Classic Studies: Super Metroid – Part 2
Super Metroid plays out similarly to Metroid–so similarly, in fact, that intrepid players will instantly recognize certain iconic hallways. A Metroid veteran will know exactly where to find that morph ball power-up. But it is homage rather than retread and maintains continuity long enough for the veterans to realize that the Zebes they knew only scratched the surface. Here we find Norfair and Brinstar, better known as the red and green areas from Metroid, but we also explore a haunted ship, an underwater maze, and the stormy surface of the planet itself. Each are filled with their own flora and fauna, and each are slowly excavated with the missile, super missile, speed boot, grappling hook, and super bomb. Zebes is peeled back like an onion, and each layer hides a new ability to find, a new creature to best, and a new theme song to hum along to.
Read.
Building a Game, Not a Message
“Resident Evil 5 isn’t racist, but there’s more at work here than “Is it or isn’t it?” How does Resident Evil 5 undermine its own anti-colonial message, and why does it? The answer is simpler than you think. And more frustrating.”
Read.
To Make Us Whole
Catch my essay on Flower at Spawn Kill this week! Link is here.
Passing Without Honors
Hello, everyone. You can catch Tuesday’s article at Spawn Kill. Click here for the link!
Prince of Persia and Stockholm Syndrome
Ideas do not exist in vacuums. It is a principle that holds true for poetry, prose – and video games. So if Prince of Persia is released at a time when the Nintendo Wii regularly sells out in stores, it will be difficult to examine its intentions without stumbling over phrases like “dumbing down” and “the casual gamer.” After all, the game seems to play itself at times, and the boss fights (which comprise the majority of the combat) are literally impossible to lose. How is Prince of Persia not aimed squarely at the “new” gamer? How is it not a simplified platformer meant to draw in a new audience at the expense of offering any real challenge? The discussion usually begs the question: is difficulty really the bar by which we measure a game’s quality?
Storytelling in World of Warcraft: Show Don’t Tell
Shirotsuno waits next to me as we listen to the Forsaken commander’s explanation. The humans are attacking in force, he says, and he needs us to collect twenty of their heads. I stifle a yawn. I had faced the Black Dragonflight, combated the ancient Qiraji, and gone head to head with the Burning Legion. Now I come to Northrend to face the Lich King himself, and my first task is to collect heads? My backpack has been filled with so many heads, livers, brains, ears, and femurs, a single whiff of its interior would peel a goblin off gold.
To Teach and Delight
LittleBigPlanet is, like the beleaguered Spore, a toolset, disguised as a game, that could offer nothing more and still be worth the asking price. And like Spore, LittleBigPlanet will remain relevant for a very long time; you will be reading about it this time next year.
This is how LittleBigPlanet is described in most, if not all, spaces. It is unfortunate, because LittleBigPlanet shoots for a lot more than user-driven novelty. In fact, it brings innovation to a genre that has remained largely unexplored since the end of the SNES era, along with a bit of charm that is not to be underestimated. It dives headfirst into the world of creation, which is, after all, what video games are about, and cheerfully beckons us to follow along with it. And so we do.
The Absence of Context in Spore
It is difficult to be critical when talking about a game as earnest as Spore. I expect this is why most discussions, particularly reviews, of the game have been mostly positive. Of course, no one pretends its constituent gameplay modes are any good. After all, we cannot fault it for failing to do something it is clearly not attempting. Yet it is a mistake to ignore the gameplay in Spore. Two reasons are given for excusing its shoddiness: first, the game is intended for a casual audience, and its simplistic gameplay is meant to induct non-gamers into genre conventions, not impress ‘hardcore’ gamers with its depth. Second, the focus is not the game modes anyway but the creation tools. Yet both excuses are problematic. In the former case, I fail to see how buggy, confusing, and sluggishly-controlled genre prototypes will draw anyone into gaming. The latter case is even more problematic, because, as it turns out, the real problem with Spore is not the overly simplistic gameplay modes. The real issue is that the game fails to provide a context for what are otherwise ingenius creature/technology creation tools.
The Self as a Context: Violence as a Nihilism in Hamlet and Watchmen
It is probably best to begin an essay about violence – in the context of the self as a context – by noting that my life has, fortunately, been almost entirely free of it. The same cannot be said, most unfortunately, for the rest of humanity; nor can it be said for the superhero genre, which has been marked and in many ways defined by it ever since Beowulf tore off Grendel’s arm circa 600 A.D. I think this makes it significant. I would illustrate this in a longer essay by relating it more fully to Hamlet; I might illuminate popular fiction, even comic books, through the greatest English playwright of all time. Yet my reading of Hamlet has been colored by the superhero genre as well.
