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Kierkegaard

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No Man's Sky is about learning and that's wonderful

It's so easy to get hung up on the little stuff with games--texture pop, feature disappointment, a feeling of malaise brought about by wanting perfection--and this game is certainly a great example. Here we have an astounding mathematical simulation of a galaxy and people are angry about what's not there.

For me, the point of games is what they make me feel and think about. And what I love about No Man's Sky is that it is about choice, exploration, learning, and discovery in a way most games fail to be.

When I start a game, I am trying to find purpose. On my verdant, peaceful first world, technicolor grasses covering rolling hills and natural arches, I loved seeing my objectives shift.

First, I had to learn what I needed to learn. Giving the player a choice between guide or no guide is not new, but I love the story context of the Atlas, this somewhat menacing creator that wishes to guide me and makes me feel like a dumb pawn. The game seems to be saying, "Yes, you can follow the tutorial, but we're going to comment about your lack of free will and adherence to the divine."

Good teachers guide students without doing it for them. No Man's Sky says, hey, fix your ship, you need these things, here's how to ping--but it does not give you a way point to plutonium. What is especially powerful about this game is that it allows the player to feel autonomous and smart while subtly helping me. That is incredibly hard to pull off.

More important, though, is what the game makes me feel overall--not just respected and challenged, but that my purpose is to learn, not destroy.

The sentinels, as a ruined monolith of the Korvax told me, exist to stop destruction. They will murder me to stop me from destroying, changing, anything. That motivation and the resultant wariness toward wanton killing or even mining is distinctive and valuable. It says to the player "this is a world to admire and move through, not destroy" and that's beautiful.

All games have messages and implications. No Man's Sky encourages growth through moderated exploration and actively punishes wanton destruction.

Games often nowadays try to make us consider the nature of the violence we do in them while still making that violence enjoyable. Uncharted 4 says "No, adventure bad--here's the most beautiful places to do it in and fun gun play, though." And shooting sentinels isn't unpleasant in No Man's Sky--the bolt caster makes a neat noise, they explode into valuable materials, and they are pretty easy to skirt. But it feels empty, like a waste of time that wasn't necessary, like a mistake. It's a wanted system where I actually don't want to be wanted. The planets where sentinels are prevalent are not fun playgrounds of destruction, but terrifying places where I cower in caves as dogs search for me after I mined some gold.

Creating an enemy who, so far, I admire rather than despise, is amazing. The great potential evil of human space exploration is that we learn nothing from the colonization of earth, the destruction of species and races of humans for the sake of greater profit, land, and power. I love that Hello Games built a galaxy where such destruction is anathema to goodness.

What is good in No Man's Sky is acquiring knowledge. The game becomes somewhat easier with tech upgrades, but all of those are pointless without purpose. And purpose, brilliantly, is found through a thoughtful combination of language acquisition, logic puzzles, and context clues. I have barely started into the narrative of Atlas, but learning of the Korvax, a race that I first thought had cool helmets, then learned of the convergence, and now know as energy beings that inhabit metal husks to speak to lower lifeforms like me--that minor journey has been amazing.

No Man's Sky doesn't have a major exposition scene where I'm introduced to the three (?) races and their politics. I just found my first Gek on the fifth system I've gone to. Before, I just thought a random Gek object was a reference to a long extinct race, I assumed the Korvax were it--how could they not be when I've only learned 50 of their words?

The great power of astro-physics is that feeling of being a tiny race of apes in a infinite universe of existence. The little blue dot picture showed us that Earth is just another world out in the vastness of space. I'm sure that other space games I haven't played have made this feeling real, but No Man's Sky is my first. I feel like a random being barely navigating the vastness, a speck looking for my next ship while planets of herbivores feast on icy grounds.

The game gives the player choices--be a trader and use the land sparingly, be an explorer and observe its wonders only, or destroy the land, it's protectors, and it's people to gain power. Endemic in all of these is the fact that choosing to destroy is choosing to make everything harder and face an endless enemy that cannot truly be defeated. The best way to survive in this game is moderation, intelligence, deliberate exploration, and patience.

The Korvax feel inspired by Buddhism, with tests of faith based on suffering and patience. This game is seemingly built around the tenets of that faith--it's about feeling small, making moderate impact, and seeing suffering as necessary.

I will return to this game often as a place to explore and learn--verbs that excite me more than destruction ever could.

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MGS5: Many months and one completed game later

Response blog to my first impressions here we go. Spoilers.

Playing with expectations

"I mean, the idea of Big Boss having a different face for every player, his story being somehow more personal in that customization even if his character stays defined--there's power there. If this story is about power corrupting, wouldn't it be crazy to choose the face of the guy?"

Hi past me! So, the character you created was indeed Big Boss disguising himself. He's pretending to be the medic who blew up with him in the helicopter. Crazy. I know.

