Monday 22 February, 2010

Today I had to play Columbine on a different computer, so I had to start from scratch, but it did force me to reread all the dialogue between Eric and Dylan and it definitely changed my thinking a little bit about the purpose of the game. To be honest this time around I found it a little more interesting when I paid close attention to the dialogue. Like a lot of people I have seen the movie Bowling For Columbine, so I thought I already had all the facts I needed about the shootings, but when I played this game again it struck me as a more documentary kind of feel.
This definitely clashed with the second half of the game after you kill yourself. When I first saw the island I really had no clue where the creators were going with this, but as the segment continued it certainly answered my question. The montage after that was a bit depressing, but in light of what transpired earlier in the game it was a fitting almost-ending to the game.

"it struck me as a more documentary kind of feel"

Interesting point. It makes me wonder what other kinds of subjects we could make documentary-like games about. And, more generally, what does it mean for a game to have a documentary feel to it? Is it just about the fact that it's based on real-world events?