written by Blain Newport on Wednesday, 20 April, 2011
Gaming culture is a funny term. It recently popped up in a review of Portal 2 when Adam Biessner of Game Informer said the original game "defined a year-plus of gaming culture". The veracity of GLaDOS' promises of cake, the weighted companion cube, and of course the ending music kept popping up all over.
I don't think of those things as culture. They feel like memes, amusing refernces. It's probably just in my head, but I thought that culture was the stuff that was meaningful to people.
Or maybe I'm just out of touch. When I go to PAX now (and I just registered for PAX 2011), most of what I see feels pointless. All your base? Rick Astley? Dragonball Z? I like silly things, but putting them up on a thirty foot screen in front of hundreds (thousands?) of people who have already seen them feels extra tired. Heck, there were silly videos I'd never bothered to watch that felt instantly out of date in that format. But maybe that's just because being in a giant entrance line in a largely featureless concrete room that feels like the holding pen for a slaughterhouse does nothing for comedy. But I digress.
Culture used to be exclusively about geography. The printing press and faster forms of travel let ideas move around a bit more. And the internet lets them go all over. But does playing the same games and talking about them make gamers a culture? I'm not an anthropologist, but I suspect it doesn't.
I think it's called a culture, though, because people tie it to their identities. People dress up as game characters. People get game tattoos. People give game character names to pets or even children. I guess the idea is that culture is what shapes and defines identity, so if gaming does that, it's culture. But all this stuff happens with movies and music, too. Is there music culture? Is there movie culture? If there are, I don't hear them called by those names.
I have heard of hip-hop culture, so maybe it's about feeling apart. Liking music in general doesn't give you any identity. But if you're really into a particular type, then you start to be interested in the trappings and behavior associated with it. Maybe. If that's true, than the term gaming culture will probably go away as gaming becomes more pervasive. Or maybe it's already going away as we break into smaller groups like core / traditional gamers versus casual / social gamers.
Anyway, that's my muddled thinking on the subject as it stands. I predict that as long as there are hobbies closely associated with gaming that are considered outside the norm (writing chiptunes, cosplay, etc.), the term gaming culture will still exist. But as gaming becomes ubiquitous, those communities will become cultures of their own, and playing games will be like watching movies or listening to music.
I feel compelled to add a final note. These are all cultures based on escapist entertainment and consumerism, not the healthiest of sources. But that's a bigger subject for more educated people.
Showing posts with label randumb. Show all posts
Showing posts with label randumb. Show all posts
20 April, 2011
16 March, 2011
System Shock Prep and Thoughts on Let's Plays
written by Blain Newport on Wednesday, 16 March, 2011
Hey hey, kids! Not too much has gone on in blog. It'll continue to be slow for a week or so. I'm spending a lot of time reading about System Shock. I would like my video talkthrough of the game to be better researched than previous ones.
If you don't care about the walkthroughs, or Let's Plays in general, stop reading now.
Boring History of My Research Process
For Heart of Evil, I think I read the text file that came with it and a little bit of the author's web site (which was taken down during the walkthrough).
For Blood, I don't remember doing any research at all.
For Republic Commando, I got lucky and caught an interview with the game's director and lead designer Tim Longo that came out around that time. I think I poked around on Wikipedia a bit, as well.
For Gunman Chronicles, I also don't remember doing any research.
I think I did some research for Shattered Steel, but a lot of that was finding technical articles on how to get it running. :P
For The Witcher, I watched all of the Making Of videos that came with the game. I didn't even take notes.
In one sense, that was good. I'd rather the game did most of the talking. But there's often still plenty of room for trivia or anecdotes later. Almost every game bogs down / tries to fill time at some point. This raises the issue of...
Entertainment vs Documentary
The goals of entertainment programs and documentaries aren't mutually exclusive. Documentaries need to give the audience a reason to care about the subject matter, and good storytelling is key to that. But there seems to have been sort of an arms race in the Let's Play community to add pizazz to the videos. Some people have fancy animated intros with pictures of themselves in them. Some tell lots of jokes and use their best radio voices. Some videos even have four people sitting around commentating on recorded gameplay to give a sort of live forum discussion on the game as it's being played.
None of these things are "bad". The nice thing about the internet is that it lets everyone make and consume the content they most want to make and consume. Even if you want to see a playthrough of a PC only game like The Witcher, you've probably got half a dozen choices.
For me personally, adding pizazz is what game shows and bad video game networks do. If a section of a game is dull, I want the viewer to experience the dull. If it's a recurring theme, I'll fast forward or edit out the future dull bits, but I want to make Let's Plays that are about the games, warts and all.
That said, I saw an X-Com LP on the forum where forum members volunteered to lend their names to the game's notoriously short lived characters. Then they waited nervously to hear what happened as their namesakes were sent out on night missions to investigate downed UFOs. Whoever thought of that had a good idea, and if I liked strategy games, I'd steal it. :)
Hey hey, kids! Not too much has gone on in blog. It'll continue to be slow for a week or so. I'm spending a lot of time reading about System Shock. I would like my video talkthrough of the game to be better researched than previous ones.
If you don't care about the walkthroughs, or Let's Plays in general, stop reading now.
Boring History of My Research Process
For Heart of Evil, I think I read the text file that came with it and a little bit of the author's web site (which was taken down during the walkthrough).
For Blood, I don't remember doing any research at all.
For Republic Commando, I got lucky and caught an interview with the game's director and lead designer Tim Longo that came out around that time. I think I poked around on Wikipedia a bit, as well.
For Gunman Chronicles, I also don't remember doing any research.
I think I did some research for Shattered Steel, but a lot of that was finding technical articles on how to get it running. :P
For The Witcher, I watched all of the Making Of videos that came with the game. I didn't even take notes.
In one sense, that was good. I'd rather the game did most of the talking. But there's often still plenty of room for trivia or anecdotes later. Almost every game bogs down / tries to fill time at some point. This raises the issue of...
Entertainment vs Documentary
The goals of entertainment programs and documentaries aren't mutually exclusive. Documentaries need to give the audience a reason to care about the subject matter, and good storytelling is key to that. But there seems to have been sort of an arms race in the Let's Play community to add pizazz to the videos. Some people have fancy animated intros with pictures of themselves in them. Some tell lots of jokes and use their best radio voices. Some videos even have four people sitting around commentating on recorded gameplay to give a sort of live forum discussion on the game as it's being played.
None of these things are "bad". The nice thing about the internet is that it lets everyone make and consume the content they most want to make and consume. Even if you want to see a playthrough of a PC only game like The Witcher, you've probably got half a dozen choices.
For me personally, adding pizazz is what game shows and bad video game networks do. If a section of a game is dull, I want the viewer to experience the dull. If it's a recurring theme, I'll fast forward or edit out the future dull bits, but I want to make Let's Plays that are about the games, warts and all.
That said, I saw an X-Com LP on the forum where forum members volunteered to lend their names to the game's notoriously short lived characters. Then they waited nervously to hear what happened as their namesakes were sent out on night missions to investigate downed UFOs. Whoever thought of that had a good idea, and if I liked strategy games, I'd steal it. :)
09 August, 2010
Game Journal: Cryostasis
written by Blain Newport on Monday, 9 August, 2010
GAME JOURNALS CONTAIN SPOILERS. DEAL WITH IT PINK BOY.
Cryostasis is a bad game I'm enjoying.
Here is a picture of frozen boxes.
Here is a picture of you inside a frozen box, looking at the same decorations you've seen a million times before, which are basically frozen boxes.
When I first played the demo for Cryostasis, I thought I'd never play the game. It was a pain, and there wasn't enough payoff for how annoying it was. That's partly because the demo was from later in the game and threw you in with no learning curve. It's also because the demo was some of the least interesting bits of the game.
But it's also because I've taken to only playing the game for a checkpoint or two at a time. The scares are scarier if I don't get used to their pattern. And I don't mind the occasional cheap deaths because there's only two or three per session.
And last, but certainly not least, I've completely changed the character of the game. It's supposed to just be scary and bleak. You're inside this frozen ship full of monsters. Even when you're saving crew members' lives by going into their past and taking control of their actions, victory just means a body disappears. It's hollow.
So I fixed it. Every time I go into someone's past I hit the play button on my multimedia keyboard. It starts a song. It starts this song.
("You" by VAST from the album Video Audio Sensory Theater)
As my viewpoint enters the crewman in a shower of sparks, the sparse synthetic sounds tell me I'm embarking on a strange, personal journey. Can you hear it?
As I learn what it was that killed that crewman, the chorus begins to sing, gently urging me forward. Listen to it.
