The Decade of the Tens

Decades are quite funny things really, they represent quite a significant chunk of our lives and most will understand them - but rarely do we define our lives by them in any meaningful manner. From memory, age 10 means very little with the switch to secondary school, a year later, being a much more meaningful bookend. Age 20 doesn't mean anything either - 16 and 18 representing legal boundaries and 21 as a more social one. Even so, we do like to put things in little boxes and so it might be worth having a look back.

In the tail end of 1999, there were always a few people that told everyone that the millennium didn't start in 2000, but a year later. We don't start at year 0 after all. The only major thing about 2000 was all the zeroes and then the y2k bug^[1] rather than it being the start of a new decade/century/millennium - an argument rehashed every ten years. This is true, mathematically, but we don't speak mathematically and communication is all about a shared language - a shared understanding. We use "billion" in a non-mathematical way now and if you didn't, you'd be communicating poorly. I love communicating badly but in this instance let's stick with decades starting in 0s. It just feels weird to say the 80's include 1990.

It has been a fairly rubbish decade for me (oh, look at what we unleashed: https://walletsandswords.blogspot.com/2019/04/brexit-day-2932019.html) but what were positive standouts from the last decade?

Film: Helter Skelter

I started the year being really impressed with Black Swan and although I enjoyed it, I feel like Helter Skelter had a little bit more to hit me with. It was such a striking look that it really drilled into my mind. Watching deconstruction of humans is always kind of interesting and I think this had quite a lot to say about a society that loves to destroy.

I wrote about it here: https://walletsandswords.blogspot.com/2013/09/helter-skelter-2012.html

Game: Rez Infinite

How appropriate to have talked about the y2k bug earlier with this game about clearing viruses coming up later. This was a game that hit me so hard and is just unforgettable. It was hyperbolic to say that I was “not honestly sure that anything will be the same again” but it has turned out to be true.

I didn't spend the most time in Rez, that would probably be the wonderful world of Persona 5^[2] - that was the game that "helped" me most but the impact was all about Rez. It redefined what I felt was possible and it then redefined it again within minutes. It redefined my past and my future and everything in between.

I wrote about it here: https://walletsandswords.blogspot.com/2016/10/rez-infinite.html

Music: The Epic

I probably listened to less music than in the last few decades and much of it was also old. I'm not sure I can be much of a useful opinion here, in all honesty, but I'll cheat and go for the triple album The Epic by Kamasi Washington.

I probably listened to music by Squarepusher most of all in the decade but I cannot say that an album would work here although the individual Sad Robot Goes Funny was exceptional music-making. I also listened to quite a lot of game soundtracks too but harder to recommend that!

Listen to The Epic on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtvA_FQq5GM1okyeZ9lOS80BY16IY_osh

Watch Sad Robot Goes Funny on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkUq4sO4LQM

Moment: Madrid 2019

Over the years, some people have been very surprised at me liking football - most obvious of all as some explained to me that Manchester United was a football team. But I do quite like football and supporting Liverpool has been quite the journey this decade. 10 years ago, we were on our way to the darkest days (of my time, anyway) with an ownership problem, about to boot out an excellent (but outspoken) manager to be replaced by an actual idiot. We find ourselves, ten years later, as the Champions of the World - but more importantly and pertinently as the champions of Europe. There is quite a story to get there but I did not have a ticket for the match in Madrid. I did not even stay in Madrid - but a football trip with close friends and family was fun and the night watching in a casino in Madrid was special. The atmosphere was sensational and the last five minutes after Divock Origi scored a second was such a release for us all. We had dreams and songs to sing and sing we did into the night.

We didn’t even get to see the trophy lift - the casino chucked us all out by turning the screen off!

I would love to know what you all thought of the last decade...

<sup>1. This has recently, with Brexit, been reawakened slightly by morons saying that Brexit is a scare story like the y2k bug (which was planned for and fixed by armies of trained people). ↩
2. I wanted to write about this and have a number of drafts about how this was woven into the fabric of games, Japan and aesthetics but I could never quite get the thread to be woven neatly. It is a vast experience.↩</sup>

Tetris Effect

What on earth could be interesting about another version of Tetris?
Well, how about if it was made by the same person, Tetsuya Mizuguchi that did Rez Infinite - a game so affecting to me that truly nothing could be the same again [link]^[1] . That was always going to pique my interest and it was further piqued by PSVR support. I wondered what would even be the point of VR for Tetris.

Tetris, itself, is a stone-cold classic and left the ”games” world to enter into the real world with the incredible success of the Gameboy version. I’m a huge fan and it is arguably the game that I have played most of all. It was my “T” in my “A-Z” rundown and that is probably a better guide to the basics of Tetris although I would be surprised if many required a primer on this particular puzzler. Tetris is about creating space to be ready for the future and filling an absence. What we are doing, when playing Tetris, is making gaps to fill later - it is the making gaps that is the game, filling them later is almost an incidental part of the process. Filling those gaps is satisfying, no doubt, but it is only satisfying in the sense that you have prepared for it. And that preparation is all about managing risk using the probability of pieces - what are we going to get and how can we use it? As you get better and better, you can have a plan for each eventuality which is pure risk management. Because you are working in this way, this is actually management of negative space^[2] which is quite counter-intuitive. I think this is what appeals about Tetris - the anticipation is so enjoyable.

In many ways, it might be easier to list how Tetris Effect differs from the versions we have all played before and the biggest gameplay alteration is the use of variable speed throughout the game. I say, “throughout the game” but actually, once you start, there are two major sections to choose between - “Journey Mode” and “Effect Mode”. Journey Mode acts as a type of campaign mode and see you start off a series of 27 levels (or skins, as they are often referred to) grouped into bundles. The Effect Mode has a number of different variations on classic Tetris gameplay with different scoring mechanics with similar gameplay. As you unlock skins for Effect Mode by reaching them in the Journey mode, it probably makes sense to go through the Journey first to unlock as much as you can to use in the Effect Mode. There are some nice modes included with a number of variations on the theme with combo modes, speed runs and a weird infection mode too. The meat of the game, in my opinion, is the Journey mode however.

