This is Oppression? What would Bioshock Infinite be without Gunplay?

The new Bioshock game had one of the most refreshing openings I've ever played.  I went about half an hour without hurting anybody or seeing anybody hurt!  That might be a record for an M rated game!

Jokes aside,  Bioshock Infinite was definitely stimulating and explored a lot of narrative territory, bringing in multiple influences from unexpected directions.  I would never expect a videogame tying the multiverse theory popular in DC and Marvel Comics as well as Star Trek to combine with an odd Steampunk patriot worshiping neo-Mormon society and finally garnish it's narrative with the icky parts of Oldboy.

Infinite's violence, though, reaches the notorious level that most M-Rated games strive for.  Kirk Hamilton of Kotaku wrote on the intense, insane quantity of violence in the game, commenting that even Cliff Bleszinski felt the game went too far.  The overall reaction is not that the violence is too much for a video game, but that it might be wrong for this particular game.  I'm inclined to agree; I think that violence is necessary for the story in this game, but I don't think that it's necessary for the mechanics, or that the gunplay or Vigor powers add to the narrative in any substantial way.

The Floating islands of Columbia are ruled by a religious fanatic and Prophet named Zachary Comstock. He leads a fascist regime that favors whites and rules over people of color or immigrants (such as the Irish).  To maintain control, he employs a military and a police force.  In most video games, that means that these guys are essentially storm troopers;  Cannon fodder for the player to mow down.  Bioshock Infinite decided to step in line with this convention, despite how it willingly challenges and subverts others.  I think that this subverts it's narrative.  Instead of displaying violence against the player, and having them inflict it in turn, a fascist society only needs to threaten violent action as well as display punishment when necessary.  A gun is an absolutely dangerous weapon, but it doesn't need to be used to kill or even maim someone in order to be effective.  

Fighting back and being able to kill these flunkies with guns and outrageous powers, despite being effective in most games, isn't realistic.  The realistic portrayal of police and soldiers with guns oppressing the lower class and taking on those they deem vagabonds would still make the world feel dangerous.  If you've already played Bioshock Infinite, then you know that the greatest moments of tension are not when you're in a firefight.  The greatest moments of tension are against the threats you do not fight; when you're instructed to throw a baseball at an interracial couple and when Songbird attacks Monument Island while you're inside are two of the most dramatic moments in the game. There's also great bits where you just take in the scenery and the environment tells the story.

If the guns and the inflicted and over-the-top violence was left on the cutting room floor, would that make Infinite a better game?  I'm not sure it would still be a game by the classic Chris Crawford definitions, but by the popular "Piece of Digital interactive entertainment" definition then yes, I believe so.  The Walking Dead season 1 was arguably the best recieved game last year and it all focused on it's narrative and the relationship between Lee and Clemintine, his adopted ward.  It was purely puzzles with a few quick time events.  The rest was well designed narrative, and all choices in that game were made to progress the story.  Many players will play a Final Fantasy game only to push the story forward rather than for the mechanics of a random encounter. Many will sneer at the idea of removing mechanics, but how many players are out there that only play games for the gunplay?  How many only play for the story?  I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of Infinite's players were more concerned with the story than the gunplay.

So is such a game marketable?  I can't say for certain because there isn't a lot of data on these sorts of games.  Heavy Rain sold about 2 million units, which for a console exclusive isn't a whole lot given it's budget.  L.A. Noire could have been this, but decided to veer in too many directions.  Many adventure games were following this path, but fell out of popularity at the end of the last century.  There's not a lot of reason to think that games without gameplay can be sold.  I  think that there's a growing group of players who want to explore gamings narrativescape.  Indie games and kickstarter have already sparked that flame.  Why not big budget gaming?  I think it can happen, and that it's going to get big before this decade closes.

