Knack: Why the Cute, Simple Platformer is Still Relevant (To Me)

E3 was this week, and after seeing everything that Sony's new Playstation 4 system has to offer, there is a noticeable army of reasons, a large, threatening army in fact, to choose it over Microsoft's Xbox One when both systems are released this Winter. The one that swayed me personally is, incidentally, one that has gotten little hype from the blogs and gaming sites. Knack, SCE Japan's action-oriented platformer that looks to be aimed at the E10 to T market, looks to be a throwback (and boy do I feel old saying this) to the Jak and Daxter/Ratchet and Clank-style games that helped Playstation's second incarnation become so popular. While Knack has garnered some interest, mostly for being the only launch title of it's kind in a sea of military shooters, some more Victorian than others, I'm curious to see how it stacks up in what has become a very mature market.

As I said, I have a personal interest in Knack, or rather the young teen platformer genre as a whole. There's a tradition in my house, now about a decade old, that whenever a promising-looking platformer is released, my dad and I jump on the chance to buy it, then spend the next three months putting our heads together to beat it's various puzzles, bosses, and whatever else it wants to throw our way. One of us being a lawyer, and the other an overenthusiastic science fiction fan, there's very few projects that pique a mutual interest, this particular genre, though, is probably the biggest. It's a bonding thing, much in the same way that some dads help their sons build model ships, and with my dad having maybe a third a strand of gamer gene in his DNA, very few games make him say "When's the release date?"

My dad's barely touched the Xbox 360. I'd never deny that both Xbox systems have seen some amazing platformers, or games with platforming elements, but most had such complicated controls that, while a seasoned gamer like me could pick it up within a half hour, someone like my dad, who has only  played a handful of games in his life, would struggle with the logic the average gamer takes for granted. Assasin's Creed is a good example. He tried it as soon as I brought it home, but between the complicated combat system (which I've heard they improved) and the confusing (even to me) parkour controls, he dumped it after twenty minutes. That being said, Assasin's Creed is a fantastic game. Xbox makes fantastic games; Just nothing for my dad. I do mean my dad too, and while that may be the narrowest demographic short of one half of Composite Superman, it has cost Microsoft a customer, at least for now.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. I can't wait for Holiday 2013.