N'Gai Croal
|
Mar 5, 2008 11:20 AM
Freelance journalist Evan Narcisse
It goes without saying that when we play single-player games, we usually do so by ourselves. But while staying at a friend's in Los Angeles over the Thanksgiving break, we were introduced to the singular pleasures of passing the controller back and forth so that two players can, um, jointly progress through a game's solo mode. Upon discovering that freelance journalist Evan Narcisse likes to indulge in the same recreational activity, we knew we had to persuade him to write about this phenomenon--and its implications--for Level Up. Narcisse, whose work on videogames appears in the Washington Post and Entertainment Weekly, also writes the Thought/Process cultural criticism column for Crispy Gamer and moderates the site's podcast, Blazing Prattles. Here's what he had to say.
Evan Narcisse: I started noticing that my experience of Portal differed from other titles I'd played recently. By my lonesome, I might've chalked up my occasional frustrations to poor design, frazzled reflexes or my own cognitive bottlenecks. Playing co-operatively with B allowed me to take some of the pressure off of myself and let the game seep in. The way I heard GLaDOS's snippy commentary changed completely. Were I playing Portal solo, I would've asked myself if I'd heard her snark correctly, shrugged and gone back to solving the puzzle of whatever room I was in. With B by my side, whoever was playing would pause, we'd look at each other and break out into guffaws when GLaDOS's dry condescension or blatant panic made itself known. By the time the camera careens through the underbelly of Aperture Science and the first gentle strains of "Still Alive" start up, we both were dizzy from flinging Chell through Room 17 and aching from laughing through GlaDOS's final rant. (For my part, I started to well up a little bit, too.)
To read Narcisse's essay in its entirety, click on the link below.
More