You play the whole game as Big Boss faced medic guy, taking on the burden of heroism, and history, because of 10 years of hypnosis. Ocelot knew the whole time.

I feel like this works, and it justifies not being able to play as that older black gentleman I chose because people would know I wasn't Big Boss.

The idea of whether our true identity really matters, of what it would be like to be an average person thrust into extraordinary power, is a good one.

The fact that medic guy both chooses to do great things like save Otacon and terrible things like shoot all of his men or use torture is interesting, as is his final incarnation as a boss fight in the second game.

Quiet had clothes!

Oh, oh my friend, only for that small amount of time. You see, Quiet is a photosynthetic science experiment that takes in her energy through the sunlight. I guess that happened after this spy version of her was set on fire by you.

She's a great character! She has a real moral quandary about speaking and spreading the pathogen or staying, well, quiet and protecting the base. She's like the new Ocelot--she's more loyal to Snake and to some larger cause than what she appears. She's brutal and skilled. She's intelligent and caring.

She also wears only a cloth bra, likes to lie in seductive poses and shower in front of you, is nearly raped in her final sequence to justify her being pantsless for the fight--she was finally full clothed, and she defines her story and her purpose as protecting Snake, not following what she wants or needs. She's more a cipher than a person in a lot of ways.

Quiet is what happens when some interesting writing meets absolute sexism and laziness. She's the most useful and interesting buddy, she has the most character development of anyone, but her depiction objectifies her in a way that problematizes all of that.

Strugglin'

You liked that sequence? How about playing through it exactly the same way in order to get to the reveal that you were the medic? Seems like they could have fast forwarded some of that? Yeah, yeah they could have.

The real game, the open world stealth and collecting of soldiers, kept my interest.

It's a unique game where realism isn't the point--all of these bases, this entire land, is so clearly designed, so created for my experience--none of this feels real. And that's okay. Because the edge of rediculousness, the robot with little grocery cart wheels, the dog with a stealth knife, the music tapes and the names of soldiers and the collect 'em all approach to humanity--it's wacky in a way that drives the player forward.

But what are the social implications of these systems?

Collection

It is inherently creepy that I'm being asked to put people to sleep and capture them against their will. But the text also clearly indicates that Ocelot is, if not torturing them, at the very least keeping them in solitary confinement until they agree to join the band. Indentured servitude bordering on modern slavery is a really fucked mechanic.

I'm not sure if it knows it is fucked. It seems like the whole game is about how you're pretty much an asshole working for the highest bidder for your own ends, and within the context sometimes you make good moves, and you do save the world a bit, but mostly you're going into Afghanistan and Angola to build a world dominating army.

There isn't contradiction here if our final reading is that this is a game about doing great evil for unjustifiable reasons. Skullface wants to kill native English speakers--he's an anti-colonialist. I mean, that's not really that effective--the dutch, the french, the Spanish all colonized and enslaved too, but at least as a motivation for a villain it's more complex.

Still, the mechanic is deeply fun and rewarding while being ethically wrong. There's a valuable statement about war profiteering there. Hopefully it wasn't lost on people.

Mantis

Yup, guess that boy is just telekinetic. Giant robot first man thing. The burning reincarnation of MGS3 guy.

Plus, you have the skulls who are magic through genetic alteration.

This game, again, isn't aiming for realism. MGS has always aimed for metaphor over reality.

Little Mantis boy and little Liquid are abused kids fighting back. The whole child soldier aspect, and setting the game in actual Angola, is pretty brave, and handled with more care than Quiet certainly is. You don't recruit them to fight--they go to school, they help out--that's ethical writing, and shows where the crew draw the line.

Clever, impressive Kojima

The medic story worked for me, even if the execution with replaying that whole scene was flat. It worked as a surprise and it worked thematically.

The story is ultimately anti-nuclear, anti-colonialist, pro-linguistics, pro diversity. There's a lot of good here.

For the first time, what I was doing in a metal gear game felt like wholly my choice and deeply connected to the overall themes of the game. It's like the walk through the dead soldiers scene writ large. How will you choose to do this? There are always lots of options, and all are valid, but some will make you feel awful.

Immature, contradictory Kojima

The game is anti-woman. That sucks. I mean, it's essentially all men all the time. Quiet is the only major female character. None of the kids are girls. Despite Big Boss seeing Eva as the best soldier in MGS3, he just doesn't have women around him. Dumb man.

I have an invisible super woman who can leap up cliffs. Why can't I fast travel? Navigating the world becomes a chore.

The base is incredibly boring. You want me to come back, but there's no incentive to explore when target shooting minigames are the only activity. You want me to care about these people and this place so when tons die to a pathogen? You make it feel like home. The base feels dead, no matter my creepy fight club brain washed servants happily taking my punches.

