Solid Snake
03-03-2011, 01:40 AM
http://gdc.gamespot.com/story.html?sid=6301593&pid=952634&mode=previews&tag=topslot;title;5
...I seriously cannot even watch that video interview without getting teary-eyed, I just know that Fumito Ueda is deliberately going to concoct an ending to this story that will have me absolutely bawling for days on end, as I desperately attempt to salvage whatever remnants of sanity I can. It will touch me in a way that most modern movies and television shows are absolutely incapable of achieving. It will leave me a torn, battered husk of a man.
For those of you who don't know Fumito Ueda, you're really missing out. He might be one of the greatest minds working in the gaming industry today. His first project was ICO, which really defied just about every stereotype you could make of video gaming. ICO was not about providing you stellar gameplay sequences or visceral combat or seat-of-your-pants action. It wasn't about bombarding you with 40+ hours of dialogue in a desperate attempt to attach you to characters as if you were reading a novel. ICO was about subtlety; it was a mastery of several tiny elements, body gestures and flowing movements, enabling a gamer to develop a touching bond not through the overt telling of emotion but rather through the mere ability to watch a young girl run around an ancient windmill, feeling the crushing despair and isolation when she was far away, feeling a moment of happiness as your avatar held her hand and led her to safety. ICO was a triumph of minimalism. The story was nothing more than a fairy tale that was only vaguely alluded to, the evil forces nothing more than shadows, your weapon only a stick and childlike determination.
The aging, decrepit castle was perfectly evocative of a mood of decay and destruction; the soothing music that barely played as you sat down and rested to save your game was dreamlike and ethereal; the game itself felt less like a videogame and more like an odyssey, an enduring adventure that you were blessed with the opportunity to undertake.
...It remains one of my favorite games to this very day.
More of you are familiar with Shadow of the Colossus. Shadow traded in ICO's puzzles for the more traditional kind of visceral combat we associate with the genre, yet it completely subverted every expectation we could possibly have as gamers as to the nature of the ensuing fights. In Shadow, the avatar did not fight minions to gain arbitrary levels, but instead fought a series of grueling boss battles against foes that frankly put God of War to shame in its scale and intensity. The world itself was massive, a series of gorgeous landscapes to explore. The colossi were incredible. The music was astounding. Your bond with Yorda was replaced with one for a horse, and goddamn it, that horse left me more choked up than characters in role-playing games with substantially more development and pages upon pages of dialogue.
Whereas ICO was morally clear, Shadow was nebulous, the lines of good and evil blurred beyond recognition. But both games made you think. Both left enduring impressions that lasted long after the ending credits.
So now here comes Ueda again, with an absolutely adorable looking animal named "Trico" whose non-verbal mannerisms are just so well defined. The boy and the monster are just both so expressive. Their actions, their mere movements, their eyes and hands tell their stories, who they are, how they act, how they feel about each other.
...I am going to flood my apartment with the salty water of my tears upon finishing this game, and I cannot wait for it.
Also, damn, the fall and winter of 2011 is going to be an incredible time to own a PS3. Between TLG, ME3 and Uncharted 3, I am going to flunk out that semester, and I will not even care.
...I seriously cannot even watch that video interview without getting teary-eyed, I just know that Fumito Ueda is deliberately going to concoct an ending to this story that will have me absolutely bawling for days on end, as I desperately attempt to salvage whatever remnants of sanity I can. It will touch me in a way that most modern movies and television shows are absolutely incapable of achieving. It will leave me a torn, battered husk of a man.
For those of you who don't know Fumito Ueda, you're really missing out. He might be one of the greatest minds working in the gaming industry today. His first project was ICO, which really defied just about every stereotype you could make of video gaming. ICO was not about providing you stellar gameplay sequences or visceral combat or seat-of-your-pants action. It wasn't about bombarding you with 40+ hours of dialogue in a desperate attempt to attach you to characters as if you were reading a novel. ICO was about subtlety; it was a mastery of several tiny elements, body gestures and flowing movements, enabling a gamer to develop a touching bond not through the overt telling of emotion but rather through the mere ability to watch a young girl run around an ancient windmill, feeling the crushing despair and isolation when she was far away, feeling a moment of happiness as your avatar held her hand and led her to safety. ICO was a triumph of minimalism. The story was nothing more than a fairy tale that was only vaguely alluded to, the evil forces nothing more than shadows, your weapon only a stick and childlike determination.
The aging, decrepit castle was perfectly evocative of a mood of decay and destruction; the soothing music that barely played as you sat down and rested to save your game was dreamlike and ethereal; the game itself felt less like a videogame and more like an odyssey, an enduring adventure that you were blessed with the opportunity to undertake.
...It remains one of my favorite games to this very day.
More of you are familiar with Shadow of the Colossus. Shadow traded in ICO's puzzles for the more traditional kind of visceral combat we associate with the genre, yet it completely subverted every expectation we could possibly have as gamers as to the nature of the ensuing fights. In Shadow, the avatar did not fight minions to gain arbitrary levels, but instead fought a series of grueling boss battles against foes that frankly put God of War to shame in its scale and intensity. The world itself was massive, a series of gorgeous landscapes to explore. The colossi were incredible. The music was astounding. Your bond with Yorda was replaced with one for a horse, and goddamn it, that horse left me more choked up than characters in role-playing games with substantially more development and pages upon pages of dialogue.
Whereas ICO was morally clear, Shadow was nebulous, the lines of good and evil blurred beyond recognition. But both games made you think. Both left enduring impressions that lasted long after the ending credits.
So now here comes Ueda again, with an absolutely adorable looking animal named "Trico" whose non-verbal mannerisms are just so well defined. The boy and the monster are just both so expressive. Their actions, their mere movements, their eyes and hands tell their stories, who they are, how they act, how they feel about each other.
...I am going to flood my apartment with the salty water of my tears upon finishing this game, and I cannot wait for it.
Also, damn, the fall and winter of 2011 is going to be an incredible time to own a PS3. Between TLG, ME3 and Uncharted 3, I am going to flunk out that semester, and I will not even care.