As I'm learning what killed him, dying and re-entering his past, the singer is spouting random stuff I don't care about. The song doesn't really fit that well. :)
But by the time I'm figuring it out and saving the crewman, the singer is singing about leaving and love, which is what happens every time you save someone in their past. They just disappear. It's not at all clear if they survive or if they have any idea of what you did for them. But you saved them, and with the song playing and the chorus singing, that's what it feels like.
The game made a puzzle. I made it feel worthwhile to solve it.
This is part of why I still love the PC as a platform. From gameplay mods and hacks (the only way I finished Far Cry and other games) to simple ambiance changes like this, the PC will always give me the most options.
But how do I review a game when my experience is so different from what you'll have?
I don't. I just write a journal and tell you what I enjoyed or didn't, even if it wasn't part of the game. I don't have to give scores. I don't have to rush to be current. I just have to have interesting experiences and share them.
GAME JOURNALS CONTAIN SPOILERS. DEAL WITH IT PINK BOY.
Cryostasis is a bad game I'm enjoying.
Here is a picture of frozen boxes.
Here is a picture of you inside a frozen box, looking at the same decorations you've seen a million times before, which are basically frozen boxes.
When I first played the demo for Cryostasis, I thought I'd never play the game. It was a pain, and there wasn't enough payoff for how annoying it was. That's partly because the demo was from later in the game and threw you in with no learning curve. It's also because the demo was some of the least interesting bits of the game.
But it's also because I've taken to only playing the game for a checkpoint or two at a time. The scares are scarier if I don't get used to their pattern. And I don't mind the occasional cheap deaths because there's only two or three per session.
And last, but certainly not least, I've completely changed the character of the game. It's supposed to just be scary and bleak. You're inside this frozen ship full of monsters. Even when you're saving crew members' lives by going into their past and taking control of their actions, victory just means a body disappears. It's hollow.
So I fixed it. Every time I go into someone's past I hit the play button on my multimedia keyboard. It starts a song. It starts this song.
("You" by VAST from the album Video Audio Sensory Theater)
As my viewpoint enters the crewman in a shower of sparks, the sparse synthetic sounds tell me I'm embarking on a strange, personal journey. Can you hear it?
As I learn what it was that killed that crewman, the chorus begins to sing, gently urging me forward. Listen to it.
As I'm learning what killed him, dying and re-entering his past, the singer is spouting random stuff I don't care about. The song doesn't really fit that well. :)
But by the time I'm figuring it out and saving the crewman, the singer is singing about leaving and love, which is what happens every time you save someone in their past. They just disappear. It's not at all clear if they survive or if they have any idea of what you did for them. But you saved them, and with the song playing and the chorus singing, that's what it feels like.
The game made a puzzle. I made it feel worthwhile to solve it.
This is part of why I still love the PC as a platform. From gameplay mods and hacks (the only way I finished Far Cry and other games) to simple ambiance changes like this, the PC will always give me the most options.
But how do I review a game when my experience is so different from what you'll have?
I don't. I just write a journal and tell you what I enjoyed or didn't, even if it wasn't part of the game. I don't have to give scores. I don't have to rush to be current. I just have to have interesting experiences and share them.
Because you can't
Take anything with you
I Sleepy
written by Blain Newport on Monday, 9 August, 2010
Being tired is like being drunk. And sometimes I need to be tired enough to forget my inhibitions and write a blog post. When I'm sober, I feel responsible to my Let's Play audience. Plus I'm painfully aware that there's a huge backlog of stuff I should have written about months ago. I still have plenty of pictures (and even some video) of Big Baby from my month in Champions Online. I played through Ninja Gaiden Black and I don't think I even told you. I probably could have reviewed half a dozen other games I've played, but it just didn't seem worthwhile. Nothing about them excited me.
*goes off to rummage through picture directory*
Oh geez. I've still got Mass Effect 2 pictures in there! And there's Tropico 3. More recently there's a bit of Cryostasis and Minecraft.
Ew. Two Rayman Raving Rabbids pictures. That's an experience better off forgotten. :P
The other part of it is that as much as my experiences working disabused me of the idea that work is noble, I should be doing some. So there's always a bit of guilt involved.
Meh.
Let's get writing.
Being tired is like being drunk. And sometimes I need to be tired enough to forget my inhibitions and write a blog post. When I'm sober, I feel responsible to my Let's Play audience. Plus I'm painfully aware that there's a huge backlog of stuff I should have written about months ago. I still have plenty of pictures (and even some video) of Big Baby from my month in Champions Online. I played through Ninja Gaiden Black and I don't think I even told you. I probably could have reviewed half a dozen other games I've played, but it just didn't seem worthwhile. Nothing about them excited me.
*goes off to rummage through picture directory*
Oh geez. I've still got Mass Effect 2 pictures in there! And there's Tropico 3. More recently there's a bit of Cryostasis and Minecraft.
Ew. Two Rayman Raving Rabbids pictures. That's an experience better off forgotten. :P
The other part of it is that as much as my experiences working disabused me of the idea that work is noble, I should be doing some. So there's always a bit of guilt involved.
Meh.
Let's get writing.
09 July, 2010
Ramblings From The Void
written by Blain Newport on Thursday, 8 July, 2010
GAME JOURNALS CONTAIN SPOILERS. DEAL WITH IT PINK BOY.
The Void is a bad game by many of the standards I commonly apply.
Obscure goals? Check.
Impossible fights? Check.
Hours of lost progress? Check.
Annoying interface? Check.
But it's the question. "It's the question that drives us, Neo." And it's not just one.
What is this place, really? What will happen if I feed a sister more than is allowed? How do I defeat the monsters? How do I do it efficiently? How much color can I safely give and use? What colors should I value most?
And there are still secrets. In each phase, a major change occurs. I've only seen three phases so far, so I suspect there will be many more changes to adapt to. I've heard that the void will die in a fixed amount of time, so there may be a clock on everything I do. I'm still encountering new monster types. The Brothers are giving me new tasks. And there is at least one major part of the game journal marked "Souls" that has no meaning to me yet.
Initially, Zelda games were about exploration. Some of it was annoying and stupid (trying to burn every bush and bomb every wall). But it was exploration. Now most of what you do in those games is expected, has become cliche.
I forgot what it was like to see something alien. The annoying robots in Bionic Commando and punishing platform bits of Rearmed seem so incredibly stale now, fossilized, really. Even Zeno Clash is conventional compared to this. "Let's go exploring!"
GAME JOURNALS CONTAIN SPOILERS. DEAL WITH IT PINK BOY.
The Void is a bad game by many of the standards I commonly apply.
Obscure goals? Check.
Impossible fights? Check.
Hours of lost progress? Check.
Annoying interface? Check.
But it's the question. "It's the question that drives us, Neo." And it's not just one.
What is this place, really? What will happen if I feed a sister more than is allowed? How do I defeat the monsters? How do I do it efficiently? How much color can I safely give and use? What colors should I value most?
And there are still secrets. In each phase, a major change occurs. I've only seen three phases so far, so I suspect there will be many more changes to adapt to. I've heard that the void will die in a fixed amount of time, so there may be a clock on everything I do. I'm still encountering new monster types. The Brothers are giving me new tasks. And there is at least one major part of the game journal marked "Souls" that has no meaning to me yet.
Initially, Zelda games were about exploration. Some of it was annoying and stupid (trying to burn every bush and bomb every wall). But it was exploration. Now most of what you do in those games is expected, has become cliche.
I forgot what it was like to see something alien. The annoying robots in Bionic Commando and punishing platform bits of Rearmed seem so incredibly stale now, fossilized, really. Even Zeno Clash is conventional compared to this. "Let's go exploring!"
16 June, 2010
Nintendo and Sony Press Conferences; Game Updates
written by Blain Newport on Wednesday, 16 June, 2010
Nintendo
I suspect a lot of people are going to say Nintendo "won" the show. They announced a lot of entries in classic franchises (Zelda, Kirby, Donkey Kong Country, Kid Icarus, GoldenEye).
The 3D on the new 3DS handheld seemed to go over well with most people, and if all the games announced for the 3DS come out, it's going to have a ridiculous library (on top of being backwards compatible with the DS). I don't much care for Metal Gear games after Metal Gear Solid, but the fact that Metal Gear Solid 3 will be coming to a handheld and in 3D both speaks to the level of support and power of the device. (How the game will play with only one analog stick is another question.)
While I personally liked the emphasis on core games, I'm really surprised there weren't more games for other Wii consumers. It was like Microsoft and Nintendo had switched roles and while I think I understand Microsoft's (terrible) strategy, Nintendo's console strategy has me at a loss.
Sony
Sony's (terrible) strategy, on the other hand, was exactly as expected. They pushed 3D and their Wii controller. Supposedly their entire conference was in 3D to prove how essential 3D is now. Tycho from Penny Arcade did a splendid job of throwing cold water on the hype.