Overall

This is a singular game. It's both deeply brilliant and deeply flawed. I don't care about the online part. Konami is a horrible company that represents what an industry without unions can become. The games workers must unionize. Everything will be better.

There's missions I haven't done and more to see, but I'm good for now.

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MGS5 Prologue: Black Snake Tease (Spoilers)

Without a doubt, MGS5 deserves to be written about. I'm sure it'll have some bullshit (and it already has), and that not everything will gel together well (some already doesn't), but damn is it trying to do something.

I've only played the prologue (and made myself sleepy for teaching high school today--well done), but I felt like jumping in and writing about it. Spoilers.

Playing with expectations

Well, maybe that reveal of David Hayter is coming later, but so far the Kojima moment has to be, "Hey, established named character. You need a new fucking face. Check out this Playstation Home looking screen and build a face"

Man, my mind went wild when that happened. Did every MGS5 trailer just MGS2 us and really we'll be playing as a new-faced Big Boss? Will characters react differently to me based on race or age or tats or scars? Is Kiefer so quiet because we get to form our own choices and personality for a remade Big Boss?

I stared at those choices man. Well, first I had to think about a name. I went with the thematic choice and called him Big Boss, and gave him my birthday cuz the Wiki just has the year, not the date.

With the face, I played around with a lot, but chose a darker skinned black man with some wrinkles but not 80 year old man wrinkles. I wanted Big Boss's real age to come through, and thought it was interesting to be a black guy. I was ready to dive in and embody this character. Let's escape this hospital!

Oh, oh no. You're choking. Oh. Guess I get to be beardy white guy. Huh.

So, I don't know, but I assume I made my MGS online avatar? Maybe? In which case, clever way to do that in story, but total tease.

I mean, the idea of Big Boss having a different face for every player, his story being somehow more personal in that customization even if his character stays defined--there's power there. If this story is about power corrupting, wouldn't it be crazy to choose the face of the guy?

I'm sure seeing the fucking guilt sternum of dead Paz growing out of regular ol' Big Boss's skull will be moving or whatever, but I dunno. I saw the stars in that new face, man. And Quiet stole them from my eyes.

Quiet had clothes!

Before they were burned off. Is that better or worse? I just cannot wait to hear about how her horrible burns are somehow related to her boobage. I dunno, she seemed like a scary assassin lady undone by my imaginary helper dude. There's something there.

Not a lot though. She's instantly defined as other, mysterious, unknown--professional killer thrown off my the clever use of ethanol and flame. Not a great intro to a new character, honestly. Nothing to grab a hold of. Nothing distinctive or interesting.

Strugglin'

I like the return of Snake moving painfully through halls. It's clearly an inverse of the MGS4 microwave. Here, his daddy is gaining strength as he moves forward, where there Oldy was constantly losing it. Entering vs. Escaping. All that.

The little choice to either crawl along the ground the whole time or use counters to boost myself before BB (goddamn the naming conventions of this series. I'm going with this as a substitute) would invariably flip over a garbage can was an impactful way to demonstrate his loss of strength.

As a tutorial, it works to build character without too much overwhelming danger but a good sense of tension. The scene where you have to hide in rooms as guards search other ones was tense and well done.

I mean, the guard that literally sees a dude grab your foot under the bed and doesn't notice you is dumb as rocks, though.

After awhile, I kinda got that these soldiers were killing everyone. Not sure seeing two innocents murdered in front of a window needs to be augmented by standing in a crowd being gunned down.

The slow growth of responsibility and movement, from barely crawling to crouch walking to sprinting to shooting to sneaking and shooting--it's a tight progression that empowers slowly.

Mantis. What is even happening?

So, these are hallucinations right? I mean, fire whale and bullet absorbing human torch Volgin are not real, right? Flaming unicorn?

But, like, they kill people and break stuff. Real stuff. Real people.

Is teen Mantis telekinetic and the hallucinations are really him creating all this violence? But where does the fire come from? The Fury had a flame thrower at least.

Is Metal Gear just magic for reals now? Ocelot was definitely telling me to reload so I could shoot that unicorn better. That whale ate a helicopter.

And then Ocelot is just like, "hey." No mention of the crazy shit. I just. I don't get it.

Clever/Impressive Kojima

Ahab, Ismael, Giant Whale. Gotcha.

One-shot camera work is deeply engaging. It's not as impressive as when a real human has to do that with real actors doing real long scenes, but it's still a great way to put a story together.

There was a way to go no kill in that hall where I had a killy gun and there was no other path? Huh. Interesting

This game credits more than just Kojima as a writer. That's good, probably. Like, more honest.

If you die, which I did, Ismael's all "Ahab? Ahaaaaaabbb!"

This sequence is gorgeous in lighting, character, and materials.

Immature/Contradictory Kojima

Dum de dum, BB opens his eyes... oh, thanks for leaning over me, nurse with a low cut top. Literally first five seconds of control.

