11-24-2009, 12:02 AM
The greatest "games" ever made are as follows:
Super Metroid
ICO
Shadow of the Colossus
there are other really great games but these are the three that stand out the most to me
All three of these games take advantage of the fact that they are games; interactive experiences. Not just movies where you get to go from point A to point B just to watch the rest of it, or menial tasks to have fun with every now and then (tetris, a lot of "casual" games):
They make you live the events. They excel in this so-called "visual narrative", which is a trait that is ultimately unique to the medium and yet so rarely utilized. They were created with the utmost appreciation of feeling and aesthetic; Shadow of the Colossus reigns supreme as the most emotionally impacting of the three (at least in my opinion). Ico is a bit more quaint in it's styling yet still very touching, and key points of the plot are not stated but rather felt or experienced.
Super Metroid has no narrative aside from the opening, which serves primarily as a recap of the first two games with a brief bit introducing the immediate setting of the game. the rest builds off of the feelings and ideas stated here. and while it won't move you to tears or anything like that (although the ending can be kind of moving in it's own way), that doesn't really matter; the game itself is the setting, the story, the plot - what few in-game cutscenes it has exist briefly and to elicit an emotional reaction (as opposed to showing the emotional reactions of it's characters) and are only so because the main character is temporarily immobilized. It purposefully makes the avatar you're controlling, Samus, as distant as possible so that you can place yourself in her role (even to the extent of placing her inside of a large mechanical suit). Every discovery, every turn, every death, is felt by you as opposed to conveyed to you.
Everything in the games is designed to enhance this visual narrative; (it would be broken if the gameplay was bad or the game poorly put together); Super Metroid has it's excellent physics, myriad of abilities, and exploration - all of which (including the "visual narrative") is ultimately perfected by way of it's unparalleled level design and architecture. But that isn't exactly fair to say "level design", because it isn't just a level in the traditional sense, designed to provide challenge and interest, it is more than that; it is the world you inhabit. The large amount of minute details, the foliage, the water splashes as you walk over the moist earth leading to the wrecked ship/maridia, the way the enemies interact with the world naturally and most importantly the non-linear way in which the world was created/traversed elevate it above the idea of "level (number)".
Ico has it's well put together Castle, which again has a large amount of detail; when outside of it, you can see other parts of the castle and later on you'll even begin to recognize area's you've already been in the distance. The castle truly feels like a coherent whole (the same can be said of SOTC's Forbidden land and also Zebes (in that they feel like coherent wholes)) and serves as the perfect setting for the game - it is both this large seemingly labrynthian and almost inescapable leviathan. It toys with your feelings by presenting the exit early on, yet in the very next moment shuts it in your face, leaving you trapped. And in the process of trying to escape from this castle, you are forced to solve a myriad of puzzles, many of which force you to uneasily seperate yourself from the very thing that motivates and allows you to escape - your companion, yorda. You both need eachother to escape; she allows you to open doors and manuever the castle, and "motivates" the character; you fight to defend her from shadow creatures that try to take her away (killing you in the process) and manuever the more difficult terrain she is incapable of manuevering and allowing her to pass. By seperating the two of you, you are bound to the rooms that are presented immediately to you, and she is instantly susceptible to being taken from you, making it that much easier to "lose", providing an uneasy sense of tension while simultaneously egging you on into "caring" about the two characters.
The very game mechanics themselves are designed to progress the story and feeling of the game.
Shadow of the Colossus follows in the same vein as Ico, although it holds your hand a little bit more in that there are more cutscenes and the game is ordered in a bit more of a linear way. As with Ico and Super Metroid, the world itself is excellently crafted to feel "real" (although not necessarily "alive") and has an exceptionally defined atmosphere. It is beautiful, it is melancholic, and it is lonely - which only helps to enhance the main motivation of the character (seeking companionship by reviving a dead girl who we assume he knew well) and kind of subtley pushes it onto you, in a way, it almost makes you want what he wants unifying both you and the character so that it almost feels like you taking part in the events.
But then, it is a daunting task - and one that, part way through, you're forced to question if it's even worth it. While some of the Colossi are aggressive and attack you, some others are obviously peaceful in nature and are more inquisitive about your existence. It relates and alludes to this information through the fights themselves, the behavior of the Colossi. The storyline is felt throughout the game, not explicitly told to you until the very end - except even in the deliberate and explanatory cut scenes, there is a sense of control and presence - you can move the camera (as if you are moving your head/eyes to look elsewhere), and interspersed through these cutscenes you are given control over yourself so that you can try and react to what they are telling you. It is treated like a real "conversation" that you are taking part in, aside from just witnessing. It is in many ways an evolution of the visual narrative from Super Metroid, except infused with the cinematics typically associated with movies.
