There's a game I tend to go back to when I'm in a sour mood, and unexpectedly it's not a violent game. A game brutally difficult, but with such precise controls that all the losses are only your fault, not due by bad design or random chance.
The game is VVVVVV, a simple platform game made by Terry Cavanagh. It's controls are even simpler than Mario: left, right, and V to flip the gravity. And from that simple twist, the game fully pushes it to its limits.
Visually, the game is slightly retro, yet has a lot of eye candy and polish. The music is downright amazing. The PC version of the game has a full level editor and a few extra levels. Back to the game, and maybe why I tend to prefer platformers and racing games, is the lack of randomness and rewarding both agility and precision. The result is like how Super Meat Boy replays all your deaths when you finish a level, a kind of visual quantum evolutionary proof that the only thing that was random was the player.
Anyway. VVVVVV is a very good game. It's available on a ton of platforms, and it's pretty cheap.
Published on September 3, 2012 at 21:02 EDT
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