Fumito Ueda Is A Genius

Spoilers on ICO in the last paragraph.

If you don't know who Fumito Ueda is, he's the mastermind behind ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, two of the Playstation 2's most loved games. They are both similar, and yet quite distinct. They happen in the same universe, with Shadow's ending setting up at least one plot element that comes to fruition many generations later in ICO. They are both brilliantly and similarly designed visually, with distinct, saturated lighting, and gigantic, breathtaking architecture common in their settings. ICO probably looks better, since it's more confined, and the poor little PS2 struggles to make Shadow's huge environments and inhabitants run at a decent frame rate. They have similarly minimalistic stories.

The basic mechanics feel a bit similar, with lots of running and jumping and climbing with less than perfectly graceful protagonists, but the actual gameplay is quite different, with ICO having you work your way through a gigantic castle, solving complex environmental puzzles, with simplistic combat thrown in to balance it. Shadow on the other hand, revolves around its battles with the titular Colossi, with a good amount of searching in between. The boss battles are generally more cerebral in nature than's typical, but it is still relies much more on the player's twitch ability. It also takes a much different direction with the score, which is all about bombast and majestic, sweeping melodies, while ICO's audio is almost entirely ambient. The stories have similar tones, although ICO's is more self-contained and whimsical whereas Shadow's is more complicated, and less resolved, while also being darker in nature.

I beat Shadow almost a year ago and ICO way before that, but I bring them up now because I've been thinking and reading about them a lot in the last couple days. It started when Ueda was interviewed about his thoughts on God of War II and the differences between American and Japanese design philosophy. Cory Barlog, director of said game, responded by posting his own thoughts about Shadow on his blog. The translated interview and Barlog's response are here and here. It was interesting to see two different developers talk about each other's games, but it really just got me to think about Ueda's work. I gave his two games and Barlog's all 9's, but while God of War II is merely an extremely competent and interesting action game, ICO and Shadow seem to resonate much more and provoke more actual thought than games usually do. They are also both used, ICO especially, as Exhibit A in the case for Video Games As Art. I'm not sure how I feel about the subject, I can see why someone would say it's really no different than a movie, but just the fact that you control the outcome and the way it's produced more similarly to a tax application than a painting just says "product, not art" to me. I think games definitely contain artistic elements, and maybe some really are art, but as a whole, the medium isn't.

But I'm getting away from what I was talking about. Reading about the two games led me to two discussions by one guy, one, a still active forum thread on Colossus, and the other encapsulated in a GameFAQ about ICO. They really delve into everything about the mechanics of the storylines, and they're great reads, the ICO one especially. I had known of the theory that Ico and Yorda are dead at the end of the game, but it never sat right with me. It was conceivable, but I didn't see why it was a necessary conclusion. The FAQ breaks down exactly why it's less likely than the obvious conclusion that they lived, and really discusses story conventions themselves in great deal. I always though these two games were a bit overhyped relative to their actual worth (which was still high), but not many games really inspire this much pondering. Gameplay-wise, they're both quite solid, but what really gives them their worth is the stuff the player isn't directly in control of, and it really is what makes Ueda so good at what he does. He's supposedly working on his next game in the same mold for the PS3, and I cannot wait to see what it is.

Game Archive 2

Here's the rest of the game stuff I've written in the last half year.

Role Playing Games


I used to think I didn't like role playing games. Then I realized it was a stupid thing to think. I loved Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I love The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I'm currently DMing a group of Dungeons & Dragons players. I like games that incorporate RPG-style character improvement like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and the Ratchet and Clank sequels. I don't dislike role playing games, I dislike Japanese role playing games, or at least the traditional idea of them.


What I like about RPG's is the freedom to create your own story they grant you. Obviously tabletop games take this to the extreme, you can basically do anything the DM can make a ruling on. But video games can get away with a bit less because of the production values and the interesting story they (hopefully) bring. You can customize your character to be good at what you want to be good at and have some choice about what to do next. Sometimes the main story is pretty linear, but that's okay because you at least have some choice about how you go about it.

Japanese RPG's aren't like this. Some have customizable characters, but others only give you superficial ability choices while limiting the cast to whatever basic job they're supposed to have. And of course, you can't expect a non-linear experience, there's probably some side quests, but the main game is a straight line. I don't define role playing games by stat building, I define them by what the name means - you inhabit a role in the game's setting, and it's hard to do that when you're just being strung along whatever story they've cooked up.

I don't want to come off like I hate all Japanese RPG's, I've admittedly had little experience with them, mostly restrained to the 3D Final Fantasy games. I'd like to expand my horizons and give some more games a fair shake, but I'm really just not interested enough to devote all the time it would take with my busy College schedule.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)


It's another Zelda game, and what that has come to mean is some extremely well-designed dungeons, fun bosses, and a grand old time rife with adventure. I do have a few problems though. It definitely beats The Wind Waker in world design, as it's easy to make a countryside with mountains and deserts and all sorts of terrain more interesting than an ocean, but I honestly prefer WW's visual approach. Unlike TP's "realistic" graphics, WW will still look good in ten years, and I think the cartoony look better matches the series' constant goofy breaks from the otherwise serious tone.