But price always comes down (if consumers don't reject it outright), and part of me has reason to hope 3D works out. When games first moved to flat 3D, I felt like we lost a lot of precision. I was hoping really good stereoscopic 3D might help third person games feel more natural. It might be easier to judge my jumps and my character's reach and to get a better feeling of space. (The 3D upgraded version of the Sly Cooper trilogy may be my litmus test of Sony's tech.) In an ideal world, Sony's figured it out. And after a few years, 3D will be an affordable standard. But I can't help but look at that price tag and think it's anything but madness, currently.
While not as absurd, the Move's value proposition isn't much better. A 360 Arcade unit plus Kinect (if the rumored price is true), will run you $300. The PS3 plus Move will cost you $400, and you will need to buy a nunchuck and a second controller to play some of the single player content we've seen, raising the total investment to $480.
The Wii costs $200.
Game Over
Speaking of games that should be over, there was no announcement of a replacement for the PSP and PSP Go. I've never understood why the PSP sold at all in first place, so maybe that unknown reason will keep them selling okay against the 3DS.
Finally, back in the land of the core gamers, Sony performed decently, probably better than Microsoft. But neither company impressed me.
Game Updates
Fallout: New Vegas - 1UP did a developer interview with some live gameplay. It's nothing earth shattering, but the game looks to be coming along fine. I'm struck by the elements of the new Fallout games that seems static and lifeless: the barren environments, the lack of color, the slow pace. But that usually helps the crazy stuff stand out more. It's comfortable.
Brink - The hands-on was short, but there was one, which is much better than nothing as it means the game's core mechanics have come along.
Nintendo
I suspect a lot of people are going to say Nintendo "won" the show. They announced a lot of entries in classic franchises (Zelda, Kirby, Donkey Kong Country, Kid Icarus, GoldenEye).
The 3D on the new 3DS handheld seemed to go over well with most people, and if all the games announced for the 3DS come out, it's going to have a ridiculous library (on top of being backwards compatible with the DS). I don't much care for Metal Gear games after Metal Gear Solid, but the fact that Metal Gear Solid 3 will be coming to a handheld and in 3D both speaks to the level of support and power of the device. (How the game will play with only one analog stick is another question.)
While I personally liked the emphasis on core games, I'm really surprised there weren't more games for other Wii consumers. It was like Microsoft and Nintendo had switched roles and while I think I understand Microsoft's (terrible) strategy, Nintendo's console strategy has me at a loss.
Sony
Sony's (terrible) strategy, on the other hand, was exactly as expected. They pushed 3D and their Wii controller. Supposedly their entire conference was in 3D to prove how essential 3D is now. Tycho from Penny Arcade did a splendid job of throwing cold water on the hype.
The Kinect is rumored to cost a hundred and fifty dollars, and this is considered to be the equivalent of a street mugging. To contrast, a single pair of active shutter glasses costs the same amount - every picture of a deliriously happy family enjoying 3D content is predicated on a hardware investment north of four thousand dollars.
But price always comes down (if consumers don't reject it outright), and part of me has reason to hope 3D works out. When games first moved to flat 3D, I felt like we lost a lot of precision. I was hoping really good stereoscopic 3D might help third person games feel more natural. It might be easier to judge my jumps and my character's reach and to get a better feeling of space. (The 3D upgraded version of the Sly Cooper trilogy may be my litmus test of Sony's tech.) In an ideal world, Sony's figured it out. And after a few years, 3D will be an affordable standard. But I can't help but look at that price tag and think it's anything but madness, currently.
While not as absurd, the Move's value proposition isn't much better. A 360 Arcade unit plus Kinect (if the rumored price is true), will run you $300. The PS3 plus Move will cost you $400, and you will need to buy a nunchuck and a second controller to play some of the single player content we've seen, raising the total investment to $480.
The Wii costs $200.
Game Over
Speaking of games that should be over, there was no announcement of a replacement for the PSP and PSP Go. I've never understood why the PSP sold at all in first place, so maybe that unknown reason will keep them selling okay against the 3DS.
Finally, back in the land of the core gamers, Sony performed decently, probably better than Microsoft. But neither company impressed me.
Game Updates
Fallout: New Vegas - 1UP did a developer interview with some live gameplay. It's nothing earth shattering, but the game looks to be coming along fine. I'm struck by the elements of the new Fallout games that seems static and lifeless: the barren environments, the lack of color, the slow pace. But that usually helps the crazy stuff stand out more. It's comfortable.
Brink - The hands-on was short, but there was one, which is much better than nothing as it means the game's core mechanics have come along.
03 January, 2010
Keepalive: New Years' LAN Single Player
written by Blain Newport on Saturday, January 2, 2010
Between multiplayer bouts (or while others were playing RTS), other games were played.
Red Faction: Guerrilla - One of Matthew's children enjoyed watching me break stuff, so RFG was played on breaks.
Crysis - I picked the Maximum Edition up from the Steam sale for $14. I still think the hype Crysis got in the day was overblown, but I turned it down to easy and am feeling appropriately super as I play it.
The suit shortcuts (which let me doubletap certain keys to switch suit modes) are a big help, as well. Having to bring up a selection wheel all the time made the game feel like a console port. Dedicated suit mode keys would be better still, but as a PC gamer, I take what I can get.
Also, a funny thing about playing the Maximum Edition is knowing that in the expansion I'll be playing the same events from the viewpoint of a different character. So far all of his missions sound more interesting than what I'm doing, which is both promising and frustrating.
Grand Theft Auto: IV - The first game I played in 2010 was GTA4. It was overcast and drizzly in Roseville. And the weather in the game was almost exactly the same. It was a strange feeling and I sat through a long cab ride in the game (which I would ordinarily skip) just watching and listening.
I get the feeling I'm near to stopping the game. The main characters' cousin asked him to stop seeking revenge on certain people. I decided to honor that request. This means every few minutes I'm not on a mission, one of these people tries to call me.
I don't know if the guy calling is trying to start trouble. I don't know if he wants to make up. I only know that I said I would have nothing more to do with him, and I won't.
Some of you may remember I quit BioShock for a day or so after the twist. I was told to perform a task, and because the game couldn't actually force me to complete it, I just let it sit there, proving that I couldn't be controlled, and that Rapture couldn't be sunk. Eventually I went back to see the rest, feeling that I was doing it on my own terms.
I suspect I'll be doing the same thing with GTA4. Once I'm done catching up with some lost people from the old country, I'll consider the game ended and leave it for a day. Then I'll come back to see how the "Director's Cut" version ended. Much like BioShock (and Army of Darkness), I suspect I'll prefer the non-director's cut version.
I still wish there had been a third ending for BioShock, that the player could simply have chosen to let Rapture sink after the twist. "Rapture was created to embody the philosophy of Andrew Ryan, a philosophy that turned men into slaves and monsters. Rapture was destroyed when a monster, suddenly aware of what he was, made choice... and became a man." Sure, he became a dead man and sentenced all the little sisters to death, but it's more interesting than the official endings.
Between multiplayer bouts (or while others were playing RTS), other games were played.
Red Faction: Guerrilla - One of Matthew's children enjoyed watching me break stuff, so RFG was played on breaks.
Crysis - I picked the Maximum Edition up from the Steam sale for $14. I still think the hype Crysis got in the day was overblown, but I turned it down to easy and am feeling appropriately super as I play it.
The suit shortcuts (which let me doubletap certain keys to switch suit modes) are a big help, as well. Having to bring up a selection wheel all the time made the game feel like a console port. Dedicated suit mode keys would be better still, but as a PC gamer, I take what I can get.
Also, a funny thing about playing the Maximum Edition is knowing that in the expansion I'll be playing the same events from the viewpoint of a different character. So far all of his missions sound more interesting than what I'm doing, which is both promising and frustrating.
Grand Theft Auto: IV - The first game I played in 2010 was GTA4. It was overcast and drizzly in Roseville. And the weather in the game was almost exactly the same. It was a strange feeling and I sat through a long cab ride in the game (which I would ordinarily skip) just watching and listening.
I get the feeling I'm near to stopping the game. The main characters' cousin asked him to stop seeking revenge on certain people. I decided to honor that request. This means every few minutes I'm not on a mission, one of these people tries to call me.
I don't know if the guy calling is trying to start trouble. I don't know if he wants to make up. I only know that I said I would have nothing more to do with him, and I won't.
Some of you may remember I quit BioShock for a day or so after the twist. I was told to perform a task, and because the game couldn't actually force me to complete it, I just let it sit there, proving that I couldn't be controlled, and that Rapture couldn't be sunk. Eventually I went back to see the rest, feeling that I was doing it on my own terms.
