Legend of Gomez

                I was born in the year 1991 so by the time I had developed the fine motor skills necessary to manipulate a video game controller I had missed most of the golden age of video games.  By 1996, the world was well into the 5^th generation of console gaming and I was just starting kindergarten.  Not only did my parents fail me on accounts of their poor timing, but also by refusing to let my brother, my sister and I rot our brains on a regular occasion.  For the longest time we did not own a gaming console.  No, our limited time gaming was relegated to the weeks surrounding our birthdays and our half-birthdays when my Mom would take us to Blockbuster Video to get a five day system rental.  See, my parents weren’t against video games entirely; they just didn’t want them to be the be all and end all in regards to our entertainment.  Honestly, I’m grateful for that but that isn’t what I want to talk about today. 

                Unfortunately for my parents around 1998 the local video rental stores stopped carrying consoles.  So, two years into the life of the Nintendo 64, my parents broke down and bought us a Super Nintendo.  It was the best day of my life.  Finally, I was able to play video games all year long!  Provided I walked the dog, took out the garbage, and ate my Brussels sprouts; but by golly I did, and it was glorious. 

                Nevertheless, showing up to the party late has its disadvantages.  The most notable among these was entirely missing the NES era of gaming.  I played the original Super Mario Brothers on Super Mario All-Stars and it wasn’t until a little later in my life that I realized that that was a re-release.  However, that is but a small price to pay when compared to this:  I never got to play the Legend of Zelda before the internet.  In fact I never even got to see the game in action until I received my copy of The Legend of Zelda Collector’s Edition.  But at that point in my life I quickly got frustrated with the game because I couldn’t figure out what to do.  So I did what anyone would have done in the year 2003; I went to gamefaqs.com and found a walkthrough.  I spent some time playing through the game following the walk through, but I got bored pretty quickly and quit playing.  By following a walk through I had removed the aspect of the game that made it such a memorable experience:  The sense of exploration and discovery.  I had destroyed the aesthetics of the game and with that gone there was little keeping me playing, especially when I had prettier games to play on my GameCube. 

                I had not realized what I had been missing until yesterday when I booted up my copy of Fez.  This was a game that I had been eagerly been anticipating ever since I watched Indie Game: The Movie.  As a Nintendo/Sony kind of guy, I was heartbroken that I was unable to play Fez when it first released last year on Xbox 360.  Patiently I waited.  Finally I learned that the game would be released on PC.  Unfortunately, life got in the way and even though it was released on May 1^st I wasn’t actually able to begin playing it until now.  That being said, I beat the game in one play session. 

                There was something about the game that made me unable to put it down.  There were a couple of times that the game actually crashed during my play through at which point I thought, “Now would be a good time to get on with my-“ but before I could finish the thought I was already starting the game back up again.  Why was that?  What was it about this game that I could not for the life of my quit playing?  Phil Fish, the creator of Fez, said one time in an interview, "There are no enemies in FEZ. No bosses, no combat. In fact, no conflict of any kind. You can die, but there is no penalty for doing so. FEZ aims to create a non-threatening world rich with ambiance, a pleasant place to spend time in."  In a world in which Call of Duty is the best-selling franchise every year, it is so refreshing to find a game designer willing to take a risk on non-combat game design.  Instead of getting my thrills from stomping on heads or blowing out brains I instead found myself compelled by the desire to see what else this world had to offer.  I was an explorer.  Every room you enter is completely unique from the last and they are all absolutely gorgeous.  There were many occasions when I realized that Gomez, the main character of Fez, had fallen asleep while I was too busy watching the pixelated wildlife frolic about. 

Some of my notes while playing.

                This was what was lacking when I tried to play the original Legend of Zelda.  Being older and hopefully more mature, I was able to fight the urge to glance at a walkthrough when the going got tough this time around and I believe that I have had a richer experience for it.  There is lore within the world Mr. Fish created; the game world is filled with ancient looking hieroglyphics and Tetris blocks carved into the virtual rock.  Things that I glanced at briefly upon the first time entering a room and thought nothing of it.  However, that all changed when I stumbled upon my first “anti-cube”.  Now every mark was subject to scrutiny.  I found myself taking photos suspect markings and jotting down copious amounts of notes in order to decipher what I could.  There was a whole ancient civilization to unearth and only I was able to do it.  In a word, it was exhilarating. 

                Currently my save file for Fez sits at 134.4% completion.  I still have a lot of work to do in order to discover all of the secrets Phil Fish and his partner Renaud Bédard have hidden away inside their code.  However, the legend of Gomez and his magical hat is one that I intend to see through to completion.