Blogger Archive: slackur 
[img width=640 height=360]http://image.gamespotcdn.net/gamespot/images/2012/5/predictions_001_73701_640screen.jpg[/img]
Many a gamer grumbled the world over when the 3DS was first revealed as having only a single, left analog 'circle pad.' Gaming futurists claimed the new system was already dead in the water because of a refusal to get with the times. Even the PSP has been routinely criticized for only having as many control inputs as a Dreamcast, compounded by the Vita's announcement of twice as many touch pads and analog sticks. By the time the 3DS XL came around with the gall to not split its own player base, forums were alight with proclamations of "no 2nd pad, no buy."
As a southpaw gamer, some of my concerns about this are admittedly doomed to a minority. For example, many Vita games are completely inaccessible to me because of a lack of input options, even for a portable with more input methods than ever before. It was extremely frustrating to find that Resistance, Uncharted, Unit 13, and most disappointingly Gravity Rush have no option to use the left stick for the 3D camera. I should know; I suffered terrible nausea trying to play the latter for ten minutes.
While this indelible oversight occurs often on consoles, where some systems have controller-modding options, on a handheld I'm pretty much out of luck. Sadly, it is a curse I've just had to accept about my own limitations meeting a publisher/developer's inconsideration for handicapped gamers (even for an easily correctable solution, such as the ability to swap the stupid analogs). But this element actually plays very little into the fact that I'm much happier that most portables, including the new 3DS models, only have a single analog. That's right; if given the choice, I'd rather every portable only have one analog thumb device, be it a 'nub,' 'stick,' or 'pad.'
Why? It actually has less to do with controls per se, and more to do with game design. What game types do developers make for systems with two analog sticks? As any modern gamer knows (and many an 'old school-er' laments) the genre du jour is first and third person shooters. It is generally agreed that for consoles, the now standard two-stick setup is the most ideal control method for these games, and I wouldn't argue. (Sticking to consoles, as this isn't a mouse-and-keyboard debate.)
But what do developers, who make so much money off of these F/TPS games, do about the portable market? Often, the system design is largely ignored for the sake of shoe-horning a console shooter onto it. And in my opinion, not having another stick is not the biggest problem with this; blocky graphic engines, bad framerates, limited enemy intelligence, scaled down maps, stripped down features, the list goes on. Its not that these game-types are doomed to fail on a portable; there does exist a few examples of excellent portable F/TPS games. But by and large most handheld iterations of anything resembling a Call of Duty or Halo derivative are considered subpar experiences. At best they are used as third tier backups for the 'true' experience, at worst they are practically unplayable experiments in ignoring the benefits of redesigning a game to meet the system where it is.
We naturally expect ports of popular series on our portables, and there is nothing wrong with that. The problem lies in assuming that we are capable of, or even want to, experience the same game on a system that will almost always have lower resolution and horsepower, different programming architecture, and more limited control elements than a home console. Hardware developers can see this as a challenge, trying to produce cutting edge devices (with expenses to match) to solve this 'problem.'
Except it is not a problem, any more than the idea that a Super Nintendo cannot be as entertaining as a PS3 because of inferior hardware. We have different expectations for different hardware, and of course that plays into our preconceived notions of what we will experience. But as many of us here at RFGen can attest, sometimes our modern consoles do not get nearly the playtime as our older systems. And not just because of nostalgia; our blogs here are rife with those who discovered a fifteen year-old game they never played suddenly becoming a new favorite.
If Doom were ever truly ported to the Atari 2600, it would be amusing for inventive programming, not because it was truly competing to rival the actual experience of the original. Unless... it wasn't designed to play like the original but was instead a new creation inspired by it. This leads us to brilliant redesigns like Doom RPG for cell phones. While Doom can be hacked onto a cell phone, playability and other issues would always be a concern, but by taking the original as inspiration and the limitations of the system in mind, a game perfect for the format was developed.
And here is found the solution to the 'problem' of a lack of a second stick on portables; for developers to make games with the system in mind from the beginning of development. The real problem is not one of technical limitations; it is one of design. My favorite, and I would argue the best, games on portable systems are the ones specifically designed with the system in mind. For the DS, classics like Kirby Canvas Curse, the Etrian Odyssey series, Knights in the Nightmare, and of course Scribblenauts were designed with the unique DS hardware in mind, and it shows in awesome game design. Instead of being limited by the technology, the technology was utilized in fun and inventive ways.
As port-heavy as the PSP library is, it is no surprise that my favorites are also ones that ignored the system's console siblings and were developed just for it; Killzone: Liberation, Metal Gear Acid 1 and 2, and R-Type Command are great examples of trying something better suited to the system's unique hardware. The Loco Roco and Patapon series are perhaps the best showpieces of original design catered to both the PSP hardware and its portable nature.
Having another analog should not have the opposite of the intended effect and limit game design, of course. We can also certainly have great F/TPS games on portables, and now with the Vita, no doubt there will be more to come. But where developers look at the Vita and may assume quick ports of modern shooters will make money on the system, I'm thrilled that the relatively underpowered 3DS will, if history serves correct, be host to inventive, creative, unique experiences catering to the portable. Of course, we'll be flooded with 'Party Babyz" style shovelware left and right, but that is the nature of the beast of modern gaming, and unrelated to how many silly inputs a game system has. 
[img width=500 height=375]http://diamondtrustgame.com/boxes.png[/img]
There is a good chance you may not know of 'conflict diamonds,' and the politics surrounding them. There may be a slightly better chance you know of Jason Rohrer. Both are things best to have awareness of, which brings us to Diamond Trust of London.
Perhaps the most famous aspect of this game is not its setting or even its notable creator; Diamond Trust is the first DS game launched from Kickstarter.
(http://www.kickstarter.co...6/diamond-trust-of-london)
It took several years, and according to Rohrer, many a fortunate situation, but the game is now available, though only through the website: http://diamondtrustgame.com/buy.php
It comes with a typical DS case and manual, and everything included is very professional and pretty much the same as buying any new DS game from retail. As for the creator:
If Jason Rohrer's name just sounds to you like Scooby Doo trying to warn you of Friday the 13th, I highly recommend looking the man up. For a coder/programmer/engineer/musician, the guy practices 'simple living' with a family of four coming under 15k a year, has a number of interesting political and sociological theories (as his lifestyle suggests) and his games are mostly free experiments. I can't say I'd agree with the guy on everything, though I respect him for standing in his beliefs (see if you can catch his somewhat veiled criticism of circumcision from his personal website, or his interesting defenses of natural habitats.)
Most relevant here, Jason Rohrer is an award winning game designer, and his takes on game design are often cited when referencing video games as a medium to be used beyond typical base entertainment value. Works like Passage and Sleep is Death are designed to push our buttons as much as we push buttons on a controller.
Much more 'typical' a game is Diamond Trust. Though the setting is political and contemporary, it never moves past the background to become preachy (if you have no idea what the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme is, Rohrer is not about to use a game to tell you.) The design is an almost standard board game, and the strict two-player limit (an AI opponent is available, though the game's own manual desires the player to seek out someone else to play as soon as possible) keeps the focus razor sharp. This is a game about bluffing, bribing, resource management, and second/third/fourth guessing your rival.
If you normally read board games as 'bored games,' know that Diamond Trust is a tighter, faster paced, meaner version of the games you fell asleep to during family reunions or the backup entertainment for those college nights when the power went out and so did the LAN party. Simpler than Monopoly, darker than Catan, and far cheaper to acquire than Dark Tower, if you have another human whose wit you want to match, I can think of fewer alternates as fun.
Only one copy of the game is required, (you send a download copy to another DS) and the DL copy only looses the nifty chiptune music during play. My beloved and I sat down with it the night it arrived and we didn't want to stop playing. Considering the kids were in bed already, giving us some precious alone time, and this is what we wanted to do with it, I can't think of a better way to recommend Diamond Trust of London.
Fuyukaze has opened up a remarkable topic on his blog, titled The Meaning of Gaming, in which he simply asks, "what does gaming mean to you? In beginning my response I realized that chronicling my thoughts for such a query would require my own long-winded entry. (As a side note, please be kind and not derail personal answers to his question from his blog to mine. Feel free to add to the thoughts posted here, but answers to what gaming specifically means to you should probably stay under the original. I don't want to hijack discussions from another post!)
To answer what the meaning of gaming is to me, let me produce a sliver of the variety of subjects this opens which fascinate me:
Video games function as a near metaphysical examination into the ephemeral nature of technology based, progressively developing entertainment.
They provide a window into modern culture and its responses to fantasy, imagination, and social critique in the form of interactive reflection.
As with other forms of media, they function as a meter of acceptable public content to a variety of cultures, and usually trail slightly behind the pulse of corporate entertainment appetites, differing in each country. The multicultural research gained in the study of the differences in ports of games from one locale to the other is a revealing micro-hobby of mine.
The debate of video games as art is also a passion of mine, though I personally see them as not specific works but more a vehicle through which we ingest another's work. Like flipping through a child's coloring book or touring the Louvre, we are taking in a collective sensory experience of one or more artists.
A psychological examination of maturity-biased perception in gaming, which produces such ideas as "video games are for kids," or "Once you're older, you should 'move up' from Mario to Call of Duty or Madden, speaks volumes about generation gaps and peer pressure systems.
The economy of the game industry operates under peculiar laws of supply and demand, and often displays interesting trends and disconnects between financial success and critical or popular acclaim. The video game collecting aspect alone functions as it's own metagame of value analysis and worth interpretation.
The advancements of technology in gaming, including control interfaces, realism and artistic approaches to graphics and sound, and the traceable arc of gameplay simplicity/complexity, are an approachable microcosmic study of the application of technology in daily life.
And then there's the phenomena of 'gaming culture,' the interesting banners that unite and repel individuals linked to specific games and gaming systems. From Europe's Sony entrenchment, Japan's rejection of Microsoft consoles, and the classic Super Nintendo and Genesis console wars, to the cat-and-dog fights of old school PC vs. Mac gamers, entire people groups can be studied and linked to various events, marketing, psychological approaches, and economic factors.
And these topics are just the ones off the top of my head at 2 a.m.
But what, specifically, does gaming mean to me personally? It's my favorite paradigm for observation and study. It is the choice prism I use to split the pure into the abstraction, the microscope by which I enjoy looking at the world and thinking about the details. While the scope of such a lens is obviously limited to the last several decades, when linked to the branch of the also relatively recent applied mathematics known as Game Theory, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory for a worthwhile primer) suddenly there is an entire holistic field that makes the study of video games worthwhile, academic, even philosophical.
The best part? I find myself enjoying video games not only for the angles it gives into more 'meta-' subjects, but for the simple joy of the games. As fascinating as it is to use video games as a tool for study, I just have more fun with them than any other mode of entertainment, plain and simple. I can chat about art, mathematics, and social-political dynamics all day, but at the other end of the spectrum, Super Mario 3 is still a blast to speed-run, competitive Tetris still excites, and I'm always up for another round of Halo Wars. Fun is fun.
You knew by the time I got to writing for my blog again, it'd be long-winded. So let's hope I get on a more regular writing schedule again so as not to store all this up...
Trials HD. Demon's Souls. The Etrian Odyssey series. Getting through New Super Mario Bros with four players and not strangling the person next to you.
Despite complaints along the lines of, "Video Games Today are Too Easy," there is still a consistent flow of releases earmarked specifically for their notable challenge. (Not counting the mental duress of trying to play through much of the Wii and DS shovel-ware.)
