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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?
Well, my main computer (laptop) hard disk is dead. I'm posting from an older laptop that I'm pretty sure has a virus and needs a complete software overhaul. Thus, while I hope to continue working on the podcast, my blogging has suffered until I get this resolved.
Not to mention, I just put in an offer on a house, and the last week has consisted of paperwork, phone calls, impromptu visits to real estate and buyer agents, etc.
I'm not unplugging or anything, just jumping some technical hurdles that are slowing me down. I'll return to my duties as soon as possible; RFGen has become a bit of an internet home for me lately and I hate to be gone long.
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.
[img width=422 height=77]http://achievements.schrankmonster.de/Achievement.aspx?text=*Never%20Ends*%20You%20read%20slackur%27s%20whole%20article![/img]
Just snapped a quick pic of my new temporary anime shelf. Sure, its only a cardboard cutout featuring some unknown indie game that will likely stay obscure, but I kinda like it.
[img width=576 height=1024]http://i797.photobucket.com/albums/yy259/slackur/SCIIshelf.jpg[/img]
Value is a topic that comes up a lot in video gaming nowadays.
Recent Xbox Live and Playstation Network game pricing seems to be the argument du jour, with indie favorites Braid and the recent Limbo under fire for disproportionate playtime vs. price. The last few years have also given us both Modern Warfares, a few Halos, both Gears of War, and other AAA titles with campaigns lasting six hours or under (depending on difficulty setting and other factors, of course.) Indeed, the last two console generations have seen a serious rise in critique over game lengths, with the most recent high definition consoles' higher priced games leading the charge that we as gamers often just aren't getting our money's worth anymore.
But what gives something value? Is it the length of the game? The graphics, sound, and gameplay? The quality of the experience? The presence of tubby Italian plumbers that, despite their claimed occupation, are more often observed playing various sports and throwing parties rather than doing anything even vaguely plumbing related?
Value is usually balanced on the scales of public opinion, but here's the most interesting fact about it: it is completely subjective. I cannot force my sense of a value on anyone else, and their concept of value will be different than my own. I may persuade, I may cheapen, I can present cases for and against all day long. At the end of the day, I may convince some gamers that my Neo Geo AES and games are worth the money spent, but that guy with every Neo Geo game on his modded PSP or XBox will never see it as such. Value is an extension of opinion. And as we all know, opinions are like crazy, conspiracy-spewing, Hawaiian-shirt-wearing uncles: everyone has one, and they are all wrong.
One thing that has spoiled our gaming masses for far too long is the typical price-point of our systems and accessories. I believe we gamers often have a very unrealistic expectation when it comes to prices in our hobby, born of price stagnation outside of inflation. Dsheinem's detailed article on the Atari 2600 VCS mentions that some launch games were within the $20 to $30 price point range- and that adjusted for inflation, gamers were putting down between $70 to over $100 back in the late 70's.
In '92, I bought Axelay at my local KB Toys for 79.99. (I remember very clearly saving $50 and then having to borrow an extra $30 from my mom to make up the difference.) That's a twenty buck premium over our current standard pricing structure- until inflation kicks in, which puts my pricey purchase over $120 in our current futureland.
Speaking of Axelay, I can finish it at least three times over in the amount of time it took to finish Limbo. If I were using cost-per-minute as a value indicator, comparatively Limbo might as well be an MMO. Or a Shin Megami Tensei.
How many of us 'old-school' gamers paid well over fifty bucks for the original Phantasy Star, the old NES/SNES RPGs, or even older PC games like Wizardry or Ultima? Price adjusted, these games were worse than Halo 3: Cat Helmet addition.
But were they worth it?
Well, considering how fondly these games are often remembered, I rarely if ever hear complaints over their original price, unless it was about convincing our parents or saving up to buy them. Even those lore stories tend to be recalled as worthy sacrifices, the trials we endured to partake of gaming's greatest. Unless you bought 7th Saga for seventy bucks. Then you just got ripped off. ()
I find it interesting that most gamers seem to be willing to defend their beloved hobby as art, yet cry out in near unison over not getting enough 'bang for the buck' with their game purchases. If we believe that there is true merit to the interactive experiences we enjoy, why are we not defending these products based on what we receive from our personal experience with it?
