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Saturday 18 February, 2012
My first play experience was an interesting one. I wasn’t sure what to expect because I’m familiar with many RPG series both current and retro. It is set up like Final Fantasy VI on Super Nintendo both with both graphic and interface similarities. Initially I was somewhat disturbed by the title screen, not knowing what to expect. The beginning began with a quote and then shifted into a rather innocent and harmless traditional RPG opening sequence: the protagonist wakes up in bed and begins his/her journey with preexisting and predetermined plans. I was intrigued to explore the room when I found out the spacebar was the action key. Most delighting was that the stereo in the room played a 16-bit version of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, because I am a big Nirvana fan. As I progressed through the game and made it to the basement to collect weapons as Dylan arrived at the house. I viewed items around the room some of interest were the Marylyn Manson CD placed on a desk and a video camera where Dylan and Eric made a message to be viewed posthumously. Later they arrive at the school and as I made my way through the halls to the cafeteria. This part was rather annoying because many of the graphics and game elements are ambiguous in this section making it very easy to get caught. I’m not sure if this was the developer’s intention to illustrate how calculated and orchestrated Dylan and Eric’s plan was. As I arrived in the cafeteria I walked in front of a camera and was immediately caught. This is when I was fed up with the game with roughly a half hour into playing. I took the beginning very slow so I could pick up on the details of the game and get acquainted with it. I thought this was a very unique take which was a double-edged sword: it somehow trivialized the event at Columbine by putting it into cute, Earthbound – style graphics and making the content in classic RPGs seem more violent. It most definitely gets the gamer to think, especially about the concept of violence in games.
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