It recognizes a deeply animal fear of the dark, of the eldritch, of the world-outside - and it asks the player to push through it to a place of wonder and curiosity. Here, Outer Wilds hones in on the terror of exploring the unknown. In Celeste, the main character’s panic attacks and anxiety became a useful tool to explain the difficulty of the gameplay. Like Celeste, Outer Wilds teaches the player to be aware of a negative emotion and challenge it fully. It was an incredible pivot: from being awestruck by terror, to being awestruck by beauty. I got to where I needed to go, and found myself in a post-script I didn’t expect, and which would not have been the same at all had I watched it on Youtube. I roasted a marshmallow over the campfire by the launch tower for good luck. I had looked up hints before, so why not just watch a Let’s Play of the ending?īut, reader, you know where this is going: I booted up one more time. At one point, I yelled so loudly that my partner, seated in the other room, asked if I was “actually hurt, or video game hurt.”įor a moment, I thought about just not finishing it. I could see the finish line, and then just miss, by a hair, and have to start over. Sure, I wasn’t flying into the sun anymore, but I may as well have been. I failed over, and over, and over again, hands shaking. So there I was, on the couch, knowing what I needed to do, and continually messing up due to my fear. So, putting myself, repeatedly, in a situation that literally made my heart race with fear wasn’t exactly top of my To Do list. I’ve never had an easy time distinguishing actual threat from imagined threat - I mean, I started writing these short reviews to champion games that didn’t hinge gameplay on terrifying the player. Without giving anything away, the final bit involved going to a part of the solar system I didn’t like. I knew what I had to do, and I was terrified to do it. I had all the pieces in place (80% through my own exploration, 20% through some light internet research). Last night, I knew I could finally finish the game. In the review, I said I hadn’t finished yet, but that I could recommend it alone based on how joyously it encouraged and rewarded exploration. not only being a strong game of the year contender, but a possible game of the decade). In it, I said I had started it, gotten discouraged, and then picked it up again after hearing all the praise it has received (e.g. A few days ago, I posted a positive short review of Outer Wilds.
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