Gamesugar

December 28, 2011

Sweet’N Low – Difficult Loves

Shadows of the Damned
I’d like to suggest that no female videogame character suffered more in 2011 than Garcia Hotspur’s ladyfriend, Paula. Dragged to hell, desecrated by perverted demons, and paraded through the underworld in heels and stockings only to be torn apart again and again, I’m hard pressed to name another woman from any videogame that endured such unrelenting torture.

Cloaked in horror camp, Shadows of the Damned pushes plenty on the tongue-and-cheek train, but alongside the circus of comedic horrors, the perils of Paula serves as the centerpiece – the emphasis for Garcia’s demon stomping rampage. The game was certainly not content in presenting the iconic Princess in a gilded cage as the obligatory motivation.

Paula’s time within the game was split between playing the damsel in distress calling out to Garcia for help, being used as the white lace rabbit meant to lure him deeper down the demonic rabbit hole, and becoming the instrument of his destruction during chase sequences where a single possessed kiss from her lips ends his life.

What the player is often left with is a woman who falls into your arms while brandishing a knife, torn between whispering sweet nothings and cursing you for her suffering – and perhaps the familiar feeling that relationships are always a tad more complicated where Suda51 is involved.

While the comparison isn’t easy for the surface differences and thematic shift, I can’t help thinking about Travis Touchdown’s appraisal of Sylvia Christel from No More Heroes 2 –

TRAVIS:
Sylvia, I can’t figure you out.
SYLVIA:
You don’t like me?
TRAVIS:
I didn’t say that. But there’s a lot of things about you I don’t get: you lie, you’re greedy, you’re a fucking contradiction in heels.
SYLVIA:
You hate me?
TRAVIS:
Well, your personality kind of sucks.
SYLVIA:
So you -do- hate me.
TRAVIS:
…I’m fucking crazy about you.

Garcia uses the word crazy to paint a different picture of Paula, whom he is equally infatuated with while unable to question or comprehend the reasoning. Love is a many splendid things of course, none of which seem easy to explain.

I suppose a great deal can be written off given the agenda of infantile offence Shadows of the Damned pushes on the player. But it certainly sticks in my teeth while looking back over a year’s worth of releases.

December 27, 2011

Sweet’N Low – Tripping Wonderland

Sweet N Low Alice 2 Madness Returns

‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.
‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’
‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.
‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’

From the time I was first able to competently hold a controller, each year in gaming has brought a few titles that tempt my unbridled anticipation only to deliver disappointment. And while age hasn’t necessarily made me wiser in that regard, it has furnished me with the ability to move on quicker thanks to the divide between the child stuck with a stinker of an NES cartridge and the here-in-now that allows me immediate access to the next “big thing”. With that said, Alice: Madness Returns deserves a few words before the year draws to a close, because it’s a rather fascinating failure.

My anticipation for any interpretation of the source material forgave perceived expectations of simplicity inherent to the name American McGee – the shtick of twisting existing works, wringing Wonderland like a wet towel drenched with gothic tears. But my expectations were derailed by a convoluted narrative that fumbled in trying to do more – namely attempting to tie together the psychological deviancy of this dark Wonderland with real world suffering and a trail of breadcrumbs tripping around a tale of child abuse.

The result is truly strange in the attempt to bring reason to the madness, as if trying to provide the finality of definitive explanation taints the surreal magic of Wonderland. There’s more solid ground to provide rich soil for criticism, particularly the relentless tedium of the cookie-cutter platforming action. But what truly left me reeling was the divide between brilliance and confusion in a game earnestly dripping with creative energy.

The Walrus and The Carpenter, for instance, put on a show that uses lyrical charm and dark theatrics to bring the potential of the source material to life and nearly justify the grinding play required to reach the performance. But this is accompanied by awkward insertions of material, particularly the dollhouse world that grabs at a far more direct statement of intent and wants for the most ridiculous analogy about misplaced puzzle pieces possible.

