My appreciation for Id Software is a roller-coaster of emotion, similar to my current standing with Square-Enix. I think back to Id Software's humble origins, it's push and spark of creativity. I look at Rage and instead of appreciating the game on display, like Final Fantasy XIII I am impressed by flashy visuals juxtaposed over tired mechanics and setting. While Square might have won an award last year for "Most Stupid Things A Developer Can Say Publicly In An Allotted Time", John Carmack, an individual I have the utmost respect for, probably wins the award a million-times over with this fun quote forever to be set in embarrassing stone.
"Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important." - John Carmack
That's John Carmack folks, comparing the products of our industry to the porn industry. It's why he's part of the technicalities, versus the game's design. Go back to making " mega-textures", or whatever goofy name you've given to this tech.
It's that type of mentality in western game development that I hate with a angry passion. I've skimmed over before, regarding what I perceive are the two broad branches of thought when it comes to game development:
Games are interactive experiences, story and cut-scenes go hand-in-hand with the gameplay.
Games are interactive experiences, all story must be disseminated entirely within the game because games are interactive simulated experiences and you should press a button to breathe.
To be fair, Kojima does need an editor. Of course these are broad generalizations, games these days usually combine and find balance between these two concepts. Whatever which ones better, It's a debate that brings up wide and equally annoying passion among critics even to this day. Usually the anger seethes out of those trying to distance the debate over Western and Japanese development, a concept I find awkward because Western game development uses the cut-scene all the time. Most disagreement against the cutscene usually boils down to "I don't wanna watch this movie, I just want to shoot things!" a statement that I can't relate too, and makes me fear for the individuals attention span, which makes me even more confused because................I HAVE DOCUMENTED ADD. The hell is wrong with you?! You can pause and skip them you idiot! ... *ahem*
...back on topic... As an active observer (sounds a bit voyeuristic <_< >_> -_-.), sometimes I get the impression that it's the second concept of thought, usually has the "worst" storytelling. The reasons for this are many: Most are made in accident, with the designer believing the player has more affinity and could push one's persona onto an antiquated mute character. Without that leap of logic, that happens a lot for the people that play these games, the end result can be a soul-less experience one hampered with a main character that seems out-of-place with the illusion of the situation happening in the game.
I find this format of thought as equally antiquated than a game giving you twenty minutes of direction and story after giving you twenty minutes of gameplay. The simulation aspect can be formed out of games of old, games that relied heavily on their mechanics at an almost arcade level. To be fair, all game origins and genres derive out of this arcade gene-pool. Id Software's back-catalog since it's inception to Doom 3 married and championed this mentality throughout the 90's. Games that played great, but were nothing more than games that played great. I look at Rage and my memory of Doom 3 becomes to seethe to the forefront of my mind.
I still hate Doom 3.
NO LIGHTS WERE ADDED TO THIS MAP. THAT MEANS IT'S SCARY. Doom 3 pushed the limitations of my GForce3 video card like nobodies business, but by the first few hours I was bored and confused whether or not the game would eventually stand out on it's own. My tolerance for scary, fear based games had filled me apparently. There was remotely nothing that Doom 3 had done that countless survival-horror games on consoles had done better. Fatal Frame, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, shit I would even put Dino Crisis on that list. Doom 3 was a big budget PC enthusiast upgrade seller, that had already stumbled into the realm of video-game horror parody on it's release.
There were tons of mods for Doom 3... ...Flashlight mods.
It also didn't help that the game shamelessly copied the far superior Half-Life:
New guy goes to work.
Catastrophic catastrophe is slowly hinted at.
Catastrophic catastrophe happens.
Main character is seemingly unaffected by incident.
Fights enemies from anther dimension/hell
Goes to other dimension/hell
Attempts to make things right with varying degree of success.
I wonder if this will be the first and last time I make an "Undying" reference online. Hell had all the stylistic trappings of Clive Barkers superior game Undying, complete with environments that formed around you. The whole experience had the feeling of something made by committee. The generic nature of the game was/has been defended that the game was a remake of the original, my response to that is why one would limit the game's story from the base product of a single poorly written page tucked away in a game manual you never read.
Or maybe you did? I heard a shotgun helps take out " those brown s.o.b's."
BORDERLANDS So it's no surprise that a company that took over a decade to adopt the concept of "story" into their game did so that poorly. I'm still not surprised that roughly six years later their new game is essentially Borderlands and they're proclaiming that gameplay and story mechanics we've seen for years are a new concept worthy to differentiate against the competition. While the two companies are dramatically different, you can probably understand and see why I decided to make a direct comparison at the beginning of this blog with the disturbingly out-of-touch Square.
A few blogs ago, I proclaimed that Infinity-Ward had no creative vision. It's a statement that I still stand behind.
NOT BORDERLANDS Because it wasn't that Doom 3 had a mute character that made it a poor experience, or the way it presents it's story that makes it a joyless boring experience: It's the committee factor. The lack of a striving vision that gives the product it's own palpable space on your gaming shelf, one that can stand alone against the shooting clones or the JRPG clones. Because if we have the mentality that a game's story is only as important and comparable to a guy delivering pizza's at a sorority, this type of introverted and short-sighted concepts breed similar short-sighted concepts in other area's of a product.
