E3 2009: Five Games that Surprised Me, Five Games that Disappointed.

Doing lists is always fun, and with E3 over now the “Game of Show” lists and the like will soon be popping up on websites everywhere, but it can be hard to judge the quality of a game just playing a small portion of it (or watching, for those of us who were at home). Most of us do that anyway, but instead of judging the quality of the games, this list is based primarily on the impression that the games made on me, be it good or bad.

Five Games that surprised me:

The Beatles: Rock Band: Since the wonderful cinematic trailer was shown at Microsoft's press conference on Monday, I've been tracking this game, looking at all of the songs being performed, watching demonstrations of the game, and look at a digital version of Paul McCartney more than I should have any right to. It's funny, really, because I thought of myself as someone who was past all of this rhythm game nonsense, and maybe I still am, because I'm not excited for most other musical offerings, and I didn't get Rock Band 2 or anything past Guitar Hero 3. Something about the Beatles as a band speaks to me, perhaps. I've never considered myself a fan of them before, and even so I'm liking what I'm hearing.

DJ Hero: Again brining to light the fact that I am a hypocrite. The most interesting thing about it is how the game is played, because it's much different from most anything else we've seen hit such a large audience, and the mash-up style, along with the ability to play some songs with the guitar, as well as the Mic, bring the game a semi-band feel to the game already. I'm not too impressed with the song offerings so far, but the Beastie Boys/Foo Fighters song was pretty interesting. The game plays so differently from every other music game out there, and I'm happy to see something new in the music game genre.

Scribblenauts: The amount of databasing needed to take on a game like this must be staggering, but I'm glad someone is doing it. Sure, the no copyrighted material/nothing vulgar rules apply, but still, that leaves a whole lot of room for creativity. You're given puzzles to solve, and you can do it anyway you want, and not just some predetermined way that the developers thought of. All of the objects you can create have properties, too. Beavers eat wood (helpful when trying to chop down a tree), and bulldozers can push whales into the ocean (helpful for...pushing whales into the ocean). People have stressed tested the game, and it seems like few of them have been able to come up with something that the game can't make under the given conditions. It definitely looks to be something interesting.

Metroid: Other M: I don't think there was a single person outside of Nintendo that wasn't surprised when this trailer hit Nintendo's press conference. This kind of collaboration between developers (especially between ones as reserved as Nintendo) just doesn't happen that often, and the fact that it's a combination between Team Ninja and Metroid sounds like a fan's wild speculation (“DUDE! What if Team Ninja made a Metroid game!?”), but it's great to see Nintendo working with someone outside their internal and second party teams. If nothing else, it's looking to be a great experiment.

Splinter Cell: Conviction: This is really a story that's echoing all throughout E3, but I haven't been a fan of previous Splinter Cell games, and this game sure is looking to change that. A lot of what the game does as far as changing the Splinter Cell game up is doing it for the better. Objectives are stylishly displayed on buildings instead of someone telling you where to go, and when you're in hiding, the last spot you were seen displays as a silhouette, telling you not to go back there. There's a lot of information displayed in the environment, as opposed to cutscenes. There's definitely a lot of new stuff being done here, and I'm ready to be a fan of this series.

Five Games That Disappointed Me:

Alan Wake: With as much hype as people around the internet were putting into how great this game looked and played, I guess I was expecting more from this game. Sure, it's likely to have a unique story that plays out like a novel (with narration), and sure, some of the things it does with light and enemies looks cool, but aside from that, it just looked...generic. There wasn't much about how it played that made it seem like it was anything special. But, when looked at as a survival horror game, and not an action game, the game might have more merit, and maybe there's more here that I'm seeing, but as of right now I don't have much of a reason to believe that this is anything more than an average third-person shooter.

The Last Guardian: My main disappointment here is how little we were shown. An extended, hi-res version of the leaked trailer was nice, but with as much time as Team Ico has had to work on this game, you'd think they'd be farther along. Maybe this sort of game just doesn't demo well in a loud environment, but a press demo would've been nice. I think it has to do with the fact that people want to keep this game under wraps as long as possible, but as of right now I can't get excited about this game.

Metal Gear Solid: Rising: Sure, it's a new Metal Gear game, but something about this feels like a backhanded compliment to Xbox fans. Almost everyone expected an MGS4 port, but the fact that all that Xbox players are going to get is a spin-off seems like Kojima is telling everyone that he doesn't really want MGS on the 360. Meanwhile, the PSP is getting Peace Walker, which they touted as the “true sequel” to the franchise. For all intents and purposes, the announcement of this game feels more like a hollow victory than anything else.

