Flower for PS3: A Review

Push and hold any button. A flower appears, golden and glowing. A single petal blows away from its bulb and sweeps me off on a journey. A gorgeous, treacherous, illuminating journey.

I had a banyan tree in my front yard as a kid. We grew up together, that tree and me. Today, when I visit my childhood home, the tree is different. It is wider and fuller and taller, and maybe even wiser. I used to sit in one of its perfect natural nests and think about what the tree has seen in its many years and what it will see when I'm long gone. Trees hold a fascination for me because of their age, their steadfastness. Nothing is sadder than a stump. Unlike trees, flowers aren't known for longevity. Fittingly, the game developers, no, I should probably say, the artists who created this game used flowers to represent the natural world's fragility and vulnerability to mankind's destruction.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, which I will probably do a lot this post because, for some reason, I thought this game was much smaller than it turned out to be which is why I planned to only write one post about this game. Now I find myself with much too much to talk about and no real coherent way to organize it all. I guess those many fragments of thoughts floating about in my head reflects the game itself – the many petals loosely strewn together, flitting through space on the breeze, searching for meaning, for organization, for life, for survival, for perfection. This review may have to be like the branching of the banyan, like those lilting, wayward flower petals.



The game starts in an apartment room. All you can see is a table in front of a window. Out the window you can see the dreary, anonymous city which I didn't immediately recognize as Japanese, but which takes on a more and more distinctive Japanese flavor as the game progresses. A drooping flower in a pot sits on the table and you select it. Direction is determined by the tilt of the controller. Otherwise, the only other control is to hold any button down for forward motion.I sigh with relief after God of War's button-mashing. Very simple. The opening text tells you to relax and enjoy which I was definitely looking forward to after my God of War terror-fest.

Ben has given me three very different games so far, not just in content or difficulty, but in their very purpose. Afterburner Climax is a video game that plays like a toy: you have a goal, you obtain a skill, and you better that skill over time to attain your goal, much like mastering a yo-yo trick or like learning to play a mean game of tennis. God of War III felt like an interactive movie, like a form of entertainment meant to immerse and involve you in a story. Flower feels like art. Ben knows that, for me, art is almost like religion. I am pretty sure Ben's hope with this game was to say, “Look here! Video games can be Art , too!" He probably thought the pretty flowers that light up like fireworks couldn't hurt, either.



And he was right. The illuminated flowers did not disappoint. This game captures the sensual qualities of flowers, including sound and touch.(if smellovision existed, I'm positive they would have used that, too!) Technicolor flower petals sway, glide, and shimmer in the wind and the sunshine, qualities of motion and light vividly captured. The closest comparison I can make to playing this game is riding Soarin' at EPCOT in Orlando, Florida. On the ride, you sit in chairs suspended from above. The chairs lift into the air, your feet allowed to dangle. In front of you is a screen so big you can't see anything beyond it in your periphery. From your faux-paragliding viewpoint you “soar” over iconic California scenes of mountain peaks, sandy beaches, city skyscrapers, and orange groves (I take it back, smellovision DOES exist....Mickey Mouse pipes in the smell of oranges as you pass over the groves). It is my favorite ride at any theme park. The soaring feeling, the beautiful scenery, and the powerful yet peaceful music...I could ride all day! While playing this game I kept thinking of that ride and realized I'd rather soar over the scenery in Flower. I wanted to be one of the colorful, swirling flower petals gathering a rainbow-like stream of petals behind me. As I played, I could almost feel the wind blow and imagine the sweep of the grass across my feet.



Then there's the sound. If you can imagine what a flower sounds like the moment it blooms, that is what the game sounds like. I would recommend that everyone experience the game if, for nothing else, than to look at and listen to it. There is an entire musical side of this game that I haven't even talked about yet. Every time your petals pass over a flower, it blooms and makes a musical sound: a tinkling chime, a percussive clink, a round earthy stringed pluck. As you play, you take part in a composition – a musical conversation between the game's score and your own percussion solo.

