MANIFESTO FOR MY UN-USELESS REVIEWS

my original inspiration was japanese anarchist kenji kawakami, and his chindōgu 珍道具 art movement. in short it is a parody of "the suffocating historical dominance of conservative utility", where instead chindōgu 珍道具 finds joy in things that are almost useless, thus un-useless.

and to some extent that inspired the way i went about designating genres to video games, that are otherwise useless for actually categorizing the game, but there is joy to be found in the almost useless nature of the categories, that celebrate the uniqueness of the games in question, and with the added intend at poking fun at "efficient" categories, that while more efficient, flattens the game they categorize, or have baggage attached.

to further prove this point, i'd like to look at some of the central tenents of the chindōgu 珍道具 movement, the so called "10 commandments", and see how they apply to my style:

  • I. it cannot be for real use - in this case the categories are not actually useful. games with good rain is not an actually useful category.
  • III. it must have the spirit of anarchy - in part my reviews were born out of just a spite of the current state of the video games industry.
  • IV. they are tools for everyday use - i approached this list with a focus on the fact that sometimes i just want a game to pop on while i'm listening to a podcast.
  • VI. humour must not be the sole reason for creation - thou my reviews are comedic most of the time, they are still honestly sincere and made with love for the games that i write about, and the special place they hold in my heart.
  • X. it must be without prejudice - the games industry is so full of vitriolic bigotry, so i wanted to highlight some marginalized stories in games, and to make apparent the inherit bigotry within popular franchises.

SMALL OPEN WORLD GAMES

"The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls." - Calvino, Italo: Le città invisibili

fundamentally one of the worst pieces of "standardization" (of which its crimes are many, but i shall write about some other time) is the open world, and its habitual presence, it is not wrong to say that most games are BLOATED with it, and while i was contemplating my loathing for it, i have come up with criteria for what i dub instead the small open world games, that run counter to the worst aspects of the genre, and instead find what makes it actually effective.

although to begin with, what even is an open world? well, the shortest, simplest, and susinctest answer is, its a "mediated enviornment" (really getting a use out of my academic degree) which grants the player agency in how they choose to locomote and explore said enviornment. all signifiying, absoloutely nothing as the real answer with all genres, is VIBES. as certain games will obviously fit these criteria, and yet not actually feel accurate to be described as such.

so then? how do SMALL open world games set themselves appart? because surely its not a SIZE criteria, since if anything size comparison seems to be one of the worst drivers of bloat in the open world genre, instead i have based it on a few parameters, first and foremost, the LACK of forgettable spaces!, if one wishes to artificially upscale the size of an open world, one can fill it with forgettable space, being parts of the mediated enviornments that are made to be forgotten. repeat reoffenders of this is bethesda, and ubisoft. (disclaimer: a space can be empty, and unforgettable, and a space can be full, and utterly forgettable)

therefor, a criteria of SMALL open worlds, is that no space is made to be forgettable, that every inch of the mediated enviornment is made memorable and unforgettable, this of course, is impossible to achieve. but for comparison, how much of a AAA game's open world is made to be un-experienced, filler space between key points, whereas, one of the shining examples of small open worlds, the HITMAN franchise, where each level is an intricate puzzlebox wherein almost every little inch of space is uniquely memorable, and present interesting challenges.

this ultimately serves to create a space which you become intimately familiar with, the yakuza franchise for one is a great example, in how it uses the limited space of kamurocho, and has the player create an bond with the layout and streets, and through repeat reinforcement, creates an internal memory of the city's physical space. its often through repeat exposure to the same enviornment, as opposed to continually opening up the world, to new and unfamiliar enviornments, which is the standard of things in open world games, that distinguishes a small open world from its counterparts.

to provide a few case studies:

    THE HOME - Gone Home - probably will be the most controversial, when i say its a small open world game, but fundamentally its a mediated enviornment which the player has agency in their exploration of, and it's fundamentally about the intimate exploration of our personal belongings and the histories and narratives one can gleam from the debris of an average household. the attention to detail in every object, makes an open world that not just has memorable space, but even memorable trash.