I suspect I'll be doing the same thing with GTA4. Once I'm done catching up with some lost people from the old country, I'll consider the game ended and leave it for a day. Then I'll come back to see how the "Director's Cut" version ended. Much like BioShock (and Army of Darkness), I suspect I'll prefer the non-director's cut version.
I still wish there had been a third ending for BioShock, that the player could simply have chosen to let Rapture sink after the twist. "Rapture was created to embody the philosophy of Andrew Ryan, a philosophy that turned men into slaves and monsters. Rapture was destroyed when a monster, suddenly aware of what he was, made choice... and became a man." Sure, he became a dead man and sentenced all the little sisters to death, but it's more interesting than the official endings.
28 July, 2009
Keepalive: Hunter the Reckoning: Wayward, Blood, 2009 -> 2010: WTF?
written by Blain Newport on Monday, July 27, 2009
I tried to play through Hunter the Reckoning: Wayward a long time ago. It was a pain. But I realized it might work for co-op Tuesday, so I gave it another shot. Turning the difficulty down to easy helped a lot. The later levels were still a pain, though. I think they screwed up and tuned the difficulty levels for the testers instead of normal humans.
I still don't know how or if I'm going to record it, but in case my laziness means I never get around to it, I want you to know that Blood is a wonderful game. Running at 320x200 with a big black bar at the bottom of the screen because my monitor can only output 320x240, I love it as much as I ever did. The minimalist sound design is good and creepy. The deaths are gory and silly. The weapons aren't as beefy as some, but they have a feel that works. Plus the shell casings stay around, which makes the scenes of battles look pretty cool.
I've also been really impressed by the level design. The spooky mansion sections of the second episode are my favorites. There are ambushes and traps and mazes and secret passageways. Most shooters today just funnel you forward, which is fine, but I very much enjoyed hunting for keys and trying to remember where a particular locked door was when I found them.
I am a sick, sick man.
What follows is a lot of uninformed speculation about the industry. Ignore it at no risk.
Ubisoft just pushed Splinter Cell: Conviction and Red Steel 2 into 2010. I remember thinking that Microsoft was talking too much about 2010 and not enough about 2009 in their press conference. Apparently that's because nothing's coming out this year.
I can understand shooters wanting to run in fear from Modern Warfare 2. But so many non-FPS games are delaying that it seems like the industry thinks it can delay its way out of the depression.
The following is not an exhaustive list. These are just some games I've been paying attention to.
Games Delayed Until 2010
Splinter Cell: Conviction
Red Steel 2 (I guess I will be looking for this one at PAX)
Bioshock 2
Bayonetta
Singularity
Heavy Rain (to avoid a "crowded" xmas season, hurr durr)
StarCraft 2 (but that's just how Blizzard works)
Mafia 2
Max Payne 3
Red Dead Redemption
Games Not Delayed Until 2010
Modern Warfare 2
Halo: ODST
Brütal Legend
God of War 3
Uncharted 2
Borderlands
Ratchet & Clank 6
Out of all the delayed games I think only Singularity, being an FPS and a new IP without an easily sold hook, needed the delay to avoid being crushed by Modern Warfare and Halo. Maybe Bayonetta and Red Steel 2 thought they were competing with God of War 3? I don't know.
But nothing's like Heavy Rain. And nothing's like BioShock (aesthetically, anyway). And the only western themed game that might be stealing market share from Red Dead Redemption released weeks ago.
Perhaps I don't know enough about the financial realities. Maybe trying to wait out the depression is a good strategy (even if everybody else is doing it). We've certainly hit diminishing returns with graphics this console generation, so it's not like these games will look horribly outdated when they release.
Anyway, if gamers are lucky, the extra time will be used to polish these games and make 2010 an outstanding year. We'll see. People got stressed about holiday 2008 having too many good games for the average gamer to play everything they wanted to. I think 2010 may also have that feeling but starting in March instead of October.
I tried to play through Hunter the Reckoning: Wayward a long time ago. It was a pain. But I realized it might work for co-op Tuesday, so I gave it another shot. Turning the difficulty down to easy helped a lot. The later levels were still a pain, though. I think they screwed up and tuned the difficulty levels for the testers instead of normal humans.
I still don't know how or if I'm going to record it, but in case my laziness means I never get around to it, I want you to know that Blood is a wonderful game. Running at 320x200 with a big black bar at the bottom of the screen because my monitor can only output 320x240, I love it as much as I ever did. The minimalist sound design is good and creepy. The deaths are gory and silly. The weapons aren't as beefy as some, but they have a feel that works. Plus the shell casings stay around, which makes the scenes of battles look pretty cool.
I've also been really impressed by the level design. The spooky mansion sections of the second episode are my favorites. There are ambushes and traps and mazes and secret passageways. Most shooters today just funnel you forward, which is fine, but I very much enjoyed hunting for keys and trying to remember where a particular locked door was when I found them.
I am a sick, sick man.
What follows is a lot of uninformed speculation about the industry. Ignore it at no risk.
Ubisoft just pushed Splinter Cell: Conviction and Red Steel 2 into 2010. I remember thinking that Microsoft was talking too much about 2010 and not enough about 2009 in their press conference. Apparently that's because nothing's coming out this year.
I can understand shooters wanting to run in fear from Modern Warfare 2. But so many non-FPS games are delaying that it seems like the industry thinks it can delay its way out of the depression.
The following is not an exhaustive list. These are just some games I've been paying attention to.
Games Delayed Until 2010
Splinter Cell: Conviction
Red Steel 2 (I guess I will be looking for this one at PAX)
Bioshock 2
Bayonetta
Singularity
Heavy Rain (to avoid a "crowded" xmas season, hurr durr)
StarCraft 2 (but that's just how Blizzard works)
Mafia 2
Max Payne 3
Red Dead Redemption
Games Not Delayed Until 2010
Modern Warfare 2
Halo: ODST
Brütal Legend
God of War 3
Uncharted 2
Borderlands
Ratchet & Clank 6
Out of all the delayed games I think only Singularity, being an FPS and a new IP without an easily sold hook, needed the delay to avoid being crushed by Modern Warfare and Halo. Maybe Bayonetta and Red Steel 2 thought they were competing with God of War 3? I don't know.
But nothing's like Heavy Rain. And nothing's like BioShock (aesthetically, anyway). And the only western themed game that might be stealing market share from Red Dead Redemption released weeks ago.
Perhaps I don't know enough about the financial realities. Maybe trying to wait out the depression is a good strategy (even if everybody else is doing it). We've certainly hit diminishing returns with graphics this console generation, so it's not like these games will look horribly outdated when they release.
Anyway, if gamers are lucky, the extra time will be used to polish these games and make 2010 an outstanding year. We'll see. People got stressed about holiday 2008 having too many good games for the average gamer to play everything they wanted to. I think 2010 may also have that feeling but starting in March instead of October.
14 July, 2009
Game Journal: Fallout 3
written by Blain Newport on Monday, July 13, 2009
GAME JOURNALS CONTAIN SPOILERS. DEAL WITH IT PINK BOY.
Alright. Where did we leave off?
Wow! Canterbury! That was over a week ago! I don't even know where to start. Part of me just wants to follow the pictures I've taken. But at five a post, that would take... well let's just say I'd have to take a break from posting Fallout 3 stories to cover PAX. :P I've got over 600 pictures. There are a fair amount of dupes and just plain bad photos I could weed out from that. But obviously I need to be selective.
But I look at those first few pictures and I remember them. I even remember stuff that happened before and after them that I didn't snap photos of. SO MUCH STUFF happens in this game. And a lot of the events are tied together. Sometimes the fact that I just happened to find all the clues made me wonder if the game was cheating me down a path. But my brother also took advantage of the sale and almost immediately started doing things completely unfamiliar to me. The stuff he's doing sounds interesting. But it does make it hard to discuss, since neither of us want spoilers. Luckily, most of the people who read this will never play Fallout 3, so I can tell you anything I want.
I'll try and be selective while still keeping continuity.
First off, I exaggerated when I called Canterbury Commons a town. There are five people who live there and usually some traders. (The mayor used to be a trader and set up the place because there was a major trade route with no place to stop.) Consequently, after I'd dealt with the superhero threat, there wasn't much left to do.
It was time to head for Minefield, stopping for a couple points of interest along the way. The first was the Temple of the Union.
A few escaped slaves set up this outpost to help other escapees. They never said how they got the head of the Lincoln Memorial. They told me the memorial had been taken over by Super Mutants and asked if I could help. I said yes, but it would be a long time before I made good.
The second point of interest (completely unmarked on the map) was this rocket in the middle of nowhere.
