Building A Better Tomorrow

This past week saw the Steam Summer Sale come and go. Last year was the first full year I was really into PC gaming and that Summer Sale ruined me: I think I bought anywhere between 25-50 games (most of which I have yet to play even). I'm happy to say that my wallet isn't crying this year. I bought a mere handful of games which include Risk of Rain, Stronghold HD, Shadowrun Returns and Banished.

All those games peaked my interest enough to warrant a purchase, but none more so than Banished. I had a hankering for some city building and Banished looks to scratch that itch the new SimCity couldn't.

Castaways

The premise of Banished is that you are a group of nomads that got exorcised from their home town. Tired of wandering aimlessly, they decide everyone at their old town was stupid, and to start their own town...with strippers and blackjack...wait, what!? It's a simple concept that exists solely to set up the game (there are no strippers or blackjack).

There are a handful of tutorials that do well to bring you up to speed with the basics of Banished. When you start a new game, there are a few settings you can modify before it procedurally generates the terrain you will play with. The settings I mentioned are simple things like if you want to have the terrain more mountainous (which is a pain as you lose a lot of building area); how severe you want the weather to be (it gets cold in Winter); the difficulty setting, which determines how many people/structures you start off with. There’s even a setting that allows players to select whether to have disasters on or off. It's a pretty flexible system.

Sim Village

I've always been a fan of SimCity, but the latest one just didn't do it for me. The developers changed it quite a bit—made the maps smaller for the purpose of the added multiplayer—and it didn't instill the same feeling I got while playing SimCity 2000.

Banished on the other hand is just solid city building mixed with a little bit of a survival game. In SimCity, you have a population of thousands upon thousands with a massive city budget and all kinds of utilities to think of. In Banished, you start off with a group of villagers. Everyone has a name and a part to play. You assign jobs to everyone, if there is no work currently for that profession, swap them to something else. There is a lot of micromanagement if you want to delve in.

Villagers move into houses and have babies. They also grow old and die in the same house. People can die for whatever reason too—mostly due to old age mind you—and this is where the survival-game aspect comes into play. There are seasons to worry about...well only one: Winter. You have to keep the fire wood stocked up, and make sure everyone has clothing and a house to live in, or they will start dropping like flies.

Freak accidents do happen as well. So far 2 people have died from randomness: One woman died in labor, and someone else got crushed by a rock in the quarry. You set up cemeteries so that their loved ones aren't too sad when people die.

Keeping track of your villagers' happiness (along with their health) is also a part of the game. For the most part they are pretty simple. As long as they have a balanced diet (don't just have one source of food basically) their health will be fine. If it dips, you can always build a clinic. For happiness, it starts off easy; give them a place to live and something to do. If they start getting restless you can build a tavern and get someone to brew ale.

A large part of the game is resource management. You can set up all kinds of buildings to have a replenishing source of materials: Foresters can be placed to cut down and plant new trees; build a Mine to get iron and coal; Farmers plant seeds and grow crop; Herdsman keep track of live stock; etc.

The most interesting (and probably most annoying) part about the latter 2 professions I mentioned is that you can't just grow whatever, you need to have the appropriate seeds (same goes for the herding, you need to have at least 2 animals to get more). You start the game with no animals and a few seeds and in order to increase your repertoire you need to set up a trading post along the river. Once built, a merchant will boat in and trade with you. This is a really cool feature, but the annoying part is you have no control over what the merchant brings in, so if you want to grow wheat (for the beer!) or raise sheep for wool, you have to wait till someone brings it...which can take a looooooong while. I should mention that if someone does bring seeds, he is therefore a seed merchant and you can place a special order with him if he didn't bring what you wanted/needed, but he charges extra for the service.

Final Thoughts

If you like city builders and were disappointed with the latest SimCity, I would check out Banished. It's definitely on a smaller scale compared to SimCity, but it's done very well.

Overall I'm having a lot of fun with the game. I started a simple game so far (that I've put about 7 hours into) and once it starts getting boring, I'll take my new found knowledge into a new game with different settings and see what my villagers are made of!

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Little Love for Limbo

Limbo is visually attractive, and probably pretty good. I say probably rather than definitely in the hopes that my reservations about recommending this game come through effectively. You see, Limbo starts off brilliantly but by game’s end, feels tedious and unenjoyable (although, maybe that’s the point).

“Oh, it’s a good game”

Echoing what Brandon had mentioned several weeks back, I too feel as though Limbo is incredibly atmospheric. Likely, if you know nothing else about the game, you’ll still be familiar with the game’s rich, detailed environments, its monochromatically saturated world, and the piercingly bright eyes of the game’s main character. Limbo is quite successful at subterfuge, and manages quite convincingly to wear a moustache and hat of atmosphere over its rotting core...