I paid more for a new TMNT IV: Turtles in Time (SNES) than the cost of a new Wii game. Moreover, I've traded it and bought it again a few times over. I even bought the XBLA remake. I can finish that game on the hardest difficulty in under twenty minutes. I still think I've gotten my money's worth.
By the way, in the year I bought that copy of Turtles, a number 3 two McCheeseburger combo meal at McDonalds cost $2.99. Now, the same meal is $4.97. That's an increase of over 65% in less than twenty years. How many decades did we expect to be able to pay around $40 to $50 for a new game and completely ignore the rates of inflation?
But expectations are different now. We're seventh generation, baby! We don't buy Space Invaders for a hundred bucks: a dollar is too much to pay for an updated version on my iPhone. We're in a recession. We demand an unnecessary multiplayer component that feels forced and will remain untouched after being scrounged for a few gamerpoints or trophies. We know that despite the millions spent making and marketing a new blockbuster title, we are being overcharged for our games. EA and Activision are evil, corporate monsters who don't deserve $60 for a cut and paste sequel to what we liked before, and what indie developer is so pretentious as to think that a few years and their life savings are worth ten more bucks than we want to spend?
Here is the problem as I see it; we, as a gaming public, have grown up with games. What was once luxury is now viewed as necessity. We feel we not only have the right, but the requirement to be elitist, even snobbish, over gaming. Long ago, one or two games at most were produced a month, and we salivated over them, shared them, experienced them. Now we buy two and get one free, without care, to grind out achievements and trophies and brag that we 'beat' them so we can move on.
Nothing is inherently wrong with more games, achievements, trophies, or 'beating' games. But are we still having fun? I spent a long time and lots of money in Final Fantasy XI before I realized I did not enjoy the experience. Some love the game, and that's great for them. But it took me a while to see that I was playing simply to be playing: gaming as a requirement, not for fun. The treadmill is only entertaining while you are actually being entertained; after that, its just more work.
If you like burning through games as fast as possible and still enjoy each one, that's great. But I think that the larger our industry gets, the more we have to come to respect everyone else under the gaming umbrella. I hear plenty of complaints about short games. What I rarely hear is the opposite complaint: this game is not a good value for me because it is just too long.
I have a wife, three kids, an imaginary Rabbid and a ton of housework. They all need my time. (Except the Rabbid, I just give him imaginary time.) If every game I want to play is twenty or more hours long, I either neglect my responsibilities or I don't finish many games. A game with a campaign that is more than eight to ten hours long is not a good value for me if I want to play other games. I just don't have the time, and I will want to play other things. If I am going to spend $50 to $60 on a game I intend to finish, I want it to fit my constraints, otherwise it is not a good value to me.
Portal comes to mind. Though there are detractors over the game's length, many critics and gamers have stated that its four or five hour run time was about perfect. It told a story, invented interesting gameplay mechanics, and stayed just long enough to not wear out its welcome. Unless the pacing and mechanics were radically altered, a longer experience with Portal would have likely began feeling more drawn out and even dull. There are timing challenges, speed runs, and mods for those wanting to stretch it out further, and even a sequel that promises to expand the formula into something that supports a longer, expanded game. But arguably, Portal 2's greatest challenge will be to match the superb pacing of the original.
I don't want every game to be done in a few hours. I just want developers to know and gamers to respect that we are all different, and remember that just because a game takes a long time to complete doesn't mean it is a better game. If the game I want to finish is a quality experience, and the pacing, momentum, and flow are well realized, I want to be able to get to the end! Stretching it out does not make it better or more valuable, it just means I am less likely to complete it before moving on. According to developer Remedy, only 30% of players finish a game they start. If I buy a Big Gulp because the pricing means I get more Mello Yello per penny, and take two sips before tossing it aside, was it a better deal than the small cup that had less drink, but the correct amount I wanted?
The Playstation 3's launch is another perfect example. Touted as the next gaming need, it provided Blu-Ray, HD graphics, a hard drive, HDMI output, USB ports for your USB supported hair dryer, and the weight of a Mini Cooper. The early adopters bragged that it was well worth the cost for the Blu-Ray player alone, and that for everything it offered, it was an exceptional value.
But that mentality assumes way too many things, including:
1. Do I have an HD TV?
2. Do I intend on starting a Blu-Ray collection right now? (versus waiting a few years?)
3. Are there any PS3 games out now or in the next month that I consider must-have, day one purchases?
If the answer to these are no, is $600 a good value? What price would be? The answer is left up to the individual, as any question of value is.
