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Another year, another series of GOTY lists fueled by fanboyism and cognitive dissonance. We all know the AAA games get their fair share of nods and stick shakes. That’s why I’m here to tell the world what my GOTY games are for 2014.
Not that it matters; we’re all living in our own linear perceptions, anyway. Our ideals, biases, telling us right and wrong. All I can give is a taste of what my mind perceives to be true.
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair
Spike Chunsoft created Danganronpa to grow the hope that they could kill and you are reborn, but into the same despair that you’ve always been born into. It’s an allegory for society’s pressure on students. The world on their young shoulders; a fork in the road to hope or despair. In Danganronpa 2, two idols stand before you. The purveyor of despair, Monokuma. And the governess of hope, Monomi. You know me though, I don’t see the connection between two animals and a murdered anime kid. But hey, I’m from Texas.
After I finished Danganronpa 2, I sat up all night looking through the windows up at the stars thinking: This is one story; the oldest. Despair versus hope. Despair has a lot of territory up there in the endless darkness of space, but Monomi taught me an important fact. You see, once there was only dark. Now it’s littered with stars, glimmers of hope. You ask me, hope is winning. Goodbye despair…
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (PS4)
Days are nothing. That’s what it’s like when you work cases: makes you miss out on a lot of releases. Days are like lost dogs. Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn came out last year, but I lacked the constitution to subscribe at the time. But with the PS4 release, I refused to avert my eyes again.
Look, as sentient meat, however illusory our identities are, we craft those identities by rolling either DPS, tank, or healer. At least that’s what Square Enix wants you to believe. Instead I see propensity for squishy tanks, gold spamming bots, and folks putting what few bucks they do have into the mog station.
Rolling a Miqo’te is the transference of fear and self-loathing to a feline vessel. It is cathartic playing as a catgirl. The shunning of Miqo’te represents humanity’s innermost jealous of catgirls. We all want a fluffy tail. Instead all we can do is dream.
Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F 2nd
Idol worship has existed since we could formulate thought. Certain anthropologists think that Cleopatra was the first: the original waifu. Project Diva reminds us that society would rather project our musicianship on digitized idols than build on our own talents. We reward Miku for authenticity in her music, because despite that she’s just a buncha’ code, the narrative hasn’t been twisted; the world is hers.
Life’s barely long enough to get a “perfect” on one Miku song, so I focused on Clover♣Club. In those hours spent trying to master it, I realized something. All the failed notes, all the max combos, all the high scores, all the technical bonuses, all your pain, it was all the same thing. It was all a dream Miku and her vocaloid friends have – a dream about being a person, about being free of this song and dance we force these idols into. And, like a lot of dreams, there’s a monster at the end of it: You.
The Wolf Among Us
Never has a game embodied the impunity that us police officers are imbued with. We can do dark things without consequence: huffin’ and puffin’, blowing away your sense of self and security like eraser shavings on a desk. The Wolf Among Us is an allegory for man’s animalism. We’re walking, talking, lying beasts pretending to be civilized, highly functioning organisms.
Bigby, much like myself, faces moral quandaries on a day-to-day basis. Like him, I’ve reconciled my nature. A nature which binds me to the sentient flesh and social taboos of my surroundings. The only thing keeping most people civil is a promise of a higher power and the threat that we, the law, bring. Civility in itself is a fairytale.
P.T.
Time is a flat circle. I’ve echoed this statement before, but it hasn’t been so applicable to anything else. P.T. is Kojima and Del Toro’s answer to something that gamers have been craving. Perhaps it’s an answer to their own lives. You can’t change your life, and that in itself is the secret to life: it’s terrible. You’re trapped by a nightmare you keep walking into. Everything we’ve ever done or will do we’re gonna do over and over and over again just to make that fuckin’ baby cry.
There’s a cathartic narrative in believing that Lisa is anything more than a victim. She is eternity looking down upon us, begging to be heard. P.T. is about death and futility. There’s nothing to be gained by penance – only action. Maybe that’s why I’m still sitting by the telephone. Norman Reedus and I have both got dirt on our souls.
