Tea Leaves

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tell me one thing: should I buy this game? I hear on the one hand that it is a life-altering experience that will lay waste to my preconceptions of gaming, beauty and, indeed, life itself. I also hear that the graphics are stuttery and look more like "valiant attempt" than "accomplished work of genius."

Oo, is your 'ittle pet theory feeling sore? I hate when that happens.

You could always go play _Blood Will Tell_, a game with 48 boss battles, each of which is about as creative as _Colossus's_ save-game screen. I'm sure that would reconnect you with your sense of ranty injustice.

General answer: should you buy _Colossus_? Yes. Is it the most beautiful thing ever? Well, yes, but it's also clearly aiming at 120% of what the PS2 hardware can handle. The flaws are easy to spot. There is texture pop-in; there is model pop-in. It doesn't feel stuttery to me, but that's because it tries to cover with fake motion blur when the frame rate drops.

I don't care. It's got an 83% success rate at what other games aren't even trying to do. That's totally the right thing to do.

(To return to the original topic: the gameplay is also fun. Peter(s), if you're still looking for a topic lead, try comparing the notion of "boss battle" in action games to the notion of "puzzle" in adventure games, and see which _Colossus_ is closer to.)

I believe I have the angle that I'm going to take with this, but I wanted to finish the game first because my feelings about Ico were very different before and after I finished the game.

Damn your eyes you US gamers and your six to twelve to infinite month lead times over Europe! I must wait... :(

Ralph Waldo Emerson, wasn't he the guy who dissed Jane Austen?

How dare a quote by him appear in a post about a game that comes as close to art as anything else out there!