Bad Habits - Shooting Italians vs. stabbing bears - November 02 2005
These are the days of our gaming lives
Here’s the video game question of the hour: Do I want to stab giant bear-like creatures to death, or do I want to shoot a bunch of World War II Italians in the head with a machine gun? Choices, choices.
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These scenarios are from two popular and acclaimed games, but only one of them is addictive to me. That is a little surprising. Critics have been fawning about the greatness of the bear-esque game, Shadow of the Colossus. It does begin with much promise, but it immediately becomes insanely difficult, and I can’t make any progress on it.
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Actually, the colossi aren’t bears. They’re giant hairy creatures whose toes are bigger than my whole body. You’ve heard of Bigfoot? This is Big Toe.
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Toes or not, Colossus is one of the prettiest games ever made, worth renting at least just to marvel at it. The story: I ride a horse across vast fields, with a dead beloved draped over my shoulder. I take her corpse to a shrine and start a conversation with a godlike dude who tells me he can resurrect her — as long as I kill a bunch of colossi he doesn’t like so much.
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So off I go, to stab my sword into the butt of the first colossi — I kid you not — and then I have to climb his fur and stab him in the head. I was able to do the butt thing, but I spent two hours in vain trying to do the next step: jump on his condo-sized sledgehammer, then jump onto his bracelet (where does a colossus shop for jewelry?), then climb his head.
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I can see why critics, who clearly have more patience than I do, enjoy this game. It’s pretty, creative and unusual in a world of look-alike games. But I think I’m done trying to reach the bear’s bracelet. I don’t hate Colossus, but I sure can’t play it.
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Frustrated, I moved onto Call of Duty 2: Big Red One, a very good World War II game that allows me to pretend I’m fighting in North Africa, Italy and elsewhere as a private in the Army’s esteemed 1st Infantry Division.
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I should admit two things, one of which is embarrassing. First, Big Red One is my favorite kind of game — a shooting game with variety. It makes me run and fire on the ground. I guide a plane’s path over water while I bomb ships; I drive a tank and blow up stuff. There’s something really satisfying about figuring out how to outflank competing soldiers.
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Second, my embarrassing admission, is that the game reminds me of when I glued and snapped together plastic war planes and ships when I was a kid. Back then, I wished I could make the planes and ships shoot each other. I couldn’t. But now I can in such games as Big Red One. That may be why I enjoy it so much.
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And it’s fun despite that three major things could have been better. It’s shorter than I’d hoped. There’s no good character development. And the dialogue is typical war-movie stuff between the northern soldier in the division, the hick and other stereotypes.
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One of my buddies even says, “I think I may actually make it home from this lousy war.” Yes, he’s going to die.
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thegamedork@creativeloafing.com
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Doug Elfman is an award-winning columnist who is also the TV critic at the Chicago Sun-Times.