“Oh, it’s good...for an indie game”

...And what a stench. The first third of the game allows its creepy and desolate world to draw you in. You are chased by a giant spider. You scamper, climb, push and pull. The world is understandable in its horrors.

Gradually the game’s world changes, with the early wooded sections giving way to a crumbling industrial section. It is here where the game loses much of what I enjoyed about it: instead of remaining simple and understandable in its puzzles, developers Playdead begin to pile on increasingly obtuse physics-based environmental puzzles which, while inventive, punch the game’s pace in the gut, laughing while pacing stumbles onto the floor, curls up, and dies.

Limbo never recovers from this tonal shift, and only progresses into even more complicated puzzles involving gravity and repetitive machinery. It’s about as much fun as you would expect either to be.

Final Thoughts

The only thing that should matter about the time you spend when playing a video game is whether it was intellectually, artistically or immediately enjoyable to you. If I were to take my own advice and employ this pragmatic point of view, then I would tepidly recommend Limbo to you.

Sadly, I feel that the game misses the mark as much as it nails it. Its atmosphere and simplicity early game feel like a fleeting memory by game’s end. Guess it might be best to simply wash away the hurt, and remember that Limbo sports a strapping monochromatic moustache and hat. 

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TBT - Asphalt Athlete

I'm a pretty huge sports fan. I watch Sports Centre nearly every day. And I'm always up for a pick-up game of whatever. Soccer, Hockey, Football, Volleyball, Baseball...Ultimate frisbee...you name it, I'll play it!

There is a hyper-realistic video game version of nearly every sport you can think of (I'm still waiting for the day that Hurlinggets the video game treatment though). They're all fine and dandy, but nothing really beats the "street" versions of these games. FIFA, NBA and NFL Street are some of the best sports games made from an entertainment standpoint.

On The Street

The Street series was an EA franchise. And since they had all the rights to the players of a respective league / sport, all the games actually used real players. Some of the games even had you creating your own team by mixing players from all over. It was sort of like a mini manager mode: you were always on the hunt for better players to add to your roster.

The main draw to these games was how they moved away from the realism and created a more arcade experience. Players have super moves, run off walls and do flips, set the ball on fire, blow up nets, etc. It's crazy! Personally I played a lot of FIFA and NBA street. I never really touched NFL, but I know Sean used to own it on PS2 and loved it.

Since these were "pick-up games", they were also always played with less people than a normal sport would have (lots of 3 on 3's). Smaller teams actually changed the dynamic of the sport quite a bit...you know, on top of setting stuff on fire.

Foul Play

The last game that was released in the series was a reboot of FIFA Street, which was only a couple of years ago. I would hardly count this though because they drastically removed a lot of the crazy-ness, opting for a more authentic feel rather than a street-sport game, and focusing more on tricks you could practice but never perform in a real game.

The last realrelease was FIFA Street 3, which was 6 years ago on the PS3/360—NFL and NBA were released as well on PS3/360, but dropped the street name from the game and changed focus a bit, much like the FIFA reboot. Taking this into consideration, maybe the series is dead. But I for one hope it isn't, and would love to see a new release on the PS4/XBOne. 

I feel that there truly is a market for these Street-style games: sports games are some of the most popular in the industry, and the best part about these games was that even people who typically don't play sports games had fun with them (Sean is a perfect example). Bring back the arcade experience, I don't care if it's "authentic". Just make it over the top... Are you listening EABitch?

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Naughty Novices

This week’s board game is one of my favourites, and it's called Nuns on the Run. Nuns is a competitive game for 2 to 8 players but I find it's more fun if you play with at least 5 players; the game feels better and it’s more fun for the abbess and prioress player(s). The game takes place in a convent and the players are either novices or the head nuns and each has their own objectives and goals. The game setup is pretty simple: lay out the board, deal a secret wish card to each novice and a blessing card to each player.

The goal of a novice is to sneak around the convent and try to collect their secret wish. First they must find the necessary key, which is somewhere in the convent. Its location, along with your secret wish, is marked on the secret wish card. The first novice to collect both and return to her room wins. The abbess and prioress are patrolling the halls looking for any novices out after dark—if they catch enough novices equal to the number of players in the games, it's all over and the nuns win.

One of the interesting and fun aspects of the game is that it’s primarily stealth based and uses a pen and paper log system to keep track of the players' movements. The game works like this, the novices have 4 options of movement: running, walking, sneaking and standing still, each having a pro and con which is illustrated on the cards. Each turn you choose which card you want to use and play it face down, then you mark on your log what card you used and what coordinates you ended your turn on and then when everyone is ready you all flip the cards and roll a die. The die roll is to figure out how much noise your shuffling around in the dark has made; more noise means your easier to find but being sneaky and quiet means you’ve made less headway towards your goal. If you make too much noise the nuns might hear you, allowing them to veer of their path and find you.

