Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Elebits: The Quest for Too Much Power

I don't think I am naive to the moving process. I knew it would require a lot of work, and some careful planning, to orchestrate a cross country move in just a couple weeks. So far, my move has been a glowing success. The arrangements have been made, boxes have been packed and shipped, and I am merely waiting for the airplane to take off in 60 hours. However, in all my deliberations, I forgot one very important thing - I need video games. Every system I have owned and loved is packed in a dark box in some strange man's truck. The games that I have spent a Netherlander's life time to amass are serving as mere cushions right now, ensuring my precious system make the journey in one piece. And here I am, typing in a barren living room, wishing I had left just one system behind. I should rephrase that - one system with game. My Nintendo DS is sitting right behind me, although it has only the custom made piece of white plastic occupying the cartridge slot. Oh Gamefly, how could you take so long to ship Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime when I am in need?

I must use my recollection of past gaming achievements to fill the void. On Sunday night, while the world Auld Lang'd another new year, I was leafing through books I haven't seen in half a decade, trying to decide if they were worthy of making the move with me. Time was short, I had plenty of boxes that needed filling, but I had a plan. When everything was nestled away and all that was left was the interminable wait, I would have a precious moment of respite. The last boss of Elebits was still waiting to be conquered. My room was completely empty save a TV and a Wii. What a way to ring in the New Year.

Elebits is a really difficult game for me to judge. For once in my green-eyed life, I do not envy the reviewer asked to score this game. It's a fun game on a brand new system. The mechanics for the Wii are completely ridiculous for people who grew up swinging on vines on the Intellivision. Why would I want to move my arm, physically whip the thing around, when the D-Pad has served so valiantly all these years? Times change and Nintendo has traipsed around the world looking for a more athletic gamer. To review Elebits is to review the Nintendo Wii itself. How well does this capture the experience, the "playing is believing" feel, Nintendo has strived so hard to achieve? Is this truly Wii software, or just an early piece of new gen crap that will join the ranks of Kessen in the years to come? I have no idea how valiantly Elebits shows off the mechanics of the Wii, but I do know this - Elebits is a fun game, deeper than I had imagined, that loses its charm much too early in the adventure.

Elebits is the free-swinging, spiritual successor to Katamari Damacy. Now, if you have listened to our most recent podcast, you would know that I hold Katamari Damacy in very high regard. I said on that show that Katamari Damacy has risen above every other exclusive PS2 game. It is the best title on the system. Based on its accessibility, great music, immediately fun gameplay and a play style that cannot be significantly improved upon, I think Katamari Damacy will still be loved and talked about a decade from now. It is a real classic, on par with the likes of Mega Man 2 and Lemmings. It is a niche title that has somehow reached mass appeal. In other words, it is everything Nintendo is trying to achieve with the Wii. It is everything Konami is trying to be with Elebits. But Elebits doesn't even come close to Katamari Damacy.

The Elebits themselves are cute enough to make you take notice while remaining mysterious enough to force you to concoct horrible stories about their horrific lives. For the instance, though the story goes into excruciating detail about the main character's relationship with his neglectful parents, it never bothers to explain how these little bastards function. Are they such a powerful force of electricity that, when positioned near a light or vacuum cleaner, they exude watts though their pastel skin? If this is true, do they supply an indefinite source of power? Do they eat a slice of bread to produce more energy? Or is the human use for the helpless Elebits much more sinister? Do we mash them in machines, crushing them into a thin pulp, and pour their stolen energy out in liquid form? Do we keep them in cages, pin-cushioned with energy-drained electrodes, forced to feed and fuck until their life has been completely transferred to our clocks and automated toilet paper spinners? Are we enslaving these aliens, forcing them to toil for our entertainment? Why don't we just use the decomposed bones of dinosaurs and long dead plants like everyone else? Why must we torture an entire species? And why do we feign surprise when they begin to hide from us, form rebellious groups, and eventually fight us? We are the oppressors! Yet somehow, the game is urging us to squash their rebellious uprising. With Konami teaching us that slavery is ok if it benefits the strong and Activision showing us that war is nothing but a mild, bloodless game, I am not looking forward to the eventual adulthood of children weaned on such dirty propaganda.

But I digress.

Katamari Damacy makes this game look like pig puke for a much different, non-political reason. Both games are about building your power to interact with increasingly more complex objects. In Katamari, you grow in size to engulf bulls, buildings and eventually islands. In Elebits, you go from struggling to lift a mere microwave to easily raising a building over your head. Both games are about the acquisition of power, but Elebits fails in one very important facet - it is not really fun to get more powerful. As the game progresses and the world gets larger and more complex, the game declines in fun. It is a blast in the early going, when the world is merely a room in the house, and you are trying desperately to move a table. It is not nearly as fun to be out on the town, tossing lampposts aside like so much cat poop, as you lackadaisically capture an entire family of Elebits. The game morphs from a nerve racking game of hide-and-seek to a monstrous hunt to find the Elebits. Believe me, the metamorphosis sucks the fun clean off the disc itself. You can no longer hide behind ignorance in the later stages. The excuse of "aw, I though we was just playing" is no longer applicable when tossing giant skyscrapers aside in your bloodthirsty quest for more power! Any semblance of strategy and skill is actually lost in the later stages, spitting in the face of popular video game convention. Remember how Katamari Damacy kept building? The last level was clearly the most fun. You started out smaller than a grapefruit but grew to a god eating mass of future star dust. There is no such progress in Elebits. By the end of the last stage, when I was tossing buildings aside with no problem, I found myself staring blissfully at the game clock, urging it to count down faster so I could just get on with my day.

What Elebits does is show the world that Wii games can be fun. You actually will have fun pointing at the screen. But that is all Elebits will offer. Elebits is a few hours of fun followed by many tedious hours going through the motions. Katamari Damacy was filled with charm and wit. Elebits is a soulless tech demo. If you expect the revolution to appear on my TV, I need more than a simple diversion.

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