So, 1up's list of sleeper hits isn't bad, but one game that keeps popping up everywhere is Thatgamecompany's fl0wer. And every time it pops up, they talk about how pretty it is, how artistic, blah blah blah. Drives me absolutely bat-s**t crazy.

Fl0wer is pretty. Very pretty. As a piece of ambient art, it would be excellent, if you didn't have to play it. But you do, and the moment you pick up the controller, the game turns to absolute s**t.

I have a lot of respect for Thatgamecompany - they're at least trying something different. But fl0wer's gameplay, almost in its entirety, consists of "Use the PS3's awful motion controls to follow a line. If you miss any points along that line, hold a button to move very slowly, turn around, hope that you're within the appropriate turning radius, wait for the camera to catch up, try to get the thing you missed OH CRAP YOU DIDN'T and do it again until you do."

If the game rewarded you for flying through briskly, or didn't actively encourage you to be a completionist, it would have been a bazillion times better. As is, it's an exercise in tedium and frustration. And no matter how beautiful a game is, when the actual *gameplay* is *this bad*, the game is a failure, no matter what your fawning critics say.

To me, the game is like looking at an awful but really hyped painting. There are a lot of people who will walk up to it and say, "Yes, yes, this is genius!" because they read in an article somewhere that it's supposed to be really good. But show the same painting to an artist, and they'll immediately recognize it for what it is.

1 person found this interesting. Did you?

Yes  ·  No