Collectors are in yet another level of comparative worth. Stadium Events for tens of thousands of dollars? Your 99 cent copy of World Class Track Meet is identical, save for a title screen and label. Should WCTM cost more? Stadium Events less? All in the eye of the beholder. If it is worth more or less to you, congratulations: you have an opinion. Is a BMW worth tens of thousands? To some, yes. My Subaru does just fine by me. Am I wrong, or is the BMW owner? Neither and both. To many people, my Panzer Dragoon Saga is not worth even the cost of a current new game, much less what it goes for now. But it was worth every penny to me, and to argue against that is to simply admit it is not worth that price for you.
I would like to end with the admonition that yes, gaming can be expensive. Most gamers have very limited budgets for gaming. Of course we want our money's worth. That's why we research to find out what is worthwhile to us individually. Millions of fans bought maps for Modern Warefare 2 that are worthless to me, yet cost the same as the entire game of Limbo. But the few hours I put into Limbo was worth more to me than all the hours I put into Final Fantasy XI or the recent Resonance of Fate. It won't be worth as much to many others. But to say a game is not worth a certain price, period, end of story, is insulting everyone who disagrees. Over an idea of worth that is completely subjective in the first place. For example:
If you took a million dollars of our paper currency back three hundred years, it becomes worthless; three hundred years from now it will likely become worthless again. That same million dollars today would set me up for life; for Bill Gates or Bill Clinton, it wouldn't even change their taxes. More valuable to some, less to others.
Let's not pretend any of us are universally correct over gaming value. Let's just vote with our dollars to get the things of worth for us.
And, of course, check CAG for sales.
It has been compared favorably and otherwise to everything from Braid to Ico. In truth, Limbo is a sum of several familiar gameplay components, wrapped in a dark, morbid, and mysteriously surreal narrative. What it is not, is for the faint of heart. Or wallet.
Gameplay consists of platforming, with only a jump and a contextual interaction button adding to the standard left and right movement. The sensitivity of the left analog stick determines walking, running, or creeping along, and that's it. No ducking, looking around, or direct combat. This streamline approach, rather than confining the experience, focuses the player on the two biggest features of Limbo: the environmental puzzles and the atmosphere. Oh, the atmosphere.
Limbo's palette is black, white, and grays, and nothing else. Instead of using this refined spectrum to construct high resolution and detail, the designers use the opposite extreme to grand effect. The visual filters and muted shades paint a dreamlike visual experience that is unique and immersing. Background and foregrounds are at a constant haze. Environments feature sparse lines and sharp angles that just barely convey a sense of open woods, labyrinthian underground tunnels, and complex industrial areas. Indeed, the world of Limbo only roughly sketches its home, then hands the pencil to the player's mind to draw the rest of the details. Where this could be easily viewed as pretentious or even lazy on the developer's part, the design is definitely purposeful, as the rest of the tools are clearly in the iron grasp of talent.
The animation is top notch, with subtle particle effects and little details emphasizing every action. Many clues are given for gameplay as well as narrative in the smallest of touches. The audio wisely follows the consistency of the visual design; sparse, light overtones occasionally punctuated by dramatic flair, and effects that will make the player much more squeamish than the persistent visual violence. I began playing with two friends watching, but before the hour mark I was alone. This brings me to an important point:
Limbo's content is not for everyone.
There is implied murder, torture, gore, drowning, dismemberment, and very dark themes. Without giving away spoilers, some actions will likely stun you in their graphic nature. This is not Mario. It is not Braid. It is a game designed around a certain theme, and that theme is played out fully. In the same manner that South Park may appear to target a young audience but is designed for adults, the same could be said for Limbo.
Though I personally feel games should always be based on their own merit, and there are flavorful and unique elements to the experience that is Limbo, everyone will compare titles. As mentioned before, Limbo imbues a desolate and lonely aura likened to the PS2 classics Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, comparative indie vibes to Braid (also an 'artsy' title criticized as derivative and overpriced), along with gameplay similarities to PC/PSX's Heart of Darkness.
