards and in Spanish, then there wouldn't be anything to vouch for in Epic Yarn on behalf of adults.  Thankfully, this is definitely not the case.  There is challenge in this game, though it is by no means "hard," and most of the trickier parts are optional.  The ease with which Kirby's Epic Yarn opens the world to your availability is one of its greatest assets.

The amount of time I have available for playing games is nowhere near where it used to be, and somehow this "kids" game really understands and accommodates that.  The game's levels are built on a hub system quite similar to Kirby's Adventure (a franchise favorite of mine), allowing you to pop in and run through in short bursts.  The collectibles and medal awards make for impulse retries if you miss something the first time around.  Achieving gold medals and completing side quest challenges are not necessary to progress in the game, but exist for the player seeking to maximize value out of it.  This material is not padding though; individual challenges, issued by tenants of Kirby's apartment building, are clever puzzles that offer something for the player wary of a game without death states.  Tasks like carrying ball-shaped creatures from one end of a level to another within a time limit push you to engage with individual mechanics from the main game in unique scenarios that showcase just how smoothly even the tiniest details have been executed.  The cherry on top is the super friendly UI that lets you hop around the hub world with ease and bring in a 2nd player at the beginning of any level.

Speaking of the co-op player, let's just take a moment to give new character Prince Fluff his due.  My understanding is that this game was originally being developed as a new IP, but creators were made to transform it into a Kirby game.  Nothing against the pink cream puff, but Prince Fluff is really an awesome character design; he's basically a blue, playfully peeved-looking version of Kirby with a sweet crown on his head.  Even though I played through almost all of this game solo, Fluff's existence strongly incentivised me to give co-op a fair shake.  Playing Epic Yarn with another person is probably the ideal way to go since it changes some of Kirby's super powers in interesting ways and means Prince Fluff is always hanging around.

Despite my enthusiasm for this new character, I was surprised by how much Kirby fan service actually resonated with me.  The game makes callbacks to its franchise history effortlessly, peppering recognizable enemies, music, and items throughout (moreso in the final stretch), in a way that co-opts them into Epic Yarn's world rather than relying on nostalgic winks and nods.  Yes there's a cyclops lightning cloud at some point, but it's presented in a matter-of-fact way.  There is a rich world here with some historical backstory probably, but not in a way that's important to enjoying the core gameplay or following the narrative.  This nonchalance made me care about the realm of Dreamland even more since it allowed me to become invested in it through playing instead of being shown outright that I'm supposed to care.

Nintendo has increasingly used Kirby as an outlet to experiment with some out-there, ingenious game mechanics, and Kirby's Epic Yarn is yet another successful turn for the amoebic mascot.  The only disservice of that statement is that it makes the game sound like a bit of an test subject: an interesting concept awaiting implementation in a "full title" somewhere down the line.  Kirby's Epic Yarn is a fully realized vision; the trial and error has been worked out prior.  I have no disclaimers, no excuses, and no reservations about recommending anyone with a Wii play this game.  It's simply one of the most consistently satisfying games of recent memory.

Behold! The Art of Video Games

This past weekend the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) opened The Art of Video Games: a history-spanning account of the life of the medium.  It's a big coming out party for games-as-art champions who get to see the games they love stand in the limelight on a national stage.  The show was put together with great care and respect by guest curator Chris Melissinos, but perhaps the most significant thing about The Art of Video Games is that it exists at all.

The title of the exhibition is so purely descriptive it seems like it should be the subtitle to something written in leetspeak.  I imagine the reasons for such a bland header are multifold.  There's a wide audience of museum goers who know nothing about games and the straightforward title lets them know what they're in for.  It plays it safe, which could be used as a descriptor of the entire show.  It isn't surprising that SAAM would want to avoid controversy, especially in the wake of the hot water their housemate, the National Portrait Gallery, found themselves in with their Hide/Seek exhibition.  Also, the Smithsonian can be a stuffy place, and The Art of Video Games is a sign of goodwill on the part of games advocates who are willing to keep the crazy in the box in exchange for a solid dose of recognition.