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Confession;  I play a bit too heavily into the hands of marketing gurus.  When a new trailer comes out, I willingly saunter to an article, enter in my birthdate if it's an M-rated game, and set the video to buffer.  That's my fault for playing into their hands so quickly and easily.  In 2010, when they announced Professor Layton Vs. Ace Attorney, I made a post about it the same day.  When it comes to hype, I'll fall into the trap far too quickly.

But my pet Peeve is this:  when I do look up a trailer, that trailer is often posted by a news outlet, which makes money off of advertisements.  Often, that means a video advertisement will often be displayed immediately before the trailer... and the trailer itself is an advertisement.

Games haven't got this cornered either.  Glance at forums, blogs and tweets and you'll find somebody excited about a film trailer.  So you might go watch a 2 minute trailer for this years Star Trek film, only to hit an unskippable minute-and-a-half Iron Man Trailer that came out a month prior.

Immediately after that comes the hype and discussion.  "Who's this new character in the trailer?  We haven't heard his name before?  Is he this guy?  Gosh, Benedict Cumberbatch's performance gives me Goosebumps."  But meanwhile, we forget that we didn't watch a 2 minute trailer;  we just spent 3 minutes and 30 seconds watching advertising.

I bring this up because I'm still trapped in a hyped state from the Assassin's Creed Announcement the other day.  I watched the trailer three or four times, reflecting the setting ("The Caribbean   Could the First Civilization be tied to the Bermuda Triangle?")  The Character's ("Pirates;  Swashbuckling like Captain Blood.")  and whether I can turn it into the article I've wanted to write about romantic heroes in Assassin's Creed for some time now (Is that a humble brag?  S#@t!)

But then I thought about how each time I had to watch an ad 30 seconds or longer for a different game; perhaps one I wasn't at all interested in.  There was one for the new Tomb Raider, at least 2 unskippable advertisements for some dead island DLC, and I think that even the Star Craft trailer that came out late last month has started making the rounds.  After those ads finished, there was a WoW banner across the bottom of the video that I could close.  After getting excited and speculating about stuff in a trailer,  I also had to acknowledge that I had become saturated by advertisements, which makes me feel used.

So after watching an advertisement to watch an advertisement, what is the next evolution in Marketing?  Advertising another game in a second?  Maybe with a custom skin from another franchise? Perhaps you can play game A and earn points which can be used in Game B, which hasn't come out yet.  Now you have all this currency that's just sitting collecting digital cobwebs that you could put to use when Game B comes out?  And to hype you even more, if you unlock x amount of currency, you get a free DLC skin so you can "Cosplay" as Character B in Game A.  The sheer saturation of publisher logos on the screen will come close to a brainwashing threshold, thus ensuring loyal customers...

Blecch!

Best Thing Ever (of the month): The Man from Earth

I promise to get back to gamey stuff soon.  In the mean time, here's a movie recommendation.

The Man from Earth is a very simply shot, understated film that breaks the most basic rule of writing;  show, don't tell.  Chuck Sonnenburg (better known as SF Debris) did a thorough review last year.  You can find that review here.

This is a low budget, direct to DVD film;  you're not gonna get insane special effects of a soaring orchestral score.  It's shot like a multi-camera sitcom: a bunch of people in a room having a long discussion.  It's quite an intimate affair;  it may even mirror occassions that you might have had with good friends sipping a beer and having a sit-in while you listen to music or just enjoy each others company.  So you might be a little disarmed when the subject of the film comes about.

The main character, John Oldman, probes the room asking his scholarly friends (professors of archeology, anthropology, biology and biblical literature) about a Cromagnum man living to the modern day.  He then announces that he is such a man, and starts spilling his guts to his skeptical friends who show a full spectrum of reactions.

Each of them hears him out and interviews him on his origins and life history, as well as how he pieced together his own story.  He essentially analyzes his memories and matches it with his research.  He can piece together that the mountainous island he saw across a channel thousands of years ago was part of modern Britannia based on his modern understanding of geography.  The man has had millennia to devote to study, which he downplays, saying anyone with the amount of time he has could have done it.