But Flower wasn't all roses and sunshine. It was easy to poo-poo God of War – an excessive, macho-machine of a game probably made mostly to make more money for the God of War franchise. It is harder to criticize this pretty little game. I will have to, however, as this was not completely the idyllic experience I'd hoped for. To Ben's dismay, I couldn't get the hang of the controller tilting. At times I felt like I was on a Nascar track rather than in a lovely rolling meadow. Around level six I'd had quite enough of the controller tilting, back-pedaling, swerving, diving, and disoriented petal swooping. This is one of those cases where I hate to criticize the game's controls when the problem probably lies more with the "controller" herself. Still, the game play annoyed me. I found it really difficult to navigate and control my speed. I would go too fast and miss the flowers and have to double back. Then I'd try to go slow and my petal moved at a snail's pace.

Then there was the problem of getting lost. I knew from God of War to follow blinking lights and pay attention to camera movements, but sometimes I would forget to pay attention, then get stuck flying around in circles looking for any clue that could tell me what to do next. The game doesn't let you save or go back within a level. Like I said, around level six I lost my patience. The flowers, struggling to survive in the shadows of steel girders and towers, became even more difficult to find among the dimly lit pipes that snaked like streams through a jagged, rocky, post-apocalyptic, electrified wasteland. I found myself so completely disoriented and without a glowing light or flower in sight that I found myself saying the F word a lot and that F did not stand for “flowers.” Because of Level Six, a game that took Ben an hour and a half to beat took me about four hours.

My frustration with this game was worse than Ben thought possible. Why had the game made me so frustrated? I think it's because I took the game's opening words seriously. I really had hoped to relax and enjoy it. I didn't want to have any trouble playing it. The game was so pretty to look at and listen to that I didn't want to find and fly over a million flowers and I certainly didn't want to become completely lost, confused, and hopeless. Then I thought about it. When did I get angry and lost and frustrated? When the flowers were all but destroyed and the world, too, had become dark and desolate and hopeless and lost. The medium reflected the message and that's what makes this game more than a toy, more than just entertainment. That's what makes this video game art.



The only other critique I have about the game relate to the game's length. Each level is just too long. I would be just as, if not more satisfied with my experience if it had been half as long. I wanted to keep going because I knew there would be a payoff in the end, but the constant flower-finding wore on me. In some ways I'd probably just prefer if Ben played it while I watched.

I do appreciate that it is a game, though. I wouldn't want it to just be an animated film. I think that the fact that someone plays this game as the flower is powerful and adds layers of meaning to this piece that are interesting. Not only is this piece a work of art in its beauty, its simplicity of design, and its message, but by functioning as a game it becomes like a work of performance art. I could imagine sitting down to experience this piece in a museum. Ben says he wants a video game to make him cry someday. I think when he said that he meant that he wants to see a video game with a story so well written and a game so well done that he is moved to tears. This game isn't quite that, but it is certainly moving and I feel bettered for having seen and played it -not so much because of the heavy-handed environmental message, but because of the game's ending.

At the end of this game those hundreds of delicate, fragile petals come together to form one giant blossoming tree, strong and resilient like my childhood banyan. Nature and man learn to coexist. The world takes on its color again. Even the credits reflect this idea, while adding another layer of meaning. In the credits, the player collects flowers labeled with the names and titles and special thanks symbolizing the coming together of individual talents to make something strong and long-lasting and beautiful. Play through the credits. It's worth it.

Okay. Enough of this artsy-fartsy stuff. Time for some boobs! At least that's Ben's opinion since my next game assignment is to play two hours of Dead or Alive: Beach Volleyball for the Xbox360, a game I have always not-so-affectionately referred to as "The Boobie-Boob Game." I guess that's what I get for complaining in any way about Flower. But I will be strong and resilient like that pink blossomed tree. I will bounce from game to game with gusto - like a volleyball bounces over a net, like large and perky animated breasts bounce in a skimpy bikini top!