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OPINION
Reset 4.0
In Praise Of Animation
TIM HENDERSON returns serve
on the rather divisive Enslaved.
As with all good media outlets,
Pixel Hunt exudes a sense of
camaraderie and good times behind
the scenes. We finish each friendly
week of seeing eye-to-eye with a
friendly trip to the nearest pool hall
where we share rounds of drinks. Of
this, we allow public privy.
What we don’t display is the
piece of glass sticking out the back
of Dylan’s head, the one that Cody
wedged there after our site founder
sank a yellow ball. Likewise, all footage
of Alex must be shot from his right
side, lest the common people realise
that HE ONLY HAS ONE EAR!
In briefer terms, we are prone to
disagree.
So, then. Enslaved.
What a flippant little life this game
has led. At first happily fated to be
the next Beyond Good and Evil – a
game that everybody loves but nobody
purchased – it has since gone under
the hammer of harsher voices. Voices
that are “baffled and saddened” (PH
13) about the praises that the game
has had lavished upon it.
As if in need of a fragment of glass
lodged in my own head, I find myself
baffled and saddened about the way in
which these criticisms are aimed at the
game. Even from my more generous
perspective, Enslaved is hardly Game
of the Year material, but it seems that
its triumphs are heavily influenced
by the perspective from which you
approach them.
To wit: the storytelling.
To wit while abusing italics: the
storytelling.
Outside of a refreshingly vivid and
imaginative take on how to visually
create a post-apocalyptic world, there’s
nothing new here. The lead characters
conform to archetypes, their interactions
with each other take them exactly
where you’d expect, and the abruptness
of the ending betrays flaws in how
foreshadowing was approached. None
of this is of much concern to me. I’m
far more interested in the manners in
which information about the characters
is conveyed, and of how the plot itself
remains tied to gameplay objectives.
This is obviously an issue of
personal bugbears. It may be that I am
far more interested in the means than
the ends, and in this regard, Enslaved
has a moment to shine.
The player-character, Monkey, is
an oaf. He’s a brute, lithe and strong
and very likely raised in jungle-like
environments. He puts his own sense of
self-preservation first, but is susceptible
to that ‘good heart’ syndrome that
afflicts so many of his kind. There is
nothing unique about this.
But Enslaved is a videogame, an
interactive medium and a visual one,
and when it comes to taking advantage
of these characteristics of the medium,
the character of Monkey is bordering
on a masterclass. Imagine composing
a video of a mixture of gameplay and
cinematic sequences from Enslaved,
doing the same for a game such
as Mass Effect, and then playing
these two videos to an unconcerned
audience with all audio and written
dialogue/information stripped away.
Imagine asking this audience for
its interpretation of the respective
characters and events in the two
games. Imagine testing which game
narrative they got a greater feel for.
I would be hugely surprised if
Enslaved were to fail in coming up
trumps. There are two arguments
for why this could be: the first is that
Enslaved has a smaller cast and a
simpler plot. The other is that Enslaved
had a far more nuanced understanding
of animation.
It has to be acknowledged that
intensity of Enslaved’s animation
30 www.pixelhunt.com.au
march 2011