Throughout the film, his friends remain skeptical but intrigued, and bust out three tiers of one of Christianity's four part "proof."  To them, the options are that he's insane, he's lying, or that he's telling the truth.

Discussing this film is somewhat meta, because the entire film is essentially a discussion.  There are no flashbacks, or outside sets, and nothing to show off these memories.  It relies on the audience's imagination, but refuses to fill in the blanks, letting them remain as skeptical of John's declaration as his friends are.

Until the end, there is no proof that John's claim is true, but that does not immediately mean that his claim is false.  There's no evidence in either direction, which to me is the intelectual crux of the film.

If you decide to check this movie out, it's available on Netflix.  I'd also suggest watch Sonnenburg's review linked above.  I may have more to say on this in the future, but for now I'm just recomending it to every intellect I can.

Best Thing Ever (of the month): Habibi

Please indulge me. Instead of games, we're going to look at 2011's Habibi: a Graphic novel by Craig Thompson.

Habibi is 665 pages of black and white illustration built heftily on Will Eisner's work as well as Islamic calligraphy and illustration.  Here's what it looks like:

Dodolla tells the story of the Fisherman and the Djinn.

Thompson is one of the few creators out there who can do it all: write draw, draft and design.  He has a knack for using the page to tell a story, rather than just drafting a storyboard.

Habibi focuses on the story of Dodolla and Zam; two slaves who escaped and grew up in the middle east, and sustained themselves on stories from the 1001 Nights and the Qu'ran.  Thompson is able to draw upon, subvert and explore the figures and events in each of these stories, and somehow makes magic seem possible in a mundane world.  The book almost effortlessly draws up issues of modern day slavery, rape and sexual exploitation, religion, pregnancy, post-partum depression, starvation, aristocracy, male and racial privilege, sexual identity and frustration, pollution, and suicide.  This can be a very depressing book at times, but it will also lift your spirit. This book, while fictitious, is about real people dealing with reality.  Habibi is life in a breath of ink.

No Handlebars

Bully was recently ported to the Playstation Network.  It carves it's own weird niche between other Rockstar Games.  the locomotion focuses on walking, skateboarding and biking, so the world feels a little smaller, and more intimate.  Biking feels identical to San Andreas, but the major difference is that the world of Bullworth Academy has a greatly reduced size, thus feeling more intimate. This feeling never was never extended to San Andreas; if you can drive a car, why ever bother with a bike if you don't have to? The practicality of a bicycle is circumvented when you have a mode of transportation available that does the job better.  If walking is more convenient than finding a bike, that's what you're going to do; if a car is available, or a horse... you get the picture.

But sometimes a car isn't available because of the narrative, the setting or the gameplay. I think that some games could greatly benefit from adding bikes.  Here are a few:

The Legend of Zelda

Yes, Link has Epona in Ocarina, but given Phantom Hourglass gave you a steam boat and Spirit Tracks gave you a Train, I think that a Bike could be a fun and practical addition for a new 3DS entry in the series.  Just think of biking down dirt roads out of town, turning into a local stream and under a bridge.  You could cut off of the road at times and the grass would whisk its way in between the spokes. If you ride through a barticularly tall bit of grass, it could rustle, and a fairy might pop out and tag along behind you. You could get upgraded versions, like a mountain bike that can go into lower gears;  perfect for the steep ride up a volcano as boulders are bearing down on you.  Upgrades could get you different tires, spokes, frames, bells, perhaps a crossbow built into the handlebars, all of which could be bought or found throughout the world, and interchanged so you could have you custom hobbit-bike.

Fallout

A Friend at work once wondered aloud to me.  "Anyone can manufacture a gun, and people can build plasma cannon's, but nobody knows how to fix a carbonator?"  Personally, I think that adding cars would ruin a lot of what fallout is about;  wandering about, stumbling onto hidden coves and caches, accidentally crossing into someone's territory and having to talk them out of shooting you on site, and having to defend yourself if that goes south.  Cars also add anonymity;  it's hard to get a good look at someone through their windshield.  But moving around in Fallout can be a bit tiresome, and fast travel systems are a bit passe.  Adding bikes would add a faster and fun way to move about the world while still maintaining the post apocalyptic sensibilities of a nuked America of the 1950's.  The Wastelander who feels young at heart could collect baseball cards and stick them between their spokes so they sound like a motorcycle...  whatever that is.

Mass Effect

The Citadel is a huge indoor/urban environment.  It sometimes looks like an iPod and Crossbred Disneyland and New York City.  I still don't understand why there aren't any moving trams when there are hover cars 100 meters above me.  Having Aliens riding bikes or other extra-terrestrial equivalents would add even more life to the space station, and would make navigating it more enjoyable, and give Commander Shepherd (or whoever fills her shoes) an excuse to wear that pre-order hoodie.  Adding Bikes to a place like Omega would give Space-faring youths of all species a faster means to harass you while listening to the thumping music coming from afterlife, allowing for more dialogue interactions and new problems for the next intergalactic hero to solve.

That's just off the top of my head.  Obviously each of these series has done well without bicycles, but I personally like the idea of adding in that extra mechanic.

Mordecai and his BFF Bloodwing

This post is Peppered with spoilers for Borderlands 2.  It's an awesome game, and you should play it.

When you create a character, in games or in fiction, you have to give that character to your audience.  They interpret them in ways that authors often can't expect.  In games, when you give players a character, they often have exaggerated qualities, both good and bad;  this is especially true in power fantasies.  If you take that character, and insert it into a sequel without giving the player agency over them, a new issue arises.  It's the difference between a reflection and a photo.  As an author, you may have to further exaggerate those qualities.  This worked in Metal Gear Solid 2.  It has mixed success in Borderlands 2.

Borderlands left the original Vault Hunters blank slate; to be interpreted by their mechanics and their aesthetics.  They didn't have a ton of dialogue, and couldn't truly respond to anyone.  In the followup, We have a new set of Vault Hunters to play as, with the veterans participating as mentors, quest givers and leaders of a resistance.  Each one has their identity initially obscured and then revealed in a way that allows the player to realize how much they missed them.

Each other them have been given new characteristics.  Lilith, whose image and identity revolved around the word "Seduction,"  now feels like a new member of the X-Men, exploring new powers with excitement with very little care about the new risks and responsibilities they might require.  Roland has settled into his role as the Leader of the Crimson Raiders nicely.  He seems to have taken to heart the role that Atlas played in the last game and wants to protect those his ex-comrades have misplaced and abused.  Mordecai has settled into solidarity with his friend Bloodwing, relishing in alcohol and ammunition.  Brick has become a bandit leader, trying to focus chaos into order, while at the same time trying to rationalize the insanity Pandora seems to draw so easily.

Three of these felt like major improvements, but Mordecai felt like an afterthought.

Every time you meet a new character, with the exception of Clap Trap, they have an introduction banner giving silly editorial comments about them.  "Marcus; No Refunds,"  "Tannis; Insane(ly smart),"  "Zed; Do no harm."

The old Guard have these, too.  "Lilith; AKA the Firehawke,"  "Roland; as Commander of the Crimson Raiders.."  But Mordecai's is a little more focused.  "Mordecai, and his BFF bloodwing."

And I loved that.  In Borderlands 1, Bloodwing had a mechanical relationship with Roland, but you never heard him treat her like a pet.  It felt like an asymmetric partnership (still an action skill that I loved).  But in BL2, you never see him send her out for a kill, and then 3 chapters later, you have to go rescue her, and instead of partnering up, Mordecai stays in a perch and snipes from a distance.  This does not emotionally or mechanically compute.

When we head into the wildlife preserve, he gives a decent excuse; that he knows Bloodwing well, and that she can handle herself.  But in the end, and this may have been the intention; Mordecai is deceiving himself, and the fact that he's not there when Bloodwing dies  has me unconvinced that he loved her.  He's living in a fantasy that he and she can handle the problem, and instead of taking action to help, he leaves it to a (competent) stranger to rescue her.

Truth be told, I can't tell if this is brilliant psychology that highlights the deep insanity of Pandora, or if it's a flaw on the part of the writers, but it's hard for me to love Mordecai as much as I did when I first played as him in Borderlands 1.

The Curtain Drops on Mass Effect

Full Disclosure:  This Article is about the end of Mass Effect 3 and is full to the brim with spoilers.  I highly encourage you to experience the game yourself and come to your own conclusions before reading my opinion, or anyone else's.  

This article briefly delves into the finale's in Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire and Lost.

Mass Effect's final act brings Shepherds story to a close.  It's a savory ride, and Bioware pulled all the stops to make the game amazing.  Gameplay feels more like a sharper and more intense; the choices are bigger without losing sight of the smaller picture;  Crew Members always have something to say, and the citadel feels desperate but alive.  The atmosphere always feels urgent.  Every plot point in the game comes to a head here, and old faces resurface again and again and again.

After thirty hours of playing ME3, plus the time I played ME2, the final stretch loomed in site.  I nearly maxed out Galactic Readiness, called in every favor I could, united the galaxy as well as my squad, took revenge and said goodbye to all my teammates who made it to this point.

Then looms the final approach.  You enter the light and are taken to the Citadel, where you face the illusive man.  He raves like Saren did in the first game.  He can't be reasoned with at this point, and you can either talk him into suicide, or shoot him.  After that, it's front seats to a giant super weapon that's suposed to end the Reaper War.  Your goal has been to destroy the reapers so you can save the earth.  Maybe it's for that little boy that died on the shuttle;  the one that Bioware was shoving down your throat the entire game*.  Maybe it was for Kaiden or Ashley, for Thane or Liara, for Joker or Kelly, or maybe so you can help Aria take back Omega.

Or maybe you're fueled with rage and want to live out a couple of Picard's lines:



But you've made it to the pinacle, and are about to use this giant machine to end the threat of a bunch of other giant machines;  you've all but completed your mission.

As a fan of Bioware games, you might recall the way their other games have ended;  Knights of the Old Republic had a very similar dichotomy;  destroy the Starforge for the lightside ending, or take it's power for your own and take over as leader of the Sith Empire.  Jade Empire followed suite, with the Open Palm freeing the Water Dragon and the Closed first seizing control of the empire, but also had a "Downer" ending, where you could submit to the big bad and let the Empire fall under fascist rule where they worship you as a hero.

And now, as Mass Effect's Curtain prepares to fall, you're at the top of the citadel, looking down on earth above you.  The Ghostly image of the dead boy from the beginning of the game tells you about the cycle, how it has continued, and how you are the first person to make it this far.

Here you are, standing in front of an Ancient AI; the Inteligence of the Citadel.  It starts to tell you about the cycle of the Reapers, and why they wipe out advanced species every 50,000 years;  because the AI's created by Organics would inevitably destroy all organic life and the cycle would cease.

Lost's Finale came down to twisting a cosmic lightbulb.
Mass Effect's Feels like that, but with Red and Blue Pills.

Anyone remember the finale of Lost?  Viewers had six seasons, each 16-24 episodes spanning about 45 minutes a piece.  from 2004 to 2010, the writers had been stringing them along with mysteries.  In the final season, viewers expected to get some answers and some closure.  There was no way to satisfactorily round up and answer every mystery, but they almost didn't try.  It was as if the writers had become so good at stringing up mysteries that they didn't know how to bring it to an end.

That's how the ending of Mass Effect feels.  You have access to the oldest living Memory in the Cosmos, and it immediately sent you to your death without a discussion, a debate, or even a rebellious attitude.

