Mercata
CAG Veteran
[Preface: My reviews read more like travel journals and not very much like traditional reviews. There are no numerical scores (death to scores!). There's a heavy emphasis on narrative and humor. And you can find more such silliness at my website, MattandtheBear. Enjoy!]
What do The Cure’s “Close to me” and Terry Cavanagh’s VVVVVV have in common? Aside from both being surreal and often claustrophobic digressions that are best experienced under the influence of amphetamines, they were both created before my time. My parents didn’t raise a fool. Wait, no. My brother’s a fool and an embarrassment to us all, but I’m pretty sharp! And I feel it in my gut that Mr. Cavanagh is a time-traveling spaceman. Say it aloud a few times: Cavanagh. He didn’t even bother changing his original alien name! We have made contact, and They come bearing interstellar technologies the likes of which we’ve never seen. Err, at least not since the 80s. But these days, everything old is new again, and its VVVVVV’s retro throwback vibe that makes it so charming in a nostalgic way and so ripe for a comparison to The Cure.
Okay, so I just happened to be listening to that song when I booted up the game. It seemed somehow significant. Don’t fight it.
The game opens like any great game should, by attempting to give you a seizure. If, say, Halo 3 intermittently and spastically flashed every color in the neon retro rainbow (the next great electropop band or the name of the next Mario Kart?) at you like VVVVVV does, perhaps Microsoft would finally be successful in Japan! The title music is damned epic with its ethereal reverberations and its slow but sure buildup, like if Freddie Mercury had done the music for Metroid. I’ve played the demo, and I remember well the schizophrenic 8-bit rave-fest that is the actual soundtrack beyond the title screen. Before beginning a new game, I make a beeline for the options to disable the music. Well, in my head I do; there is no option to do this! Sorry, Cyndi Lauper. We’ll have to have fun later. My New Game begins, and the award-worthy story immediately moves me to tears:
Like most nights since being assigned captain of the USS Eurythmics, he dreams of murdering his five crewmates. He dreams of leading those lemming-like incompetent bastards to an early grave-if they somehow manage not to remove themselves from the gene pool first, that is. Before this waking nightmare began, he used to sleep easy while still at the Academy. He dreamed of being surrounded by brilliant, like-minded individuals in his journey to galaxies unknown, fearlessly conquering Technicolor jumping puzzles and collecting shiny discs for the betterment of mankind.
I knew I should have guarded my drink more closely!
The powder-blue captain hits snooze at least four times that morning, wanting desperately to finish his dream and kill every last one of those demons he’s had to learn to live with over the last 8 and a half years. He stumbles his way to the helm of the ship like the living dead, mumbling and rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Uh oh…” says the powder-blue man with the sad expression and not the happy one. He’s just realized an egregious flaw with the spaceship: Some crazed Prince-fanatic has painted the interior entirely purple while he was asleep. That hooligan! But who would have done this? Who in their right mind would-
“Is everything okay?” asks a suspiciously purple man. The captain probes the depths of his memory to recall the profile of the purple blah blah blah.
In truth, the story is completely throwaway, as it should be for a game of this type. This might sound like a strange complaint, but there are a few too many exchanges of dialogue for what is a nonsensical and bland narrative. I found myself hitting the “let’s get to the next freaking screen so I can play the game now, thanks” button feverishly throughout the game. Consider that a compliment to the addictive gameplay. And yet, we’re talking about a game that takes about 2 hours to beat, the added collect-the-thingy hunt included. Even 5 minutes of dialog and “plot” is excessive, and it breaks the retro spirit in its attempt at-wait, what is it attempting to do? Be cute? What a very contradicting path for a game that caters best to the masochistic hardcore. It’s like asking your dominatrix in the middle of being beaten with a riding crop to take a moment to read you some Shel Silverstein.
Thank you, m'am. My I have another poem?
The gameplay is deceptively simple. You move left and right and you flip gravity from floor to ceiling. But as simple as this is, there are brief moments (extended to long moments if you really want all those shiny discs and you want to ruin your evening) where you will despise how sensitive the movement is. That is to say, when you’re trying to time the perfect jump through a winding spike pit, you’re going to pray for the sticky floors and subtle air control in similar games like N (or Mario, for that matter) when one very slight tap of the direction keys makes you lunge forward to your doom. Oh yes, there will be lots and lots of doom. I suffered over 1000 deaths my first playthrough. That’s over 8 deaths per minute. Note: I wanted to ruin my evening.
Fortunately, your lives are endless. Unfortunately, I can’t say that about the replayability. If S-ranking levels in Devil May Cry 4 was your idea of a fun Saturday, you probably need mental counseling. Also, you’ll get much replayability out of VVVVVV.
In spite of these few gripes, the game is definitely worth its price tag of $15. VVVVVV is a marvelous little gem with a Metroid-meets-Portal sensibility and at its best will make you crack many a smile in appreciation of Cavanagh’s brilliance in level design. Just like Portal, the game doesn’t overstay its welcome and remains fun all throughout-supposing you stick to the main path. With that said, there are options available from the start to make the game easier by not only slowing it down but also with invincibility. So what are you waiting for? Support that loveable spaceman and buy VVVVVV right away! Or else.
