Two Games I Didn't Really Like for the Opposite Reasons

I say "really like" because, in the end, I did enjoy these games. Just not much.

I almost-disliked these games for the opposite reasons. And the first one I'll discuss is the foreigner-extermintion game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

One of the reasons I didn't like this game was because of its pacing. The rest of this sentence is not entirely true, but level after level seemed to have the same pace, which was composed of shooty shooty bang bang, followed by "more shooty shooty bang bang." It's not quite the never-ending gun fight of Black Ops, but that's not a comparison MW2 would want, as BlOps was shooty shooty bang bang porn. The near-non pacing of those games makes you feel like you're playing the previous Call of Duty's louder levels all over again. It's boring. Pacing, man.

But at least MW2's story was silly in the end, which brings me to the other reason why I didn't so much like the game: The crap story! Or the crap writing in general. I could first discuss the crap plot, but I won't discuss at all and yet will just say that it makes no sense and manages to be insulting to Russians (there's a xenophobia to the game that is not just stupid but random -- Call of Duty 4 had the Russians making sense, as psycho as we know they can be). That story is bad and, I think, what the critics would call the worst thing about the game. But to me, the worst thing is MW2's writing part of the writing. Mainly because it comes off as written for illiterate, shooting-obsessed jerk-offs. It tries so hard to be stupid! The writing is so stupid! STUPID!!! WHY IS IT SO STUUUPIIIID?!!!

I liked the co-op though. And I also like the stupid fist fight at the end. And, to be fair, it also lets you shoot Americans...

On to Braid! As I said, this game has the opposite problems (actually it doesn't, but just pretend it does). Whereas CoDMW2 has a pacing problem, Braid has a puzzle problem. Its gameplay is all puzzles. There's nothing wrong with MW2's core gameplay feature (understand the situations as fast as you can and kill Russians). But Braid's core gameplay feature is just: Figure These Out. It's all mental, well-paced mind-using, with some of the later puzzles being easier than the earlier puzzles yet still remaining challenging overall. There's no hand-skill. It too is no fun.

The other weakness in Braid is its writing. I think I may have called it pretentious at some point. It probably is, but I don't have an example of the writing with me to see if I was stupid when I played it. But pretentiousness aside, I do know though that it (even today!) has boring writing. How? Because boring writing is easy to remember. And when I say "boring writing is easy to remember" I mean that: it's easy to remember that it was boring. Interesting writing filled with knowledge is the same; it's easy to remember only that it was interesting. (With entertaining writing, it's easier to remember some of the actual words) Braid's writing? Boring! I could look up samples of the writing to analyze the words for boringness and prove my point, but it's boring so I don't want to.

ICO and Braid are Boring, Yet They Are Good

Ico was tedious. That's a less harsh way of saying "Ico was boring." I reviewed Ico in 2008, telling imaginary gamers to ignore Ico. All it gave me, I said, was a strong emotional experience which culminated in a perfect moment of crying happiness for the horned boy Ico and his obviously-girl-friend Yorda. Too much of the game was a pain. A strong emotional experience wasn't enough to justify eight hours of life.

But now I partially rescind that conclusion. I now think that fun was never the point of Ico and that condemning it because of its lack of fun is folly. I think the point of Ico was to show the world that a game could elicit a powerful emotional response from a gamer. And, of course, there were other concomitant goals, like: create a sublime, castle environment; make a(nother) game comprised of thought-provoking, brain-working-outing puzzles; throw in monotonous shadow monster battles in order to remind you not to stray too far from your mate; and that's it I think.

Ico reminds me of Ian Bogost's Procedural Rhetoric. Ico makes you suffer Ico's world, and you get cutscene rewards. Seeing all the stuff you do culminate into a non-procedural-rhetorikee cutscene of desperate loyalty and love, seeing what Ico is willing to suffer so a girl can have a chance at life, and seeing the final, beautiful ending sequence that is so incredibly touching that I'm not going to write it, is very much the point of this game.

And being fun is also not the point of Braid either. The point of Braid is to give you an excuse to drink wine while wearing a fez while playing a video game, in front of anti-video game wanks, just to show 'em. Braid's pretentious story-telling and 4th dimension puzzle-solving tools and pretty backgrounds and soothing music are ... nice? Yes! That's the word. They are nice. Except for the pretentious, unaffecting story-telling. (Insert Jonathan Blow sex joke)

One of my legs still stands by my Ico review though. Do NOT play Ico or Braid for enjoyment UNLESS you enjoy puzzles. You don't need to play Ico to see how a video game can make an emotional spark. VIDEO GAMES CAN MAKE YOU CRY (and now you know). Braid has a brilliant ending sequence that is half play, half rewind (essentially a cutscene) that makes you think about good, evil, and desire. But hell. Why care? I certainly didn't go to sleep thinking about it, and you probably didn't either.

So yes, those two are good games.