Some games revel in their artistry, perfectly enveloped in an aesthetic that becomes inseparable from the gameplay itself; intrinsic, even, to its success.
Limbo revitalised the indie 2D platformer and is beloved by many, including me, for its monochromatic misadventures of a boy both chasing and fleeing death. It has to be said however, that without the melancholic and, at the time, unique wrapper the platformer was packaged in, Limbo wouldn't have had anywhere near the impact it did.
Other games, meanwhile, distill the very essence of their genre down to the most basic elements, letting nothing stand in the way of gameplay.
N+ and
Geometry Wars both did this sublimely. Of course, that itself creates an aesthetic: One of minimalism. The difference is that regardless of the way either of those games looked, they'd still be the same tight, responsive, perfect experiences they're known for being.
Every once in a while something else comes along.
Myst brought people into gaming with its obtuse story, opaque puzzles, and blank slate of a player character. In 1993, Myst looked, sounded and played amazing. It was also responsible for getting people playing games unlike anything else that had been released at that time: Kids played it. Mums played it. Grandads played it. It helped to popularise the Apple Macintosh. It ushered in a new medium: The CD-ROM.
Games weren't just arcade machines any more. They were no longer the realm of bedroom hermits and Pacman enthusiasts.
Myst also reinvigorated a conversation which cropped up from time to time in gaming circles, and gave it broader discourse:
Can games be art?Art is a very personal thing. Art is created by the artist, designed at that precise moment in time to capture a feeling, an emotion - an observation, perhaps, or an otherwise fleeting memory the artist wishes to lock down whilst fresh. But, like everything sensorially experienced, it's objective creation is subjectively interpreted by the individual experiencing the art.
Anything designed to elicit an emotion can be classed as art. A tiny black dot on a huge canvas. A messy bedroom scene. A photograph of Stalin meeting Churchill, meeting Hitler. A vertical slice of preserved bovine physiology.
Art can never be objectively bad, because it will always mean different things to different people.
But what happens when someone deliberately and cynically goes out of their way to create faux art? When random things are thrown together
at random in an attempt to cover up a total lack of talent, vision, or ability to create?
Gaijin Charenji 1 : Kiss or Kill has garnered some great reviews from people who consider it to be art. People who believe it to be a work of layered genius, a vehicle of protest subtly masquerading as a simple non-game; a messianic voice of anti-war that asks a straightforward but meaningful question: Why choose to kill, when you can choose to love?
Loving is harder, sure. It's more difficult to reach out to those who oppose your vision. It's much more difficult to see it through to the very end, and almost impossible to employ successfully enough to bring down those who dictate hate.
Killing is easier. It hits harder. It has greater immediate impact. It's the final word, and it cannot be unspoken, ever.
In the hands of a talented developer, those themes could be brought to life in a work of unadulterated genius, through a game which makes you feel, makes you think; makes you talk about the themes and introduce issues to a wider audience.
A lot of people seem to think that
Gaijin Charenji 1 : Kiss or Kill IS that game. But it fails at delivering the message people are trying to attribute to it, and it fails hard.
Not because the themes are too obtuse for me to understand.
Not because the ability to switch between weapons called "Kiss" and "Kill" are metaphorically lost on me.
Not because the random full motion video segments are littered with subtle gestures my thick skull will not allow to penetrate.
It doesn't fail because I don't "get" it.
It fails because... It's shit.
Choosing between the "Kiss" gun - i.e. playing hard mode with a shorter range weapon that makes it more difficult to complete the game - and the "Kill" gun (long range easy mode) isn't a deep, ingenious moral choice. It's an aesthetic one which has minor gameplay connotations. You're simply choosing how far your gun will shoot when you twiddle around the right thumbstick.
Sliding a blue blob up a white corridor on a pink background dodging orange squares doesn't carry a deep, hidden meaning about war being over simplified for mass media consumption. Do you know why it doesn't?
Because I made that up, just now, for this review. I didn't even know that's what I was going to write. You want to believe it though, don't you, defender of the crown? You
so want that to be true; but it isn't.
Oh look! The "Kiss" weapon can't destroy the RPG villagers buildings! Shoot the villagers with it and they gather around a tree!
It's all just so very clever, isn't it?Play the most simplistic twin-stick shooter ever made, spliced with videos of the developer plugging Gameboy cartridges into his abdomen whilst stills of war or anime fill the screen border.
Collect blue dots and coins as you move around the screen to increase a timer through a handful of levels, which amount to little more than a screen of basic assets.
Shoot pink dots at a pixelised face of Saddam Hussein until you're thrown back to the title screen with a picture of a hockey mask, "Dev" scrawled across its forehead.
Art is subjective. Gameplay is not.
People can read whatever they want into this game. They can read whatever they want into this review, such as it is. Most people won't want to feel like the odd one out. They won't want to feel like they're the one who doesn't "get" the game.
You can tell by the number of downvotes this review will receive. I haven't even published it yet, such is the inevitability.
But there's nothing here to get. This game is the emperor's new clothes. It says nothing. It does nothing. It's barely a game. It looks terrible, it sounds worse, it plays like crap, it's awfully put together and even at 83p I feel like I was ripped off. An assault on the senses.
A turd so steamingly bad I wouldn't stamp on it if it was left burning in a brown paper bag on my doorstep, Kiss or Kill is simply an awful game.
.5