The pacing of the story seemed a little off to me, you learn too much too quickly and not a lot happens later on in the game. Also, it's really way to easy. Every single boss was a piece of cake. Combat was designed so enemies defend themselves better, but the only thing in the game that does more than one heart of damage to you is falling into lava. I guess I'm complaining a lot, but it's just because I love Zelda and I think this could have been better.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (PS2)


I wasn't sure about this one for a lot of the time I was playing it. Most of the new gameplay features add depth but detract from the fun, in my opinion. Limited inventory space, having to use camouflage, feed yourself, and mend your wounds and breaks sounds cool and realistic, but it just adds a ton of menu navigation to the normal gameplay experience. I don't think it really enhanced my experience needing to change my uniform when I move from the jungle to the inside of a building or click on a few different items to stop me from bleeding away any more health in a tight spot.

I was also concerned about the story, I was one of many who was fed up by the direction MGS2's story went by the end, but since then I've come to appreciate it more, and MGS3's tale didn't seem as twisty and interesting, perhaps in response to that backlash. MGS3 has more of a focus on character and emotion than political quadruple-crosses, and ends up being the most satisfying and best story in the series, in my opinion. And let's be honest here, thanks to the series' deep but increasingly dated and clumsy gameplay engine, the story is why we play Metal Gear. I don't have to tell you the visuals are amazing, and the sound is quite good too, well acted as always, and with some good music and maybe the best use of a classic theme I've ever seen near the end.

Subsistence also has some great special features, especially the inclusion of the first two games from the MSX (this being the first time MG2 is available legally in the US) and the hilarious Secret Theater.

No One Lives Forever (PC)


I got the first No One Lives Forever game when it came out in late 2000, but thanks to a frustrating series of events, I didn't complete it until six years later. The game ran poorly on my Windows 98 POS computer, and stuttered its way through outdoor environments even at the lowest settings. I didn't advance far before the computer crapped out and I lost my save, and lost my interest for a while. Later we got a new machine, and the game ran perfectly. I got much farther in the game before the hard drive pooped out and I lost my save again. In the Fall of 2005, I got my own computer, which kicked the old one's ass, and checked the game out, but was preoccupied and didn't get around to actually playing through it a year later. Despite this long, painful road to completion, I still saw how good a game it was.

It doesn't have the amazing gameplay and physics engine of Half-Life 2, and some of the cinemas seem awkward, but it's quite a good stealth-based shooter. I say stealth-based, but rarely do you actually have to be stealthy, most of the time you can just cap fools as you please. The game's brilliance mostly comes from the writing, which is both hilarious and intelligent for most video games. It creates a fun and self-referential world that's fun to be a female James Bond in. If you never played it, you should look past the now-dated engine and graphics and give it a go.

No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy In H.A.R.M.'s Way (PC)


It didn't take me long after beating the first to get right on the second, which continues in the spirit of the first pretty well. The graphics are remarkably better considering the game was released only two years later, although it's mostly cosmetic enhancements to a now-seriously dated engine, especially looking at the gravity and other physics.

The game itself is mostly solid, with fun, stealthy shooting, but there are a few gripes I have. They added respawning enemies that make it annoying when you're scouring the area for every intelligence item and extra objective you can find and they start looking for you upon finding dead bodies. The flashlight is now an inventory item instead of something you can just turn on while still shooting. I'm just not as big a fan of this game's pacing, it starts off very strong but the formula becomes more transparent as you go on and it seems a bit anticlimactic with the boring final level, and the game's apparent refusal to kill off any characters. The first game saw you infiltrating and causing havoc in various heavily defended fortresses, NOLF 2 spends too much time making you run around India and in abandoned stations in the snow. It's still a good game, just a slight disappointment after the first.

Okami (PS2)


If you have a PS2 and don't play Okami, you're a bad person. It's simply a fantastic game. The graphics are stunning - I don't care about the GE Force 8800 or the new current generation of high definition systems, Okami is the best looking game I've seen, thanks to the great art syle and amazing cel-shading technology that makes it look like a living watercolor painting. This is an opinion of course, if you'd rather look at super high-def ruins in Gears of War, that's just fine. The game also has great music, although I can't say all the audio is good. Okami's main flaw is the voice acting - it's text based, and instead of silence or some beeps, you get garbled snippets of voice (like Banjo-Kazooie) that's tolerable at first but gets very annoying after long bouts of extended exposition.

