/bin/bastion
I’m glad I’ve kept at Bastion, because dealing with the clunky combat is a one-time cost, and the story dividends really start to pay out as you go along.
I can’t quite tell if the combat has gotten better or if I’ve just gotten used to it. I think it’s the latter, because the reason I’m enjoying it is that I’ve figured out how to get around the bullshit. The first weapon you get is a hammer, which is nice and all, but you have to stop running around to use it effectively, and that’s awkward. Then you get a bow, and to use that effectively you have to hold down a button to draw it back and release at just the right moment. Given the way monsters in this game can swarm around you, this is kind of a “fuck you” to beginners.
Later in the game you get the good stuff: a shotgun, dual pistols, a flamethrower, et cetera. Since you can wield two weapons at once, you can play with different combinations that allow you to handle different types of enemies. I recommend the shotgun and pistols, or the flamethrower and rifle, both good ways to cause a lot of damage at short range and quickly take out dangerous monsters from far away.
All these weapons have colorful theme-appropriate names, e.g. the flamethrower is a set of bellows that shoots fire instead of air, somehow. This is a good segue into what I find interesting about the game. When talking about Crackdown I (crudely) mentioned Raph Koster’s “dressing” theory as explained in A Theory of Fun for Game Design. I think of it like this: a game is ultimately just Computer -> Display -> Your brain -> Controller -> Computer (repeat). Replace all the art and sounds with generic placeholders and the gameplay hasn’t changed. The rest is what Mr. Koster calls dressing.
The part I still haven’t wrapped my head around is why dressing can save iffy (or even bad!) gameplay. Like I said, you’ll eventually find the fun in Bastion’s gameplay, but what’s kept me coming back is the story, and I’ve openly mocked people who say I should play a game because of the story. That almost seems like saying you should watch Star Wars because John Williams’ score is really good. Sure, it’s good, but isn’t it there to support the rest of the movie?
So I guess Bastion’s story supports the gameplay, but it supports it a lot. Maybe think of it like the bottom part of a hovercraft? The individual elements are well done — good writing, good voice acting, good character design, good background art, good music — but they’re all used together to create a setting, which is something I always appreciate. The vibe is a little bit fantasy and a little bit spaghetti Western, which I believe qualifies as new.
I read a user review that complains that the voiceover tells the story rather than the game showing it, and I guess that’s true, but the voiceover is basically a native of the world describing how things used to be before the “calamity” that set the game’s events in motion. You realize partway through that the story touches on themes of race, religion, culture, and prejudice, which is still pretty new for games, and it’s not done in a trite way. It also made me accept a city called Caelondia as a legitimate place; I have a pretty high bar for fictional societies, especially ones with slightly overwrought names.
One thing to note, and I don’t know if this is bad or just necessary or what, is that the character you play doesn’t talk and has no personality to speak of. Gamers seem to be split on the silent protagonist issue; it can be hard to inhabit a character you know nothing about, but it can be equally hard when the character speaks in someone else’s voice, or says dumb shit. I’m going to say that the blank-slate protagonist of Bastion works, because both you and he are getting drawn into a larger conflict through your initially simple actions. You don’t need to be him, but it’s nice that your exploration of the story is parallel to his.
In summary, I apologize to Supergiant Games for saying I had buyer’s remorse over Bastion. It’s not a perfect game, but you guys did good.
(Source: giantbomb.com)