Variable speed is an interesting gameplay choice and one that was taken in Lumines - the musical puzzle game Mizuguchi released in 2004 to coincide with the launch of the PlayStation Portable. The effect of this variable speed is to lengthen a given “run” so rather than being a spurt of gaming with growing intensity, it has the ebb and flow of an album - a Journey in fact. This had quite a weird effect on the way that you played it in that it could last for a very long time within one run and had the effect of transporting you through the game and you felt that you were playing with it rather than trying to beat it^[3]. It also lends the game an experiential air rather than the score chasing mechanic that you come to expect from a puzzle game. I think that this is also true of Tetris Effect which, although it does have an explicit scoring system with grading, feels like a trip or a journey into and through the game. There are periods of intense pressure - and Tetris has a suffocating pressure as you tip so easily from manageable to "impossible to salvage" - but there is always a chance that the game will give you a chance if you can get to the next segment of a level that has lower speeds.

The start of the Journey mode is indeed slow and it does not speed up significantly for a while, it guides you in with a very calm hand and music that is both welcoming and sparse. Those first few sections are a great introduction to what Tetris Effect does and with such a relaxed pace, you can rack up the points with Tetris after Tetris.

The key differentiator with Tetris Effect is the connection and that connection is built through the sonic and visual flourishes that accompany your actions. Each time you move or rotate a block, that is accompanied by a sound effect which changes depending on skin. This is pretty standard in games - jumping in Mario will play the jump sound effect. And, as in Mario, that sound effect latches you into the game. Each line you clear will also generate a sound and a visual trick of some kind - a colourful particle explosion^[4] that is in some way related to the skin you are currently playing. This hardly sounds groundbreaking - this is just videogame mechanics. But, The Beatles (see Yesterday (2019)) were just guitar, bass, drums and vocals. The choices made by the development team to create that connection is on another plane with all those sounds making sense of what is around you in a way that seems barely human. And what a selection of sounds and visuals that have been created here, truly taking on the journey aspect of the game. Starting off in the deep, deep sea with whale sounds and effects to link you in, it is striking from the first minute. The initial minimalist soundscapes are layered on as you get more lines and progress through the stage with whale sounds accompanying the line clears. The next stage mixes that approach up straight away with an "in your face" set of sounds and music resetting your feelings and preparing you for an eclectic and always interesting selection of music through the journey.

With classic Tetris being so well known, there is a school of thought that Tetris Effect is just Tetris but prettier and with nice music. I can’t disagree but “just” is doing a hell of a lot of work here, and elevates a game that is already at the pinnacle of the genre to a geostationary orbit above it. It is worth thinking about what the purpose of those pretty graphics and nice music is and what they are doing to the player. That isn't a side effect of the game - that is gaming in a nutshell. The enjoyment of doing interactions is surely all that gaming is. Is that side-effect, what art is, in a nutshell? Invoking or evoking emotion into the "observer" is surely one of the defining traits of art. This isn't a debate worth having - Mizuguchi is an artist and so much more layered on top of that.
Tetris Effect is an absolutely stellar addition to the world of gaming with top tier graphics, an exceptional soundtrack and gameplay that fuses Tetris, a game that many would argue has claims to be a perfect game, to that visual and audio tour de force. And then layers a coherent and beautiful virtual reality implementation on top of it.

I can't really recommend this highly enough. It might not hit you in the same way, but it is so, so simple to at least try.
Honestly, I was really looking forward to this and many have said that it can be a transcendental experience and the pinnacle of what VR can do, and I do sort of agree with that but for me, this does not quite match that moment when it is all connected in Rez. But to be the second most transcendental experience (I have had) in all of the time I have been playing games is not a bad recommendation. Please do play.

Come follow me
I'll show you the side of yourself
The person that you've always been
But never dreamed
-------------------------------------

<sup>1. This was pretty hyperbolic in 2016 but I do still stand by it - “Rez Infinite is an incredible experience and game and I am not honestly sure that anything will be the same again.”↩
2. At school, many years ago, I used to do a subject called design and communication. I rather enjoyed it as it was about presentation of ideas. At the time, the teacher used to walk around and offer comments on our work and one time, he mentioned that one of my drawings was very good use of negative space. This brought a lot of laughter and mocking of my work by some friends as he seemed to basically be saying that the bits I didn't do (the white space) were very good. We all understood what was meant but it was still brought up even decades later!↩
3. Although it was very much trying to beat you!↩
4. These particles are used in a similar way to the particle effects in Rez Infinite's Area X which lends an impressionistic air to the explosions. ↩</sup>

The Last Guardian / Hitokui no Ōwashi Trico (人喰いの大鷲トリコ)

Games are generally about you making characters move but there are some, like The Last Guardian, that aim to flip that statement to make the characters move you. Fumito Ueda has, remarkably, made only three videogames inclusive of his latest, yet he is fairly recognised as a special talent. 

To say that The Last Guardian has been delayed may be an understatement in gaming terms and it started active development in 2007^[1], a little after the Playstation 3 was released. Games can take a long time to make, this is true, and gargantuan games such as GTA 5 will take 3 years or so of active development but these are truly massive worlds that are created. Niche, more artistic games with little likelihood of breakout success do not take this long - and the time is much harder to justify when the revenue is not likely to be blockbuster level^[2]. And to understand why people have been eagerly waiting for The Last Guardian, what Ueda's earlier games Ico and Shadow Of The Colossus (both available in remastered form on both PS3 and the lesser known Playstation Now service) were needs to be explained, at least briefly. 

Ico is a puzzle platformer with a single interesting mechanic that transforms it into a classic. You play as a child escaping a crumbling castle but also helping another prisoner within the castle - a slightly older, but still young, princess with whom you cannot talk to. The princess is scared and quite weak - as are you but as this is relative, you must protect her from the black, smudgy demons and the environment to escape together. The interesting mechanic of helping others is effected using your hands and so, by taking her hand, you are connected in a way that speech cannot do. It is a remarkably affecting dynamic and the slight tug of the princess, Yorda, is superbly realised in a way that was incomparable at the time. A game unlike games for gamers that only gamers knew about. In 2001, this did not necessarily great spell commercial success although it was critically acclaimed.