It's not just great because of its aesthetic qualities though, it IS a video game, and a good one. I can say without doubt it is the best Zelda-style action adventure that isn't actually a Zelda game I've played. It's easy, but still fun, thanks to the Celestial Brush, which you use to draw your special attacks and tools instead of having to sort through an inventory. The different brush powers are all easy to learn and remember, and they give Okami a unique flair to the traditional exploring and combat. The dungeons are more focused on using your powers to advance forward, the puzzles are less Zelda-style solving something to open a door and more using your techniques and platforming skills to reach that door. The combat is a little simple, but still cool thanks to slick attacks, a variety of weapons, the use of the brush techniques, and interesting enemy design.

The story should also be mentioned, I wasn't expecting a lot, but it's actually quite good. The character development is great and there are some cool twists and turns, and it's all enriched by the Japanese mythology that surrounds it. Overall, Okami is a cohesive, beautiful work of art and it's a damn shame no one is playing it.

Sam and Max: Culture Shock (PC)


Being the first of six parts of a "season" of new content, and costing only 9 dollars, Culture Shock is allowed to be short. And it is short. Even if you make sure to click on everything and see every last snippet of dialog, it will only take you a couple hours to see all there is to see. The jokes are a bit hit and miss, but they mostly hit. Some of the puzzles are a little annoying or take some cajoling to get working, but it's pretty satisfying when you figure out what you need to do. This isn't some major new release to get sucked into, it's a charming, enjoyable bit of nostalgic adventure gaming. Take a break from whatever hardcore game you're plowing through and have some relaxing fun.

Sam and Max: Situation: Comedy (PC)


Where Valve and Ritual have failed, Telltale Games has succeeded... not in making a good game, but in getting episodic gaming right. Like the first, this chapter of Sam & Max's new adventures is only a couple hours in length, but it hasn't been that long since I played the last one, so the memory is still fairly fresh in my mind, and the desired effect is achieved... a somewhat continuous gaming experience. It's still a little too easy, and some of the celebrity humor is lacking, but it's a mostly funny, enjoyable experience on the cheap.

Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)


I am conflicted. The main focus of Shadow of the Colossus is obviously the battle with the Colossi, and the game completely nails this. The fights are amazing. I found about 2 to be more annoying than fun, the rest were a blast to run around, scale, and smite. But what if this was a Zelda-style action-adventure game with puzzle-filled dungeons and towns scattered around the vast countryside with people to interact with (the towns are less necessary), and the Colossus battles were the focus and the main conflict, not the entire game? The Colossi ARE awesome, but that's all there is. The environment is beautiful but really not very interesting to explore. I would truly love this game if it just felt complete. Also, I wasn't a fan of the controls, and how when you take damage from a strong attack, you fall over, and it takes you about ten seconds to stand up, which usually gives the enemy enough time to prepare and hit you again, repeating the process. If you can't tell from my description, this is NOT FUCKING COOL. Although I really dug the connection to ICO.

Best Games of 2006

It's a little late for yearly picks, but it took me this long to finish some of the games I wanted to play. No arbitrary number of selections, just my personal list of notable, great games. It came out to a round number anyway, but that's not a guarantee.

Best of 2006

5. Bully (PS2)


This is partly a feel-good choice, but I just really liked that Rockstar was able to put out a game this enjoyable, and you can't even kill anyone. Sure, you can beat the crap out of people and threaten them and hit them with bottle rockets, but no dying. Seriously, it's funny as hell, charming, and honestly a lot of fun to play.

4. Gears of War (360)


A lot of things about Gears are imperfect besides the graphics, making it really hard for a shooter, already limited by its genre, to do much better than this, so it's quite a rousing success. I wanted to play Gears for a long time, and then I got the chance, enjoyed it while it lasted, and then moved on. I marveled at the presentation. I laughed at a lot of things, like the probably-too-frequent glitching, the throwaway taunting dialogue ("Eat shit and die!"), the bizarre moment where Marcus and his pal turn from grizzled war vets into Vaudeville characters slipping down a wet incline, and the ridiculous carnage of a chainsaw to the face. I wondered about the lack of good weapon selection - there are two assault rifles, one of which blows; a shotgun I never saw as valuable since being in close combat was so dangerous; and a few situation-specific weapons that didn't have enough available ammunition to really spend time playing with. I also wondered why they tried so hard to make a completely harmless enemy like the Grub seem scary. I did have a lot of fun running for cover and shooting ugly dudes in the face, though.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)


Twilight Princess is a great game that still manages to be overrated. When I hear Jeremy Parish say things like (slightly paraphrasing) "It's like Ocarina of Time, but much better," I literally cringe. Yeah, TP improves on OoT in a number of ways, most notably in graphics and difficulty of block pushing puzzles. But Ocarina of Time was freaking revolutionary. You can easily bring up how much A Link to the Past influenced that one, and I won't argue with you because I didn't play it, but OoT still set the formula for what three-dimensional Zelda games are, and more importantly, how three-dimensional action adventures in general are basically supposed to work. TP doesn't surpass that just because it managed to set the franchise record for most elements and mechanics directly lifted from previous games in the series.

