“This isn’t so bad,” you’ll say to yourself. Then, claim your prize - most of the time it’ll be a tetromino piece you’ll use to unlock some new mechanic or open up a whole new wing filled with puzzle rooms. Like all the best puzzle games (Portal comes to mind), The Talos Principle starts small, first introducing you to forcefields and jammers. When you’re not turned into a puddle of metaphysical goo by a computer, The Talos Principle’s puzzles (which make up the majority of the game’s activities) will constantly keep you guessing. It’s a game that always feels like it’s five steps ahead of you. The puzzles are consistently challenging, never unfair, and always satisfying. “Should I have said the other thing? That would have made more sense, wouldn’t it?” It’s the first time I’ve ever felt truly outsmarted by a video game - well, in a way that didn’t involve hitting a gameplay brick wall, anyway. I never felt that I truly had a handle on my own reasoning, and I was always filled with doubt about my responses. Mentally sparring with these white letters on a black computer screen has been one of the most exciting moments I’ve ever had in a video game. For every argument you have, he has an equally valid counterargument ready to poke holes in your dialectic. You’ll meet him in the computer as you solve puzzles, and you’ll debate the finer metaphysical points of what existence means, or what qualification it takes to “be” a person. But each one, disparate though it may seem, ties back into the whole of the game’s narrative: What does it mean to be this unique identity that we call “human?”Īnd then there’s the ghost in the machine the “serpent” as Elohim calls him. You get deep thoughts from established writers all the way down to chat room logs of nerds talking about what aliens would think of our video games. In fact, it’s almost like a “greatest hits” collection of humanity. Some findings are filled with random blog posts, others with musings from philosophers like Kant or Socrates, but each one is equally important in fleshing out The Talos Principle’s weird, glitched-out world. Inklings of a grand experiment destined to save the last spark of humanity. There are hints of a great calamity that befell the Earth, long ago. This off kilter feeling is actualized through the audio logs and computer archives I stumbled across. Why is this world so barren and lifeless, and yet so full of different and varied puzzles? Who is this god-like Elohim, where is his booming and mysterious voice coming from, and why did he create this random collection of progressively difficult brain teasers for me to solve? Is there a way out? Do I even want to find a way out? Is there a reward for solving these things? Or am I like Sisyphus, doomed to push a metaphorical rock up a hill with no chance for salvation at the end? The Talos Principle is filled with classic architecture and art, but the real question is: Why?Īs I explored the world of The Talos Principle, klaxons blared in my head. The Talos Principle is a Socratic dialog, told through the language of video games. To pontificate on the wondrous uselessness and futility of existence. To wonder if those things that I believe in are as important as I think they are. For the first time ever in my existence as a person who plays and discusses video games, an interactive experience has caused me to doubt. Whether that’s actually real in the definition of the word (i.e., are we actually living in the Matrix right now?) doesn’t matter, because my perception of reality is real to me.īut what The Talos Principle did was make me reflect on the things I value, the views I have on the world, and question them. For me, that’s what reality is: the essence of being alive and experiencing glorious high-points and staggering lows, of learning new things and meeting and working with fantastic (and some less than fantastic) people. I’m typing these words onto the page, the words are given meaning by their context, and those words get beamed onto a computer screen for your enjoyment. Now, it wasn’t anything so grandiose as me wondering if I’m even real (or, what if, like, we’re all just someone’s dream, man?). Never has a game made me question my own existence.
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