The game speaks to Spicy Horse’s artistic talent, from breathtaking concept imagery straight through to a revisit of Wonderland that bursts with color and imagination rivaling any of the year’s more favorable releases. Despite the bumpy graphical road Alice traverses, there’s a continual supply of seductive visual details to beg forgiveness for the hiccups.

The failure I find so fascinating is in the attempt to bring reason to madness, which seems to so obviously fail to recognize the madness inherent in the pursuit. It’s a tricky sticky talking point given the various interpretations of Wonderland that exist, but I can’t escape the feeling that Madness Returns crossed into a territory others were wiser to leave unexplored.

December 18, 2011

Lazy Sunday – Gorging on GBA

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , — Jamie Love @ 1:14 am

Sweet N Low Game Boy Advance
Nintendo’s GameBoy Advance kickback for early 3DS adoption is keeping my thumbs busy this weekend. Frankly, it’s a bit silly that I’m using shiny new hardware to play titles that can run on a machine I can pick up for change at a yardsale, but here we are. Being able to link my Club Nintendo account to the 3DS to earn rewards for purchases that can than be redeemed for even more virtual console titles means that this nostalgia trip isn’t likely to end anytime soon.

Normally I’d rank my memory as annoyingly sharp, but toss ten Nintendo published GBA titles my way and I have to stop to question whether I’ve ever really appreciated how many gems the system has to offer. From the delightful animation of Kirby using a cell phone to call on reinforcements in the Amazing Mirror, to the insane pace at which WarioWare Inc. spits challenges at players – and yes, even the simple joy of carrying Yoshi’s Island around in my pocket again – the burnout I’ve been feeling has subsided.

Yes, every now and again I worry that I don’t like videogames nearly so much as I thought, and I need reminding of why that isn’t the case. I get so busy consuming the never-ending flood of new releases, searching for the new aesthetic and digging around for adult-minded things that justify my immense investment of time, that the play and passion of that drive gets a bit fuzzy.

There are probably lots of important discussion points with virtual releases, about preserving the past and remembering it for me at wholsesale – all that jazz. But at the moment I’ve fallen back into an older language, the kind of excited chatter you squeeze in during recess. Is there a bit of escapism involved? Maybe, but I’m comfortable with it at the moment. All that matters is that this weekend, I’ve found some clarity in the finely aged sampling Nintendo handed out on Friday – though I’m sure it was waiting on any number of old consoles cluttering up my storage room, except the Jaguar of course.

If there is a point here, it’s that maybe I hope that some of you out there can relate. And if you can, then dig up an old game this weekend, a forgotten favorite or a freshly unearthed discovery, and as is the fashion in these uncharted Sugarlands, tell me about it below.

December 16, 2011

My New Addiction – Pushmo

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 1:25 am

Pushmo
Pushmo is quite a bit like Atlus’ Catherine, sans the sex and guilt. That was my immediate reaction to Nintendo’s recent digital release, and I stand by it as both amusing and helpful in framing the idea that we’re going to talk about moving blocks around here.

To set the stage, a Pushmo is a large block or shape, composed of a smaller series of blocks, varying in shape but connected by color. Many Pushmo give the appearance of a failed game of Tetris, while others form more complex shapes such as animals.

Wasn’t that helpful? No? Don’t worry, we’ll try to make some sense of this together.

(more…)

December 6, 2011

Sweet’N Low – The Adventure of Link

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , — Jamie Love @ 1:50 pm

sweet n low zelda 2 the adventure of link
Faithful Sugarfiends have likely noticed the slack in activities of late. In truth, I have a to-do list that spirals out the door, and hardly an ounce of interest in tackling any of it. In particular, there are some 3DS games we should be talking about this month, but countering my productivity is the fact that I can avoid a full 3DS game by using the handheld to play Zelda 2.

