His performance lifted the narration from possible triteness and maudlin sentimentality to quiet contemplation. His voice carried notes of severe loss and sadness. The actor's performance perfectly complemented the bleak environment. The scattered hints weren't just in the random books and formulas. Unlike Ethan, however, any hint of something happening in Dear Esther in addition to my never-ending hike was only that: a hint. All these visual delicacies reminded me a lot of the design of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. From the stalactites dripping with lonely, echoing tears to the towering waterfalls feeding subterranean lakes, I wanted to lose myself there forever. The caves were nothing less than a visual feast. The buildings seemed like they'd been abandoned for decades, perhaps due to the population's flight from some plague or ravenous ghoul. The water looked so fluid that I felt I might need a towel sitting next to my chair were I to accidentally fall in. Speaking of the environment, that was by far and away the highlight. While I grant that a developer can craft a game however they see fit, it says something about their game when a player's exploration, backtracking, and second-guessing amounts to wasted time. I truly was only walking through this environment. Tomb Raider's telling you that something's afoot. About half way through Dear Esther, though, I finally accepted that all the significant-seeming window dressing was that and nothing more. The Asian island environment is established, and then you come upon visual cues such as skull piles. A perfect example of this is in the recent Tomb Raider reboot. I expected thus because in nearly every game I've played, when an environment is established, say a remote British island with one-time, but no current habitation, and then I find visual cues that go against that establishment, namely the chemical formulas and text, I expect some significance to that dissonance. When I found there wasn't, I wondered at the reason The Chinese Room had included the feature.Īs I continued along the semi-obvious path and came upon more buildings, chemical formulas, books, candles, and the like, I kept expecting something significant, that I was missing something. Not that zoom-ins are a bad mechanic for a game to have, but our culture's visual language suggests that if one can zoom in on an object in a game, there must be some good reason for it. I found not only that I couldn't, but also that all buttons on my DualShock made my view zoom in. I attempted to read or decipher, or in any way interact with these elements. What I found were various props (pictures and books), ruined furniture, chemical formulas, and obscure, quoted text. As I entered the first building only moments after the initial fade in, I didn't know whether I should be expecting a Resident Evil-style jump scare as a zombie leaped out from a corner or a Tomb Raider-style highlighted area communicating to me that there was a nearby bag of holding. The specifics of the experience, however, were terra incognita. I'd also heard that it had received critical praise. When I fired up Dear Esther, I knew next to nothing about it. In fact, as I've found bumping into walls with blurry, texture-mapped cities and pastures in Super Mario 64, I'm always disappointed when I realize I've seen all the scenery a game has to offer.Īn average view of Dear Esther's landscape. In finishing dungeons like Ocarina of Time's Water Temple, I was a little disappointed as I knew there probably wouldn't be a reason to return. For the first few hours of Metroid Prime, I didn't even pay attention to game progression, I was so taken with the world Retro Studios had created. My first forays into such classics as Metroid Prime and Ocarina of Time were simply to find out what was out there. I've craved that sense of exploration in video games as well. I knew the city surrounded me, of course, but it was the feeling that I was somewhere else that was so alluring. The best part of those hikes was the sense of exploration I got from venturing so deep into the woods that in the leaves' rustle and birds' chirping, I completely lost the distractions of the nearby sprawling metropolis. Growing up in suburban Oregon, one of my favorite hobbies was hiking around Portland's Forest Park.
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