Left 4 Dead 2: No, I'm not going to boycott the game, but something here just doesn't feel right. Valve just isn't the type of developer to crank out a sequel only a year after, especially to a game that felt a bit short on content. Even after reading their argument as to why they felt they had to do it, I'm not convinced that it was the right thing to do. It seems, well, a bit impatient for them to release the game a year after, when they could've let us enjoy the first one for a bit longer while polishing the next. I don't doubt Valve's ability to make a great game, and I will buy this new one, but I just feel they could've held off a bit longer, no?

Final Fantasy XIII: Aside from the English voicework and one or two new summons, there was nothing new shown this year. It's understandable for Mircosoft to show off the game, touting how it got the game to not be exclusive, but they could've shown more, or at least something different. Also, even though there's clearly a demo you could've used, and that most of it was translated at the press conferences, you couldn't bother to put something playable on the show floor? Seems like someone over at Square didn't want anyone to play the game at all.

Keep in mind, I'm reflecting on the showings these games made at the show, not the actual quality of the games.

E3 2009: Changing the way you play games...or not...but really!

I think it's almost a guarantee that anyone you ask will tell you that this year's E3 was one of the "good ones". The '09-10 forecast, before a mostly barren horizon that only a few could see clearly has become much more vivid, with the titles coming at the end of the year and next year really looking like an industry role call. This E3 was presented as being all about the games, and the press conferences varied in quality depending on who you're talking to, but most will agree that it was definitely a high point in the industry (whether it's the games industry in general or the E3 industry I can't decide).

The other big talking point, was, of course, all the motion controllers and how they're going to change how we play games and who we play them with. At first, I was skeptical of Microsoft's Project Natal, or any new motion controller at that point, really, and was ready to dismiss it as an attempt to grab onto the Wii's market share. However, they did manage to show it off in a way that got everyone talking, predicting this and that about how it could change games, and it was impressive that it was more than just a tech demo at this point. They were demoing the technology with Burnout, or so I've heard. It isn't some pie in the sky concept that will never see release; Microsoft probably won't let you forget it exists for a while.

Sony also showed off its motion controller attempt, and reactions were mixed. Personally, it's my favorite of the three, a halfway point between Natal and the Wii. The wands' articulation to hold objects (as superimposed as they were) and strike with accuracy really gets me excited, and it was probably the best of the demos, between Kudo Tsunoda's almost irritating arrogance and Nintendo's boredom with its own product.

It's hard to argue that these new ways to interact with games aren't an attempt by companies to syphon the success of the company that made a technology big, and that these products will eventually lead to something interesting down the line (who it'll be from is anyone's guess at this point), and that soon we'll be off our couches and moving about and become more engaged with playing games, and that this will in turn lead to more immersive games.

Which raises the obvious question: Is something wrong with our current input method?

All three press conferences seem to be saying yes, then saying no, or "not yet". Microsoft showed off Natal, saying it was the future of games, and how it was going to change the way we play games, right after we'd been shown ten or so games that showed the exact opposite sentiment. Sony's was much the same, cramming a tech demo for their motion controller and saying how it was going to change the way we play games in the middle of Metal Gear and Assassin's Creed demonstrations.

Nintendo, at this point, is the only console entirely committed to their motion control, but at this point it doesn't seem like enough. Clearly, if you have to add another motion sensor to the one you already have, then you weren't too committed to the idea that moving around as a valid input method. The Motion Plus will add a certain amount of ingenuity to games that handle it, but introducing "true" motion control wasn't part of their plan until this late in the game. And Sony and Microsoft are only now banking on the idea of motion control, after it has proved to be successful.

What this is saying is that they weren't confident enough in motion control to begin with. At the time, it seemed like Nintendo was taking a bold stance on where games were going, while Sony and Microsoft were both fighting to see who could get the most polygons on-screen. They were both fine with using controllers to play games.

And so were we. We were doing just fine pressing A to jump and B to shoot. Even as controllers got more complicated and added more analog sticks we haven't been yearning for more creative controls. We can play games on most any controller they make, and will, no matter how horribly designed, adjust ourselves to the feel of button placements and trigger responsiveness.

The counterpoint here is that most people are intimidated by controllers. They see way too many buttons, too many things to do, as well as interfaces on games so complicated that they would never dare pick up something so obtuse and use it with any sort of grace. Controls have gotten so out of hand that regular people can't be bothered to learn how to use them, because it'd just be too hard.

I don't think this notion is right at all. If the average person is so intimidated by game controllers, why are they so prone to master cell phone interfaces, not to mention computers? A windows interface or a common Nokia phone menu and controls can be just as complex if not more so then a 15+ button setup. Computer are definitely more complicated, helped along by mouse controls, but dampened by a seemingly cluttered interface. But there they are, people as young and old as the Wii's target demographic, blogging, chatting, twittering, and checking news on their computers and phones.

