"False sense of security" is a great way to describe Psychonauts. "Oh, I jump around and punch stuff, this is pretty cool! Wait... what... did that... did they really... what am I looking at here?" Yes, I found the stuff about Mia, which is what really made me a complete, raving fangirl of the game; have you seen the stuff about Sgt. Oleander? I was so enthused I got a walkthrough and did all the extra stuff, and it was just heartbreakingly, gut-wrenchingly sad. Tim Schafer really, truly is a genius.
I hope you didn't get the impression I was slagging off your choices of games to spotlight; anything but! There well may be a better game than P: T out there, but I've yet to find it, and I'd love it if someone told me about it. But accessibility is a pretty big issue. I mean, for example, I'm not a big fan of shooters to begin with, and MGS3 was frustratingly, brutally hard at some points; I often threw up my hands and figured it was too hard to master... but the story was so compelling, I just had to go back and try again, simply to find out what happened next. But the average person who isn't into video games... well, if it gets much more complicated than managing the arrow buttons and pressing X every once in awhile, they're probably not going to be very interested. Whereas Psychonauts... assuming she is not blind and palsied, you could sit your 95 year old grandmother down with it, and she could get the salient points.
Both of the links I clicked on led to YouTube videos, which I'm afraid I haven't got the leisure to watch right now, but Psychonauts as art... are you a member of the Awful Forums (http://forums.somethingawful.com)? The best discussion I know of is there, but it's members only and no use to link to if you're not. However, if you're interested in the subject, I'd highly recommend these (http://pc.ign.com/articles/585/585122p1.html) interviews (http://www.gamestudies.org/0301/pearce/) with (http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3149196) Tim Schafer (http://grumpygamer.com/2003636) - they aren't particularly meta, nor do they deal with fandom in the slightest, but the man talks about why he does what he does, and gives some great insights.
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I hope you didn't get the impression I was slagging off your choices of games to spotlight; anything but! There well may be a better game than P: T out there, but I've yet to find it, and I'd love it if someone told me about it. But accessibility is a pretty big issue. I mean, for example, I'm not a big fan of shooters to begin with, and MGS3 was frustratingly, brutally hard at some points; I often threw up my hands and figured it was too hard to master... but the story was so compelling, I just had to go back and try again, simply to find out what happened next. But the average person who isn't into video games... well, if it gets much more complicated than managing the arrow buttons and pressing X every once in awhile, they're probably not going to be very interested. Whereas Psychonauts... assuming she is not blind and palsied, you could sit your 95 year old grandmother down with it, and she could get the salient points.
Both of the links I clicked on led to YouTube videos, which I'm afraid I haven't got the leisure to watch right now, but Psychonauts as art... are you a member of the Awful Forums (http://forums.somethingawful.com)? The best discussion I know of is there, but it's members only and no use to link to if you're not. However, if you're interested in the subject, I'd highly recommend these (http://pc.ign.com/articles/585/585122p1.html) interviews (http://www.gamestudies.org/0301/pearce/) with (http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3149196) Tim Schafer (http://grumpygamer.com/2003636) - they aren't particularly meta, nor do they deal with fandom in the slightest, but the man talks about why he does what he does, and gives some great insights.