A few years later came the semi-connected Shadow of The Colossus which was unmistakably of the same stable. With a little more marketing, this was a more successful game commercially and also critically which revolved around a mechanic of defeating 16 large monsters in a variety of ways in order to try to save a young lady. Again, you were not alone and this time your companion was a horse, named Agro, that would help you travel the vast distances more quickly. In many ways, this was a more traditional game with combat and a defined level structure but it soon created a mythology around it based on the beautifully realised art direction.

Both of these games tried to create emotional connections within the player that were not usually explored within the industry at the time and so have left lasting impressions on many of those fortunate enough to have played them. It does also mean that, if you didn't get that connection, Ueda’s games could be seen as empty and trite -  a camp which a proportion of players will always fall into.

And so, to The Last Guardian -  another game that is standalone yet imbued with the worlds of Ico and Shadow of The Colossus through the whole piece. The game starts with the protagonist, a small boy, passed out next to a rather dangerous looking beast - a beast called (or the species is) “Trico”^[3] that looks hurt and angry. Coming near it does not please it yet there are spears jabbed into it that look like they need removing. How could you gain the trust of the beast, to help it? At this point, I think the fact that the protagonist is a small child makes much more sense as children do generally believe in the goodness of animals so he goes off to find food for the beast. The beast’s food, in a nod to the fact it is a game, comes in the form of silver barrels of which there are a few dotted around. Once the beast is sated and released, the journey can begin as the two of you build a bond over time and attempt to escape from wherever you are together, as a team. Trico is still wary of you and so you must continue to build trust with food and kindness (as with Agro in SOTC, you can calm Trico with a pet or a stroke) as you journey on.

The gameplay is simple and reminiscent of Ico with the puzzles fairly simple combinations of doors and levers but spiced up with a huge catlike chicken thing that helps and hinders you throughout. The puzzles do have some combat elements sometimes but Trico is a beast by action and name and will deal with foes violently and with genuine anger when they cross his path - it is your role to ensure that they do get seen by Trico. The enemies make Trico go berserk^[4] and point to a historic reason for that level of rage and apparent revenge. Ico is a template for this game due to it falling into the same genre but it could be seen as a flipped arrangement with you playing the princess role and Trico the protector. Watching Trico defending you is a sight to behold and in an entertainment form which places such importance on agency, it is interesting to lose that at points to let something else be awesome. You do have to be careful at these stages too, as he can also lash out a little too indiscriminately.

The game continues in this vein (as usual, I will not be too specific about the journey) as you attempt to escape from the ruins in which you find yourself but much of the formula for the next 10-15 hours is set within the first few minutes which evolves over time as your bond with Trico adapts and changes. 

In a way, after just 3 games, it is interesting that Ueda has such a coherent style that is easy to replicate yet is not replicated by others. The bloom, over-saturated lighting and solitude seems so simple to create but it is not done by anyone else. The Last Guardian is a game and should be judged on that basis but it is not really like other games. The industry has moved on hugely from the point where Ico was a breath of truly fresh air to an industry of indies that attempt to capture much of the ethos. Ico fleshed out a skeleton of a fairly simple set of gameplay mechanics with an atmosphere that felt markedly different to the competition. It wasn't particularly hard and aimed to funnel you through a batch of puzzles that would make you wonder for only a short while. In retrospect, it was a 3rd person "walking simulator"^[5] before it became a genre. The change in the industry that makes the game both standout and, maybe, leaves it flailing, is the cottage industry of atmospheric games. In 2001 and 2005, there was a single proper price point for games - full price (and discounted as they got older). That necessitates a certain weight to your game with many seeing a nice, solid experience as needing fifteen hours. The walking simulators and indie games that often seem to get good coverage are often far shorter. 3-5 hours is a good length for this which means that you have a tight experience with no real need to expand the mechanic too much. The question is whether TLG can really justify itself on these terms.

I enjoyed The Last Guardian tremendously but I cannot be sure how much of that was just a desire to enjoy it after so long and just having the opportunity to enjoy a game without cynicism. The start, which is in an enclosed space, sets the whole game up very well and the art style is evocative, as Ueda’s work always is, of a faded grandeur that asks as many questions as an environment can do. So much is left to your own interpretation in terms of the architecture and design that it will doubtless be pored over by fans for years to come. Trico is a charming creature and the bond between the two of you is expertly crafted and realised with the way that you both help each other. He, or she, is at turns angry or playful or docile or perky. Each Trico is a little different, apparently, depending on how you treat it and so mine was quite obedient as I regularly stopped to care for it. I have read complaints about Trico being frustratingly selfish and stubborn but I am a very caring gamer, so I did not have these issues. The world created is beguiling and welcoming but that is only half of the story - and it is the other half of the gameplay mechanics that may leave some unsatisfied.

Ueda’s games are rooted in the early 2000’s and things which were acceptable then are not as freely accepted now. The most common complaint is that the camera is difficult to control which is not something that I had any difficulty with at all. Most modern games follow a template of control that has been refined of left stick to move and right stick to rotate the camera - and this retained in The Last Guardian. The difference is that it is not as smooth (and this is obviously by design) and quick as in other games using a dreamy, floaty camera that does not always see you central. Your character, as a child, either scampers or tiptoes which has also caused complaint as people expect a different type of control. Most ridiculously, in my opinion, a regular complaint is also that the buttons are not as expected - because the “X” button is not the jump button. I think, due to the way all games seem to be so customizable and so fall into the template of design, this has caused unhappiness but I think this is misplaced. I am used to learning the controls of a game and see no issue with this but I recognise that others might. I had no issues with any of these gameplay mechanics and think they are overblown, but it is worth mentioning^[6].

The puzzles are simple enough but I did sit there perplexed for decent stretches of time which is both refreshing and a little frustrating as the puzzles are quite linear. Again, I am happy to not have it all handed to me on a plate so I appreciate that sense of discovery and “eureka” but there is something a little disappointing about the fact there appears to be single solutions. 