The prioress and abbess each move along predetermined paths chosen by the player(s) from the guard path deck. The nuns see everything in front of them in a 180 degree arc, so when they patrol their predetermined paths, they can only deviate if they hear or see a novice. Any novices in their line of sight get revealed and are forced to place their player token on the board allowing the nuns to see their movements, making them easier to catch.

Once a nun catches a novice, the novice must return to her room. If she was holding her secret item, it’s confiscated and she has to run to the room and collect another one before she can win the game. She also has to keep her player token on the board until the nuns lose sight of her, at that time she can choose to remove her piece from the board or leave it and continue on her way but as soon as she does, she’s vulnerable to being caught again. It’s not always a good idea to pop out of sight and run as soon as you can.

The last mechanic are the blessing cards, these are one-time use only and give each player a slight edge—they can be used to trick a guard or to escape from one—but the guards can also use them to their advantage.

The game’s stealth mechanics are really what makes the game as fun and challenging as it is; using line of sight and the different hiding places across the map keep the game interesting and it's fast, so you’ll usually be able to knock a few rounds out in an evening pretty quickly.

I recently thought up some drinking game rules for Nuns which can also incorporate any designated drivers you may have. The rules are simply: if one of the guards sees you, take a drink; if you have to place a scritch or a vanish token, take a drink; and if a guard catches you, take a shot, but if you place any of these tokens and a guard can't see and/or catch you, they have to drink as well. If you win the game, all other players have to finish their beverage of choice. As for the driver variant, have your drivers or all around sober living friends play the role of the nuns and remove their drinking rules.

I don’t think I can recommend this game more highly. Most of the games I play are difficult for most people to pick up initially and daunting but this game is really the opposite, it's quick/easy to learn and it's tons of fun overall. It’s definitely worth picking up even if you’re not a big fan of board games.

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Give It To Me Raw

Recently, I purchased a cheap vinyl player and began listening to a few vinyls. Call me a hipster, but I honestly think it provides a better listening experience.

No, I’m not trying to argue if the medium sounds better on a CD; in fact, vinyl LPs can sound poor if you don’t take proper care of it, or if it was improperly pressed by the record company. I will stress that whenever I listen to a vinyl, I just sit in front of my speakers and listen—no distractions whatsoever.

Most people enjoy passively listening to music in places that don’t allow you to concentrate on the music—in their car, at the gym, at parties, etc. For me, concentrating on listening allows me to appreciate music at a much more active level than ever before.

So how does all of this play into gaming? Easy: every game demands your attention. Think about it—you’re actively taking part in playing a game with a controller in hand. Even if you’re playing a portable game, you’re still required to pay attention.

This active role that I enjoy about gaming is a very fulfilling experience. You immerse yourself in every sense minus smell. You get to enjoy visuals, music, story and most importantly, you take control of the game. It’s easily the most active you can be in front of a screen.

The Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus (Sony’s virtual reality hardware) could easily take gamers even further, but I don’t think VR will be a big financial success. Just like how I listen to vinyl, gaming already seems to be active enough of an experience. Of course, I can only speak for myself but a peripheral on my head would lose its novelty quickly. It’s still interesting as a concept, but who knows how virtual reality will really perform.

Things like VR have already been done in the past, but not in such a big way. This is similar to the craze over 3D movies and games we had a few years back. People now have 3D TVs and are able to play 3D games, but the novelty wore off, and I don’t know anyone that plays their games in 3D.  Most people even turn 3D off on their 3DS nowadays.

3D movies are pretty neat, and the technology has caught up enough to provide a proper experience for the consumer, but in the end, do all these extra features matter? I fear VR will become something tacked-on that developers will be wasting their time on, just to include it. Sort of like multiplayer in some games.

Things like 3D and VR aren’t huge steps at improving an active experience. Rather, they provide immersion in ways that won’t stand the test of time. Give me a controller and let me enjoy the game, and don’t waste money developing tacked-on things like 3D and VR. Like vinyl, let’s just focus on what’s important: what the artist(s) truly intended.

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It's Zee Germans

Holy shit...I turned my PS4 on for the first time in about a month. This wasn't from a lack of enthusiasm, but because there just isn't enough time in the day—that and sleep is way too appealing sometimes. In any case, I've recently found some time to game. I picked up Watch Dogs when it came out a month ago, and I had every intention to play it this weekend, but instead I bought Wolfenstein: The New Order.

