Flower
Art evokes, inspires, makes you feel. No matter what anyone says video games are art as long as someone asserts they are art. If a piece ignites you, sets the gears of your mind working and gives you that little jolt of inspiration or awareness, that's art. Flower is art. Flower is essentially a short, compartmentalized platform game with incredibly forgiving controls. But that's just the construction of the piece. That is the medium. That is the wood framework and linen canvas and gesso. Flower is the piece and Flower is awesome by the very definition of the word.
During the dusk sequences I can literally feel the cool summer evening breeze sweeping over me, in the sunlight I can smell the grass and the crickets chirping and wind rushing past my ears literally made me tear up. One button to go fast. The motion controls move you around, and the whole package is one of the smoothest, most satisfying play control schemes I have ever played with.
Like tasting all the individual ingredients in a dish, I can see all the different individual game influences in Flower. Katamari Damacy, Sonic the Hedgehog, Braid, Okami, Yoshi's Island...
I am so gay for this game. Buy it with your ten dollars on the Playstation Network now, please. Flower is beautiful and great and everything I love about video games and the hobby surrounding playing them. I have no complaints.
