KATAWA SHOUJO GAME OF RISK ATTACK OR DEFEND SERIES
Spec Ops: The Line is actually a reboot of a late 90s, early 00s series created by Zombie Studios, a now defunct studio that released a good deal of stuff but seems to only be remembered for their Saw games.
This was all the stranger if you look back at the original Spec Ops series, which was about as politically critical as an army recruitment ad. On top of that, while NieR was focused on the wider hero narrative of Japanese games (particularly The Legend of Zelda), Spec Ops was taking a dirty look at trends started by Call of Duty, which carried far more obvious and uncomfortable real world connotations. It was a tragedy like NieR, but any semblance of beauty that game had was instead replaced with horror and realistic violence. Unlike NieR, which worked slowly to reveal its subversive and critical nature, Spec Ops used its compact campaign length to make its thoughts perfectly clear in quick fashion (though not without some trip-up). While there had been games about games before, Spec Ops stood out for its aggressive nature. Yet here it was, spitting fire at the US military, the growing military shooter genre, and even the player themselves. However, it was made by a small German studio nobody had heard of before, and it rebooted an old tactical shooter nobody remembered that was mostly known for a stream of awful budget games. It was an extension of 2K Games’ desire to capitalize on artistically ambitious big budget games, born from their early success with Bioshock. Spec Ops: The Line was completely unexpected, both in what it did and where it came from. However, one game came out that year that started to dominate conversation, never really going away as the years passed, mentioned in the same breath as the works of Yoko Taro, now starting to be genuinely appreciated by more people. Twisted Metal made a return, Katawa Shoujo popularized the western visual novel, Dear Esther marked the early signs of the exploration game boom, the Mass Effect trilogy finished, Street Fighter and Tekken crossed over, Xenoblade Chronicles hit western shores, The Walking Dead pushed what we thought possible with game narratives, critical darling FTL released, Kirby got a sweet game collection on the Wii, Dishonored continued the immersive gameplay of the Thief series, XCOM came back proper and became a phenomenon, 999 got a sequel, Hotline Miami shocked the entire indie scene, and the WiiU was released to moderate fanfare that quickly died off, showing a chink in Nintendo’s armor.
In other words, when you play a videogame …do you feel like a hero?Ģ012 was a huge year in gaming, both in the big leagues and the indie scene. This is normally used to make the player feel great, like their choices and decisions have real impact and they can assert themselves in ways they never could. Unlike most mediums, gaming has a great ability to make something personal for the player, giving them control, or rather the illusion of control, upon a story or an entire world.
More than that, though, there’s a serious lack of discussing The real potential of the medium and the norms in it we’ve attached to it. There’s this disturbing streak of anti-intellectualism from such a wide swath of people that it’s intimidating to take part in any talk, because it can be derailed so quickly. Mainstream videogame discourse has problems. Content Warning: Discussion of PTSD, gore