There is nothing tense or otherworldly (the clear moods of this scene) about displaying each headshot I achieved. Stat tracking is neat, but it so does not fit the vibes here.

So if second me doesn't exist because it's just a psychological method of self-preservation, then how did I get in that ambulance?

It's a (really poorly modeled) water bottle, not piss? Ha? Also, if Ismael ain't real was that under BB? Does the real BB switch in these scenes? Because the real BB can't always be Ismael unless he was totally good with walking the whole time.

Now to keep playing...

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Shadow of Mordor makes killing feel complicated and that's a good thing

I really like Shadow of Mordor. It gives personality and purpose to evolutions of great game mechanics and systems. It progresses games.

And it's really fucked up. Outside of the usual white male power fantasy family fridged to motivate revenge narrative thing, the essential contradiction of humanizing Uruks, giving them emotions and back stories and motivations and personalities, so that killing them is more interesting--that contradication is disturbing at its core. I haven't started enslaving them yet, but that's probably worse.

But this is a good thing for the industry. Violence in games is usually out of context and anti-humanistic. It's the military philosophy of the dehumanized combatant--in order to kill something, killing must be justified. Positive justifications include seeing killing as defense, seeing it as serving the common good, seeing it as necessary. Negative justifications include making enemies inhuman monsters, even when they are human. Putting them in the same uniform, associating them with utter evil, covering their faces in helmets and rags--all of this is used, and has been used for millennia, to make killing an enemy easier.

Shadow of Mordor refuses this easy tack. What its designers have done, perhaps accidentally, is made each enemy a recognizable agent. When I kill them, sometimes I feel accomplishment, having overcome some jerk who has openly mocked me as he murdered me before. Sometimes I feel more empty, especially when I'd never seen this dude before and now he's dead. And sometimes I feel confused, because didn't I just kill you?

It's an important system. And of course we're seeing it first (or at least in its first pop-cultural incarnation; I know Dwarf Fortress exists) as a way to make killing and enslaving more interesting.

That's fucked up, but I'm glad it's happening. Here's the moment, as many developers and users on here have said, here's the moment to steal something and make it matter. Give players a greater playspace for social skill development by turning the Nemesis system into the Friendship system (or something way cooler sounding).

I like this game. I'm glad it exists. Now I want the next gen to be about making AI like this into something that builds rather than just destroys. I'm excited.

(Other cool totally stolen but better shit in this game: batman combat with a slow-mo range attack that makes the flow feel far more manageable (and great perks), assassin's creed dive from high places with no stupid hay required cuz wraiths, skyrim rotating objects with hidden spoken stories and character dialogue associated with each making collectibles feel meaningful, weapon-specific skill tests to improve those weapons, finally an awareness mechanic where escape feels hard enough to be challenging but not so frustrating that death feels like a better alternative to running, a combo-based running mechanic so you don't need a car to traverse in cool ways, a huge awareness radius in wraith mode so seeing enemies through walls is eminently tactical, and probably more. It's a good game)

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Diablo 3: Choosing a game to fit into my life

It's the first weeks of school and I am a stressed 2nd year teacher. I'm doing way better than last year, but there is still much to do and too little time. And I love video games. I want to keep playing games when at home and not doing work I could be doing (there is no end to teaching work--there are only chosen breaks). Right now, I should be grading.

Usually, I play games to experience them. Honestly, while I choose games I think will interest me, I want to go on a journey I cannot predict. I want a game to take me somewhere and tell me something and give me an experience I may not have anticipated. I generally make it about the games.

Intellectually, that's exhausting. It means that I play games thoughtfully and dig into them as I play--sometimes I think like a designer, sometimes like a critic, sometimes like my ethical self, but rarely do I lay back and let it just be. I like delving and exploring. It gives me joy.

It also is a lot of hard work. It's stimulating, but not relaxing. Having played through nearly the entire Bioshock story (possible blog to come?) with just the final episode of Burial at Sea left, I feel like I've learned and thought a lot, but I did not chill out while playing it.

Right now, I don't need a game to make me think. Free Metro 2033 is hanging out on my PS3, but that's not a good idea right now. Right now, I need a game to help me relax and escape.

Hi Diablo 3!

Thinky me is very critical of this game--the characters are wooden, the story is silly and has some bad tropes, why the fuck is my demon hunter wearing fuck me pumps regardless of armor set, this is about shiny objects in order to become more powerful to have more shiny objects--all of that.

But man is it perfect right now. On expert for my first run through, it's not boring because named dudes and minions can still fuck me up, but it's not stressful because there's no penalty for death (which seems crazy?) and things explode good. The sounds, the visuals, the legendary pretty crown I found--it's a great way to spend three hours.

