Back for the third installment in our continuing series I bring you today's Daily Camera headline. Keep in mind today's date.
In addition to the great cover story about BRACELETS, I love the secondary headline "College Republicans mark 9/11". Because you know, those dirty democrats aren't going to acknowledge it.
YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM It's a common word in videogame circles. Whether it's: "That was a fukkin epic boss battle", or "Bioware is looking to tell an epic story of good vs evil in Dragon Age: Origins", or any of the other myriad of uses, it's clearly a powerful term in the industry. Hell, there's even a company named after it. Unfortunately, it seems epic as a buzzword has gained a little too much cache nowadays, especially in regards to storytelling. Developers have no restraint to their ambitions-- whole franchises are created around a game before it even launches. Comic book tie-ins, animated movies, online ARGs, it goes on. All because the developer wants to whet your appetite for the "epic" story their game will allegedly tell (They also enjoy your cash monies). You have things as ludicrous as Bioware announcing the entire Mass Effect Trilogy at once. Developers feel obligated to tell a huge epic story, almost as a way of justifying themselves to gamers. Only problem?
They're not very good at it, and we have too many of them. Very few people can pull off a Star Wars or a Lord of the Rings. Those things are great when they're done right: fresh, grand, and entertaining. However, if it's not done just right, your story feels flat and boring. There's nothing inherently wrong with an epic story, don't get me wrong. It's just not the only kind of story you can tell, something the videogame industry seems to have forgotten. Novels, movies, TV shows, plays, and all other forms of popular media vary wildly in theme, tone, scope, and focus. Games are a much narrower spectrum. Partially this is due to having to construct gameplay around your story-- the videogame equivalent of a romantic comedy is a long ways off, because no one has figured out how to make that fun to play. However, gameplay can't be entirely blamed for the death of unique and creative stories in games. There's plenty that can be done with the existing tools that simply isn't done.
YOU ARE NOT PART OF THE PROBLEM One of my favorite games in recent memory, Hotel Dusk: Room 215, takes place entirely within a two-floor hotel, dealing with a very small cast of characters. The story isn't very epic, and it's told very conservatively- no sweeping orchestral score, there's no voice acting, and the character portraits are only lightly animated (they are nicely stylized though). Hotel Dusk succeeds because it went for a smaller, more contained story as opposed to what seems to be the status quo nowadays of epic, galaxy changing chronologies. It builds an interesting and layered cast of characters, puts a gameplay mechanic around them, and simply tells a small, personal story about this hotel in a satisfying way. It's fantastic. I wouldn't trade Hotel Dusk for twenty Halo's.
Small stories are great. Often, I find them more enjoyable than the sweeping epics. Mad Men, a show I've been making my way through recently, is about 60's advertising executives. Sounds boring as hell at first glance, but it's actually really very interesting in terms of characters and as a period piece. There's nothing (or very, very little) equivalent in videogames. When people lament the lack of creativity in videogame stories, they want more diversity, not more scale. Developers become caught up in the idea of players only liking epic stories (because that's what sells, or that's what metacritic says, or whatever their rationale), and then they become convinced they have to make an epic story themselves. If their game succeeds, the cycle perpetuates.
The problem is that companies see story in games as a binary choice: little to no story, or a grand epic. "Epic or bust". Really, this is a losing deal for both us and them. As gamers we get very little diversity, and a ton of poorly-told epics. For developers, they have to put much more money and effort into their stories by hiring big-name writers and having to script cinematics, and then risk the game failing and not recouping investment. Smaller scale means more profit, as long as you can attract much of the same audience. It also allows for a tighter, more focused experience, and possibly a higher level of quality.
More than just Firefight While epic or bust is indeed still the prevailing attitude in the industry, there is some hope. Bungie actually, who were on the forefront of this movement with the Halo trilogy, looks to be setting an interesting example with Halo 3: ODST. Built off of the existing Halo 3 engine by a small team, ODST looks to cut back on the grand space opera and focus instead on a more human experience. As The Rookie, your only objective is to find out what happened to your squadmates while you were knocked out. Bungie has described the game as a film-noirish tale with smaller stakes than previous games. That's fantastic to hear, a big studio doing a smaller story-- of course, Bungie is also doing Halo: Reach, which looks to be seven kinds of epic, so they're clearly hedging their bets. Still though, it's an encouraging example in a market filled with far too little of little stories.
If videogames ever want to be taken seriously as a method for storytelling, they will need to diversify. This obsession with "epic" is a juvenile phase that will need to pass. Obviously, there are hurdles associated with changing the status quo, but nothing good comes without effort. Braid last year was a great example of a successful story that felt no need to be epic, or even easily approachable. Unfortunately though, such games are few and far between. Chances are, if a game's had much effort at all put into story, the developer is shooting for an epic. And put quite simply: there's more to storytelling than being epic. And games need to understand that.
