RANDOM GAME # 2
***ZERO STARS***
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When I was a stressed out and insecure teenager, I used to twitch a lot to
calm my nerves. One of my worst habits consisted of drumming both my palms
against my thighs, but at different pace. They would start out synchronized,
but since one hand drummed slightly faster, it would slowly reach some sort of
backbeat. And eventually it would catch up again to the other hand, both of them drumming in perfect harmony. But it didn't last long until they were totally out of sync
again. On and on it went.
It was madness, of course, and I've finally found a game that lets me
recapture the mental anguish of being a twitchy teenager. Gauge, from
the deranged mind of Etienne Périn, lets me control one gauge at first,
and then two gauges simultaneously. By pressing and holding the Space bar, I
can increase the first gauge and by releasing it I can make it decrease. For
the second gauge I use the Ctrl-key the same way.
The rules are simple: If anyone of the gauges reaches the top or bottom,
I lose a life. I have to juggle them somewhere in between to stay in the game. They raise and sink at different speed and so I have to drum the
Space bar and Ctrl in different rhythms to keep both gauges running. The closer
I am to the top, the quicker my score count increases, and the quicker the
game progresses towards harder difficulties. But that also means I'm close to
crashing against the ceiling. I suppose this is how Icarus must have felt until his wings of feathers and wax melted.
The experience is baked in a super-duper distracting layer of psychedelia. The
screen constantly flickers with epilepsy-triggering flashes and my
loudspeakers emit the most aggravating noise you could call music. I guess you
could label it "rave!!1", but my brain isn't dancing. Only my hands march
along to the beat of obsessive compulsion. At least it has a beat, and it will to some extent assist you with your sense of rhythm.
But that's about the only help you'll get. Gauge does all it can to distract
you, throwing taunting text messages and video clips of cute cats in the periphery to lure your
gaze away from the gauges. Without warning, the game might alter the conditions,
maybe by making the gauges briefly invisible against the background, or moving
the whole screen around. It often narrows the gauge itself, making it very
hard to keep away from the extremes.
A couple of game modes exist, but they don't differ that much, and I cannot
comprehend what they signify. One is "baby" mode - easier perhaps - and the
stylized infinity-symbol must mean "play until death or surrender". The others
are anybody's guess. I, for one, have never played a game that affected me so
badly in a physical way. My hands started cramping up, and my head started
pounding. My eyes dried out, since blinking could distract me enough to cost me a life.
It's a game, so I'll give it a grade and I'll have to break the seal for the
zero star rating. Yes, this is my first zero star game. Gauge exists to
aggravate you. Maybe Périn hates gamers, and Gauge could exist to demonstrate
what a bunch of brainless masochists we are. On its Steam-page, Périn
claims there is an ending, and challenges you to reach it. There's an
achievement for doing so. I seriously doubt it even exists, because including
an unobtainable achievement would make it the ultimate taunt.
I am not an epileptic, but I was genuinely afraid of becoming one because of
my very few interactions with this game. Mind you, I've played only 56 minutes
(according to Steam) so make what you will of this review. I still think
that's too much time to spend on such an absolute travesty of a game concept, let alone one that is physically repugnant to actually play, what with all the pain, headache and eye strain. I had to stop because I started to fear how it would affect me. When parents worry about their children's screen habits, this is exactly what
they're afraid to see. This, violence and porn. Not that this could classify as
much else than thumping violent porn against the senses.
That's it. That's the entire game summarized in a few paragraphs. Didn't I
tell you it was madness? You quickly fall into this bizarre duel of rhythms
between your brain halves, as if you're fighting a civil war within yourself.
Maybe life was like this as a kid, your brain halves fighting for dominion
over your body until the winning half got to decide who you'd become. And I
guess the poor souls who are still fighting it out as adults are the ones who
resort to stupefying drug trips like this - or worse. The thought of it makes me
glad I found my identity a long time ago.
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