Ok, so I wanted to write both these reviews today, but I'm running out of time, so I'm imposing something concerning this last one: I'll write until S. rings at my door. Not a letter more. When that happens, I'll stop writing and I won't review it afterword. It should be fun, I guess.

Oxygen by Benjamin Sokal

Important things first: Oxygen cover art is ugly.

Less important things second: I liked Oxygen.

Spoiler elements abound after this randomly chosen picture of my trip to Azores.
Picture
So, I liked this one. I liked the way a moral question was turned into a playable game. The story didn't drowned us in the morality of it all in text form, making us put up with the player's internal monologue or something. It just made us play through it in any way we wanted. The first time you'll have to mess it up, because you still don't know the mechanics involved. The second time you can actually make a choice and fight for it. A short game, but with high replay value.

BUT...

A big but, to be honest, mainly because we're talking about a serious candidate here, and there is plenty of stuff to spoil it. The big BUT is - it doesn't work as the moral wrench to the gut it wants to work. Two reasons. I'll list them down with random letters:

G) The game is short, which is good in the way we can easily replay it, but also bad in another important point. Since we can play it again in no time to check other endings, our choices matter less. In a two hour game, I tend to choose my paths very well, because I'm going to live with the choices to the end of it, with little to no chance of replay - at least for the competition. Such makes those choices feel heavier on me. In such a short game, I ended up not caring and just wanting to find out what happens if I choose this instead of that.

Y) The moral dilemma is an illusion. And I'm very sad for saying this, because I wanted it not to be an illusion. I'll explain: once you go through most (all?) of the endings, you realize one of them will turn out well to everyone. That sucks, because from that moment on you have no moral dilemma, and the game isn't a game of hard choices any longer, just a game of finding the "right" ending. A simple math exercise.

Ell, But don't get me wrong. This one will get a high score from me, but I wanted it to rip an even higher one from me.

And look at that, I've ended the review before S. rang on my bell. I think I even have time to rea
30/12/2011 02:05:07 pm

Nice one info, thx

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Good article bro

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23/3/2012 02:25:52 pm

Fine article dude

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19/4/2012 11:55:07 pm

Fine info dude

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12/5/2012 02:19:11 pm

Nice one info, thanks

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25/9/2012 03:30:09 am

nice post

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