Whether we are meant to be those people, anyway.
Are we Mario, or are we his custodian for the hours in which we play?
We’re in sync.
His apartment is blandly pleasant but claustrophobic.
His bank account is overdrawn and his life in general seems rattly and hollow.
Over the course of an hour or so, all of this changes.
There’s a woman, another man, and a gun.
Things race towards an ugly climax.
Writing or porn on the computer in the bedroom.
The making of small, disappointing meals to eat.
When to rest, when to turn off the lights to conserve electricity.
When to do a bit of a tidy up and when to think about handling the dishes.
Sit down.Okay, I will.Eat.Alright then.
Anyway, it gives the world a wonderfully maddening kind of urgency.
By removing you from the surface of the action a little, everything in the apartment becomes very important.
The domestic toil becomes a kind of drama of weariness.
Again: we are this man, but we also aren’t.
We make his choices but we also observe him.
It all makes for a game that’s fascinating in its capturing of a very specific experience of mundanity.
