Category: Games

I’m not an avid player of computer games. I really do not like the shoot-em-up type of game at all, and avoid them at all costs. However, I am partial to Adventure games, particularly if there’s a good story behind it.

I’ve just finished playing The Talos Principle, which is a sort of cross between puzzle-solving, rather reminiscent of the testing chambers of Portal 2, and an exploration of philosophical questions on what it means to be human.

Some people apparently haven’t liked the mixing of the puzzles with the philosophy, but I think it adds to the depth of the game. Over the course of exploring a variety of environments (Roman, Eygptian, Mediaeval, future industrial), you get the chance to interact with computer terminals scattered throughout them, and gradually learn the backstory of what’s going on.

The worlds are beautifully rendered, with evocative soundscapes. However, they are devoid of animal or insect life – with two exceptions: butterflies in one world, and a few roosting pigeons high up in a tower that holds the key to the worlds.

On awakening in the game, you soon get to hear the voice of god – Elohim – who is clearly modelled on the god of the Old Testament, and who shares that fictional character’s tiresome arrogance. I soon found myself actively disobeying his commandments, partly out of spite, but also because it took me to places that I otherwise would not have seen.

If you Liked Portal 2, I think you’ll like The Talos Principle.

…but I really don’t want to play Grand Theft Auto V, despite it getting rave reviews.

Set mostly within the glitzily superficial city of Los Santos, a warped mirror of Los Angeles, GTA V is a sprawling tale of criminal maniacs self-destructing on a blood-splattered career trajectory to hell. Michael is the middle-aged thug, obsessed with movies, who pulled a witness protection deal with the feds after a failed heist many years ago. When his old partner Trevor, a sociopath who bakes meth out in the desert, turns up in town, the two join forces with a young black kid, Franklin, who’s set on leaving his gang-infested neighbourhood behind. The aim is a few final high-paying jobs, but there’s a festering resentment between Trev and Michael that goes back a long way, a fizzing fuse that trails all the way through the carnage.

This three-character format emancipates the narrative, jettisoning the awkward requirement for one protagonist to be everywhere, witnessing everything in this vast world. Switching between the characters can be done at any time while off mission, and all three have their own little pet projects to get involved with, adding variety and a few amusing surprises: switching to Trevor usually involves some bodily function or weird violent episode, while Michael has his dysfunctional family to manage. And overlaying all this is a huge plot about warring government agencies and corrupt billionaires.

Judging by the news, human behaviour in the real world is depressing enough without wanting to immerse myself in more of the same…

Women are, once again, relegated to supporting roles as unfaithful wives, hookers and weirdos. The one successful female character in the story is suspected of just wanting to screw her boss. Of course, GTA is essentially an interactive gangster movie, and the genre has a long history of investigating straight male machismo at the expense of all other perspectives, but it would have been wonderful to see Rockstar challenging that convention. It’s fine to parody the idiotic misogyny of violent men, but how about doing it by providing their opposite? It seems Rockstar North’s all-male writing team is too in thrall to Tarantino and Brett Easton Ellis to really consider this.

So GTA V fails the Bechdel Test then? What a surprise.

That’s the title of a new game for Windows. It’s a series of puzzles woven around the story of an astronaut who comes into possession of a cloning device.

It has beautiful visuals, literally hand-crafted from clay and everyday objects, and an intriguing storyline. The idea of cloning, and transference of consciousness between clones, has a long and deep philosophical history. Derek Parfit’s Reasons and Persons, with Daniel Dennett’s and Douglas Hofstadter’s The Mind’s I are excellent places to continue the exploration of self and consciousness.

Forget first person shooter games, this is the sort of thing that I can engage with. Highly recommended.

The makers of Machinarium have come up with a new game: Botanicula. I have a fondness for Adventure Games, and I quite liked Machinarium, although all the point-and-clicking did get a bit tedious at times.

With Botanicula, although it’s also a point-and-click game, it never got tedious. That’s probably because of the strength of the story, the game’s charm and its inventiveness. Playing the game brought a smile to my face, as well as a couple of laugh out loud moments.

The story is a quest of five unlikely heroes, and their attempt to plant a new tree.

They travel through fantastical landscapes and meet with over one hundred bizarre creatures.

Highly recommended.

After an earlier failed attempt a few years back to run the Steam environment on my PC, I tried again a couple of months ago.

I was enticed into it by a free offer to experience Portal – a game of which I had heard much, and was intrigued by.

Steam ran much better this time around, and I very much enjoyed Portal. So much so, that I purchased Portal 2, and found it even better. The atmosphere, the humour, and the characterisation of the two protagonists, Wheatley and GLAADOS, are terrific (in all senses of the term) in Portal 2.

Buoyed with my success of running Steam and Portal (1 and 2), I looked around for similar games. I found LIMBO, and I bought it.

I have to say that while I can appreciate the craft that has gone into it, I find it almost impossible to play for any length of time. That’s not just because it is difficult (and it is for me, requiring lightning responses that I no longer possess), but also because my character dies – a lot. In fact, my character dies practically every step the poor bugger takes, and it’s just too much for me.

Life can be depressing enough – I really don’t want to spend my spare time wallowing in the futility of traipsing through a representation of theology’s Limbo, where the powers that be derive a sadistic pleasure from the manifold ways in which pain and death can be brought about. Religion has brought enough suffering to the human condition, I really don’t need a video game to underline the misery, thank you very much. I think I will leave LIMBO uncompleted.