The Most Devastating Video Game You’ve Never Played
Feeling disappointed when story beats are cut short is one thing, but that's mixed with the existential understanding of why you're there in the first place: that Benjamin is reliving these times with his family and eventually he's going to get to the end, and be stuck on that boat in the afterlife without them. Each blink is a reminder that you're getting closer to this character's death - and it's coming much quicker than you want. No matter how much you try, you will blink, and Benjamin will age, and he will die. No MLG video game skills can alter that here.
The futility of this outcome genuinely stressed me out the more the game progressed. It's not unique, but the worry that my life is spiralling away from me is something I think about every single day. I live in the pursuit of stopping time, and every day I hope it will just slow down. Slow down, or stop, so I can come up for air and feel in control. I haven't managed to figure this trick out yet, and now I can't even master it in a video game.
Sometimes it can fee like I'm living with a comically large video game time limit above my head, where moments of joy are experienced only in relation to a vague future doom that will take them away. Before Your Eyes transforms that awful feeling into a game mechanic. Fighting for Benjamin to be able to fully enjoy his life, and not simply skip through it, wasn't simply me just being invested in a character. Playing Before Your Eyes felt like proving a point to myself, trying to slow this life down as much as possible, to pry my eyes open and come up for air. But the blink is inevitable. Before Your Eyes keeps reminding you that you can't live in this moment forever, so should stop trying and just appreciate it instead. It took me a long time to accept that.
Now this theme alone would have been affecting enough, but the game drives it home with an incredibly emotional ending so, full warning, this is where I'm going to have to completely spoil the plot to explain how. If I've sold you so far though, please go and try it yourself....
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