@Nitroid: I love it.

KraZe

WALL OF TEXT AND SPOILER WARNING!

Passage has its own little point to make and for that it is neat.

On the other hand it's so heavy handed it's rather silly. The southern border after a certain point is more or less impenetrable and all sorts of the like that give the creator's subjective point of view on life. Most importantly the whole thing is done as if you are pedestrian in life enacting no actual change in the world and simply... existing.

After looking at the creator's website and reading about his lifestyle choices a bit I almost wonder if the whole thing is a little too personal in that sense and I kind of wonder what his wife thought of the concept that a spouse holds you back. It's not even a matter of trying to get her to help or anything, she simply holds you back and I guess makes existence less boring as you walk east.

I'm even hard pressed to call it a game due to the horrible constraints of the screen though I loved the concept that was executed on the horizontal axis. Not only that, it's *sloppy*. I've played a few independently authored games and the thing I've always loved about them, whether from a group or a single person, is the meticulous attention to detail given to focal points of the game. This seems slapdash with the entire layout of the game seemingly entirely random. Oh wait, that could be interpreted as part of your message in your piece of 'art' within which the only message I can see and gather from it is "Stuff happens, then you die. This is unavoidable and all there is in life is rewarding experiences. What becomes available to you in life is mostly random and as you age you look less to the future and mostly remember the past." The last bit I did enjoy, but again seems sloppy because of the terrible messing up of the view area.

There could've been a deeper detail in communication of his message but all I got from it seemed to be the familiar [www.bartleby.com] which I heartily disagree with.

But Portal...
Oh Portal how I love thee, let me count the ways.

It's practically a love letter to gamers, namely in being an actual game in which there is actual conflict and resolution, even if (depending on your interpretation) both games end with you dying.

That's really all it is as well. An excellent game with little to no pretensions about being much else. It and its fans speak for itself.

I don't think anything really needs to be said on its behalf.

KraZe

Okay, so you're basically saying that anyone under a certain age is too inexperienced to properly judge a game that consists of nothing more than walking around until you die of old age? I'm sorry, but that's an unfair assessment. The slow death of your character(s) in Passage could be easily compared to the post-nuclear blast scene in Call of Duty 4, but nobody is going to write a thesis about it.

Nitroid

The older you are, the more of an emotional response you will have to Passage.

If you're bashing it, you probably thought that "Life is Beautiful" sucked, too, because no kid would be stupid enough to fall for that.

I will agree with others that Passage is not really a "game" so much as a work of art. It neatly encapsulates the experience of going from childhood bliss to an uncertain future, fading memories, and relationships that require you to make real sacrifices. And, above all else, a reminder that you, yes you, are going to die someday.

It's very easy to forget when you're young. It's probably less easy for, say, my dad, who's getting pretty close to the age when his father dropped dead completely unexpectedly. (I suspect there would be a long moment of silence if he played this game.) It's sure as hell staring my other grandparents in the face as they deal with strokes and cancer.

Above all, the thing that gave me chills about this game was that I didn't even realize my couple was aging until they were gray-haired and half-dead. And I didn't even think they were going to die until I was standing in the graveyard.

Again, if you think Passage is complete unadulterated shit, you're too young, and that's fine, because you shouldn't even be worried about this stuff yet. Just take my word for it: if you put it in a time capsule and play it in 20 years, you will feel differently.

scarshapedstar

@tehblacksheep234:

Don't you mean Final Fantasy VII?

Nitroid

Yuck. Hated Passage. It's that "Final Fantasy VIII" effect, people only like it because they think there's something really deep there.

tehblacksheep234

It's not just as simple as saying one is better than the other. Portal and Passage are two completely different types of games (experiences, if you REALLY want to get into that whole 'Passage is not a game' thing). Portal tried to be a fun puzzle game with a storyline wrought with dark-humor. Passage tried to be a metaphorical statement about the passage of time. Both worked, very well, at what they tried. You can say that either game did specific things better than the other, for example I think Portal has better replay value than Passage, but Passage probably hit me more emotionally (still, my heart broke with the loss of my poor companion cube...). Anyway, it's tough to compare the two, because judging them fairly requires that you judge each on different standards: Passage as art, Portal as a game.