And I guess the point of all this is that I'm proud of myself. While I could have chosen a less addictive game, I actively chose entertainment that would fit into my current life and reduce my stress rather than something to add to it. Now I'll grade. Kill Skeleton King tonight.

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Comparing Skyrim and Demon's Souls Character Progression and Approach

Just wrote a review of a game from 2011 that I still have not finished, and I found myself comparing its systems and approach to that of Demon's Souls, a game I have played some since it was given to me by Playstation Plus.

I've excerpted that section here, not because I think it is necessarily a new thought, but because it interested me and I'm wondering what others think. Bashing on popular games and praising cult ones is common. Sorry for following a trend.

Skyrim exists as an open-world, systemic adventure because we want immersion. We want to travel across the land to reach a hut rather than cutscening over there. We want to own a house and adorn its walls. We want to come upon random little stories and feel special for doing so. We want to choose.

But I wonder if choice is worth the discomfort. Because of choice, every item can be moved and must be saved in its current state upon every entrance and exit of a location. Because of choice, NPCs must have complex and often comical stage directions, which they hop to if one waits from night into morning. Because of choice, there is waiting, wandering, confusion.

I enjoyed coming upon a former imperial prison now haunted by ghosts after a great flood had forced the imperials to leave, choosing to leave the stormcloak prisoners to die as well. I like starting a random drinking game only to have to follow my steps in a Hangover homage. I like having a dragon randomly appear and help me kill an assassination target. Randomness and chance and choice can sometimes lead to serendipity.

In Demon's Souls, the world is mostly kept stagnant, with any player influence being major and game changing. Enemies spawn in the same space. Every table is reset. Bridges remain down across games, though, and dragons remain driven away. Progression is so remarkable because it is uncommon. Opening that gate and killing that boss mattered because of course it did. Destroying that pot is undone because of course it is.

In Skyrim, I have spent hours spinning dragon statues so that I can enter an Inn. Hours selling and buying materials. Hours without need.

The Bethesda model has drawn me along for many hours. I have fallen into it. But I am not convinced I like it. There is little precision here, only elimination of failure. Skills improve in power, making me invisible when I crouch, my arrows hit harder, my armor take less damage, my spells require less magicka, but do I improve in skill? Improvement is essentially a stat adjustment to make things easier. It comes with time, not improvement in skill.

Consider Demon's Souls again. While vitality can increase, while weapons can become stronger, the game becomes easier due to skill and knowledge acquisition. I can avoid death in the first stage with a horrible sword now, because I have learned to effectively roll and block and swipe. That I use a great curved sword and a strong shield simply allows me to kill things faster, not better.

To level up in Skyrim, one must strike an enemy, block his attacks, sneak around near him, use a spell on him. The reward is instant, a minor boost for every action, a major boost for the combination. In From Software's series, leveling up requires that one defeats multiple enemies and lives to tell about it, actively bringing their souls back to the hub area. Skyrim rewards for doing, assuming improvement comes with time; Demon's Souls rewards for achievement, knowing that improvement comes with success.

I am a teacher. I know how hard it is for students to learn. But I also know that if I accept a poor paper and have them move on to the next idea, I have not helped them learn. Real success comes with hard work and step-by-step instruction, making the task achievable and relevant to the student. In some ways, both of these games are terrible teachers, with Skyrim assuming students grow with repetition and Demon's Souls forcing them to grow through neglect and pain. Yet the logos of students needing to succeed at a task to progress fits my understanding of teaching best.

I have found Skyrim enjoyable and ultimately worth while. It tells the story of people I like getting to know and interacting with. It's approach to world building and player progression ultimately feel a waste to me, though, a time sink for rewards either not worth the time or better achieved through other means. To build such a comprehensive, adorned world is a horrible task. To make that world something I want to live in rather than rush through is still a challenge Bethesda has not achieved.

Demon's Souls is harsh and cruel and unexplained without outside help. Yet I come back to it because it is fair. If I die, it is not because I have not spent enough time having my armor hit by large monsters. It is because I have not figured out how best to beat that enemy yet. The same tactics 10 hours into Skyrim will create a less fruitful result than 100 hours into Skyrim. In Demon's Souls, a tactic that leads to my death should never be repeated. It is harsh, but it teaches me. Skyrim wants me to become a god, able to fell a giant in three swipes. Demon's Souls maligns hubris in its story and discourages it in its gameplay.

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A game of percentages and morals: Games need female protagonists

Nothing I say will be said better than it is here:

http://sinisterdesign.net/why-im-using-female-lead-characters/

Let me pull out some choice quotes

The bottom line is, it takes work–actual conscious effort–not to fall back on stereotypes when interacting with, thinking about, or writing about people from different groups. But that effort is important to make. The lazy route, merely writing what is expected, leads to predictable stories and characters that are nigh indistinguishable from the characters in other tales.

...