And if the biggest sell for Limbo is the original atmosphere (and it most certainly is), the other is gameplay. Physics based puzzles and platforming challenges make up the bulk of the experience, with exploration and attentive observation yielding literal eggs for completion and achievements. A chapter select allows for easy access, and the game respawns the character only moments before each mistake, again putting the emphasis on puzzle solving and atmosphere. Some of the timing elements of the game are, true to the genre, mostly trial and error, and the designers were wise to avoid any life count or continuing limitations, allowing the player to simply keep at it until done.
Which brings out Limbo's only real 'fault' making the rounds of the critic circles at large. At fifteen bucks, is a game that can be completed in only a few hours worth such a premium? Limbo would certainly not survive the current expectations of boxed retail, and as a Live arcade download only title it is expected to compete with cheaper games containing more longevity. The almighty Castle Crashers, Braid, and even Ikaruga have fielded the same complaints, and review scores are bashed in light of perceived value.
I intend to write an article on the perception of entertainment value later. As for now, it comes down to this:
Limbo is original. Limbo is exceptionally well made. Limbo is, for a certain audience, wonderful. Limbo is fairly short, even abrupt by today's gaming standards. If you are interested, play the demo. It will tell you all you want to know: do I want more of this? Will the experience be worth the money to me, individually? Will I feel at a loss for paying this much for a few hours?
I know I, personally, have no regrets about purchasing Limbo. Indeed, I consider it a gaming experience to rival my top ten. But if you play the demo and are still not sure, Limbo probably is not for you, fifteen bucks or otherwise.
As an end note, I feel that the narrative played out in Limbo is terrifically realized, despite forum debates passed to and fro over the subjective nature of the story and its details. I thought it was rather clear in its intentions, and if it is not painfully obvious by now, I also feel it was a masterfully well done experience. If you are curious about my thoughts on the particulars of the story, feel free to PM me: I don't want to ruin or cheapen the experience for the curious by posting said thoughts in a forum.
BioShock 2. Halo 3 ODST. Super Mario Galaxy 2. New Super Mario Bros. Any Street Fighter after II. Every Madden after 2000 or so.
These games, other than representing new entries in their respective franchises, don't have much in common. But one thing I have heard about all of these games, either by critics or fellow gamers, is something along these lines: "this game is unnecessary."
The general mentality behind said comments usually indicate that the game does not offer enough updates, change, or innovation as to justify its existence, especially in light of previous games in its respective series. Some, such as the numerous updates to the Street Fighter series or Madden, are largely seen as simple tweeks or balancing, with occasional new characters or roster updates. Others, such as Super Mario Galaxy 2 and BioShock 2, are critically praised as superior gameplay experiences to their predecessors, yet are deemed as not really "needed" because of how well the first game performed or was received, and that the sequels were only market-driven extensions.
For this humble industry observer, the very idea that any entertainment product is 'unnecessary' because of previous similar product is not only humorous, but self-centered and destructive.
Imagine this same take on other entertainment:
Star Wars/Babylon 5/Stargate/Battlestar Galactica/Star Trek/Any other Sci/Fi with aliens represented as humans of other color or forehead wrinkles
Neon Genesis Evangelion vs. ANY OTHER SCI/FI Anime
Baseball/Football/Soccer/Basketball/Any other sport involving teams and vaguely spherical ball-like objects
Nascar/Rally/Cart Racing/Off Road/F1/Derby/Any other sport involving a vehicle and driver
This Band/That Band/That other Band/That Boy Band/All Rap,R&B,Techno,Classical,etc
Not only are all of these modes of entertainment highly derivative of other forms of entertainment, but to a non-fan they are often indistinguishable from each other within the same genre. Try talking about the differences of TOS, TNG, Voyager, DS9, and the movies to a non-trekkie and they'll just shrug; not only can they not distinguish between them but often they wouldn't care enough to try. I know plenty of people who can't distinguish Star Wars from Star Trek. Sacrilege to me, apathy to them.
Mention a 'strike' to a baseball fan and then a bowling fan. Watch what happens when you pretend to confuse the two. Somehow YOU'RE the dumb one for mixing up a term between two silly sports involving letting go of a ball. Aren't they pretty much all the same? (*ducks various thrown sporting gear*)
I'm not even getting into music, and how so many bands sound the same and yet sometimes something new and different can be so off as to be mistaken for noise.
