This isn’t the case with The Last Guardian. Even if you do, the only biography you’re capable of assuming will never be privy to the knowledge. It doesn’t matter when or how you play Bioshock, the character you inhabit will always be the same, always lack the same information regardless of whether you, the player, knows the twist. Yet these types of second playthroughs actually distance players further from the character’s alterbiography. Bioshock, for example, feels like a different kind of experience once you start noticing a certain famous phrase. Multiple games feature heady plot twists that encourage players to replay the game to notice details that they previously didn’t pick up on. This shift doesn’t alter the plot or the game’s overarching meaning but brings a new emotional perspective to the experience. Only then can they reflect on the game’s events as memories just like the narrator. In order to assume this alterbiography, the player must have experienced the game once before. This provides a second perspective through which players can choose to interpret The Last Guardian’s story. This first-person narrator is the same character as the boy the player controls, older and reflecting on his past adventure. Throughout the game, a disembodied voice speaks to the player, providing hints and light story exposition. There’s actually a second alterbiography in The Last Guardian that the player can assume, that of the first-person narrator. In effect, they become this character because his perspective most closely mirrors their own. They are lost in a new environment, attempting to escape, and are trying to piece together what happened and what’s going on. In The Last Guardian, players assume the alterbiography of a young boy. One of the most important aspects of becoming so engrossed within a virtual world is the player’s assumption of an alterbiography.Ī term coined by Gordon Calleja in his essay “Experiential Narrative in Game Environments,” an alterbiography is the character’s persona that a player adopts as their own while interacting with the game. It’s used to talk about graphics, the visceral nature of gameplay, and the general feeling of existing within the game environment rather than in the real world. If you’ve read, listened, or watched anything about video games before, chances are you’ve heard the word “immersion” thrown around. Yet for one very specific reason, this is a game that the industry must revisit, experiencing with fresh eyes the moving tale about a boy and his journey alongside a mythological beast. Fumito Ueda’s follow-up to the monumental 2005 game Shadow of the Colossus was a polarizing game, one with an undeniably moving story as well as strange, sometimes awkward controls. Released at the end of 2016, The Last Guardian made a momentary impact on the industry, mostly due to the sheer miracle of the game escaping over a decade in development hell, before seemingly fading from the general gaming consciousness.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |