The Meteor on the Mountain

I stumbled upon Mountain while perusing the Game of the Year lists.  Nothing in particular really stood out to me; in fact, it was the simple fact of its GotY win, for landscaping no less,that drew my attention.  So I bought it.  It was about 66 cents, less than the spare change bouncing around my purse, so I wasn’t exactly worried about the investment. 

I never suspected the can of worms I was opening. 

Mountain is a very chill game.  Very little happens; your mountain sits there, floating in its little bubble of atmosphere, gently spinning in space, and that’s it.  There’s no ‘gameplay’ to it at all; I can rotate my mountain so it spins faster for a moment, and I can zoom in or out, and if I really want to, I can rotate it down to see the rocks and such that make up the mountain’s base.  In that way, that absence of control or real interaction, Mountain is a very peaceful game. 

the view from space

Right now, it’s raining on my mountain.  The air is a little foggy, and the trees are gradually changing color as whatever passes for fall occurs in this tiny universe.  Whatever ‘entity’ the mountain is appears to have feelings as well.  “…. BORRRRRING….” just flashed across my screen, I assume a reference to the calm of the game. A little while later, as the sun rises and sets in the background, the trees start to sparkle with Christmas-esque lights and a gentle song steals out of the speakers, accompanied by the sounds of snowflakes padding down onto the mountaintop. 

This game, wherein you literally do nothing, taps into some deep voyeuristic part of human nature.  I have no effect whatsoever on the outcome of the game -- all I can do is zoom in or out or rotate the mountain, nothing else -- and yet I am unmistakably compelled to find out what's coming next. I don’t want to get up; I am instead absorbed into this world and unable to look away. 

When I finally tore myself from the computer about twenty minutes ago to take a shower, it was snowing gently on my mountain, the evergreen trees covered with a thin layer of snow and the atmosphere slightly cloudy.  Now, upon returning (because of course I couldn't turn it off), I find that my mountain has not only changed shape slightly, it now sports a random, giant phonograph near the summit.  

See it up there, near the top?

I have no idea where this came from -- I missed it when I stepped away. And the curiosity is making me crazy.  Where did that come from? Did it randomly appear or was the mountain lonely for another inanimate object? Does it play music if I wait long enough?? I will never know.

A sailboat showed up later too – I left it on while I had dinner, letting it go in the background of my life (as the official description suggests on its Steam listing), and this sailboat just popped up. 

Later the mountain had another random thought, this time saying "I AM ABSORBED BY THIS WONDROUS NIGHT."  (The mountain experiences life in all caps, apparently.)  

It's pretty cool.  I'm enjoying its peaceful atmosphere, and the ability to just sit and observe is more powerful than I expected.  

 

... didn't see that coming... 

And now, holy shit, a meteor just hit my mountain!  I have to go… and watch, I guess.  What a weird and wondrous game! 

  

Sandboxes and Skyrim

Fall is slowly drawing to a close, and that means the market is flooded with good, nay great, games to be absorbed into.  Shadow of Mordor looks amazing as does Civilization: Beyond Earth, and it's difficult for me to express just how badly I want to be playing Dragon Age: Inquisition right now instead of typing this.  A slew of other good games came out this year, along with some whose releases were marred with production errors and bugs (those shall remain nameless, though I bet you could guess).  But despite all of these awesome options, I have spent much of Fall 2014 playing Skyrim, and let me tell you, it's been a weird experience.

I totally loved Skyrim for at least the first 10-12 hours of gameplay -- I was totally hooked right from the start.  All the race choices, the semi-realistic options for characters to have scars, or tattoos, or even just not drop-dead-gorgeous hairstyles, the way your character starts as a prisoner, with nothing, you have to take advantage of opportunities to break into the world: I loved all of it.  I dove in and did not turn it off for what felt like days.

With such an immersive world, it was easy to get sucked in.

The plot, to begin with, is pretty cool: you wander around as a warrior for hire for a while, honing your skills in whatever category you please. I could learn how to use a broadsword and become a wizard if I wanted; the class system doesn't limit play at all, which I found particularly freeing.  Soon, you become revealed as the Dragonborn, the last of an old race, and you head off for Dragon-speak training.

However, what I soon realized is that this plot isn't all that important to the game.  I could participate or not; nothing changed, nor was there a sense of urgency that I really needed to get moving on the next part of the Dragonborn story before something bad happened.

Instead, I hopped from town to town, city to city, playing through missions as the mood struck me.  I spent hours just wandering the wild, locating places to explore and new, more interesting things to kill.  I gathered dragonbone and scales and more random armor than I knew what to do with, and eventually I would wander into a bigger city than the last and get sucked into its story.  I spent hours fighting through Markham, only to get stuck when the Jarl had no more quests to offer me but without ever getting the offer to become Thane, and so I had to move on.  I bought a gigantic house in Solitude and briefly mourned just how easy it was to decorate a house in a fake game as opposed to logging out and going shopping here in the real world.  I argued with people, prevented evil and very dead empresses from coming back to life, managed to get every follower I ever earned killed, found and then got attacked by a pony, and even jumped off a boulder and accidentally killed myself. 

But in between these adventures, though, I found myself bored.  I could play for hours it seemed, days on end, and then step away and not touch it again for two weeks without feeling any urge to delve back into the world.  That’s never happened to me yet; I started my second play-through of Dragon Age: Origins within hours of beating it for the first time, for god’s sake! Skyrim, though…

... as beautiful as it is... 

There just isn’t a plot.  I mean, yes, there is a plot somewhere in the game, sure.  It’s not quite like WoW, where there isn’t a plot at all and you just have to grind until you get high enough to PvP or you just roleplay and that’s the end of it.  Skyrim has two small plots: the rivalry/war between the Imperials and the Stormcloaks, and the Dragonborn storyline where (I assume) you eventually end up as some huge hero. 

I have yet to get even halfway through either of these stories.  At about 40 hours of gameplay, I’m pretty much over it.  I just end up bored; I’ll throw myself into the world for a few hours at a time, a few days at most, and then I end up feeling very unfulfilled and I turn it off again. 

I may finish it eventually.  Well, finish it as much as any person can finish Skyrim – I will never FINISH Skyrim, but I might actually finish the Dragonborn storyline.  Or not.  Even if my character does end up as some huge hero/warrior, I doubt it will have any impact on the world itself. 

 I like Skyrim: I like the world, I like the NPCs, and I like that I can basically do anything I want, no questions asked.  The sandbox style is truly amazing. 

But I’m bored without a story to follow, a mission to fulfill, a drive to push me through the game.  I can’t deny that the world of Skryim is an amazing accomplishment, but long-term, it’s not for me.