Overall, The Last Guardian is definitely a delightful highlight for me with the overall thrust of the game and story easily enough to propel the game through the hiccups in mechanics which are still quite rare. I would recommend to anyone interested as it will either be something that grabs you or it will, at least, be a game that you are not going to replicate.

The Last Guardian is a PS4 exclusive and can be purchased on the Playstation Store or in shops -  the trailer is below:

^{1. Fairly recently, there have been a number of big Japanese games that have finally seen the light of day after incredibly long development times - metal gear solid V spent x years in development which also resulted in the creator falling out with, and then leaving, his employer Konami. Final Fantasy XV has been in development for the best part of a decade. Last Guardian is published by Sony and was originally designed for the ps3.↩}

^{2. Global sales on the PS2 for both of his earlier games was about 2m combined).↩}

^{3. Team Ico have created three games: Ico could be the Japanese word for 1. The project name for SOTC was “Nico” which can translate as two. Trico sort of follows this convention although tri is not the Japanese for 3, the intention is clear.↩}

^{4. Berserk is also is a Final Fantasy status affliction that makes characters attack constantly without considering other options - highly appropriate here.↩}

^{5. This has become, almost, an implicit term of criticism for the number of games, such as Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, that eschew much combat for, instead, the joy of traversing an area or building intrigue. As games have become more popular, the market for games has widened but, as in so much of life in 2016, those that had it all their own way before don't seem to like opportunities for other people to do things that they can already do. This is a very interesting article about that..↩}

^{6. To be honest, a lot of gamers are very vocal about these kinds of things and I think they let themselves dislike things for slight drops in quality.↩}

Rez Infinite

"You shoot, you get sound effects, sound effects become the music, and you feel a trance. You feel good."

Rez is a classic of its type but what that type is can be a hard thing to pin down. Made by Tetsuya Mizuguchi in 2001, it has the slightly strange distinction of being the first game on Sony's PlayStation 2 from Sega and so it could be seen as either the end or the beginning of a brave new chapter. When working on the concept, he felt the aim would be the initial quote^[1]:

"I wanted to make a shooter. But not a shooting shooter game. You shoot, you get sound effects, sound effects become the music, and you feel a trance. You feel good. Many people love shooting games. Many people love music. They love going to clubs, screaming, getting high. The power of music is very strong. Maybe this is too abstract, but we want to change something. So we needed a big shock. Anyway, let's start to make this. It's an experiment. I had then a small team, three to four people, some designers and programmers."

And simplistically, this is the case. That is the skeleton of the game but there is some classic Sega arcade-style gameplay to get there too.

The germination process for Rez is interesting and the game itself is supposedly about synaesthesia and is a partial attempt to recreate the effects for people that do not have it. The director, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, has also stated that it is inspired by the work of Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky which brought forward the idea of synaesthesia.

The basic genre at the gameplay level is that it is a corridor shooter - your avatar travels along and must get to the end of the stage whilst being attacked by all and sundry. Shooting is achieved by pressing and releasing the shoot button after targeting and locking on to the enemy. As you can lock on to a maximum of 8 different targets, you can float the target around until you have 8 lock-ons for more destruction. The subtleties of the scoring mechanic means that each shot is worth more points when it is part of a chain of up to eight so it is preferable to shoot 8 things down in one go than separately. This is relatively similar to a number of other on-rail shooters such as Panzer Dragoon and Sin & Punishment. The difference is that the shooting is to the beat of the music so the enemies will all be shot down on the beat (emitting different sounds as they do so), of whichever track is playing - creating a different interpretation of the music. As you progress through a particular stage, you enter different levels by shooting down particular elements in the level which will take you up a level and each level is progressively more complex in both visual and sonic terms. The start of a particular stage will usually be quite sparse until you add on the levels by the end so that it is a more detailed soundtrack and visage by the end of the stage and the boss sections. 

It is a simple game that is more about enjoyment than mastery but at this, it is superb. The game itself is neither too difficult nor, with 5 main stages, too long and the market for these kinds of games was not big. 

I have a lot of fondness for Rez on the PS2^[2] yet it did not sell so well for the fact that it was kind of niche. As this was in the era of Sega simultaneously dying yet putting out some of their very best games, it was entirely in keeping with their plight and why gaming was about to get both bigger and more boring in the next few years.

Rez Infinite is a remaster of this old game which has been upgraded in a simple sense by moving to the PS4 with higher resolution presentation. If the models have been altered, it is not noticeably so but the art direction of Rez is not about higher polygon counts and greater detail. As the story is about hacking into a computer system, it is styled in that hacker aesthetic of the late 90's and it holds up today. Mainly because that hacker aesthetic is married with the kind of electronica^[3] look that was also prevalent at the time. Rez had already had remastering on the Xbox 360 so what stops this being a waste of time?

The release of Rez Infinite just happens to coincide with the release of PlayStation VR and that headset lets you go into the world of Rez in an immersive sense as never before. Rez encouraged immersion from the very start with the suggestion of using headphones or surround sound at the beginning and even the release of a "Trance Vibrator"^[4] that replicated the vibration from the controller. PlayStation VR takes that immersion on a few layers and is a truly excellent recreation of what must have been in Mizuguchi's mind at the time. The synchronous nature of everything happening is captured beautifully within the headset and this idea of being the music is really wonderfully realised. It is as clear and clean a demonstration of "games as art" as I have seen. And really, that should have said "had seen" because it has been bettered now. Time waits for no man and Rez in VR is bettered within moments by Rez Infinite's endgame - an additional stage called Area X.

Area X is an adjunct to Rez with a subtly different outlook leading to a vastly and fundamentally different experience. Where Rez presents an on-rails experience par excellence, Area X takes those rails away and gives you a freedom to swim through the ether. It is a freedom that is difficult to put into words but the way that it is managed is by simply allowing you to thrust forward or float backwards in space at will with direction handled by your head direction. Where Rez allowed one dimension of movement - along the corridor, Area X adds the next two yet retains the atmosphere and feels entirely natural. The feeling of swimming through space is quite beautifully achieved and is exhilarating with its ease and visuals. And this brings us to the second subtle, yet fundamental change - the visuals. Wireframe graphics in Rez became more detailed as layers were added but were made up of clean, clear polygons but Area X switches these out for particle-based models and in many cases, the particles stay as dots floating space allowing you to join the dots. This makes a huge difference to the ethereal sense of the whole of Area X. Again, I am not convinced that words or even pure visuals can do justice to the sense of swimming in that world.

