\\ Raiders of the Lost Croft: Tomb Raider //

This article contains spoilers of gameplay scenarios and locations in Tomb Raider, developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Square Enix. Played the Definitive Edition on the PlayStation 4. 

If the new Tomb Raider has done anything, it has given me a deeper appreciation for games with more singular, holistic visions. A complete reboot of a franchise which seemed dated after the release of Naughty Dog’s Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, it’s a game that tries several things at once, to varying degrees of effectiveness. With this reboot, developer Crystal Dynamics have gone back to the drawing board for their own franchise, echoing Nintendo’s mantra of constant attempts at revitalization of existing intellectual property, but instead of forging their own path, simply mucking about in the dregs of well-torn ground.

\\ Eulogy of the First Flame: Bloodborne //

This article contains spoilers of gameplay scenarios and locations in Bloodborne, developed by From Software and published by SCE Japan Studio, and Dark Souls, developed by From Software and published by Namco Bandai Games. Bloodborne is exclusively for PlayStation 4, and Dark Souls was played on PlayStation 3.

From Software’s Bloodborne is in many ways an excellent game. When I wrote about their last release, Dark Souls II, I worried that game indicated a future fraught with stagnation and tedium for the Souls franchise. While I still fear that Bandai-Namco will attempt to bring this once-thought dangerous and intimidating series down with aspirations of near-annualization and profitability (perhaps the immediate re-release of the game in Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin confirms my suspicions), I still believe that Souls in the hands of Hidetaka Miyazaki (who saved Demon’s Souls from development hell and shaped it with his obtuse yet forward-thinking vision, and would go on to direct Dark Souls and Bloodborne) has the potential to be a consistently interesting prospect for years to come. Still, I don’t think Bloodborne is a perfect game, and I’m not confident that I would name it the best Souls title. Here, though, I will only be focusing on one aspect of the game, the lamps.

\\ Dial 2 For More: Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number //

This article contains spoilers of gameplay scenarios and plot points in the game, “Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number,” by Dennaton Games, published by Devolver Digital. Played on PlayStation 4.

It’s often easy to forget that video games are a relatively new medium of expression. Looking back at our earlier days, we see a plentitude of experiments, some of which stuck and would later become popular franchises, and others which were forgotten to all but a niche few. Having not been around during the 70’s and 80’s, and having never owned a Commodore 64, a Nintendo Entertainment System, a Sega Genesis, etc. makes it hard for me to say, but it’s easy to imagine that for game designers, it had to have been a beautiful time, a vast expanse of possibility, ripe for exploration. Programming was difficult, and access to the tools and knowledge necessary to produce games were subject to only an elite few.

Things are different now. The independent games scene of the last eight or so years has finally been able to find an in with the “big boys”, and their productions became more noticeable. Nearly half of Paste Magazine’s top 30 games of 2012 alone were developed by very small teams. Some, indeed, with the financial and developing assistance of publisher support, but none faltering in their independent creative spirit. Games like Journey, Dyad, Spelunky planted new seeds upon well-worn territories with which to reinvigorate and rebuild outward in new directions.

Hotline Miami stood tall amongst that crowd of releases. Tight and brutally difficult yet satisfying gameplay, a ferociously-pulsating soundtrack which made legends out of unknown beatmakers, primitive yet eerily-effective pixel art, and a simple and relatively unpretentious premise with some faintly thought-provoking philosophical posturings all combined to form an extremely satisfying experience. By the time I had completed it, I felt as if I had arisen from something which at once felt a comforting fever dream yet also a nightmare. Hotline Miami was a self-contained, lean experience; you didn’t need more. Even if you didn’t understand its plot, it didn’t matter much; the game wanted to simply let itself wash over you with its gunshots, cyberpunk tunes, vigorously-vibrating gradient backgrounds, and, uh, masks. And that was that, or so it seemed.

\\ Oh, The Places You'll Go: Hohokum Review //

This article contains spoilers of certain locations in the game "Hohokum" by Honeyslug and Sony Santa Monica, published by Sony Computer Entertainment. Played on PlayStation 4.

Hohokum is a game about exploration, not only of physical worlds, but of raw feelings, broad emotional states of being, and mental machinations. It’s a beautiful game which eschews conventional wisdom and embraces the pushback. It’s of little surprise that I find Hohokum to be one of the best games of 2014.