I knew it wasn't a real rocket. It was obviously the top of one of those Red Rocket places. (I think those are bus stops. There all over and they have no apparent function. But sometimes there are covered benches or soda machines near them. And on the subject of transportation, the cars never hovered. They just looked really futuristic and the tires had been stolen. :P )
As you can see by the radar at the bottom left, there were also a huge number of hostiles (the little red bars) in the area. Luckily they mostly turned out to be mutant cockroaches, dangerous but not deadly. But the one that wasn't was a crazy guy with an antenna hat and a mini-gun. The game dubbed him the Roach King. That big rock I'm hiding behind is really the only thing that saved me from him. I would run away from the Roach King, taking a moment to kill any attacking roaches or taking a free shot at the man himself. It was probably two or three minutes of fight, which is a long time to take down one guy. But in the end the Roach King fell, and I took his kingdom.
But I didn't wear the hat. Trying on that crazy ant lady's armor was enough dress up. And I'll be forced to put on some pretty silly costumes later on, when my armor degrades. If you look behind me you can see a couple bottles of water and a mini nuke inside the rocket. They're bugging me now, because I'm not sure I noticed them at the time. :(
A couple other minor things happened. I played hide and seek with some giant mutant mole rats. They were very hard to shake on open ground in daylight, but as long as I kept a wide berth, I could sneak away as fast as they could amble over to investigate. It taught me a bit about how stealth works.
I also discovered that the landmines in crazy ant lady's lair were bought at a flea market or something. I ran across a barn that had been mined and found that real mines had a much larger trigger radius and sometimes didn't seem possible to disarm. I was not looking forward to Minefield so much by the time I got there.
GAME JOURNALS CONTAIN SPOILERS. DEAL WITH IT PINK BOY.
Alright. Where did we leave off?
Wow! Canterbury! That was over a week ago! I don't even know where to start. Part of me just wants to follow the pictures I've taken. But at five a post, that would take... well let's just say I'd have to take a break from posting Fallout 3 stories to cover PAX. :P I've got over 600 pictures. There are a fair amount of dupes and just plain bad photos I could weed out from that. But obviously I need to be selective.
But I look at those first few pictures and I remember them. I even remember stuff that happened before and after them that I didn't snap photos of. SO MUCH STUFF happens in this game. And a lot of the events are tied together. Sometimes the fact that I just happened to find all the clues made me wonder if the game was cheating me down a path. But my brother also took advantage of the sale and almost immediately started doing things completely unfamiliar to me. The stuff he's doing sounds interesting. But it does make it hard to discuss, since neither of us want spoilers. Luckily, most of the people who read this will never play Fallout 3, so I can tell you anything I want.
I'll try and be selective while still keeping continuity.
First off, I exaggerated when I called Canterbury Commons a town. There are five people who live there and usually some traders. (The mayor used to be a trader and set up the place because there was a major trade route with no place to stop.) Consequently, after I'd dealt with the superhero threat, there wasn't much left to do.
It was time to head for Minefield, stopping for a couple points of interest along the way. The first was the Temple of the Union.
A few escaped slaves set up this outpost to help other escapees. They never said how they got the head of the Lincoln Memorial. They told me the memorial had been taken over by Super Mutants and asked if I could help. I said yes, but it would be a long time before I made good.
The second point of interest (completely unmarked on the map) was this rocket in the middle of nowhere.
I knew it wasn't a real rocket. It was obviously the top of one of those Red Rocket places. (I think those are bus stops. There all over and they have no apparent function. But sometimes there are covered benches or soda machines near them. And on the subject of transportation, the cars never hovered. They just looked really futuristic and the tires had been stolen. :P )
As you can see by the radar at the bottom left, there were also a huge number of hostiles (the little red bars) in the area. Luckily they mostly turned out to be mutant cockroaches, dangerous but not deadly. But the one that wasn't was a crazy guy with an antenna hat and a mini-gun. The game dubbed him the Roach King. That big rock I'm hiding behind is really the only thing that saved me from him. I would run away from the Roach King, taking a moment to kill any attacking roaches or taking a free shot at the man himself. It was probably two or three minutes of fight, which is a long time to take down one guy. But in the end the Roach King fell, and I took his kingdom.
But I didn't wear the hat. Trying on that crazy ant lady's armor was enough dress up. And I'll be forced to put on some pretty silly costumes later on, when my armor degrades. If you look behind me you can see a couple bottles of water and a mini nuke inside the rocket. They're bugging me now, because I'm not sure I noticed them at the time. :(
A couple other minor things happened. I played hide and seek with some giant mutant mole rats. They were very hard to shake on open ground in daylight, but as long as I kept a wide berth, I could sneak away as fast as they could amble over to investigate. It taught me a bit about how stealth works.
I also discovered that the landmines in crazy ant lady's lair were bought at a flea market or something. I ran across a barn that had been mined and found that real mines had a much larger trigger radius and sometimes didn't seem possible to disarm. I was not looking forward to Minefield so much by the time I got there.
20 August, 2008
Credit Where It's Due
There's been some debate over on the MTV blog about game makers not getting enough credit. I mostly ignored it as the people being interviewed weren't ones I really wanted to hear from (known blatherers and CEOs). But then a crime occurred, and I couldn't ignore it. I probably should have, but I couldn't.
The crime was mangling some beautiful game cover art by obscuring it with giant blurbs of credits, then pointing to it and saying "If Video Game Boxes Gave Credit, They'd Look Like This". That article title was a lie, of course. They wouldn't. DVD boxes don't. The credits go on the back. But some commenters on a previous post apparently said the credits could fit on the front, and she wanted to prove them wrong. Maybe they were big jerks, deserving of the comeuppance, but defacing some beautiful box art failed to deliver any, was an abuse of power over the commenters by the blogger, and really ticked me off.
I posted a nasty note in the comments, which I immediately tried to back away from as I realized it wasn't helping (and wasn't even coherent :P ). Then I tried to come back and really address the issue, but the comment system on the MTV blog is garbage. There's no notification when someone responds, and all newlines are collapsed, so instead of nicely formatted paragraphs, it's a giant ugly blob. So now I'm writing it up here because I'm just not done with it. If you don't care about who makes your games, feel free to stop reading.
My current understanding of the situation is that it's not uncommon for there to be no credits in a game manual. The credits are often available for perusal if you boot up the game and go to the extras menu. So if you want to actually take down all the credits for the game, you have to try and write them down as they scroll by (or maybe record a video so you don't have to watch them six times to get everything). I personally don't think this is an acceptable minimum standard.
I think the developers of the game agree, as two of them (Steve Riesenberger and Mark Burroughs) commented on the MTV blog that Mark's name was misspelled on the horrible mock up for Boom Blox. It was weird though, because Steve was arguing that only things that sell the game should go on the box. If that's true, then how can it possibly matter that one man's name was misspelled on a mock up of the box that no consumer will ever use to make a purchasing decision and maybe a handfull of people on the internet will even read? :P
For me, it's just a matter of history. The horrors of the Hollywood studio system forced people who worked under it to unionize. (Often times, unions are the employees way of saying we think we'd be better treated by the mafia than management.) This forced certain standards of recognition.
The gaming industry has had some similar problems. Voice actors want percentages. The spouse of an EA employee exposed horrible working conditions there which EA had to respond to. But none of these things has come to a head, so the body that gives out the guidelines for these things (the International Game Developers Association) doesn't seem to be very driven. They're currently taking a poll about how devs want their credits so that they can put it into a standard that started development in April of 2007?
"We kept it gray." :P (That's a reference to the ridiculous Central Bureaucracy from Futurama.)
When I hear an industry veteran like Steve (According to MobyGames, I believe he's been making games for fifteen year, although they don't have Boom Blox or any other recent work listed, so maybe that's a different guy.) arguing for the publisher and against his self interest, it just sounds incredibly naive. But maybe that's just one guy. Sure, a veteran creative director may make less than ninety thousand a year, but a game can take a long time to develop, so maybe his average per game is right up there with a Hollywood director per movie.
Or maybe people are so happy to be working on games at all that they don't want to press their luck because they know there are hungry college grads out their willing to work for less.
Wait a minute. I thought this article was about having some credits on the back of game boxes. What happened?
What always happens happened. I start trying to follow the money. But I don't really know where it goes. (Which is it's own issue as many studios say movies cost far more to produce than they actually do to avoid paying taxes / investors. Could game publishers be doing likewise?) And then my raging paranoia takes over. Sigh.
Let's see if I can sum up my feelings without bringing up a host of new issues.
I hate MTV blogger Tracey John. :)
I suspect but can't prove that game creators as a whole aren't being treated well and won't be until they have representation.
Cut! Print! Run away!
The crime was mangling some beautiful game cover art by obscuring it with giant blurbs of credits, then pointing to it and saying "If Video Game Boxes Gave Credit, They'd Look Like This". That article title was a lie, of course. They wouldn't. DVD boxes don't. The credits go on the back. But some commenters on a previous post apparently said the credits could fit on the front, and she wanted to prove them wrong. Maybe they were big jerks, deserving of the comeuppance, but defacing some beautiful box art failed to deliver any, was an abuse of power over the commenters by the blogger, and really ticked me off.
