Games That I Appreciate

by Piyoz on Feb 1st, 2014

Welp, it’s that time of year again! Award show season! Daft Punk wins a Grammy. Leonardo DiCaprio wins a Golden Globe. And we haven’t even gotten to the joke that is the Oscars!

On today’s episode, I’m going to do something that I should have done a long time ago. Give my own awards. There are a number of games out there that deserve praise. And it’s not just for being good games. It’s for accomplishing something else while they were at it. Games that go above and beyond the call of duty to grab attention and win our hearts.

Award for: Drug-Induced Fervor

We live in an era in which many forms of entertainment media are under attack. Concerned citizens group together out of paranoia that violent movies, games, and music are breeding a culture desensitized to violence. The effect of the media around us certainly does have an effect on the ways we think and see the world. I don’t doubt that.

This is why it is so refreshing to see a game like Hotline Miami. Brought into our lives by the Swedish development team Dennaton Games, this game is a cocaine-fueled rampage through 1980’s Miami, one whose single goal is to kill every single person in a given room. It’s violent. It’s grotesque. It’s brutal. It’s mentally disturbed, sickening, but brilliantly so. Hotline Miami doesn’t care about being politically correct or consumer-friendly. Just kill dozens upon dozens of Russians. This reckless abandon in the face of the gradual coddling of our society really inspires me.

Or maybe such complaints of violent media don’t exist in northern Europe. I don’t know.

 

Award for: Originality and Execution

The appeal of a game like Catherine is difficult to explain. The real beauty of this game rests in the execution of the story and the puzzles. I mean, the concept of a puzzle game where the player arranges walls of blocks to ascend to a goal isn’t that special. The story and characters of Catherine are something spun off of Persona (it’s made by the same company, so…)

It’s the execution of the puzzles and story together that acts like a matchstick striking a matchbook. Neither is very special on its own. When together, the plot is carried along by the player’s struggle to ascend through each stage. In turn, the puzzle stages are given extra meaning by the protagonist’s neurotic compulsion to climb. It’s a game that will tug at your heart strings after it lights up your synapses. The synthesis of these two factors sticks out in my mind even years after playing it.

 

Award for: Carelessness

In the same vein as Hotline Miami, I appreciate Suda-51’s No More Heroes series for its blatant disregard for appropriateness or appealing to the mainstream. These two action games starring otaku assassin Travis Touchdown are a blast to play. That’s because the creators are clearly having so much fun thinking of bizarre and looney characters and combat stages. And when the creators are having fun, we’re having fun.

No More Heroes is so raw, so visceral, so sexualized and irreverent that it’s pretty shocking that Nintendo allowed it on their machine. Grasshopper Manufacture created something ignorant of the culture of focus groups and demographics. Suda-51 doesn’t care what people think. He does what he does because that’s what he feels like making. He’s a true artist for this medium. No More Heroes relishes in its blood and gore and flirts with becoming straight-up pornography. That’s what makes the over-the-top action scenes so exciting and the more dramatic scenes so much more impactful.

 

Award for: Conceptual Genius

I see no reason to say anything more.

 

Award for: Art Lessons

I mentioned this game in an article a while ago. I talked about the characters and cut scene animations of the Wii title Xenoblade Chronicles. It’s a straight-forward JRPG whose people models look like they could come out of a game from 2006, and whose in-game cut scenes consist of four animations (explaining, thinking, running, and attack stance). The visual presentation of the people is held back by technology, yes. But that’s not what’s important.

Xenoblade Chronicles teaches us a lesson about art design. A player isn’t going to feel an emotional connection to something when a certain amount of realism in virtual faces is reached. No! We feel connections to other people. People going through struggles, who feel conflicted, and who argue and emote. That’s captured in writing, not anywhere else. Xenoblade gets that.

Similarly, the depth and immersiveness of a game is not created by high resolution, huge maps with lots of detail, and pretty CGI. No! Player integration is achieved from giving the player’s avatar something to do in this world. A player wants to keep playing when they can have an effect on what’s going on. In the world of the Bionis, there are hundreds of quests that do more than just tell you to go out and kill this monster. Or go fetch an item. When you finish quests, NPC relationships change. Often based on your decisions. You can see people and their environments become altered by your interaction. You feel like you matter to the people of Colony 6, and Alcamoth, and the Fallen Arm. That is what immersion is. And it’s Monolith Soft that taught me that.

 

Appreciated for: Being Web-Savvy

Valve is a smart company. They know their consumers. They know what they buy. They know what they play. They know how they express themselves.

People liked using Garry’s Mod to make stupid YouTube videos. Bam! Here’s Source Film Maker to help you do it better! People like indie games. Pow! Steam Greenlight. People like gaining virtual reputation and decorating their online personas. Wa-Zam! Steam profile customization and ranks.

Team Fortress 2, one of the biggest online FPS’s, in my opinion, is the culmination of smart online business practices. For one, it’s Free to Play done right: pay nothing to play whatever you like as long as you like. But pay money for extra drops, trading, and Mann Up Mode. Purchasing items is optional and usually decorative. You can buy weapons, but because the weapons are (mostly) balanced, nobody ever has an advantage from throwing money at Valve. People only have an advantage from skill/team stacking.

Better yet, TF2 provides hilarious web comics, regular updates, new modes, and cosmetic items created by players. Valve knows what words and phrases have become memes among players and constantly uses that in adding new weapons and hats. Sure, the game can be buggy. But it’s that Valve sense of humor. It’s the way that TF2’s creators provide new things to do that never violate to core game play and still keep an enormous online audience. This is something that I truly awe.

This concludes the 2014 Piyoz Awards! What do you think? What about these games do you admire? What do you dislike? Are there any games that you hold above all others? Let us know by posting a comment.

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