When nobody want's to take a risk, when nobody want's to strive to do something new and play it safe, we get stuff: Like a helicopter running on bingo fuel for the fourth time, while you remake a sequence from a James Bond movie. Don't worry, the next level will have you running for a helicopter running on bingo fuel, while you remake a sequence from Red Dawn.
With all the legitimate claims that game developers over-seas enjoy rehashing the same concept over and over again, don't think for a second that western game development is exempt from the same over-focus-tested bullshit.
(Note to self: Get a job in the pizza delivering business.)
What the hell is this?! So why in gods name am I enjoying DarkSiders?! Have you played this game? You want a shameless rip-off of....everything.....Go check out this piece of work. At first I joked that it should be renamed into "Videogame: The Videogame".
That's not a joke anymore.
I've literally seen in the last few hours God of War, Devil May Cry, Legend of Zelda and....I'm not making this up.... Panzer freaking Dragoon. The game is coupled by a plot that involves angry people being angry and making their voice sound more like growls than actual audible words that can be constructed into some type of language.
It's after the apocalypse!
You're the horseman War!
There's a council!
There's a hot angle-chick in revealing armor!
(Reasoning is videogame sex differences 101. Women wear armor that protects them more the less they wear, they also are fast and throw knives. Men wear armor similar in design to football players, and move at a snails pace with higher health and more damage.)
There's a dark power thing that's old and stuff...and evil.
This thing was written and put-together not just by committee, but by some bizarre machine that took other games and stapled and glued them together.
At any moment he's going to yell that he's "Generic-Man!" I wish I had some definable answer that I can stand behind. Perhaps I have forgotten a basic tenant of sometimes why we enjoy games: That sometimes were just going to enjoy something that's fun. Darksiders is brainless, not in the same brainless nature that Modern Warfare 2 attempted: pretending to be meaningful. No, Darksiders isn't trying to prove anything, and so far, it seems to work.
It's refreshing for me to find humor and general enjoyment, out of something that I can easily perceive others proclaiming as bland drivel. The shameless nature of Darksiders is something I can completely comprehend and enjoy. So perhaps in this case Carmack's quote rings a thread of truth. That perhaps a game can stand entirely on it's base mechanics, and the plot could be written on a fucking napkin.
Or maybe it's because they're no game developers willing to make some goddamn Zelda clones! C'mon people! Why hasn't anyone touched the designs of Zelda?! I swear to god, you know where half the anticipation for the new Zelda title comes from? Yes, because it will be a high quality product, but it's also simply: a new Zelda game! That alone makes people excited, because no one is interested in making a Zelda game!
Sony has recently decided to send me a box. I'm going to talk ad-nauseum about that in just a second.
HI! I'M STILL AWESOME! While I hurry up and wait for stuff to happen, I decided that it would be cool to dive into what I think is one of the best games this year: Mass Effect 2. DLC and achievements are fickle things. I remember reading a thread a while ago, considering the concept of making an "S"-Rank grade and then an "SS"-Rank for those games that 100% percentage totals are broken because of DLC. I actually have quite a few games that are victim to unnecessary DLC.
Bioware seems to be learning on all their past mistakes, specifically Mass Effect 1. To say that ME1's DLC was....underwhelming...would be quite the understatement. Systemic-content rich DLC, has been something that Bioware has said it's wanted to do, but has failed to do since KoToR. Mass Effect 2 seems like the beginning of a grand departure from the mediocre norm. It has a long way to go in comparison to let's say, the Fallout 3 expansions, but the room for improvement and content success is there.
I played through both Kasumi and Overlord DLC, with the Overlord DLC being of course the most expansive and engaging. It's still upsetting that aside from Shepard, no party members have much to say regarding the grand situation that is presented in Overlord. It's also strange that you are still under employ of Cerberus. (Yet to achieve post-Mass Effect 2 story DLC) Regardless, the final sequence and choice was meticulously well crafted. It's not the most difficult choice to make, but it's saying a lot that there seems to be hints of what appear to be sympathy with Shepard if one chooses the renegade option. Yes, renegade Shepard looks and sounds uncomfortable making renegade choice.
Bioware are still phenomenal story-tellers, and the film-ascetic that they apply to their presentation still impresses me. The talks of them considering the next phase of DLC, being a bridge between Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 has my interest piked. A Dragon Age: Awakening style expansion would be phenomenal.
But enough of this praiseworthy garbage. I need to complain about something.
A few days ago this happened. I've now spent well over $150+plus tax to get my 60gig Playstation 3 fixed. It's not that I'm upset, it's that I'm concerned about all the variables that simply do, and don't add up. The last few days have been a whirlwind of information regarding learning about the limitations of Ps3 hardware. It was wrapped up in a very mind-numbing moment when I went to finalize my transaction. A prompt asking whether or not I wanted to upgrade my PS3 to a Slim model at almost half the cost I'm paying for, in this case what's probably just a laser-swap. As of writing, I have just finished transferring all my saves and information off my PS3 onto an external hard-drive I had to format specifically for Ps3.
An upgrade, to a system that has less features to what I own now.
I'm on my third 360, I might consider actually upgrading to the new console primarily over fear of the red-ring. (Although it's not 100% confirmed if the new model doesn't break down.)