I guess, the best way to describe the worlds of these three games is that they don't feel like they were made for you, rather that they simply exist and you just happened to be placed inside of it.
Alongside this, cutscenes exist to relate events that are not directly felt by/controlled by you (like prologues taking place before the game, or the actions of others).
As I alluded to above, obviously the gameplay and the music and the graphics are all good (as the narrative would be broken if it were otherwise) - they all have good level design, well composed and fitting music sided more on the subtle and ambient side as opposed to the bombastics of your typical RPG fare or rock/techno/etc. soundtrack from more conventional action games. There aren't too many glitches, and what glitches there are often feel more natural than game/atmosphere breaking (in direct contrast with Sonic Adventure Battle 2's glitches) and the game is pretty stable in its technical creation. Super Metroid specifically has a highly technical aspect, and many would say that this is ultimately responsible for the subjective aspects I've been detailing here. The graphics are well made and convey unique styles and expansive worlds. But again, these are all required to be good for the narrative to be successful, which is ultimately the key "point" of the games. Not to mention pretty much everyone has already talked about how good the gameplay and soundtracks and all are for the games. They've discussed the details individually, yet have hardly even touched upon the sum total of those parts.
TL;DR
Ultimately (tl;dr): every aspect of these games are expertly defined to create a coherent whole and to produce an enveloping and inclusive atmosphere, making use of a "visual/felt narrative" to help progress the story and the game. The events are felt and "played" as opposed to told or shown to you - this is something that is unique to the "video game" medium yet is very rarely actually utilized to any extent. The excellent gameplay, well done soundtracks and graphics coupled with thoughtful design all coalesce to create the whole, something that is almost more than the sum of all of its parts would initially suggest.
There are probably others that try and do the same things that these games did, perhaps even successfully, but these are the most notable and the ones that I am personally the most acquainted with.
so uh, discuss, i guess
![[+]](images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
SpoilerSuper Metroid
ICO
Shadow of the Colossus
there are other really great games but these are the three that stand out the most to me
All three of these games take advantage of the fact that they are games; interactive experiences. Not just movies where you get to go from point A to point B just to watch the rest of it, or menial tasks to have fun with every now and then (tetris, a lot of "casual" games):
They make you live the events. They excel in this so-called "visual narrative", which is a trait that is ultimately unique to the medium and yet so rarely utilized. They were created with the utmost appreciation of feeling and aesthetic; Shadow of the Colossus reigns supreme as the most emotionally impacting of the three (at least in my opinion). Ico is a bit more quaint in it's styling yet still very touching, and key points of the plot are not stated but rather felt or experienced.
Super Metroid has no narrative aside from the opening, which serves primarily as a recap of the first two games with a brief bit introducing the immediate setting of the game. the rest builds off of the feelings and ideas stated here. and while it won't move you to tears or anything like that (although the ending can be kind of moving in it's own way), that doesn't really matter; the game itself is the setting, the story, the plot - what few in-game cutscenes it has exist briefly and to elicit an emotional reaction (as opposed to showing the emotional reactions of it's characters) and are only so because the main character is temporarily immobilized. It purposefully makes the avatar you're controlling, Samus, as distant as possible so that you can place yourself in her role (even to the extent of placing her inside of a large mechanical suit). Every discovery, every turn, every death, is felt by you as opposed to conveyed to you.
Everything in the games is designed to enhance this visual narrative; (it would be broken if the gameplay was bad or the game poorly put together); Super Metroid has it's excellent physics, myriad of abilities, and exploration - all of which (including the "visual narrative") is ultimately perfected by way of it's unparalleled level design and architecture. But that isn't exactly fair to say "level design", because it isn't just a level in the traditional sense, designed to provide challenge and interest, it is more than that; it is the world you inhabit. The large amount of minute details, the foliage, the water splashes as you walk over the moist earth leading to the wrecked ship/maridia, the way the enemies interact with the world naturally and most importantly the non-linear way in which the world was created/traversed elevate it above the idea of "level (number)".
Ico has it's well put together Castle, which again has a large amount of detail; when outside of it, you can see other parts of the castle and later on you'll even begin to recognize area's you've already been in the distance. The castle truly feels like a coherent whole (the same can be said of SOTC's Forbidden land and also Zebes (in that they feel like coherent wholes)) and serves as the perfect setting for the game - it is both this large seemingly labrynthian and almost inescapable leviathan. It toys with your feelings by presenting the exit early on, yet in the very next moment shuts it in your face, leaving you trapped. And in the process of trying to escape from this castle, you are forced to solve a myriad of puzzles, many of which force you to uneasily seperate yourself from the very thing that motivates and allows you to escape - your companion, yorda. You both need eachother to escape; she allows you to open doors and manuever the castle, and "motivates" the character; you fight to defend her from shadow creatures that try to take her away (killing you in the process) and manuever the more difficult terrain she is incapable of manuevering and allowing her to pass. By seperating the two of you, you are bound to the rooms that are presented immediately to you, and she is instantly susceptible to being taken from you, making it that much easier to "lose", providing an uneasy sense of tension while simultaneously egging you on into "caring" about the two characters.
The very game mechanics themselves are designed to progress the story and feeling of the game.
Shadow of the Colossus follows in the same vein as Ico, although it holds your hand a little bit more in that there are more cutscenes and the game is ordered in a bit more of a linear way. As with Ico and Super Metroid, the world itself is excellently crafted to feel "real" (although not necessarily "alive") and has an exceptionally defined atmosphere. It is beautiful, it is melancholic, and it is lonely - which only helps to enhance the main motivation of the character (seeking companionship by reviving a dead girl who we assume he knew well) and kind of subtley pushes it onto you, in a way, it almost makes you want what he wants unifying both you and the character so that it almost feels like you taking part in the events.
But then, it is a daunting task - and one that, part way through, you're forced to question if it's even worth it. While some of the Colossi are aggressive and attack you, some others are obviously peaceful in nature and are more inquisitive about your existence. It relates and alludes to this information through the fights themselves, the behavior of the Colossi. The storyline is felt throughout the game, not explicitly told to you until the very end - except even in the deliberate and explanatory cut scenes, there is a sense of control and presence - you can move the camera (as if you are moving your head/eyes to look elsewhere), and interspersed through these cutscenes you are given control over yourself so that you can try and react to what they are telling you. It is treated like a real "conversation" that you are taking part in, aside from just witnessing. It is in many ways an evolution of the visual narrative from Super Metroid, except infused with the cinematics typically associated with movies.
I guess, the best way to describe the worlds of these three games is that they don't feel like they were made for you, rather that they simply exist and you just happened to be placed inside of it.
Alongside this, cutscenes exist to relate events that are not directly felt by/controlled by you (like prologues taking place before the game, or the actions of others).
As I alluded to above, obviously the gameplay and the music and the graphics are all good (as the narrative would be broken if it were otherwise) - they all have good level design, well composed and fitting music sided more on the subtle and ambient side as opposed to the bombastics of your typical RPG fare or rock/techno/etc. soundtrack from more conventional action games. There aren't too many glitches, and what glitches there are often feel more natural than game/atmosphere breaking (in direct contrast with Sonic Adventure Battle 2's glitches) and the game is pretty stable in its technical creation. Super Metroid specifically has a highly technical aspect, and many would say that this is ultimately responsible for the subjective aspects I've been detailing here. The graphics are well made and convey unique styles and expansive worlds. But again, these are all required to be good for the narrative to be successful, which is ultimately the key "point" of the games. Not to mention pretty much everyone has already talked about how good the gameplay and soundtracks and all are for the games. They've discussed the details individually, yet have hardly even touched upon the sum total of those parts.
TL;DR
Ultimately (tl;dr): every aspect of these games are expertly defined to create a coherent whole and to produce an enveloping and inclusive atmosphere, making use of a "visual/felt narrative" to help progress the story and the game. The events are felt and "played" as opposed to told or shown to you - this is something that is unique to the "video game" medium yet is very rarely actually utilized to any extent. The excellent gameplay, well done soundtracks and graphics coupled with thoughtful design all coalesce to create the whole, something that is almost more than the sum of all of its parts would initially suggest.
There are probably others that try and do the same things that these games did, perhaps even successfully, but these are the most notable and the ones that I am personally the most acquainted with.
so uh, discuss, i guess