Of course, Rez is about the music as much as anything else and the soundtrack for Area X manages to be different to the main body of the game providing the sense of an epilogue and of the night ending with a trance and vocals combination that works so well that it becomes quite an emotional and even spiritual time in there. The use of sound, visuals and tying that in seamlessly to your own movements is a truly intoxicating and otherworldly experience. 

Rez Infinite is an incredible experience and game and I am not honestly sure that anything will be the same again.

It has, however, made me feel a slight sadness^[5] when playing this particular game and that was the thought that this frankly brain altering experience was one that barely anyone I knew would also have. And it would be through choice as this kind of thing, so they have always been encouraged to think, was not for them. It really should be - it is hugely accessible and short. Search it out.

It can be played with or without VR and bought on the PlayStation Store here [link].



^{1. This is from a very interesting interview with Eurogamer. Mizuguchi has an amazing career, and it is he who gave Sega driving game dominance in the arcades with Sega Rally.↩}

^{2. It was not quite good/big enough to be my "R" in my A-Z games blog series but was very much thought of and added as another "R" [link]. Ironically, I think Rez Infinite may be the third glimpse of the future where 1 and 2 were from Ridge Racer. I also referenced it as a very pure form of game in my post about Tokyo Jungle [link].↩}

<sup>3. The game itself is also apparently named after the Underworld track Rez which has a great video that formed some inspiration.↩
4. This was a separate item that plugged into the USB on the PS2 and could be strapped to your person to allow the music to vibrate over you in the way that the controller already did. I have one and found that strapping to my back gave a very cohesive experience. It was not a high unit seller but there is a lot of talk about it as a result [link].↩ 
5. This is on top of the normal annoying sense of sadness that I get and have just termed as Newtonian happiness (due to the equal and opposite reaction) - each moment of joy in life is tempered by the fact and knowledge that it is merely a fleeting respite.↩</sup> 

Monument Valley

I was told about Monument Valley quite a while ago - and warned it was pretty short. On sale at 49p, that is not a terrible price for a few hours of enjoyment and it is apparently a pretty clever game. It has also been ludicrously well received with plenty of awards and lots of sales - a rarity in these freemium times.

The point of Monument Valley is to use the 2D image to pass over a 3D space and in that sense it reminded me of Echochrome (a fairly early era PS3 game by SCEJ which allowed you to traverse the paths with a change of perspective) rather a lot. Monument Valley is a mobile game and so it has the obvious control method of the touchscreen and it is also a relatively simple method. I don't normally play mobile games but I know a lot of people think that they have matured a lot (and you can, of course, now play ports of some older blockbuster titles such as GTA and R-Type) so I was happy to give it a go. But only after quite a lot of faff to get it installed on my mobile which required quite a lot of retries.

The art style is simple and clean and you are presented with a path to a goal which you must walk to - simply with a tap to where on the path you want to go. It is clear, later on, that the wayfinding goes beyond just straight lines so you can click the final destination that you want after clearing/making the path. The path is made by moving levers (using the touchscreen directly) and/or tripping switches with your character. Most of the puzzles, as they are, involve moving levers and platforms so that using the screen view, it looks like there is a clear path.

The art direction, as you can see, is nice and clear - with a story book feel and like a coloured version of Echochrome. It is apparently inspired my Escher and Japanese woodprints. The sounds are stark and there is an ambient soundscape which reminded me a lot of Fez as there is a slight background sound and the levers and switches result in big movements of large stone platforms and this sound is similar. Also, level completions and level select has a similar ambient soundscape.

The game itself probably took me a couple of hours to complete over 10 levels and the puzzles do get a little more involved over that time. The main issue is that they never get particularly tricky and there are not really enough variations or opportunities to be wrong. As a result, you never feel right. It is not the kind of game that allows you to solve levels in different ways, it is quite prescriptive and so it felt, throughout, like a marginally interactive story. The controls made me feel a little detached as the tap to walk mechanic just means that you don't have to do much, solve the puzzles until you have a path and then press the final door. This is later broken down into multiscreen levels but I never felt that the levels were taxing and felt uninvolved in the whole thing. Later, you do have some "crow" like enemies but even they do not appear to do much other than provide annoying cawing.

Overall, the style and idea of the game is quite good but it feels quite a lot like a prototype rather than a full game and has the sense of the training section of a more full game. There are more levels that can be purchased (and I have not done so - it didn't grab me sufficiently) and so it may have a lot more scope but it is unlikely that I will ever find out. Unfortunately, whilst playing it, I thought mainly of the unfulfilled potential of this game and that I much preferred the Echochrome method of being "clever". That, as a game, had a little more variety and was not hampered by the control method which therefore allowed you to get things a little wrong with having so much more freedom. That would be hugely frustrating on a touchscreen mobile game, but that is still how I would judge the game experiences.

Now, I cannot be sure that this is not how mobile games work, simple and always with a sense of progress - this is quite a regular feature of games generally but it felt like a time waster. Maybe that is all it was. Maybe that is all these things are ever meant to be.

I played Monument Valley on Android (shop link) and it is available on other platforms which you can see here: (Main developer page)

[A-Z Games] Z: Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner

Videogames can sometimes, often if you play good ones, be the greatest mix of visuals and sound, putting films to shame. I was strongly reminded of Zone of the Enders (often referred to as ZOE) when watching the big budget, well-received Pacific Rim. I heard a lot of positive comment about the design, the feel and the action. It is but a pale shadow of the soaringly designed aesthetic of Zone of the Enders (and especially the second one).

High Speed Robot Action. 