There's also the big concern over what happens after I get my fixed system. The primary question: Should I continue to play Final Fantasy XIII? I still want to beat this thing.
To take such a long hiatus from playing, to jump back in, and have the game blow back in my face like this has crushed most of my spirits. If I do get it back, there's a part of me that would rather just start over from the beginning (Final Fantasy XIII killed my PS3 at the 30 hour mark.)
Then there's the lawsuit which has me concerned. Sony has gone on record stating that the game is causing the malfunctions, Square points at Sony that it's a hardware problem. Then you have a bunch of people stating that this is a systemic problem with the 60 gig. That sounds more reasonable, but given the wide-spread issue of this happening, and the eerie-replication that people can make of it...It's all very....disconcerting... How long will this fixed Ps3 be able to play without it busting?
What's the culprit? Over-use?! How do you figure that? Is the person who played and got the platinum trophy for Final Fantasy XIII, someone who "over-used" their PS3? What about the person who didn't turn on their PS3 for several weeks?
So it's the laser that failed. Which makes sense. Sorta.
BluRay might be great at fitting a ludicrous amount of information on a disc, but it's laser speed has been criticized. To counter this a large number of PS3 games have mandatory installs. Yakuza 3 probably is the biggest culprit of install file-sizes, just to play the game requires you to have five gigs of data free. I remember several years ago when the Xbox first launched and there was a litany of complaints regarding how it was just a "computer for your TV." Ludicrous complaints to be had this generation, internals of each system almost mirrors gaming PC specs. If PC gaming is in threat of becoming: "too console-ified", with it's rigid matchmaking and stilted online play, then consoles in turn are under threat, if they haven't already: of becoming too "PC-ified".
I don't find this as a hindrance. If the hardware of this generation is going to be so unpredictable in it's quality, then the games in turn demand every possible avenue of customization for hardware and customer stake. Specifically: The ability to install your game.
I only play 360 games that are installed. Period. The PS3, while has multiple titles with an install feature, needs to have some form of this feature adopted universally.
There's this cringe-worthy feeling that this situation, and others like it, would be completely avoided if this thing was installed somehow. I can understand the want and need for something that is pick-up-and-play. The alternative, with this generations set of hardware, sadly simply does not compute with this concept. Would you rather risk damaging your several hundred dollar system in order to play the game a few minutes early?
Memory is another problematic aspect. Owners of the illusive 20gig PS3, my heart goes out to you guys. I can imagine bouncing against file-size limits is pretty continuous problem.
But the question really needs to be asked: Is installing a game really an affront, or a hindrance against a console still being a console? I keep reading how PS3 developers like to brag over their games having a lack of install. Instead of confidence, I find such proclamations...disturbing.
Better yet: Should we as consumers demand more reliable hardware from the companies that make our systems? I don't find that a terribly controversial statement to agree with. Regardless, I feel like something should change. Whenever the next-generation comes, I hope we will have learned from our mistakes.
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I mean, that has to be bullshit right? Perhaps you have played, and beaten the game on PS3, and had no problems. I know I've played a bunch of games that apparently spelled death for certain people. I mean, anyone would try to get anything for a buck. Class-action law-suit sounds crazy...
So, I haven't been playing Final Fantasy XIII for a few months, I decided to jump back into the fray and loaded it up a few days ago.
I knew something was weird when the music stopped playing... Then the battle kinda just...hanged....after I finished a fight without any battle results. Really freaking strange.
So I reset the machine, and kinda got a bit concerned that the PS3 now couldn't see the Final Fantasy XIII disk. I stuck in another disk, can't read that either. I've tried every disk I can think of, doesn't read anything.
I did a database recovery...nothing. I'm not sure I want to do a system factory restore, because I don't want to lose all my save data.
I remembered that 'stupid' article I wrote off several weeks ago and I decided to research the problem. I came across this video and I started feeling really ridiculous a few minutes in: This is an actual problem people.
A quick youtube search brought up a series of videos of people, all seeming incredibly not-crazy, apparently having the same problem. To say that I'm freaked out would be an understatement. Reasons vary from game overheating the disk laser,to defective disks.
Yeah -_-
I don't know what to do, I'm probably going to have to send it in. I own a 60 Gig PS3, I'm annoyed of having to pay to get it fixed, but having a working backward compatible machine is kinda important for me.
Shit, just having a working PS3 is kinda important for me.
So yeah, I'm pretty freaked out by this. If I can accomplish anything here, I hope I can spread the word out a little bit. If your game starts freezing: Get that sucker out of your PS3 pronto!
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Quick E3 write up. The general consensus for Microsoft's press conference is in, and it's surprisingly messy. Like many of you this morning, I woke up at 9:30, jumped on GameTrailers and got myself psyched and ready. What followed was something that I have trouble grasping words to describe. In the GiantBomb IRC chat-room, users, myself included, had trouble containing themselves. If you have not had the "luxury" of watching the conference from beginning to end, you might want to give that a second thought. Nintendo might have given us vitality sensors and putting smiles on faces. Sony apparently has an army of giant enemy crabs, but nothing, nothing really came close to what was on display this morning. Disappointment and confusion might be a way to describe it, but I would argue that the whole damn thing was a giant missed opportunity
How hilariously unfocused was it?: The thing opened with a demonstration of Call of Duty Black OPS, showing a character being knifed in the throat in the tunnels of the Vietnam War. It ended, with a six year old asian girl playing with an HD interactive pet named Skittles.
