The videogame industry and movie industry are usually similar, yet far apart in certain aspects. Movies can use positioning of items and different camera angles to give a stronger effect, and the videogame medium allows the player to take control of their character to feel a greater connection. What would happen if these two were combined? As it happens, there is just that very mixture right here in the form of Virginia, and Cubed3 is about to reveal just how impress the combination is…
From the very start, one thing is very clear when playing Virginia, and that is that it’s no ordinary videogame. There are now challenges or puzzles, or basically anything that gamers might be used to (save for in visual novels). Instead, this is more akin to an interactive movie where the key to reach those playing is dependent on the exact positioning of items, and Virginia does this in the most beautiful way possible. It works really hard on the camera angles, as well, to set an extremely surrealistic and dramatic mood, which can be felt throughout the entirety of the experience in a way that very few, if any, titles before it have succeeded in doing.
There is a very special art style that is very easy to dismiss as poor work, initially. It doesn’t take long to realise, though, that this is meant to put the characters into the uncanny valley. The characters look just human enough to be seen as such while still keeping an ounce of creepy surrealism about them.
This creepy surrealism is present throughout most sequences, with those in control following a new female F.B.I. agent who, in contrast, seems very ordinary and common, and is on a classified mission to expose one of her fellow agents. These segments are mixed with some extremely bizarre sections that range from funny to psychologically disturbing. To add to the feeling of confusion, the developer has chosen to not let the player hear any spoken words. This means that some large parts of the story are hidden.
This is sometimes used very skilfully to add to the uncanny mood Virginia aims for, but sometimes it becomes too off-putting and unclear. Depending on who is at the controls, it can be either a pleasure or an annoyance that they sometimes are really kept in the dark about what happens and that the difference between what is real or unreal is completely erased to the point of it being questionable if it is there at all.
Virginia is a very confusing game, which works both in its favour, yet also to its detriment. What solely works in its favour, though, is the extremely skilful placement of objects, camera angle, and very uncanny art-style. Few games succeed to this degree in capturing and delivering a mood as well as Virginia does during its strongest sequences. Thanks to the fact that the game is really short, even those annoyed by the confusion will get to those parts before losing patience with being trapped in the dark so that they can understand the beauty of the mystery at hand.
