I can remember that, when this game first came out, the reviewer at IGN said that if video games didn't have an arthouse category before, they did now. I don't write this to belittle the opinions of people who don't like the game, and if you don't, please feel free to explain why below. No, I write this to allow people who don't like it as a game to appreciate it for what it does for art and what it does for games as a result.

The label of linear is one that is often made as a complaint toward the game, as it gives the player very limited choices in directions or actions, but some of the best games made have been that way. Take the classic point and clicks like Day of the Tentacle or Sam and Max, they were linear to the extreme, there was one thing to do and one way to do it, that was all. The only interaction (something manifest in the new Sam and Max games particularly) was mouse clicking.

But how we played was not the point. It was the characters and story that made us play. Had this game been released on PC there would be no bitching, it is just that it appeared on a console that caused people to dismiss it. It didn't have what other console games had, where was the free movement, the sprawling sandbox overworld? If I see characters in the third dimension then I should be able to move them about in it without constraint. I can't? Bah, this is crap.





No.

This is a very limited view of games, a kind of stunted function over form view. Now, I LOVE function, I own a Wii for the myriad gods sake, but I can appreciate when my control is stunted, not due to poor design, but due to a vision that reqires it.

Had the game not had the plot and characters it did, I would not have enjoyed it as much. But the control becomes a character in the game itself. As Garcians whole existence has been one of rigid control it stands as an artists stroke that our control be limited. We are trapped, as Garcian is, running a pre-determined path. Beyond the metaphor, the linear nature also serves to highten the tension, by making us bound slaves in a world of free roaming threats.

This is much like the arguments I have with people over the works of Lynch et al. You can't watch Eraserhead with "normal" eyes, you must understand that it does what it does, not because of poor film/game making, but to make a specific point and to create a deliberate stylistic feel.

This is vital to gaming as an artform. We need the Suda 51s as much as we need the Magrittes, ce n'est pas un jeu, it is an interactive art show. Gaming needs this, as it will blur that bullshit line that artists have created and allow gaming to evolve into a serious medium. This, in turn, will allow for all kinds of experimental gaming ideas and an abundance of games that will challenge the barriers and force evolution.

Again, I don't write this to change a view, just to create a space where a view might change of its own accord, even if slightly. This is an arthouse game, much akin to the simple interactivity of the point and clicks, if you judge Killer 7 by the gameplay alone, then you have missed the point entirely.