You simply can't make this shit up.
What went right? Consider me impressed by Call of Duty Black Ops. Treyarch seems to be taking the torch that was thrown at them in stride, the game's engine is doing a lot of things at once. Vehicle combat has been done before, but the fluidity of the sequence looked great. I also like that Treyarch has decided to adopt....modern....story-telling techniques, with the main character clearly talking while you play.
In fact it's largely regarded that the first portion of the conference went pretty smooth, if not a bit underwhelming. Halo is still Halo. Gears of War is still Gears of War.
What went wrong? Which immediately brings me to this section. While not as pronounced as Nintendo simply, not having anything, the same feeling of "what's new?" permeated throughout this presentation. Crytek, is working on something involving actors dressed up as gladiators or something walking toward a camera in slow-motion. I guess. There was something very off-setting with the franchise trifecta being showed off, and so heavily invested into during the presentations beginning. There were general statements without context thrown about like crazy. No one played multiplayer on consoles before Halo apparently? Sure, why not! The lack of nothing new on display was astounding.
"LOOK AT THE WATER!" So while the first part of the presser was pretty underwhelming, though not horrible, it paled in the train-wreck that followed. Forget that this is E3, forget that this is a press conference. This thing had the most ham-fisted dialog I have ever had the displeasure of listening too. I was crying tears of laughter during the video-chat segment. My praise and admiration, to anyone who was there physically in the theater, and got through that with a straight face. I stand and applaud you, whoever you were. For a moment I thought time had magically turned back, it was the 90's and I had just opened my gaming magazine to this.
The product should sell itself, you should of course be enthusiastic: But the enthusiasm on display here was so over-the-top it actually dwarfed the product. It's the difference between two people desperately trying to make something looked exciting, and a crowd erupting in laughter with the simple act of Raiden cutting watermelons. This makes sense because there's apparently nothing really of interest on display here. Don't worry, I know that's a loaded gut-reaction statement and I'll get to explaining that in just a minute.
The pinnacle? Two girls playing Kinect Adventure, and at on point the phrase "Look at the Water!" is exclaimed. Yes, I am looking at the water. Unlike you, I have played other videogames that have water effects. You apparently haven't, because the disconnect is apparently as wide as a canyon between the people setting up this show, and their customers!
It was like they were going for, "How many negative internet meme's can we come up within an allotted time period."
Thanks to this press conference: I have no interest in the Kinect. Which makes me mad.
Now I would like to illustrate my bias. My perception of Project Natal has always been this evolution of motion controls in HD. My apologies for even considering this concept. Please though, have sympathy. When you tout out Steven Spielberg, and the media blast from last year....Perhaps I was ignorant. Perhaps I'm being ignorant now.
Or not.
The real question regarding motion controls, even back to the Wii, is if it's a better substitute for buttons. If your a developer, can you get a new tangible experience out of flailing around, versus pressing "A". I find it very telling, that perhaps the most applicable example of Kinetic was during the Forza demo. Again with over-enthusiasm, we got to open doors and walk around a car.
Microsoft's direct answer to the casual audience that the Wii has taken. Nothing more, nothing less, and that's what bothers me. Here was this great example for lots of 3rd party developers to showcase this product, and we get Wii-knock off after Wii-knock off. The only other game that wasn't a Wii-knock off or tech-demo? Star Wars. Is there a title for it, aside from Star Wars? No.
That's it? That's the support for it? Does anyone else thing the lack of on-display 3rd party games, of things the Wii hasn't done yet....disconcerting?
This whole thing really put me in a bad mood. Really interested in what Nintendo does tomorrow, really interested in what Sony does tomorrow.
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It's always strange to get back from a vacation. Granted, I seemed to have needed one desperately and I'm happy to report that even after losing my glasses on this trip in particular, a good time was enjoyed by all. The Sasquatch music festival is a three day, all day, event. The location of the festival is at an area best described as "the middle of nowhere." Thus, the controlled environment of such an event has overlapping social ticks not appropriate to every day life. Casually head bobbing to muzak subconsciously in an elevator is a bit odd. If last year was any indication, such strange knee-jerk reactions should slowly pass.
Or not.
Yup, still an amazing venue. For someone who lives on the east-side and enjoys Seattle a bunch, I have little interest in venturing out into eastern Washington. I can pretty much count on one hand the amount of times I have ventured out into that empty expanse. There's simply nothing out there. I always get the impression that if you like lots of farm land, and republican politics, then you're set.
At this point you are probably wondering why such an event is held out here, until you take a look at it. The word vista doesn't give justice to how beautiful the area is. It simply is. The first time you lay eyes on the gorge is something, that at least for me personally, can't be properly described with photo's or word's. It truly is a sight to see.
We didn't camp at the main camp site. Sometimes you get quick glances at the main campsite, a reoccurring joke was that the place looks like Mogadishu. For a few dollars more you can stay at a place with proper showers, food and coffee, the latter is something severely lacking at Sasquatch.
