Shadows of the Colossus: A landmark in Art Gaming

It begins in an ageless, mythical time with our protagonist on horseback, carrying with him the body of his dead love. Presumably after a long journey, he arrives to an ancient land and proceeds across a mile-long bridge to a Babel-like temple lifting towards the heavens. He is here to restore her to life but to do this he must defeat sixteen huge and terrifying giants hidden across the land. Only then will she awaken.



The story is somewhat cryptic and the game, structured by a series of boss battles, is much harder to solve. There’s a lot to figure out as you play and even when you put the controller down for the last time some there are things left unexplained. It was designed and released in 2005 by Fumito Ueda and Kenji Kaido and despite being now five years old, the look of the game is one of the initial appealing aspects: the hazy colours, motion blurring as well as the frightening enormity of colossi themselves. Here, the PS2’s graphical power is used to perfection. The map is vast with plenty of space to explore and gladly loose yourself in. Some parts are bleached in bright sun, others drenched in fog and everywhere remnants of a lost civilisation dot the countryside. It’s a game that allows your imagination to wander as much as the hero and, as such, can be played again and again.

Ueda and Kaido’s first game Ico, released in 2001, set the tone for Shadow of the Collosus. The white robed girl you to take by the hand and lead through the game is very much like the bond that the nameless wanderer of Shadow has with his horse Agro. He is brought to life by superb animation and a sweet personality which entices you into treating him respectfully. The feel of riding him is very unique. He’s not just any mode of transport after all. Occasionally, he’ll nip off for a drink or wander about but whenever you whistle for him he’ll come galloping at full pace ready to help.

Aside from loneliness, a melancholy sense of helplessness and inevitability shrouds the game. After each colossus is grounded, falling sadly and slowly to earth, neon black-green tendrils leap out of its body slicing whip-crack through the air to strike our hero down. The first time this happens it’s a real shock. I mean, what game kills you off after completing an important task? And even versed in the knowledge of your reoccurring fate, knowing full well you cannot escape it; you still try, running with all your might and desperately shouting for Agro to come to your aid. So here we have a moral: Death is and always will be, no matter what. But our will to survive is inherent. Our hero’s lot of repeated self-sacrifice for love is what every epic quest is made of. Rarely does anything so hauntingly affecting and poignant appear in a videogame.

The trick is to make the player actually care what happens. It sounds simple but so many games lull you into a mindless pattern in their attempt to keep you focused on the cool graphics and on playing it for as long as possible. Generally, their characters are nothing more than pixel rendered representations of movie stereotypes and you’re not expected to feel any sympathy or association with them. In Shadow, the hero is human, a bit crap like all of us, an everyman. He has no ass kicking super powers, no sharp wit or masculine soaked style. All he has is a battered sword and bow, a faithful companion in his horse and tremendous courage for love’s sake. His tasks seem utterly impossible, so daunting you earnestly want him to succeed.

Another trick is to cut out needless chit chat and dialogue which serves no purpose other than to keep you abreast of the plot. Shadow ignores this giving you the credit of working out what’s going on for yourself. The sounds of nature are the dominant sounds: the lonely cries of the eagles flying over head, the worried panic of the horse when the dark figure of a colossus looms above, the sad song of the wind on the open plains. In fact the game is very pro nature, much like many Miyazaki films. It verges on pantheistic and suggests a link to Celtic mythology, particularly in the hero’s relationship with his horse. The godlike voice that introduces the tasks for our hero speaks in riddle translated from a strange concocted language. The musical score, which only appears in cut scenes and during battles, is beautifully well composed. After a little while, I found solace in putting it on mute and adopting my own soundtrack. Bands that already contain a visual landscape like Sigur Rós, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Explosions in the Sky accompany the game play perfectly. For me, Shadow was always a good way of getting into unusual music. All-nighters were made for this kind of thing.



In the end, once every giant is slain, the dark powers ever present throughout the game envelop him and turn him into a ghostly black monster which the player can control, smashing all around him. A tragic twist? Not exactly because he is altered again, into a horned baby (oh yes) and carried by his awakened love to the top of the gigantic temple, to an idyllic secret garden. It is then that you realise that this baby will grow to be the protagonist of Ico, and that Shadow of the Colossus is actually a prequel.

