Review - Fez

Fez cover art

The appeal of Fez is hard to describe. It is as if you absorb gamer joy by diffusion. The truth is probably more beautiful. The essence of more than two decades of video- game design, gameplay and esthetics have been distilled, refined and poured into Fez. It has self-consciously pressed the etiquette to inform us of this; and then proceeded to exceed our expectations in a way I can only describe as trancendental. Trancendental of tropes, metaphors, epistemology and ontology; or in other words - of imagery, expectations and existing inspiration.

You start out as a youngling in your little village. Quickly the holy object of the Fez is conferred upon you by a village elder. The scene is reminiscent, probably deliberately so, of the scene in The legend of Zelda: A link to the past where an old man gives you a sword and says It's dangerous to go alone! Take this. And so begins your adventure.

There is no sense of any coming- of age theme, or any other heavy sub-literal thematic in Fez. Instead you are presented with unfettered exploration! The most visible and visceral being the game's core mechanic - turning the 2- dimensional fixed perspective around 90- degrees to get a new fixed perspective. The 3D world underneath the 2D illusion neatly opens up, shifts around and folds back in again - not quite inconsequentially: Your flat world becomes accessible, and perspective shift are also reality shifts. Ladders that seemed to be appart are now whole.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Fez never develops as a character. He is cute but nondescript. He is only an avatar for your exploration. This becomes very clear as you start to piece together some of the games deeper puzzles - which will undoubtedly have you scribbling on your very real and un- digital paper. The whole story becomes even more beautiful as you go headlong into it's mythology. 


Maybe here is the clue to Fez' main problem. Much of the more interesting parts of the mythos is sorely unattainable for most players. Many of the game's puzzles requires starting a new game after the first run- through has been completed - and even eschewing that the idea of noting down chicken scratches on the wall may be so far fetched that they never think of it at all. 

From a technical standpoint I'd say some mechanics are underused - traversal is a bit on the easy side - jumping isn't as precise as it could have been - and the what- the- bugger moments of utter confusion comes with an alarming frequency. Still - many of these points are points of preference - and not at any point in time did i turn off the console in sheer exasperation. Maybe it has to do with attitude. Puzzles can intrigue - underused is synonymous with novel.

Fez will be one of the games I'll talk about for at least a decade. As time goes on and the general interest in it wanes - I'll rejoice in revealing it's parables to real- world ontology, rant about it's excellent use of music and discuss it's video- game lineage. Fellow fans and I will undoubtedly trawl the internet to find like minded people - and we'll discuss similarities in other titles such as Rez and Sword & Sworcery EP.

Fez is one of those few games parent and child can enjoy together. But I assure you - it is equally enjoyable alone - in the dark, and with your eyes, ears and mind tuned into the beautiful world of Fez.

Review: inFamous 2

Suckerpunch promised. They promised! But it still happened. Like in any other superhero- game sequel, the hero is bereft of most of his powers. Then you are left to run around to build these up again to some cataclysmic event. Not that this is a bad formula. It is one that suits video- games very well structurally, but It’s also not very brave.

Still, there are many obstacles,* so I do kind of understand them. inFamous 2 keeps the controls easy and clean, and they seldom get in the way of the way you fight. Only towards the end you’ve got your fingers jostling for space on the DualShock. Mostly thought you just feel powerful. You feel in control.

The story has it’s high points and low points, but never comes close to the mystery and excitement of the first game. I had hopes that more of the story threads from the first game would carry over, since many of the more interesting mysteries were still unsolved.This time around, the story is much more dependent on the characters, and the characters aren’t always up to the job. There is simply very little subtlety in them. A trait that they share with most of the game. If the characters are righteous. the are. If they are wicked and spontaneous, they are predictably always wicked and spontaneous - and while their motivations seem clear enough I never really become convinced.

The previous game was a Video- game, with cut- scenes like a comic book. Now the influence from comic books is seen more throughout the game, from characters inspired from Watchmen, to the slightly cell- shady look of the thing. The character design is also more overstated, which goes well together with the unsubtle feel of the game, and the more colorful environments.

The environments represent the biggest change for the positive for the sequel. For the rest of the experience, the game reeks of a development team that, after obtaining success with a game with many good ideas, wanted to safely bring in game number two. Which means that many classic overused design features from other games, suddenly appear in game number two that wasn’t in game number one. Such as more powerful enemies without exception being bigger. WHY! The powers of the conduits are mental abilities, then i slightly disappointing that you can’t have some really powerful small ones - enemies that you feel are fighting on equal terms with you.

When I have gripes with the story, it is because I so so want it to shine - cause the rest of the game does. The enemies are interesting and fun to fight,the controls are good, the environments are beautiful and varied and in contrast to many other games with a good/evil play-through option, they really make you want to start that game right over again to see what would have been different.



I’d say, play this game to relax your brain, and put your feet up high. Expect lot’s of good ol’ action, but not an intriguing story.

…………..

*
The DualShock controller can only handle so many button combinations before things get messy, a fault we often see of previous generation games. It’s only natural then that some of the slots need to be switched out in favor of other powers. But Suckerpunch just gives you the same powers back, and then with variants. Why not just start with the powers, then get more interesting variants? Even though the game tries to remedy this, the combat style doesn’t change much throughout the game, you just become more efficient at it. Suckerpunch has managed to strengthen the melee combat, but the two don’t blend well together, you are generally doing one or the other. As a minor spoiler and a minor complaint, you really never end up feeling more powerful at the end of the second game than the end of the first.