Weather was perfect. A drizzle of showers here and there, but overall I think it stayed between 70-80 degrees which is a big step up from last year's sun scorcher. The technicalities surrounding the venue feel like they have gotten worse. Alcohol is strictly forbidden, people pat you down, check your bags at the gate, and make you drain any water bottles of liquid prior to entering. "Beverage enforcers" roam the venue with blue shirts and ear-pieces. They look for alcohol not sold at the gorge and make you drain any you have sneaked in. I doubt any actual repercussions happen to the individuals who smuggle beer in. More imminently confusing is the amount of blatant drug use in the gorge. No "Pot Enforcers" roaming the venue that's for sure.
That's because they don't sell pot at the gorge. They sell beer though, and at nine dollars...yes....nine dollars...you can get yourself a can. This year more alcohol seemed to have appeared including.....*ahem*....ten dollar shots....and......*ahem*.....seventeen dollar margaritas....
Make pot legal and you'll have your nickle bag for twenty bucks sold there, complete with bouncer-wannabees in green shirts I can assure you. The whole thing is a racket. (At this point I would like to point out I am not a pot-head, nor do I smoke pot. I'm just completely indifferent when it comes to people who smoke it.)
Favorite show during the three days was LCD Soundsystem. The energy that the group expelled was toxic, I was in the front and people were just losing their minds, including myself. Although, admittedly that's not hard to do. :P
I'm in the front somewhere in there!
Vampire Weekend had an excellent performance on the first day. Bought myself a green VW hoodie. Wearing that, and my Atari hat makes me into some super-hipster of somesort. Props also to a white albino rapper named Brother Ali. Last year the Murder City Devils made speeches...or drunken tirades...so whenever a group stops to say something I kinda cringe. Not so with this guy. He actually made a pretty damn excellent speech about accepting who you are, which sounds cliche as fuck but I can assure you it wasn't. He also pulled off a legitimately hilarious sequence with his friend who went by the name "DJ Snuggles". I hope more video of this thing is posted because the whole damn thing is hilarious.
None of your business! :P
Then I saw Deamau5........
........... ...
I would try and explain the awesomeness in this clip, but I think this video explains itself.
Pavement has apparently reunited, although the set they played had a reoccurring problem for many sets at the festival. Rampant technical problems. Things completely broke down and they actually stopped playing for several minutes. They looked legitimately annoyed, felt very sorry for them.
MGMT also played. Didn't got to that, not a fan of their new stuff. I went to see New Pornographers, which played their set at the same time and I considered were a much better band. They were actually surprised at the amount of people who came to see them, as was I. They opened for DeathCab about a year back and immediately got my attention. They made some pretty funny comments about their situation.
There was also The XX...Caribou...Passion Pit...God, I can't remember all of them! GAH!
Well, that was my weekend. I'm back, ready to roll. E3 is only in a few days?! Crap, gotta catch up....On everything!!!!!!!!!!!! GAH! Thanks to the people I went with. 5 Comments
During the memorial day weekend I will be attending the Sasquatch Music Festival. This might come to a surprise to you, but I actually do have something tangible that can be considered "a life outside of videogames". It's actually a big chunk of my time these days. I know, crazy.
Anyway, a group of friends and me will be leaving on Friday. Although, I'm guessing most of tomorrow will be getting ready for said trip. The most...perhaps annoyance?...Is that after I come back, I have to quickly catch up on all the news. Which always kinda sucks.
I hope the weather get's it's act together though. For those who wonder what the venue looks like, here's a good picture I found:
...Yeah.
Let's hope the weather is good :/
I'm currently trying to S-Rank Resonance of Fate, and I'm actually a few pages into my review. I'll be blunt: This is a hard game to review. It's a maddeningly conflicting product for better or worse. The review will probably be posted after I come back. There's also Red Dead Redemption, that has been so far phenomenal.
So that's it people. Until next time, and such.
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Yeah, have fun with this one. It broke my brain after I read it the first time. I also felt strangely insulted, although I don't know why. My favorite part is that Lily goes out of her way to give slang for her counterpart "Sugar", a name that is clearly a slang nickname. For those of you international readers, I assume you can learn something from this. I'm not exactly sure If I was supposed to learn something about....something...after reading this, except that English teachers don't know how to use slang. Or something.
Props goes to one of my friends who shared this.
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This is still quite possibly the best official screen shot I have ever seen for anything. Yes. I will be picking up Red Dead Redemption.
Even with a development cycle that one can only describe as: disturbing, the sheer amount of high-quality previews for Red Dead Redemption has been staggering. The official mini-video previews pumped out by Rockstar are quite possibly the most effective advertisements I have ever seen for a game. No huge live-action spectacles, or a series of bizarre haphazard gameplay clips strung together trying to emulate a movie trailer.
Just a narrator talking about the game. The best part about it: The game clearly speaks for itself.
You might have not noticed if you have been reading my blogs: But I love story in games. Perhaps equally vigilant about story, than dissecting the inner-workings of game mechanics and desperately trying to describe things I rarely see discussion on. A good story is a good story, and if there has been one thing that Rockstar has been consistently triumphant on, it has been telling a good story. I could go on in greater detail, but just watching some of the cinematic sequences in their most recent endeavors, and you will immediately see a palpable quality of writing that is simply not usual in most games these days. While I am excited about free-roaming as a cowboy, (A setting and theme I have NEVER understood why it hasn't been properly embraced by game developers) I an perhaps more excited about how they talk in great detail about the grounded historical setting and the cast of characters.
