This game is called Mountain. Just Mountain. I love that it's not even called Mountain Simulator. Something being simulated would imply that you're getting a copy of, in this case, a mountain's experience, real as it may appear, but without its essence. Surgeon simulator is called such because you don't get the full surgeon pack. You don't have to go to college or cure actual people, and you don't have to feel all of the pressure that a real surgeon endures. This though, this is the real deal. This is how it feels to be a mountain. In the words of TotalBiscuit, it's fucking nothing. The option menu tells you from the start that there are no controls. Every now and then, a phrase comes up in the corner. I assume it's something the mountain's thinking. I only got the one that says "I feel like a child in the night" or some randomness like that (I got bored before finding any other ones, "hurr durr doesn't even play the whole game before reviewing it 0/10"). Entirely introspective phrases for a game that's all about introspection. But wait, wasn't this game nothing? "Fucking" nothing, even. And how can a mountain even feel? Or know what a child is? Well I think it's not only the mountain that's talking, but the game. Which in some way is the same thing, but follow me for a second.
Yes, I know that there's a question that every single reader wants me to ask and answer. Probably the reason why you clicked this post in the first place. "Is this a game?" you ask. Many of you legitimately care. You legitimately want to know what the flying fuck went to this game designer's head, and if anybody actually got something valuable from it.
This guy got it.
Except some of you don't. You don't really care, you already know the answer. Why yes you do. But you need some reinforcement. You need that warm fuzzy feeling of knowing you thought what had to be thought, you thought right; that warm feeling you get when you think of something and later some politician says the same thing you thought. "Phew, I'm smart! Somebody important agrees". Or maybe the opposite, someone stupid says something stupid and you get confirmation that you're not stupid. Like those mentally deranged game critics that somehow enjoyed and even rated favourably this game. Well, I agree with you, as a journalist I can say without a doubt that many people talk without having any training or knowledge, formal or not, in their field. How many critics wouldn't be able to recognize a beautiful game if it hit them in the head with a brick? But precisely what Mountain teaches us is that, if you move the camera and wait, it'll give you plastic toys, rain and any kind of shit, but it'll also give you a total of zero fucks.
Is Mountain a videogame, though? Cut the bullshit, Charly. Well, honestly I'm forced to say it is. And the reason behind that is very simple: it couldn't exist as anything else. The game is randomly generated, and appears to use drawings made by you as a seed. The camera can be moved freely and the game doesn't force any particular path or telos [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/telos] on its control. It's also potentially never-ending. Nothing other than a videogame could possibly have these things. "Interactive animation! interactive movie!" I hear you spout nonsensical, invented words. "Interactive movie" is the most ridiculous term I've heard in a while (I was going to say it's retarded, but apparently we're not allowed to use that word anymore [http://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/2cje26/jontron_called_playstation_now_the_most_painfully/]). A movie is, by definition, physically restricted to the point of view of the artist/director. A game is also restricted to the desire of the creator (duh) but there's an easily palpable lack of linearity. If the route was fixed, the camera's pathing pre made, and it had a beginning and an end, it wouldn't be a game. Like Thirty Flights of Loving. I don't think that one should be called a game, even if it was any good. It's interactivity is incidental, that is, it serves no purpose.
But Mountain not only does have those properties, it has an extra thing that most games lately haven't been even close to having. It doesn't give a shit about you. It stands, tall and firm, like a mountain, and extends its imaginary middle finger to all of us, me included. It's the most realistic experience you'll get from a game, ever. Arma III will never truly show you what it feels like to be in the army, but Mountain gives the full mountain experience: being shit, monotonous, limited and totally useless, but impervious to time and blows. All of the game's time is inverted on its one task: taking shape and presenting itself to you. And it works beautifully to guarantee you that end (minus the ridiculous system requirements). It guarantees you what a million dlc's will never be able to, that it's complete and finished. It guarantees you what no AAA game can, that it'll never be influenced by sales or the opinions of the lowest common denominator. It's more of a game than most games I've played lately. It's much more truthful to what a game should be or aspire to be.
Look at it. It's unoriginal and poignantly bad, but can we say the modern game industry is any better? Can we say we are any better? No we can't. It doesn't scare me that a million joke simulators are popping up on the internet, ready to erode our videogame values and arian culture, stealing our jobs and selling drugs to the kids. What scares me is that they give me more to talk about than the other games.
2/10, GOTY