Each entertainment medium has one advantage over the others, that the very best examples exploit. Some music, through a process nobody fully understands, can instantly provoke feelings such as sadness or elation through sound alone; literature, connecting directly with your mind as it does, is capable of making the most preposterously unrealistic situations not only acceptable, but incredibly gripping and immersive; while TV & cinema can bombard the viewer with a mixture of highly evocative scripting, sounds and visuals (employing the finest writers, actors, musicians, and technology) to create an experience they’ll never forget. What is gaming’s advantage?

Interactivity; and it’s amazing just how underexploited this element has been over the past two decades or so.

Notoriously, big budget games have been pathetically desperate to emulate movies this generation. The problem is that developers try to emulate the movie industry via their cut scenes (and sometimes incidental dialogue); forgetting the fact that the budgets put aside for casting, direction, scripting, and cinematic computer graphics will never allow them to compete with the best that cinema has to offer. Also forgetting, of course, that games are meant to be played rather than watched. Nonetheless, there have been titles that have taken advantage of gaming’s interactivity in interesting ways.

Bioshock is a good example of this, though only in two instances; the moment you finally come face to face with Andrew Ryan (which I shan’t spoil for those yet to play the game) – and the first time you have a Little Sister at your mercy. Sadly, it is now virtually impossible to experience Bioshock as the developers intended; that is, with no idea of the details of the story including, crucially, the true nature of the Little Sisters. I was careful that this was how I first played the game. Therefore, when I was forced to either save or ‘harvest’ a Little Sister, I had to make the decision on very little information. One character was telling me this was a twisted little girl I had a chance to return to normality; another was telling me that this creature was no longer human, a monster beyond all help. I didn’t feel that I knew either person well enough to entirely trust one or the other, but I had to make a decision. I could be saving a little girl, or murdering one; destroying a dangerous monster, or setting one loose.

In case you were wondering, I saved every Little Sister in the game.

There’s no denying that Bioshock 2 is inferior to its predecessor, but it’s still a good game in its own right. The Little Sister choice returns but, now that the choice is clear cut, with little emotional baggage. What you decide to do with the Little Sisters you meet on your travels affects the ending, as with the first game; but it also decides what happens during a brief yet memorable moment toward the end of the game. All I’ll say is that the impact of this moment is strengthened immeasurably by your participation – and once you realise that your actions have decided what is about to happen, you will almost certainly feel either relief or terror.

The flawed gem that is Nier makes you aware of your participation in a very clever way… after your first playthrough. Once the twist in the tale is laid bare and you’ve seen the first ending, the game allows you to replay the final third of the adventure with all of your weapons, XP etc. intact. The knowledge you now have – combined with extra incidental dialogue and cut scenes the second time around – give you a new perspective on your actions, and a deeper understanding of previously confusing events. Nonetheless, you are doomed to do everything exactly as you did before.

Jumping back a decade to the year 2000, we see the release of Deus Ex. Here was that thing that is still so sadly rare today: a game of true intelligence. A mature game in the proper sense, i.e. no bare breasts and/or gratuitous gore and/or profanity every few minutes purely for the sake of it. It dealt with deep and interesting issues and, most importantly of all, was great fun to play. You quickly found yourself wondering if you were on the right side; indeed, as the game progressed, you found yourself wondering if there were any ‘right’ side at all. The next Deus Ex game, Invisible War, was well received by professional critics; but seems to be universally spat upon by Deus Ex fans (though I have previously admitted that I actually rather enjoyed it). So strong is the hatred for Invisible War, in fact, that Square Enix are touting the upcoming Deus Ex: Human Revolution as ‘The true sequel to Deus Ex’ (despite it being a prequel).

Another way Deus Ex leaned on the interactive element of videogames was to truly empower the player. Wherever possible, it was up to the player to decide how the protagonist progressed. Did he jump into a fight guns blazing? Set a trap? Or simply sneak past? Or perhaps he took the long way round, seeking an alternative route. I’d like to see Human Revolution expand on this idea further.

What frustrates me about moral choices in games is that, 99% of the time, it’s simply a case of being told ‘do this and be good, or do this and be evil’. How is that challenging the player in any way? How does that enrich the experience? A game carrying the Deus Ex name is the perfect opportunity to show the industry how it should be done (the next perfect opportunity, of course, being Bioshock Infinite). I want to see choices similar to the initial Little Sister concept; moral dilemmas with potentially disastrous consequences, which you are forced to make on the bare minimum of information. Even moral decisions where the consequences are clear can be difficult and thought provoking. Would you sacrifice your dying child in order to save the lives of a hundred healthy children? Would you sacrifice yourself to save him/her even if it meant that, without you around, his/her chances of survival would be close to nil? Could you choose one country to obliterate in order to save another? Would you go back to kill Hitler before he even joined the German army… if it meant you could never return to your own time? These are just a few ideas off the top of my head and yes, I’m sure you can do better. I certainly hope developers can.

I don’t expect Hitler to appear in the next Deus Ex game, but I would certainly hope challenging and thought provoking choices will. Unfortunately – from my point of view – Human Revolution is already showing signs of leaning on gaming clichés in order to appeal to Johnny Average. A regenerating health bar, a third person cover system, instant kill melee moves… if a lithe scantily clad female sidekick makes an appearance accompanied by a tweenrock soundtrack, I may not even bother buying it.