So I am excited for what probably one of the biggest release so far of 2010, I am also trying desperately to be as grounded as possible. Already I have lost count on the numerous threads already proclaiming that RDR is game-of-the-year. Do not let your excitement drown out being critical. Time and time again, there are games that are released with a torrent of support from the launch, only to turn into a ill-forgotten memory in the manner of weeks. I am no imbecile, I understand that this immediate splurge of excitement is something integral to all things popular.
In an effort to not sound like some ill-mannered grandfather shouting incoherently at those "young kids with their rap music": I am totally stoked for Red Dead Redemption. But, could I also recommend having a lack of immediate objectification? There will be better games than Red Dead Redemption in the future, don't let hype throw away your opinion of other games for the rest of the year. While I know most of the people on this board praising this unreleased game as the second coming of christ, are not at all serious, I would like to once again point out that the hype-bandwagon is in full speed. We simply might, once again :P, gloss over perhaps....dare I say....actual problems with the game, only to "discover" them in conversation topics weeks later.
So yeah, be excited because the probability of it being a high-quality product is....high....But don't be afraid to bust out the critical eye every now and again.
Also the carpet bombing of ads for this game is driving me a little nuts :P
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Perhaps I can help you? Well, this happened to day. I'm pretty happy about it....I think. :/
I thought perhaps this would be a good time to talk about my philosophy/rant incoherently concerning achievements. I have a lot. One of the first quests that unlocked on GiantBomb for me were all the ones concerning #S Ranks. I still have a bunch to spare too. I like achievements, whether they be on Steam or on my Xbox. Bioware achievements (Let's get some support here GB). I heard that Sony was considering putting trophies on their PSP games, something that I wish they would hurry up and do.
I also wish Sony would get off it's lazy ass, and let other sites do stuff with their precious Trophy information. Ya'know, like every other company that has something remotely close to an achievement system.
That's a debate for another thread. What was this thread about? Crap, I'm writing without thinking ahead again. I like achievements. I like a permanent physical acknowledgment of the games I've played. It's rad.
I do though, have developed some semi-OCD tendencies regarding certain games. My mantra is simple: If it's single-player I will get it. Or I will try my damnedest to achieve it. There are of course exceptions to this rule, and Yakuza 3 breaks all of them.
The first one is if the achievement breaks my appreciation of a certain aspect of the game. CHECK.
The second is that if the achievement is counter to a certain aspect of the game. CHECK.
The third is, and this is one that is actually quite controversial, is that if the achievement confuses difficulty with absurdity. CHECK.
It's the reason why I usually don't go after multiplayer achievements....at all. My first experience with multiplayer achievements was with Halo 3 and I remember how, at the time, The Lone Wolves playlists devolved into people screaming before matches where they were going to meet in order to unlock the Spartan Laser. At the time, it was rare to get into a match where people just wanted to play.
Usually my recent excuse from not playing multiplayer is because I don't like playing against prepubescent turds. Multiplayer achievements are also a good indication of how many people are totally not playing your tacked on multiplayer component. Thank you GiantBomb, for showing me that the achievement for "Winning 10 Matches" in " Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena" (Good game BTW, big fan of Starbreeze.) is freaking rare. JUST WIN 10 MATCHES. :P
Getting back to topic, if there is one, I've become very picky of my achievements. Yakuza 3 by my own rules, has terrible achievements. The scary thing is that the cut-content would have actually added more to this game. It goes without saying: My hat goes off to those who can 100% this game.
It's called "Mini-Game Master" and it's the Gold Trophy that stops you from getting your platinum trophy. Even after you have completed the 100+ missions, and have beaten the game perhaps three times (You need to play through the game on 'hard' to unlock 'Extra-Hard' difficulty, and thus, get the Extra-Hard trophy.) The hardest gold trophy is whether or not you can get the highest "scores", or complete the highest criteria for all mini-games. What I'm trying to illustrate that ontop of this trophy, Yakuza 3 has a dizzying array of trophies that are difficult time-sinks.
Difficulty is thrown out the window. Out of all the mini-games there are in Yakuza 3, only after getting the golf requirement did I ever get the feeling of actually getting better at the game. Everything else was a slow grind, playing out Billiards matches against an opponent A.I. that, to put it nicely: CHEATS. There was also playing the hardest set of simulated batting cages ever conceived and replicated a dare I say, masochistic approach to achievements that I can't stand.
I went in seeing how many mini-games I could complete, I wasn't even considering getting the trophy. After I saw that it wasn't necessarily skill, but something I could do while, doing something else. (In this case play mini-games every night while I watched The Daily Show.) Then I realized that yes: It was horrible and unnecessary, but I could easily do it. The end result was me getting the trophy, but not after it broke all three of my self-imposed rules in the most eloquent way possible. The only difficulty regarding mini-game master it seems is how much time you put into it.