Different societies from different periods of history have had different mores and different rules governing who could fight–and yet, if you look at the links above, there are women fighters represented in virtually every society, including the ones where women explicitly were not supposed to fight at all! Heck, there are numerous documented instances of women risking their lives to disguise themselves as men and fight just in the U.S. Civil War alone. Female rulers areeverywherein history, too, includingsocietiesrigidlystratified by gender roles. Society’s rules mattered, sure, but they didn’t keep determined women from participating.

...

Fundamentally, it isn’t the guts of this trope (the kidnapping and rescuing dynamics) that are upsetting to people; it’s the inflexibility with which the roles are applied to characters of different genders. Why is the rescuer always a guy? Why can’t it ever be a woman rescuing her boyfriend (or girlfriend, for that matter)? That’s where the gender stereotype comes in: the fact that when this trope is used, boys are always in an active role and girls in a passive role.

...

And yet, as we saw above, women are dramatically underrepresented when it comes to leading roles in games. Let’s recap those numbers for the sake of illustration: 47% of gamers are females; 48% of the most frequent game purchasers are females; and 3.6% of seventh generation console title protagonists are females. Does something about that seem a little off to you? Because it certainly does to me.

The developer argues that it makes moral sense and business sense for games to begin having female protagonists far more often in order to respond to the realities of history, the modern world, and the modern player. So he has made sure to do so.

What I like from above is the history lesson on women constantly existing in roles supposedly dominated by men (roles most games fall into) and the fact that the problems in storytelling become far fewer if you have more equal representation in protagonists.

--------------

It's an issue I've had with games as I've grown up. I'm really pumped for The Last of Us to arrive from Amazon. Naughty Dog have made some excellent moves in game storytelling. And it sounds like they do well again, here. But you're still playing as a white male presumably heterosexual protagonist. No matter how well done Ellie is, her role is secondary.

It's a problem with all media. Straight white males dominate the form. Funnily enough, reality TV may be the most diverse offering of humanity, even if it is often the worse humans who are represented.

Developers are smart people. Writers are smart. They are savvy. Marketers can sell a game with a female protagonist on its story and mechanics and cool bits rather than her as a sexualized object. I know this can happen. I have faith in it.

I hope at this E3 we see more new games that show that same faith. Because playing as a straight white dude, no matter how complex his story, is getting old. And it's one of the stupidest business moves gaming can make to keep itself in the media dog house rather than being the hip, modern amazing industry it can be.

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Fixing Assassin's Creed

No one responded to this post for 20 minutes so I'm putting it here and will eventually expand on it.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time did it right. It realized that the purpose of failure in a videogame, at least much of the time, is to learn from that failure and do better next time. Part of the teaching the game is doing comes in feeling consequences for your mistakes. But it also realized that if the mistake was a single timing error after a series of perfect moves, the player should not have to achieve the same thing they already achieved, but only what they did not do well the first time. Thus, the Prince has the sands which allow you to rewind your actions to a point you were comfortable or happy with your achievement.

It is a brilliant, effective, gameplay and story appropriate mechanic.

And holy shit does Assassin's Creed need it.

Every frustrating moment in AC for me is in either repeating easy to fail missions or falling into the GTA style run from the cops, get your wanted level down loop. I find traversal in AC eternally enjoyable. I find the bad ass feeling of set pieces and the time I do stealth my way through the level perfectly intoxicating. But the game forgot what PoP fixed. And it is stupid that did.

It is stupid mechanically and fictionally. Mechanically, a probably limited rewind function, like Eagle Vision and diving assassin recruits, acts as a spell that evens the odds for the player against observant and constant guards and fast-running quarries. Fictionally, the Animus has established time-alteration abilities. It can fast forward through years. It can pause the world for a villain's soliloquy. Rewinding what is essentially false time makes sense for the Animus. It also makes sense for the purpose of the team. Desmond is supposed to relive his ancestors' lives so he can learn what the fuck they did with magical artifacts. Of course his ancestors didn't run up the wrong stupid wall and lose track of Charles Lee.

Computer rewind makes arguably far more sense than magic sand rewind.

So, my question is, why is Ubisoft so dumb and bad at making games when I am so brilliant in hindsight?

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The Contradictions in Batman: Arkham City

I just finally finished playing this lauded and expansive game and it's leaving me vexed. While inelegant, I think some binary distinctions are a useful analytical technique here. Spoilers because, c'mon, June 2012.

Batman is both dickish and unwaveringly heroic

Dickish:

There are certain times in this game where Batman just comes off as dismissive and uncaring rather than merely stoic.

He was about to choose Talia over thousands of people.

For saving his life (as the game describes the act) Catwoman gets a "I broke a nail" joke

The "death" of Ras al Ghul felt like Batman just kinda said "fuck it, fall on this thing" to me

While never "killing" a thug, moves like breaking their arms and legs seem more cruel than typical batman non-murder

The whole thing with ungagging and gagging Harley Quinn is weird.