BTW: I like Portal more :P

BoboDaHobo

I've played through both Passage and Gravitation a few times and after some thought I've come to the conclusion that, with respect to the creator and his intentions, they exist to do little more than give self-important gamers an intellectual hard-on and a pat on the back for apparantly "getting" what wasn't really there to begin with; and it's when declarations that compare a short, pixelated practice in futility with no real objective to games heralded by practically every gamer as one of the most creative experiences in the library of interactive entertainment today herald the former over the latter, you can tell we've crossed the bullshit barrier.

But I guess what my point boils down to is this:

Can these games be considered "art"? Sure. But can they be considered good art? Hardly, but that's my opinion.

Nitroid

@Dumari: Care to elaborate?

SSJPabs

I'm not sure it's the best idea to compare these two games.

However, it scares me that I cannot find anyone in these comments who appreciates the genius of Passage. It is humble and unassuming, but makes a bigger statement than any video game that has come out this year. If your goal was simply to have fun, then you will probably miss the message. However, if you approach it as you would a well written paragraph or a few delicate brush strokes, you'll see the beauty in this autobiographical work.

What gets me is how so many people try to defend video games as art, and when something truly artistic comes along, they dismiss it as crap.

ianp622

I see alot of people complaining about how the game portrays having a spouse as nothing but a hindrance, not allowing you to score as much. Well, first of all, you score double the points exploring (life) when with a spouse, but more importantly:
You won't experience the loneliness and sadness of dying alone.

Or maybe you will. Maybe you'll even die before your spouse. And in the end all you get is a tombstone with your (life's) achievements.

Portal doesn't try to be deep, it tries to be intelligent (throwing away the companion cube made us laugh, nothing more), while Passage tries to portray life, in as simple a manner as possible. I respect both games for what they did and enjoyed each thoroughly. And that's that.

Ciremu

This reminds me of a recent trip to SF's Museum of Modern Art and the Cartoon Art Museum (a couple blocks away); we couldn't help but being bored by the 1st and found the second infinitely more fascinating. I mean, the works of art in the Cartoon Art Museum triggered memories and lead to discussions in our group while MoMA pieces left us relatively cold.

And screw the 'Fine Art' community for dragging their feet when it came to recognizing Norman Rockwell's art; they can go shove an artistically personal rendered iron bar up their collective stuck up rectums.

turk128

@Gonzodamus: It had rules, goals, outcome, user choice -- it's a game. A simple game, made for the purpose of being interactive art, but a game nonetheless.

onidavin

Passage is a game? I'm pretty sure it wasn't. It was interactive software, but that doesn't make it a game.It was just kinda this big ball of suck to me. Move forward, die. If the game was supposed to be telling me something amazing, then I misssed it. We're all moving towards death? It's very high school poetry.

Portal on the other hand, actually did touch me emotionally. It made me laugh, and while it's a much easier emotion to ellicit, Portal is the first game in a long time to honestly make me laugh out loud. Also, Portal is a game.

Gonzodamus

@DrFresh: Well, 'good' is subjective. There's a difference between not getting something and writing it off, and getting it but disagreeing; I think the third comment is the latter.

Plus, this is about whether or not calling Passage superior to Portal for philisophical value is correct, not game mechanics. Not that it isn't worth talking about, it jst isn't the point here, as far as I can tell.

Garro

"They will play it [Passage] for the first time and stop stunned, or cry, or imagine the reactions of all the others who have also gone through this miniature life." - The essay.

I really can't decide whether this essay is satire or not. It must be, surely.

Leviticus

Garro, you're not lying, it's just all irrelevant when you're not smart enough to tell whether something is good or just intellectual puffery. That's like saying you hate statistics because it's all just bullshit anyway.

I thought Passage was pretty unimpressive, myself. But the size and shape of the game is worth talking about, if only because it helps people figure out what works and what doesn't.

DrFresh

Holy crap, that article has some essay-sized comments .__.

Zamzoph

i played passage.. i didn't get it.. you move right until you die :\

relax_guy

One could criticize the decision to sell Portal as part of the Orange Box, and not sell it as a stand-alone title. Portal is also very short compared to other FPS games (it may not be fair to include Portal in the FPS genre).

But, Passage is 5 minutes. Free, mind you. But with very little replay value.

Passage is a fine game, the metaphors are deep, and the music is quite good. But it isn't fair to compare it to anything else. Every aspect of it, graphics, replay, controls, fun factor, is inferior to any of today's AAA titles (especially Portal). I think Passage succeeds by being a very thoughtful game, despite its limitations. Many, many, many of today's video games are, despite beautiful graphics and fun gameplay, utterly mindless.

