Overlong waffily post of the month...

I just think about Deus Ex all the time now. Whenever I'm doing something, like making food or something, I think to myself "this is a bit like Deus Ex", or "this is nothing like Deus Ex." My new flat has a keycode-operated front door, and every time I use it I think I could use a multi-tool, but as I know the code I won't.

The thing about Deus Ex is how absurdly brilliant the level design is. Real-world locations work like real-world locations, and although there are physical barriers around the levels you truly get an impression of being able to go wherever you like. Invisible War is a brilliant catastrophe because it missed this essential element and divided the levels up too much.

I've played Deus Ex from start to finish about six times now. It's like a great album, one you can keep going back to because there's always something you've forgotten about it.

The other astonishing thing is, when you've played a game that much, any game, it becomes like music in that it gets stuck in your head. Just like you can randomly wake up with some annoying song in through your head that won't leave for the rest of the day, the same thing can happen with games. I frequently find myself thinking of a certain part of a certain level, and then visualising what lies around that next corner, or the nuances of the architecture. It's like when you remember the verse of a song and then automatically go on to remembering the chorus.

Yet again, I'm realising games are nothing like cinema. You don't get scenes from films stuck in your head, and if you do it's usually in the form of some scarcely-remembered dialogue or a chunk of the score. I personally never ever remember the sets or locations from films, because the focus is usually both literally and figuratively on character. But games allow interaction with space, and rely on your ability to cognicise and recognise spaces.

Music occupies a space between maths and art. It's about formulas, about understanding the often highly complex relationships between certain frequencies. And music is about giving us this maths in a way that's easy to understand. And games are very similar, the difference being they let us look at maths rather than hear it.

Labels: Feature

posted by Henry @ 4:53 pm