Silence is golden. Such a statement is at its absolute artistic pinnacle when addressing Shadow of the Colossus. For those unfamiliar with SotC, the nameless hero travels to forbidden lands in search of some mystical means to revive a woman who was sacrificed. Arriving at a sacred temple, a disembodied voice tells the wanderer he must destroy the 16 colossi for such an endeavor to be plausible. The player is then thrown into the world of the dark Goliaths. Very little back story is actually given, yet so much emotional narrative is constantly unearthed through the adventure. Though the game accomplishes much of this feat through the combat driven story of the unamed hero's plight against the Colossi, it is the use of ambiance and silence that, I feel, immerses and creates deeper meanings between this game and its players.
Video games typically work through several senses. Disregarding touch, players are left with their sight and their ability to hear. These senses define our experience in these digital worlds. If a video game villain yells obscenities as he or she is stomping a mudhole in my character, I react swiftly with a few obscenities of my own and a fully loaded assault rifle. If I witness the protagonist's comic-sidekick slip on a banana peel and tumble to their death off a cliff into a gorge filled with shark-porcupines, I'd probably laugh.
But, to what effect do audio and visual cues elicit proper and genuine emotion from players?
Movie goers see this in action all the time. In a typical horror scenario, lights frantically flicker on and off in a small room, the music slowly swells to a dirge-like low hum, and, when we least expect it, the killer finally leaps out with a lead pipe accompanied by an ear-shattering scream; thus, the conventional cheap scare. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing faulty or fallible with a cheap scare. I vividly remember, even today, coming across the shotgun for the first time in Bioshock; I walked my character over and picked up the brand new gun, only to have the room suddenly drenched in darkness, several voices booming around me, and one of the biggest scares that haunted the rest my Bioshock playthrough.
Horror games are like like Rock n' Roll in regards to ambiance; loud crashes of distortion and wild leads work well in a controlled frenzy. Shadow of the Colossus, on the other hand, follows a subtle approach in building its atmosphere.While the combat between the protagonist and the colossi remain a massive, and brutish physical element throughout the entire game, the mute, unspoken nature between these foes manifests the blurred individualism they share.
The killing strike to each colossus end in the same way: as the swift sword makes its final pierce into the Herculean monoliths, the beasts cry one last stifled groan of pain and topple toward the cold ground beneath them.
At the beginning of the battles, I can't help but feel some animosity toward the creatures. However, their silent falls remind me that both the wanderer and the colossi are essentially fighting for survival. Nowhere in the entirety of Shadow of the Colossus is a choice given. Either the wanderer fights or he dies; this is the bitter truth that lies within the forbidden lands. It is the same fate that intertwines the lives of the sixteen giants to the no-named hero. Different in body, the towering entities are, however, of the same essence as the protagonist. (Sorry, but spoilers ahead. Click here to see the ending. )
The unspoken bond of these beings are physically linked when the wanderer finally defeats the last of the colossi. Destroying the beasts, as fate would have it, embedded their souls into the wanderer. Upon returning to the disembodied voice, players learn that all the colossi were once a single being. Its power was perceived as a thundering danger and thus later split into the 16 gargantuan figures. Now, that power resides in the wandering warrior. It transforms him into a shadowy monolith, a colossus.
What the wanderer sought to destroy has literally overtaken him.The blood they spilled and the silence they shared culminated to this moment. Even in the final minutes of transformation, nothing was spoken between the colossi and the wander. The silent soldier had sacrificed his life. The consequence was understood in silence.
Shadow of the Colossus was crafted perfectly in its execution. The absence of reluctance in the wanderer's journey from man to beast echoed the resiliency of past video game heroes such as Link, Gordon Freeman, and Jack from Bioshock. These latter icons, like the wanderer, bore their burdens in silence. And upon completion of their quests, they remained in silence, becoming even stronger for it.