3-channel video showing gamers' faces as they play

The exhibition consists of three rooms: a "visual art of games" display, a hands-on arcade space, and an archival console timeline.  Aside from the hilarious video footage of gamers' faces as they play, the initial room seems geared towards showing the visual appeal and traditional craft of game aesthetics.  Concept art and storyboards are installed salon-style, and a 5-channel display shows the graphical leaps in video games hardware over the past few decades.  I imagine the first room gives non-gamers something to latch onto that's a bit more familiar for an art museum.

Moving forward, visitors enter a wide open space with a handful of large projected games to play, each contained within a giant half-cylinder "arcade cabinet."  The whole room is aglow in purple, blue, and black stenciled lights, offering an aesthetic that's very roller rink/lazer tag arena.  During the opening weekend there were lines for the multi-generationally recognizable Pac-Man and Super Mario Bros.  People were playing Myst and The Secret of Monkey Island too, but the nature of those adventure titles made them more suitable for a less crowded setting.  Along with Flower, these are the only playable games in the exhibition.

A giant playable version of the original Pac-Man

The third space, the console timeline, seems like the centerpiece of the show.  In this room, again bathed in purple, vertical structures display video game consoles individually behind glass and pair them with four games each.  The games are divided evenly into Action, Target, Adventure, and Tactics categories, offering a better glance at genre evolutions than necessarily the best or most important games on a particular system.  Each tower has a button per game that plays a video with voiceover describing why the game is of significance and additional contextual details.  Unfortunately, some of the game selections feel like an unnecessary stretch to prove their worth.  The video for TRON: Maze-Atron even admits that the game wasn't very good, yet, here it is.  It may have been a noble effort to democratize the selection process, but it's difficult to see that as a plus given some of the resulting picks; I'm looking at you Worms Armageddon.

It's frustrating to see an exhibition of video games both spread itself too thin and miss essential pieces at the same time, but The Art of Video Games does just that.  Everyone could have their list of impossible-to-satisfy omissions, but I find it hard to stand behind the absence of all fighting games and, by extension, arcades.  On the other end of the spectrum, the broad survey of games is rooted in understanding chronological history more than communicating a clear argument for why we should view games as artworks.  Perhaps "games are art" is the inherent assumption, given the context of the exhibition in an art museum, but I was hoping for a little more intellectual rumination on the subject.

Video game history on display in chronological order

I love video games, but I realize this show is only partially meant for me.  I don't go into an art exhibition expecting to adore every piece, but I do need to find resonance in the core conceits of the artists and curators who bring everything together.  This is a sentiment that The Art of Video Games ultimately achieves.   Melissinos has painted a history of games that may not be a mirror reflection of actual events, but it is a narrative that makes sense, and is actually digestible.  The show is a foot in the door for the medium that will hopefully lead to increasingly daring efforts in the future.

The opening of The Art of Video Games was supplemented by talks and panel discussions as part of Gamefest, covered here previously.

Recap: Gamefest Day 2

Opening this weekend at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) is the Art of Video Games exhibition, curated by Chris Melissinos.  I'll be taking a deeper look at the show itself soon, but in the meantime, SAAM has been putting on a series of events they're calling Gamefest that lasts all weekend.  For Saturday this consisted of a couple lectures, live music and games, and a film screening (The King of Kong).  I'll focus on the two auditorium discussions of the day.

A Conversation with Hideo Kojima

I wasn't able to physically attend this talk since tickets were claimed in advance and the line that showed up for standby was pretty huge.  Luckily it's available to view online, which is the version I'll just briefly touch on.

I don't think "conversation" was really the correct term to describe the Kojima event, since it was really just the Japanese developer answering Melissinos' questions through a translator for an hour.  It's difficult to overcome language barriers in these kinds of situations, and as such, it's best to go into a talk like this with metered expectations.   Still, it's cool to see Hideo Kojima in person.  I love his games and his sense of style.

Topics ranged from original inspirations, to qualities of great game designers, to the difference between games and films.  There was nothing super surprising, especially for audience members who've been following Kojima and/or Metal Gear for a long time.  He wouldn't reveal anything about his next projects except to say that he's working on "something," and that the player will be more in control of the narrative pacing in contrast to the Metal Gear Solid series.  

There was no mention of Transfarring.