How is that for a subtitle? Zone of Enders was released, famously, with a pack in demo of Metal Gear Solid 2 - the most highly anticipated game of the age and an amazing technical demo doing the rounds at the conferences had made everyone very excited. As a result, I would guess that most buyers of ZOE actually put the demo disc for MGS2^[1] into their PS2s first. The nature of the game was of controlling huge, high speed fighting robots. Japan has a tradition of robots called mechs or mecha which has not exported very successfully although there is, of course, a healthy niche interest^[2]. The Metal Gear and Kojima connection made the title a relative success on the PlayStation 2 but it was considered a relatively poor game due to its short length, simplicity and irritating main character (was this always a signpost to Raiden^[3]?). Although controlling the robot as Leo was quite fun, the cutscenes showed him as a pacifist child that did not want to do it and was always saying things were unfair - as you may expect a whiny kid to do.

The Zone Of Enders sequel – called either “Anubis” or  “The 2nd Runner” depending on location became one of the most memorable games I have ever played. The underwhelming^[4] first game meant that the sequel almost passed me by and I only picked it up a year or so after release in its Special Edition guise and was thoroughly impressed at the presentation and opening scenes. What surprised me was that I continued to be impressed with the scenes as they progressed – it starts strongly and goes on from there with some of the very best set-pieces in action games.

But the first thing is presentation – the shallowest of points yet something that often defines a game. The introduction for Zone of Enders 2 (link here) is the thing of legend with an exciting and entirely coherent slice of high-speed robot action. All of those words. I think Kojima could have been a pretty good film director. They were not wrong with the description and so the screen filled with the kind of robots that I could not even have imagined; particle and light effects that made sense of all the flashes and bangs and all interspersed with cel-animation on top of a rousing soundtrack (Beyond the Bounds). 

And then you realise that it is not video, in the main, it is using the in-game engine and that you will be doing most of that stuff as you play.

The game itself starts fairly slowly as you are in a mining robot (similar to the Aliens robot suit) after which you find the orbital frame that allows you to indulge in some high speed robot action - which starts quite soon after the discovery.

One of the joys of the orbital frames is the weight and feel of them - they are light and agile allowing quick strikes and a very attack-minded style - the boost button can be tapped for repeated dodges and direction changes. You have a number of standard weapons which allow shooting from afar and a huge laser sword as you get close enough. A number of sub-weapons are introduced throughout the game such as homing missiles, shields and a rather neat grab ability. The undoubted highlight, however, is the infamous vector cannon - a gun powerful enough to take battleships down. Cannons of that power need quite a lot of charge time and so this was a weapon that needed about 25 seconds to charge up - a time that is inconsistent with high speed robot action. But when you used it, what a thrill! The charge up was excellently designed to build tension and animated in that way so you knew it was a big thing. My personal highlight of the game is a particular mission where you must use the vector cannon to shoot down multiple battleships - but of course you must first clear the defences so that you can mount the battleships and then bring them down. It is superbly done in a wonderful high altitude environment and the rhythm of huge battles with swarms of foes punctuated with restful waiting for the cannon to charge was fantastic.

As you progress through, the abilities are regularly upgraded giving some new toys to play with and enjoy but that is of little use if the playground is not fun. Here, there are huge strides from the first game with varied environments in space, in urban areas and in natural canyons. The light design is dramatic throughout with battles taking place at sunset and in low light conditions where appropriate^[5]. Most importantly, however, the enemy attack patterns and styles are massively improved such that they are challenging and you need to use multiple attack patterns yourself.

Towards the end, your abilities are improved so that the bulk of enemies can be swatted away like flies - but that is still insufficient for the final task - Anubis^[6]. That requires one more ability - a game changing mechanic to match you with Anubis - Zero Shift. This will allow you to warp short distances and so adds yet more speed to your arsenal and makes you able to dodge most attacks and close in on most enemies. But some other frames also have Zero Shift - and so the final battle begins.

I really loved Zone of Enders: The 2nd Runner and it has stayed with me for a long time. The story may be hackneyed, the plot may be obvious but it is by far and away one of the coolest games I have ever played. Some of the mission design is supreme with the Bahram battleships being my highlight. Others prefer the high-speed train chase through a tunnel or the huge battle over the plains that turns the war - where you provide mere "support". On top of the great environment design and mission based play - the bosses are also consistently interesting from the return of Leo piloting Vic Viper to the fear-inducing Anubis itself which blackens the whole world. The speed of it all is so direct that you have a wonderful feeling of control - and any failure feels like it is of your own doing. Similarly, victories are also of your own skill. And, ultimately, that is what videogames are about for me. That and the high-speed robot action.

I played Zone of Enders and Zone of Enders 2 originally on the Playstation 2 although both have been remastered on PS3 (which I have also played - as a double pack) which is available here: [PSN store link]. The first game is still quite playable and, as it is quite short, you could now see it as a worthy prologue to the fantastic sequel.

3 other Z titles that might be interesting: 
Zaxxon - Isometric shooter from Sega that was groundbreaking with its three-dimensional play.
Zoo Tycoon - The tycoon series of games were more localised “god games” - and zoos are always fun. 
Zool - The Amiga was always trying to compete, this was to be similar to Sonic. It wasn't.

<sup>1. Metal Gear Solid 2 ended up being an ambitious, sprawling game that was also pretty divisive and the industry kind of moved on such that the sequel sold about half the copies to a larger installed userbase.↩
2. Notable examples are the Gundam and Evangelion series in anime which have huge cultural sway. For videogames, the best known is probably the virtual-on series, which is largely considered to be an arcade style one on one beat em up, made by Sega from the mid 90s during the arcade 3D boom. The controls for this game is "twin stick" but unlike modern console controllers, both sticks are like aeroplane joysticks and this unique control system is thought to be one of the reasons that it did not travel so well. Home versions on the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast required special hardware. But even this hardware was nothing compared to the necessary joystick for Tekki/Steel Batallion.↩
3. Spoiler for MGS2: the main character for much of the game in Metal Gear Solid 2 is not Snake but a weak, green and whiny new recruit called Raiden. He was absolutely hated by the gaming public but made a triumphant return in the fourth game and was resuscitated enough to have the side game "Rising" made all about him by the ever brilliant Platinum Games.↩
4. You can be underwhelmed and overwhelmed but I do think that it is a real shame there is no “whelmed” as it would be an appropriate word so often.↩
5. One of the great disappointments of the film Pacific Rim, was that the environments were never dramatic enough - the final scenes really looked set up for a warm, orange battle but ended up in darkness.↩
6. A lot of videogames bring in ancient folklore from many different sources and this is no exception. Games do not have the best of reputations in terms of their intellectual capacity but I have been introduced to many interesting facets of history by games such as this.↩</sup>

[A-Z Games] Y: Yoshi's Island

5 (Five).