Highlander Wolf

Let's see, one is a great puzzle game, the other is an attempted life lesson/memento mori type thing. How are these related, again?

Also, a professor at MIT that doesn't know the difference between "its" and "it's" for the win.

Wolfers

@DrFresh: You can't deny that sometimes what people pull from games is completely in their own heads. I mean saying something like, CoD 4 was a comment on the Iraq war will appear 'illuminating' to people but when you get into the reasoning it's all nonsense.

Plus I think his point was that because anyone with the argumentative skills can pull anything from anything, saying Passage is a comment on life, and therefore superior to Portal, was bs. You learn in shool how to take any given point and defend it, so when people use the word existential, in his mind it's usually indicative of a point they may not actually wholeheartedly believe. I don't see how that's stupid.

Garro

@ratba: IMHO - in my humble opinion
YMMV - your mileage may vary

tofoomeister

3rd quote = dumbness.

Don't blame critical theory when you yourself aren't smart enough to sort out who is bullshitting and who is illuminating.

DrFresh

There are million things to say about this but i'll make an optismitic point.

Passage is barely a game - but it could be more fun and still retain a message
perhaps this will be the start of games where the context is more important than the gameplay..which is good sometimes

Portal however is a fantastic game with fantastic mechanics - and we will see many more games with the same qualities in the future

as gaming matures both types of games will hopefully be living in harmony.

Uzilover

Art is often defined as having interest in it for its own sake, outside of practical considerations: aesthetic interest.
If "fun" is a practical consideration, akin to satisfying hunger, then a game that primarily engages interest in "fun" rather than aesthetic interest isn't a very good example of art.

On the other hand, if a piece has difficulty engaging our aesthetic interest, it's not a very good work of art.

On this view, consider as just gameplay, Portal isn't art. However, considered as narrative* and gameplay, we have a story told through the use of gameplay. So, as a narrative told through the use of music, voice acting, and gameplay, Portal is art in much the same way that film is art.

*Text and spoken word are narrative devices, but they are not the whole of narration. A camera zooming in on an actor is a narrative device, and thus zooming the camera is narration.

Sparkamus

Honestly, controversial statements made for the sake of spurring discussion are kind of mega cheap.

Both are good games. Both achieve what the creators of those games wanted them to achieve. It's comparing apples to ladders.

onidavin

@Darkest Daze: Its true that having a companion makes it harder to get those treasures, but your "score" also increases twice as fast. So the message isn't so much that having a companion is "bad". It's interesting noting how each subtle choice makes a rather noticeable experience. I also liked the strange feeling I had the first time playing it... not knowing what was going to happen and wondering what my purpose was in it. I must say that it was quite moving.

ddrussianinja

Am I the only person who enjoys Portal not for the "philosophical" storyline or that damned cube, but for the innovative and unique gameplay? Don't get me wrong, I like deep stories and hidden ideas in games moreso than the next guy, but the entire reason I wanted to play Portal was for the fun possibilities that existed. How many other games give you the opportunity to throw yourself into a permanent falling loop? (Besides falling through maps etc :P)

Mordraug

@Darkest Daze: but you know.. you are going to die, anyway.. so is it that meaningless ?

And you seem to reduce the whole experience to an utterance. Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon is just a painting trying to be meaningful about about a bunch or naked prostitutes with funny faces, eh ?

yhancik

@dmitsuki: You made me lol.

@ErskinPig: I entirely agree with you. And this is why the guy considers Passage a better game. Fun is secondary to him, whereas "having something to think about" is his primary goal.

DarkGildon

@ratba: "In My Honest Opinion You May or May not Value"?

@D00mM4r1n3: I don't get Passage, I didn't even know I was aging until the person following me turned into a tombstone. And I thought "oh well, guess I'm gonna die too then" and I figured the whole thing was pointless. Really. That's all I got from it. I don't consider it a game. All it really made me want to do is play Police Quest 1.

Thassodar

@tei: I have no idea what your comment is about...

What makes Assassin's Creed "weird" ? I mean, it surely is an *original* setting compared to most Fantasy/SpaceOpera/WWII games, but "weird" ?

yhancik

I totally agree with the third quote. It's frustrating to see people flaunt their philosophy degree's to scratch out any random meaning possible from, anything, and by the same token chalk up so-called pulpy entertainment as drivel.