    KAMUROCHO - Yakuza - oh, her sweet siren song, the ring of pachinko, buzzing of neon, the quiet murmur of crowds, no space is quite like Kamurocho, another classic in the small open world genre, the benifit to the familiarity factor is its apperance in almost every game in the franchise. reusing the same locations again and again, while slowly dripfeeding new ones. But by the end of your time with the series, the street map and iconic locals from stardust and serena on tenkaichi street, to the champion district off taihei boulevard, will be burned into your muscle memory. (that is with the exception of the few times they change up the physical space)

    HAWK PEAK - A Short Hike - the hike to the peak in a short hike, is at first seemingly contrary to the title of the game, not short... which is the initial joke that you're told, however as you quickly find out, the hike is anything but short as you search high and low on the island for ways to make progress towards the summit. however once at the end its only been two or more hours at a leisurely pace, in fact the hike was relatively short and as the credits roll, you get to swoop down from the peak and take in all the places you've been, and if you're like me, you get to realize the intimate connection you've forged with each and every inch of the island. a seminal *small* open world.

    EASTSHADE - Eastshade - oh, eastshade, how can one describe thee, a painting can only capture so much, but the fact that every inch of the island is designed to inspire you, and drive you onwards, and that wherever you look, is a gorgeous view to be put onto canvas. to really get at what eastshade does so well, a discussion one finds within the topic of "open world games" is the idea of "lived in cities" and many devs will make large open cities, with lots of building interiors, and background filler NPCs, but no place has felt as lived in, or even made me want to live in it, as much as the gorgeous city of Nava... it is with utmost sincerity an love, my favourite video-game city.

    LORDRAN - Dark Souls - this is an instance that is slightly harder to argue, but that i feel holds true, during ones first experience the world of dark souls feels ever expanding, complex, bewildering, and almost impossible to navigate, but by the time you have forged ahead into the confusing wilderness, and have overcomed the worst challenges, the world becomes so small, helped by its interconnectedness, and repeat playthroughs on NG+, the world shrinks down to one of the most memorable contained worlds. though it pushes the boundary, especially with some of the nastier and more forgettable segments of blighttown, and lost izalith, though even then a case could be argued that none of it is *forgettable* space, due to the intense suffering they cause.

in which i just talk about games that have made me sob (revised)

its a rare and powerful experience to play a game that just makes you cry, just as well as it is with any other thing, like a book or a movie, but its not just sadness, i think at their best games can make the tears flow for a myriad of complex emotions that draw on your immersion into the story and cohabitation with the character and their interpersonal dynamics, the hollistic completion of a character's arc, and the terminus of their journey, the joy and sadness of reminiscing on the journey that has transpired.........

AND ALSO MUSIC, music, the great manipulator of emotions, thou I think, as many would agree, music often only works in how it underscores the moments, and are not by themselves the sole cause for crying, but arguably every moment that has made me cry, was underscored by musical tracks that by themselves make me cry for how they evoke and remind me of the emotional response that i associate with it. to illustrate my point, i almost semi-deliberately avoid the musical scores for the ghibli catalogue of movies, as pretty much every one of those songs have, and will, make me uncontrolably cry, even writing this in almost complete silence, but unconciously hearing a faded memory of a melody in the back of my head is making me tear up.

so we finally get to, video games themselves, that have made me uncontrolably cry, most recently The Beekeeper's Picnic - A Sherlockian Adventure by The Wonder Room, had me cry several times throughout, but most of all at its conclusion, and for a myriad of reasons, the excellent writing, the immaculate performance by the actors, and the strings that pluck at the heart, but nothing more, than just how sweet, sincere, and lovingly made it is. and obligatory, i have a soft spot for old man yaoi.

something completly different is the Yakuza franchise, that most of the time is utterly silly, or overly dramatic, and then procedes to suplex you with utter sincerity, one moment you are having a conversation with a dominatrix about how best to beat someone to a pulp, and then you are having a serious conversation about confidence issues, and personal aspirations. and the games straddle this line, between being a beat 'em up game, a serious crime drama, and also an exploration of what it is like to be human.

and then there are titans, like Outer Wilds that simply are like an ocean wave crashing down over you, constantly and all the time, and your reward is to sit down. take it all in. and cry.

