Hello YouTuber's, welcome back to James recommends. This week we're gonna talk
about The Talos Principle. If you like games like Portal or The Cube, if you're
looking for another lateral thinking puzzle game: you should definitely check
out The Talos Principle. Because it does that excellent, but it does a lot more
than that. If you were playing Portal and you were enjoying all the humor and
you're playing through and somewhere in there though in the back of your mind you
were thinking "man, I would love to see a darker, more philosophic version of
Portal", that's basically what The Talos Principle is. The Talos Principle really
digs into a lot of your fundamental philosophical concepts. That's
consciousness; what it means to be human; all these sort of things. And ask them
very directly. As in more directly than any other game you've ever seen. [In] most
games we explore these through a narrative. They're playing through
characters that have face decisions or experience things that make us approach
these questions. This is a game that is much more directly a philosophical text
and exposes you continuously and directly asks you those questions. And in doing so
it could easily fallen on the side of pretentious. For me it runs that knife's edge.
It gets really close. If the writing were a little bit worse, the voice actor were a
little bit worse, this game you've just been [un...], right? This game would be
cringe worthy. But it's not, at least for me, it felt just right that. And as such
it was a very interesting experience.
The gameplay is your standard lateral
thinking game, right. It's got Braid 'time reverse double self'-mechanics, it's got
reflecting lasers, it's got freezing enemies in place to set-up a pattern to
solve puzzles. It's got all that sort of things. But as you're going through those,
you've got a voice in the sky talking to you, telling you what it takes
to get eternal life. And this is then juxtaposed against a choice to be
rebellious against that voice. And as you're experiencing that you're encountering a
number of computer terminals, which will give you a little bit of insight into
the set-up of this world. I'm gonna try not to spoil very much, there might be a
little bit of spoilers all I'm going to say next, so go get the game shut and this
off if it's something you're already interested in. But this world we're in now,
like any world, is set up by the world of the past. And these computer terminals
will let you access records from the past. And as you go through them it asks
you very...all these fundamental philosophical questions. But also expose
you to the people who lived in the age before this one and allows you to see
into their lives, and it actually sets up well some tragic moments. The only thing,
my only real issue with this game actually is the fact that the gameplay
and I guess what we call the narrative (although I think there's a less narrative
in this game, even though it's less about narrative than
it is about direct philosophical questioning you, exploration)
is that they're sort of separated. The gameplay itself is a lot of lateral thinking
puzzles, but often those lateral thinking puzzles are...it's divorced from the
moments when you're just reading blocks of text. And you have to enjoy reading
blocks of text, in order to get the most out of this game. They also delivered
through audio logs and some other things but mostly, most of this philosophical
inquiry you're going to get through reading old archive files on computers
that, sort of, you encounter between your various
puzzles. So if I had any complaint it would be that. But if you like lateral
thinking problems, if you want a more philosophical game, if you want a game that
directly confronts you with these questions. Just as a designer it's interesting to
see a game that doesn't try to bring you into these questions through narrative,
through the experience of a character, but rather just head-on and says 'Hey,
check out these questions. What do you think?' Then you should check out
The Talos Principle. Because the writing is solid, voice acting is solid. It does actually
have to good narrative. It is a dark... the next words I want to say will spoil some
things, so I'm not gonna say them. It's a dark world that has a lot going on.
It's beautiful place, I'm sure during this we'll be showing tons of screen shots.
There's lots of references to antiquity and to classical civilizations.
There's lots in there too dig into, if you like just thinking about these sort
of things and be planning to sit around the coffee shop
late at night with your friends to talk about.
If you don't like reading large blocks of text,
if it really bothers you to have your experience have broken up between puzzle
and narrative, if you don't like negative possibility space - because this is also
a game with a large area to explore. And you want to explore all, because
you'll find yourself wanting to see the philosophy, wanting to understand more
about the world and the narrative - but there's a lot of space in it where
there's nothing in it. But those caviats are minor. This is a different experience
than you've had, it's a different way of approaching feel something questions and
you've seen in games. And so, as such, this week if you like lateral thinking games,
if you like stuff like Portal, if you want to see an exploration philosophy,
well then James recommends: The Talos Principle.
See you all next week!