Dear Esther

[Farron]

Anyone heard of this ?
In short, it was during sometime ago a mod for Half-Life 2 which got some good praise and became a full fledged game which was released on Feabruary 14th.

I watched a review for it on youtube and became truly interested so I thought I'd check it out and loved it! I've written a review for it in my blog.

Basically this game is all about immersion and being us RPG fans, where immersion and story do play a big part I thought this game make spark interest in more people here!
I don't want to say much about it as I don't want to spoil it for some. If anything, I highly recommend it!

[Yggdrasil]

Oh yeah, yeah... I remember reading about this last year on neogaf. I saw the entire original mod on YouTube and it was very interesting, but I didn't understand anything of what was going on.

Code:

And at the end you die, maybe... I suppose. I don't know.

Will see how this new version is though.

[Yoda]

Looks very interesting... wish the consoles would see this or Amnesia b/c my laptop sure ain't

[Farron]

If your laptop can handle one of the newest Source engine games I'm prety sure it can handle this game, although I found it to be a little more taxing then say Portal 2 or Left 4 Dead 2 but you can always lower the graphics.

Oh yeah, yeah... I remember reading about this last year on neogaf. I saw the entire original mod on YouTube and it was very interesting, but I didn't understand anything of what was going on.

Code:

And at the end you die, maybe... I suppose. I don't know.

Will see how this new version is though.

After playing I went to see the mod version on youtube too. It looks so different. I think the details of the recent version really made a difference.

[Yoda]

I tried playing the Amnesia demo and for some reason none of the graphics would display.

[Yggdrasil]

Found this in the comments section in a playthrough of the game.

Code:

The narrator is Esther's husband. He speaks of Esther being killed in a drunk driving accident or a brake system failure. The drawings on the walls are scientific depictions of brake system failures and drunk driving. At the end, he says "come back" because you (Esther), are in a coma and the plug is being pulled, thus the BEEP at the end. Hope this helps with the confusion...

This aside Dear Esther is a fine experience.

I'm kinda bothered though with what people opinions are about this, mainly because there's always that guy that begins the inevitable debate of "See!? Video games are art!" and okay that's great and all but why video games have to be like something else? Is because people can't understand video games and they need other medium as an example to understand how great and profound the experience was?

More importantly, I wonder what was the game that started that whole debate in the first place.

[Farron]

Without going too far I would say this debate picked up when games were more than just gameplay and started adding better plots, immersive scenarios and new reactions.
In short, things that contribute I think may be for example, the graphics in Okami feeling like japanese painting, the new tension one felt while playing Resident Evil (or even Alone in the Dark), the movie like style of Heavy Rain, the simple yet beautiful Flower, Ico and Shadow of the colossus for a different way of story telling.

From the moment one can relate what they consider to be art, be it a painting, a movie or just nature to  game, I see it as a point leading to the conclusion that games can also be art.