Over the course of the past year it would not be an exaggeration to say that over 75% of my gaming time has been taken up by just two games. Made available on PS+ within a couple of months of each other, these two games have even changed my primary means of gaming. Instead of taking up valuable TV real estate with my PS4, I now find myself nightly curled up in a corner of the couch absorbed in the OLED screen of my Vita. Both games share many elements in terms of gameplay and challenge, and for those who have yet to be initiated into their club, probably appear simplistic to the point of banality. Yet, both also have huge cult followings, and also have rapidly become two of my favourite games of all time.
If you haven’t worked it out already, these two games are Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl’s The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth and Derek Yu’s Spelunky.
Now, if this sounds like old news then it’s because it is, and that is pretty much what I want to talk about. In regards gaming, just as with numerous other types of media, I all too often find myself late to the zeitgeist. This can, at least in part, be put down to the fact that I am one of those despicable individuals who cannot take a recommendation in the spirit in which it was meant. Even just the notion that somebody else found something cool before me is genuinely enough to put me off playing/watching/listening to said recommendation for many years to come, with recent examples including the Souls series, Destiny, The Martian, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead.
* At this point I feel it is important to separate this phenomenon from that of hyped up products not meeting expectations (Interstellar I’m talking about you here!), which is an entirely different thing all together.
Anyway, this is a personality fault of mine, and I can only blame myself if I end up missing out on something great as a result. But you know what? There is sometimes a bit of an upside to this. By putting some time and distance between myself and the furore surrounding a new release, I am often able to come into a game without the burden of expectation, and as a result avoid the fatigue that results from over-exposure.
This is exactly what happened for me with Spelunky. By the time I began playing, Patrick Klepek’s Spelunkin’ with Scoops series had long since ceased, weekly Giant Bomb chat about the game had dried up and spoiler-filled message board posts were few and far between. I had ridden out the frenzied storm and was free to feel excited about the game all about myself.
When I stumbled accidentally upon the Black Market (without the key) it genuinely felt like my own discovery. Similar to the sensation you get from discovering an obscure little easter egg in some far flung reach of a giant open world map, I was almost able to fool myself into thinking that I had found something completely unknown to the rest of the Spelunky community. Despite knowing that of course this could not possibly be the case, I still could not help but feel somewhat disappointed when I found out that it was actually a commonly known location. I guess one of the advantages of playing a game at launch in that you could, in theory, be the first to discover such a thing, but I imagine that the chances are you are more likely to hear about it through a forum post than you are to discover it organically. I prefer the isolation of being divorced from the community when discovering a feature/mechanic/location rich game like Spelunky.
Similar things happened in the Binding of Isaac: Rebirth when I was first transported into the I AM ERROR room. I again knew that I could not possibly be the first to see that screen, but the fun of thinking that I COULD BE, was huge.
And this is the joy of being late to the video gaming party. Exposure and expectations are removed, and therefore the gaming experience is more pure. Do any of you have experience in coming to a game way after the zeitgeist has passed? If so, what were your experiences? Do you feel you got more out of the game as a result of that, or am I just overthinking it?
Anyway, I am now finding that my time with Spelunky and Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is coming to an end. I am still yet to even complete Spelunky or even see the hell stage (I succumbed to temptation and watched a Patrick Klepek run), but I am starting to tire of the game loop and am now looking for something else to sink my teeth into. Does anybody have any suggestions in regards great games that I may have missed? Galak-Z seems like it would be a lot of fun if I could play it on my Vita, but I don’t know if I will be able to get into it the same way if I have to play it on the big screen. What would be your suggestions?
dublinperspectives 