Virginia: Less Interesting Than The Actual State

While I can appreciate game companies and their strange (and often ridiculous) methods, sometimes their wonky ideas just don't lead anywhere particularly special because they don't actually seem to GET what makes a person actually play a videogame. For those uninitiated to the whole process: we play for a.) mindless entertainment (Gears of War), b.) puzzles that we feel smart trying to solve and better about when we finally do solve (Portal) or c.) we seek an in-depth story that we can not only immerse ourselves in, but also feel like we are a pivotal part of the living narrative (literally ANY RPG ever made). With the adventure/mystery Virginia...I'm not exactly sure where the hell developer Variable State was going with it.

Okay, nice things first: the game has an amazing soundtrack and, despite having no discernable dialog, works on a narrative standpoint that wouldn't have if it somehow hadn't been able to make you care about the poorly pixelated characters. And, while I never really cared about the story, the fact that I genuinely cared about the central mystery says wonders about either how well the game is made or how low my actual standards for a videogame might actually be. There's a win in there somewhere.

Unfortunately, the game ultimately fails because, unlike other narrative-driven games (Walking Dead, Life Is Strange, Game of Thrones, ANY RPG!), the gameplay itself is boring as hell. There's no puzzle to solve or even real mystery to uncover (despite the central plot trying to be interesting). Its just your perspective with a little damn dot that occasionally grows into a circle to tell you where to go. Point A to Point B and so on without any rhyme or reason only punctuated by the occasionally jarring jump to the next section of the game. Throw in the obnoxious probability of FUCKING COLLECTIBLES and you have a game that, once finished, you just can't bring yourself to ever play again because of the increasingly boring slog that was that three hours of your life.

Now, with that out of the way, why was this game so beloved amongst the critical circuits? Most critics seemed to praise the fact that the main characters were two black women, but isn't that like trying to give the new Ghostbusters a free pass for its terrible script strictly because it had women leads? Or nominating Ava DuVernay for an Oscar simply because she's a black woman (anyone in Hollywood could have directed Selma)? Yet, beyond reason, most gaming outlets shower this game with praise for its progressive thinking instead of its actual gameplay innovation when, in the end, it's little more than an obnoxiously long walking simulator with limited replay value and one of the most unsatisfying endings I've seen in gaming in many years. The annual gaming award circuits have some explaining to do...