What do The Cure’s “Close to me” and Terry Cavanagh’s VVVVVV have in common? Aside from both being surreal and often claustrophobic digressions that are best experienced under the influence of amphetamines, they were both created before my time. My parents didn’t raise a fool. Wait, no. My brother’s a fool and an embarrassment to us all, but I’m pretty sharp! And I feel it in my gut that Mr. Cavanagh is a time-traveling spaceman. Say it aloud a few times: Cavanagh. He didn’t even bother changing his original alien name! We have made contact, and They come bearing interstellar technologies the likes of which we’ve never seen. Err, at least not since the 80s. But these days, everything old is new again, and its VVVVVV’s retro throwback vibe that makes it so charming in a nostalgic way and so ripe for a comparison to The Cure.
Okay, so I just happened to be listening to that song when I booted up the game. It seemed somehow significant. Don’t fight it.
The game opens like any great game should, by attempting to give you a seizure. If, say, Halo 3 intermittently and spastically flashed every color in the neon retro rainbow (the next great electropop band or the name of the next Mario Kart?) at you like VVVVVV does, perhaps Microsoft would finally be successful in Japan! The title music is damned epic with its ethereal reverberations and its slow but sure buildup, like if Freddie Mercury had done the music for Metroid. I’ve played the demo, and I remember well the schizophrenic 8-bit rave-fest that is the actual soundtrack beyond the title screen. Before beginning a new game, I make a beeline for the options to disable the music. Well, in my head I do; there is no option to do this! Sorry, Cyndi Lauper. We’ll have to have fun later. My New Game begins, and the award-worthy story immediately moves me to tears:
Like most nights since being assigned captain of the USS Eurythmics, he dreams of murdering his five crewmates. He dreams of leading those lemming-like incompetent bastards to an early grave-if they somehow manage not to remove themselves from the gene pool first, that is. Before this waking nightmare began, he used to sleep easy while still at the Academy. He dreamed of being surrounded by brilliant, like-minded individuals in his journey to galaxies unknown, fearlessly conquering Technicolor jumping puzzles and collecting shiny discs for the betterment of mankind.
I knew I should have guarded my drink more closely!
The powder-blue captain hits snooze at least four times that morning, wanting desperately to finish his dream and kill every last one of those demons he’s had to learn to live with over the last 8 and a half years. He stumbles his way to the helm of the ship like the living dead, mumbling and rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Uh oh…” says the powder-blue man with the sad expression and not the happy one. He’s just realized an egregious flaw with the spaceship: Some crazed Prince-fanatic has painted the interior entirely purple while he was asleep. That hooligan! But who would have done this? Who in their right mind would-
“Is everything okay?” asks a suspiciously purple man. The captain probes the depths of his memory to recall the profile of the purple blah blah blah.
In truth, the story is completely throwaway, as it should be for a game of this type. This might sound like a strange complaint, but there are a few too many exchanges of dialogue for what is a nonsensical and bland narrative. I found myself hitting the “let’s get to the next freaking screen so I can play the game now, thanks” button feverishly throughout the game. Consider that a compliment to the addictive gameplay. And yet, we’re talking about a game that takes about 2 hours to beat, the added collect-the-thingy hunt included. Even 5 minutes of dialog and “plot” is excessive, and it breaks the retro spirit in its attempt at-wait, what is it attempting to do? Be cute? What a very contradicting path for a game that caters best to the masochistic hardcore. It’s like asking your dominatrix in the middle of being beaten with a riding crop to take a moment to read you some Shel Silverstein.
Thank you, m'am. My I have another poem?
The gameplay is deceptively simple. You move left and right and you flip gravity from floor to ceiling. But as simple as this is, there are brief moments (extended to long moments if you really want all those shiny discs and you want to ruin your evening) where you will despise how sensitive the movement is. That is to say, when you’re trying to time the perfect jump through a winding spike pit, you’re going to pray for the sticky floors and subtle air control in similar games like N (or Mario, for that matter) when one very slight tap of the direction keys makes you lunge forward to your doom. Oh yes, there will be lots and lots of doom. I suffered over 1000 deaths my first playthrough. That’s over 8 deaths per minute. Note: I wanted to ruin my evening.
Fortunately, your lives are endless. Unfortunately, I can’t say that about the replayability. If S-ranking levels in Devil May Cry 4 was your idea of a fun Saturday, you probably need mental counseling. Also, you’ll get much replayability out of VVVVVV.
In spite of these few gripes, the game is definitely worth its price tag of $15. VVVVVV is a marvelous little gem with a Metroid-meets-Portal sensibility and at its best will make you crack many a smile in appreciation of Cavanagh’s brilliance in level design. Just like Portal, the game doesn’t overstay its welcome and remains fun all throughout-supposing you stick to the main path. With that said, there are options available from the start to make the game easier by not only slowing it down but also with invincibility. So what are you waiting for? Support that loveable spaceman and buy VVVVVV right away! Or else.