Over the last number of weeks I've heard a number of things and did quite a bit of thinking. If you remember me talking about Wolfenstein a little while back, my main gripe with picking it up was that it was an arcade shooter without any online multiplayer. When I originally saw it a number of months ago, it looked really cool and that is again what I've been hearing lately after its release. Then I thought about games like Bioshock, where you play it for the story and the atmosphere—the second one even had online multiplayer and no one cared about it—so all that mixed together pushed me over the edge and I picked it up.

Wolfenstein starts off with a bang: you and your squadron are raiding a Nazi stronghold in an attempt to kill a very influential general, and then the story goes off in an area I didn't expect (I did not read up on the story before picking it up). Personally I really enjoy when people use an alternate history sort of scenario. A number of games have used this sort of tool in their stories and settings before— Homefront and Turning Point: Fall of Liberty come to mind—and if done right it can be a lot of fun. I won't delve too far into the story, but I do urge you to check it out if alternate history is your thing, as there is some solid stuff here.

When it comes to the gameplay, you're really just getting an arcade shooter; but the controls are tight, so no worries there. They have a flexible cover system in the game: basically you hide behind stuff (so none of that "hit a button and glue yourself to a wall"). Once in cover, you can hold down a button and it allows you to lean in any direction you want. It works very well. You can also dual wield any weapon, even the knives, but I'm not sure why you would ever need to...it does looks cool though.

Style wise, you can go in guns-a-blazing or you can take a more stealthy approach. I'm playing on the hardest difficulty, so for the most part I try to take a stealthy route. The system works pretty well and gives you a number of options to take enemies out—stab them, throw a knife at them, even use a silent pistol—the game even gives you some bonuses for doing your killing the silent way. The bonus is pretty much map information, which is cool. The rationale is when you stealth kill someone, you interrogate and get information out of them (this is all inferred mind you but who cares).

All-in-all I'm having a lot of fun with Wolfenstein and I'm pretty glad I didn't let the lack of multiplayer deter me from investing some time and money into it. I'm not too far in (chapter 4) and I don't really know how long it's supposed to be. However, if you're a fan of shooters and like alternate history/killing some Nazis, I would recommend giving it a chance as it's a lot of fun.

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Games As Trailers: Why We Don't Care About The Games We Play

Having just finished watching a great deal of impressively rendered and emotive trailers from this past E3, I found myself thinking about which stood out. Moreover, I began to wonder why so many trailers evoke feelings of excitement that often differ from the feelings I get when actually playing games.

The Division…Between Feeling and Acting

In an opinion piece written last week over at Polygon, the author explored several ideas linked to his love of video game trailers, and concluded by relating them to what video games themselves often aspire to be: beautiful, succinctly meaningful, and leaving lasting impressions on us by providing players with motif for their action.  

 

Much of his core argument I feel is especially relevant in light of E3 this year, which was mostly just an enormous teaser for fans in the way of cinematic trailers. Among them, I found myself particularly drawn to The Division 2014 Official Story trailer.  

The trailer itself is likely what the developers are hoping players will do in-game: mainly to band together to fend off against other human and AI-controlled gangs, and to be conscious of the game’s environment(s) while emotionally investing yourself in its world. More importantly though, the trailer managed to convey sympathy towards its characters, and helped me to gain a better perspective on what the game itself may eventually feel like when being played.

More likely, the game itself will never come close to capturing this sense of purpose quite as much as the trailer has already accomplished. And this thought can be depressing. But I take solace in acknowledging that other games have managed to blend trailer and gameplay effectively. One particular example is Asura’s Wrath.

You Mad Bro?

Asura’s Wrath is eccentric and Japanese, as well as uncompromising in all the right ways. The game’s story focuses on Asura, a Buddhist demigod who seeks revenge on the other pantheon of Buddhist demigods who betrayed him.

The core experience centers on essentially watching a six-hour story unfold, while occasionally fighting waves of enemies in a mindless brawler fashion and, more frequently, performing quick time events to progress cutscenes. And while most explanations of the game do it no justice, Asura’s Wrath itself succeeds at combining action and motive, similarly to how many other games and their cinematic trailer counterparts succeed in doing so separately.

Asura Wrath’s holistic approach is more successful, in large part because of how often it relinquishes control away from the player. Much of the game is watched rather than played, with player input serving to accentuate periods of particular anger or frustration. It works quite well, and I’m happy to say that developers CyberConnect2 managed to construct a largely novel experience that manages to convey anger and hate without compromising their vision.

Final Thoughts

I recognize that most games could simply not exist in the same state that Asura’s Wrath has managed to, and I am glad for it: being actively in control of a game’s character(s) is often more satisfying than passively flicking left on the d-pad to have Asura do something.

