Pages

Friday 30 December 2011

Greenvale Revisited: Engagement and Playabitlity in Deadly Premonition



Playing games these days can often be like indulging in amphetamines. It’s not uncommon for specific moments to rush past and get lost in the endless hours which themselves pass within seconds. Nights of playing Halo Reach slip by in a psychedelic scree slope of death and victory. Death is quick but the respawn is just as instantaneous. Digital figures zip between and over shimmering purple structures. And you either struggle to keep up, or swing the disembodied gun, through a flick of the thumb, and watch as the stick-man enemy flips and collapses.

Recently I departed on a trip entirely different from that of Reach’s kaleidoscope of death – and from that of many other recent videogames (for one reason or another). To say that this trip was into an open-world wouldn’t amount to much - for who hasn’t been enjoying the open-world game recently (what with Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Arkham City recently being released) – but nevertheless this open-world remains unique. Its distinctiveness is initially discernable as an unexpected flashback to the textures of the Play Station 2 era. Grass looks like blurry sandpaper, textures pop-in irregularly, and all the characters have a somewhat unnerving quality to them – mostly down to their swaying bodies and uncomfortable twitches.