Shepherd breaks character and concedes to it with very little hesitation, limps to the other side of the platform, and either destroys the Reapers and dies, or controls them and dies.  The only difference is the color of the light that destroys the Mass Relays

It's very easy for this to become a shadow that hangs a sour note on the game.  It's the last experience in the story.  If you go to a restaurant have the best potato crusted haddock in your life, then order desert only for your creme brulé to be chalky and burnt, do you immediately plan to return for your next meal?

Mass Effect 3 still has the best main course around.  If you were to compare the three game's to sci fi film and Television, I'd stick Babylon V against ME1, Blade Runner and Star Trek 2009 against ME2, and stick Starship Troopers and Battlestar Galactica against ME3.  Three games that blend the best of science fiction into one cohesive and memorable story.

And Mass Effect 3 is the best of all of them.  I just have to spit out the charred flavor of the desert before I return to it.

*I get it;  the little boy on fire in Shepherd's dreams is a metaphor for the end of humanity and the lives that have been lost along the way; the sacrifices Shepherd made to get this far.

Save Scumming through Devil Survivor 2

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I just finished a long haul of replaying most of the Ace Attorney games.  Ace Attorney is a little weird; it's an adventure game series where you have a "health bar."  If you ever present the wrong evidence in court (or when trying to break a psyche lock), you lose a bit of health.  Naturally, this leads to a ton of save scumming.  Not a huge issue, except in the few cases where the answer is REALLY obscure (your milage may vary).

But after coming off of such a long haul, It's tough to break the save scumming habit.  Did I miss a renegade option I liked in Mass Effect 2?  Reload!  Did my favorite companion in Skyrim die?  Reload.  Did too many of my Pokémon die in a gym battle? Want to try that conversation in Deus Ex Revolution? Reload.

I've probably taken this habit too far of recent. I just picked up Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 the other day.  I'm only on the second day, and so far the game says I've put in three hours.  I've probably put in five or six already, and that's starting with lots of trivial decisions.

When you boot up, and a fellow classmate introduces you to the very macabre website "Nicaea," which shows you videos of the upcoming deaths of anyone you care about (Similar to the emails in the previous game).  You register for the site (choosing your name in the process) and then you choose an online avatar.  These avatar's come with widely different personalities, but you don't learn that until you choose one. They're presented as small, cartoony sprites similar to the one's you'd see on the field of play during a battle, and the choice is made completely binary;  Male or Female.  This is a character that you'll have to interact with for the rest of the game.  My first time through, I chose the female.  I was immediately bombarded with an incessant, peppy attitude.  The writers decided to tie an infernally obnoxious personality to a set of anime tits with bunny ears.

Annoying;  Reload.

Started from scratch; typed in my name.  Chose the male.  I was expecting an obnoxious male.  Instead I got a somewhat reserved butler.

20 minutes later, the game is starting to heat up again. My character and the first two party members are all about to die.  The butler avatar dude asks me if I want to live.  The game gives me two dialogue options;  I choose the second. "No.  Let me die."  After confirming three times that this is what I want to do, I finally get the alternative game over screen with Apocalyptic message followed by a "403 Forbidden" error.

Pretty cool; reload.

I get through the first battle and finally get to the meat of the game.  Both Devil Survivor games take place over a seven day period split into 30 half hour scenes.  Once you enter a scene, you chew up half an hour of the day, discounting free battles (which allow you to grind for experience and Macca, the game's currency).  Some events occur at specific times.  At this point, I'm just saving, trying every option, and seeing what works better for me.

And now I have to wonder; is this a viable option?  Is this play style worth it, or is my obsession with seeing every option and choosing the optimal consequence preventing me from being swept away by  the game? Is this a design flaw, or a play style flaw?

I can't say either way.  All I know is that I've got Macca to earn and demon's to fuse.  I'm ready to Survive.