Frankly, it laughs in the face of anyone who doesn’t think videogames have any artistic value or merit. Compared to the latest contrived Hollywood blockbuster, tacky reality TV show, even smug and pretentious ‘art’ films and literary adaptations; in achievement and imagination, Shadows of the Colossus is a God damn masterpiece. I’m convinced that if game designers were to take its unusual experimentations further we could see a rise of far-out gaming. It proves that the medium has the ability and scope to tackle Big Themes, to become a serious art form with sublime and lasting experiences.

There has been speculation of an eventual film based on the game and it will be interesting to see where this could take its two creators. It will bring Shadow to a wider audience for sure but it has no hope in replicating the immersive feel of the game. The player’s involvement in the dramatic events, the memorable and wonderful escapism that Shadow of the Colossus grants – basically everything I’ve been talking about, is something that only videogames can give you. Please, please, please… I want all videogames to be this daring and this good.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)

New single's: Grum's Sound Reaction, Gliss' Morning Light and Gold Panda

GRUM - SOUND REACTION
With support from Pete Tong and the ever obnoxious ego of Zane Lowe, a debut album and a gig at Fabric on the way, Grum appears to be on the verge of breaking into the club elite: "[...] only a route that artists such as Daft Punk, The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy are familiar with". Coming across as desperate for popularity, I've not read a more naff and needlessly hyped promotion than the one accompanying Sound Reaction.

The record gives the public what they want: An 'infectious' funk bass riff, pulsing volume and evolving beats. Like a coiled spring, the tension before the drop is expertly handled, even though the repeated vocal sample is totally meaningless. Included are two bonus remixes which show it's versatility and transport the track into different atmospheres.

The earnesty behind the promotion is unnecessary and clouds the main concern: Is it good to dance to? Sound Reaction, released in time for summer, has all the right euro disco ingredients to delight all you happy ravers. For me, however, it's just another disposable commodity - played once and then thrown out.



GLISS - MORNING LIGHT
My first listen of Morning Light was complimented by the tap tap of warm rain, resulting in a sort of druggy afternoon poetry. This paradox gained them an early advantage.

Yet another shoegaze band, Gliss take the genre back to its early post punk days: the beautiful noise of Jesus and the Mary Chain. Remember that simple, echoing beat at the beginning of Just like Honey? Well, it starts off Morning Light too. Original? Perhaps not, but what is these days?

If the dream pop of Asobi Seksu or the Raveonettes makes you wet, then Gliss is a necessity. There are few records that convey burning sadness as well as this one - it's almost heartbreaking. The fuzz of their stormy distortion mirrors a purifying explosion of water. At just three minutes and a half, it's over too soon.



GOLD PANDA - GOLD PANDA
The Electronic music culture has ever been made up of the hobbyist and the obsessive hoarder. As a collector turned creator, Gold Panda's triple track release is a product of the extreme archiving provided by the Internet. For some artists, the overwhelming variety is a heavy blow to their narcassism (boo hoo). For Gold Panda, it's an inspiration and a way into composition.

'Quitter's Raga', a triumphant opening of Hindi hip hop, makes full, if excessive use of the time stretch edit tool, one of Four Tet's trademarks. It's a glitchy, stuttering effect as well as beautifully imperfect. 'Fifth Ave' uses sparse sampling over a dirty viynl drone and is the serene call before the storm. Arguably, 'Police' could be a comment on the recent G20 violence. It's scuzzy, siren synths and sandpaper beats reveal a love for IDM acid and simulate a chaotic, seething riot.

More than anything else, Gold Panda's release has more in common with folktronica - The Books or Dosh - but all three tracks consistently avoid easy categorisation. The genre eugenics heard here might be strong evidence towards an era of Internet enlightenment, though I sense struggle at work. At the record's end, we are left alone, down the Internet rabbit hole, paranoid and displaced from human reality. There's trouble in paradise.