At the same time, however, there is something to be said about how video games often fail to convey emotional motivations for acting in-game. Maybe this current generation of games will help bridge the gap created more effectively than previous console generations have. Until then however, I will gladly go back to watching the Division trailer.

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TBT - It's Turtle Time

I will always have fond memories of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT), in any format really. But when I think about some of their video games, two come most readily to mind: The original TMNT game for the NES, and Turtles in Timeon the SNES—the former being hard as balls, and the latter being an absolutely amazing arcade game.

A Turtle Who Couldn't Swim

When the original TMNT game was out and about on the Nintendo Entertainment System, I was a mere child, easily under 10. Of course like any kid my age growing up in the 90's, the Turtles were all over TV and I loved them to no end (I probably would still be interested if the entertainment industry didn't butcher the series to high hell). I was compelled to play this game, but man, did I need help.

The first zone was never actually that hard: you go through a few sewers, which were all 2D platforming sections with some combat, until you hit the bosses who were Bebop and Rock Steady—such awesome names, if I only got the reference when I was a kid haha.

Now the hard part came immediately after this during an underwater scene. The Turtles had to disarm all these bombs set to go off and destroy...a dam, I think? Who cares, it was soooooo god damn hard. All the walls had these, like, electrical barbs attached to them, and they all did quite a bit of damage. Suffice to say my experience with games at the time was not sufficient enough for me to beat it, so I always passed it off to one of my cousins.

Fortunately after this horrible segment, you got to drive around in the sweet ass Turtle Van and shoot rockets at things. Best part of the game. Shortly after this I would run out of lives and have to restart, never really getting any further than this, but whatever, I was young, I had fun.

Time After Time

That said, Turtles in Time was a king among games, especially at the time. The controls were tight and the game had support for two players, which was the way to play no doubt. As far as the gameplay goes it was a standard arcade beat em' up: you choose a character and traverse the stages one at a time, pounding enemies and destroying a boss at the end of each zone.

I have two solid memories of this game. The first happens to be the very first stage: The location was a construction site, and you were walking along the top of these girders of an unfinished building. The boss was this weird mutant fly-man...it was messed up haha.

The second memory goes right to the ability to throw enemies into the screen! The game never really had any instructions, so you had to figure out how to do this move on your own, but it was paramount that you did. See shortly into the game you go up against Shredder who is safely tucked away inside this massive mech and the only way to get at him was to throw Footmen at him. I think it was a pretty iconic moment in the game, easily a strong memory for all who had the pleasure of trying out Turtles in Time.

It’s Pizza Time

Both games were a lot of fun, even if I never got very far in the NES version. One day the series may return to its former glory; maybe it won’t. In any case I will always have memories of the games as they were. And who knows, maybe someone will do the same for TMNT like what Rocksteady did for Batman?

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Poke Me In The Night

This week I'm gonna talk about Poker Night at the Inventory 2, one of my favorite telltale games. If you're unfamiliar with the Poker Night series here's some back story: The games always take place in a hidden back alley poker room and bar kept secret and known only to a certain group of high rollers and members. Each game contains a different cast of pop culture characters from various genres including movies, television, and gaming; all playing poker together and you tag along as the silent protagonist. One of the main reasons to play this game is because of the interactions between the characters. Telltale are amazing at writing interesting dialogue, quips and references, traits which come through nicely in Poker Night 2.

The game itself was a huge tie in with Borderlands 2 and Team Fortress 2, featuring unique unlocks for both games which obtained by slowly forcing the other characters to throw up items from their respective universes to sweeten the pot. The poker gameplay itself is nothing to write home about but you're opponents are nothing to laugh at, between Glad0s from Portal as the dealer, Ash from the Evil Dead franchise Sam from Sam and Max Claptrap the mascot from Borderlands and last but not least Brock "Fucking" Samson from one of my favorite shows, The Venture Bros. Sidenote: if you aren't all ready watching Venture Bros you should be, the show is amazing and one of the best written shows on television. 

As I said before, the main reason to play is the interactions between you and the other characters. There are a ton of unique reactions and stories that come out over the course of a hand, and I often find myself playing just to see what they have to say to each other. The characters themselves are well written and all voiced by their original actors so the game feels as if they all hopped out of their respective universe or live in the same crazy cross over universe only super nerds could dream into existence.

The game also allows you to unlock new card tables and chips and various other aesthetic options all themed around the various characters. If you are looking for a good time sink, I couldn't recommend any more highly. Poker Night 2 itself is worth hours of enjoyment and at a five dollar price tag it's more than worth it to pick it up or slap on your steam wishlist and wait for a summer sale to roll around. Which by the way may or may not be tomorrow...just something to keep in mind. 