It’s All in the Design with Robin Hunicke

Indie studio thatgamecompany has been enjoying quite a bit of limelight at the Art of Video Games.  Producer Robin Hunicke is a producer who worked on their latest title, Journey.  Before that she was with EA for Sims 2, My Sims, and Boom Blox.  She spoke about what she sees as the core mechanics of game design, and how those points apply to people lives outside of games.

Hunicke broke her design goals down into 4 categories: Exploration, Expression, Experimentation, and Experience.  She related these to various points in her game development career, making sure to note how not only are these goals for what a game should play like, but also how the development process should operate.  She sees great leadership coming from someone who acts as a "force multiplier."  This would be an individual who knows how to ask the right questions of their team, and trusts them to answer those questions by doing great work.  The leader can't be an overlord.  She recognized Steven Spielberg, the create force behind Boom Blox, as an individual who is a master of this force multiplier technique.

Knowing that her 4 design goals make for a satisfying work environment, it makes sense that creating content that performs extraordinarily in those categories would make for rewarding game experiences.  They aren't just game experiences though, since game experiences are increasingly part of our life experiences.  It makes sense to make the two more successfully intertwine, meaning individuals can aspire to better meet those design goals n both virtual and real-world fronts.

Development on Journey was also discussed in the context of the 4 design goals.  Hunicke explained that the team had at one point built a variety of puzzles that required the two people playing the game to work together; think ladder lowering, dual switch pressing, and the like.  This was found to be incredibly stifling to the openness of the design concept and was ultimately scrapped.  It felt too much like you're completing a test instead of actually playing around in the world.  Those 4 design goals are really 4 different factors of play that, once combined, can make for an immersive experience.

Recap: Gamefest Day 1

Opening this weekend at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) is the Art of Video Games exhibition, curated by Chris Melissinos.  I'll be taking a deeper look at the show itself soon, but in the meantime, SAAM has been putting on a series of events they're calling Gamefest that lasts all weekend.  For Friday this consisted of a couple panel discussions, a lecture, and a film screening (TRON).  I was able to attend all of the talky-talk events.

The Evolution of Video Games: Pioneers
Panelists (left to right): Chris Melissinos, Mike Mika, Keith Robinson, Rand Miller, and Don Daglow

First up to bat was a series of industry vets who weren't above swapping a few war stories, but offer plenty of first-hand knowledge from the dawn of the medium.  Honestly though, the pre-crash era of games is the one I'm least familiar with, so I was happy to hear about the processing power equivalents of walking 13 miles to school in the snow.  I had no idea that games were being programmed prior to the notion of the live monitor interface.  They printed out on paper!  That might have been the most stirring factoid I heard all day.

Much discussion was framed around the forward evolutions in console generations, and how new sets of constraints are introduced in each cycle.  Daglow made the association that when a new piece of hardware was introduced, it was as if someone turned off the lights in your living room, rearranged all the furniture, and left you to feel around for familiar textures.  All of the panelists echoed the notion that design constraints imposed by limited hardware may have presented significant challenges, but ultimately they were a boon to focusing creativity and keeping their minds from running totally wild.

Mika parleyed these sentiments into discussing the challenges of true emulation and homage, specifically citing his work on faux NES title Dark Void Zero.  I couldn't help but think about certain rock bands who only play with vintage gear to achieve specific classic sounds.  Others mentioned how the lack of modern paddle controls makes it very difficult for new players to understand what made a game like Warlords so much fun.

The discussion was moderated by exhibition curator Chris Melissinos who retained a positively giddy tone throughout.  He was eager to share entertaining, personal stories from his own life in between panelist prompts.  The tone of the conversations were mostly feel-good, without the usual disdain for nostalgia that accompanies art criticism.  This wasn't really the venue for that anyway.  The Pioneers group shed light on some intriguing moments in history and successfully drew parallels between the industry issues of 40 years ago and those of today.

The Evolution of Video Games: The Future
Panelists (left to right): Chris Melissinos, Mark DeLoura, Paul Barnett, Ken Levine, and Kellee Santiago

While the Pioneers panel focused on how we got to the present, the Future panel was filled with speculation about where we go next and attempts to define where in fact we currently are.  As a result there was actually some debate among the group.

