I love this game. Not only in that it's one of the more enjoyable experiences I've had in recent years, but in that it's also something of a social experiment.
I know it's hip to ignore how many peer reviewed, cited studies published in respectable sources like Nature about how gamers have below average intelligence and tend to become increasingly more aggressive with the more videoI love this game. Not only in that it's one of the more enjoyable experiences I've had in recent years, but in that it's also something of a social experiment.
I know it's hip to ignore how many peer reviewed, cited studies published in respectable sources like Nature about how gamers have below average intelligence and tend to become increasingly more aggressive with the more video games they play that pander to their instinctive urges. I understand that. The defensive circlejerk must be preserved! However, the more defensive a group of people are, the more true something tends to be.
I'm a rare kind of 'gamer' in that I prefer Myst, Portal, Gone Home, To the Moon, and games of that ilk. I find the Destructoid review especially telling as that's how I feel about the average gamer's video game. Oh, I'm killing crap, I'm being a crazy murderhobo, I'm stealing things, and pretty people are fawning over me and singing my praises. Except the story is paper-thin, the experience is hollow, and it's all designed to make me feel like I have a big dick. What's the difference in fighting a wolf from a dragon? None. The game just makes you feel more powerful when you're fighting a dragon.
There's been articles about that where developers have explained that none of their dim-witted audience actually wants difficulty or complexity, they want power fantasies. That's why the dragons in Skyrim are easier to take down than most of the other opponents in that game. It's designed to make stupid, unintelligent, lacking people feel heroic, handsome, and perfect. It's entertainment for stupid people. It's the reality TV of video games.
This, however, is something different. Where I can't tell the difference between fighting a wolf and a dragon in a stupid person's video game, the Destructoid person couldn't see the differences presented by the environment. Their eyes were closed to the game, I found the environments to be incredibly diverse and interesting. And whereas it was just a mindless collection quest to someone without the mind to appreciate a story without words, to me, it was piecing together the history of what happened from small pictographic images.
And regarding the gameplay and those buildings? Clearly they frustrated the Destructoid reviewer. I can just see that thick brow furrowing. But back in the '80s and '90s, maze games were common. This is just a 3D maze game, it's you versus the obstacles presented by the environment, it's not a power fantasy or about violence and aggression. It's the satisfaction gained from traversing the environment and working out the devious, sly paths through it to find the pieces to the story.
In a stupid person's video game, you gather a shopping list of quests to go to places, and kill things, and then you return home to be fawned over and swooned at. Perhaps something of a 'story' will be offered, but by and large it'll be a shallow experience.
In this, you head out and you traverse the environment to find snippets of a story that it's up to you to be smart enough to figure out. And when you return home, the affliction of your character grows worse. It's up to you to fight off the hopelessness of that, and to know what's going on. Your motivation isn't to screw the pretty maiden after slaying the dragon, it's to heal a boy who's sick and on the verge of death.
So, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm not as vapid as all these negative reviews and reviewers, and that I'm drawn to more complicated, deep games. They can go stick their manswords in things, I'll play games that actually task me with using my mind, not my dick. That's just my preference, thanks.
What can I say about Submerged, then? It's not a violent male power fantasy designed to make you feel as though you're the perfect alpha male. Does that make it a bad game? Hardly. It just makes it a niche game that won't be appreciated by most gamers.
And as such, the reviews of it will mostly just reveal the amount of intelligence the person who reviewed it has.… Expand
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