Dear Team Meat,

It's been one year since you released Super Meat Boy, and even longer since you announced the Mac version. I was so excited about your game when I first heard about it.  I had fallen in love with Edmund's prior work, having discovered Aether linked on Rock Paper Shotgun way back when, and having unwittingly played Spewer before that..  Hearing that he was working on an indie love letter to 8-bit/old school platformers filled me with nothing but joy.

When you said you were putting SMB up on Steam, you said that getting the PC version would act like a preorder for the Mac version.  Taking you at your word, I bought SMB on Steam over a year ago, hoping that in a matter of months that I would get the platforming experience we'd been dreaming of.  Knowing that it was coming to mac meant that when I bought a current console last year, your game no longer had to be the reason I bought one or the other.  I bought a PS3 last year, and while I love it, I might have changed my mind had I known that the Mac version of the game was not only a low priority, but of almost no urgency.

I really want to show you the love and respect that the rest of the SMB community has.  I understand that you want to share really cool tools with other people who love platformers and love Super Meat Boy.  But I feel like I've been lied to;  that you promised we could be part of the group, but that you forgot about us.

I want to play your game.  I want to be pushed to my limits and crushed beneath the whim of a fetus in a jar, or salted to death and carved to bits by a rotating saw.  I want to breeze through a warp zone like a boss and unlock Captain Viridian.  I want to know what Brownie is all about without looking it up on a wiki or watching another Youtube let's play.

Team Meat, let's face it.  You've Thumbblocked the Mac users for a full year.  Let us finally get off.

With love,

Matt

Ico Is So Much More

Ico's tenth anniversary has flown by.  It's a wonderful fairy tale horror story with a mechanic that overshadowed the rest of the game.  When it came out in 2001, Ico separated itself from all prior games by allowing you to hold hands with an AI controlled character.  The young horned boy leads the slightly older girl Yorda to escape a citadel ruled by her evil mother.  As remarkable as it is to hold Yorda's hand and draw closer to her, or hear her call back to you, the game is a storytelling should have eclipsed a single programing gimmick.

Ico uses minimal dialogue.  All three speaking characters in the game speak in strange dead, yet subtitled languages.  Ico, the young horned boy who was brought to the citadel to die, speaks a language that is subtitled in english.  Yorda, the taller girl, speaks in a dialect subtitled with hieroglyphics.  The Evil Queen, Yorda's mother, understands and speaks both languages, but Ico, and thus the player, only understands one.  The game relies on their body language and the tones of their voices rather than dialogue.    There are moments of terror, horror, fear, distrust, and mourning, all implied by urgent and often melancholy gestures made by both Ico and Yorda.  But there are sweet, tender moments as well;  Yorda calling out to Ico in longing; the moments when Yorda leaps across a short chasm, and Ico helps her back on her feet; the moment when the player saves the game, and ico beckons her over just to hold her hand and rest on a concrete bench.  These are well defined moments that would be spoiled with english (or the players native language).

But beyond this, Ico was able to communicate through it's environment ideas that otherwise would have required long and overbearing exposition.

*Spoilers*

Right before the final showdown, Ico enters the room where he began.  Inside the room are separate sarcophaguses where horned children have been place, which we know from the beginning of the game.  On the other side of the room sits the statue of Yorda, where her frozen stone body was taken when she was recaptured.  Surrounding her are the weird, blue eyed shadows that have desperately been trying to capture her all game, but that Ico has successfully staved off.  As you defeat these spirits with the recently acquired Royal Sword, the sarcophaguses light up one by one.  Instead of using a life bar or a counter to show how many enemies are left, the game built it into the environment, and implied that if Ico hadn't broken free, he would have been one of the shadows haunting and harassing Yorda.

* Spoilers End*

As beautiful the sentiment is, Ico isn't just a game about holding a girls hand.  It's so much more than that.  It's a beautiful game with storytelling chops to be treasured in an eerie setting that can haunt and caress your agile mind.