Whats a game without a gun??

I’m getting a very unique experience from CATHERINE that I hardly get from playing video games. Its weird when you try to pitch it to other game kids..

“So, what’s CATHERINE about?”
“O, man! It’s so awesome! You play a character that accidently cheats on his girlfriend and doesn’t know what to do!”
“…?... Sounds stupid..”

I don’t blame them. I might as well say that the game is about a teenager who gets an “F” in English and has to keep it from his parents before they ground him from the big dance coming up at school. The fact of the matter is is that dealing with REAL life situations sounds boring. I’m no different. If you ask me..

“Would you rather have a western shootout in “El Chuparosa” with a bunch of crazy outlaw Mexicans with the ability to slow down time to give effect to the awesome nature of action and precision… or deal with your inner feelings?”
“Can I shoot my feelings in the face in slow-mo?”
“No”
“Bring on the outlaws!!!”

All that, and yet, I’m talking to EVERYONE in the bar that Vincent gets to walk around in when he’s not dealing with his crazy puzzle nightmares. Getting more back story and advice on what he should do about his situation. And that’s optional! Ask any of my friends who know the way I play a game and they’ll tell you that I don’t go out of my way to collect ANYTHING. If it’s not on the path of the main campaign storyline, I don’t want anything to do with it. I didn’t collect the INTEL, FEATHERS, COG TAGS, PLAYBOY MAGS, RIDDLER’S RIDDLES, AUDIO DIARIES, COFFEE MUGS, MANUSCRIPTS, HIDDEN TRESURE, GOLDEN BOLTS, GORGON EYES, NEWSPAPERS or even the FLYING RATS. What I tell myself is that when I don’t collect that stuff, I give the game replay value. I’ll just come back to it. Yeah… I don’t. But for some reason, I’m talking to everyone and interacting with anything interact-able. And I think the reason is because, I CARE!! DUN DUN DUN!!! *scary music*
Another thing that I’ve noticed about CATHERINE besides the developers making me care about Vincent’s dilemma is that there is no villain. Every time you play a game, you know who your villain is pretty quickly. Take BIOSHOCK, for example: Right when you get into Rapture, you know the villain is Andrew Ryan. You will spend the next 10 hours hunting him down because he is your target. And that’s the way it is with all games with a story campaign. Its as if we are all trained to be bounty hunters or something. But CATHERINE is not clear on who I’m supposed to be hunting down. Its because it doesn’t seem like anyone is “the bad guy” in this game. You’d figure that Catherine is the bad guy.. er.. girl?.. whatever.. because she is the one that gets Vincent to cheat on his girlfriend. But she didn’t know he was taken! So it seems that Vincent would be the bad guy!...?... So, I’m playing as the villain? Or is his mind the villain? And if this is the case through the whole game (having no real villain), then this game is something I’ve never played before. And that’s a great thing! In a world where like more than 60 percent is a shooter based game, a different game all together sounds good. We can’t let new ideas be flushed away because we’re so used to the ones we already have. We can’t let the video game medium become what films have, which is a huge bulk of remakes and sequels. We can’t be afraid to try new things. I need to listen to my own advice. My top three favorite games are sequels. Bottom line, is that CATHERINE is a great game so far. I doubt it’ll be game of the year or anything, but I’m sure it’ll be a risky success.