TRANSCRIPT OF J. WAGAROWICZ PRESENTATION ON REBUTTAL

by

W. JAN: WELCOME... Thank you all for coming [Clears throat] I am here today to present a shortned version of my rebuttal to one uhh [Pause] ███ ████████, who I can see from your quizative faces- uhm, is anyone familiar with their work? [Pause] Well, to explain, at the time which must have been a few years- dear reader or so ago I had recently read an inflammatory thesis that had been published by ████████ at [Pause] I think the University of ██████████ but besides- it had the longwinded and exhausting title "█ ████ ██████ ██ ███████████ ██ ███ █ ███████ ██ ██████ █████████"¹ and it is a gross, in both meanings of the word, [Chuckle] contemplation on the essence of metafictional elements.

It makes wide-sweeping grandious statements, and frankly it is overflowing with sentimentality unbenefiting academia, as a whole. [Pause to find notes] So- [Pause for next slide] yes next slide- thank you. Opening, quite pretentiously with a quote from the first act of Miguel de Cervantes's classic Don Quixote, one picked just to pretenciously evoke a sense of awe in the reader, perhaps even just to thematize the essay- as I will quote here: "When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness i am lies? Too much sanity may be madness."² and yes, I suspect, that it has been picked at random, for it has no impact on any of the text contained within the rest of the essay, [Clears throat] except to create a veneer of intertextuality

Worse, however, following this opening statement, ███ lays out their endeavor to pursue what is at the core of the metafiction, not academically of course, but in their own opinionated and subjective enjoyment of its invocation- løsnet [Swallow] dedicating itself as a manifesto in this post-modern era that is rejecting objectivity. and while all of this seems like a commendable effort, at the end of the day, it is not for reasons that I will discuss in just a moment, when I go through my rebuttal wherein I endeavour to disprove their foolish ambition, and to reassert and restore the objective.

To begin with, one must establish a consensus of reality, and ask what is metafiction? Well what is it? [Pause for next slide] as I would say in my own words: Zrgnsvpgvba vf n sbez bs svpgvba gung rzcunfvmrf vgf bja aneengvir fgehpgher va n jnl gung vaureragyl erzvaqf gur nhqvrapr gung gurl ner ernqvat be ivrjvat n svpgvbany jbex. Zrgnsvpgvba vf frys-pbafpvbhf nobhg ynathntr, yvgrenel sbez, naq fgbelgryyvat, naq jbexf bs zrgnsvpgvba qverpgyl be vaqverpgyl qenj nggragvba gb gurve fgnghf nf negvsnpgf.³ [Clears throat] One could take as an example, [Chuckle] quite funnily as it comes to me in this moment, an academic essay about an essay, that is itself a commentary on the very format. This example, would be a metafictional work, as it would hypothetically, if such a thing was written, draw attention to its existence as a fictioanal object. find me

And while that explanation and analogy from my own words, is hopefully enlightening, we must not forget why I am here today, and take to the matter at hand, [Pause for next slide] that being ████████ between definition of metafiction, [Swallow] as they choose to define it quite controversially and contrary to consensus thus: '███████████ ██ █████ █ █████████ ██████ ██ ███████"⁴ a definition that I not only find entierly based in subjectivity, but also incompatible with the wider literary canon of the metafictional genre, if one could the lines call it so.

WIP.

¹ /løsnet.

² de Cervantes, Miguel: Don Quixote

³ [source improperly cited]

⁴ /løsnet.