So I don't think that the problem with controllers is necessarily with the our "intimidating" interface. So why don't these people play games? The amount of time and money that's being spent on trying to entice new people to play games certainly says that there are throngs of people just waiting to play games (Nintendo's "Maybe") and have some sort of barrier to entry. Like I said, I don't think it's a matter of people being afraid of picking up controllers and learning to use them. I think it's a matter of people not having a need to pick one up.

To the people who just don't want to play games at all (Nintendo's "NEVER"), the reason that they don't play games in general isn't because someone hasn't handed them some streamlined interface that is easy to use and intuitive, but because they don't feel the need to play games in the first place. They occupy the time that we'd normally use playing games with other things that aren't playing games. It may not be that they're condemning games (at least not all the time), it just isn't what they do. Playing games an interacting with environments just doesn't appeal to them.

Even if they are interested in playing games, they don't see the need to buy a dedicated game console. They may play games on their iphone or on their laptop, which they see as part of the deal of that product. They don't want to buy a $400 console to play their games when they can just as easily play Peggle on their phone or computer.

Just because there are people who will never play games or don't want to buy a console doesn't mean console makers shouldn't try something new, though. They just need to know who they're going to sell these things to. Games have done a pretty good job of immersing by just letting us press buttons to perform actions. There aren't too many people complaining that their experience was ruined by having to press buttons. What lets us as players get so engrossed in games isn't how we're interacting with our experience; it's that we're doing it.

And also, for people who've played games for a while, the imperfections of an interface that presents itself as a more realistic way to play will present themselves, as a sort of uncanny valley (the closer you get to the real thing, the easier it is to find flaws). We know that controllers aren't going to let us do everything we want, and we accept it and suspend our disbelief accordingly. When someone tells us that we can do anything with something new, and we find we can't, points are going to get docked not because of the technology itself, but because we've been set up much too high be anything more than let down.

With as much of a damper I've been putting on these new techs, I think I'll end on a high note. There's no doubt that new interfaces like this will attract a certain number of people to play, and that if these new technologies really catch on, that developers will try their best to exploit it and wring something great out of the whole thing. These things are, as they say, the future. People just shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the way we've been doing things up until now so easily (I'm looking at you, Spielberg).

Stoic Loners and playing as people we'd hate.

You've seen them before. You've played as one before, or, they were a supporting character somewhere along the way. And, if you're lucky enough (or not), you've seen them in real life (hint: they're probably wearing black, because they do so almost exclusively). What I mean by "Stoic Loners" is, of course, the people who keep to themselves, are usually pretty quiet, supposedly hate everything and everyone, are usually angered easily, don't easily cooperate, are usually in any given situation for themselves, but occasionally say or do things that are worthwhile.

Think about the qualities that I've just described; if you met this person in real life, what would think of them? You would think they are selfish, arrogant posers. These are, for the most part, bad qualities. They're certainly not going to get you anywhere in the real world. Job interviews would suffer from them not answering any questions and saying how much they hate the person. When someone asks you to get a report filed in or to clean up your area, the last thing you want to do is tell them to go die (especially in a bad economy). Long story short, being a dick in the real world just doesn't cut it.

Then you look at games. Playing second fiddle to the effeminate hero in JRPG's, the Stoic Loner is usually one of your most valuable party members, and usually gets all the cool-looking powers and equipment. They're usually also invaluable to the story, because for whatever reason, someone has given someone who hates everything one of the most important jobs. They get lots of respect for supposedly being cool, and sometimes act as a guide for the hero, giving them life lessons to live by, and of course the hero listens, for whatever reason.

These people don't usually make good role models. When you don't talk to someone because you don't like them, that's fine. It's natural to do so. But when you hate everyone, and don't talk to anyone, that's a problem. These types of people are looked down upon and generally considered either insane or lame by everyone. Except in games, where not only are they glorified by the games themselves, but are also lavished by fanboys/girls to no end, which begets developers to create more of these characters, who are in turn again lavished, and so on, creating a never-ending cycle of "cool".

And this extends even beyond the imagined cliche-riddled world of JRPG's; Niko Belic is certainly not a person most people could get along with, and certainly not someone like Kratos. Marcus Fenix might also not like you very much. But here we are, playing as these people, admiring these characters' ability to kill and maim, even knowing they'd probably hate us for doing so.

And it's not like that's all that gaming has to offer. Plenty of games have positive role models to get behind. Link, while the epitome of the quiet hero, is a very kind person who helps out townspeople in need (even if he's mostly doing it for some reward). Nathan Drake is also someone that you could get along with in an everyday sense, even if he might annoy you at times. Professor Layton is definitely someone whom I'd like to hang out with.

So why do we happily play as people who we'd avoid in any other circumstance? Is this part of our desire to play into a "power fantasy" experience, where we play roles that are so outlandish that we could never take them on in real life? Why is it that the Stoic Loner character is such a fan-favorite? What sorts of characters would you and would you not hang out with? I'm sure the answers will surprise me.