\\ A Turn for the Worst: Japanese RPG's //

Japanese Role-Playing Games (JRPG’s) have long been a point of much frustration, anxiety, and sadness for me, a genre which I felt unable to meaningfully parse. In my younger days as a child, I found them simply boring, yet was never able to understand why; I always felt that there was some key ingredient I was missing, as my monthly Nintendo Power subscription often reassured me that games like Chrono Trigger, Secrets of Mana, Final Fantasy, and Skies of Arcadia were “true” classics. I read in GamePro and on IGN of the “greatest games of all time” like Final Fantasy VII, Xenogears, Suikoden, Earthbound. I gathered tales of hours lost, classes skipped, life opportunities missed, all in drawn-out anticipation of meeting Sephiroth in battle, of saving the world from Gyorg, of travelling through time with Crono and crew. Sure, I loved Pokémon as much as the next elementary school student, battling and trading our beloved creatures together on the playground and in cramped bedrooms after school, but that was purely tradition of bygone years.

Yet as my love of games proved to persevere, so too did my disdain for JRPG’s. In 2006, with the release of Kingdom Hearts II, I had finally found a JRPG that sucked me in when I bought it on a whim. What perplexed me was that, finally, there came along a JRPG that instantly fired all synapses for me. I cared not that I hadn’t played the original; in fact, that actually contributed to my taking a liking to Kingdom Hearts II. From the moment you begin the game, and the animation set to Hikaru Utada singing her song, “Sanctuary” plays, my young mind is filled with intrigue. When the introductory cutscenes featuring mysterious robed figures finishes, and the controls are handed to I, the player, I’m instantly confused by the protagonist I’m at the reigns of, that of Roxas.

While Kingdom Hearts II has a bit of a slow start, it does a good job of quickly introducing the player to its mechanics, by way of having the player attempt to keep a beach ball in the air with a stick, instead of with a Keyblade to the Heartless. It’s an attempt at world-building, and a cute one that I appreciate to this day, at that. But more importantly, what the game is doing is communicating to the player the general flow and style of the gameplay. It is saying that this Final Fantasy and Disney aesthetic fusion hosts an action game, not the turn-based systems dictating much of Square-Enix’s past efforts.

\\ A Creature Fear: Alien: Isolation Review //

This article contains spoilers of plot points and gameplay scenarios from the game, “Alien: Isolation” by The Creative Assembly, published by Sega Corporation. Played on PlayStation 4.

The first Alien movie was the best one. It established an aesthetic, a tone. It was well-acted, well-directed. H.R. Giger’s creature designs were (are) impeccably effective. Its sequel, Aliens, is perhaps still-unmatched in terms of boldness and quality by any other film sequel since, with its heightened sense of tension followed by explosive release. Yet, Alien 3 was a complete crapshoot; it was director David Fincher’s first film, and also marred by chronicled production troubles which lead to a film that’s neither too frightening nor too exciting, simply not enough anything. At least Alien: Resurrection managed to salvage a few good laughs out of me with its complete disregard for any sort of tension and embracement of camp. Prometheus didn’t really happen, right?

\\ Plucked From Our Hearts: Pikmin //

This article contains spoilers of plot points and gameplay scenarios in Pikmin for the Nintendo Gamecube.

More and more recently, I’ve noticed many of my favorite games tend to communicate something important about human existence to me, whether it be through mechanics, storytelling, visuals, or music (likely a combination of these elements). We often worry about whether or not a game is “fun”, but fun isn’t the only emotion one feels during play; we undergo sadness, pain, frustration, excitement, agitation, anxiety. It’s the entirety of the development team’s job to understand clearly what is to be communicated through play and aesthetics. Indeed, we often postulate of games as art, but really, I think the more worthwhile discussion is games as communication, games as political statements, games as transcendence, games as personality.

When I wrote about Majora’s Mask, I spoke in great detail of a game which had changed in significance for me over a timespan of several years, and discussed the ways in which the game in general was a failure for me as an appropriate means of communicating to the player the things Aonuma and his team were interested in. I lambasted the game, and looked at it from many different angles, as I thought it was a very interesting game, even despite being a failure. Failures tend to be the most interesting prospects for deep criticism, criticism which doesn’t choose to merely wade in the shallow pool but dives in the deep end, wading through the breadth of experience in pursuit of fuller and more profound truths in the world.

The truth of the matter is that it’s simply easier to acquire the necessary level of interest to embark on these adventures when a work seems daring, stepping away from the norm and wandering in the pool of unexplored territory. It becomes easier and more rewarding still when the works holds some significance to you and your past.