Nearly 2006 now... Banner graphix, yo! Christmas givings and munnys racked up three DS games for me. But I'm also kicking away at MGA and GTA and TRON on PSP, fyi. Things are good, but I won't have nearly enough free (game) time before getting back to work. Still waiting on a (working) second-hand PS2 to scratch that RPG itch.
Darwinia is a game worth commenting on. Yes it's innovative, proving again that small developers and enthusiasts are the last bastion of creativity. Yes it's playable, streamlined controls and easy on the system requirements. It's pretty and sounds good, and it's geek-fodder for A.I. and Tron lovers alike. (Go Engineer!!)
The storyline has more than a few things ripped out of the news headlines, and foreshadows just a tad for A.I. and "Matrix" cataclysms. Which is of course inevitable. What gets me, and made me have to quit playing, is it's such a successful immersion that it encroaches into simulation. It's believable to the point of pulling the game into the real world, as though I was an assistant on a video link with this scientist.
It's full of juxtapositions that require more thought than gamers are usually comfortable investing. Like Xenogears touched religious and humanitarian buttons that people simply didn't expose while holding a controller... these Darwinians are digital organisms created by one man, self-aware and evolving. This is more of a god-game than Sims, Black & White, and Populous put together. For purposes of narrative we have the talking "head" scientist. But the player is equally responsible for the life and deaths of the Darwinians. Genuine Ludologists must be quivering with glee! There's enough case studies here to fill a semester.
The conflict comes from virus code. A more primitive version of "life" that seemingly only has goals for continued existence, which of course requires food and the removal of competition. In a Babylon 5 twist (or wherever JMS got it) these mortal enemies of the Darwinians are the source of "souls" to create new Darwinians. Not having played the whole story, I can only guess at the full truth with any plot twists. Suffice to say it's a perpetuating cycle of life and death. Plus the virii shriek when you kill them.
So this is my quandary, I can't enjoy this combination of moral and theological questions in the context of gaming, and I can't escape thinking about it alongside the narrative. Plus the virii shriek when you kill them. Then you harvest their souls.
Anyways, I gave it an 8.0. Because for those final 2 points, it is not in fact a game.
-V-
Load Comments