But it hasn’t been the short nostalgia kick I was looking for – in fact I enjoy the game more now, as if I had to go and age for twenty more years to really “get it”. That said, the experience is proving merciless – I’ve died so many times that I wake up hearing Ganon laugh at me. And yet, with every death comes some small increment of progress – I grab the candle to light the way through caves but die, only to return and score another stat increase before dying, only to again return and discover that after dispatching some troublesome knights, that horse-headed boss wasn’t nearly so hard as everything guarding him within the first palace.

There are no helpful arrows pointing out that I should discover a trophy within a cave to earn the high-jump – everything I earn is a reward for perseverance, and convinces that lost feeling of really having suffered in order to gain, which seems to make even the smallest moments more memorable as Link proudly hoists swag over his head.

The frustrating and at times incomprehensible game from my childhood is now the shining star that tests the player in equal measure with Link, convincing the elements of his adventure in a way largely taken for granted within Skyward Sword.

Rather than slip into an essay on the subject however, I’d prefer to put the call out to you and ask if you’ve ever had a similar experience with a game.

So you know, have at it below.

November 20, 2011

When Duty Redials…

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , — Brad Johnson @ 1:30 am

Review Modern Warfare 3
MW3 is out and about, scorings its eights and nines and commanding the lives of adherents the world over—though, interestingly, the game has received something of a flogging on Metacritic, with the user score ranking a paltry 3.2 (Xbox 360 version) as of this writing.

Meanwhile, the game sold seven decazillion copies in the first ninety seconds after its release. True fact.

So, you understand: never mind that Metacritic score. The verdict is in, and everybody loves Call of Duty. As a registered and licensed Digi-Herald and Internet Chronicler, it pains me to inform you, dear reader, that your internet voice, and my internet voice, and the score of 3.2 on Metacritic do not matter. The score could be zero, and it would not matter. The gaming community voted with their wallets November 8—and if you don’t like Call of Duty, well, you lost.

Call of Duty is the President of Vidyagaems. Sorry.

(more…)

October 20, 2011

The View from Arkham City

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , — Jamie Love @ 4:30 pm

The View from Arkham City
Flying over the rooftops of Gotham’s urban mega-prison, the ringing of a payphone breaks through the music and radio chatter, interrupting the primary pursuit as I drop to the street to answer another call from Victor Zsasz.

Gotham’s more notorious super-villains are waiting for my arrival, but I seem incapable of passing on another opportunity to lose myself to Zsasz’s side-quest. There’s a game he’s playing with me, challenging me to reach another phone at a different location before time runs out and he kills the hostages he claims to have. It doesn’t really matter if he has hostages or not, since Batman can’t take that chance, and so I race to the next ringing phone, attempting to triangulate Zsasz’s position a bit more with each new conversation.

Those conversations are entirely one-sided, as Zsasz recounts the misfortunes that led him to where he is today – a serial killer who liberates the living from the burden of life, and keeps score of that crusade by carving a running tally on his flesh.

The reason any of this matters owes to the way I’m taking an active interest in a character I was unaware of before the Arkham series. Rather than simply reaching phones as a fetch-quest, I’m learning more about the character I’m trying to apprehend with each new stage in the game – listening to his madness and sorrows while tracking down his location. That’s seemingly central to the energy behind all of Batman’s opponents, a game where the constant is the challenge to understand motivation – cause and effect. It’s also one of the little touches that reaches into the source material to create the depth of game you’re likely hearing plenty of people heap praise on this week.

Arkham City is a game with an expertly crafted primary narrative, spread across a cityscape where it is just as pleasurable to stop and listen to the chatter of criminals – thugs who discuss their personal lives, as well as the major characters that have so much impact on their current situation. While I still have plenty of Arkham City to chew through, it’s clear already that a significant achievement is the way Rocksteady has created a space that not only convincingly feels lived in, but invites the player in via the subtle ways the signs of life are offered up for consumption, and could be missed entirely if one didn’t occasionally stop to smell the sickly scents of Arkham City’s mean streets.

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