I don't like the concept (when applied ambiguousley) of "making you think" when applied to, anything really. If you have a point, make it. These esoteric nonsense 'meanings' pulled from media and art ends up doing nothing. I'd rather have a story with a wide range of characters who are all 'real' in an emotional sense because you're ultimately going to be able to pick and choose your meaning from there on out.

If Passage is some analogy about the passage of life, what does "making you think," really accomplish. There's no practical use in a moral or realistic sense. I guess you start building an opinion one way or another, but jumping through holes in the wall as a representation for life does nothing for me.

What has 'meaning' to me is the interaction between characters in any given situation; what lessons I can learn, and use, come from seeing the conflicting values of Boba Fett or Kaim Argonar and the like. Taking some trip through "life is like jumping through holes" is like the intellectual equivelant of an acid trip - the only real thinking being done is how you can jumble around your perception of reality in a useless way.

I have no problem with people debating the core questions of philosophy or other such things, but to call it superior is crap. Dealing with ambiguous issues (X symbolizes Y etc) is not 'better' or more 'intellectual' than raw character interaction. The intelligence of something yes, is directly related to the creator, but perception plays a big part. When (in general) people talk about, "this made me think," I imagine a passive audience who needs 'smartness' fed to them with a spoon for it to register as having value.

Sure, maybe you can look at life as a series of puzzles from now on because you played Passage, but tell me what deciscions you make are going to change, or thought prcess reevaluated. Seriousley, I would rather have any huge number of 'pop' or 'pulp' characters than this elitist "we change wayz with our mindz" snobbery.

Garro

@ErskinPig:

Actually, this is sort of a point of contention. Many people believe that games are capable of more than just being fun little diversions, which is what qualifies them as art in the first place.

Pseudo94

I don't consider Passage to be a game, it's more like interactive/animated art that tries to get you to think about what has happened as a means to evoke an emotion. Whereas Portal is a game that evokes an emotion through storytelling. If you don't care for the story being told in Portal you won't experience the emotion it is presenting, whereas you are more likely to have a personal emotion tied to the experience of Passage, since it is designed to evoke that emotion from something within you.

D00mM4r1n3

Well Passage isn't a game. It's a flawed life simulator that seems to try and be meaningful. All I got out of it was that if you fall in love, the other person will just hold you back and prevent you from gathering as many great experiences. Hence the fact you can't go anywhere with the girl but can go anywhere by yourself and accumulating a much, much higher score. Which no matter what is completely meaningless because your going to die anyway.

Darkest Daze

Attention is nice, isn't it?

Fail.

emotaku

This is why the hate of Madden is silly. It's not a very good game, but it'll sell regardless, because people who like the NFL and enjoy video games have no other option if they want to play an NFL video game.

MiyamotosChin

@SSJPabs:
It's remarks like this that really make me want to agree with the author of the article...

However it is dead wrong. While the concept behind Passage is very interesting there was a lot more working for Portal than just it's gameplay concept. The whole package for Portal was the appeal.

Dumari

Sorry, but comparing these two games is like comparing Tetris to Charles Barkley's Shut Up and Jam.

THECapedCaper

@tei: WTF does IMHOYMMV mean? I've got the "In my honest opinion part..."

ratba

Wow, does it really look like that? There's no excuse to not make a game that LOOKS good as well as imparts some sort of message.

That smacks of "I'm more hard-core than you!"

SSJPabs

What is passage? Does it come in a box with some of the greatest fps ever? OOOO so thats how come i never heard of it :D

dmitsuki

The goal of any game should be simple: To create a fun experience. Anything and EVERYTHING else is of secondary importance.

ErskinPig

Its like saying Mass Effect is better than Bioshock...I think they are both great, but I can't put one over the other due to the differences between them....

Lurcharad

passage is just bad, it should have been a game because of its primal goal... but instead just end up having no fun and some sort of frustration for losing some time...

but I do like the fact that it makes the player ( player... which mean there should be a game ) think. However Im not quite sure that , no mather how important or not, the questions, philosophies that comes after are in a suitable media form... considering also that the lenght, fun factor... was kind of poor.

Its a good idea thought, Its like assassins creed ... there are some good mechanics, gfx etc but they dont have a game...

