Connor Occhipinti's review of The Long Dark
Date last edited: 12-06-2024 at 11:31PM
Rating: Teen
Review:
Video Game Review
Title: The Long Dark
Developer: Hinterland Studio Inc.
Genre: Survival
ERSB Rating: T - for Teens
My Rating: 4/5 stars
Primary Audience: Teens and Adults
Year of Release: 2017
Platform: X-Box, Playstation and Nintendo Switch, Steam
Trailer: https://youtu.be/diRPolJzmjc?si=CR25Jzo_KHMF-1az
Wikipedia describes The Long Dark video game as "a first-person survival video game developed and published by Hinterland Studios. The player assumes the role of crash-landed bush pilot Will Mackenzie who must survive the frigid Canadian wilderness after a geomagnetic storm." Let's look at this game using Dr. Gan's seven keys to evaluating media.
The First Media Key - Balance
The first media key in the book Infinite Bandwidth is balance. Dr. Gan says to pray for the virtue of temperance in order to practice balance with our media use. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that the virtue of temperance "ensures the will's mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the limits of what is honorable" (CCC 1809). The Long Dark game is a first person survival game that draws you in as a character. Like so many other video games, you do have to be careful that you don't spend too much time playing it.
The Second Media Key - Attitude Awareness
The second media key in the book Infinite Bandwidth - attitude awareness - requires us to pray for the virtue of prudence. This virtue “immediately guides the judgment of conscience. The prudent man determines and directs his conduct in accordance with this judgement.” (CCC 1806). In his book, Dr. Gan reminds us with this second key to do our research by reading reviews on a game before playing it. The reviews on The Long Dark show why it is rated for teens and older. On Steam, and on the game trailer, it says that The Long Dark has some language, blood and violence. Some of the attack moments in the game are pretty violent and blood is shown. Common Sense Media rated The Long Dark as being for 13 and older. However some of the parent and kid reviewers thought that was an old review, because they say there is a lot of bad language in the more recent versions of the game. There is a language filter I think you can put on the game to avoid hearing all the language. So that might be a good thing to do. Overall, I do think the rating of teens and up is right for The Long Dark game.
The Third Media Key - Dignity of the Human Person
The third key in the book Infinite Bandwidth - dignity of the human person - requires us to pray for the virtue of justice. One of the questions that Dr. Gan suggests we ask with this third media key is whether or not the media depicts the characters "as being responsible for their own choices?" (Gan 63). In The Long Dark the characters have a chance to make lots of choices themselves and those choices determine how the game goes and how well they survive. Unlike so many games teens and young adults play today, The Long Dark doesn't have inappropriate and unnecessary sexual scenes, so that's good and respectful of the game character's dignity too.
The Fourth Media Key - Truth-Filled
The fourth key in the book Infinite Bandwidth is being truth-filled. Dr. Gan says to pray for the virtue of fortitude which helps us "to conquer fear, even fear of death, and to face trials and persecutions." (CCC 1808). I think this game is a great one to play to practice conquering fear and fear of death. There are tons of challenges in the game and chances at dying from the extreme weather, lack of food, lack of water, intense exhaustion and even attacks by animals. Some of these survival situations can be pretty scary, and you do have to keep thinking clearly to overcome them. You definitely need the virtue of fortitude to survive as a character in The Long Dark.
The Fifth Media Key - Inspiring
The fifth key in the book Infinite Bandwidth is inspiring. When we apply this key we should pray for the virtue of of hope. Dr. Gan suggests we again research for this media key and find out "what the aim - the mission - the vision - the purpose, of a particular piece of media is (Gan 96). This game is focused on surviving in a challenging environment. This game moves at a slower pace than most popular games. One player on Reddit said, "The game is meditative, largely a solitary experience, except for the occasional predator attack. It has a journal where you can write notes of where things are stashed, mark the environment and draw maps of the land, and build a custom game if you're not loving any of the preset difficulties! The director described it as Fallout 3 without the annoying enemies constantly breaking the solitary, meditative, eerily beautiful environment." Not only is the scenery beautiful and inspiring, but the mission/purpose of the game is to survive in it based on what decisions you very carefully make is too.
The Sixth Media Key - Skillfully Developed
The sixth media key is being skillfully developed. "When we fail to recognize what constitutes skillfully developed media, we fail to incorporate the principles governing well-designed media into our own use" (Gan 110). This is easy to do with video games by just playing what's most popular or what most people are talking about. Sometimes we don't stop to consider if a video game is well designed. But The Long Dark is for sure a well-designed game. It has won awards that show this. In 2018 The Long Dark won a Webby award for "best writing" and another for "best strategy and simulation." It was also nominated in 2018 for Webby awards for "best music/sound design", "best game design" and "best art direction." That same year it was also nominated for numerous Canadian Videogame awards.
The Seventh Media Key - Motivated By & Relevant to Experience
Dr. Gan reminds us that for the seventh media key - motivated by and relevant to experience - we should pray for the virtue of charity. "Media should reflect our experience of the media. It should do what media is supposed to do: create a sensory experience - an experience that appeals to our senses" (Gan 117). The Long Dark definitely does that. Common Sense Media sees The Long Dark video game as making us think about how we live today. "The gameplay acts as a cautionary tale about how much humanity has come to rely on modern luxuries such as electricity, communications, and readily available consumables and how easily those without survival training might perish in the true wild." Some people wonder if the game really teaches you to survive in the wild. The game does helps you think through some survival situations, but you have to remember it is still a game. A Reddit player said, "The game presents a reasonably accurate set of challenges to what one might actually face in a survival situation, but does not accurately portray the methods or difficulty in actually overcoming those challenges."
I do think most people, teens and up, especially people who like to be outdoors, would like to play this game. As someone on Reddit said, "If you're a patient gamer who wants to relax, if you enjoy camping, survival, nature, and pensive exploration, you should play The Long Dark!" You should try it and see.
Seven Keys:
Balanced:
Attitude:
Personal:
Truth-filled:
Inspired:
Skillfully Made:
Experienced:
Overall Rating: 28/35
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