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Hello World, it's been a while. I have several things to talk about today, and have conveniently lumped them together into one easily accessible blog post instead of spreading them out. Feel free to read only what interests you.
District 9: It's like Apartheid, but with aliens
ALIENSSSSS The Internet Hype Machine has been all over this movie the past couple of days- almost sickeningly so. Regardless, it certainly looked like a good movie, and the great RottenTomatoes score certainly didn't hurt. Me and a friend made our way to an opening day showing, and it really did deliver. The basic premise is a rather simple allegory about apartheid in South Africa- substitute aliens for blacks. While it certainly sounds as though it could get caught up in it's own pretentiousness, the movie rather wisely downplays the allegorical implications of the setting and simply focuses on setting events in motion and watching actions and reactions. The plot flows well and goes to some unexpected places-- go in unsullied if at all possible, as this is certainly a movie you don't want to know too much about going in. Director Blomkamp has a deft touch for action sequences and story progression alike-- moving from a documentary-style first act depicting the titular alien slum of District 9 to a more traditional character interlude, and closing out with some fantastically choreographed action sequences. The whole movie is fantastically energetic, occasionally too much so, as the shaky-cam style of filming can occasionally grate. District 9 is really ultimately a fantastic film which manages to keep you surprised and engaged throughout, definitely worth seeing for almost anyone.
The film is exceptionally gory in some parts- it's definitely a hard "R" rating, and I wouldn't suggest bringing kids or the squeamish. I definitely recommend you give it a shot, it likely needs the money, as I can't really see it being a mainstream hit. Luckily though, District 9 was filmed for only 30 million dollars, an exceptionally low budget with almost zero loss in quality- the CG is top notch in most spots and the actors are all great. One of the best movies I've seen all year, and a great ride. Go see it.
Microsoft really blew things not letting Halo get off the ground though. Blomkamp could have done some amazing things with that provided he had creative control. Oh well, opportunity's gone now. Speaking of Halo...
Halo Saturation
This is something I see brought up quite a lot nowadays:
"God there are too many Halo games, Stop milking this series M$ and Bungle"
And, Halo fan that I am, this rankles me. Is this really a serious complaint? We've had four Halo games so far, with a fifth on it's way in a month. We've had five games since the launch of the original Xbox. All of which have been very good. Three main games, the Halo Wars spinoff, and the upcoming ODST expansion. I really don't get how consistently getting good games every couple years is "milking". Yes, there are two Halo games releasing this year, but both are smaller scale than normal, and offer two completely different game experiences. I just fail to see how this is a bad thing in any way.
Of course Halo has one of the largest and most avid group of haters out there, which is another thing. I just really fail to see the truth in this criticism. Until a seriously bad project comes out, I don't see how you can complain about getting more good games. Then again I do own several Halo novels, so perhaps my love for the series has blinded me. Speaking of Halo, did you see this recently announced Halo: Evolutions compilation? Sounds neat. Karen Traviss will be writing for it, who also wrote the Republic Commando novels and the Gears novels and who recently quit writing Star Wars (see there's a picture of a Star Destroyer in the next section! Most successful segue). Also this thread on Traviss quitting SW is really just fantastic. So glad I stopped caring about SW before I became these guys.
Real Money, Virtual Things
I suppose most of you saw the shitstorm that went down in Sweep's topic about avatar COG armor. While at first I was agreeing with everybody else in thinking it was a waste of money, it got me thinking. In terms of supporting a corrupt business model, yes, it's terribly unconscionable to support Microsoft's attempt to leech every last penny The Besttttttt they can out of gamers. Sweep certainly did not vote with his dollars (or didn't vote well, at least). However, really, as long as some degree of enjoyment can be pulled out of the purchase on a personal level, there's nothing to terribly bad about it. Sure it's mostly useless outside of aesthetics, but getting to see little digital you- dressed as a badass soldier- every time you turn on your box can be cool. Everyone has useless things they derive entertainment from. Hell, I've still got a Star Destroyer toy that I keep on a display stand, not because I play with it, but because I just really love the design and like looking at it. It's about as functional as Sweep's COG armor, but it's viewed slightly differently, because I actually own a physical object, as opposed to the 3D model applied to Sweep's avatar. As digital technology advances and becomes even more integrated into our everyday lives, I think this is an issue that we'll begin seeing more and more. Is a digital product inherently worth less because it is only a string of code? It certainly feels weird to hand over real money in exchange for imaginary content, but ultimately there is little difference. As long as you can enjoy your purchase, it doesn't matter what medium you made it in.
The song is over, thought I'd something more to say.