Discussion sparked when Barnett suggested the idea of individualized "golden ages" for gamers.  The basic idea is that there's a range of years in your life when you are most absorbed in playing games, and most susceptible to that saturation having a significant role in your development as a person.  I don't know if that's true across the board, but definitively within certain genres and franchises.  Is there really a need to play any version of Mario Kart other than the one you originally fell in love with?  Maybe, but I doubt you'll like it as much.  Santiago argued that the increased diversity in the gaming community has led plenty of individuals to discover and understand games in more varied stages of life.

Diversity was actually a point of commonality among the panel; diversity among developer personnel, styles of games, funding models, audiences, and more.  One question from the audience spoke ill of "pretentious indie games" which Santiago later jokingly admitted to producing.  After a string of don't-like-it-don't-play-it responses, Levine smartly piped up and reassured the audience member that developers pull from a wide variety of games and other media for inspiration, and that it's likely that "hardcore game" (my quotation marks, not Levine's) developers will play something like Dear Esther and incorporate and translate some of those ideas into their future titles.  On the subject of borrowing ideas from other people's work, Barnett chimed in with a Monty Python quote for inspiration that went something like "All of my best ideas are bad ideas that someone misheard and made a good idea from."

Likewise with the notions of teamwork, sharing, and open communication being key elements of a successful development studio being touted, only DeLoura sidled with the remark that there's something significant and worthwhile to the singular vision of an artist, seen through from beginning to end.  As an artist, I was personally glad someone on the panel expressed that sentiment.  I'm all for teamwork, but for certain projects there are people who need to control everything in service of a perspective that only they can offer.  DeLoura offered Jonathan Blow's Braid as an example.

I thought we might be treated to more talk about the hot-off-the-presses Journey or the looming Bioshock Infinite, but a lot of the concepts being touched on were more "big picture" items.  This was for the best since it kept the discussions driven in directions that all of the panelists could contribute their expertise to.  I left the panel feeling like I'd actually seen some genuine intellectual discussion happen, which is what I was hoping for.  I've watched video of Levine speaking at GDC about the potential for narrative in games and read Santiago's writing about thatgamecompany's aspirations, so I went in with high hopes, which were mostly fulfilled.

Nolan Bushnell: Video Games in Retrospect

Having never seen Bushnell speak in person before, I only had the title of his lecture to draw from.  Would this be an encyclopedic history lesson?  An intimate trip down memory lane?  Turns out it was a little of both with generous helpings of kookiness and comic relief, and a general sense of wide-eyed amazement at what new generations of game makers are creating based on frameworks he helped invent.

Much like the Pioneers panel, there were some look-how-big-computers-were stuff, but I was most interested in Bushnell the businessman since he came off as particularly shrewd.  He pointed out that his company, Atari, had developed Pong, but that game had been ripped off by so many other companies that the majority of Pong machines weren't actually sold by Atari.  They counteracted this by faking the labels on the boards that they manufactured so that when competitors would look at them for copies, they'd end up putting things in the wrong places, and the boards wouldn't work at all.  They supposedly drove most all of their non-conglomerate copycats out of business with this strategy.

That's the other thing about Bushnell: he likes legendary stories, and he's certainly billed as one.  Are some of these stories myths?  We have to take his word for it I suppose, since at least the results of his endeavors are on record as facts.  I hadn't questioned anything until he mentioned the ET cartridge debacle and rumor of a desert burial repository for the unwanted titles.  I always had fun telling that story to non-gamer friends, but I don't know that I really believed it was anything but a tall tale.  On the other hand, Bushnell freely admits they had to sell Atari-Japan to Namco due to defying numerous rules and regulations out of ignorance of the country's bylaws, so why not just hop on for the ride if he's willing to go that far.

The talk wrapped up with a "ref" from Twin Galaxies and high-score king Billy Mitchell trotting out a giant video game trading card of Bushnell as an honorary award.  There was a chumminess between them and a heartfelt recognition that having an exhibition of video games in a national art museum is a truly significant step for the form.  They seemed to relish it so much that they burned right through Q/A time, which meant it dragged a bit, but in the context of this symbolic achievement, I understand wanting to hold onto that moment as long as possible.