Backlog trackback #2 - Playing Rambo

Continuing my trek through my backlog, I'm beginning to think I may be doing this too quickly. Sure, there are some games that may warrant a look in the summer months, so maybe that will help me, but even then I'm hoping that I don't have a gaping hole of time where my time is spent being productive, or, someone forbid, reading something. There are some games in that pile that reward extended periods of play, the time that one would only have, say, now. Other games, though, you could blow through in an afternoon, assuming you're dedicated to it. So over two weekends, I played:

MadWorld: You wouldn't even have to dedicate most of an afternoon to MadWorld; my first run through the game took me about 3 and a half hours. That alone does not make it bad, though. The game has a pretty unique story (which is the equivalent of a "B" movie), presented in stylish comic book style. The entire game is in black and white, (save for a few instances of other colors like blood and sound effects) which definitely separates it from the crowd of vibrant and rainbow-puking colors that dominate the Wii library. The voice actors all do their jobs pretty well, and they all are all certainly believable, even if some of them overdue it sometimes.

Hamming it up is appropriate for MadWorld, though; the whole game seems to be doing so. The main character has a chainsaw for an arm, enemies come in spades and spew double their body weight in blood when you slice through them with said chainsaw, and the bosses are equally extravagant characters. The setting is a game called DeathWatch, where sponsored fighters kill each other for the title of champion among killers. Also, there's a character who calls himself the Black Baron, who is as stereotypical as they come, and most of the women in the game are equally objectified. It's really hard to tell whether Platinum Games is being ironic or not (though I presume it's the former. I hope.)

Even with such over-the-top action as its main attraction it can't help but be bad in bad ways (and not in the ironic sense that it's trying to be). The animations for characters are on par with some of the early-to-mid PS2 games, with characters simply moving their hands over keyboards quickly to simulate typing, heads bobbing and mouths moving for talking, and a general sense of underproduction. This could all be on purpose, in which case the joke is on me, but it doesn't exactly make it a better product. And while it's presented very nicely, the story is pretty basic Game of Death stuff with some government conspiracy thrown in. The production issues killed some of the joy for me, but it was still a pretty nice thrill, even if it was brief.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune: Another game with lots of enemies to kill. The difference this time, though, is that there is also other stuff to do. Namely, platforming. Perhaps I've been spoiled by Assassin's Creed, with its all-natural and enjoyable landscapes, but by comparison, Uncharted feels phony. Every ledge you can climb on feels fabricated, you know where they all are, you know which ones will fall off and when you need to turn the camera around to look at where you're supposed to go. It's very straightforward stuff, so, for the most part, you know where you're going. However, even it is phony and linear, it's still fun; it's always a good feeling when you jump a gap on the side of a wall to get to the next protruding rock. The puzzles are pretty rudimentary, but they do some interesting stuff towards the end and, should you ever get stuck, Drake has a handy guidebook to help you out. As a "my first platformer", it does its job well.

If you're also looking for action, there are the aforementioned people to kill. And well, Uncharted simplifies that as well. You have two weapons, grenades, the targeting is really simple (THERE IS A CIRCLE SHOOT THE BAD GUYS WITH IT), you have a simple cover mechanic, and your health is indicated by how faded the colors on the screen are (black and white means you're about to die). So, if there's a sense of trying to reach a wide audience, why is actually killing these people so frustrating? You'll usually encounter no less than 5 of them at a time, and their aim is usually dead on (especially with grenades). You can change the difficulty on the fly, and I did so to put the odds in my favor (as one usually does), but as far as I could see, this had only the minor effect of changing my health and theirs. The shooting itself is pretty satisfying, I would've just preferred that there was less than half a pueblo to fight throughout the course of the game.

The really interesting part about the game, though, is mostly everything else. The tropical island of wherever they are looks fantastic, the characters and facial expressions are realistic, and there's very little to distract you from that. The story wreaks of Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider, but it makes good use of it. Drake himself is a very well-written character, with some snarky dialogue that makes him a likeable guy without making him feel marketed and idealistic. Over the course of my 8-and-a-half hour run through the game, I found myself playing the game just hear Drake talk some more. The game itself is pretty ordinary as something you play, but with just enough interesting narrative factors, it feels like it's much better than that.

Backlog trackback: #1 - Preferred Templates.