Between 1985 and 1995, Nintendo released five proper, console, Mario games - and Yoshi's Island was the first to not be numbered such. It seems faintly ludicrous that the king of gaming was so infrequently used at that time and that is probably why we all have such fond memories of the games. Super Mario Bros did not really have a proper sequel^[1] until, bizarrely, 3 on the NES. Super Mario Bros 3 was, like Super Mario Bros, a genre defining piece and even 25 years later, a lot of the ideas within it are retained in modern games. After this, the numbering method went a little awry - Super Mario 4 is actually the launch title for the Super Famicom, Super Mario World^[2] and is called it on the front cover although this seems to have been forgotten by most. Yoshi's Island is subtitled Super Mario World 2 and so, it seems, the practice of giving Mario games on different hardware different names was coined.

Yoshi's Island sees you inhabit a world of Yoshis which is a wonderful, pastel coloured world made up of hand drawn loveliness. This was the first time I really remember a game, a blockbuster game, feeling like a conscious style decision had been made. I know this is not actually true, but the move to realism was definitely afoot - although it was really a move to 3D CG. Just before Yoshi returned, Donkey Kong had also returned in Donkey Kong Country. Rare (who would later create Goldeneye) created a 2D game that looked and felt like it was 3D by using sprites created by 3D computer graphic modelling rather than hand crafted per sprite. It was a popular look and the game itself was a huge success^[3] and so there was internal pressure to mimic the look in a true Super Mario game.

That pressure was not enough to actually bear fruit in 1995 and instead, Nintendo stuffed some special Super FX chips^[4] into a cartridge to be able to squeeze some more modernity out of the Super Nintendo. The previous, "big" title with a Super FX chip was Starfox which enabled polygons to make a 3D world on a 16-bit console but this was a game that used a 2D engine with effects.
The game itself drew upon the Mario heritage to create a complete platforming package where Yoshi is transporting a baby Mario through the levels but there was a slight variation to the Mario blueprint as there was also a shooting element. Yoshi could eat enemies and then lay an egg which you could then throw at objects. This was used to open switches, collect objects and, of course, attack. It changed the style a little and felt a little impure, to me. At the same time, the collectibles were nice and clear and so there was good reason to revisit levels - something that was more important in an age of saved games meaning that you did not have to replay earlier levels (though warps existed to jump through worlds in even Super Mario Bros).
The mid-90s were a real point of inflexion for the industry though, and this joy of a game - made with love and huge backing sold merely well. Four million sales is not bad at all, but this was after the 9 million selling Donkey Kong Country and the release of the Sony Playstation (with the jaw-dropping Ridge Racer. Change was coming (or had come) - and cartoon graphics were not the future. There were plenty of factors behind those changes, but they would lead to a very different marketplace and, eventually a very different Nintendo^[5] - and also a very different Mario lineage. The next true Mario was Super Mario 64 launching on the Nintendo 64 and showcasing almost everything that made Nintendo masters of that craft - and crucially it was in 3D both in visual and gameplay terms. Nintendo would still make 2D Mario games - it is just that they would be much, much closer in style to Donkey Kong Country with a pseudo 3D CG look that was fairly consistent with the real 3D Mario games - even down to the faintly annoying "It'sa me!" voices. The "New Super Mario Bros." series of games, debuting on the Nintendo DS, have been very successful with the 3D look but I do feel that they look a little charmless. The gameplay remains as compelling and charming as ever, and it is gameplay that counts, right?
Yoshi's Island, in the end, pointed to a future that never quite was, but in the post 3D world, it has a look that is still charming and often alluded to in the way that so many games now look - especially in the indie scene.

3 other Y titles that might be interesting:
Ys - A cult series of JRPGs starting in 1987. 
Yoshi's Safari - A shooting game but with cute, cartoon characters. Nintendo all over. 
Yakuza - Sega's love letter to Tokyo and both Shenmue and Virtua Fighter. The split between Japan and the rest in gaming is perfectly embodied here.

^{1. Super Mario Bros 2 as we knew it in Europe/US had a very different feel to the original game with a number of different characters as it was actually a re-skinned version of another game (with slight adjustments, read about it http://www.themushroomkingdom.net/smb2_ddp.shtml) - Doki Doki Panic. Super Mario Bros 2 in Japan was, effectively, a number of different levels using the same basic look and feel of Super Mario Bros - a sort of DLC actually.↩}

^{2. Super Mario World is probably my favourite Mario game - though there are no real Mario games that are bad - they are all sprinkled with magic dust as far as I can tell.. The A to Z is, however, a harsh method. Many people consider the Super Nintendo/Super Famicom to have been the greatest hardware of gaming (I do not agree with this actually, my favourite console is probably the PlayStation 2 - it was just at the point where art design meant more than polygons. Just.) but almost all of the great games of that time were prefixed with "Super" and so with one fell swoop, an almost entire library was discarded.↩}

<sup>3. I checked this, and it was the second best-selling SNES game - which seems quite different to my memory of the time. It sold over 8 million copies, making it more popular than even Super Mario Kart and beaten only by Super Mario World - and that was a pack-in title for many years.↩
4. Super FX chips were implemented in certain games in order to expand the capability of the Super Nintendo on a per game basis. The SNES and MD had a few games where the game cartridge itself also had features such as a built in multitap on the J-Cart or, for Virtua Racing on the MD, a "Virtua" chipset similar to the Super FX.↩
5. These changes are not really in scope for this but the N64 era made Nintendo a little more cautious in some ways and even more daring in others. They are still going, and from a developer point of view, they definitely still understand game mechanics better than most.↩</sup>

[A-Z Games] X: Xenon 2: Megablast

I have not played this for more than twenty years and a little reading around suggests that it has not aged well at all - but that does not stop it being memorable.

