flower POWER!!!

I feel as though the world of gaming journalism, as well as the gaming community have all let me down. Apparently, a little game called Flower was released in the Playstation Store on February of this year and nobody thought to tell me. To be fair, the only thing I really cared about on February 2nd was the imminent release of Street Fighter 4 so I'm sure I had tunnel vision when it came to games that didn't have hadoukens. I can easily see how this title could slip by unnoticed, forever forgotten by all but a small few...but I refuse to let that happen. This game is fucking amazing and everyone with a PS3 should play it at least once.I was watching the X-play Video Game Awards show last night and I kept seeing this game nominated for different awards. I thought to myself "How the hell is this game getting nominated for so many awards when I've never read or heard a single review on it?" I remember seeing it in the Playstation Store while browsing and I vaguely remember seeing a screenshot when Game Informer previewed it earlier this year in the DLC column, but that's it. So I decided to go ahead and just download it on a whim.

Wow. I literally started laughing to myself within 10 minutes of playing this game because it was blowing my mind. The question "Are video games art?" has been answered and the answer is a strong, confident FUCK YES. All you essentially do is control the wind using the Sixaxis controller and any button of your choice as you blow petals off of flowers in vast, richly-detailed natural environments. When you blow a petal off of a flower, it blooms and you accumulate more petals onto your windstream. The more flowers you cause to bloom, the more life is restored to the world. If this sounds like an extremely abstract description of the fantastic Okami (PS2/Wii), then I guess you would be far off. And the comparison is a welcome one. The visuals are quite often awe-inducing. The music is phenomenal and works in many ways like the game REZ (DC/PS2) where your actions in the game directly control the music. For example, whenever you pick up a petal a chime or a piano note may play. Continue picking up strings of petals and you will add entire arrangements to the music that are always perfectly in time and perfectly in tune.

There is one drawback that may turn some people off from this game though and I should probably address it. Like many original downloadable titles, this game is short. Apparently you can complete the game and unlock all the trophies in under 5 hours of play. I find this to be completely justifiable considering the price is only $9.99. Most new games are $59.99 and give you an average of 20 hours of play, so in actuality you're getting a pretty awesome deal. I used this same reasoning to convince everyone I knew to download the WiiWare game Lost Winds. Trust me, you won't be complaining about the price or length once you actually sit down and play it and can appreciate what this game is all about.

I know I'm almost a year late on this one, but better late than never. Go download and play Flower right now. I gotta go try to squeeze a few minutes of play in before work...

-Brian T