Serena (Plus Small Rant About Gone Home and The Stanley Parable)

Every month I try to play at least one game released this year to add to my list of Awesome 2014 releases so that I have a nice pool of games to choose from when it comes to picking my top 5 in December.

This month I went with free Steam indie title, Serena and let me tell you, it won't be making any "best of" lists any time soon.

Serena is a very strange game, just because it's a free game that is never announced to you.  I saw it on Steam one day and when I clicked it to get more information, it said "You Already Own Serena".  This confused me since I hadn't bought it, or pressed any download button and it wasn't sitting in my library, but I went with it and gave it a download.  Checking the store now it's clearly labelled as free but I'm sure it wasn't when it was on the front page, but whatever.

According to the blurb on the store page for steam, Serena is an adventure game but that couldn't really be any further from the truth.  Serena is one of those "games" that keep popping up recently.  Absolutely 0 gameplay to be had, just story, more like interactive fiction than a game.  So that must mean the story is pretty good right?  Well no, it's not

The game starts out and your character is sat at a table.  The first thing you are presented with is a photo of him and his wife, but his wife has a scratched out face and he comments about how he can't remember anything about her.  You then walk around his log cabin, clicking on things and listening to him ramble about fond memories of her.  The next few paragraphs contain spoilers, I'll mark them and then you can skip past them if you actually give any kind of crap (you shouldn't)

SPOILERS

As you find items, he starts to remember some kind of argument they had and his ramblings go from fond memories to rants about how much he hates her.  You keep clicking around and in a pretty predictable twist you find a dead body in a cabinet which I think is the protagonists body (you're playing as his ghost or something, who fucking knows), then you get a scene with his (ex) wife and her new lover burning down the log cabin to hide the evidence of her killing you.

END SPOILERS

It sounds like an interesting premise to be honest with you, but it's so poorly presented that it failed to really grasp me.  Straight away I have no idea who anyone is, where I am or why I should care about this guy and his fucking problems.  He can ramble all he wants about his wife and how much he loves her whenever I click on a chair or a dinner table but at the end of the day I just don't give a flying rats arse.  The game presents me with no reason to care about these characters and there isn't really any conflict to resolve, I'm just listening to memories and watching events play out and I have absolutely 0 input.

So, it's a badly presented story with 0 gameplay, puzzle solving or brain power required so calling it an adventure game is a bit of an insult.  If you want to play a real adventure game with a vague plot about a man who can't remember a person who may or may not be his lover, play fucking Anna

http://identitygaming.blogspot.jp/2013/10/anna-extended-edition.html

Now, what does Serena, Gone Home and The Stanley Parable all have in common?

They aren't fucking games.  Now Gone Home and Serena are complete dogshit on a stick, but The Stanley Parable proved that you can have a game like this and make it entertaining at the same time, but I think the definition of "game" is a bit stupid.

Another title that proved you need minimal game play to be enjoyable is the Silent Hill Play Novel, a Japan only book version of Silent Hill which tries to expand on the game by going into great detail about Harry Mason's thoughts and feelings during his adventures through the haunted town.

But in Japan, people KNOW this shit doesn't really qualify as a game, and thus has been assigned it's own genre title of Sound Novel or Visual Novel.  I would stop getting so upset about Gone Home or Parable being praised so much if they weren't praised as being games.

The derogatory term I keep seeing get thrown around for these games is "walking simulator", which is kind of funny but a little unfair.  Give them a name fitting of their content, like interactive fiction or something then maybe I'll stop being so upset when they keep winning awards that they don't fucking deserve.

Interactive Fiction award?  Sure I can handle that
Adventure game award?  Get fucked and go play Monkey Island or Beneath a Steel Sky and learn what a REAL adventure game is you brain dead bag of shitty tissues.