Thanks for reading. I've got some other things I would really like to blog more in-depth about, but I've hit some serious writer's block. Oh well, I'm sure you'll get along fine without me. I'm also planning to write up another Megaguide for Halo 3: ODST and might be interested in a few partners in crime. With a well put together product we can usually get on the front page or at least linked to a bunch so your work wouldn't be in vain. Send a line my way if you're interested. Anyways, that's a ways off, so bye for now.
After seeing fellow Bomber JJOR64 claim victory over all the stars in Super Mario Galaxy, I decided I wanted to go back through and 100% it too. I had already gotten all 120 with Mario and about 30 with Luigi, but I went back, wanting to get them all. Today, I have succeeded in that goal. I have gotten all 242 stars in Super Mario Galaxy. Not that it's particularly hard, but I always get a great sense of satisfaction from seeing something through all the way to the end, 100%. I know in this day and age people play for reasons other than just wanting to play- achievements and trophies incentivize players to play all the way to the end, if only for the reward of some points. Mario Galaxy doesn't give you much of a reward, just a message from the developers and some pictures. That doesn't really bother me though, because Galaxy is such an amazing game, just getting to play it is really reward enough. Super Mario Galaxy is one of the best games I've played in the last decade, no contest, and every time I play it is a joy. It's the type of game that's becoming dangerously rare in this age and it's great to see that they still do exist. I don't need any motivation to play Galaxy- the game itself is motivation enough. There's no competitive multiplayer, no epic story, no bonus features, no unlockables- the game is all there is. And that's enough. There's a refreshing frankness to that, and it's delightful when the game is actually good enough for that to be all you need.
Hopefully Galaxy 2 delivers in the same way. If not, well, I got the play of two Mario games out of Galaxy.
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Alright, year 1 here at Giant Bomb (dot) com has wrapped itself up. What did we accomplish this year, you ask?
For Old Times
23,097 wiki points
1,984 forum posts
142 friends in my network
0 updates pending (haha I am ABOVE moderation!)
21 complete pages constructed (probably more, 21 on my list)
943 images uploaded
2,614 image moderation points
10 Guides published (and collectively viewed for over 350,000 minutes!)
94 blog posts
9 User reviews published
97 Trivia questions submitted
Overall, a pretty big impact for my first year :) Site has seen a lot of improvement of the year, and it should continue to grow as we go along. Snide, I want information on my emblems/site achievements (plz? it's been too loooong). Aside from that, I'm quite satisfied with what we've gotten.
And now I'm off to go drink some delicious Gatorade Tiger. It is still delicious.
Perhaps some of you saw this article already. For those that haven't seen it, go read it, I'll wait. All done? Okay good.
Consider for a moment, the implications. These people purchased this e-novel, and were delivered a digital product. Because for some reason the publisher decided it was no longer in their best interest to have a digital version of this novel available, it was removed from the store, and the libraries of everyone who had already purchased it. And yes, their accounts were refunded the money, but think about the power Amazon to retroactively take things from you.
Okay, you've considered it. Unless you're one of the voracious readers with a Kindle, you're probably wondering how this relates to you. Fair enough.
This is essentially what could happen to your DLC and downloadable games. When you purchase something from Xbox Live or the Playstation Network, you aren't actually purchasing a product. What you're purchasing is a license to play the game. You cannot transfer this license, and usually the publisher can revoke it at any time- essentially the same thing that happened to the Kindle version of 1984. Now, it's extremely unlikely that anything like that would ever happen in gaming- it's a massive fuck-up and blatantly anti-consumer- but it's something to be aware of, especially with the shift towards a completely digital future we're looking at. Amazon needs to keep up good relations with publishers, which is probably why they went so far out of their way to indulge this particular desire.
I imagine it's an isolated case, but it's certainly a warning to pay attention to in the future.
So I've been lurking the NeoGAF for a while- it's a hugely entertaining forum to read, and their Halo 3 thread is fantastic. Anyways, today I figured I may as well put in my registration, figuring it would take a while to get approved- I've heard it takes quite a while for your account to get approved by the moderators. So I fill out the form, use a non-free e-mail like the FAQ says, and this shows up in my e-mail shortly afterwards.
Action Required to Activate Membership for NeoGAF
NeoGAF [staff@neogaf.com]
Sent:
Wednesday, July 15, 2009 6:52 PM
To:
########
So I click the link, and it says: "Good job, now you need to wait for our admins to validate your account. This is the long part from what I've heard- usually takes a least a few months. So I go on with my business. Then later today I get this e-mail:
Account validated at NeoGAF!
NeoGAF [staff@neogaf.com]
Sent:
Wednesday, July 15, 2009 10:29 PM
To:
#######
Take a look at the timestamps. Account created and validated in under four hours :D
CyanageN is raging because the account he registered like three months ago got denied. Gotta say though, I was all prepared for a long wait. Pretty anti-climactic really. Course I'm still a Junior Member, but oh well.
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