On the other hand, its now almost standard that a game ship with easier difficulties, and recently the concept of a player's avatar's death may be removed entirely.
No two recent games may represent this disparity better than Kirby's Epic Yarn and Super Meat Boy. Released only days apart, both titles are highly praised platformers with light puzzle solving and exploratory elements, and each sport bold or unique visual styles. Considering both of these games remove the traditional life count or continuing at a setback routine, on the surface both these games would appear to target the same audience.
In truth the design philosophy is radically different. While Super Meat Boy expects hundreds or even thousands of constant failures (read: avatar deaths) to happen in the course of learning how to overcoming tough yet fair levels, in Kirby's Epic Yarn death of the avatar isn't even an option.
Kirby's Epic Yarn can certainly be challenging, mainly due to the mechanic of loosing items upon mistakes such as touching an enemy, and those items are used to unlock other elements of the game. However, the main game itself can be simply played through to completion without any real fear of lost progress.
The distinct design philosophies of these two very different yet critically loved gameplay experiences show how difficulty in gaming can be used in a myriad of functional ways. Super Meat Boy is designed around the 'I can do this, just one more try' hook that develops into a frustrating but skill-developing addiction. Kirby's Epic Yarn celebrates the oft-used Nintendo approach of a game anyone can play, with extra challenges for those hungry for more.
The popular lament of a lack of gameplay challenge does have relevance. Demon's Souls, a recent PS3 release largely noted for its difficulty and what is often now referred to as an 'old school challenge', cleanly divided player interest because of such. Many critics and players lauded a game unafraid to require absolute precision, memorization, and expensive experimentation. Just as many people refused to pour the needed time into a game that had no options to play nice. Demon's Souls, like more current spiritual precursors Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry 3, made some gamers wax nostalgic for a time when options were limited, timing had to be exact, and progress only came about through pure effort and occasional luck. Others bemoaned the lack of now-expected easy settings, the unforgiving small timing windows of interaction, and frequent loss of progress.
Designing a game with the opposite intention creates not only division, but derision. 2008's Prince of Persia was highly praised over beautiful art direction, fluid animation, exceptional writing, and even great voice acting. Yet there was a persistent complaint often heard from critics and players alike: the player couldn't really 'die' in the traditional sense. Fall off a cliff or to an enemy, and the avatar 'magically' reappears, set back just a few steps before the misstep. This lead to a common gripe that the player couldn't really lose, and so any sense of challenge was completely void.
This latter response was quite surprising to me. While Demon's Souls tends to earn a begrudging respect even from its detractors, I rarely hear Prince of Persia defenders, instead of long-time gamers grumbling about their beloved Sands of Time trilogy being neutered. The 2008 version culled much of what annoys fans of platformers: having to reload lost progress. Mess up too much in the classic Sands of Time trilogy and you may get aggravatingly dumped to the last checkpoint or worse, the beginning of that story chapter, but never are you forced to stare at the title screen, with no recourse but to slog through the entire game up to where you lost. (Unless you just started, of course.) The 2008 variant simply removed the extra time lost in frustration, and dropped the player back in place to get correct what was just failed. By trimming out the downtime between failures and allowing the player to simply focus on overcoming the obstacle, ideally the player could better immerse themselves in the experience. Perhaps Prince of Persia suffered from trying to change too much at once; a play control timing more akin to a rhythm game, a story disconnected from the beloved series it continued, and gameplay with story mechanics surrounding a, AI co-operative relationship may have compiled too many changes to gamers who had since moved to Sony's less whimsical and more brutal God of War and its sequel.
Maybe I'm reaching, but the highly praised Super Meat Boy also features a continue system of respawning immediately after death and I've yet to read a complaint about said mechanic. (To be fair, life restrictions do factor in bonus levels, but not for necessary progress.) Now, the platforming in Super Meat Boy is inarguably more challenging than Prince of Persia, but the argument still holds: you only 'lose' when you turn the game off, since the only thing hindering your progress is giving up.
Which, of course, could be said of most video games. We may run out of 'lives' or chances to continue from our previous point of progress, but out of all of the video games ever made, only fewer than a dozen games out of tens of thousands do we lose the ability to simply start over and try again by design. The fun, the friction between an obstacle and our ability to overcome it, is where the greatest hook lies; for some of us, its Super Meat Boy's infuriating precision that we're convinced we can master. For Prince of Persia, its more about telling a fantastical story in which we play a simple, interactive part. One is like a sculpture, shaped from countless little cuts of avatar deaths until perfection is realized. The other, an interactive storybook whose greatest friction lies between the imagination of the player who's along for the ride and the game that's playing the narrator.
It's this latter field whose development often makes us 'traditionalists' feel as though aliens have invaded our turf, strange things like Farmville, Angry Birds, and Flower fighting to share space under the same umbrella of entertainment as Final Fantasy, Super Mario, and Starcraft. We often want to pretend that these 'casual' things aren't really games at all.
You know who I like to watch play games? The "Casual Gamer". Now there is a person who can enjoy the hobby. Unfettered by the expectation of new, better, harder, faster, the casual gamer goofs off, has fun, and gets on with life. They can spend $200+ on a Wii just for Wii Sports, and still get their money's worth because they don't really need anything else. For us 'hardcore', why would we be offended from someone else enjoying themselves? Maybe Bejeweled or Peggle will be the gateway, opening them up to the joys of LAN parties, Demon's Souls, Monster Hunter, and slipping in the verbal venom of online play. But if not, why should that bother us?
I stopped trying to convince my mom she needed surround sound because she was just as happy with a tinny radio speaker. It may hurt my technophile heart, but she's just so darn happy with what she already has. The Bilbos out there will bravely and nervously venture out unto the wild frontier of gaming, but there are thousands more hobbits just as content to live out their lives in simpler pleasures.
These folks don't have to 'earn' our respect. They don't have to grow up and into 'hardcore'. We're all in it to have fun, or should be. That'll be a different experience for all of us. Besides, spending more time with gaming and even with a game in particular doesn't mean we earned any more stature. I've been playing Battletoads off and on for literally two decades and I still can't finish it. I can't blame my mom for not being the type for that challenge. But Kirby? She can have a blast with a well designed game, and I can even play co-op with her and go for the real challenge of trying to gain more unlockables by not getting hit.
Then I can go home and play I Wanna Be The Guy. You know, to unwind.
Like many fellow gamers, as a child I once had a dream. My occasional exploits in various mall and theater arcades ballooned my tweeny-bopper imagination into what I could, would do as an adult flush with money, time, and ambition. I had visions as to what an arcade should be, how it would look, what it would contain, and how it should be run. By golly, once I got a real job, made some decent money, and convinced a bank that I was going to make a fortune off of this, I would build the ultimate arcade, have my dream job, unlimited play time, and live like I always wanted. It was so simple. So elegant. I would succeed where others failed because I would take my sense of what kids want and bring it into the adult world where no-one understood what kids really want, and therefore what would be profitable.
I would also keep a refrigerator stocked with those little plastic barrel 'Hugs' drinks because I only got one or two at a time and I was always thirstier than that.
Like many of you, I grew older and the reality of that grand arcade dream just faded away. Maybe we got wind of the actual costs of running a business. Maybe we did the math and realized what little profit is seen from such an industry. More than likely, consoles overtook our attention once the graphics on home systems deflated the wonder out of the darkened, noisy, expensive dreamlands. More than likely, we just forgot and let the dream die a slow, silent whimper.
But a few never let that stop them.
[img width=338 height=600]http://i797.photobucket.com/albums/yy259/slackur/Metreon/Metreon2.jpg[/img]
[img width=600 height=338]http://i797.photobucket.com/albums/yy259/slackur/Metreon/MetreonSide.jpg[/img]
Enter the Metreon, a 350,000 square foot 'urban entertainment destination' built in 1999 by Sony. Located in downtown San Francisco, the 85 million dollar project was to enforce Sony's hip image by offering gaming, food, exhibitions, shopping, music, and movies, as well as to showcase new technology. It was to be Sony's public hub for everything from Playstation to Anime.
[img width=600 height=338]http://i797.photobucket.com/albums/yy259/slackur/Metreon/MetreonInterior3.jpg[/img]
[img width=600 height=338]http://i797.photobucket.com/albums/yy259/slackur/Metreon/MetreonInterior1.jpg[/img]
[img width=600 height=338]http://i797.photobucket.com/albums/yy259/slackur/Metreon/MetreonInterior2.jpg[/img]
One floor was an arcade full of original games called Airtight Garage, based on the graphic novel by French comic artist and graphic designer Jean "Moebius" Giraud.
It failed.
Here's how wikipedia puts it:
"The Airtight Garage's games proved unpopular, with the exception of HyperBowl, a 3D obstacle course bowling game featuring air-supported bowling balls used as trackballs, and they eventually were gradually replaced by other, better-known games, until the arcade was finally closed, then reopened as "Portal One," which preserved the decor, full bar, and Hyperbowl but was otherwise a more typical arcade. Sunday May 13, 2007 was Portal One arcade's last day of operation. The arcade was relaunched again as a Tilt."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metreon)
The fall of the Metreon itself, a shining example of the results of Sony's corporate mentality at the turn of the century, is better understood from this article:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi...006/02/24/BUGSVHDITS1.DTL
Enter...me. I've been visiting here in San Fran for a week, towing along a 360 hidden in the laundry luggage and hoping to finally burn through FFXIII without toddler distractions. Throw in an ancient TV in our hotel that only takes RF and with a screen so fuzzy text is all but illegible, and I'm out looking for something, anything video game related. An extensive search proved nothing but Gamestops as far as the taxi can see. Then I learn of the Metreon due to my smart, talented, and still incredibly appealing wife. I was unprepared for what awaited me.
[img width=600 height=338]http://i797.photobucket.com/albums/yy259/slackur/Metreon/TiltFrontRight.jpg[/img]
[img width=600 height=338]http://i797.photobucket.com/albums/yy259/slackur/Metreon/TiltFrontLeft.jpg[/img]
It...was MY arcade. The design, the aesthetics, the games, everything was as I envisioned in my youth. The mock-up props of techno-industrial equipment, the pop sci-fi neon and oversized circuitry designs, the fake cables and wiring, all of the stuff I lovingly surrounded myself with as a kid.
[img width=600 height=338]http://i797.photobucket.com/albums/yy259/slackur/Metreon/TiltProps1.jpg[/img]
[img width=600 height=338]http://i797.photobucket.com/albums/yy259/slackur/Metreon/TiltPropBar.jpg[/img]
[img width=600 height=338]http://i797.photobucket.com/albums/yy259/slackur/Metreon/TiltChronoProp2.jpg[/img]
[img width=600 height=338]http://i797.photobucket.com/albums/yy259/slackur/Metreon/TiltPropChrono1.jpg[/img]
(Yes, if you looked closely, they misspelled 'Crhono.' ?!?)
Snack machines, energy drink machines, even a bar!
[img width=600 height=338]http://i797.photobucket.com/albums/yy259/slackur/Metreon/TiltPropBar2.jpg[/img]
[img width=600 height=338]http://i797.photobucket.com/albums/yy259/slackur/Metreon/TiltPropBar.jpg[/img]
Virtual bowling against the wall, half a dozen Dance Dance machines and their variants, air hockey, a dozen different light gun games including House of the Dead 4 and Time Crisis: Razing Storm, all of the fighting greats including Marvel Vs Capcom 2, various Tekkens, various King of Fighters, even Super Street Fighter IV. A four player setup for Daytona USA as well as a few other racers, Skee-ball, and a three screen Sega Strike Fighter DX. The list just went on and on...