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It's Fate...err Destiny

I’m not sure how many people got into the Alpha for Destinybut I would like to share my first impressions so far. FYI: I have not paid attention to this game prior to the alpha, and I also suck at First Person Shooters.

That being said, I’ve played a small portion of the game’s campaign, which lets you choose between 3 classes: Titan, Hunter and Warlock. From what I can tell, Titan is your regular jack-of-all-trades kinda guy, Hunter is more of a sniper and Warlock places emphasis on magic.

I chose Warlock, since it reminded me of Mass Effect and how I’d rather have an extra weapon at hand (like biotic powers). So far, I’ve enjoyed this class and the gun selection seems pretty good.

Now I haven’t added much in terms of upgrades to my character, but there’s a decent amount of customization for your character’s face and whatnot (not like it really matters though). Moreover, you can purchase new upgrades with “Glimmer”—the in-game currency. You get this by completing missions in the campaign or in multiplayer.

Dr. Manhattan?

My campaign experience so far has been limited. I played the first 2 missions and then moved on to multiplayer.

I played some “Capture the Flag” and luckily, my team won. The lobby system is nice and quick, reminiscent of all Call of Duty games, which is a good thing. Like the Halo franchise, Bungie has included vehicles to speed transport up. I find this helpful in single player more so than multiplayer, but nonetheless, well done.

So far, Destiny seems to be great fun, especially in its Alpha release. I found no bugs, but then again I haven’t played all that much. It’s got some good FPS qualities and a big fanbase for a new IP, so I can definitely see some staying power in this game. I myself am rusty at First Person Shooters, but I may pick this one up given my positive experience so far.

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All Aboard

E3 has come and gone and the one thing each video game conference has in common with one another is they all sell tickets for the hype train. The hype train is the metaphorical manifestation of everyone's joint excitement for a game; it can lead gamers on a fanciful journey often towards wondrous games. Unfortunately each individual game has their own hype train and they don't all lead to the Promised Land.

Hype can be a tricky thing to handle—as a developer, you want to breathe excitement into your fans and develop anticipation for your game, but at the same time going too far can bring on a fan's ire if you can't deliver. The only alternative is to release the game the day you announce it haha but I doubt that would be a trend that ever caught on outside of announcing surprise DLC *cough* Dead Rising 3 *cough*.

Crash And Burn

This year saw a resurgence in game trailers that were (or at least appeared to be) mostly CGI. Over the last number of years I feel as though the industry moved away from this sort of thing and developers were trying to represent all their work in-game. As it appears to be the case (like it was last generation) it looks as though when new systems come out, the initial trailers tend to be more like target renders for what they want their game to look like in the future.

You don't have to look very hard to find an example from the last generation. When Sony first showed off Guerrilla games' Killzone 2 for the PS3, the graphics were out of this world and not what most people expected. Come release, the game obviously failed to live up to the target render...not to say the game looked bad (it was gorgeous), but it was also nowhere near the level of quality that the initial trailer had strived for. The exact same thing happened to Evolution Studios' MotorStorm.

This year was sort of a mixed bag: Some trailers can in no way be in-game and if they are, consider my mind blown because it looked absolutely ridiculous. Just look at the trailer for the newly announced Bloodborne as an example:

There is no way that is in game; I'm sorry, I just can't believe it. Now they never explicitly say it was supposed to be in-game, and the trailer was pretty sick, but this just has viewers flocking to the hype train in droves—and sure, maybe the ride has a few rub downs to keep you entertained along the way, but the final destination is completely unknown.

That being said, Bloodborne has a very low risk of being bad. Developer From Software has a pretty good track record with this style of game—providing a solid action experience with amazing, anxiety inducing, atmosphere. Bloodborne is another spiritual successor to Demon's Souls, much in the same way Dark Souls was. All three separate entities are directed by the same Hidetaka Miyazaki. But unlike the previous two entries, which were medieval in setting, Bloodborne takes on the Victorian era with its anxiety inducing action gameplay.

One thing potential passengers should be extra weary of is boarding the hype train of a new Intellectual Property (IP). Depending on what type of trailer they get—CGI, in-game, teaser, or actual gameplay—getting caught up in the hype can lead to bitter disappointment. As far as new IPs go, this year there weren't too many: Scalebound, Splatoon and the previously mentioned Bloodborne (which is arguable since it is a spiritual successor)...there were a few more, but these are the ones I took notice of personally. 

Drop Me Off At The Top

Hype isn't always a misleading she-devil: For the most part, when a sequel gets revealed you know what you're getting yourself into, especially when that sequel is Uncharted 4!

Just look at those graphics! Also, this is supposed to be in-game, which I feel like I can believe. The only issue I have with this trailer is that it's just a teaser...other than getting your toes a little wet, not much substance is shown. It's easy to get caught up in the hype with a game like Uncharted 4; Naughty Dog is a studio that has proven time and time again that it is a leader in the industry. Practically everything they make is gold and the expectation is that Uncharted 4 will be no different.