The bottom line is: a game doesn’t have to have artistic, cinematic, or literary ambitions to be a good game. However, surely I am not the only gamer becoming tired of having stories told at me? I want to see more stories being told with me. I’m in your story, traversing your world and meeting your characters. I’m there – let me help.

• Format: Xbox 360 (version reviewed), PS3
• Unleashed: Out Now
• Publisher: Square Enix
• Developer: Cavia
• Players: 1
• Site: www.niergame.com

Nier is a strange, flawed, and fascinating game. It’s an action-RPG that could only come from Japan – with strange characters (a talking book and a girl whose bare ass is almost always in sight), some heavy melodrama, and the kind of slow burn that’s becoming ubiquitous with games from Square Enix.

Though the pacing isn’t nearly as offensive as it was in Final Fantasy XIII, Nier’s plot doesn’t coalesce until about halfway through the game. Until then, it’s riding on the promise of a twist, with a curious intro that places the hero and his sick daughter in a present-day apocalypse. Fast-forward 1300 hundred years later and the hero is seemingly still alive, still trying to save his sick daughter, and carving out a meagre existence in a small farm town.

The town is constantly threatened by shades, creatures of darkness that lurk at the boundaries of the village and serve as something for you to beat up. As the game proper begins, you’re tasked with a few simple quests and fights. You’re encouraged to take odd jobs around town, and if you don’t catch on to their triviality, you may find yourself grinding out dozens of fetch-quests MMO-style.

It’s hard not to feel like some lunatic errand boy. As your daughter slowly dies, you’re out hunting sheep, gathering seeds, or fishing. While completing dumb quests can be satisfying for some, you’re best off skipping as much of Nier’s optional content as possible. If not, you may find yourself burning out before the game even gets started.

Following the main plot, Nier takes you through dungeons, open fields, and towns that wouldn’t be out of place in a Zelda game. But it’s more than an action-RPG, going out of its way to bend genres at every turn. As the story and cast of characters get rolling, and that opening twist is left on the table, it’s the wild turns in the moment-to-moment gameplay that keep Nier enjoyable.

When you aren’t running around killing monsters from a third-person perspective, you’re 2D platforming, twin-stick shooting, text-adventuring, and more. Each diversion is a loving nod to the genre it tackles, often including cute references to classic games. While these moments aren’t as good as the games they reference, they’re still elegantly implemented. The control scheme never changes in service of these moments, so they feel like a bit of variety rather than a cheap gimmick.

Nier’s story features what may be gaming’s ultimate rag-tag bunch. The best of them is Grimoire Weiss, a floating, talking book who seems to be channelling a cartoonish Alan Rickman. When a character or situation seems a bit dumb, Weiss is there to make fun of it with his pompous, nasally hilarious accent. Along with him is Kainé, a pissy, trucker-mouthed, lingerie-wearing bit of Japanese fan-service that Weiss is all too happy to call a “hussy” at every turn. Then there’s you, the hero (technically his name is Nier, but you can name him whatever you want) – he’s a big dumb oaf, endearing to the core, and he always has the simplest solution to any situation.

Their journey is filled with drama, heartbreak, weirdness, and heroism. When it’s all said and done, and you get your answers (with a dash of cliché, but satisfying where it counts), the credits will roll, but Nier isn’t quite over. In one of the more brilliant bits of game storytelling, Nier allows players to start a new game from just about where the story really starts to pick up. With the player now aware of how it all ends, the game fills in the blanks, giving some shocking insight into the characters and their motivations.

If it were just a proclivity toward pointless fetch quests keeping Nier down, it’d be an instant classic. The creativity shown in the gameplay and storyline are undeniable, but bad design decisions and a clearly limited budget stifle its greatness. The presentation can be a mess at times, with the voice-acting cutting out in favour of text dialogue at seemingly random intervals. This is especially bad since the characters just stand there when they talk, so there’s nothing to get their emotions across. And it’s even more disappointing when you consider that, aside from a few awkward lines here and there, the voice-acting is fantastic.

Nier’s graphics are a tough call. They’re a bit plain with flat textures covering the land, simplistic enemy designs, and very little in the way of modern effects. Still the look is clean, and the blown-out sunlight gives the world a unique charm that may still leave you immersed. Not to mention the soundtrack which, while repetitive at times, is often beautiful enough to fill in the blanks your eyes are seeing.

Lastly, for all the cool attempts at variety Nier makes, its base combat is extremely shallow. So shallow, in fact, that it gives up on challenging you towards the end. Some of the later boss enemies can be dispatched in a handful of strikes. It feels a bit disingenuous considering the hardcore pedigree Nier consistently references, but it also might be for the better. While Nier plays like Zelda, it’s not nearly as polished. The fact that the block button is nearly useless, or that it’s too easy to miss your enemies could have been disastrously frustrating if the game was too difficult.

For the most part, it seems the developers were aware of the game’s flaws. They didn’t exactly fix them, but they made them as inoffensive as possible. Nier is always enjoyable, even when it isn’t exactly firing on all cylinders. Propelled by a unique, absurd, and heartfelt story, great characters, and clever gameplay nods, it’s a game that a lot of people are going to fall in love with.

7/10