Another World

It could be an argument against video games being art. Here we have an innovative work that challenges the preconceptions of the medium, that tackles technical limitations with a lot of character in the graphic and sound design... and people complain about the controls. It's a very subjective medium, highly dependent on the skill of the player as well as the cultural, temporal and technological context. I'm old enough to have played it when it was awesome, so I'm biased too.

I think some of the puzzles are just as cool now, like when you shoot the lamp on top of the guard, or the whole water thing. You can't beat it on the first try because they're traps like when you get shot as you step on a new screen, but that's the deal with games like this. It's the same with Limbo and Inside. It was a step forward for cinematic storytelling, you have the cutscene and then the in-game intro, something Half-Life or Silent Hill would do as well. For god's sake, respect the classics. And the weapon is iconic, how satisfying was it to load the hyper blast? and how good did it sound? I don't think I've seen anything like the shield mechanic anywhere else. It was cool to do three different "verbs" with one button and one weapon.

I had no idea what I was getting into when I booted up this game. I didn't even see that it was a remaster of a 1991 dos game, but what I experienced blew me away.

This is one of the best adventure games I ever played despite all the nonsense they put you through, but I think that's why it's so incredible.

This won't be everyones cup of tea but the brutal difficulty of some of these puzzles and sequences had me almost cracking my dualshock in half. This game is so unforgiving that a barley 30 minute long game took me almost 2 full days to complete.

They tell a incredible story using no words just actions, the gameplay is so simple and so frustrating but the amount they push the jumping and shooting and force you to try so many different combinations, I just have every screen ingrained into my brain.

I really love this game.

Quite simply a work of art. The atmosphere created is spot-on - from the sounds to the stark visuals to the puzzle design, you really begin to immerse yourself in the suffocating and isolated world where everything is trying to kill you. Sole designer Eric Chahi managed to make an emotive adventure with only the world he built, sans dialogue, which is an admirable achievement.

I find it hard to understand complaints about how difficult the game is. The difficulty complements the realistic tone the game is setting. You aren't supposed to understand the world and you aren't a hero. Of course you will fail often because you are weak, alone, and confused. The world you are transported to isn't fair.

Apart from that, there is always the question of how to review older games. Unlike films or music which can become timeless regardless of technology, the quality of a game can often rely on the graphical or developmental restrictions of the time it was released. Even if a game hasn't exactly aged well, do you grade it based on how it plays now or what it would have looked like the year it came out? Do you give a game extra points for innovation of influence? With games this is particularly difficult because their were many limits on artistic freedom because of programming.

Even with these limitations, Chahi truly worked outside of them and bent the rules so as not to restrict his vision. If one were to judge Another World based on innovation or what it looked like when it first arrived, it's difficult to argue with the acclaim directed towards it. However, I still believe it holds up as not only playable, but practically unequaled in terms of world-building, ingenuity, and tone. The original Prince of Persia games come close, as does the more modern Inside (undoubtedly inspired by this title), but they lack the heart as well as the existential dread that slowly pervades Chahi's world as you continue to struggle and survive its harsh and alienating landscape.

For me, this feels like the game equivalent of post-punk - harsh, brooding, foreboding, and more fiendishly clever than its roots.

I dont know how this game can be looked upon as anything but a terrible game. first off the visuals look straight out of microsoft Paint, have very low textures and are grating to look at. Then there is the gameplay, which is a mix between puzzles and platforming. The controls are abysmal, performing the most simple of jumps feels like an accomplishment. The hit detection is all over the place and some of the more frustrating sections are really frustrating because of the sparse checkpoint system. The level and puzzle design really loves to troll the player. Its a brain drilling experience, thats what i felt when playing it.

The good thing is the attempt at building a relationship between two characters in a videogame in which they dont share a common dialogue. It works okayish, at least it is moderatly entertaining to watch. However the rest of the game is so frustrating to play that is makes it hard to give it the attention it deserves. Sure it innovated at the time, but there is no way i can consider it a classic just because of that.

An incredible artistic achievement. A bad game. Its influence can't be undervalued but as a game, it doesn't hold up well at all. The controls are bad, combat feels like you need to reverse engineer enemy AI, and the puzzles are often nonsense. It also frequently gives you multiple paths where only one is correct, leaving you to wonder what went wrong if you go the other way. A frustrating experience with great aesthetics that went on to inspire much better games like ICO.