There's a delicate balance though of what should be considered difficult and what could be considered asinine. I am in awe of designers that can understand the strengths and weakness of their game and apply trophies and achievements in a manner that is not vomit-inducing. On the opposite end of the coin you can point to the likes of either Assassins Creed 2 or Oblivion, two games that are shoe-in #S Ranks. I honestly felt upset that Ubi went the easy route after the disaster that was flag collecting in the first Assassins Creed.
For those looking for help aspiring to get this trophy, I strongly recommend you try out this guide. I don't know who this Patrick guy is, but I believe he is a wizard from another dimension that gives free chocolate.
For anyone who needs help, feel free to ask or PM me. I've spent over 100 hours easily getting this, go right ahead and ask away.
One last question: Why the hell is "Ultimate Skill" a freaking bronze trophy? The trophy requirements ask you to complete 34 of the 35 different Ultimate Skill challenges. It's probably one of the most hardest trophies in the game next to "Mini-game Master", but it's only a bronze? Was someone asleep when they decided how much each trophy was worth or something?
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Notice: This is a long blog. Replies pointing out this fact will be ignored.
Linearity
From the word "linear", root word from Latin is "linearis".
"Lin" comes from...uh...."Lindbergh"... "Ear" comes from..."ear."..of course. "ity" comes from "tits". Actually, most of the words that I read come from the root word of "tits". I think. -_-
Custom blog graphic is still custom and still rad looking
In this blog I try to tack the subject of linearity in general. It's as convoluted as it sounds.
This argument has been bouncing back and forth in my mind for the longest time. I don't really know exactly when I first began thinking about it, but a series of events both in the games I've recently been playing, and the ever-changing unpredictable curve of popular opinion has been shaping my outlook. Initially I was going to write this when I finished up Final Fantasy XIII, because that was the big argument that people were piling on in the web forums. What confused me initially was that such an exasperated argument was being made against Final Fantasy XIII. Think of the argument as a static statement: Final Fantasy XIII is bad because it's linear. How the hell does that even make any sense? Hasn't every Final Fantasy game since the series launched been in some form or another, linear?
It's not that the game is linear, so what has me miffed about Final Fantasy XIII? So while I easily defended Final Fantasy XIII in my mind while I played it, I slowly began to dislike the nature of certain parts of Final Fantasy XIII's design, and it was at this point that I began questioning my own arguments. Perhaps the naysayers had a point? To give some background on my own bias: I've played, and beaten, every main entry in the Final Fantasy series. I own, yes own, imported soundtracks from some of my favorite entries. I'm not quick to throw blame on this series very quickly, and this idea that what was hampering this entry was because of linearity was something that still annoyed me.
To start trying to come to terms with what tangible thing I can't immediately identify that I don't like about Final Fantasy XIII, I began thinking of linearity in gaming in general. Not just in how you fundamentally play the game, but how it's narrative is portrayed. My school of thought is whatever presentation standard that works the best for what your game is trying to portray, is what you used. I won't be trying to proclaim that one style is better than the other. Although in order to dive into this subject, I want to touch on western role-playing games here for a minute. Usually when such direct comparisons are made, people try and compare and contrast the games as a whole. That's not my intent, instead it's to illustrate a broader point.
Western RPG's have been trying to emulate the table-top experience of choice for the longest time. A good endeavor to accomplish, some of my favorite RPG's made by western developers are ones that bring choice hand-in-hand with the overall experience.
The choice is usually static. Kill dude and be bad guy. Save dude and be good guy. A developer from Bioware has been quoted on stating that they are literally making two different games with each Mass Effect entry. It's true, as both my Mass Effect characters: 'Nick Shepard' and...uhm....'Bitch Shepard' can tell you.
This character might look like a grizzly lizard-man, but I am sure he will save humanity and do things with a serious lack of personal motivation. Or personal anything. The problem with these choices versus something more static, is that there is a serious loss sometimes in coherency. For example: My character in Oblivion was a goody-two-shoes hero that saved the world, was the leader of every specialized guild imaginable, and the leader of anevil occult assassination organization.
My character in Fallout 3 was another goody-two-shoes but had no personal relations of his own. He wasn't a character, he was an empty shell. Some people consider the silent protagonist a good opportunity to convey your own emotions onto your own character. Because your playing a role, because it's a role-playing game, and when we get on web forums and want to be obnoxious, the more times you emphasis the world "ROLE" into your argument helps. For example, that previous time I typed "role" I made it bold, capitalized AND is underlined. No, I will not look at the other billion legitimate factors that go into trying to define what it means to "ROLE-PLAY" these days.
Whatever. I personally find the silent protagonist kinda antiquated at this point. Personal opinion, disagree if you must.
This goddamn thing has a point, please stay with me. :P
It's gotten better though. Mass Effect seems like a mix between the conventional linear style and player choices. No choice is technically your choice, as the player essentially shepards (PUN!!!!) the main character down two distinctive plots. Of course you can mix-and-match for different situations, but the general outcomes have been predetermined.
You think it's your own choice though, but it's not. You think you have a say with what the outcome will be, but you really don't. It's all an illusion.