[img width=600 height=338]http://i797.photobucket.com/albums/yy259/slackur/Metreon/TiltInside4.jpg[/img]
[img width=600 height=338]http://i797.photobucket.com/albums/yy259/slackur/Metreon/TiltInside3.jpg[/img]
[img width=600 height=338]http://i797.photobucket.com/albums/yy259/slackur/Metreon/TiltInside2.jpg[/img]
[img width=600 height=338]http://i797.photobucket.com/albums/yy259/slackur/Metreon/TiltInside1.jpg[/img]
(Not shown, for reasons explained below, was the gigantic Terminator Hunter Killer-like statue in front of the arcade that also housed ticket counter machines. Yeah, for real.)
I quickly realized two things: One, if given the space and funds, this is the arcade I truly would have built. There was honestly not much I would have changed. And two:
It would have failed miserably, as this one did.
The place was dead. During a Friday evening, only a few people entered and left in the two hours I was there. Out of those I only saw a few games played, including an arcade machine of Deal or No Deal. I'm doing my best not to judge here people, but for crying out loud, that just seems to me the most worthless game to make into an arcade cab. At least most game shows have trivia or something. Compared to the lottery that is Deal or No Deal, there's more skill involved in a game of Peggle.
Hmmm...Peggle Arcade...there's an idea...
But I digress.
My goal was to show in dozens of pictures the wondrous, lost glory of this place, this fallen dream of mine and doubtless others who visit this site. Unfortunately, as soon as I started near the entrance, the lady behind the counter gave me frantic hand gestures and told me I wasn't allowed to take pictures. She said it was in their training manual, and she seemed to genuinely try to be nice about it. Tempting as it is to call her out as a Nazi dictator, I know she was only doing her job. Still, as Metal Gear Solid music thumped out of my mind's ear, I did my best to sneak a few shots with my digital camera of Metal Gear Rex the dimly lit arcade before flooding the tanker to cover my tracks thanking the nice lady and leaving. Hence the poor quality of the pics, and not at all because of the fact that I'm not very good with a camera.
And as I wandered the giant catacomb of cabinets, this enterprise that was no longer alive with energy and people, with giant speakers on the ceiling oddly silent and the various motorized colored lights staring vacantly, I knew I was touring the living dead of retail arcades. Here was the experience in all its beauty, its gaudy, obnoxious, glorious beauty; and nobody cared. It was dead, and just didn't know it. Doubtlessly loosing money, or at best just scraping by, only a matter of time. I felt a childhood dream wither in defeat.
While traditional arcades have been on the decline for decades, and their waning mostly attributed to the rise of technologically superior home consoles and lack of public interest, two additional factors were present and obvious.
Here's one:
[img width=600 height=450]http://i797.photobucket.com/albums/yy259/slackur/Metreon/4Tokens.jpg[/img]
Yep, I know inflation accounts for this, and I've already written a post on gaming value. But it cost $1.50 for me and my beloved to try out House of the Dead 4, and we lasted for less than half a minute. Granted, there were older games with a little bit cheaper prices, but overall the experience felt expensive for a guy used to adding games to his collection for a buck apiece.
The other I couldn't capture well with my guerrilla-style camera work; several screens and monitors were damaged. Usually bad or distorted color or separate ghosted outlines, lots of image burn-in, and dark screens. The techie/gamer in me screamed "c'mon, guys! This could easily be replaced!" But reality hit me as quickly once I saw the price stickers on each cabinet. It just wasn't fiscally worth spending another hundred dollars or more on a machine you were already trying to sell for a few hundred. Or less. It doesn't take much wrong with a screen to turn someone away from wanting to play. And it doesn't take much damage to a cab only a few years old to make it unlikely to get the money back after repair.
My heart sank upon realizing that there were some awesome cabs here for easily affordable prices, but they might as well have the same ticket as a Ferrari for as much as it would cost to ship them over 2500 miles back to my home.
As a collector who owns more games than I'll ever be able to play, it may seem a silly thing to lament. Yet like everything in life, the presentation is a large part of the experience. Picking up the Wii ports of Gunblade NY and LA Machineguns Arcade Hits Pack is a solid reminder that some games just aren't, and never will be, the same at home. Sure, arcade cabs will likely survive in some form, but my kids will probably never see an arcade like this when they get to be teenagers. And given the fate of this one perhaps its just as well. Although some things, once lost, can't be replaced. And some dreams, from a fiscal perspective, are best never realized.
I never did stock my refrigerator full of 'Hugs'.
When Castlevania: Lords of Shadow was announced, gamers had a lot to discuss. Common soundbites included,
"Wasn't this just 'Lords of Shadow' before?"
"What, did Konami just tag a 'Castlevania' name to an existing project?"
"Well, it will suck, because all 3D Castlevania sucks"
"I saw gameplay, it's a God of War clone"
"When is Konami going to finally release an HD remake of Roc 'N Rope? What? Look at the Lords of Shadow platforming? Wha..."
Being a longtime fan of the Castlevania franchise and having played most of the titles to completion, I knew I'd have to pick it up as I have every other western title in the series. I purposefully limited my exposure to the title prior to release so as not to form judgment (heaven knows I did not enjoy Castlevania: Judgment), though I knew from the last few console entries that I should not have very high expectations. The portable editions on the other hand, of which I've finished each since Circle of the Moon, have been a pleasant and regular gaming staple.
After completing Lords of Shadow, I was more curious than ever about the development history and my research helped explain the final product. It also gave me fuel to address a relevant gaming topic concerning franchise reboots and restarts.
But first, is Lords of Shadow any good?
As with any of my reviews, I will try to write something relevant that isn't immediately gleamed from a few seconds of scouring game reviews from countless sources around the 'net and therefore redundant.
In many ways I consider Lords of Shadow to be this year's Batman: Arkham Asylum. Both came from relatively unknown developers, both took franchises with unpopular gaming histories (Many agree that the NES versions of Batman were gaming's best with possible exception to the Genesis version, and despite some love for Lament of Innocence, 3D takes on Castlevania are traditionally scorned.) Both titles are crafted in dark, brooding atmosphere that plays heavily into the game and mechanics. Both feature lauded combat systems and inventive mechanics. Each have excellent, moody soundtracks, and grand set-piece battles.
Both are also derided for occasionally terrible textures and graphics errors (made all the more obvious because most of the time both look fantastic.) Each are known for their game-breaking bugs and occasionally bad camera. Glitches and technical errors abound in both games, seemingly displaying a rush to complete the game and ship before artificial deadlines. Lords of Shadow takes special exception with a few battles clearly containing too many enemies for the game engine to handle, as the frame rate nosedives into a literal slideshow. The fact that each of these enemies are the only thing in the game that require only one or two hits to dispatch hint at an issue the developer realized but was unable to repair in time.
I did very much enjoy both games more than I expected, but as a Castlevania fan I have far more to discuss over Lords of Shadow.
Let me reference the three things most important to the game, both as a Castlevania game and as a standalone title: the combat, the platforming, and the narrative.
The combat is nothing like previous iterations, and once the player has most of the techniques and abilities unlocked after a few hours the game feels less of a God of War clone and develops its own personality. The way magic, items, and combos are utilized together feel well developed and strategic, less button-mashy, and very fluid. Definitely a highlight, and very fun to play. Only the camera would sometimes become an unfair enemy, rarely shifting the view to an angle that obscured the avatar behind a wall. It didn't happen often, but it happened on a few boss fights. For a 15-20 hour experience it didn't happen enough to stop me, but it was an issue.
The platforming is more divisive. The locked camera only became a problem for those who don't like the use of viewing angles as a purposeful technique to hide optional items. The action itself was rarely hampered, save for a few jumps that weren't immediately obvious. I assume this was part of the puzzle solving challenge, though it does have the potential to frustrate. If you enjoy the platforming style of Uncharted, Enslaved, or the 2008 Prince of Persia, you'll feel right at home. (Disclaimer: the 2008 Prince of Persia is one of my favorite games of this generation.) Some find this current design of platforming lackadaisical and boring; I find the safer and relaxed pace less frustrating and more entertaining, especially in a 3D space where the camera angle is a greater villain than any Bowser or Dracula.
Finally we get to the narrative, and since I enjoyed the first two reviewed aspects of the game, this was the piece that I find myself in a hate/love relationship with. Hiring actual voice talent is always a big plus for me, as it shows a commitment to good presentation and attention to characterization. Here I enjoyed the subtle and restrained Robert Carlyle's Gabriel Belmont the most, though Natascha McElhone and Aleksander Mikic both give superb deliveries for Marie and Pan respectively. The voice casting overall was a great joy, save for an unexpected turn; I know having Picard as a voice in any product elevates its status to a divine plain for some, but here I found Patrick Stewart's delivery to feel unnatural and his vocal intonation inconsistent, as if reading Shakespeare to a kindergarten class. He wasn't bad, mind you, just less understated than most of the cast. Unfortunately, the high school drama level dialogue written for the narration and characters strained noticeably between Stewart's voicework and the higher level the other three main characters were going for. Then again, after all these years, perhaps Patrick Stewart is just being Patrick Stewart, which is enough for most of us.
Beyond delivery, the story is a complete re'vamp' (sorry) of the canon timeline. In actuality, it ignores 26 years of loosely connected story completely. There are some interesting name drops, though most are completely incompatible with their relevant characters from other Castlevania games. For a non-spoiler example, the name Brauner is given to a well dressed. elitist humanoid vampire with two children in Portrait of Ruin, with the story taking place in the 1940s. In Lords of Shadow, set in 1047, Brauner is a savage, beast-like winged variant of a vampire who uses violence and force, and has none of the nobleman-like upper society traits as his previous namesake. Lords of Shadow is peppered with such disassociated connections in name only to other Castlevania characters, though the art and design occasionally references the other series entries directly. It can be a frustrating thematic choice for a series veteran like myself to see these names used for characters who are completely alien to their namesakes in other games. Instead of a sly reference, it comes across as needless cannibalization. Then again, complaining over needless cannibalization when discussing a series known for reusing the same sprites and animations for some enemies for over a decade seems a bit moot at this point.
Anyway, the story is interesting, maybe better than the delivery, and gives players the chance to explore vast landscapes and gorgeously realized locales. The palpable sense of dread and despair are there by design and detail, from the faces hewn in rock to the captivating rain and water effects. The game gives an excellent sense of mood, using sweeping angles and changing perspectives for scale, and heightens the sense of the epic, of loss and desperation, until...a screen slaps up seemingly at random, splashing the statistics of score and items against your tenderized eyes, because you crossed an invisible line that signaled the end of the level. For as much mood as the game generates, it lacks the elegant tack of Shadow of the Colossus or Prince of Persia, which would be fine if the game were simply trying to stay in line with other Castlevania games as a gothic cartoon. But the presentation tells us it wants to be more. We all know this is a game, but for as hard as Lords of Shadow tries to sell you on the experience, the rhythm is lost because the transitions are so jarring and needlessly reminding. Yes, I see from the flashy yellow excited letters I have a new combo available, was that necessary to punch into my view the second after the lead character cried from a conversation with his dead wife? Something a little more unobtrusive would have been appreciated. Especially after all the effort the developer put into making me care about what was going on in the game for half a second. Odd design decisions like this produce a thematic tug-of-war between selling the game as a sublime experience and jumping up and down to remind you that its a video game.
