A Game Changer

Recently I finished and talked about Braid. The ending got me thinking about how we view games, and what we come to expect from them. A fresh player, having no prior knowledge of Braid would go in to the game thinking "Yes, of course I'm going to save the princess at the end, because that's what the story is setting up for me". That feeling would be reinforced at the end of the first (or rather second) world, where they are told that "The Princess is in another castle". "Ah ha, just a little homage to the Mario games, frustrating me a little, only to make the reward greater when I actually find her later - a little clichéd, but I'll allow it".

The entire perception of the game shatters right at the last instant though, due to a seemingly simple, yet world-changing plot point. You're not trying to save the Princess, in fact she needs saving from you. It's not very often that we don't get a "happily ever after" ending, which makes sense, that sort of climax is tried and tested, but it's nice when we get something a little different from the norm. That's not to say I want more unexpected endings either, the industry would eventually just become a big parody of itself to the point where a plot meeting would result in someone saying "Hey, why not this time, have the good guy win at the end for a change?" That's not what anyone wants, but it's not just endings that could benefit from a little variety.

Take Spec Ops: The Line for instance. It's a standard third person cover based shooter game with squad control mechanics. It received average reviews, but there was one thing that the critics all pointed out as a highlight - the unexpected story twists. "The white phosphorous mission" became almost instantly infamous and controversial. The scene sees the player equipped with a mortar and is shown small white dots which are the targets to be blown up. Yeah, you've seen this before right? In the AC-130 sections of the Call of Duty Games. Perhaps that's the point. In those games you blow everyone up, they might be trying to escape, but they're still terrorists and they've still got guns which they're probably going to use to slaughter innocent people. So in Spec Ops, that's what you do, you blast those white dots to hell. But what if those white dots were innocent people? That's what Spec Ops: The Line explores, and it's not until later that you find out that you've accidentally murdered defenceless men, women and children. It's not a moral choice you're given in the game, it's just something you did, and it's up to you whether you can live with that or not. CoD explored a controversial moment with the airport massacre, although it lacked subtlety. "Hey guys your character is going to go in and shoot up this airport full of civilians - isn't that extreme and controversial?!"

So those are examples of unexpected plot twists and game moments, but what about a game that utterly changes in what it's asking you to do? Fez starts out as yet another indie platforming game with a twist. You are the only person in the cute little world that can perceive a third dimension, which opens up interesting puzzles involving multiple planes. It's not especially difficult, and you can reach the end of the game without much difficulty. But the end of the game is where the real game begins. It almost becomes a cryptanalysis game, needing you to solve an entirely made up language along with dealing with other entirely new puzzle mechanics. No mention was made of this before the game's release, and it's possible to 'complete' the game without ever encountering any of the new stuff. When people did find out this unbelievable amount of hidden depth, there was a certain amount of shock.

There are games out there trying to be different and add a little something to the industry, they just need to be praised more for what they are doing. Do this enough and hopefully developers will sit up and take notice - "People actually care about games and aren't just buying them to give us bucketloads of money? I suppose we'd better give something back to them, then."