A week with Baby Steps has made me feel like I’m losing my grip. Is this game stupid, or am I the stupid one for playing it?
Instead of doing anything normal with my life for the past week, I have been on a horrible hiking holiday with the worst man in the world. In Baby Steps, you play as a useless imbecile called Nate who has done basically nothing with his 35 years on this planet except sit in his parents’ basement and watch anime re-runs. One day he is transported, in his adult onesie, to the foot of a surreal mountain decorated with phallic imagery, and you must get him to the top by controlling his feet individually, lifting them carefully with the controller’s triggers and placing them with the analogue stick.
This is ludicrously difficult. Sometimes you’re marching up an easy slope, but you’re often edging over narrow planks, scrambling up dunes with tiny steps, or grasping rocky ledges with his toes. Over and over Nate trips and tumbles, whining piteously as he slides down a muddy slope or bank of sand, his onesie becoming increasingly soiled. Over and over, you get up and try again. Occasionally an Australian guy with crazy eyes or a pantsless donkey man with dangling genitals shows up to gently mock you and offer help that Nate, infuriatingly, refuses to accept.
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