Taking it slow

 

Recently I found myself gravitating to a game that I hadn't played for a very long time. Four years in fact, and I pretty sure that at that time I wasn't playing the best part of the game, but rather it's bastardised Online mode a few months before it was retired to a perpetual maintenance mode. I speak, of course, of Red Dead Redemption 2, the last Rockstar classic, for which I decided to dedicate another run from the getgo to get a feel for what the game was like- as well as see the game in 4K because I realised I'd never quite experienced that yet. Of course, then I had to start the game four or five times because I kept accidentally jostling one of the plugs in the back of my Xbox which is tied to my HD storage which, of course, would instantly exit out of Red Dead 2. Which is a bit silly, considering that my Red Dead 2 is installed on my SSD- because of course it is- I only keep the HD for Xbox One backward compat titles! Long story short, that was how I learned repeatedly that Red Dead Redemption 2 features no autosaves during it's entire prologue mission. Saw that opening about four times.

What I came back to the game for was that feeling of being of grounded-ness that beguiles so many other games out there. Where all the AAA games are desperate to seek the biggest spectacle and the fastest pace- few titles are happy to let you saunter about and admire the wind while you track an Elk through the brush. And I've come to find that the games which do give you that room tend to feel so much better when the guns finally do come out and that calm explodes into violence- because you know the range of activity that the world can inhabit- you've felt the still and can appreciate the motion. It seems almost overly simple to say it- but the more disparate the experience, the greater each extreme comes to compliment one another. (To a limit, of course. There's no point throwing a Helldivers 2 style game on the back of a tax-filling simulator... although now I desperately want to play a game like that, good lord!)

I think harnessing that calm before the storm is such a powerful tool for game designers, which draws me so deeply to the stealth genre which is conceived all around that concept. Metal Gear Solid, Splinter Cell, Hitman- all these games revel in putting the player in control of the pace of the game, with the amount of action being entirely dependent on how well the player does in their stealth endeavours. MGS 5 in particular actually features decently solid 3rd person action, but that excels to feeling robust and thrilling when your exposure to that side of the game is limited only the tense moments of adrenaline when everything is going wrong. Hitman, on the otherhand, features pretty mediocre combat- therefore avoiding having to deal with that side of the game by setting up a flawless execution without ever being spotted contains that excitement of the spontaneous into the art of the strategy.

Stardew Valley, on the otherhand, is a game built around the pursuit of the 'simple life' and, at least in the way I play it, the simplification of your daily required activities as mush as possible. Stardew Valley for me is all about living in the town, building a routine of brewing Pale Ale and handing it out at the tavern on Fridays. Fishing in the evenings and then pawning those fish off at the farm bin because I don't trust the local fisherman not to resell my catches as his own. Planning out my crop buy and sell path over the next four seasons so I maximize my 'request fulfilment' potential. Stardew is a game about routines, which is the fartherest thing from the high-octane draw of action- and in that relative peace a serene state of focus can be touched upon. (Which might be why I find live service titles, which try to turn action into a routine, so roundly boring.)

Colony Management games are also big on my list for title of the slow vs fast nature. Sticking around here for a while will tell you that my favourite is of course Rimworld- for it's long from RPG stat building and base construction day-to-day intercut with flashes of activity when a raid happens or a disaster occurs or seven pawns get an infection at the same moment that there's a radiation storm and then an insect colony erupts in the dining hall. A comedy of errors. But what makes Rimworld work so well is the time investment put in during those inactive hours. You fight for what you have because it cost you blood sweat and several months to create, you try to keep your pawns safe because you've carefully raised and built their skills for the past two years. And you throw away all you plans when the AI refuses to go through the kill-door you built and all your plans get scuppered!

But of course, the game that really exemplifies the heart of 'taking it slow' has to be the Persona-style RPGs that balance living a normal life with traipsing through the evil dens of some overworld in pursuit of some form of wider societal justice. You are heroes living ordinary lives, and it's the depth of those ordinary lives, the connections you make through the other-time hobbies you adopt, that fuels the purpose of the monster slaying. That is, of course, to laud all the side stories, the tea brewing of 5, the bug catching of 4, taking Elizabeth on real world tours in 3- and the clever way that all these off-time actions contribute to improving the toolset you'll have access to in the main game. Reinforcing the message in the doing so!

And, of course, Red Dead Redemption 2 veers it's way much more towards the deliberate and rigid. You loot procedurally from corpses, skin every animal live (pretty much), pick through draws and cabinets one-by-one. You go through the immersive rigors of rough living in a manner that I believe is meant to bring you closer to the decidedly more worldly and introspective world view of Arthur Morgan. Whereas John is revenge driven, trying to earn back his family, and thus the faster paced action might fit his story better- Arthur is trying his best to find some connection to tie him back to the world. Outside his love for the gang, which is constantly wavering, Arthur has no one and nothing but the world around him, which he studies and draws about in his trusty journal. Taking your time to admire it all is what makes RDR2 such a unique big budget adventure.

If that is up your street in games, there is actually another big budget recommendation I have. The peerless Death Stranding with it's curious approach for gameplay definitely not designed for the easily bored. You probably know how the gimmick goes- vast journeys over large treks of land to deliver packages back and forth in a world deprived of physical interaction wherein you are the only connecting tissue bringing the world together. The isolation and loneliness is a key forming factor of the narrative and some people have really trouble getting to grips with that and connecting in a world without physical beings in front of them. Death Stranding highlights the importance of the unseen roles, those that work tireless for those they can never meet. These are the experiences that touch me the most- in a world that feels afraid to slow down- those that squeeze out that precious time are the sole few who get to experience how special it all can be.