In all honesty, I cannot remember much of playing Xenon 2, it was a top-down scrolling vertical shooter.^[1] on the Commodore Amiga. The main draw, it seemed, were the graphics and the sound - the game looked great and had a Bomb The Bass song as the soundtrack!

Games of this era were, in hindsight, tiny and coded efficiently to the point where you did not have much memory to play with. I would guess that in many cases, remakes on mobile phones of certain games will have icons that take up more space than the original game did. When I was younger, Street Fighter 2 on the SNES was famously on a massive cartridge and that took up a huge 16Mbits - which is 2MBytes. These games were smaller still so the music and graphics used many repeating elements. As a result, music was meant to be relatively simple and would effectively be coded and played (rather like having sheet music) rather than recorded. This was "chiptune" and meant that hardware had its own sound signature. Even now, there is a quite sizable following for different chipsets of that era and debates over which was better. The Amiga version had, to all intents and purposes, a version of a song that was what you would actually hear on the radio due to the quality of the sound chip (called Paula) and this was a ground-breaking moment. Soundtracks and scores (in both senses or the word) are really important for games as they set the tone of a piece and can add a lot more to games - especially in eras where the graphics were not as immersive. Dance music can sit very well with games (especially in the electronica themed worlds of Wipeout) but it is likely that the sounds of videogames inform the world of dance music quite heavily. I think some still think of "game music" having a distinctive sound but modern equipment, since the 32-bit era, have allowed sound quality indistinguishable from CDs. Music publishers also see the amazing marketing potential of putting music in games and the soundtrack of the latest FIFA games will be heard, constantly, by millions of people all the time.^[2].

It was not just the sound that seemed very advanced, the graphics were also very nice with huge levels of destruction shown on screen and a metallic aesthetic that seemed pretty futuristic and classy (and quite different from the Japanese and US videogame aesthetic). With a shop system used to buy weapon upgrades, you could eventually get to the point where the width was basically just your weaponry. The screen filled with enemies and destruction as you powered up, more and more, but, in hindsight, it was not quite the bullet hell which would later take the scene by storm. These kinds of screen filling battles continue to be the draw of shoot em ups today and the classics of the genre fill the screen with bullets and explosions that the player must navigate through.

Xenon 2, as the name suggests, was a sequel and the original Xenon was something I later got on the ZX Spectrum. It was interesting as your "ship" could convert between a ground tank and an air based 'ship. As I got it after Xenon 2 was released, I compared it with games that seemed similar and so it reminded me a lot of Silkworm and its pseudo sequel SWIV. In these games, two players would control two different vehicles - a tank and helicopter - to progress with the pair needing to work together. Silkworm was a great idea and I played it a fair bit with my cousins - co-op games were always fun. I am surprised at how the idea of two different craft has not really come back, not on a single screen anyway. I guess squad based shooters have taken the idea on a little. Convertible ships have kind of fallen out of fashion now too so the game does seem a bit dated. Although maybe that can now be rebranded as retro-appeal.

3 other X titles that might be interesting:
Xenogears - Exemplar of the JRPG in its maddening, and maddeningly brilliant, form. 
X-Wing - I think of this as the start of the Star Wars rebirth from the mid-90s. 
Xevious - Lush green backdrops instead of space made this shooter stand out in 1983.

^{1. The shoot em up genre, as I consider it, is basically not inclusive of first-person games or the similar "third-person shooters" like Gears of War. At the time, you had vertical or horizontal shooters which were either single screen or scrolling. Xevious, I think, had introduced the third dimension by having air and ground targets and enemies, but many games eschewed it for simplicity. Some games do also scroll in all directions now but the classics usually choose a direction and stick with it.↩}

^{2. I actually have, as I am now a little older and live in a bubble, no idea about what music is popular in the wider world but when I was more into both games and music, I heard of a few bands and acts on the more "niche" side through games - Adam Freeland in Rez, or Mondo Grosso in Lumines for example. In earlier games, licensed music was pretty rare but it now seems more and more common and I was recommended "Temper Trap" without realising I had heard them on Pro Evo. A colleague of mine told me about an Imagine Dragons song at her own wedding which I thought was also in a videogame. She said it didn't sound like it was from a videogame. It was. Not something she wanted to hear about such a special song for her for reasons that I will leave to your imagination.↩}

[A-Z Games] W: Wanda to Kyozou

Wanda to Kyozou
Interestingly, I have already written about this game as I replayed it fairly recently on the PS3 HD remaster. I think that is the best version.
That post is here(click the picture):

To précis:
The "games as art"^[1] movement is fairly weak if using the kinds of blockbuster games at the top of sales charts, whether that be at the accessible end with Mario and Pokemon, or at the age restricted end such as Call Of Duty. One of the games regularly mentioned as evidence is Wanda to Kyozou (or Shadow of the Colossus^[2] as it is known in the west). It is memorable because of its beauty and evocative atmosphere. And, that you never forget your first kill - along with the guilt that goes with it.

3 other W titles that might be interesting:
Wipeout 3: Special Edition - Fast, stylish and coherent - not sure zero-G got better than this. 
Wonderboy - It always felt like a pre-Sonic rival to Mario. Platform games on Sega. 
Wii Sports - Waggle-o-mania, but wirelessly.

<sup>1. What art represents is hugely open to interpretation anyway. If art is meant to make you feel, or be moved, then what hasn't done that? And the idea that games cannot be art because of certain games is as nonsensical as saying paintings cannot be art as some rubbish drawings have been produced. Isn't it? And, anyway, my favourite art exhibition  - Digital Revolution at the Barbican drew so heavily from games that it would be nonsense to take them out. As we all know though, conservatism can be a strange thing - blind to reason and thought sometimes, just protecting themselves.↩
2. W is the correct letter for this and is not a cheeky way of getting away from S as the Bare Knuckle entry may have been. I was in Japan when this was released and I always knew it by this name which means Wanda and the Colossus (although Japanese, linguistically,  has no "the" and is ambiguous as to whether there is one or many).↩</sup>