I posted a nasty note in the comments, which I immediately tried to back away from as I realized it wasn't helping (and wasn't even coherent :P ). Then I tried to come back and really address the issue, but the comment system on the MTV blog is garbage. There's no notification when someone responds, and all newlines are collapsed, so instead of nicely formatted paragraphs, it's a giant ugly blob. So now I'm writing it up here because I'm just not done with it. If you don't care about who makes your games, feel free to stop reading.
My current understanding of the situation is that it's not uncommon for there to be no credits in a game manual. The credits are often available for perusal if you boot up the game and go to the extras menu. So if you want to actually take down all the credits for the game, you have to try and write them down as they scroll by (or maybe record a video so you don't have to watch them six times to get everything). I personally don't think this is an acceptable minimum standard.
I think the developers of the game agree, as two of them (Steve Riesenberger and Mark Burroughs) commented on the MTV blog that Mark's name was misspelled on the horrible mock up for Boom Blox. It was weird though, because Steve was arguing that only things that sell the game should go on the box. If that's true, then how can it possibly matter that one man's name was misspelled on a mock up of the box that no consumer will ever use to make a purchasing decision and maybe a handfull of people on the internet will even read? :P
For me, it's just a matter of history. The horrors of the Hollywood studio system forced people who worked under it to unionize. (Often times, unions are the employees way of saying we think we'd be better treated by the mafia than management.) This forced certain standards of recognition.
The gaming industry has had some similar problems. Voice actors want percentages. The spouse of an EA employee exposed horrible working conditions there which EA had to respond to. But none of these things has come to a head, so the body that gives out the guidelines for these things (the International Game Developers Association) doesn't seem to be very driven. They're currently taking a poll about how devs want their credits so that they can put it into a standard that started development in April of 2007?
"We kept it gray." :P (That's a reference to the ridiculous Central Bureaucracy from Futurama.)
When I hear an industry veteran like Steve (According to MobyGames, I believe he's been making games for fifteen year, although they don't have Boom Blox or any other recent work listed, so maybe that's a different guy.) arguing for the publisher and against his self interest, it just sounds incredibly naive. But maybe that's just one guy. Sure, a veteran creative director may make less than ninety thousand a year, but a game can take a long time to develop, so maybe his average per game is right up there with a Hollywood director per movie.
Or maybe people are so happy to be working on games at all that they don't want to press their luck because they know there are hungry college grads out their willing to work for less.
Wait a minute. I thought this article was about having some credits on the back of game boxes. What happened?
What always happens happened. I start trying to follow the money. But I don't really know where it goes. (Which is it's own issue as many studios say movies cost far more to produce than they actually do to avoid paying taxes / investors. Could game publishers be doing likewise?) And then my raging paranoia takes over. Sigh.
Let's see if I can sum up my feelings without bringing up a host of new issues.
I hate MTV blogger Tracey John. :)
I suspect but can't prove that game creators as a whole aren't being treated well and won't be until they have representation.
Cut! Print! Run away!
23 March, 2008
Same As It Ever Was
I played some more Audiosurf (while Painkiller was downloading). In fact, I did worse than that. I played a CD I bought exclusively for playing in Audiosurf. I enjoy Sinatra, Deano; Nat. But James Darren was the crooner who played hologram Vic Fontaine on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. So I really needed to play through "This One's From The Heart". As usual, it's an oddball enough choice that I'm the only one on the global scoreboard for most of the songs. Audiosurf sends email when I lose my records. So far the world has reclaimed Monty Python's "Finland" (which seems only fair as I don't even know any Fins), They Might Be Giants "I Should Be Allowed To Think", and Dean Martin's "Sway". (For Paul's reference, a super tacky latin brass version of this song was what you heard every time that deaf lady one row over's cell phone rang.)
It's just tickles me to know that someone out there in the world might say, "I don't even try for Weird Al anymore. Those songs are a war zone", with a straight face. (Seriously, I was just happy to be on the scoreboard for "It's All About The Pentiums".)
But me buying music just to play in a game puts me well behind the times. It was recently announced that Rock Band sold six million songs in its first four months of release. And they charge double what iTunes is charging. The music industry is probably very concerned / interested, as well they should be.
On the "Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid" front, I noticed that I've put ninety hours into Steam based games in the past two weeks. That's roughly forty of BioShock, forty of Titan Quest, and ten of Audiosurf. Keep in mind, I also played Super Paper Mario and two episodes of Sam & Max start to finish and had a few social evenings which contained gaming not included in that figure. Now if I could just finagle a way to get paid for this... Nah. It wouldn't be any fun if I had to do it when someone else said to.
Speaking of not fun, Conflict: Denied Ops (possibly the most generic game title ever) came to GameTap recently. It got bad reviews, but so did Jericho, and I liked that well enough. It makes my eyes hurt. I have never gotten motion sickness playing games. You got a jet car you need piloted down a spiral tubeway, I'm your man. But C:DO is continually applying so many funky video effects, it drives my eyes nuts. Oh well. That's four gigs of hard drive space freed up.
In unrelated news, a spokesperson for id software said the company is changing focus to consoles. I suppose that doesn't mean much, as a whole. But as someone who loved DooM on the PC, even creating maps for it, it's disheartening. I suppose it's also disheartening as someone who just bought a PC. :P Meh. I'm sure I'll enjoy the new consoles when the prices finally drop. Plus a gaming world without free and uncensored user created content is a pretty horrible thought. I'm not saying that stuff completely justifies the expense of a PC, but it matters (a lot).
It's just tickles me to know that someone out there in the world might say, "I don't even try for Weird Al anymore. Those songs are a war zone", with a straight face. (Seriously, I was just happy to be on the scoreboard for "It's All About The Pentiums".)
But me buying music just to play in a game puts me well behind the times. It was recently announced that Rock Band sold six million songs in its first four months of release. And they charge double what iTunes is charging. The music industry is probably very concerned / interested, as well they should be.
On the "Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid" front, I noticed that I've put ninety hours into Steam based games in the past two weeks. That's roughly forty of BioShock, forty of Titan Quest, and ten of Audiosurf. Keep in mind, I also played Super Paper Mario and two episodes of Sam & Max start to finish and had a few social evenings which contained gaming not included in that figure. Now if I could just finagle a way to get paid for this... Nah. It wouldn't be any fun if I had to do it when someone else said to.
Speaking of not fun, Conflict: Denied Ops (possibly the most generic game title ever) came to GameTap recently. It got bad reviews, but so did Jericho, and I liked that well enough. It makes my eyes hurt. I have never gotten motion sickness playing games. You got a jet car you need piloted down a spiral tubeway, I'm your man. But C:DO is continually applying so many funky video effects, it drives my eyes nuts. Oh well. That's four gigs of hard drive space freed up.
In unrelated news, a spokesperson for id software said the company is changing focus to consoles. I suppose that doesn't mean much, as a whole. But as someone who loved DooM on the PC, even creating maps for it, it's disheartening. I suppose it's also disheartening as someone who just bought a PC. :P Meh. I'm sure I'll enjoy the new consoles when the prices finally drop. Plus a gaming world without free and uncensored user created content is a pretty horrible thought. I'm not saying that stuff completely justifies the expense of a PC, but it matters (a lot).
21 March, 2008
BioShock Ramblings and Wishes ***ALL SPOILERS***
In case the title isn't clear enough, this is me talking to myself about the experience of playing BioShock and is chock full of spoilers. If you don't like spoilers and you haven't played the game, don't read it. Thus endeth the obligatory spoiler warning.
First off, a fair amount of the game had been spoiled for me. I didn't know who Atlas really was (or wasn't). But I knew the basics of the Big Daddies and Little Sisters. I thought I knew the ending too, but I turned out to be misinformed.
So let's start at the ending. Does it really seem possible that your character led a normal life after all that? Seriously? Adam was supposed to be highly addictive, and Suchong's log called the Big Daddy procedure a one way street. And the whole claiming of "family" as the main theme of the game seemed strange.
I can see how they laid it in with the relationship of the Big Daddies and Tennenbaum to the Little Sisters. But it was never my motivation as a player, so it seemed out of place in the final cinematic. And the alternative ending was simply lame, as a fight scene, anyway. But I guess the general idea (you set your sights on world domination) was fine.
Working backwards, did anyone else find the Little Sister escort segment a total pain? The Little Sister's AI seemed so random. Sometimes they'd go the wrong way. Sometimes they'd run ahead in ambushes obliviously. Often they get directly underfoot, stopping me from being able to move at all. Where was the option to pick them up and carry them like the real Big Daddies would frequently do?