Review: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (WiiVC/SNES)

Should we review old games as artifacts or in the same light as their contemporary brethren?  Even if a new title is released with decidedly retro stylings, does its position upon release matter more than any time in the future?  The relevancy of art often fluctuates based on where a society or individual is in their lifespan at a given point in time.  I wonder how people 10 years from now will view retro-styled games produced in 2010, 2011, or 2012.  Will they be seen as artifacts the same way as games from the 1980s, or has this pixel-art fetishism somehow put things on an even keel?

I've now played every console Legend of Zelda game with the exception of Skyward Sword.  Most recently I took my maiden voyage through the oft lauded SNES entry: A Link to the Past.  It's impossible to view this game in a vacuum where I can unremember collecting the Triforce some 7 times prior.  Yet it's also unrealistic to expect this game to be iteratively better than say, Twilight Princess.  Considering these factors and most of all my general adoration for the Zelda franchise, I was still truly stunned to find myself in an early dungeon of LttP almost totally lacking the desire to continue forward.  Ultimately I did push on, partly due to my self-inflicted charge to finish games that I purchase, but also because I possessed optimism that this version of Hyrule could grow on me.

LttP is the template for almost every Zelda game that has followed it.  I had assumed that these precursory duties belonged to N64 showpiece Ocarina of Time, but now understand that game more for what it did to change how the series' core mechanics were implemented.  The structure of the Zelda game and its modern tropes fall square on LttP's shoulders.  Master Sword?  Check.  Parallel worlds?  Check.  Spin attack?  Check.  Some of these traits are more integral than others, but my point is to illustrate how far-reaching and specific LttP's role as a mold for the franchise was and how difficult it is to play in 2012 as anything other than a piece of history.

In light of Nintendo's recent bend of pedantic in-game instructions for how to use Wii controls, it's refreshing to play a Zelda game that hearkens back to simpler times when you could press "start," enter a cave, pick up a sword and begin an adventure.  A pitfall of this strategy is that it requires a high level of preconceived curiosity and exploratory desire on the part of the player that is more difficult to achieve when the world is somewhat familiar and lacking the visual "awe" factor that usually accompanies these flagship titles at initial release.  Additionally LttP offers a decent amount of player choice, which is always neat to see in older games, but once again this relies heavily on your own initiative since the game merely suggests where to try next, rarely narrowing where you can actually explore.

Put in perspective of the whole Zelda bloodline, LttP feels the most unique in its dungeon layouts.  You know the drill when it comes to the objective list in a given dungeon: fight enemies, locate map and compass, unlock doors, pull switches, discover special item, and defeat the boss.  However, the physical blueprints for these levels use verticality to add a dimension that was not a part of previous 2D Zeldas (I can't speak to DS entries).  This is implemented in individual spaces with ladders and staircases that lead to higher ledges and walkways, but also on a more macro level with the dungeons being multiple stories high.  In a single room this changes the way you approach enemies, perhaps prompting you to remain on higher ground, hurling pots at enemies below instead of jumping down into a sword fight.  Considering the entire dungeon as a puzzle, some rooms are placed directly above others, encouraging you to blow holes in the floor to gain access to depths otherwise unreachable.  This puzzle design sensibility has been carried into the polygonal Zeldas out of necessity to make a compelling three-dimensional experience.  In LttP the verticality feels truly innovative; it's version of Hyrule might not be "round," but it's definitely more than just a flat surface.

I began to approach sitting down to play more LttP similarly to filling out a Sudoku, as it required me to be in the mood for solving that particular brand of puzzle.  I feel a little bad constantly conjuring up references to other Zelda games in this review, but how else can a game like this be evaluated in 2012?  It's a franchise so staunchly rooted in its formula that it would almost be like writing a Madden review that doesn't acknowledge the previous year's game's existence.  Often with Zelda games, style differentiation is enough to warrant giving each entry a try.  Nintendo consistently trots out top-notch art direction no matter how underpowered the hardware they work with may be.  Perhaps Zelda games really are meant to be played exclusively around the time they originally come to market.  This allows enough time between doses to build the demand for a new version, while the visual changes make things appear just different enough to distinguish it from the last one.