*pew*pew* A great illusion, but an illusion nonetheless. It's one of Mass Effect's greatest strengths, you get the feeling you are in control of the current scenario. Now I'm not standing here trying to compare Final Fantasy XIII to Mass Effect, that would be ridiculous and I would be better off trying to compare Mario to Halo. I'm trying to illustrate one great example of the "illusion of choice". In the case of the choose-your-own-adventure scenario, I don't think all games should adopt it, such an outlook seems narrow. For narrative, there are pros and weakness between both styles of telling a story. Complaining that a story is linear seems a bit more opinionated versus something that should be adhered too. It also doesn't help why I'm miffed about XIII. I found the answer to my dilemma in something more traditional.
Resonance of Fate is Final Fantasy XIII's arch-nemesis.
I've haven't seen two distinctively different games that proclaim they are from the same genre, let alone the JRPG sub-genre.
Yeah, have fun trying to figure out what's happening in this scene and how you play it. While Final Fantasy XIII holds your hand to the....thirty hour mark... Resonance of Fate by contrast could care less if you understand how to play it. The game quite possibly has the most, without a fucking doubt, complex battle system ever conceived. It just tosses you out there. It suffers because of it for sure, the first few hours are a dizzying whirl of just trying to figure out how to play it.
In this case it's the "illusion of interactivity". It's a balancing act for sure, how much should you lead the player versus how much you shouldn't. Resonance of Fate has a linear main plot, but the abundance of side-missions to take give the game not just extra padding in the longevity department, but gives the player a sense of self controlled progress. It's nothing new, most JRPG's and RPG's in general, follow the same design of RoF. Again variables abound over what gives the best illusion, but general pacing can be an easy example to site. Giving the player the time to collect his thoughts, to take a break from the traditional grind of your main mechanics.
This is the part where I cite towns, but it's much more than that. It's a lack of any downtime outside of cut-scenes or battles. A lack of depth in the world that I'm running through.
In interviews up to XIII's release, the developers like to cite Modern Warfare as a form of inspiration. I really hated this comparison, but let's run for it for a little bit. In a game like Modern Warfare, we can spend most of the time in high-stress scenarios, it's only eight hours. A lot of conversations I've had with people have had many reoccurring dilemmas with XIII, one that I found interesting is that people got tired of it. I would be lying to say that I didn't felt fatigue going through the endless corridors and difficult battles of XIII to the thirty hour point. Getting to Nautilus so far has been my favorite part of the game, because I was able to take a breather.
At the same time, this linear design for dungeons is not a bad idea. I knew a guy who used to work for the Nintendo help line. One of my favorite stories, was how he had to help a kid on the phone get through the Phoenix Cave in Final Fantasy VI....ON THE PHONE.....IN IT'S ENTIRETY.....ROOM BY ROOM....
I think the idea of a linear dungeon crawl isn't necessarily a bad thing. I've always found JRPG dungeon design....weird....If there's something that should be stripped down, JRPG dungeon design does need improvements. this could be one idea. But again, it's the lack of freedom outside it's main battle mechanics that hurts whatever illusion it might have. It's the reason why I feel like I have more freedom in the first Final Fantasy on the NES, versus Final Fantasy XIII.
It also doesn't help that there is a right and a wrong way to do linear dungeon design, and it's not until the end of XIII's initial long march that we get something that works. Again, the developers actually cited shooters as an example for their supposed linear design choices, it's just too bad that linear shooters play with this illusion of interactivity within their set-pieces.
The design to make your game linear "Like Modern Warfare 2" is an empty claim, if you can't fundamentally realize that "being linear" is not what makes MW2's levels so effective. Modern Warfare 2 had branching paths in what's essentially the same long walk forward that XIII exhibits, but it's populated level design masks what you are doing. Halflife 2 bombards you with events happening in-game in what's essentially another long walk forward. XIIIby contrast to it's level design, is sterile, and only begins playing with this concept during the few scenes prior to landing on Pulse. Branching paths juxtaposed on a forward path.
Our favorite games that we play are linear. Even the ones that we consider to be non-linear have strong linear components. It's the illusion we should be striving for. The illusion we should be commending.
Unlike other forms of medium, games are interactive so we try and figure out how much that interactivity should be implemented. It's the defining quality, but I think we get too sucked in with this idea that you should "be in control how much your character breathes." A loss of creative vision or coherency can sometimes be derived with this idea that games should be more sim, versus an entertainment experience. Yet in the grand scheme of things there's not really a big difference between a linear static cutscene, versus choosing what linear static cutscene to watch. Or choosing whether or not deciding to wander to another linear path, before diving head-long into the next main linear scenario. It's a balancing act, and there's no real distinctive all-encompassing way of implementing the illusion across all games.
In the end Final Fantasy XIII simply fails at the illusion. It's a great game for sure, and if you read this blog and think I'm just bashing the game, my apologies that's not my intent. It's just missing key basic components that we have come to expect, not just from games in the series but most games in general.
To argue though that the reason XIII fails at immersion because of it's linearity, is not the argument we should be making.
We need linearity. Because without linearity, with completely pure non-linear game play, we for better or worse run the risk of producing chaos. For those of you who want any example for this, here is a pic from a session I had with Sleepy_Insomniac playing Sleep is Death. The game is played by two players, one who plays it like an adventure game, the other player literally makes the game between turns. It's the closest thing I've seen to actual genuine DM'ing in a computer game.
In this session I was creating the game while Sleepy played the game.
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