For me, Christmas and the holiday season is all about the two week break I get from college. I don’t really care about the tree, the shopping, the gifts, or other festivities with the family—well, maybe I do care about the gifts a little, but whatever, I digress. What I really care about and am truly grateful for is the two weeks I get of uninterrupted video gaming.

When I was younger, holidays were all about what Santa Claus would bring me and beating The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time before I had to return to my sixth grade Algebra class. If I could tell that brat who sat next to me and always pulled on my hair that I’d killed Ganondorf before he did, and done it without a Gameshark, I would be queen for weeks. He might even ask me to the Junior High dance. Nowadays, however, my breaks are more for enjoyment than dominating little boys. My competitive side seems to be fading, at least in the area of gaming—perhaps eight hours of raiding a night in World of Warcraft for months straight takes it out of you, I don’t know.

As such, given my newfound casual side and my previous “addiction,” this year’s to beat list is incredibly retro. I’m making up for lost time, and some of the games are so 2005 it hurts. Still, for this hardcore player gone casual, they’re worth giving my two cents about.

The first game on my list is Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. I recently got the original game for the PC along with its expansion packs. In some ways, I’m grateful my old PC would not run it well enough because the expansion packs and user made mods will make the gaming experience better than if I’d played on release. In short, I’m excited. I’m not delusional, though. I’m aware it was the game of the year for several systems, and it’s been hailed as a monstrously huge game, so I’m not expecting to beat it, but I am expecting to start it. I’ll let you know how it goes after I get done designing my character which has thus far been a two hour process!

Next we have Final Fantasy XII. I got it for my twentieth birthday and I originally liked it a lot. The game went downhill pretty fast. As much as I liked the lead female this time and the character customization and the locations, I grew bored quickly. Normal quests felt like chores, the storyline was about as engrossing as my Political Science textbooks, and eventually feeling as if I was playing FFXI all over again gave me enough reason to quit. I actually gave up with about twenty or so hours put into it, so if I do resume it, it should be easy to complete before the year’s end. I would like to complete it so I can play the DS sequel.

Another game on my list is Witcher. This is one of two games that is recent. Witcher intrigues me for the following reasons: it’s a RPG, its reviews have been extremely mixed, and people have thrown out allusions to Fable–which was one of my favorite (if a little short) games of 2005. There will be a review of this at a later date, as it is another one that I’ve installed but not played extensively yet.

I’m also playing World of Warcraft again. Despite ebaying my past two characters, I do have mild affection for the game—when I’m not stuck in a raid, spamming Flash of Light, watching seconds of my life disappear at a time. I decided to PvP this time around for welfare epics on my newly 70 Night Elf Druid, and my goal would be to have the s3 leggings before break ends and the heroic badge resilience cape.

The final game I’m playing, and the one that sparked this entire entry, is Indigo Prophecy also known as Farenheit. IP is one of the most astounding games I’ve ever played and it went under the radar of most gamers, myself included, when it was first released in September 2005. It marketed itself as an interactive thriller, but it’s more like a movie. From the beginning opening sequence, it shows itself as a video game that’s like no other video game you have played. The cinematography is stunning. As you see the lead character, Lucus, grabs a knife and stand behind a man in the bathroom of a run-down New York diner, flashbacks and split screens allude to something supernatural taking place. Suddenly Lucas lurches towards his victim then stabs him, and the player gains control of the murderer for the first time, who immediately has to choose what he wants to do. Does he want to hide the body? Does he want to wash his hands? Does he want to exit the bathroom and proceed eat his apple pie? And if he does that, does he want to tip the waitress or not?

The game, in many ways, lets you choose the path you take. Every action has a small effect on the subsequent scenes. I personally chose to wash my hands and run out, into the alley, eventually running from a police officer who saw me leave then discovered the body. Finally, to escape, I jumped into a taxi. I could have hid the body, or not even washed my hands, or even stayed in the bathroom and let the police find me (which would have resulted in a game over, unfortunately). This isn’t to say that the game is the open-ended world of Oblivion or anything, however. The path is always clear, and the plot ever-present with timers and forced sequences/dialogues that make you stick to it. Instead it’s to say that it’s a closed-world with open-ended choices. You may have to go from point A to point B, but Indigo Prophecy lets you choose whose vehicle you take to the destination.

