Acting on instinct – it’s something we all do in our daily lives, but very rarely are allowed to do when playing a videogame. Yes, many videogames offer numerous sequences that require the player to think on their feet and have quick reflexes, but how many times are you required to act wholly on a feeling of instinct?
Instinct is a complicated unlearned biological response that sometimes determines a person’s morality, so maybe that is why it is hard to implement into something as relatively simple as a videogame. I may not be a fighter in real life, so my natural instinct would be to just grab the princess and run. What if I had no interest in battling and defeating the final boss? Unfortunately, videogames don’t offer this kind of complex choice. There has to some kind of predetermined structure or a game would just be chaos, right?
While this is most certainly true, some videogames include moments that go against the grain by letting the player do exactly what they are feeling. One such case of this instinctual choice occurs in Ico for the PlayStation 2.
Hit the jump for one of the most subtle, yet immensely powerful moments in videogame history.