Still, these design decisions mirror the amalgamated beast Lords of Shadow really is. It is a composite of other games, marinated in an alternate idea of Castlevania themes. About a third of the game is puzzle-solving, much more than traditional games in the series. The handful of items used are more spiritual successors than derivatives of those found in previous games. A few boss fights aren't borrowed so much as completely wholesale copied directly from Shadow of the Colossus. The music, while somber yet grand, only hints at the original themes. The game's use of Dracula himself comes a bit out of left field, though obvious to those paying attention to the unfolding story. The flow and feel is not directly what we associate with other Castlevania games, yet we have to keep in mind that the series has entries as diverse as Simon's Quest, Rondo of Blood, Symphony of the Night, and even Judgment. Like it or not, 'classic' Castlevania is not easily defined. There are gamers who still prefer the original Legend of Zelda over Ocarina of Time, feeling that the transition didn't do the original series justice.
I do appreciate that a different tone and style were used for this post-God of War generation. I just feel that a good chunk of classic Castlevania charm was sacrificed on the 'must-be-modernized' altar. There is good reason to believe that the old methods of successful Castlevania gameplay will live on with the 3DS iterations. If not, we have probably lost a great heritage with the series, but to be honest, with so many excellent Castlevanias already released perhaps the series needs a few years resting in the coffin, growing stronger while its Frankenstein-created brother romps about awhile.
I for one very much enjoyed Lords of Shadow. I would have enjoyed it sooner had I dumped my baggage of what I expected of a Castlevania game and enjoyed it on its own terms. It does invite the comparison by carrying on the legendary name, but like Dracula himself, the Castlevania name resurrects itself different every time. If left alone, this one stands up pretty well without needing to be propped up from its parent games' heritage.
Old Man Stauf built a house, and filled it with his toys
Six guests were invited one night, their screams the only noise
Blood inside the library, blood right up the hall
Dripping down the attic stairs, hey guests, try not to fall
Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen
But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy, sick, AND MEAN!
The great PC puzzle game/interactive haunted house The 7th Guest, like it's distant cousin Myst, is considered largely responsible for the then expensive CD-Rom technology taking off with consumers at large. Considered an instant classic upon release over 17 years ago and selling over 2 million copies, it still holds a nostalgic sway over those of us who were there at the dawn of 'multimedia'. Consisting of brain teasers and devious puzzles, where even learning the rules of the game are a part of the challenge, gameplay in The 7th Guest has aged much better than it's PC counterparts. And while the pre-rendered 3D environments and early FMV work are comically dated now, the incredible musical score and attention to mood and menace help keep the game worth playing even in the days of HD and Blu-Ray.
I have quite a history with this game, a game with quite a development history all it's own, and both are horror stories befitting the games' own darker themes. First up is mine:
As a gamer growing up, I was very fortunate in that my dad was an early adopter in the PC market. Once we had our fancy CD-Rom installed, we had to have something to play, and the magazines sure talked up the showpiece The 7th Guest. Even to this day, I think the only games my dad ever bought for himself were really just to check out hardware. Worked for me! So, my friend Ben and I were soon up night after night, trying to conquer each devilish puzzle, entranced by the graphics and video, and the haunting music echoing in my living room. By the end of the summer, we were stuck on the infamous 'microscope' puzzle of Reversi/Othello. We thought the worst part of the game was pitting two 15 year-olds against a computer AI on Reversi with the difficulty set a notch above "divide by zero and then display the mathematical properties of a black hole on a pocket calculator while counting to infinity twice." We thought the game's most evil moment had to be past us.
We were wrong.
One room left, the mansion's attic. Where a summer's worth of head-splitting mind-bogglers solved would finally culminate, one puzzle that had to be easier than that stupid Reversi game. Almost finished.
The door wouldn't open. Okay...maybe we missed something. Another puzzle? Nope. We tried everything. We went back and played every puzzle, even restarted and re-saved. No attic access.
We were stumped, frustrated, and driven to extremes. That's right, we called the 1-800 tip line in the instructions. Ben and I, the guys who didn't even use the in-game hint system. We had too.
After a detailed (and expensive) conversation explaining where we were stuck, I heard a knowing sigh from the voice on the receiver. We had a defective game. A copy from a print run with a known glitch that keep the game locked from the finale. Seriously. We'd have to mail in the second disc and a copy of our proof of purchase, and they'd mail us a working disc. In four to six weeks. Seriously.
Worse, dad couldn't find the original box. We had no proof of purchase, and so we were completely out of luck. Say what you will about how online patching allows developers to kick games out the door unfinished, back then it would have kept two teenagers from building an assault robot in metal shop and destroying Virgin Interactive and most of the UK. Just kidding: my school didn't have a metal shop. I just played too much Battletech.
Years later, I bought another copy and tried to install it on our newer computer, only to be hit with DOS driver errors that kept it from booting. I wouldn't play the game again for over a decade, and I've still never gone through it again, only seeing the ending on youtube.
The game is/was truly evil.
But my hate/love experience with The 7th Guest must pale in comparison to co-creator Graeme Devine's.
Mr. Devine is truly one of my gaming developer heroes. The guy went from porting Pole Position for Atari when he was 16(!) to helping develop Quake III Arena, Doom 3, Age of Empires 3, and Halo Wars. The guy was lead designer/programmer/producer for more than 40 titles on NES, Genesis, Gameboy, PC, Amiga Commodore 64, Atari ST and standalone arcade games. If I could take anyone in gaming culture out to a steakhouse, Graeme would be at the top of the list.
He and Rob Landeros formed Trilobyte and created The 7th Guest, and became immediately successful. However, the co-founders each had different views on where to take the sequel. The story goes that Graeme walked over to the FMV filming for 11th Hour and
"There the actress stood, dressed in black tights, with a spiked black collar girdling her neck and no clothing on her upper body. In her right hand she held a silver metallic chain attached to a German shepherd. Devine walked onto the set, and as Rob Landeros remembers, "You could clearly tell he was concerned about the content."
Landeros was interested in immediately pushing the content for more adult oriented material. "I told Rob, 'This is just not a comfortable direction,'" explains Devine, who says he "thought about what I was going to tell my wife we were making at Trilobyte."
The divide between the two creators ended up bringing about the fall of the company, as detailed in Geoff Keighley's "Behind the Games" feature:
http://www.gamespot.com/f...atures/btg-tri/index.html
And what began as a promising game company on the bring of new technology dissolved from creative differences, financial mismanagement, and hubris. Not every scary game has an even scarier backstory.
So this Halloween, fire up the emulator and give Trilobyte's success a whirl.
Just remember to get a patched version, or you'll face a real horror story. 
Thought that the Halloween month would be the perfect time to bring this topic up.
Gaming, like most entertainment media, is usually centered around conflict. Be it the two colors of Chess, mute crowbar wielding theoretical physicists against the oppressive Combine, or tetrominoes versus gravity, ours is a hobby always searching for good antagonists to toss against our Hiro Protagonist.
Now that our little Pongs and 2600s have grown up into PS3s and 360s and Grandpa has a Wii at the nursing home, the larger public conscious has honed in to the fact that us gamers have been shooting, stabbing, eviscerating, decapitating, exploding, maiming, impaling, jumping on, poking, and sticking our tongues out at a variety of things for decades. Our preference tends to go in waves; we've seen the loose Cold War allegories of space aliens, the patriotic duty to eradicate the Nazi regime, the ever present threat of technology turned bad in evil robots, the popular and topical terrorist scum, even the role reversal of revolutionary or anti-hero. With high-def digital representations of human faces to shoot/hit/punch/kiss replacing solid blocks of single color and a lot of imagination, our industry is now having to take greater care in literally choosing our targets for fighting.
EA's new Medal of Honor game recently came under fire for offering the ability to play as the Taliban against the U.S. military in the multiplayer element of the game, causing a name change to "Opposing Force." This is a pretty interesting development; while other games such as Counter Strike (released originally in 1995) allow you to specifically select 'terrorist' as the faction team to play on, in recent years our western mainstream media sensitivity has heightened so much that the U.S. military refused to sell the future Medal of Honor title at military bases. (As far as I could research, there was no such ban on Counter Strike or other similar games, past or current.)
Us gamers have mowed down countless men in uniform both online and off since before the days of Wolfenstein 3D, and while criticism of simulated violence is once again a hot political topic contested in court, the industry is always searching for the next perfect, generic, we-can-all-agree-to-kill-these-guys adversaries. Each classic set of virtual villainy has its baggage:
Space aliens can come in a wide variety of flavors, but often degenerate into cliched generic evil doers who have little connection to our reality and therefore become uninteresting. Or, they represent some human-themed agenda that reduces them to simply different people groups who are actually like us and we need to learn from (our generation can call this the 'Avatar Syndrome'. Our parents could have called it the 'Star Trek Dreck.')
The classic evil regime, such as rogue Russian militias, Nazis, terrorist factions, or demonic cults (or any combination!) can help with the overall 'obviously these are bad guys' mind frame, yet the recent push for realism in gaming demands that either this direction addresses our current world mentality in some fashion, or risks being dumbed down to nonsense or unattached silliness. The new Medal of Honor will likely fall somewhere in between these, as do the Call of Duty series.
With the ethical challenges opened by our rampant technology growth state, unfeeling robots and extermination-minded AIs are a ripe candidate for adversaries, even obvious given the very nature of our hobby. Yet while the meta-themes of humanity's own poor choices are often the real backbone of these narrative elements, the theme has waned in recent years because the very technology we would fear has become so comfortably entrenched into daily life. It becomes too much a stretch to wonder if our microwaves are really sentient machines planning world domination; more likely the burrito inside is the one with the sinister plot about to unfold.
Fantasy genres tend to give us good epic potential between worthwhile oppositions, but as with sci-fi, where there is an enormous potential for originality we are all too often given the same few characters, events, and battles repackaged with a different set of pointy ears, wings, or skin colors. The motivations behind our enemies are all too often either 'we didn't know you were actually doing this for the greater good' or 'wow, you're just an evil power-monger.'
I'm not griping about having to replay the same stories: we all know there's nothing new under, around, on top, or inside the Sun. Except Noby Noby Boy. But that becomes a particular challenge for game developers:
Who are we fighting, and why? Its a question most of us gamers have probably never really cared much about. Sure, we can get into a good story, maybe even invest in some of the characters, but more often than not the game simply has to point out that the other guy will shoot you if you don't shoot first. Most of the time we're fine with that. Some games are far more intriguing for making that mindless acceptance an introspective point to the game narrative (BioShock and the Metal Gear Series come to mind) but most games just except that gamers are more interested in the action in the conflict than the reasons for the conflict.
After all, it's just a game, right? Who cares?
Well, more and more people, in fact. Many of whom don't play games. It may have been fun to use good old Jack Thompson as a whipping boy, but now that his personal crusade has done about as much good for his cause as the actual Crusades, the vacuum created in his absence combined with the continuing mainstream acceptance of video games has brought our apathy of digital empathy to the limelight. Now gamers are being asked, as we blast away at the Locust Horde, slam sports cars off the road, and run over prostitutes in a stolen Hummer, what is the context behind our actions? And the common gamer answer of, "uh, I don't care, it's just a game!" is unlikely to hold up in the currently debated California bill that judges our industry's content as completely different than movies, music, and other media. An examination of the domino effect of that bill or the eleven other states that formally support it is way outside of the scope of this post, though I always welcome such discussions.
