Tree Hugging Hippy Crap

I don’t know if anyone takes the time to actually read our blog but if you do kudos to you. So if you do then you probably remember a blog from about a month ago, give or take, that Brian T. wrote about in regards to a game on the PS Network titled Flower. For days all I heard at work was how amazing the game is and how I need to go buy it. Then he continues on to say that it is such an awesome game that he can’t even describe it to me that I should just go and buy it. So I did and let me say I am pissed that I wasted fucking $10.

Where should I start with this crap? First there is not excitement. You float around like a fairy traveling from flower to flower, and once you get to a flower I guess you use your magic fairy dust to make it bloom. Please note that one of the selling points for Brian T. was that every flower that opened there was the pluck of a guitar string. Wow talk about fun. Eventually you continue spreading fairy dust until you make the grand poomba of all blooming objects come to life, a tree. Second this game might be fun if you were 12 years old, had a vagina between your legs, and your room was painted pink and decorated with hello kitty fatheads. It’s fortunate for me that I have none of these things, making me have zero interest in this game. According to Brian T. you can find magic flowers in every level that will unlock trophies; but who the hell wants to keep floating around as a pedal of a flower for any given amount of time looking for the special magic flowers. Not me. I could barely choke my way through the first level from start to finish let alone waste anymore time looking for these mystical flowers hidden throughout the levels.

Even right now as I am writing this he is standing over my shoulder arguing with me about how “peaceful” the game is and that I am looking at it in the wrong light. Boo hoo because when I play a game there is nothing more peaceful then blowing some assholes head off with my ACR in Modern Warfare 2. I need some real action in a game, not this boring tree hugging waste of time that you get with Flower. I guess in order to enjoy this game you must either need be extremely stressed out and don’t want the aggravation of playing a real game, or you need to stoned, really stoned. Neither of those things happens for me. I can say that visually the game does look good, and it is probably the best use I have ever seen of the Sixaxis controller. But if you are looking for some real excitement in a game, I need to inform you that you won’t find it with Flower.

-Brian R.

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