Still working backwards, why did my hands still look like those of a guy in a sweater when I was supposed to be wearing a Bid Daddy suit? It was cool that I could walk around freely, not attracting any attention, but it seemed pretty ridiculous that my hands didn't change.
And during that whole segment, why didn't Fontaine try to make a counteroffer? He keeps saying how trusting Tennenbaum is crazy, but he doesn't use any of the grisly details of her Nazi past to turn you against her. And he never offers to bring you back in. This is the man who built an army by manipulating the disenfranchised. I'm pretty sure he would have at least tried to turn the player.
All that BS about being betrayed that he spouts at the end of the game seemed like a bad joke. All you've done for the past two hours is tried to kill me. Suddenly my betrayal stings you now? You think guilt is the best play at this point when you've expressed no remorse of your own over any of the murders you've been responsible for?
I think those are my main endgame concerns. Back to the beginning.
Why are all the splicers completely insane? There were good people in Rapture. Sure, Ryan had some of them impaled on spikes in front of his office, but turning the splicers into mindless bad guys seemed like the easy way out. I was really happy that I could leave the mourning splicer in the mortuary alone. The same goes for the dancing splicers. I understand that Ryan worked mind control into the plasmids he distributed, but then why would splicers sometimes attack Big Daddies? Was that supposed to represent their addiction to Adam overpowering Ryan's programming. I guess that would make sense, but I just remembered someone's preview article saying a splicer gave a sobering treatise on loss, and that was more interesting than the splicers I encountered.
Sander Cohen was an interesting piece of work as well. I could leave him alone, but he was definitely a monster. But I carried out his horrible masterwork (Was there any way not to?), so that made me a monster too. That's probably what made the idea of just sinking the whole city so attractive. It's too bad that was never really an option. And of course, I couldn't just kill off the Little Sisters.
They were interesting for a couple reasons. Where does the player get the magical power to save them in the first place? Also, who harvested them? In the opening sequence, when the player is helpless on the ground, they don't harvest the player. How could anyone justify harvesting them? It's not like I was ever hard up for Adam, what with all the guns I had.
And weren't there just a few too many ammo types? I mean, six weapons with three ammo types each? Was that even remotely necessary? I deliberately didn't open up extra plasmid slots so that I could switch between them with my mouse wheel. It's too bad there was no similar option for weapons.
And the difficulty curve of the game seemed bizarre as well. Only the first few Big Daddies were a problem. As soon as I got the hypnotize plasmid, I just pitted them against each other and that was that. It took me longer, of course, to guide one Big Daddy to another. But outside of a few levels where only one Big Daddy would spawn, it seemed like the smartest way.
Of course, I felt bad killing them at all. They were doing a crappy job with more patience and tenderness than any other being in Rapture. Part of me would like to ghost the game. Without the Adam, it'd be much more difficult. But it wouldn't be impossible by any means. I might have to write a FAQ. :)
Finally, Ryan's death was a big event for me. It's a fairly graphic and brutal murder carried out in first person. Usually, you just shoot someone until the ragdoll physics kick in. But I beat Ryan to death with a golf club, each hit registering its effect (just bruising, no blood) on his face and in his speech. And he didn't stop talking. In most cases it would be less effective for being a cut scene, but the whole point of the plot twist is that the main character's will is not his own, and that while I thought I was following my self-interest, I was actually being mind controlled.
But if that were true, why did I elect to save the Little Sisters in the first place? Fontaine obviously hates Tennenbaum. Why let his little toy do her bidding?
Ah well. It's like most fiction. It doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. Still it was a fun ride, and I suspect it'll be a long time before we see a setting this novel and well realized again.
First off, a fair amount of the game had been spoiled for me. I didn't know who Atlas really was (or wasn't). But I knew the basics of the Big Daddies and Little Sisters. I thought I knew the ending too, but I turned out to be misinformed.
So let's start at the ending. Does it really seem possible that your character led a normal life after all that? Seriously? Adam was supposed to be highly addictive, and Suchong's log called the Big Daddy procedure a one way street. And the whole claiming of "family" as the main theme of the game seemed strange.
I can see how they laid it in with the relationship of the Big Daddies and Tennenbaum to the Little Sisters. But it was never my motivation as a player, so it seemed out of place in the final cinematic. And the alternative ending was simply lame, as a fight scene, anyway. But I guess the general idea (you set your sights on world domination) was fine.
Working backwards, did anyone else find the Little Sister escort segment a total pain? The Little Sister's AI seemed so random. Sometimes they'd go the wrong way. Sometimes they'd run ahead in ambushes obliviously. Often they get directly underfoot, stopping me from being able to move at all. Where was the option to pick them up and carry them like the real Big Daddies would frequently do?
Still working backwards, why did my hands still look like those of a guy in a sweater when I was supposed to be wearing a Bid Daddy suit? It was cool that I could walk around freely, not attracting any attention, but it seemed pretty ridiculous that my hands didn't change.
And during that whole segment, why didn't Fontaine try to make a counteroffer? He keeps saying how trusting Tennenbaum is crazy, but he doesn't use any of the grisly details of her Nazi past to turn you against her. And he never offers to bring you back in. This is the man who built an army by manipulating the disenfranchised. I'm pretty sure he would have at least tried to turn the player.
All that BS about being betrayed that he spouts at the end of the game seemed like a bad joke. All you've done for the past two hours is tried to kill me. Suddenly my betrayal stings you now? You think guilt is the best play at this point when you've expressed no remorse of your own over any of the murders you've been responsible for?
I think those are my main endgame concerns. Back to the beginning.
Why are all the splicers completely insane? There were good people in Rapture. Sure, Ryan had some of them impaled on spikes in front of his office, but turning the splicers into mindless bad guys seemed like the easy way out. I was really happy that I could leave the mourning splicer in the mortuary alone. The same goes for the dancing splicers. I understand that Ryan worked mind control into the plasmids he distributed, but then why would splicers sometimes attack Big Daddies? Was that supposed to represent their addiction to Adam overpowering Ryan's programming. I guess that would make sense, but I just remembered someone's preview article saying a splicer gave a sobering treatise on loss, and that was more interesting than the splicers I encountered.
Sander Cohen was an interesting piece of work as well. I could leave him alone, but he was definitely a monster. But I carried out his horrible masterwork (Was there any way not to?), so that made me a monster too. That's probably what made the idea of just sinking the whole city so attractive. It's too bad that was never really an option. And of course, I couldn't just kill off the Little Sisters.
They were interesting for a couple reasons. Where does the player get the magical power to save them in the first place? Also, who harvested them? In the opening sequence, when the player is helpless on the ground, they don't harvest the player. How could anyone justify harvesting them? It's not like I was ever hard up for Adam, what with all the guns I had.
And weren't there just a few too many ammo types? I mean, six weapons with three ammo types each? Was that even remotely necessary? I deliberately didn't open up extra plasmid slots so that I could switch between them with my mouse wheel. It's too bad there was no similar option for weapons.
And the difficulty curve of the game seemed bizarre as well. Only the first few Big Daddies were a problem. As soon as I got the hypnotize plasmid, I just pitted them against each other and that was that. It took me longer, of course, to guide one Big Daddy to another. But outside of a few levels where only one Big Daddy would spawn, it seemed like the smartest way.
Of course, I felt bad killing them at all. They were doing a crappy job with more patience and tenderness than any other being in Rapture. Part of me would like to ghost the game. Without the Adam, it'd be much more difficult. But it wouldn't be impossible by any means. I might have to write a FAQ. :)
Finally, Ryan's death was a big event for me. It's a fairly graphic and brutal murder carried out in first person. Usually, you just shoot someone until the ragdoll physics kick in. But I beat Ryan to death with a golf club, each hit registering its effect (just bruising, no blood) on his face and in his speech. And he didn't stop talking. In most cases it would be less effective for being a cut scene, but the whole point of the plot twist is that the main character's will is not his own, and that while I thought I was following my self-interest, I was actually being mind controlled.
But if that were true, why did I elect to save the Little Sisters in the first place? Fontaine obviously hates Tennenbaum. Why let his little toy do her bidding?
Ah well. It's like most fiction. It doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. Still it was a fun ride, and I suspect it'll be a long time before we see a setting this novel and well realized again.
20 March, 2008
Keepalive and Biz Talk
I finally started singing "If I Didn't Care" to myself again, so I went back and finished Bioshock, review forthcoming.
Titan Quest is on an indefinite hiatus. That game is long and dull and a pain in the later levels. I'm playing the most tanked up class in the game, and I can't pop potions fast enough to stay ahead of the damage some groups do. So I stand at the edge, pulling off one to three at a time and running back a safe distance to fight them. Dull and painfully slow is just to much for my ADD to bear.