I haven't been writing as much as I should be, and I won't be using the "life is getting really busy" defense because it isn't (and I wouldn't lie to you, readers!). It's mostly because I haven't found much worth writing about, and writing about business deals and NPD numbers doesn't appeal to me, and it seem pointless to write about news, because let's face it, this isn't likely your primary news source. There also isn't much in news that I'm interested in writing about, with one exception. I've been spending most of my time plowing through my backlog, and it's building up for a pretty good while, so I'm spending the lull between Resident Evil 5 and Infamous to see if I can't wring some good times out of these things I've been ignoring for some time. And hey, It gives me an excuse to write (even if they are old games you're all most likely tired of hearing about by now). So yeah:

Penny Arcade: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode Two: Episodic gaming seems like an idea still in its infancy, even though it's been around for a pretty long time, probably because high-profile episodic games are few and far between. And when they do happen, they often don't see the end of their plans, mostly because funding dries up for a variety of reasons, and then the developers are unable to finish the games. That said, I really hope PA: OTRSPOD gets to wrap up its dev cycle, because I'm really enjoying the series. The first episode had some really good ideas, but got a little bogged down towards the middle, when you had to go around chasing down questlines that go a little hard to follow. Episode Two does a lot of cleaning up, and in tidying up makes the game more fun to play. Blocks are now more easily executed, or at least more easily visible, which becomes inconsequential when I'm not paying attention. There's still backtracking, but it usually occurs only when you're headed back there with a purpose, not looking for something you've overlooked.

The dialogue is still Holkinsic (Holkins-esque?), with the worldplay and characters still up to par from what we've come to expect from Penny Arcade. Between the adventure game template and the RPG-lite gameplay, this is something that I was at first interested in, and am now genuinely in love with. The writing only marginally trumps the combat as the primary reason I enjoy this game, and with that I'm saying that both aspects are good. The final boss battle is nowhere near as much of a setpiece as it was in Epiosode One, but the rest of the game is fundamentally better. It just troubles me that there is no word yet on Episode Three, (just like with Half-Life 2...) because I fear that this series won't be able to reach its natural conclusion.

Shadow of the Colussus: I am very late to the party on this one, and perhaps that will tamper with my appreciation for the then-astounding graphics that it presented. The new format which it uses, though, isn’t affected by the fragile passage of graphics over time. This is often cited as a poster boy for the “games are art” argument, but regardless of whether you believe in the merits of interactivity to be something that is “subject to aesthetic criteria”, what it does is definitely different. It has something that many games today lack: a sense of calm. This calm comes between often exhilarating boss battles, to be sure, but this alone is rare. There aren’t any filler enemies that are just a nuisance. Focusing on only the 16 bosses as your enemies of the game likely gave team ICO more time not only make them better, but also evokes a feeling of isolation not found in many games (Portal comes to mind when trying to think of other examples).

The Colossi themselves are very well designed, each of their bodies acting like a puzzle rather than an object to mash B on until death occurs. They are their own levels, and finding out how to beat them is a bigger part of the battle then hitting them (which also feels good to do, after a 30 minute session of “how do I get on this guy?”). The bosses-only format is something I think other games could benefit from (No More Heroes could’ve been a much better game if it had stuck to something like this).

I could go on listing merits of such a format, but it’s important to point out that I do have some problems with the game. For all the intents to make it feel like a real horse, the horse controls like utter crap. The many times this stallion prevented me from getting where I wanted to go didn’t add to the sense of immersion; it made it feel more like a game. I could’ve steered that horse much better in real life (and don’t ride horses at all). The camera suffers in small areas, to say the least. These sound like minor complaints, but the moments where they affected play are strewn about the game, and it ultimately lead to a lot of frustration.

The game is still fantastic, though. And in this first segment of making my rounds through games I’ve missed, I’m glad that I’m still finding games that do something new, even in this far into games as a form of creative expression. I’d use the word art, but I grow less and less fond of that word the more we compare it to games.

That Unfresh Feeling.

I am not "In the Industry", nor do I claim to be. For the purposes of this blog, "In the Industry" means that you or your company receive letters or invites or games from the publishers without asking for them (which barely qualifies Gamestop employees). So, for people who don't get these notices to go events or be part of panels, or receive preview or review codes of games to play on coveted debug kits, demos are the primary source of play time with games before they are released to the public. It does not quell our envy, it in fact makes us wish we could receive the honor more often; it does, however, give us a brief sense of empowerment that at least lets us feel that we are privy to something that others (either those who do not have the online access or those who don't have the hard disk space for such things) aren't. So when I see demos that I am interested in trying out, it makes me feel as if, however briefly, I'm somebody (and an undeserved sense of pride follows). This is far too long an introduction to a Red Faction: Guerilla demo.