Unfortunately it is easier to say, than to do and despite my best efforts, I bought my ticket, took my seat and I'm fully aboard the hype train...but what about you? Did you see anything at E3 that peeked your interest? New or old, let me know in the comments below.

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Games As People; As Places; As Art

I’m not prompted to grasp her hand, yet I am compelled to do so all the same. The game’s logic is astonishingly simple: protect her from harm using a wooden club, and bond with her by sitting together on a couch.  

These were my initial thoughts as I played through Ico for the first time, many years ago. Director Fumito Ueda and developer Team Ico effectively translated many expressive behavioural qualities into digital code, and allowed me to feelthe connection between protagonists Ico and Yorda.

It is my belief that video games have long since become an entertainment medium entrenched in values which define it as art. Certainly, Ico is but one example of how a game can act as conduit for players to tap into the realm of the expressive; of the meaningful; of what holds greater than ordinary significance in our lives. What follows is a brief list of two games which I feel function as art. 

Okami

A while back, fellow blogger Brandon spoke briefly about how visual aesthetic plays an important role in determining artistic merit in video games. One of the examples he used to argue this point was PS2 and Wii game Okami, which I agree is brilliant in its visual style.

Visual style in video games is itself the equivalent to gamers as paintings are to observers: they can be windows which allow a person’s mind to reflect on the beauty found in ordinary and everyday things. Okami often felt overwhelmingly calming, and its serenity was rooted in part in the way the grass swayed, the way the trees blossomed, and in the way that the world reacted to the colour which your character literally brought back to the world.

Mass Effect 2

People as places as people

Moving beyond visual aesthetic, I find that video games also serve as effective tools for enabling players to contemplate the significance of personal relationships in their lives.

In a retrospective I read last week at Eurogamer, the author explored several reasons why he enjoyed Mass Effect 2 so much. One notable point he mentioned was that the game was effective in conveying an intimacy between its characters and the player.

While playing through the entire Mass Effect series, I felt constantly in awe by how relatable each of my party members were. Moreover, I found myself identifying qualities in my friends and family which I grafted onto my party members in-game. In this way, Mass Effect allowed me to explore what it was that attracted me to the people in my life.

Final Thoughts

More broadly, I feel as though games are often effective at grabbing hold of players’ imaginations, enabling them to contemplate natural and human qualities which they feel strongly for. In my attempts to very briefly cover the topic of art and games, I touched on three personal favourites, and utilized them to elaborate on how art has bled into video games.

Moving forward, I would be interested to see how you , the viewer, have used video games to think more deeply about what it is that you are attracted to in everyday life.

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My Bittersweet Phantasy

Sega has quite a few series under its belt, but today I'm not talking about Sonic, or even Shenmue. Instead, I'll be talking about Phantasy Star, which was an RPG available on the Sega Master System. Subsequent releases went along on the Sega Genesis and Mega Drive. When the Dreamcast came out, Sega also released Phantasy Star Online (PSO) episode I. This was back in 2000. Now I have never played any of those games, but I was incredibly fond of the GameCube version of PSO which was a port of sorts of the Dreamcast game, but also included an entirely new, second chapter, in episode II.

I can't really remember how I came upon this game: I believe it might have been because of an ex-boyfriend of my sister's. In any case, this game was awesome, specifically for its ability to allow 4-player split-screen co-op. The way it handled the multiplayer was amazing as well. It's not like you just start a co-op campaign and whenever you wanted to continue you had to have everyone there. Nope, in PSO each character was created individually and you can start new games with existing characters at any time. 

The combat itself was pretty simple as well. There were a few different classes that each excelled at an individual talent—melee, ranged, or magic—but anyone could use any weapon, so it was merely a starting point really. You could do normal or strong attacks, and then the magic was used as a separate ability. Like I said it was simple.

PSO was supposed to be a console MMO, but to be honest it was a pretty barebones one, at least in regards to the world, which was rather small. If you were to compare the world of PSO to any modern MMO it would be no contest. This wasn't too much of an issue however since the main draw, at least for me, was collecting equipment!

I remember there was this website we used to go to and it was all about PSO. One of the features the site had was item drop rates. We used to try to find the sickest equipment, and there were some pretty cool ones if memory serves. Most of the cooler ones required your character to be a pretty high level, and would only be dropped by creatures in higher difficulties. We would all travel around in a group, and allow the person looking for the equipment to kill the specific enemy they needed, but sometimes the drop rate was under 1% so you would have to kill 100 of a specific enemy type, minimum.