What piqued my thoughts on this actually stems from my gaming purchase last week. Without much thought about the related source material, I picked up Dead Rising 2 and Plants Vs. Zombies. It literally didn't cross my mind until I got home that I, a person who has absolutely no consistent enjoyment, fear, or real interest in zombies just bought two games in one day that featured said creatures as the antagonists.
You see, despite my absolute love of the Castlevania franchise and a few other 'horror' gaming staples, I've never really been a fan of werewolves, vampires, 'creatures of the night/darkness', or the undead. They just don't do anything for me; I have to overcome a certain mental apathy to them to enjoy the media containing them. Oh, there have been plenty of media featuring such things that I enjoy, but often that enjoyment is in spite of, or at least indifferent to them. The psychological underpinnings of a Silent Hill interest me far more than the camp-scare of a Fatal Frame, and I get much more out of the crisis survival piece of Left 4 Dead than the weird critters those survivors are pitted against. Which is why I'm beginning to theorize that zombies may be the perfect video game bad guy; if a person like me can have fun with pop culture's recent zombie fetish, it says a lot about their staying power.
And boy, is our pop culture going through a zombie phase. Resident Evil (films and games), 28 Days/Weeks Later, Zombieland, Romero's recent set, Planet Terror, Colin, Fido, Shaun of the Dead, World War Z, Monster Island/Nation/Planet, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Left 4 Dead, Dead Rising/2, Plants Vs Zombies, the list just goes on. We now have fast zombies, shambling zombies, biting zombies, mutating zombies, Nazi zombies, Hazmat zombies, zombonis, zombie meals with fries and a diet Coke. We're so obsessed with zombies we shoehorn them into completely different properties like Call of Duty and Red Dead Redemption. We even put them into space and call them strange names like 'the Flood.'
They seem like the perfect enemies, don't they? No nationality to object to, no reason to sympathize, no moral issue with destroying what's already dead to begin with. That last attitude is a far more recent development; whereas the dead and things related to them were once treated with a great deal of dignity, respect, and cultural or religious sensitivity, our modern era has come to view corpses as biological shells and meat bags we medically treat to last for three quarters of a century or so. Upon release in 1968, Romero's Night of the Living Dead was unnerving and shocking, and still remembered today as a landmark horror film that pushed past taboo. Nowadays, we watch open heart surgery on daytime television that includes a thoughtful text blurb about content that 'some may find objectionable', and news affiliates paste up graphic crime and accident footage that 'may offend some viewers.' I wonder sometimes if the Roman Coliseum had the same warning billboards over the entrance, but I digress. :p
The cultural acceptance of the zombie concept is no more obvious than my recent purchases, Dead Rising 2 and Plants Vs. Zombies. Many gamers are somewhat familiar with these games: one of these allows the player to use everything from projectile weapons to lawnmowers to crush, burn, freeze, dismember, and decapitate a zombie horde. The other is Dead Rising 2. And while the latter is certainly far more gory, graphic, and easily offensive, Plants Vs. Zombies makes the onscreen action of similar events so goofy, sanitized, and endearing that it's hard to remember both games contain themes of cannibalism, heads popping off, limbs falling off, and eyeballs hanging loosely. It's just so darn cute.
The kicker? Plants Vs Zombies is rated E10. And I haven't heard anything about Congress putting publisher PopCap up on the stand to defend itself. (Not to imply I think they should.) If the cartoony presentation of Plants Vs Zombies were replaced with a different art style and the trademark humor replaced with a dour presentation, the game couldn't get by on that rating even if it remained relatively bloodless. Compare that with Dead Rising 2, whose M rating would be guaranteed just due to the violent content alone. Please don't think I'm picking on either of these excellent games, just pointing out that zombies are so ubiquitously accepted in our culture that these extremes exist in the first place. Parents flipped at the Atari 2600 VCS version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, yet now mommy giggles at the crunchy eating sounds (complete with screaming) coming from the house in PvZ.
So for now, it appears that zombies have earned their rightful place as our bad guys of choice, standing in line with Nazis, Russians, Space Aliens, and Congress. They can be ultra gory to satiate bloodlust or be cleaned up and painted in day-glo colors to hook housewives into spending countless hours on the family PC. We have our safe villain of the day, until the next wave crashes over and we forget why zombies were so big before, because obviously Corporations were our worst enemy all along.
Me? I'm just glad we're past vampires as the 'in' thing. Oh, hello new Castlevania...
I've really enjoyed Halo Reach lately. Going through the campaign with friends is a lot of fun. Even better, the co-op Firefight mode is a perfect blend of do-or-die, cover-me-I'm-going-in tension, with our LAN crew covering each-others backs. Each of us tends to pick a specialty, like sniping, defending, or vehicles, and we enjoy combining our practiced strategies against the survival situations the AI aggressors constantly dish out. There is a great thrill that comes from a few friends teaming up to tackle such a challenge, especially when said challenge can be customized and tweaked to almost any preference.
I have yet to touch the traditional competitive multiplayer, the feature suite that many (if not most) in the gaming community consider the main, if only 'real,' reason to buy a Halo game. And I may not.
This can appear befuddling if you know my history. I was one of the original Halo CE LAN enthusiasts. A four television, 16 player Halo game party was a staple at my home for three summers straight. I could snipe, drop an opponent with an AR from mid-range in one clip, and splatter an entire opposing team if I got my hands on a Ghost. The skill level in our group of a dozen and a half friends ranged from 'Help! I can't stop staring at the wall!' to 'Look, I killed him from across the map by shooting the pistol at his toe.' We developed balanced teams, and had the gaming time of our lives.
Then Xbox Live happened. Now, I'm not knocking Live, and previous blog entries have gone into detail about what it brought to the industry, warts and all. But Live very nearly ruined Halo multiplayer for me.
Oh, I hung on for a few weeks in Halo 2. My victories, once placing me within the top four or five, slowly slipped into the mid range of the team, then lower. I wondered if I simply was not as good at the game as I thought, and that perhaps was part of it. But after awhile, and chatting with the 'l33ts' that pwned me, I realized a bit of the reason for the discrepancy:
Playing for a few hours (at most) a week simply would not allow me to compete with those who could play for twenty hours or more, weekly, sometimes in one sitting. Some of my LAN friends admitted to putting even more time into it. Before, we really only played when we could play together. Without the limitation of approximately equal game-time, the balance was forever shifting, and I would not, could not, catch up.
And would I want to? I mean, even if my Beloved, my kids, my household responsibilities, and my other social outlets somehow allowed me to have a full day's worth of game time a week, and I used it all to play games, would I want to play one game all the time? I have a backlog that hovers around a few hundred deep. I want to experience them, have fun with them, play them. Sure, I want to play Halo. And Alan Wake. And Demon Souls. And Super Mario Galaxy 2. And Contra III, Castlevania Bloodlines, Space Dungeon, Return Fire, Shining Force III, Raiden IV, Rondo of Blood, Tempest 2000, and Jenga. No, not video game Jenga. Real Jenga.
My point? I like to play a game, have fun, and move on when I want. Right now I love Firefight, in part because I know I can tweak the difficulty to an appropriate challenge with my friends, we can play out that beautiful survival tension, and be done. It's addictive, and I don't have to spend a part-time job's worth of hours just to maintain my ability to compete. The new 'Horde Mode' game-type, recently popularized (though not invented) by Gears of War 2, feels like it was catering to me. And with Left for Dead, Left for Dead 2, Borderlands, Lost Planet 2, Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, Castle Crashers, ODST, and now Reach, our LAN party is once again just as fun for those of us who only get a few hours of real game time a week. Some of us may miss a headshot, forget to reload, or accidentally drop a grenade at the foot of a teammate. But we're all having so much fun, it doesn't matter. And as a bonus, we don't have to reach for the mute control to avoid ridiculous language, singing, or random noises from online players.
I'm all for online gaming, and of course not everyone can set up a home LAN. But if you and a few friends have a way to make it happen, you may discover my favorite way to play modern gaming.
And still have time left over to play Tetris. Hey, I love me some Tetris.
I just finished up the Halo: Reach campaign for the first time.
If ODST's narrative theme was co-operative survival (further punctuated by the addition of the Firefight mode) then Reach attempts, and largely succeeds, to embody foreboding loss. Even the extensive marketing blurbs "Before the beginning, you know the end," and "Remember Reach" try to pull at the heartstrings of players who have invested nearly a decade into the franchise. We know with a Star Wars Episode III certainty that all but a sliver of hope is lost, and the big campaign hook is to see and play out those final hours.
So it came as quite the surprise to me, a person who normally appreciates this type of theme and approach, that Reach is my least favorite Halo narrative. I'm writing this coming fresh off completing the campaign on Heroic with two friends, and this blog is based off my thoughts directly afterward.
Sporting vivid earth tones after three majorly purple hued games, the graphics and texture work are greatly improved. The enemy intelligence is remarkably challenging. Martin O'Donnell's masterful score once again captures the appropriate mix of energy, awe, and somber emotion. The weapon, grenade, and melee balance make the combat feel pitch perfect (always debatable, but it felt right to me.) The multiplayer alone sells the game, and Reach is by far the most extensive offering in this department.
Yet as much as I enjoy large-scale Halo LAN parties, and absolutely fell in love with the Firefight mode, at heart I'm a fan of the series because I very much got into the Halo universe itself. I love a good sci-fi yarn, and while the fiction of Halo doesn't offer anything new (indeed, much of it easily comes across as generic space marine warfare) the passion behind the product shines through. There is a great amount of affection given to the universe of Halo, brought to light through comics, novels, short movies, pretty much any available media. Even non canon comedy spin-offs such as Red vs. Blue and Odd One Out (from the Halo Legends compilation) help weave a multi-part construct that is distinctly Halo. The series has long outgrown video games and become a cultural staple, defended by some as ardently as Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, even if it is not quite as ubiquitous.
I don't try to justify the faults in the game or explain away the flaws. I've just found myself enjoying each game in the series, and feel more invested with every game, book, comic, or radio controlled Warthog.
I've come to realize that a big part of my enjoyment is from the retelling of the classic superhero mythology. In the original trilogy, Master Chief spent long stretches of the game time 'lone gunning' it. Marines were dropped off or assisted in larger skirmishes or assaults, giving the game an appropriate feel of being part of a larger army, but just as often it came down to you and MC, with the sweet whisperings of lady Cortana in your helmet. You were the last hope, and the fate of not just humanity but all life in the galaxy repeatedly depended on your success. Whether or not Halo is our generation's Star Wars, Master Chief is certainly our Superman: a being created beyond Earth, invincible yet mortal, alien yet human, selfless yet fallible, intelligent yet gullible. It is by design that our beloved Spartan 117 has a voice, and a smooth, certain, calming one. Halo games buck the FPS trend of the silent protagonist because we don't want to just be Master Chief, we want to believe in Master Chief.
Microsoft's marketing wisely noted this:
Now it doesn't really matter if you don't buy into all that and just play countless hours of multiplayer, because Halo's success has moved beyond campaign stories, online deathmatches, and even gaming itself. There is so much franchise material developed that it is now entirely possible to be an extensive Halo fan and never pick up a 360 controller. Between books, comics, movies, and toys, one can know the entire universe fiction and never touch an Xbox 360.
