We often question why stories in games (and I speak very generally here) are so simple. The answer lies in game narrative’s relationship with formulaic genre archetypes. They owe a collective debt to the familiar and digestible stories of popular fiction so embedded in our culture. While the trappings of genre fiction (comedy, sci-fi, horror, mystery, adventure) may not be overly complex, they offer something familiar, something recognizable for the player to immediately understand the world in which he/she plays with established rules and stock characters.
Video game narratives draw deeply from the wells of genre fiction because they are an easy pull, and the latest game to delve into genre fiction is Ubisoft’s Far Cry 3. The game has gained no shortage of criticism in terms of its depiction of race, sex, exploitative plot. A review in The Atlantic called it the “first game for millenials,” seeing it as the fantasy of all 20-somethings in a saturated job market, creating a place for themselves in the world. Jim Sterling sees it as a fun game that often delved uncomfortably into “Mighty Whitey” territory. Polygon posits that the game’s plot devolves into a cliché about the “corrupting influence of the savage wild, and plays directly into the white savior trope.” And the game’s lead writer, Jeffrey Yohalem defends his team’s creative choices, saying that it is more of a satire about all things colonial and racist. At the heart of all these criticisms, though, is the unspoken acknowledgement of the game’s sources, and thus its bizarre politics and racial issues: adventure fiction.
Writer: Steven Hansen
PS3 (reviewed), Vita, 360, PC, Wii
Released: Nov 15, 20l1 (PS3/360/Wii), Feb 15, 2012 (Vita)
Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier
Publisher: Ubisoft
I never got too into the Rayman series over the years, but when Rayman Origins caught my attention, looking that pretty, I had to take a peek. I also had to check and make sure that I still loved 2D platformers and that it isn’t just nostalgia that gives the genre its glister. Turns out, I do in fact still love 2D platformers. And I love Rayman Origins.
In Rayman Origins, some things definitely happen. Rayman, his goofy pal Globox, and friends are all chillin’ out in the Snoring Tree when their chill beats disturb an old, scary lady from down below, causing her to unleash a pox upon the world that Rayman (and company) must stop by saving sexy nymphs and doing other things. It may in fact be an origin story (as the name might imply), set in the beginning of the Rayman universe. Or it may not. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that it warms my soul.
When I first took control of my unfamiliar, limbless protagonist, I felt an innate satisfaction in simply maneuvering him around the environment. It was just like all of the great platformers in how empowering it was simply to jump, but Rayman has some modern contrivances that help elevate it, as it builds on the fundamentals of its predecessors.
Writer: Andy Astruc
XBL (reviewed), PSN
Released: March 7, 2012 (XBL), April 4, 2012 (PSN)
Developer: Darkworks, Ubisoft Shanghai
Publisher: Ubisoft
The world is coming to an end. All the power plants exploded, a meteor has entered the atmosphere, the robots have taken over and all the men have caught a mysterious disease and dropped dead. In a stroke of good fortune, the only people equipped to survive the coming storm and inevitably depressing aftermath will be forest-dwelling, bearded lunatics and people who play video games.
More radiation and dust-covered bikini babes for us, in the end. The realm of the post-apocalyptic wasteland is not new to video games (Fallout, Enslaved, Rage and Beneath a Steel Sky just off the top of my head), but could we ever really tire of decaying worlds stripped of colour and happiness, where life itself withers and rots like old cheese? I Am Alive certainly thinks you’re ready for one more spirit-crushing trip to the death of everything.
