It would be most unfair to compare a game like Rez with Flower: Rez is the pinnacle of an era of Japanese videogame design, an experience that is nothing short of transcendental. Flower, in its turn, is an early crowning achievement of a new age whose peak is still years away from us.

Realism, in light of this discussion, is a double-edged sword. A quick example: the evolution of computer processing power now allows human models to present a look that is closer to the organic counterpart, with skin texture and hair waving in real-time. But this realism in videogames serves only as a façade, as characters keep jumping higher and taking more bullets than any existing human being. So the closer we get to “our reality” the farther we get from being stylish, spectacular - and functional for gameplay purposes. Only simulators should be concerned with the search for absolute realism.

One could also argue that when a realistic game displays unrealistic behaviors, a new reality determined by different rules is born in front of our eyes (imagine Lara Croft hitting the bull’s eye while performing a back flip two meters above the ground). But then again, a new virtual reality can dispense “realism” as long as it is coherent enough to be considered as such. So then the question might be: what is more crucial in this context, (photo)realism or cohesion? Are they even antagonistic, as concepts, in this debate?

Meanwhile, to name again one of Flower’s obvious forebears (visually as well as sonically), I think the aesthetic punchline of Rez’s environmental evolution is much more affecting.

So, yes, Flower is good (I like it, as I wrote, because of the beautifully engineered sense of flight, and its aesthetic “focus”), but it’s not doing something entirely unheard-of.

There is no doubt that Flower is also a technically challenging game, albeit the reasonable budget. Emotionally is has more depth than a game like Far Cry 2 whose purpose is centered in evolving a decadent genre by inserting new fields of possibilities – like the great majority of roller coaster ride videogames, it (FC2) induces sensations, not sentiments. Flower, following something closer to an eastern videogame design method, benefits from a coherent simplicity that is the starting point for deeper reflections. It is not a poem: it is not written in a piece of paper or printed into a book page; one can’t even declaim it. But it provides a delicate sight of beauty that is consonant to that of a certain style of poetry, namely in the contemplative perspective it provides over its own pastoral landscape. An audiovisual poem, if you prefer, that dispenses words in favor of sights and sounds. I see it essentially as a matter of rhythm, theme and sensibility. Why did you like Flower?

Games like Far Cry 2 lose sight of any sort of cohesion as their designers tend to feel pressured to include a panoply of mouth-watering features, either for the advertising machine to run smoothly; or for the game to introduce a new benchmark, that being one of Crytek’s acute illnesses - the obsession with complex game engines. The Far Cry sequel may have expanded its limits and horizons but the interaction with the world placed in front of the player’s eyes provides no significant increment in respect to what has been done before (apart from driving cars and snatching ammo, shooting a gun is still the best and only way to interact with our surroundings). This was agreeable in a game like Doom a decade ago. Today it is an insult to any experienced player, especially when it is clear that the game had potential.

Which is not to say that Far Cry 2 is not a notable videogame in its own milieu: it’s certainly an effort to prevent the genre from absolute stagnation. I’m looking forward for your column, as you always seem to have good arguments supporting your claims. (I’m sorry for the lenghty comment)

As complex as it might be to create a videogame, the truth remains that most videogame experiences are downright simple and straightforward.

Some are simpler than others. Far Cry 2 (subject of a forthcoming column) can be pretty complicated. Perhaps part of the appeal of Flower, in the context of multimillion-dollar-budget übercomplex megagames, is its very simplicity, as you are perhaps hinting.

how many other videogames were even close to be as brilliant as Flower this year?

Not many have been as beautiful, I’ll readily agree. Though I think Noby Noby Boy (discussed in this column) is more interesting.