That being said, the first three Halo games wrapped the narrative around Master Chief and Cortana (and to a lesser extent, the Arbiter), and it was their story. The universe is strong enough to survive in their shadow to some extent; despite the 'expansion pack' debacle coloring ODST, the side story it told helped humanize the universe's events in the wake of the larger-than-life heroes. The effect was less jarring than it might otherwise have been because even though the game told the player that we were no longer Superman, the game played out largely the same as if you were; hiding behind cover healed 'stamina' instead of shields, and perhaps the enemies looked a little taller, but often the effect came across as playing a different Master Chief in a sort of detective film noir side mission. The separate levels of the other ODSTs mapped out a sort of playable short story compilation that helped give the game its own identity, one that the game's silent 'Rookie' protagonist couldn't project. Personally I felt it worked, if only because it was still Halo even if it sometimes seemed just a little derivative, and because your character still felt powerful enough to continue selling a bit of the Superman saving the world feel.
In Reach, there is another level of separation: the protagonist is a Spartan III, which should ideally bridge the gap between what should have been a tough but outmatched marine and technology-enabled super warrior. For those less familiar with the fiction (mainly told in the novel "Ghosts of Onyx") Spartan IIIs represent a more quickly produced, cheaper, more expendable variant of the Spartan program through the use of less intensive modification methods. Not as superhuman as Spartan IIs, the third generation nonetheless represent the pinnacle of military technology. Yet in Reach, the player feels even more vulnerable than in ODST. On the Heroic setting (developer Bungie's recommended default) only one or two hits from many weapons will drop a player, or at the very least all of their shields. While the technology for Spartan IIIs are supposed to favor less armor and more stealth, the effect is that the player feels less like a Superman and more like an expendable soldier on the front line. This is perhaps consistent with the story fiction, but it had an interesting effect on me personally:
Often I didn't feel as though I was playing a Halo game, but something more akin to Call of Duty or Medal of Honor. Almost the entire game takes place on the planet of Reach, a brown, grey, and earthen landscape spotted by brown, grey, and earthen industrialized complexes. It lends a more relate-able gravitas to a series known for its purple and pink colors and bizarre geographical architecture, and helps sell the idea of a more human note of urgency and despair.
It also at times takes the game only a few shades away from the feel of a generic war game. With more focus on the fate of humanity and less on the awe, the mystery, the alien connection to the conflict, ironically I felt less drawn into the plight of Noble Six and any emotion I was supposed to feel for them. This was most noticeable in an oddly backwards realization about my favorite cinematic in the game. Without giving away too much of a spoiler, at one moment a character is running with your squad, a shot rings out, and the character's head snaps back, dead in an instant from a random sniper shot fired from a random enemy from a random location. There is no long dialogue, no epic speech, no cries out to an ultimate nemesis. Just the true, indiscriminate nature of war. I appreciated the bluntness, as realism used properly helps the investment in the narrative.
The problem is that the moment made me realize, until then, I hadn't really cared that much. I hadn't felt the grand, epic stage on the canvas of the Halo story. It was another war game. Fun combat, great action, well made, just very little investment. For most games that's not a big problem, but for a game designed around playing out a big piece of the Halo fiction? That didn't seem right.
The story does pick up at about the halfway mark, eventually ties into the original trilogy, and ends as it should. But the sudden death of that character signaled that I had played for several hours and I hadn't really invested anything, something that had never happened to me in a Halo game before. Normally the story, such as it is, catches my attention enough that even beyond the fun of playing, I want to see the adventure out. I want to get caught up in the atmosphere and let it become my impetus to 'finish the fight.' And by taking away my Superman status and letting me play as another cog in the war machine- albeit a shiny, tougher than normal cog- I felt more like fodder than savior. And at least for me, that reduced the grandstanding nature of the story into what the series' critics always claim Halo really is; an unoriginal space marine simulator.
But then, that's the nature of a franchise. Much ink real and digital has been spilled discussing the nature of sequels. Once a media product is given an addition to its series, inevitably they will all be compared and contrasted ad infinitum. No series will make everyone happy every time, and every change will have fans and critics. I'm thrilled that Reach's campaign is being so well received, even if I still prefer the story in Halo 3, ODST, or even Halo Wars.
Am I being way too hypersensitive? Well, despite my negative tone, I did have a really fun time with the game so far. The campaign was by no means bad; just about every review I've read claims it to be the best Halo has to offer. And to be fair, Bungie made clear that they are moving on from Master Chief and, one last time, exploring other corners of the vast place they created. Reach is consistent with what it sells itself as and makes no excuses by pretending to be something it isn't. (Proven in part by the smart and limited use of vehicle and space segments that, in less talented hands, could have overtaken the gameplay instead of complementing it.) I was just surprised that, despite having fun, I didn't personally delve into this darker corner at the edge of the Halo Universe as deep as expected. It's still a great video game, and for that, fun is more than enough.
Now, about the rehab I'll need to be pulled away from the new Firefight...
So the Vanquish demo arrived on XBox Live. I thoroughly enjoy developer Platinum's titles (Bayonetta, Okami, Viewtiful Joe Series) but until this demo arrived, I had little interest in another third-person sci-fi shooter. Any other time of the year it might have blipped on the radar. But in the same time frame as Halo: Reach, a new take on Castlevania, and another Call of Duty (I'll be honest, I'm only getting it for the radio-controlled RC car equipped with an AV feed for spying on/playing with my kids) it had to stand out, and the screen shots didn't really sell it for me.
Then I tried the Demo.
Whee!! Fluid, stylized action that felt like a hyper Gears of War, set in a clone of a Robotech universe, with a character in Issac Clarke's armor and wielding a gun stolen from the new Transformer movies. It was fast, over the top, Sega-brand arcade-y while containing depth, and I could see how the game's presentation and control combined into a beautiful player guided ballet in the vein of the new Ninja Gaidens and Devil May Cry.
At least, I think that's how it would feel if I could play it.
You see, I'm a southpaw. No, not a feline from Mississippi, a left hander. In a 3D space, my left hand has to control the look, and my right hand the movement. This, of course, is reverse of the traditional play control. No, it's not as simple as 'just get used to it the normal way.' Try playing one of the few games that manually allow a southpaw setting on the opposite of your preference and you may get a glimpse of my pain. And to all the Lefties in the forums that say an alternate control setup is unnecessary because they can play on the default, I'm happy you don't have a problem. I literally get nauseous playing the 'normal' way for more than ten or fifteen minutes, and I refuse to take Dramamine or other dimenhydrinates or medications to play a game. I've tried off and on for years, and it still makes me motion sick. Its not a problem if I can simply have the thumb sticks swapped.
Except it is. Because developers aren't really paying attention to between 10% and 15% of their gaming population, they may offer a southpaw control option that swaps the analogue stick controls, but obviously don't play test it. Let me give you a perfect example:
Gears of War supports an internal southpaw control option. It makes the left stick the look controls, and the right stick movement. We good now? Not hardly. Because G.o.W is a 'stop and pop' shooter, the player uses the 'A' button as a context sensitive control for taking cover, rolling to cover, jumping over cover, etc. The 'A' button is probably the most important button after the shoot button. Its directly above the right stick.
And. You. Can't. Change. It.
For normal controls, not a problem. But for southpaw, I need to move that right 'movement' stick in a direction while pressing the 'A' button. The button directly to the right of the stick. Let me give you a visual example of what my hand has to do to press 'A' while moving my character to cover:
Yeah. Any game requiring me to move the right thumb stick while pressing a face button (pretty much every 3D game) requires some crazy move like that. If I just move all my fingers across the face buttons 'arcade stick' style, then I can't reach the top bumpers and triggers. For Gears, they could have just let me change the 'A' functions with one of the bumpers (the left bumber is only used to give an arrow locating AI team-mates for crying out loud! I need that more than the game-designed-around-it cover system?!?!) Obviously, someone at Epic never play tested the southpaw option much, or this GLARING oversight of the unmappable 'A' button would have been addressed.
In fact, any 3D game requiring the use of face buttons that can't be remapped to the four top-side buttons on the 360 or PS3 controller is just a slap in the face to any southpaw-required gamer like me. It gets worse; many games won't even let you swap the thumb sticks anyway. Even the 360's internal southpaw preference is unsupported in many AAA games, including Battlefield 2, Lost Planet and Lost Planet 2, Bioshock, and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, just to name a small few. I had to buy a hardwired modded controller that internally swapped the sticks just to play these games, and that still doesn't address the face button problem.
What, are we still in the '90s? Why on earth, in this day of unprecedented mainstream gaming popularity, can we not get universal control mapping options on every game? Especially the large-scale developed ones? Sure, developers have their preference on how a game should be controlled; make that the default. Why alienate even a small percentage of the gaming population over such an easily correctable issue?
Maybe it's just me. For a long time I assumed it was. Then I read this:
http://lawofthegame.blogs...8/southpaw-manifesto.html
I'm not alone!
Every time I submit a complain about this (I even called a few companies directly) all I would hear is a standard, 'thank you for bringing this to our attention, all of our customer's feedback is important to us, and we'll consider it for future releases' reply that would be the same line if I complained that their games didn't feature enough custard filled donuts.
Us southpaws have struggled in vain over this control issue ever since the Playstation era (though strangely, the Dreamcast featured several games with Southpaw defaults.) Please, help us bug developers enough so they will listen. Everyone wants to play games with the controls set up the way they are most comfortable, and even if you aren't a southpaw, there is almost certainly a game you would change a few buttons around on. Why are we still waiting?
During every Castlevania title, from the NES original to each anticipated portable release of the last few years, one thought has permeated my time and enjoyment of the series:
'I am never moving to Romania.'
One thought that actually never popped into my head?
'What would make these games even more awesome is if six players could speen-run through a montage of levels from previous games.'
Oh, and 'Shanoa is vapid and soulless and somehow still endearing and attractive.' I never thought that. Ever. Moving on.
We Castlevania fans were all hyped when the series was announced for XBLA, as a good modern console 2D version has been as rare as that last item drop you've waited hours for. Then it was announced that this new incarnation would:
a.) Be six stages long, with a half-hour timer on each
b.) Be comprised of characters, enemies, stages, and everything else from the last six GBA/DS titles
c.) Not have traditional RPG-lite character leveling
d.) Would feature 6 player co-op play
e.) Would cost 15 bucks worth of Microsoft's imaginary funny money.
Put together, this starts throwing up red flags all over the place. How would a standard 'Metroidvania' game that thrives off exploration and atmosphere work as a fast-paced attack-spamming teamwork based action-platformer? It seems counter intuitive to what the series' fans have come to expect. And indeed, many Castlevania fans will skip this one altogether with only thoughts of vague disappointment over 'what could have been.'
I'm such a fan of the franchise I bought Castlevania Judgment, a game whose design could have worked but instead felt so disconnected it might as well have been Castlevania: DraKart Racers in the Night of Despair, so I approached with tepid caution. Could I just play this as a single player adventure at all? Is it too easy to blast through with six vampire killers? (The profession, not the mystical whip.) How do cleaned up sprites from a low resolution portable, some bordering on a decade old, look on an HD set? Will it be any fun? And most importantly, will this give me any juicy story elements for my Alucard-marries-Maria-while-a-lovelorn-Trevor-dies-of-a-broken-heart fanfiction?