Long story short, what I played of the game ran me through a small gambit of emotions: laughter, slight frustration, and embarrasment. Joy was also among these emotions, before I forget. Between smashing up various camps (both opposing and friendly sides) using both trucks and "walkers", killing things with weapons, and a turret sequence in which trucks turned into kites when hit (normally this would repremandable, but the lower gravity of Mars gives them an acceptable amount of wiggle room in this area), I did enjoy myself, though the trailers the demo was snuggled between and the slight awkwardness of the controls did dampen the mood some. Rolling with laughter as a truck flew over me after I hit it (which should theoretically push it backwards, but again Mars has a tendency to make weird things happen), I started thinking this amount of destructibilty, and the joy you get out of doing it, should be a standard set forth in all titles like this.

In other news, I have a large backlog to get through, and it's mostly old stuff, so I'll write about that bridge when I get there.

Butterfaces

I've been occupying myself in a rediscovery of sorts in recent days, engrossing myself in the mystique of various hip-hop artists. The first idea that took root was that what I was listening to was somewhat removed, at least upon first impression, from the accepted image of "Rap" music (hip-hop's synonymous term). This is a given to the connoisseur, but I think that it's safe to say that the image of hip-hop at large is that of the one seen on television and radio, one that isn't necessarily wrong, (that part of the culture does indeed exist), just not encompassing.

Beyond the wonted image of ego-driven characters lies a genuine pursuit of lyrical prowess, enhanced by rhythmic sounds (dare I say beats?), that is not present on the culture's surface. It is dejecting, then, that this part of the genre, its creamy center, is simply overlooked, as if it were an apple core (I'm done with food metaphors for today). The image presented isn't one that people are seeking to gain a deeper investment from, dismissing it for its face. These are very shallow people that I'm talking about, I hope.

What struck me immediately thereafter was just how much this mirrored video games. The accepted image is either ignored completely or taken as proof for the entire medium, again a false idea, existing as an invisible barrier, doing its barrier thing, blocking prospective consumers from exploring the medium further. There's a large emphasis on these things as consumer products, rather than art (or at least, attempts at art). The medium as a whole is not praise-worthy, to be sure, but searching for hidden gems is quickly becoming a lost practice. Dismissing the whole for the face is fairly common, but rarely recommended.

The Quitter or The Masochist?

For a video games news site, a drought in releases means focusing on the news, doing features, or coming together with whatever it can to keep the clicks coming. For the savvy consumer, the one who simply must keep up on the latest games, it means a reprieve from spending large amounts of money, mostly on games that will no doubt be put off. It could also mean going even further back than what could be deemed as "current releases", back into games we altogether missed because of either lack of interest or money. For me, it means playing Final Fantasy XII.

The RPG usual cliches aside, I was enjoying it. The MMO-style battle system is just enough of a change from the average RPG to make me throw aside the problems I was having with the game (generic characters, played out storyline, way-too-familiar setting), as well as push back the nagging feeling that I should be doing something other than undertake such a long game in such a short and unstable repose.

The feeling of elation at the unique distortion in the common RPG language was short-lived, however. The novelty of how I was playing this new game simply did not withstand an assault by the almighty grind. In a dungeon that had all of one save point, overwhelming groups of enemies (though this turned out later to be untrue, the outcome of our fight being that they were whelmed), I was defeated by a boss in such a way that echoed that, in no uncertain terms, I needed to be stronger.

This compounded frustration caused me to rage quit the game. Becoming stronger meant going in and out of rooms that I had been through previously for the purpose of killing every monster there in large amounts of repetition. This was not my idea of fun. I had other things to do, other games to play. To spend time with a game and have the general sign of progression be that numbers incrementally increase was, to me, not time well spent.

But why was I mad at having to have my numbers be higher so that I could defeat another set of numbers? I wasn't in love with the story the game was communicating to me, and the reality of the battle system was still determined by sets of numbers anyway. They just weren't in my favor. Not only that, but I had been fine doing that up until this defeat. I had been defeated in this same way before, not too long ago. So why was this moment so crucial?

Was I quitting the game because I lacked the necessary diligence to see something through to completion, or was it because I was mad at what I thought to be a poorly-designed genre of video games? Was it the game's fault, or mine? I thought long and hard (while playing another game, of course) of the folly committed and who was at fault. I've had an increasingly frequent habit of quitting games, so perhaps it was that I was more at ease with the thought of abandoning games than I used to be, because there was now always something else to do.

On the flip-side was the argument that this design philosophy of requiring a sufficiently high set of numbers, acquired by monotonous grinding, to advance was a way to lengthen games and archaic. The thought that my defeat was perhaps not caused by inability, but by lack of commitment, something that lead me to believe that I was no longer looking for a game resembling this aged structure.

Eventually, the forces in my head came to a consensus: return to this game, if only as a device into which time falls into, never to be retrieved, with the thought that while this monotony was preventing the completion of more fulfilling tasks, it was a great venue to amalgamate the various thoughts that produce blog posts.

