joy

This game was reviewed in conjunction with A Boy and His Blob. To see the comparative review click here.

I’m always looking back to find good games that I missed playing at their time of release. In this case I recently got access to a Playstation 2 for the first time, and decided to take advantage. Ico, a minimalistic, puzzle-based, action-adventure game created in Japan in 2001, is an astonishingly fresh experience, and a contender for the single best computer game I have played to date.

In the game, you play the title character, a young boy born with horns who is imprisoned in an ancient castle as a sacrifice. It is granted that you must escape, but what really makes this game a beautiful work is the interaction you have with a captive girl you find locked in a cage at the start of the game. Yorda speaks an unknown language, and is in the castle for unknown reasons; she shines, and as soon as you release her shadowy creatures are after her. The relationship you build with Yorda as the game’s story unfolds, developed entirely through body language and character action, is an astonishing achievement, and unprecedented in my computer gaming experience. There are so many good things about this game, that I will have to back up. Read more »

When Pigs Fly is a devilishly hard little flash platformer of 50 screens. A poor little pink pig has fallen into a cavern while on her morning stroll, and to escape she “wills herself to grow a pair of big, feathery wings.” But can she learn to fly? That’s where you come in: the wings are fragile, and the barest graze of a stalactite can mean disaster.

WPF is a perfect example of a game that is more than the sum of its parts. It has a charm and likeability factor that just can’t be explained by analyzing the individual pieces that make it up. Ultimately, it is the handcrafted nature of the thing that won it over to my heart: the graphics aren’t stunning, but they are beautifully hand-rendered in retro style; the sound and music have a similar appeal, and you can feel Anthropy’s thoughtful hand on the levels. Perhaps the most amazing thing about the game is that overall it is a joyous experience, despite the fact that it is wretchedly hard! Games 100 times the scope of this little beauty could learn a lot from it.