Well, there aren't many straight answers over this one. (Except the last one, which is a solid no. I don't write fanfics, I leave that to Paul W.S. Anderson.) Let's get the biggest problems addressed right away:
First, there is no real narrative, no solid story, and no satisfactory explanation as to why the various protagonists from different centuries are gathered together for a slay-ride. Those assuming Harmony of Despair expands or even links together plot threats in the convoluted Castlevania time-line can give up on getting anything here.
Second, while single player gameplay is possible, it is clear the game design is for multiplayer. Big chunks of each level are difficult or even inaccessible with only one person, and the bosses are even worse. There is no scaling for player count; each enemy and boss deals and takes the same damage whether there are one or six heroes, leading some fights to be frustrating and even unfair. (I'm looking at you, stage 2 Puppet Master. You are evil even for a Castlevania villain.) There is fun to be had in single player, but it is much more limited.
Third, and this is directly connected to single player, is that there is no overall 'grinding' that the 'Metroidvania' type games are known for. Oh, there is certainly farming, but no characters 'level up' overall from repeated monster killing. The closest are Jonathan and Shanoa's secondary abilities gaining levels through consistent use (which does power up their respective main attacks.) The rest of the characters have to absorb spells (Charlotte) souls (Soma) learn magic attacks (Alucard) or just get lucky drops for equipment. For the majority of stats, the only improvement method is through better gear found in random (read: super rare) drops.
Fourth, even for multiplayer, the online setup is clunky. For a multiplayer experience designed to revolve around farming, players have to form a party before the host selects what level to play. If your Charlotte needs to farm Death's Scythe attack from level 5, you won't know if the new party you've joined has any intention of going there at all. Worse, the host can only select levels every party member has gotten to, so if you want to play on Hard mode (where all the best drops are) you just have to hope your entire party that randomly joined has also gotten there, and that the host wants it in the first place.
Fifth, if you're a fellow diehard fan of the series, you've already seen all of these graphics before. Sure, they look better now than ever, but part of the appeal of each new 2D Castlevania is the excellent art, sprite, and animation design. Every game in the series borrows some graphical elements from those before, but Harmony of Despair lifts each level wholesale from previous games and rearranges them into an extended remix.
Sixth, menu navigation and documentation are incredibly poor. 'Main Menu' is actually the character equip screen, you can only visit the menus at specific areas in-game, no pausing even in single player, and the game has countless important facets (say, how to level-up spells or use character abilities) that are not described or even mentioned. You practically have to learn by accident, experimentation, or Gamefaqs.
Seventh, (yes, seventh) no couch co-op!
Eighth, NO COUCH CO-OP!!?! Wha? C'mon, that's just lazy, stupid, stupid, greedy, or both. Wait...well, two at least. Sure, there would be some tug-o-war with the map zooming on the same screen, but no split screen or anything? Someone's trying to fleece de moneys out of each and every player.
Ninth, well, see seven and eight.
So why even bother paying $15 for what surely sounds like a bizarre failed experiment?
Simply because it can be a ton of fun.
I've already talked almost half a dozen friends who were on the fence or had no interest at all into buying what we all agreed was an overpriced game, and yet we can't stop playing! For all the missteps and technical issues, grabbing a crew and running through challenging platforming and traditional Castlevania combat just feels right. It isn't the same as a new 2d Castlevania, but instead a bizarre offshoot that yanks familiar mechanics, sights, and sounds, and congeals into a mutant Frankenstein monster that shouldn't be alive, yet sings and dances. Even playing online with strangers, something I rarely enjoy, has been an absolute blast. Almost every night I get messages, texts, or calls asking if I want to play. That hasn't happened since Halo 3.
It may have ultimately better fit an online mod some kids hacked together for the fun of it, but it actually works. There are some intelligent design decisions hidden in the clunky and under-documented interface, such as every player getting character specific drops when an item chest is opened, or the dual crush combos between different characters that can decimate certain bosses. Even the eclectic methods separating each character's farming needs means there are always reasons to go back to earlier levels with beginner parties. And even if they are from previous games, the controls, graphics, music, and effects are the same quality goods we've come to expect. Not superb, but definitely Castlevania.
The interest will fade, as it is a limited design. But our crew is having so much fun farming loot and making different character builds that for the time being it has been money well spent. Who would have thought?
What's next, an iPhone puzzle game based on Symphony of the Night?
Oh. Nevermind.
As my game reviews of Small Worlds and Limbo have shown, I have a strong appreciation for a minimalist approach that focuses on just one or two key concepts, thus reflecting a represented idea's pure form. At first glance, it would seem that the shmup field (shoot-'em-up, space shooter, vertical/horizontal scroller, etc) seems to be one of the few classic genres still so relatively simple in concept and execution that to remove any more staple components would dilute the concept to a dull tedium. The barest form (Space Invaders, Asteroids) can be difficult to return to after introducing in-depth layers (Ikaruga, Cave bullet-hell survival, unique scoring methodology.) The oldest are fun for classic nostalgia and score contests, sure, but even Galaga had to layer a bit more complexity over Galaxian to become an industry stalwart.
Cue Hikoza T. Ohkubo's Warning Forever. A freeware PC shmup from 2003, Warning Forever is a perfect example of a talented 'indie' developer that refined a concept into a simple game with more polish, gameplay, and pure addictive quality than the import-heavy genre had seen in years. And to this day, it remains an incredibly fun testament to stripping down a game concept and just keeping what works.
In Warning Forever, there is only your ship avatar and a never-ending stream of boss ships, one at a time. 180 seconds on the clock. Each boss ship has various destroyable compartments and weapons. A destroyed boss ship core grants the player another 30 seconds added to the timer, and every player ship lost costs 20 seconds. No power-ups, no alternate player ships, and only one vulcan-like cannon on the player ship that can either dumb-fire forward or switch to a swiveling fire arc that moves opposite of the direction the player moves. The goal is as simple as it is intuitive: survive as long as possible.
While the initial setup is not really extraordinary, after destroying a few boss ships something notable occurs. If you blow up the front of the ship, the next one has more armor on the front. Killed by a missile launcher on the last boss? The next one will be bristling with missile pods. As each boss ship is destroyed, an artificial process of natural selection will enable the next to better counter your attack method.
In other words, when this-
[img width=640 height=480]http://www18.big.or.jp/~hikoza/Prod/ref/ss_wf02.png[/img]
Becomes THIS, its YOUR fault.
[img width=640 height=480]http://www18.big.or.jp/~hikoza/Prod/ref/ss_wf07.png[/img]
Soon, players will be targeting specific areas during different fights, knowing how to customize their own battles in reverse. Instead of the player ship advancing and leveling in specified directions, the enemy is growing in power against the player's attack methods. While the game includes a button for slow and precise ship movement for delicate dodging, and the hit box on the player ship constitutes a single pixel, the computer will eventually overcompensate its weakness and conquer you. At least, until next game.
The player has a fire control that allows the angle of attack to sweep across the dark void around the two opposing ships, as well as widen the spread or focus the shots into a targeted area by moving towards or away. Warning Forever removes the level-up weapon structure common in these games and focuses entirely on a player's movement, precision, and tactically surgical strikes. The less-is-more approach drops the over-the-top arcade-frantic nature without loosing any of the intensity.
The vector-like graphics and simplistic, retro style sounds give the game a clean, sharp impression. No frills beyond some humble particle effects, Warning Forever nonetheless shows artistic design in the subtle polish that displays Hikware's commitment to an excellent, complete game belying its quiet origins.
It will also run on any PC computer you can still turn on without waking up a hamster on a treadmill or inserting a floppy disc the size of a pizza. Even if shmups have never interested you, the price of admission alone and the ease of which it can be installed and played on anything smarter than a Ti-99 is reason enough to give it a whirl.
If you are like me, your poor consoles and Starcrafts and Warcrafts and house-on-fire might take a back seat for a few minutes or hours as that familiar warning klaxon starts blaring...
Remember that nyquil fever dream you had that meshing together a bunch of hot girls, samurai, powered-armor, dragons, World War I, sword and gun fights, a bordello, medieval castles, and a lot of mascara? Well, Zach Snyder does. And he made it into a new music video movie:
Now before you gripe about how unrealistic it is that any movie featuring REC7 Barrett M468s, M4 SOPMODs, HK UMP45s and HK MP5s can be set in the 1950s, that little chronology faux pas (and the other tiny anomalies) are explained by implying the surreal events are all in the protagonist 'Baby Doll's head. And she's in an insane asylum to be 'fixed'. (C'mon, even the MP5s didn't show up until the late 60s. Duh.)
Taking a moment to blink after the trailer ended, I was immediately surprised by two thoughts. One, I never like how dark eyeliner makes a person look in real life, yet somehow it can look kinda cool in movies. And two, video games seem to have helped push the boundaries of how we accept the absurd.
As pop culture has become more completely entrenched in newly developed electronic technologies (and vice-versa,) hitching onto this runaway connection is our corporate tolerance for what was previously, well, nonsense. From the Surrealism movement of the 1920s on up to campy anime-inspired Saturday morning cartoons (R.I.P  ), the entertainment and introspection of our current day is laced with ideas so strange and bizarre, only Jules Verne could have predicted it.
While our modern culture gates itself with a Renaissance-modeled glorification of reason and intellect, peering through the portcullis reveals a growing acceptance of outlandish and strange media. It has become so widespread, it can take a moment to remember just how patently absurd it is to accept what video games take as commonplace: ducking behind cover in a shootout and regaining lost health, picking up an item that instantly heals you, finding food in random items such as candles, streetlamps, and...garbage cans? How about jumping a height equal to or greater than your character's own height, 'double' jumping, the ability to both see and dodge ballistic weapon-fire, hitting anything while going over fourty or so miles an hour and not destroying either you or your vehicle, or every female video game character not requiring extensive back corrective surgeries?
It goes on so extensively that listing the absurdity in gaming is itself absurd. There is so much we have to just accept and realities to ignore while playing a game, that we can't truly keep track anymore.
(I find it hilarious when I hear comments like, "its so unrealistic that Mario falls into the water and dies in one level, then swims submerged for three minutes in the next level." Really? We're going to discuss physics continuity in a game that allows your avatar to take a person-sized flower and use it to throw fireballs from his hand?)
From storytellers around a campfire, to fantasy and sci-fi books, our fiction media has always been rich with unreal concepts, and movies like the Matrix and the recent critically acclaimed Inception take an approach of layering the absurd with ideas grounded in a definable reality. Even the upcoming Sucker Punch attempts to explain itself with the 'all in her head' setup so that even the biggest nerds won't be put off by the true absurdity just featured in the trailer.
But do we need to justify our love of the absurd? It seems common now that we, a western culture that prides itself in technology and 'forward thinking', need an excuse to rationalize the absurdity in our entertainment. Interestingly, this nowadays onus to explain away absurdity in our entertainment seems divergent, even counter, to the video game mentality of old.
In the beginning of video gaming, there was no real interest in explaining why you were a mechanical fly/spaceship in Yar's Revenge. (They did, in a pack-in comic that is only really desirable to collectors.) Pac-Man only developed a loose and bizarre story for the sake of continued sequels. Monkey steal your girl and wreck a construction zone filled with dangerous chemical barrels and cement pans commonly mistaken as pies? Well, soon-to-be-plumber-boy, you know what to do. Where did the monkey come from? What does he want with the rather unattractive Pauline? Where is the police, Humane Society or PETA in all of this? Who cares!