The healthy purpose of entertainment is to at least give relaxation, and at most to edify. Why would I get upset over another Madden this year? Even if there are no serious innovations or updates beyond the new team rosters, if the sports fan buys it and has just as much or more fun with it as other entries, who am I to say that's not enough? Is someone else having fun? Am I a 'must be something new' Nazi to the point that I can't enjoy the bulk of current or even past games? Games that, while market-driven and mostly made with profits in mind, are still designed for the point of enjoyment?
This is not an attack on innovative progression. It is an acknowledgment that 'new' is not always better, and 'same' often has the right to exist alongside it. Striving for something completely groundbreaking and different, even improved, is admirable, and NECESSARY for the healthy development of our hobby. Trying to choke the gaming public with too much of the same will only lead to stagnation. The ol' industry crash of the early 80's will always be a reminder of that. (And epic mismanagement, of course.)
But video games are a much larger entertainment beast now. There is not only room for 'new' and 'same' to exist simultaneously, but often 'same' is needed to help fund 'new'. Those years of Madden sequels, much as they are criticized, paid for Dead Space, Mirror's Edge, and other original EA IPs. I have no interest in rehashed Pokemon, but that juggernaut helped keep Nintendo's name in the industry until my beloved DS released. Not to mention that shiny and awesome looking 3DS was built off the backs (money) of Mario Karts, Mario Golfs, Kirbies, and yes, Mario Parties.
Not only are sequels comfortable for us, they remind us of what we like and why we like it. I could probably enjoy Halo sequels for years, despite a core formula that is traditionally not altered much, not to mention it being another "generic" space marine FPS. You know, I LIKE that. I know what I'm getting, I know I like it, I want more of it. If they change things up a lot, I might like it more, but I might like it a lot less. Is is worth taking a chance? Sure. But why whine when a sequel is more of the same? If we liked the first, why are we griping that we were given more of what we liked?
We also need new. We need different. We need Katamari Damacy, Panic!, Vib Ribbon, mr. Bones, Seaman, Twisted, Odama, Kinect, Waggle, Move, NiGHTs, Yar's Revenge, Super Scopes, Bongos, Loco Roco, Patapon, Myst, and especially Shadow of the Colossus. We need something at least a little different, even if it fails. Even if it turns out to be not that fun. Even when new becomes the new derivative. Our industry adapts and shifts, or stalls and withers.
Different people enjoy different things, and the fact is that many of us will buy sequels and enjoy them, even if they aren't much different. Sometimes, it is because they are not much different. As much as I enjoy the Halo games, I think the Call of Duty series tend to be just above average games, but largely derivative of each other and offer little innovation between the respective entries. (Of course I recognize the same arguments leveled at Halo.) But they are both undeniable successes, and the sequels will undoubtedly follow in the same footsteps. Is that bad?
Apparently millions in the gaming mainstream don't think so. Why argue games should be so different if so many are enjoying these games? Are these millions of gamers wrong? I think that's the wrong question.
I think the more important question is, are these people having fun?
Or wasn't that the point?
I won't yet expound upon my views on the 'Video Games as Art' topic in full just yet. It is 2:15 a.m. and I need some sleep.
What I will proselytize is a free, twenty minute gaming experience I can honestly and wholeheartedly recommend to anyone:
(ALERT!! Turn UP the sound on your computer!! The music tells as much of the narrative as the graphics.)
Anyway:
http://armorgames.com/play/4850/small-worlds
Go there. Play. Yeah.
Wow.
My thoughts:
While the author has mentioned his desire to leave certain aspects of the experience open to interpretation, a brief glimpse across a few forums on the game highlight a common public construction of narrative consistent with my own. I don't wish to divulge further for fear of hampering the experience and direction of anyone else.
What I am most impressed with in this game is the delivery; the purposefully simple style and structure of the interactivity. Combined with deliberate musical cues and accentuation, a story forms out of the most basic of game elements and ends with a (likely) unexpected meditation. There is a holistic series of events here, and it may only come together after another play-through or two, picking up the visual and audio clues that were originally overlooked.
Of course, you might just whizz through it and apathetically wonder what I'm carrying on about.
You monster. ;P
My sporadic blog entries have been indicative of my life's events as of late. Where I originally began writing again after a several year sojourn of busy fatherhood craziness in order to pick up the practice and train my atrophied creative skills, the craziness of fatherhood doesn't slow down.