In the DLC, he's a dick to Robin

Heroic

There is no player choice here. Batman will not take eternal life, will not kill a villain, will not let joker die. In major decisions, he does not waver in doing the selfless thing. Alfred and Barbara even comment on it, giving him tons of shit for wanting to save Gotham before he saves himself (if not Talia, which is weird)

All the villains are aware of and mock Batman for his unwavering selflessness. It's a theme

The game is both self-aware goofy and dark/gritty/somber/hurtful

Self-aware goofy

Random thugs that you hear as you sneak up or as you move about the complex will talk about how weird this universe is. They say things like "it's hard work being a henchman" or " 'man I can't wait to fight Batman again.' 'Why? He broke three bones last time you fought him.' " The writing and voice acting are actively deconstructing the universe and the gameyness of random thugs wandering around. These hardened criminals sometimes sound more like social critics or philosophers

Joker and Riddler, despite being sadistic maniacs, still make a lot of puns (just as they did in the Animated Series). Penguin has a giant shark in the silliest "challenge" in the game. Solomon Grundy is like a Mario boss.

That (Spoilers) Clayface finale is a wacky way to end a game.

Dark/Gritty/Somber/Hurtful

Those same thugs use the infamous bitch word a lot, talk about torturing and killing innocents, and generally come off as the largest collection of sociopaths ever

Some villains are cruel and completely unsympathetic. Penguin's menagerie is something out of Bioshock, more horror than comic book. Two Face just comes off as a prick. Zsazs is icky as always. Joker and Hugo are the best parts of the game, if only for the humanism Hugo reveals in his interviews.

The detective mode clue finding is more CSI than Sherlock Holmes.

Dude (Spoilers!) Joker dies. Of disease and doubt in Batman's kindness. He fucking dies. Hugo Strange dies. Talia dies. They do not fuck around.

The Gameplay is both rhythmic and deep and dull and repetitive

Rhythmic and Deep

I can't knock the basic flowing combat. It's responsive, it's fun, it fits the character. I got through it without being nearly as skilled as many, and I like that I can bushleague my way through something that can be done with far more grace and poise.

The movement cycle through the city glide-hook-glide-dive-glide stuff is great.

Dull and Repetitive

Like Arkham Asylum, the crux of the game is in combat zones that try to have Deus Ex style variability (vents, hanging bits, enemies of different types), but for some reason feel really same-y and cookie cutter pretty quickly.

On normal at least, the only time I felt challenged was in the battle with Mr. Freeze and the battle with Joker, the latter because of those cheap, annoying trains, but the former because you have to find four different ways to damage him, and that was great fun. That rising tide didn't really lift all boats, though.

Conclusion

It's not that I don't think these elements can work together to create a coherent, moving piece. The pencil scene in The Dark Knight is both horrible and funny; it leaves the audience chuckling at a man getting a pencil shoved through his face, and soon after leaves us worried that we laughed. It makes us participate in Joker's sadism.

But Arkham city feels more like a hodgepodge of tone and theme than a beautiful combination. It has a cool wrapping story of two outcasts, one chaos, one control, who need each other, in a way, to be whole. But it also has Batman going inside Clayface like a God of War battle and convicts who are alternately philosophers and misogynists. A serial killer tasks you with point-to-point races across the city. The great "test of the demon" is a glide-dive tutorial.

In trying to be serious and gritty while commenting on its own peccadilloes, the game limits the effectiveness of both aspects of its tone. I was left feeling miffed at how such a potentially powerful ending could be so colored by a schizophrenic build up.

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Why playing Tomb Raider made me appreciate Uncharted

I never played Tomb Raider before this week. I've still only now played Legend and (half) of Underworld (more on that later...). I've got the trilogy from gamefly, so I'll check out Anniversary next.

Crystal Dynamics' take on the series is the only part I'm interested in playing. I'm sure the old grid-based gameplay and puzzle design was interesting and cool, but I like me some fluid animation and choice in movement.

So, without further ado, what I like about Tomb Raider, what I don't like about it, and the fascinating way this interacts with Uncharted in my mind

Tomb Raider is cool

1. Lara Croft as a character, at least as Crystal-D has written her, is a multifaceted, funny, clever, sympathetic woman. She's deeply knowledgable like an uber Indiana Jones (can you sight-read ancient Celtic? I thought not) and feels genuinely excited about learning and exploration. As a formerly spoiled English heiress whose parents died doing this stuff, her motivations are pleasantly muddled. Now, her rack is oversized and the dress-up meta game of how skimpy can we make her is sexist and unsubtle, but beneath that bikini is a well-written human being.