These simpler gaming days were developed with simpler needs in mind. Space Invaders were just that: bad guys from space literally viewed in black and white. The Cold War mentality in the 70s and 80s, with its clearly defined (in the minds of America and her allies, anyway) construct of 'Good' and 'Evil', helped explain unspoken notions of the developer's intentions. There just wasn't as much of a reason to define why something was good or bad, or even why there was conflict. The most liberal ideas of developers were often shoved under the rug for the sake of levity; Dave Theurer's original intent for Missile Command was to show the unending futility of nuclear warfare, as the game never ends and it is only a matter of time before the game's cities are destroyed. The developer even punctuates the somewhat political nature of the statement by stating 'The End' instead of the classic 'Game Over' upon losing a game. While the original coin-op had no storyline and indeed did not require one, the Atari 2600 VCS port's instructions included a sci-fi explanation of the "peaceful world of Zardon and the invasion of the Krytolians." Keep it light for the kids, even if the adults can chuckle at a "Rush 'N Attack." Wink.
As games matured, sprites and textures replaced the details that imagination wrapped around our digital pictures. While the absurdity was no less surreal, the game's graphics described in specific details what years ago our minds just made up. More and more, some of us wanted to know who was in that other tank or jet in Combat, even if it was just a blurb in the instructions that stated some goofiness about robots and aliens. Sure, plenty of us didn't care (many still don't) but as the violence and dark themes in games became a stalwart of the industry, many gamers (and parents, and politicians) just wanted a little comfort knowing that Shang Tsung was really an evil sorcerer and not some Chinese dude looking for his cancer-stricken son who just happened to walk by a fighting tournament. While many gamers don't need a positive context for their avatar's actions in a game (indeed, playing the bad guy is more popular that ever) the fact that there is even a 'good' and 'bad' side to play as is something that defines our industry as closer to actual role play as opposed to static books or movies. As games reach an ever-widening demographic, the responses to 'realistic' or obtuse morality issues will have to grow with it.
Story explanations helped the industry develop the antagonist/protagonist themes in gaming and gave context to the absurdity onscreen. But often, it is not a game's story that helps us just 'go along with it', but the stories we are familiar with beforehand. For example, the Mushroom Kingdom's likeness to Lewis Carroll's 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' novels probably helped lay the groundwork for gamers accepting the outlandish universe. After all, many of us were perfectly familiar with the day-glow colors, eating to change size, even mushroom architecture, from a cartoon that debuted three and a half decades before. Now we've grown so used to the idea that touching an anthropomorphized star makes us invincible for a few seconds, that new Mario game oddness like flying around in a bee costume seems to make perfect sense.
Which sums up our industry's acceptance of absurdity as a whole. Early works broke ground on all these strange ideas, and later works just expound on it so we no longer question why gaming reality is such an unfathomable thing.
An interesting development over the the last decade has been the goal of introducing less absurdity and more 'realism' in gaming. Getting into this debate is another topic entirely, but it is perhaps peculiar that developments such as morality systems and more graphically displayed violence is considered to add more 'depth' to a video game. Modern Warfare's now infamous airport scene, in which the player (acting as a secret undercover agent) helps gun down dozens of civilians, would not be as unsettling to most of us if the game used a more cartoon-like graphical design, or if the action were turn-based instead of real-time. That the scene is made to play out as 'real' as current technology allows is a trend that will continue, with consequences that both the gaming industry, government, and consumer public will have to face.
In the meantime, we have gamers and critics that complain that Halo is too unrealistic for them, or they are too old for another Mario. Instead of opening up a laundry list of reasons why 'realistic' games really aren't, or that a gamer is never too old for a fun, well designed game, it is perhaps best to accept that everyone has their internal limits on just how much and what type of nonsensical fantasy is too much for them. Arguing over what each of us can tolerate for absurdity is, well, absurd. I'll go see Sucker Punch, my sister will go see the next Twilight movie, and while neither of us will convince each other that the other movie is just too dumb for us, we can agree that we just like what we like.
No matter how absurd it appears to anyone else.
In November of 2002, something big released into the gaming world. Something that has had a ripple effect, forever changing the landscape of interactive entertainment. Something that may outlast motion control, 3D, and other previous innovations that were further enhanced and repackaged for our newer consoles. Its scope rivals the development of online play, and as long as games continue to develop with online features, it may never go away. It is something that its own developers would likely never truly understood the impact, nor the millions of gamers that now refuse to live without it. A new form of gamer identity.
Xbox Live released in November 2002, and while the network fought terrible bouts of lag, the voice chat rarely worked as promised, and the game support itself started slow, Microsoft also implanted something of which took years to see the true effects . As part of the design to separate paid Live accounts, you had to create a gamertag, a sign-on, an account by which all your save games and settings would be remembered.
You created your gamer identity.
Now before I get called out as a Xbot fanboy and all of the other colorful terms used to describe myself, family, and dog, hear me out.
In the beginning, God created the Arcade. And it was good. We plunked in a few quarters, got mauled, came back for more. And as our skills grew, we saw those high score initials pop up, a silent challenge by those strange three letter signatures. Most of us probably just shook our heads and walked away, but others, we took that challenge, and would play game after game, wordlessly making a bet to ourselves and that stranger that our own three letters would surpass them. It spurred us on, and when our name made it to the top, we were the king of the world- or at least, the block that machine was in. Our initials on a high score board was the first step toward claiming our gamer identity, letting others see us, if just locally, putting our stamp on the digital domain. It may seem like a huge jump, but decades later having your name imprinted on a computer moved beyond game competitions, and would develop into Facebook, MySpace, and a whole list of methods by which we use to write our digital signatures, our virtual identities. But back to the more important subject: Games.
While high score tables grew into the home video game market, it would take a few more years and more complex role playing and adventure games before you were able to put more content and progress behind a saved name. The original Legend of Zelda, a console game breakthrough in many regards, allowed you to put in your name at the beginning, and all subsequent progress, every heart container found and every dungeon conquered, was saved under your own name. It was a mark of pride, of identity, to see that progress listed under whatever name you gave your file.
And then things didn't change much for a few decades. Super Nintendo, Playstation, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, Playstation 2, Virtual boy, 3DO, Jaguar CD, even PC. Sure, more games let you name your own proof of progress to show others, and virtual worlds became open and big enough that you could alter something permanently and then call it your own, but gamer identity stayed private, impersonal, isolated from one game to another. Attempts were made to connect who you are to the game you played, but nothing really progressed.
Then comes the Xbox. Using the ubiquitous computer method of logging into a user ID for personalized content was the first subtle transition. Combined with Xbox Live's cross-game connection with your gamertag, a whole new realm of gamer identity opened. Now, if EnderBuggerKiller7 passed you in MotoGP, a day later you might be popping EnderBuggerKiller7 with a PPC in MechAssault, and it was the same guy! The importance of cross-game connectivity was more than mere novelty; for the first time, you could keep a name, a unique identifier, through every online game, and it would stay consistent. Get to the leaderboard in one game, and people would check their own favorite game's leaderboard and see if you were in their turf too, another silent challenge from a name on a table that we mostly phased out of since the glory days of the arcade. With voice chat, the challenge didn't even have to stay silent anymore- you could send a message or talk in-game, egging each other on or discussing strategies.
But if cross-game consistency opened the door for the future of gamer identity, it was kicked off its hinges with the invention of the gamerscore. The true expansion of the idea of global leaderboards, now your entire current-gen gaming career materialized, open and visible, and with it a new sense of progress and identity. Now, you could compare not just a high score in an individual game, but how many games you had completed, conquered, squandered, or wasted time with. You could look up to see if someone had found a secret you missed, ask them for help through voice chat, or just play together. In its ideal form, Xbox Live is designed for community and competition. That it sometimes seems to mostly consist of tweens with infinite amount of time to master a game and a dialect almost entirely comprised of racial epithets and sexual slang (with video chat to match!) is unfortunate, but expected when you hand the keys to the Ferrari over to your little siblings. It's just a matter of time before they crash it and take out a few innocents on the road with them.
It might seem like I'm giving Xbox Live too much credit for not much of a big deal. But the effects of these developments have exploded into every aspect of our gaming. Nintendo, not ready or willing to break out into the online scene just yet, creates Miis; virtual representations of your identity. The Mii represents the same creation as the Gamertag, a virtual identity through which all of your gaming progress is tracked. Instead of universal achievements, you get an entire calender with notes that represent the progress you have made. Not just in games, but almost all activity on the Wii. A look at the calender notes on the Wii reads like a different format for the 360's data tracking, with the same intent; to give you a sense of identity, of accomplishment, of easily tracking your activity. Microsoft would famously copy the Mii idea with a nearly identical Avatar system, attaching you yet again to your digital self. Xbox 360 even imported the Windows method of a small picture, user chosen, attached to the gamertag. Further Avatar customization has become its own marketable, profitable expansion.
Even Sony got into the act, with a profile crossbar system that debuted on the PSX DVR, and then on the PSP and PS3. Now, it's not as simple as putting a game in and just playing- you pick your Profile/Mii/Gamertag, the representation of your global gaming identity, the some of all of your gaming progress on that system. Sony's Home, a derivative of Second Life (which itself is, like MMOs, is a form of expanded digital identity on a wide social network) takes the concept a step further and removes the gaming aspect as a necessary item, allowing a social or exploratory side of digital identity.
While the concept of these unifying systems may seem like a natural progression from our early gaming days, the impact it has on our gaming cannot be understated. It shows no sign of ever going away. We now prefer a game for our PS3 or 360 because we want the trophies/achievements. We feel a sense of loss if we play a game together and can't log on to our own accounts for the representation of our presence. As long as trophies and gamerscores carry over to the next console generation (and they assuredly will,) gamers will buy a system just to keep their numbers growing. I remember playing a DS game and feeling disappointed that I put several hours into the game and would not get anything for my gamerscore out of it! (I'm over it now, as well as buying crappy games to boost my gamerscore. Now I just buy crappy games cheap to boost the collection ) Many of us try to avoid Miis and Avatars altogether, but they have proven to be so popular that a new incarnation of them will likely stay with us on future gaming systems.
You may not care about trophies or gamerscores. You may just click past the Miis to get to the game. You may never get online, and you may care less about a gamer identity. But the industry has spoken. The methods may change up a bit, but the infusion of gamer identity has fully integrated into our industry. And with the advent of digital downloads and add-on content for even single player gaming, there is now a more justifiable monetary reason to keep track of your digital self. It may never recede.
It is now practically unthinkable that we would buy a new console and not have some type of identity system we log on to, that keeps track of all our private save games, features the name people identify as who we are, and unifies our identity, online or off. The days of just finding your save-game, unattached to any profile, on your PSX/PS2/Dreamcast/Neo Geo memory card is long gone. Now, with the exception of a few portables, we either log on to a virtual identity, or we don't play.
Is it a good or bad thing? Both. Recently, when Blizzard Entertainment suggested the idea of posting the real identities of users inside forums, a sudden and powerful backlash resulted in the company nixing the idea. The privacy element of keeping our virtual identities separate from our real identities will grow more and more important. While there are dangers with any medium that allows role-play, it must be noted that these issues were not the same as when two kids popped in Super Mario Bros. As our electronic entertainment yields more complex, interactive universes, so too will players yield greater personal investment.
We will all feel different about the methodology. Yet our industry moves ever onward. From Combat to Modern Warfare, from Tetris to Peggle, we will continue finding ways to fulfill our wishes of living out an identity that is just outside our own. However, as with any entertainment, the impetus to stay responsible with our identity is on us, the players.
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