Video
games can be many things to many people, so the idea of proclaiming a
single one as the best of 2012 strikes us as a little limiting. This
year, instead of screaming at each other for hours in a sweaty,
smoke-filled room until we emerge with a handful of winners, your
friends at 1UP have decided to forsake categorization and write about the
experiences that brought us the most enjoyment this year
-- and that's the point of playing video games, isn't it?
Games can fill a lot of roles
in our lives. If we want to immerse ourselves in a good story, The
Walking Dead can step up. The
social lubricant of an online experience allows us to connect with
friends via World
of Warcraft and Call
of Duty. If we're
seeking nostalgia, Nintendo has the entire Virtual Console library at
our disposal. We can make a bus ride go faster with Tetris,
or reflect on our lives with Braid.
A versatile medium, indeed.
So what role does Thirty
Flights of Loving play in my
life? Well, it reaffirms my decision to dedicate a large portion of my
time and energy to writing about video games. It's a frenetic
and mesmerizing 15 minutes that proves the term video game is difficult to
define and impossible to pigeon hole.
Brendon Chung's follow-up to the stylish Gravity Bone
presents a world still residing in that specific kind of '60s
chic. The air is smoky, the drinks are substantial, and transportive
music resonates throughout the atmosphere. All of these traits are
accomplished through the use of exaggerated characters and impeccable
mise en scene. But look past the superficial layer of style, and
you'll see that Chung has told a story in a way that our
medium has never really seen.
Thirty Flights uses jump cuts
and plays with the concept of time in presenting the story of a trio of
bandits. You'll experience their heist from pre-inception to
fiery completion, but not necessarily in that order. Upon meeting a
character, you'll be shown a quick montage of their past,
present and future, and Chung trusts the player enough to let them
piece the story together. To go into further depth would be a
disservice to the player, but just know that I've never
played anything quite like Thirty Flights, and I bet you
haven't either.
I can't, in good
conscience, finish up this post without mentioning Chris
Remo's phenomenal music. It complements the visuals and
design with unerring perfection. Though only a few minutes in length, I
haven't been able to get it out of my head for months. Again,
the topic of brevity comes up, and the length of Thirty Flights is
something that I wish more creators would embrace. Sometimes you
don't want to sit down for hours on end, only to make a small
dent in a sprawling adventure. Sometimes you want to experience a game
that delivers you its mechanics and narrative in only a handful of
minutes. Like a short story by Raymond Carver of J.D. Salinger, Brendon
Chung has created something with the utmost respect for our precious
commodity of free time.