Keeping Them Going: Engaging Players and Difficulty

What are games if not mechanisms with challenges applied to them? While the common perception of games would have them fall in the same field as toys, more and more the assumption that games are simply childish distractions from the real world is being questioned. Games in their current state can be more easily likened to a school syllabus or formula: Learn something new, learn the ways in which it can be applied, learn to apply that knowledge in increasingly difficult questions or equations, and then give the player a test in which the player's ability to apply that knowledge withing strict parameters is evaluated.

With that template attached to them, games can sound very boring and monotonous, but applying such a plain explanation will simplify any medium: Movies are simply one to three hour narratives where a series of events takes place in a linear progression, and music is little more than a series of sounds that can affect the mood of the listener. But while all mediums can explained in such derivative terms, any person in defense of their entertainment of choice will tell you that it's about what you do with that simple premise that makes it so appealing to them.
So with games, what is it that developers do that makes them so appealing to us? Again, using derivative terms: They provide us with obstacles. Our joy comes from overcoming these obstacles, as well as from learning how do it and doing that well. If a developer understands this, then they can focus on what sort of obstacles to create and how to make overcoming them and learning how to do that can be fun.

Written out, it sounds relatively simple, but common sense will tell us that it's never that easy. Often, the challenge to developers is to engage us in what we as the player are doing, and to keep us playing. If the player is constantly involved in what's going on, and enjoying overcoming the obstacles put forth, then the game is good. If they are constantly bored, uninterested, and frustrated at the experience, then the game isn't good. So how do games keep us engaged in the action?

Games are goals
Games are only engaging when there is a goal or purpose (ironic, really, since playing the games themselves usually serves no purpose). Even games where a goal is not apparent (Noby Noby Boy), become games when a goal is created by the player, either short-term (eating that guy, then a chicken, then pooping them both out as a combined creature) or long term (getting to the moon, Mars, and beyond). While not given to player to being with, the reason many people play that particular game is to achieve those goals. This can be applied to the whole of video games. Players all looking to do something, and games give them many goals to accomplish with the worst possible outcome of failure being a loss of time, which was really the purpose of playing the game to begin with (not that losing data or having to go back to an earlier portion of the game isn't frustrating).

So what goals are fun, and, more importantly, what sort of short and long-term goals can keep a player hooked on a game and see it through to its conclusion? The balance between long term and short term goals seems to be clearly indicated by a game's story and narrative. In a game like Portal, for example, the long-term goal of the player is to escape the test facility. The short term goals are the puzzle rooms themselves. The two types of goals help the player become engaged in what is going on, and helps with giving context to these goals, and thus leads to a much more fulfilling experience once the game is complete.

The Slope
Creating goals that the player wants to accomplish is key to empowering them to complete not only the current goal, but ones proceeding them. There are a variety of ways to create goals that keep the player going. One such way is to acknowledge the completion of a goal with a spectacle; be it a cut scene or when “Ode to Joy” plays in Peggle. This gives the player a simple reason to continue playing: to keep going. “Ode to Joy” is positive reinforcement that excites the player, makes them feel better about themselves for having completed the level, and makes them want to continue. A cut scene, on the other hand, is the reward itself, and establishes and if/then bargain with the player; if the player keeps playing the game, they will see more of the story. This can backfire, however, if the player isn't motivated by cut scenes to continue playing.
The other way to engage the player is making the completion of the goal itself rewarding. Beating a boss that took four tries and over half an hour to defeat can be one of the most thrilling parts of any game. Making a challenging obstacle that the player must apply themselves in order to overcome is the mainstay of challenge in video games.

So how is it that games create challenges for us? What makes a given obstacle challenging or easy? Where is the line between challenging and frustrating? The balance that a developer must strike is giving the player enough challenge to have the player apply themselves to their fullest, and making the challenge easy enough to be able be overcome without the player having to call on outside help (by which point there is little to no thrill in the challenge itself), or worse, abandon the game altogether.

The slope of difficulty must be even with the learning curve for a given game. Player's don't want a strenuous boss battle at the beginning of the game, when they are still learning the ropes of the game. Inversely, they don't want to have a tutorial throughout the entire game, constantly learning but never really applying or evaluating. They want to learn with the game, knowing what to do when the time comes. Game like Portal and The Legend of Zelda show transparently this process. The themes of learning, applying, evaluating resonate recognizably in these games, and with great success. Knowing when and where to test a player's skill and where to teach them new ones is a vital part of keeping the player going and finishing the game. If the player is constantly challenged, but hardly frustrated, they are more likely to keep going.

How hard is that?
Testing a player's aptitude at given point can be done in any number of ways. They can be asked to solve an intricate puzzle using the skills they've been taught. They can be asked to solve a relatively easy set of puzzles in a given time limit. A mix between small obstacles that make the player feel as if they understand the system they are learning and a more challenging test lets the player know that the skills they are learning within a game aren't being wasted, however trivial the actually skills may be. So in between large scale tests of the player's comprehension, what sorts of challenges should one apply?