Super Paper Mario isn't going that much better. There's a lot of backtracking in the game. Were these art assets really that hard to develop? And the action elements of the game don't satisfy. The humor is amusing at times, but overall it just makes me wish they'd done a proper sequel. (The older Paper Mario games were actiony RPGs, not platformers.)
Out in the world, Sony seems to be doing well. The 360 never caught on in Japan and is enacting price drops to try and stay in the race in Europe. And the PS3 actually outsold the 360 in the US in January and February. Microsoft is crying supply constraints, but that's probably a lie. When people can't find something at the store, they go online, and Amazon, still not able to stock the Wii a year and a half later, seems to have plenty of 360s (the new ones with HDMI) available for sale. Best Buy has it online. Circuit City is sold out online, but it says that all three locations within driving distance have them in stock. I don't see why they're not writing it off as a temporary bump due to HD DVD losing. Maybe it's because they know there's more failure on the horizon.
Sony has projects in the pipe that are targeted at broader audiences. I'm thinking specifically of Little Big Planet and Home. Microsoft has nothing broader audiences care about. Microsoft had an early lead (exaggerated by channel stuffing, of course), and it looks like they're squandering it very effectively.
At some level, though, it still feels like all of this is ridiculous ivory tower spitball fights. No real money starts changing hands until these machines drop to Wal-Mart buyer prices. The 1UP folks predicted a price drop on the 360 to coincide with the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, but that would only get the 360 down to the launch price of the PS2, so we're still only talking about serious gamers here. Speaking of which, the PS2 still outsold everything but the Wii and DS last month. Case closed.
Titan Quest is on an indefinite hiatus. That game is long and dull and a pain in the later levels. I'm playing the most tanked up class in the game, and I can't pop potions fast enough to stay ahead of the damage some groups do. So I stand at the edge, pulling off one to three at a time and running back a safe distance to fight them. Dull and painfully slow is just to much for my ADD to bear.
Super Paper Mario isn't going that much better. There's a lot of backtracking in the game. Were these art assets really that hard to develop? And the action elements of the game don't satisfy. The humor is amusing at times, but overall it just makes me wish they'd done a proper sequel. (The older Paper Mario games were actiony RPGs, not platformers.)
Out in the world, Sony seems to be doing well. The 360 never caught on in Japan and is enacting price drops to try and stay in the race in Europe. And the PS3 actually outsold the 360 in the US in January and February. Microsoft is crying supply constraints, but that's probably a lie. When people can't find something at the store, they go online, and Amazon, still not able to stock the Wii a year and a half later, seems to have plenty of 360s (the new ones with HDMI) available for sale. Best Buy has it online. Circuit City is sold out online, but it says that all three locations within driving distance have them in stock. I don't see why they're not writing it off as a temporary bump due to HD DVD losing. Maybe it's because they know there's more failure on the horizon.
Sony has projects in the pipe that are targeted at broader audiences. I'm thinking specifically of Little Big Planet and Home. Microsoft has nothing broader audiences care about. Microsoft had an early lead (exaggerated by channel stuffing, of course), and it looks like they're squandering it very effectively.
At some level, though, it still feels like all of this is ridiculous ivory tower spitball fights. No real money starts changing hands until these machines drop to Wal-Mart buyer prices. The 1UP folks predicted a price drop on the 360 to coincide with the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, but that would only get the 360 down to the launch price of the PS2, so we're still only talking about serious gamers here. Speaking of which, the PS2 still outsold everything but the Wii and DS last month. Case closed.
01 January, 2008
Mmm. Delicious LAN.
I never did finish the last room of my DooM map, but the LAN party was wonderful, just the same. Unreal Tournament 3 was actually quite fun. The addition of the hoverboard that lets you move faster (at the expense of falling off if you take damage) was a really good addition. Also, you can grapple onto the back of another vehicle when you're on the board. It's hard not to kill the guy boarding if you're piloting the vehicle, but when it works, it's crazy fun. I had one run where I was hooked to a fast moving hovercraft, swerving and jumping for dear life as we zipped through boulders and along cliff side trails. It was awesome.
We also played a fair amount of the favorite from the last LAN party, Quake Enemy Territory. Unfortunately, the learning curve was in full effect and we lost more than a couple rounds to new players learning how their gear worked or learning the map. Of course it was still better than the Wolfenstein Enemy Territory we played. Trying new user created maps is always a mixed bag. The good part about the game is that the combination of laughing (everyone else) and complaining (me) seems to balance out somehow.
There was also some Flatout 2 and Trackmania United. I'm not a really big fan of either as defeat comes swiftly and arbitrarily in both. The tracks we played on Trackmania weren't as bad as some of the ones we used to play (where no one could finish the course without falling out in the five minutes allotted), so that was nice. But even these "easier" tracks require you to know how to race, which most of us don't. I know you want to go into straightaways going fast, and that's about it.
Rise of Nations was our only excursion into RTS. (Ooops. I forgot World In Conflict. But WIC isn't really much fun.) I got some much needed sleep through the first RoN game (2AM to 4AM this morning). But I played in the game this afternoon as Professor Hubert Farnsworth. I even built a super collider. No rancid meatballs for me. :) I need to practice that game so I can pull my weight better. I'd probably prefer Company of Heroes to be the LAN party RTS of choice for our group, but it's got a pretty nasty learning curve as well, especially for people who've been playing Age of Empires for years. Rise of Nations is similar enough that they don't have to work too hard.
You always have to work hard if you're fighting humans, but we prefer not to do that. For one thing, we always have folks coming and going, so we can never reliably field full teams. Plus some people (me) do not have the best brought out in them by competition. Heck, I even resent UT3's bots who taunt me every single time they kill me. Look. I'm owning you. Our team is owning your team. You killed me once and suddenly you're "the daddy"? The developer's coded you to be petty and retarded? Add more game modes next time instead. Domination was great. It rewarded sticking together and teamwork.
But wait, you say, Team Fortress 2 has teamwork in the name. Yes it does, but there are no bots and we usually don't have enough folks to even field one complete team, which means no TF2. The same goes for Call of Duty 4. So we don't play two of the best FPS games going simply for lack of bot support. Meanwhile, Serious Sam 2, which feels more like a grind than a game in single player, has been completely played through and thoroughly enjoyed multiple times specifically because it supports a pile of people in co-op. If only Republic Commando had supported co-op. If only!
Long story short, I need a new computer and need to learn the build order in Rise of Nations. The end.
We also played a fair amount of the favorite from the last LAN party, Quake Enemy Territory. Unfortunately, the learning curve was in full effect and we lost more than a couple rounds to new players learning how their gear worked or learning the map. Of course it was still better than the Wolfenstein Enemy Territory we played. Trying new user created maps is always a mixed bag. The good part about the game is that the combination of laughing (everyone else) and complaining (me) seems to balance out somehow.
There was also some Flatout 2 and Trackmania United. I'm not a really big fan of either as defeat comes swiftly and arbitrarily in both. The tracks we played on Trackmania weren't as bad as some of the ones we used to play (where no one could finish the course without falling out in the five minutes allotted), so that was nice. But even these "easier" tracks require you to know how to race, which most of us don't. I know you want to go into straightaways going fast, and that's about it.
Rise of Nations was our only excursion into RTS. (Ooops. I forgot World In Conflict. But WIC isn't really much fun.) I got some much needed sleep through the first RoN game (2AM to 4AM this morning). But I played in the game this afternoon as Professor Hubert Farnsworth. I even built a super collider. No rancid meatballs for me. :) I need to practice that game so I can pull my weight better. I'd probably prefer Company of Heroes to be the LAN party RTS of choice for our group, but it's got a pretty nasty learning curve as well, especially for people who've been playing Age of Empires for years. Rise of Nations is similar enough that they don't have to work too hard.
You always have to work hard if you're fighting humans, but we prefer not to do that. For one thing, we always have folks coming and going, so we can never reliably field full teams. Plus some people (me) do not have the best brought out in them by competition. Heck, I even resent UT3's bots who taunt me every single time they kill me. Look. I'm owning you. Our team is owning your team. You killed me once and suddenly you're "the daddy"? The developer's coded you to be petty and retarded? Add more game modes next time instead. Domination was great. It rewarded sticking together and teamwork.
But wait, you say, Team Fortress 2 has teamwork in the name. Yes it does, but there are no bots and we usually don't have enough folks to even field one complete team, which means no TF2. The same goes for Call of Duty 4. So we don't play two of the best FPS games going simply for lack of bot support. Meanwhile, Serious Sam 2, which feels more like a grind than a game in single player, has been completely played through and thoroughly enjoyed multiple times specifically because it supports a pile of people in co-op. If only Republic Commando had supported co-op. If only!
Long story short, I need a new computer and need to learn the build order in Rise of Nations. The end.
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