Gamers are strange creatures with a stranger habit. It’s weird enough that people identify under the banner of a hobby. Remember when your friend Jacob got really into that food truck by his office and started eating banh mi sandwiches all the time then referred to himself as a foodie? Yeah, that was weird. You don’t go to movies and call yourself a flickie, or whatever, because you’re not a weirdo. We all eat food, Jacob, get over yourself.
But gamers are different. They’re different for a lot of reasons.
This week, a game called Loop Hero released, and it is extremely not my shit. That said, a lot of my friends are digging it so I decided to check it out, and it’s pretty fascinating.
Not my gameplay, not my channel.
I’m not saying the mechanics of the game are fascinating. They’re insanely deep and as previously stated not my shit, but rather the art style of the game. I think this is a prime example of what sets games apart from other mediums.
There would’ve been a time when this game’s looks would be considered top of the field. But Loop Hero released this week, so it’s not top of the field now. That said, the game is undeniably gorgeous because the art direction had a vision that contributes to the feel of the game. This is supposed to feel like an older game so it’s looking like one, with all the bells and whistles that come with modern game design and consumption.
I’m struggling to think of another medium that does that. I guess movies about Shakespeare plays done with the original dialogue? Or the way Moscow Mules have to be in a copper cup? There aren’t a whole lot of examples that jump out to me. The Celtics just lost a winnable game against Brooklyn so I’m admittedly a little distracted as I type this.
this gif is huge but I had a long day so I’m keeping it in because it looks delicious.
Modern movies aren’t using decayed film stock to make their movie about private detectives in 1972 LA look like it was shot in 1972 LA. They’ll use wardrobe, props and era accurate terminology, but the actual creation of it isn’t reliant on technology of the era. There are exceptions, like Mank, which will probably get an Oscar nod for best picture when those eventually come out (it’ll happen, right?) but those are rare to see in film, unlike games where it feels like there’s a retro-throwback coming out every other week.
These games aren’t made the same way they used to be, but they’re meant to play like they’re from another time. If we’re sticking with the 1972 movie metaphor, that would be like going to the theater paying 25 cents for a ticket and seeing people smoke everywhere. Which I guess seems authentic if you’re seeing a movie that takes place in post-war France but not an ideal place to sit for 2 hours in 2021, pandemic aside.
There’s been a resurgence of retro-inspired games. Last year, The Messenger released on Xbox (earlier on other consoles) and the game is straight up an NES game that runs like an NES never could. The game didn’t have to look like that, but it does and fans ate it up because you died just as many times as you did playing Mega Man 3 back in 1990. All the glow up of the 21st century with none of the slowdown from the 20th.
Most mediums that try this treat it like a novelty, a wink, a nudge. It was really important to Quentin Tarantino to shoot Hateful Eight in 70mm, but few people got to see it the way he intended it. Christopher Nolan made a fuss about how important it was to see Tenet in theaters, but there’s still a choice. Game developers conversely have created an entire cottage industry within the the world of games that’s specifically focused on delivering new experiences that look like they fell through a wormhole from someone’s nostalgia. Maybe it’s theirs, maybe it’s yours—either way, this isn’t where the medium is right now in terms its technical evolution. It’s where the medium chooses to be.
Gamers will actively complain about the way puddles look in a game like PS4’s Spider-Man but games like Shovel Knight get praised for their look.
Again, gamers complained about how this looked:
More than they complained about this:
Allow me to lose the plot for a second while I talk about all the other weird stuff that gamers put themselves through that no other art patrons do:
Imagine buying a book and not being able to read that book ten years later, kinda like how you can’t play a PlayStation 2 disc on your PlayStation 4.
Imagine seeing a movie but not all of the actors that should be on screen are there unless you pay for them six months later, kind of like how characters are added to fighting games after the fact.
Imagine buying a vinyl and sitting there for 40 minutes while your record player gets really ready to play it, sort of like how you have to install a game on your device before playing it.
Imagine buying a painting that used the wrong shade of red so the artist has to come in the day of purchase and recolor it, not unlike a day-one patch to a big title.
Imagine thinking this is a bad controller, and being so wrong.
Gun to my head… I think that’s great. Genuinely. All of it. All these hurdles we jump over just to stomp on mushrooms and thwart alien invasions.
I love the peculiar quirks of this peculiar hobby and finding my own personal line of what’s acceptable then talking about that with my friends and learning theirs. “No other medium does this” sounds like a negative but when I italicize it and you read it slower like you’re Owen Wilson figuring out where the files are in Zoolander you realize that no other medium does this. No other medium can. Any of it.
I staunchly believe that nerdy people have made nerdy things less fun, but the fact that gamers are so happy to identify by something they do for fun (something that they seem to hate as much as they love) is so fascinating on a psychological level. Despite all those bullet points I just rattled off, there’s no more clear an argument than a game’s visuals. The deliberate intention to look like something from years ago, to be some artifact from gaming’s past rather than something modern is so unique to the industry. Gamers will think your game is pretty unless it’s hideous, and a lot of the time it isn’t hideous enough to be considered pretty at all.
Like I said, gamers are weird.