Now I've come to stake my claim, to recommit to one of the few skills I believe I have the ability to develop beyond an acceptable, average level. It is a goal of mine, starting this day, to write at least a little every day, and this blog is to be one of the outlets by which I hold myself accountable for persistent development.
I debated this for far too long, surmising that this particular digital homestead has a pointed place and purpose, and many of the things floating about my inner cranium wishing to depart are not always (gasp!) directly video game related.
But as of yet, I am under no specific obligation as to the nature of the content I post here, implied as it may be to fall under the gaming umbrella. Should I write an op-ed piece, an article on some gaming trivia, anything within the expected spectrum this site caters to, it will (hopefully) automatically shuffle into place like a prepared tetramino. But at the moment, this is one of the few regular haunts I visit regularly that I can use to return to writing as an outlet, as a developing skill-set, and perhaps even have a bit of fair criticism for my own betterment.
I have far too many stalled novels, unfinished short stories, and even some crummy poetry that seem adamantly unwilling to write themselves. Should I ever wish to breathe life into them, I need to stop whining that my life is too busy and stressed, that I don't have the energy and resilience, and that the only blog I am writing should really be video game related because of its location.
On that note...
Resonance of Fate greatly appealed to me in a variety of ways. It has a bizarre East-meets-West art style. Mostly impressive pedigree in Tri-Ace. Steampunk setting (HUGE plus for me.) Good, moody soundtrack. Gunplay-based realtime combat as opposed to traditional melee. All things considered, I was more interested in this than Final Fantasy XIII, a series in which I own every entry.
Then I played it.
I consider myself a guy who can understand fairly complex systems within the realm of gaming. I've GM/DM'd pen and paper games, wrote my own combat systems, played way too much Final Fantasy Tactics/Ogre Battle, and even coded a few simple computer games.
I don't think I've ever stopped playing a role-playing game solely because of a convoluted combat system. I usually think of it as a fun type of challenge. Even Knights in the Knightmare appealed to me, in an esoteric what-the-...-O.K.-sure-we'll-go-with-that kind of way.
But in Resonance of Fate, when I had to keep replaying simple battles, even the tutorials, to try to understand what was expected of me, and still not really getting the idea, a mental warning flag popped up Windows 95 style.
Its not that combat in Resonance of Fate is grinding hard, like an old Phantasy Star. Its not multi-layered hit-and-miss hard, like a Shin Megami Tensei. Its not even endurance hard, like some bosses in a latter era Final Fantasy. No, this is something different.
In an attempt to bring a fresh feel to every battle, even against lower class enemies, the combat system requires:
juggling the movement and turns of three separate characters in real time,
two different types of damage that have to be stacked in correct order (plus magic),
an annoyingly and needlessly complex overdriving attack system that requires the characters to always walk between each other on their turn without firing,
turns that are lost if taken incorrectly,
Running around the combat area to retrieve pieces of your own battle gauge,
a day/night cycle,
correct application of range and capability of each weapon of each character (including status effects,)
and no guarantee that even if you are doing all of the above correctly, you will survive even normal random encounters without having to die a few times to know how to correctly defeat them.
If the above scenario sounds fun to you (it actually did once to me) then know that I enjoyed SMT Nocturne, Knights in the Nightmare, and the Etrian Odyssey games, and this one just broke me. Not the challenge per se, but its just tedious for the sake of being tedious. I tried to play it for several hours. It has all of these other great points going for it, I paid more for it than I would have otherwise because of my interest in it, and yet I finally gave it up. After so many hours of precious game time into it, I still wasn't having any fun, and that's when I had to call it.
No matter how much potential I saw in Resonance of Fate, the required investment was too much to ask from a game in which I simply did not enjoy playing. If it were a mere few hours long, I could have perhaps tried to endure, but for every battle to be that frustrating in a game the length of your typical RPG, well...
There are a lot of other games I'd enjoy actually playing.
Oh well. I hear Final Fantasy XIII has a nice 15 hour tutorial...
P.S.
Flash Gordon (1980) is now on Blu Ray. I want to buy it. But I'm not sure I know anyone I can convince to watch it with me. Our friends enjoy MST3K-ing campy movies, but man, the goofy camp of Flash Gordon makes Star Wars look like Saving Private Ryan.
I think I just convinced myself to go get it.
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