It would be cool to have a gt game telling hey speed kills.. or a virtua cop with a heavy desiscion of life n death with a family member as a criminal...

anyway I dislike passage as a game, since theres no game... as a philosophical thing... its ok

7th_Ronin

Blimey - their Hyper Multi Tap must be a barrel of laughs.

Meldy

I am ashamed to ask this, but what is Passage? And for the record I finally played Portal a month ago, found it a ton of fun on an intellectual level, but the storyline was far too hyped, and honestly I (gasp!) had no issue burning that damn cube. Then again, my ex-girlfriend probably thinks I have no heart...

Sonic_and_Tails

I think they are two different things and cannot be equated to each other.

Knight-Zero

I don't get it. He's comparing 2 completely different games. Apples and Oranges baby.

dead_red_eyes

People like good games. Not weird games. Weird can be a byproduct of creating totally alien new stuff. Something that is unwellcomed for the general public, but a bonus for others.

IMHOYMMV Assasin Creed is weird.

note: I have no idea what the article is about.

tei

Funny, I was just comparing these games yesterday.

JN64Lover

@joelface:

Seriously. Maybe I was a little biased in my judgment of the Passage haters, but I had an emotional response. Much like psychedelics, you might have an epiphany, you might think it sucks, it all depends on your mindset.

When people dismiss it with "but teh graphics suck" they're missing the point entirely. But there's really no reconciling this.

scarshapedstar

i don't know how to compare them, but i really liked both.

passage was more of a vehicle that allowed me to break down a typical life into a 5 minute cycle, and in doing so, made me ask some questions about where i am on MY OWN passage. although this was obviously not the same result everyone had from playing the game... and i might have missed it too, if i hadn't already been in that kind of mood.

PORTAL however, felt more like... a truly intruiging story! and a mind bending puzzler. the gameplay was engaging, and unique, not to mention the humor!

if forced to pick a favorite, i'd go with portal. i got more enjoyment from it.

joelface

Portal is, in my mind, a game that sends 3 critical themes at the perceptive player.

First, a rebuke of unrestrained scientific hubris and bio-manipulation, second, a jab at the stereotypical victory and linearity featured in nearly all videogames, and third, by nature of the second, a finely dealt bitch-slap to the concept of self-determinism.

Within the confines of Aperture Science, the protagonist is tormented and nearly executed in the name 'of progress'. If there is one overlapping theme in all of valve's games, it's human fallibility. The disaster that birthed the half-life series was merely the result of a risky and ambitious miscalculation. The amoral scientists of black mesa die in poetically ironic ways... the exact same way Glados dies, in hypocritical fear of the same death she was trying to give you.

One of the most incredible aspects of portal is that it manages to be blatantly linear without making the player question it's linearity. You are a prisoner being put through a linear battery of tests, there is only one way to progress, and thus the player willingly accepts the confines of the game world, because the player is given a convincing reason to - it's part of the plot. The *spoiler* escape sequence is where Portal devolves from her enlightened precipice to take the player on an inevitable and invariable mission to kill the antagonist that valve has been aurally developing over the past hour. Why is there only one pathway to escape the facility? why do i have to fight and kill the final boss like in every other game in existence? Valve made the linear game with a plausible explanation for said linearity, a game with incredible writing and voice acting, featuring shooter gameplay that paradoxically involved no ammunition or killing whatsoever, only to throw away those accomplishments to settle with a dime a dozen murderous boss-fight finale. why? To bitch slap every other developer who is only capable of making said kind of game. (halo, mario, gears of war, mass effect, bioshock, gears of war, half life itself, etc)

The spell is broken, or is it? Valve wants you to kill Glados. Glados wants you to kill Glados. Why is it so predictably easy to escape, find, and kill Glados? Is killing Glados part of the experiment? Throughout the entire game, the player remains the obedient test subject. Escape is merely another control, as is the destruction of Glados. Part of the experiment. From this the player can extrapolate that valve sees people as test subjects forever bound by the Era/planet/society in which they live and exist, forever a product determined by the test chamber around them that informs them of who and what they should be.

Damn, that was boring. It's easier to view portal as a video game that was the product of an imagination, and that all content within said game is fictional, and thus no more worthy a place to search for guidance or deep motifs than a dream or a burning bush you find somewhere in the middle of a desert. Anything derived from it must be inherently subjective.

meandering_drivel