I was going to write a review of Fez. You know, traditional review structure, explain the story, go over the gameplay mechanics, describe the graphics… But in the end, I decided that would be a waste of everyone’s time. Instead, I am going to gush about the place the game is set, and how it is the most complete imaginary world I have ever encountered. even though I know next to nothing about it for sure. The evolution of it’s inhabitants should be first port of call.
This actually blew my mind when I realised it: Gomez’s ancestors, the ones with the tall heads and only one eye – their village was in two dimensions and their rooms couldn’t be rotated. Did they live in two dimensions simply because they only had one eye? If perception is the key to understanding the world, then maybe. It’s like trying to explain the colour red to someone who cannot see! I digress. They eventually evolved into more Gomez-looking creatures but with large, square heads, and most importantly: two eyes. When you go to their village and it is inhabited, it is clearly in three dimensions, with no rooms being neglected like in the tall-head village, or in Gomez’s home village. Now, this is the bit that felt like a penny dropping into place: The space-squids have three eyes, and can travel through folds in space, quite possibly known as the fourth dimension.
A correlation between number of eyes and number of dimensions perceived.
I’ve had a funny old day today.
I’ve spent it mostly on here doing ArtRage paintings, on YouTube looking at old videogames, and in my head, thinking about stuff. I learned that NiGHTS into Dreams is coming to the Xbox Live Arcade on Friday, and that got me thinking about the old Sega Saturn – and what an amazing console it was. I’ve owned two in my time, one was packed off to make way for an N64 (such a bad move looking back now), and the second one was sold because I felt I never played it enough to warrant keeping it. Oh, and because we were moving into The Big House and we’d have nowhere near enough room to even think about having all my consoles set up. Jane bought me the second one for Valentines Day one year, she is so awesome. It’s weird thinking back about all those old consoles, I’d love to still own them, but they, along with all their games, take up so much space. I know I could download emulators and ROMs and play all these old games again, but there’s something special, some intangible feeling, about playing a physical copy on an actual console, something that digital copies can’t emulate.
I’ll leave talking about NiGHTS until I’ve played it again, but here are some of my favourite games for the Sega Saturn.