IP also expands on a game’s typical presentation of a character and his/her mission. Lucas may be a main character, but he is only one of three. The other two happen to be the NYPD detectives who are on his murder case. Carla Valenti and Tyler Miles are introduced when they arrive an hour after Lucas’ departure and investigate the same bathroom in the same diner. This immediately presents the gamer with a few choices. Which character do they support here? Do they care more about justice, or about why Lucas murdered a man? The gamer is also presented with the option of either playing Carla or Tyler while doing interrogations, giving further choice if one wants Carla to be in a better mood for discovering a clue or let Tyler take all the glory.

After the first few hours, the game introduces its combat system or, I should say, its lack of one. Instead of a combat system, it relies on a series of mashing keys (for the PC version) to get through scenes. For example, on the PC, a standard scene might involve hitting the left-arrow key then right-arrow key, then two right-arrow keys in a row to successful complete a sequence of events and get to the next. If completed incorrectly, the player either dies or simply misses an Easter egg.

There are times this combat system is annoying. The controls would be my biggest critique of the game. A later scene offers the chance for Lucas to sleep with his ex-girlfriend, if the player can play the guitar properly to serenade her. It’s an interesting idea, but being forced to suddenly mash out a long strand of keys that takes several minutes to do to see a bonus scene that has no immediate effect on the game is a bit cumbersome. Still, I did it. I helped Lucas fucking play the guitar. This is because IP promotes a general affinity for the characters and their lives; one wants their character to be happy, to attempt to live a normal life despite the circumstances, and to get whatever little joy there is out of their miserable lives. This is because the lives are truly convincing. Similar to how a movie sucks you into its world, Indigo Prophecy sucks you into its world as well. I even found myself checking their computers when I was in their houses or offices, and was completely surprised to see that the game sends the character emails from other characters if certain interactions occur. When Tyler fights with his girlfriend, you can control the severity of the fight through dialogue, and she’ll email you either way. The email completely changes, however, depending on the insults thrown and mood taken.

Other emails I’ve seen so far include a South African scam mail, a little note from Carla’s gay friend Tommy apologizing for their lack of communication, and a spam message for Valium—which, it seems, the characters could definitely use.

Building on that, I can say the game is atmospheric. It’s depressing. The bleak landscape of New York City covered in snow never changes, and it’s a very dark plot even when humorous. While one minute Tyler might be making a joke about Gremlins or listening to some upbeat mo-town, the next he might be fighting in the kitchen with his girlfriend about the dangers of his job. Carla, a strong female lead by all means, has literally no social life and is living as a lonely bachelorette who spends too much time around corpses instead of living, breathing bodies. Lastly, the third character, Lucas, is a murderer without a cause. He doesn’t know why he killed someone, but he can’t get over his grief that he did. When he shares this with his brother, his only confidant, we discover his brother forsook Lucas for the church and their bond is strenuous at best. Different choices here can happen, and different paths can occur, but all of them are tinted with the underlying the sad existence that Lucas’ life must be if his distant brother is the only one he can go to in a time like this.

In short, the atmosphere and characters make you think–and feel.

Adding to its atmosphere, much like a movie or a television series, the game uses real music. While in the past I’ve been blown away by music in video games, I can say for a fact that this game has the best music since Silent Hill 3. SH3, if you recall, had the vocalized opening that came in perfectly with the FMV of Heather in the train station. This game has moments like that throughout its entirety. Carla, walking around in her apartment, will have some grungy rock playing about a girl with sandpaper kisses. It’s not music I would normally listen to, but it fits the character so well it’s painstaking. It’s perfect. It may very well be one of the few games I will never mute. It makes the mood that much more real, and tangible.

Overall, Indigo Prophecy epitomizes what this break is about to me—and concludes my list of games to beat over break. You see, for me, this break is about gaming again, and rediscovering gaming. What IP does is reinvent video games, and do so with a breathtakingly unique style.

So, while you’re sipping on your apple cider, with a controller or mouse in your hand, if you haven’t picked up one of the games on my list, or if you haven’t played a few games you’ve been meaning to, I suggest you do so. That’s part of the spirit of the season; wonder. We grow up thinking Santa is real, we hang stockings and bake chocolate chip cookies for a man who supposedly lives in the North Pole with reindeer and his wife. As gamers, even if we may no longer believe in Santa, we can still hold that philosophy to gaming. We can have wonder. We can lay out hope instead of cookies for a game and use some of our vacation time to play something we may have never gotten around to. We can relax.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 20th, 2007 at 11:38 am and is filed under Video Games, Reviews, Editorial, Holiday Themed. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.