2. The puzzles are fun and hard (usually in a good way). The grapple mechanic and ability to move stuff basically make up all the puzzles in these games, but the elaborate, multi-part nature of them feels epic and engaging. Slowly killing a blind Kraken or smashing your way into King Arthur's tomb with a forklift, they are often creative and usually fun.

3. Cool meta-mythology. The history and mythology in the trilogy can get silly, but for the sake of exploring, especially in Underworld, Mayan, Norse, and Hindu tombs, it's all quite exciting. Inspired turns like the King Arthur theme park in Legend and the entrance to Xibalba in Underworld cannot be missed.

Tomb Raider is Silly and Broken

1. The gunplay. God is it awful. In Legend, it's just lock-on and shoot. In Underworld, for who knows why, it's far, far worse. The slow-down mechanic is interesting but repetitive. I liked that Legend had its enemies talk to each other to give some variety, but Underworld killed that, too. With no cover mechanic and dirt-simple melee, Underworld especially feels like a chore.

2. The story contradicts its poignancy with monsters and unreality. Really emotional stuff happens in here. Lara becomes scary angry. I felt something at times. But then it's back to shooting endangered species and fighting an evil Atlantean bat lady. Oh, you liked wielding Excalibur? How about Thor's Hammer? Here's fifty thousand frost giants to kill. Man, that character death sure was chilling... GOTH DOPPELGANGER.

3. Camera and glitches. Damn it. Legend is actually pretty good. It's still PS2 era so it's more gamey and solid. I can't play Underworld anymore without replaying 6 hours. When I load my save, Lara dies. She spawns in death-liquid. At other times in that game, I got stuck in a walking animation or (multiple times) spawned further along than where I died. Blind leaps of faith and random rearrangement of the camera angle so now you're dead! are common. It makes the pretty feel really ugly.

Uncharted

Blasphemous as it may be, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was my entry into the tomb raiding game. Action adventure roots fall more into Prince of Persia. Uncharted owed a huge debt of gratitude to Tomb Raider. Just in these two TR games I played, I saw:

1. Same or similar locations (Nepal, Scuttled ship, burning house, mediterranean jungle, train)

2. Shoot dudes, set piece, puzzle structure

3. Mythical macguffin=story.

4. Wise-cracking protagonist

But I also found myself missing Uncharted. Deeply.

Uncharted is in the same genre as Tomb Raider, but it comes from a different philosophy. Uncharted wants you to succeed, wants you to believe in what you are doing, and wants to wow you at every turn.

Some puzzle rooms in Tomb Raider require guides because they are illogical and obtuse. Uncharted can be too brainless (the "puzzle" in Drake's Fortune was "read journal, do what it says), but it always makes sense. Similarly, the combat in Uncharted feels fair. You can find cover and pick away at enemies or run up and punch them out. Bats and spiders do not randomly accost you just to add playtime (Spiders in Uncharted 3 are actually a very cool gameplay mechanic). Tomb Raider consistently showed me jumps I knew I could make and rejected that notion as Lara's body slid fruitlessly against the ledge and into death. Drake can feel too guided at times, but, damn it, it's not fun to jump toward a ledge and fail because I was just slightly off. All I learn is to hate that ledge, not become better at the game.

I believe in what I'm doing in Uncharted. Say what you will about painting ledges red, but Uncharted never has a bunch of conspicuous poles poking out of the ice. The environment feels real, even if it is ultimately a construction to lead you onward. All the shit that breaks under Drake makes it feel tenuous and exciting rather than monotonous and predictable. And the monsters that do crop up are explained and matter. Best of all, in each city, in each area, the meticulous attention to cultural detail is astounding. The bazaars of Yemen, the bunk beds in Tibet, the incredible stone work in London--the verisimillitude is to die for. Oh, and the women are treated as people, relationships really matter, and any sexing up is character driven rather than odd (really, Lara, you're wetsuit shows butt cheek? Why exactly?).

Finally, those wow moments. The reason the train, the cruise ship, the jungle vistas, the chateau, the hotel, the reason all those matter is that they make you drop your jaw that you are playing this. Every wow moment in Tomb Raider is in a cutscene. The giant puzzles very quickly become tedious in tomb raider as each one revolves around putting shit in other shit with jumping in between. I can't express how great the puzzles in Uncharted 3 are. From spatial reasoning to fun with shadows, I felt invigorated while solving them. At some point, Tomb Raider just becomes a thankful to be done with it.

The Future

Uncharted 3's puzzles bring that game into a comparable place with the ingenious contraptions of Tomb Raider. The new Tomb Raider looks interesting, if a bit too perilous for its own good. I'm glad these series are forging their own paths. And, now that I know Lara better, it'll be nice to see a new origin for her. I'm happy to have played these games, despite the frustrations and the comparisons. I don't want Tomb Raider to become Uncharted. I want all games to learn from Uncharted's player-appreciation, believable locations and characters, and grandeur.

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