[The other self]As I've said, it was a lot harder to make choices this year than it was last year, when the biggest task was selecting between BioShock and Portal (at Gamasutra, we chose Portal). I won't spoil just yet, and we are doing a team top ten at Gama, as I've said -- but all I can say is that my personal top five are all titles that made an impression on me, they're titles that I still regularly discuss, admire and think about, and are titles that I either still play (a rarity) or, now that I've beaten them (also a rarity) would play again.
Mostly, they're titles that I think represent the potential of what games can do and be. When it comes to each of them, even if they weren't perfect in any respect (in fact, I'd argue two out of five of my tops can fairly be called "deeply flawed"), I fell in love with them for their intelligence, the multiple ways in which they can be interpreted, and the ways that they give credit to the player's mental and emotional flexibility.
Wow, I'm starting the expansive justification process already! Probably because I'm getting my gloves on to defend something else I love -- the long, drawn-out exposition of Persona 4 (a game that does indeed make my year-end list).
The only complaint I hear about P4 is that there's literally two hours of gameplay before you take any kind of meaningful control over your protagonist, and three -- more, if you're a slow reader -- before you enter your first dungeon.
I know, I know, any significant kind of non-interactivity is a horrendous no-no in the world of game design. They've done studies that show that the longer the player has to sit there, the less engaged they are with the play, with the caveat that certain types of cutscenes, for example, can actually drive player engagement.
But the thing I'd like to know is this: Why in the world would you ever finish a game that offers at minimum 80 hours of mechanically-identical gameplay throughout; that requires an enormous amount of repetition and patience; that can at times be brutally frustrating (see instant-death attacks that can banish hours of progress) -- if you're not being motivated by emotional investment?
I find the old refrain "I want to play games, not watch them," to be slightly oversimplified. And indeed, I love PixelJunk Eden (it makes The List) because all there is to do is play; one of my favorite all-time games is Castlevania: Symphony of the Night because I just want to kill things and complete maps. That's one way of enjoying video games. But entire genres have cropped up around the idea of immersion and depth; there are just as many games that try to satisfy the player's desire for a long-term experience as there are ones that offer quicker-hit risk and reward.
Persona 4 is absolutely not a quick-hit title. It requires you to make an enormous investment in what you're doing, it requires you to own that silent protagonist and act on an interest in the themes of the game world. It requires you to be interested enough in its story and its subtext to keep driving it to unfurl. And not everyone's going to find it sufficiently interesting, of course -- but along with all the toplists I've made lately comes the thematic refrain that I'm going to carry with me as my major takeaway of the year: Engagement is a choice -- at least in part.
Persona 4's exposition is a highly-detailed slow-burn. Delicately-paced pauses offer you the opportunity to tap into the sense of alienation that a city boy feels when he moves to a sonorously rainy countryside painted with all the visual touchstones of rural Japan. Making tons of menu selections between things like "thank you," "I don't want this" and "..." can seem rote and meaningless at a glance, especially when you note that your answer has little or no effect on the gameplay.
But in a game that is, hauntingly and in no uncertain terms, about "the masks you wear to face life's hardships," the empty buzz of a classroom full of strangers or the sight of your young relative uncomplainingly feeding herself in her father's absence can have additional meaning, especially as you choose what "face" to put on for them.
It's all there if you want to look. Of course, the preference for games that will very quickly respond and reward your input in mechanics-driven, visible ways is wholly natural. Most people like video games because they like that when they press an input button, something quantifiably responds.
But I don't like the easy dismissal of games that are structured so that when you put thought in, you can get emotion back. Maybe on some level games are responsible for engaging and satisfying the player, but I don't care to invalidate the idea that a game is a framework within which a player can elect to engage with themselves. The game won't do it all for you, and you can play your own role in what you yourself take away from it.
Caveat: This doesn't always work. Sometimes a cut scene is just a slog, and sometimes all the elective engagement in the world can't compensate for grueling game mechanics (someone asked why I hate Xenosaga, didn't they?)
But if you haven't played Persona 4 yet, I advise really making time for it. Please don't rush through the opening. If there's something else you need to be doing, or if you just feel like killing things right off, don't sit down with it (you can save numerous times throughout the exposition). If you're interested in reading a book, would you skip the first five chapters because you're impatient? Carve out some time to see what the exposition has to offer you, and allow it to build for you a foundation for your relationship with the game. Decide to invest in the story, and you won't even mind its cliche moments.
Even though I say this, it is admittedly hard for me to sit still and just look and listen a lot of the time, but I found it a very rewarding exercise.
This is a narrative that asks you to believe in "the other self", one that appears inside of a TV, no less -- and then it brilliantly gives you the opportunity to create exactly that. It doesn't grab you by the hand, but holds out its own, palm-up, and asks you to take it.
Also, one of the coolest moments I've seen in a video game all year came early: You, the player, watching on your TV screen as this representation of yourself watches his own reflection in a TV screen, dark enough that you can see your own reflection superimposed on his. Don't X-button through something like that.