On the other hand LttP is still a game worth playing on its own merits, as many of my gripes are personal in nature.  Uncovering the original appearances of so many Zelda standbys was a pleasant surprise.  The overall difficulty was spot on.  There's little more thrilling in an action sequence than besting a powerful foe by the skin of your teeth, which LttP offered more than a couple times.  I wouldn't say the game ever really got its hooks in me, but it came closest with its brainteasingly tricky puzzles.  I faulted LttP's early game for asking the player to bring too much curiosity to the table, but once I began accomplishing the games tasks, their occasionally harrowing nature had me intrigued enough that I was eager to see what else those clever Nintendo developers had up their sleeves.

Completing Twilight Princess granted me with a cautious optimism for the future of my beloved franchise, but A Link to the Past has left me with a sense of acceptance that Zelda is what Zelda is.  What it is is something pretty grand though.  It may be built around a formulaic structure, but it's a system that works.  My only fear is a personal one: that I've exasperated this series' magical hold on me.  Though, since I've laid out that I think these games are optimally played when they're most current, I suppose I should withhold judgment until reporting back post-Skyward Sword.  The fact that I'd even seek to play more Zelda after this must count for something, right?

Review: Not Tetris 2 (Mac)

Tetris has changed, apparently. There are so many versions of the seminal block puzzle title that small variations can make all the difference in selecting which one to play. I have spent my time with Tetris almost exclusively on the NES and Game Boy, and have been surprised at how difficult it is for me to accept how the game controls on other platforms. I gave the recent PSN iteration a spin only to find the change in what the up and down buttons do quite debilitating. I like to think I'm pretty good at Tetris, but faced with the option of reeducating my synapses, I've decided to stick with what I know.

This revelation has left my desires for fresh takes on the Tetris formula to come from games that diverge significantly from the original structure (Tetrisphere, Tetris Attack, etc).  This way I wouldn't have to overwrite any of those twitch instincts I've have developed over the years.  This must be the sort of thing that drives the hardcore fighting game community crazy as their prized title gets tweaked in successive sequels and updates.  I own a copy of Street Fighter: Anniversary Collection which allows you to select 5 versions of Street Fighter II Chun Li's.  To the uninitiated, it's confounding.

In no way did I expect Not Tetris 2 (NT2) to tie into any of these issues, because it appeared to be more of a mildly amusing gag than a real game.  NT2 is visually the Game Boy version of Tetris, monochrome design and all, but with a physics-based play structure.  It's pretty amusing to have pieces capable of 360 degree rotation, bouncing and spinning off one another, and ultimately building an unfixable mess that fills up the entire space.  When I first began playing NT2, it was just that; actually playing well seemed not only impossible, but against the tongue-in-cheek spirit of the game.

But I kept playing it.

The goal shifted from simply figuring our how to play NT2 to how achieve a higher score.  This is something that in the long term, my old Tetris games never truly provided because they're lacking an internal battery to retain leaderboards.  I developed various strategies to best tackle NT2.  Firstly you have to approach block stacking with greater patience and care than classic Tetris because of the delicate rotational balancing required to place pieces in specific crevices.  You can press a piece up against the side wall to get it in a "right angle" position, which is helpful to maximize your early game before things get messy.  If you've got a decent pile built up at the bottom, I found that holding the "down" button as you place new pieces will slam them with extra force that can occasionally trigger a line clear somewhere below (line clears are based on horizontal block density).

I could continue divulging my strategies, but I should note that I reached a point where my feelings toward the game turned about face: I hit a 9999 point cap.  This made me feel conflicted about the whole play experience.  It seemed like maybe I had been playing something that wasn't really meant to be played.  I come from an art background, which has taught me that you shouldn't always believe what an artist says about their own work.  Artists have every right to lie about what a piece means or what their inspiration was.  Heck, maybe the explanation is its own separate piece of performance art!  Was NT2 a game, despite itself?

The amount of time I spent with NT2 dropped dramatically after reaching the cap.  Modern story-driven games add meta-game achievements, side quests, and multiplayer modes to flesh out their worlds, which also keeps us playing them longer.  Old arcade games like Tetris need that high-score mechanic to incentivize replay.  I suppose in this regard that I've "beat" NT2, but that's not something I'd quote in the game's favor, even if it's cool to say about a Tetris game.

Not Tetris 2 is definitely worth experiencing, but as for seriously playing it, that depends on personal discretion, and perhaps a releveling of what to expect from a free, interactive experiment.  Download Not Tetris 2 for free here.