In Shadow of the Colossus, the fate of the wanderer weaves a melancholic tone for the endgame as his new form is cast down and cursed. Though the woman he set to save has been revived, the silent protagonist has no knowledge whether his endeavors actually paid off. My heart sank at the realization of his fate and how powerful SotC carried itself. He lived, survived, and thrived in silence, never once complaining and never questioning what he fights for.
Never in another game have I found silence to speak such volumes....
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| Save. |
But, to what effect do audio and visual cues elicit proper and genuine emotion from players?
Movie goers see this in action all the time. In a typical horror scenario, lights frantically flicker on and off in a small room, the music slowly swells to a dirge-like low hum, and, when we least expect it, the killer finally leaps out with a lead pipe accompanied by an ear-shattering scream; thus, the conventional cheap scare. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing faulty or fallible with a cheap scare. I vividly remember, even today, coming across the shotgun for the first time in Bioshock; I walked my character over and picked up the brand new gun, only to have the room suddenly drenched in darkness, several voices booming around me, and one of the biggest scares that haunted the rest my Bioshock playthrough.
 |
| Survive. |
The killing strike to each colossus end in the same way: as the swift sword makes its final pierce into the Herculean monoliths, the beasts cry one last stifled groan of pain and topple toward the cold ground beneath them.
At the beginning of the battles, I can't help but feel some animosity toward the creatures. However, their silent falls remind me that both the wanderer and the colossi are essentially fighting for survival. Nowhere in the entirety of Shadow of the Colossus is a choice given. Either the wanderer fights or he dies; this is the bitter truth that lies within the forbidden lands. It is the same fate that intertwines the lives of the sixteen giants to the no-named hero. Different in body, the towering entities are, however, of the same essence as the protagonist. (Sorry, but spoilers ahead. Click here to see the ending. )
The unspoken bond of these beings are physically linked when the wanderer finally defeats the last of the colossi. Destroying the beasts, as fate would have it, embedded their souls into the wanderer. Upon returning to the disembodied voice, players learn that all the colossi were once a single being. Its power was perceived as a thundering danger and thus later split into the 16 gargantuan figures. Now, that power resides in the wandering warrior. It transforms him into a shadowy monolith, a colossus.
 |
| Consequence. |
In Shadow of the Colossus, the fate of the wanderer weaves a melancholic tone for the endgame as his new form is cast down and cursed. Though the woman he set to save has been revived, the silent protagonist has no knowledge whether his endeavors actually paid off. My heart sank at the realization of his fate and how powerful SotC carried itself. He lived, survived, and thrived in silence, never once complaining and never questioning what he fights for.
Never in another game have I found silence to speak such volumes....
Did you find the protagonist's lack of voice or agency alienating as a player? In the sense that typically, players take on the role of the character in the trajectory of a game? With SotC, there doesn't seem a lot to go on in that sense. Great perspective on the audio (or lack thereof).
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't say "alienating" as there are plenty of non-stoic characters that may truly alienate players by there personality and sometimes their actions. This, of course, would then have to be dependent upon the type of game being questioned. I'll generalize and say most games only allow players to "control" the characters in a linear sense. They push them forward throughout their narrative, never really instilling or projecting the player unto the roles of a character.
DeleteI don't think the player is projected onto a character, but rather the role or mission of a character is taken up by the player. It becomes the player's quest, in which case, the character only acts as a conduit to its completion--in that sense I do see the linearity of most games and the idea that players move their characters forward within a given narrative. However, doesn't that sort of unravel the concept of main character/protagonist? (And by that I mean, the design of a lead fictional character). I think that’s where the distinction between player/character can become a bit blurred in the sense that, once a player assumes the mission of a given narrative or game, they sort of usurp the place of the main character, thereby undermining that persona’s history, background, personality and whatever else goes into the design of a character. (On a side note, perhaps this is why gaming elicits refrains like “*I* only have two lives left” or “*I* passed this level”). So, now I will totally contradict myself and venture to say that perhaps the protagonist’s lack of voice in SotC facilitates the replacement (albeit metaphysical or what have you) of character with player …
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