(© Copyright 2009 Brendan Morgan)

The 'Floyd-Wizard' Syncronicity Effect

We all are aware of Pink Floyd's ability to weave powerful, forward-thinking rock. We know too well. We hear it over and over again, on every Rockumentary, in every 100 Greatest Albums list. The Dark Side of the Moon continually gets voted as one of the most influential albums ever produced. We know, we all bloody know. But, less discussed, is a sub cultural myth that attaches itself to the album. It sounds, at first, pretty nutty: pause a copy of it at the beginning in a CD player and, playing both at the same time, play Wizard of Oz on mute. Jesus Christ, this is what happens when you leave a group of wired students alone for an evening. Lies and bullshit you might say, but I tried it, and for a good half hour into the film, the syncronisation is astonishingly accurate. If you were ever looking for a modern legend, than this is it. No doubt, wispers floated around by way of the typically convincing see-it-to-believe-ploy and it roped me in. It drew me in as an ice-cream truck draws in sugar-junky children.

Similar is the overzealous interest behind conspiracy theories. I spent an evening watching the JFK assasination over and over on youtube to develop my own opinion (we'll meet Bill Hicks later at the docks). The 9/11 conspiracy documentary Loose Change still sits on my hard drive as well as my mind. The quest for truth can sometimes send you beyond basic logic and reason and the internet is more than happy to oblige, acting like a shitty little sewing circle in its desparate need to tell you what's "really going on".

But back to the case in hand. 2001: A Space Oddessy also presents another significant moment of timing, but of a different nature. Around the time of its release in 1968, reports that at the moment of the famous 'Star Gate' scene, nearing the thought provoking close of the film, an average dose of LSD kicks in at the very same moment when the character Dave begins his enlightening high-speed adventure. The zooming, colourful textures of the ensuing minutes suggests a strong psychadelic influence. It went down pretty well with the counterculture of its time, and I'm guessing it would have sent numurous kids into unavoidable paranoia. But then again, the weird is what you're after when you're tripping.

What both The Dark Side of Oz and The Acid Oddessy share in common is that these syncronisations are accidental, judging at least with what we know of the artists or directors intentions. Both are a part of the same intriguing phenomenon where two seperate artforms, one of sonic and one of film, mysteriosly combine. Is this the only occurance of its kind, or are there other couplings yet to be discovered? Has the Floyd-Wizard effect randomly struck elsewhere? I was itching to know and set out to see what I could find, only to be somewhat disapointed.

This subject initially appeared to me to be virgin material, ripe for the taking and I lept on it with enthusiastic glee. Books were writing themselves in my head, thesis' built on study and experimentation were coagulating together like rain drops on a window pane. But of course, as always, the internet is two steps ahead (there goes my publishing deal, god damn it) and lo' and behold a website called Syncronicity, dedicated to these pockets of discovery, proudly displays them in full geeky glory. Their archive is eccessively focused on the albums of Pink Floyd (they even have 2001: Space Oddessy coupled with Pink Floyd's Echos which someone kindly created on youtube) but there are a few more unique couplings to try out. The joining of Radiohead's Amnesiac with Dark Crystal is tempting. I'll admit, it's a little obessive this fascination with syncronicity and heavily implies the use of narcotics to aid enjoyment. You only have to scroll down to the bottom of the syncronicity webpage to reveal a mini purple mushroom (see picture), what's being hinted at here is evident. It most certainly comes off as an occupation for the dangerously bored or hazily wasted. Perhaps your brain's got to be crawling up the wall and running laps before the music and visuals seem to synchronise, but maybe not. As informative as the website is in its many suggestions, it doesn't beat an accidental discovery, because when you find one for yourself, it becomes your own. I remember watching Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times muted while playing The Flaming Lip's Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots a few years ago. A friend of mine would also mute the train journey scene of Spirited Away and drift off to it while listening to The Velvet Underground's beautifully droning Heroin. The idea is to culminate a mood or meditative experience. Obessive? Maybe, but you won't know until you try it, will you?