As you can imagine, this turned the entire game into a pretty huge grind, but I don't think any of us really minded. Everything is more fun in a group, and I can't even begin to tell you how joyous it was to finally see the drop you spent so long hunting for in your grasp. The only reason I really stopped playing PSO was because my GameCube’s memory card got corrupted, and I lost my 200+ hour character...it was a sad day.

All-in-all I had a lot of fun with PSO, despite the bitter end. Over the years there have been new releases in the PSO spin-off series, but I haven't tried any of them unfortunately since for the most part, they only get released in Japan.

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Please Love Me

Considering E3 is amongst us, I just watched Sony's press conference but I found it missed something: PS Vita. Recently, I've been perusing my local Best Buy for a Vita Slim. It seems to be a good value, and maybe the cheaper LCD screen will allow the Vita to compete with the price point of Nintendo's 3DS.

On a recent IGN podcast, Greg, Colin and the other dude gave their opinions on how the Vita needs to have some E3 presence to remain a contender. They assumed that 5-10 minutes would be allocated to the PS Vita, but in reality, it wasn't given any time at all.

During the Sony E3 press conference, Vita was mentioned briefly when Double Fine planned to re-release Grim Fandango on PS4 and Vita. Broforce is getting a Vita port. Same with Hotline Miami 2, Child of Light, and a few others.

PlayStation Now will expand the Vita's catalog, allowing for the device to be used more than ever before. I certainly wouldn’t mind remote/cross-play between portable and console. However, these are all old games.

However, Vita TV, or PlayStation TV as it will be called moving forward, seems like a nice option. Its $99 price point is super competitive and undercuts the Vita itself. This feels like Sony knows the Vita isn't doing well and is willing to potentially cannibalize its portable system.

It's safe to say that Sony is trying to showcase their strengths but I feel that Sony needs to acknowledge their weakness (Vita) and try to improve on it. They need to help the Vita brand in a bigger way than providing a $99 non-portable replacement.

After seeing Sony's E3 press conference, I'm confident in the future of the PS4 and the continued support of the PS3, but I just don't see the love for their handheld. It has the potential but Sony needs to give it the love and attention it deserves.

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Seriously Funny

I've been watching a crap load of X-Files over the last couple of weeks. I currently just started the 3rd season, and I've come to realize 2 things about the show. First, there are a ton of actors that you see all over TV nowadays, more so in the Sci-fi genre mind you, that made some sort of appearance on the X-Files—heck both Giovanni Ribisi and Jack Black were in the same episode! Second, as serious as the X-Files is trying to be, it's also full of humour...like a lot of it. Personally I love comedy and this is really amazing; it really makes me wonder why there aren't more serious games that incorporate some form of humour.

I'm not so sure if it's just as simple as saying that some developers are trying to be taken too seriously, so they make serious games. That was my first thought, but I think the industry as a whole has come a long way and gets a lot more recognition than it used to. If it really is the case, I think it's a little sad... humour is a part of everyday life.

This isn't all to say that there isn't any humour in games—I just don't really think it goes very far. I don't even remember the last time I actually laughed out loud playing a game, but I do it nearly every episode of the X-Files. If I were to think of some "funny" games, I would have to go with Escape From Monkey Island and Brutal Legend, both having been made by the same person! Even his new game Broken Age is supposed to be funny, although I haven't tried it. Is Tim Schafer the only funny man in the industry?

All the money

Of course there are also some games that are explicitly trying to be funny, such as South Park: Stick of Truth and the Borderlandsseries, but in these cases a comedy should be funny. If those games weren't funny, it would be like watching a bad episode of Seinfeld.

I believe the main culprit at hand for the lack of humour in video games is that studios usually don’t have any professional writers on staff. For the most part, believe it or not, the writing is done by committee, usually by the design team and whoever else has some input. Writers do get brought in from time to time, but not too often—a good example of a writer being on staff would be at Bioware, who make huge RPGs with thousands of pages of dialogue and lore. The argument made for this is that the story usually comes second in many game, RPGs withstanding, the main focus is making the game fun and interesting to play.

Other than the graphics getting better this generation, not much has changed in regards to the core gameplay experience; personally I believe this is quickly going to change.  The next step developers are going to have to take is delivering stories worth a player's time; I think that is going to be the biggest difference between generations.

No doubt about those graphics

Infamous: Second Son has some amazing character development and the writing is actually really well done. I thought it was genuinely funny and not the forced kind of funny most games tend to be; it was very natural. I think we're going to start seeing a lot more games released with the level of production Second Son has. Some might even be revealed for the first time in the coming week.

E3 is finally upon us, I can't wait to discuss it all at our weekly podcast. What are you most excited for at this year's E3? Leave a comment below!

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