I don't completely agree with Jeff Gerstmann's score, but he's totally right in his points that it's a well-designed, well-executed game that doesn't stray from a formula that's worked in the past but is maybe a little dated. And just because they haven't done voices in the past doesn't mean that's a defining Zelda characteristic. People said the same thing about Metal Gear Solid's camera until they realized the one in Subsistence was much better. I'm probably bashing my number three game too much, so I'll stop. Excellently crafted game, not the best.

2. Okami (PS2)


I kind of wanted this to be my game of the year, though I must admit it isn't. It is a tremendous game though. Amazing art, excellent use of traditional Japanese music sty le and storytelling, great level and gameplay design. Like Zelda, it was too easy, but at least it seemed to be challenging in spots. The faster pace of combat and more clever use of brush techniques instead of a large inventory made it more satisfying, and the final boss at least seemed daunting, even if it really wasn't. It really is a shame games like this don't get played, but at least the will of its developers lives on in SEEDS.

1. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC)


No game from 2006 gave me more entertainment than Oblivion did. It's not just a quantity thing though, I didn't calculate this by hours of enjoyment. When it came out, I played the crap out of it, and I played the crap out of it again on two other occasions during the year. I still intend to go back and play the crap out of it some more, since there's plenty of quests I haven't finished. I haven't been a vampire, or even got that far in the main storyline. There's just so much to do and it's all so well realized. The melee combat is spotty in places but quite good for an RPG, the stealth is as good as you'd want, and the depth of the magic system is great. So much of the crap that you don't need is thrown out, but there if you want it. A lot of Morrowind fans preferred that game, and I won't argue against them because I didn't play it, but I can't imagine myself doing so, since Oblivion does so much in terms of the technology that it would probably feel ancient. It's not a big choice for favorite, but it's definitely mine.

Notable Exception

Half-Life 2: Episode One (PC)

I had a great time with it, but as much as I liked it, I can't bring myself to include something that only lasted four hours in a real "game of the year" discussion.

Delayed Entries

These are games that were released before 2006 but I didn't get around to playing until then and warrant mentioning.

Beyond Good and Evil (PS2)

The fact that not enough people played it caused people who did to overcompensate by talking it up too much, which I contributed to. The same thing happened with ICO. Both very good games, both not quite deserving of their adulation.

Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening (PS2)

I actually played the Special Edition, which came out in 2006, but I don't count rereleases. It rightly brought respect back to the franchise, as it's quite the slick, fun, challenging action game. The thing is, it has to reinvent itself a little more fully and seperate from the whole survival horror thing/vibe completely. That was cool when Resident Evil still sucked, but times have changed.

God of War (PS2)

Another good game I think is overrated by most. Yeah, the combat looks cool, but any joker off the street can pull off a sweet looking combo. Just because the animations look nicer doesn't make your combat deeper than a normal button masher.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PS2)

Again, I actually played Subsistence, but I don't count rereleases. Great story, really good gameplay, I'm really glad I didn't have to play with the other camera (except for the final battle for some reason).

Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)

The Colossus battles were totally, completely awesome, and the story was interesting, reserved, and well-presented. The rest of the game could have been better.

I actually played a ton of great games in 2006. A landmark year, really. I'll also do posts like this for music and movies, but not baseball moments of games or anything like that, for two reasons.

1) I don't watch enough non-Yankee games for it not to turn out horribly biased.
2) Even with just Yankee games, there weren't that many amazing moments last year. They left early in the playoffs, and it's kind of hard to have strong, memorable moments during the regular season, in fact, I can only think of one that really stands out, and it's not the five games in four days massacre of the Red Sox in August, which was horribly painful to watch. I've never seen so much mediocre pitching in such a short time.

No, I'm thinking of a game against Texas back in May, when they Yankees were behind 9 to 0 in the second and game back to win on their final at bat. It was amazing in several ways.

1) Obviously, the huge come-from-behind win.
2) I actually predicted this would happen when they were losing 9-0. Proof.
3) They won the game despite three of their starters being out with injuries (still leaving them with 6 all-stars, huge payroll, I know, shut up).
4) They actually had to come back twice. They took an 11-10 lead, but lost that and were down 12-11 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.
5) Jorge Posada was absolutely ridiculous. He blocked the plate and got absolutely plowed by Mark Teixera, but he held on and saved the run. This isn't a huge deal, but he stayed in the game, and drove in five runs, including two on a walkoff home run that won it. It was the only time all season I actually shouted in joy when the Yankees won.

Anyway, yeah, that was the Yankees season.