The trend seems to be that an series of increasingly difficult versions of the same challenge are the way to test a player's skill. Portal is an excellent example of this method of difficulty. Each of the 19 rooms in that game become increasingly difficult and complex. This sort of difficulty is much different from something like Call of Duty, where the difficulty is chosen by the player beforehand. While this may sound like a much easier solution, one where the game is as challenging as the player wants it to be, the results are hardly as ideal. With only so much time to make such things like difficulty settings, the developers usually include somewhere between 2-4 difficulty settings, ranging from much too easy to much too hard. The way the developers usually do this is also subject to criticism. While most games do tend to increase the actual challenge of the game (better enemy behavior), the difference between these settings is usually the player and enemy's respective stats: The player is more prone to failing (with things like lower health) and the enemies are less so (meaning they have more health).

This has been a seemingly tried-and-true method of delivering varying levels of challenge to in increasingly diverse audience. However, as simple stat-swapping is becoming more and more looked down upon, developers have been trying to solve this problem. The new Tomb Raider has a difficulty system that is set by the player in very fine detail. To let the player refine his or her experience with a game seems like such an obvious idea to implement, given that video games are one of the most expensive products on the market, but it seems as if developers are only now getting behind the idea that the players should be the ones in charge of how challenging a game is, not developers that seem sure that an extreme amount of difficulty is the best way to test a player's skill and keep them playing the game they've paid for.

A Rhombus to a Square.

Since its release, I've been playing a lot of Resident Evil 5. The story mode, in all of its co-op glory, is pretty rad. It isn't the long and epic journey through a creepy and foreign area as Resident Evil 4 was, but this is a different beast altogether. Whereas 4 was not only a revision of the current formula, but also an attempt at creating a completely solitary experience where the player is stranded, and it's his skills alone that will allow them to triumph. In 5, though, the templates of the familiar face fighting his way in and then out of an environment that they're not familiar with, but it takes a left turn where 4 took a right.

Instead of the isolation that was such a key role in manipulating the player in RE4, RE5's focuses on the concept of using cooperation in order to get tasks that one person couldn't do alone. This is true beyond just the addition of a partner. Throughout the whole game, most tasks above killing villagers and the like require the abilities of more than one person. Getting up to higher areas, defeating a giant in a jeep, fighting motorcycle-riding zombies, getting across areas often have you teaming up with someone other than both of the players.

This element is clear in the story as well. Your goal in the game is primarily to find your partner, and there's an underlying theme of "trusting your partner", and even the people pulling the strings have partners. Of course, in being the bad guys, there's the element of using them and betraying them, but that's an approach to a situation.

And given the theme of cooperation with others as the main objective in RE5, the game executes this in a satisfying way. The entire game is playable with another person, from the story mode to the Mercenaries mode. It stresses this point in almost every aspect of the gameplay. Limited storage space is shared between, in order to proceed to another area both of you must comply, and so on. This point is stressed so much that playing by yourself is crucially detrimental to your play experience, and there's little reason to do so, with the option to play online. Not having an Internet connection disables this option, but even in split-screen the game plays better with a friend.

Also aiding the component of co-op is the game's length. Though it has roughly the same number of chapters as RE4, the chapters themselves are shorter and feel somewhat disjointed. As an aspect of a single-player experience, this is something that hinders the immersion, but through the lens of a co-op game, it helps that they are shorter so that the game can be beaten in single sitting, if you have the conviction to see it through.

The game also tries to make up for the brevity of the campaign by adding some replay value to it. There are multiple difficulties, the game rates you on how well you did on each chapter, so you can go back and try to do better if you wish. There's medallions to hunt, figures to get, costumes to unlock and all those other sorts of treats to try to get. Additionally, the game packs the return of the Mercenaries mode, where you're dropped into a particular closed off area of the game and try to get the highest score possible.

And it was this mode in particular that made me realize that the game itself is fun to play. The complaints of restrictive controls are well-founded, with some awkward button placement issues to be addressed, but having adjusted to that, the way your character has weight, the feel of the weapons, their recoils and their impact on enemies, it all feel nice. All the aspects of playing the game, after playing it for a couple minutes, I wasn't fighting the controls, and that part as well worked in tandem with the rest of the game to make it feel just the right mount of restrictive.

Sure, it isn't RE4, and it certainly won't have the impact on the industry that 4 had, but the shift of direction towards playing with someone, while sacrificing the elements of that invoked fear in the past, instead uses the new elements of a partner to create a new sort of tension of taking a certain amount of control out of one player's hands and forcing them to rely on someone else. This is a different experience with a different template, and it's refreshing to see something other than a re-hash.