The Omnivangelist

I’ve always been fascinated why it is that I so enjoy games like Dreamfall: The Longest Journey and Shenmue. Another game in the same genre, which failed to capture my interest, was Indigo Prophecy. In this piece, we explore what makes this type of game attractive, where the enjoyment comes from, and where the other games might fail in this genre.

Before we get into details, we should be clearer exactly what genre we are referring to. The games that fall into this category are typically third person, adventure based games with the primary driver of the action being the storyline. The characters are important and develop throughout the storyline. Usually, the plot unfolds to the player in the same way it would to the reader of a book. Games in this category are often referred to as adventure titles, and understandably so, while games like Indigo Prophecy prefer the term interactive film.

Regardless of the category, there are a few elements that appear common throughout all of the story driven adventure titles:

1.    Presentation and graphical quality are important. Background scenery, the setting and the player character all have to look great, if not state of the art. Action takes second chair to the storyline so the fine details in the presentation have to make up for it.

2.    The attention to detail plays a special part of these games. Shenmue for example goes to the extreme making every drawer in desk open, and every item on a shelf moveable. Ryo, the main character in Shenmue can keep a collection keepsakes from your travels including photos, key chains, lighters, maps, and scrolls of kung fu moves. Soda and candy machines work in the game, every person walking down the street has voice-acted dialogue, and all doors can be knocked on even if no one answers. It’s these details, which bring a sense that anything is possible within the world the gamer is immersed, even if in reality the size of the fantasy world setting is small. Dreamfall adds small details in the extensive voice acted dialogue and narration as well as the background scenery. I’ve found myself staring out into the skyline of Capetown as Zöe observing the little spaceships flying slowly in commuter traffic in the distant sky. Dreamfall took great care in dressing their fantasy world with special touches, which make the world believable. Action titles can omit detail like this as the player’s attention is primarily focused on the action, fighting mechanics, short-term goals, or grinding.

3.    The player character is almost always an everyman type character. The story often opens with the action coming to the player character, not the other way around. Ryo’s father was killed, leaving him to unravel the mystery surrounding his death. Zöe’s ex-boyfriend suddenly disappears after asking her for a simple favour. She embarks on a quest to search for him. Indigo Prophecy puts you in many player character’s shoes, slowly revealing the storyline through overlapping perspectives, but the beginning action, a murder, is initiated on your behalf.

4.    Time is typically unlimited. The player is not often challenged in fast paced stressful situations. For this reason the anxiety found in action titles, which require instinctive action is often replaced with puzzles and brain teasers which require clever tactics, pattern analysis, and thinking outside of the box. The challenge certainly exists, but in a different form – one which is not demanding of haste. This can lead to a sense of relaxation which caters to the casual gamer, who many want a challenge, but without the anxiety of PvP or fast paced action titles.

Photo: Dreamfall has wonderfully immersive settings

5.    There are short, medium and long-term goals. The medium goals advance the storyline and the long-term goal is to conclude the story and learn the ending. The goal becomes the story.  This requires that the story be enjoyable. If the story fails to catch the player’s interest, the game has failed the player.

6.    The player has to care about the characters, or at least some of them. For this reason, the characters, like the story, have to be interesting, believable, the player must identify with them in some way. This was discussed earlier as Fantasy, Fiction and Narrative and the pleasure found from character identification.

Photo: The romantic element of Shenmue we can all identify with.

7.    It has been commented that since Gone With the Wind, romance has taken front seat in the movie industry because romance is universally admired and allows filmmakers to market to larger audiences internationally. This trend is often leverage in games as well, often involving romantic themes to help players identify with the characters.

Just as the focus and strength of the story based game involve what was discussed above, there are ways to ruin the experience of the story-based game. Indigo Prophecy, unfortunately, ruined the experience of the adventure for me. Many action scenes requiring spontaneous action were laced within the storyline. For example, you wake up within the story from bed, to a knock on your apartment door and find it is a police officer. You are tasked with hiding all the evidence of a murder you committed (bloody shirt, etc) before answering the door, and a timer is started. I failed this task multiple times searching helplessly for what tasks needed to be completed before opening the door. The only method I found worked was that each failure identified one item I had missed – the cop would see the blood on the towel, so put the towel in the hamper next time, etc. Another timed event placed you in a cover-up where you needed to save a boy and provide “mouth to mouth” playing some sort of mini-game with the buttons. The anxiety of these tasks ruined the experience as the failures resulted from not understanding controls, and relying on trial and error rather than problem solving skills. Just like in tabletop RPGs, if the player is going to fail, or die, it better be based on a poor decision, not on lack of understanding of the options, controls, camera, or situation.

Many adventure games involve mini-games within the regular game. Shenmue literally includes the previous Suzuki titles, Afterburner 2, Super Hang-On, and others, Dreamfall has mini-games for hacking with your cell phone, but Indigo Prophecy relied too heavily on these games rather than the story. It was enough to ruin my “flow” and pull me back to the surface and discontinue the game.

Story based adventure games have come into their own since the mid-1990’s when audio technology opened the door for deep narration, character dialogue and other immersive elements such as moving background music. The genre will likely evolve toward the interactive fiction realm in the future, as Indigo Prophecy suggests, perhaps becoming the paperback of the next generation.

References:

Neal Stephenson comments on romance in movies:
http://fora.tv/2008/05/08/Neal_Stephenson_Science_Fiction_as_a_Literary_Genre

Stumble it!

Kengo: Legend of the 9 is a poor game – a poor game with a good battle mechanic. My first two nights wresting with this game were frustrating. I couldn’t believe how many faux pas a single game could commit, all in one game! It’s as though effort was put into actually defeating the aspect of fun to be found while playing. I wrote a journal of thoughts to not miss or drop some.

1. The default sound balance in the game is atrocious. Why the hell are the enemy footsteps so loud? It sounded like crunching leaves under feet inside a seashell right next to my ear (Rainbow Six Vegas also suffers from this). Ok, let’s pause the game and lower the sound effects volume. No options available from the pause menu? What? I have to listen to the loud crunching until I get to a save point?

2. Wasting fighting stamina is bad, but the best strategy to kill the “brigands” seems to be running in circles, avoid using the lock-on feature, luring the brigands to a spot where the background prevents them from backing up (dodging) my attacks and then laying into them. The fighting mechanics the developer seems to want you to use and master are “short-circuited” as easier means of cheesing the AI exist.

Even worse, stand at the bottom of the staircase leading down to the water in Musashi’s Stage 1. While standing at the bottom of the staircase, you get a free hit on opponents walking down the stairs.  You can horizontal strike at them when their feet are at the height of your horizontal sword strike. Using this I could clear the first stage (pre-boss) within 3 minutes taking very little damage. Contrary to Musashi’s own writing (see General Game Strategy Part 5 - Miyamoto Musashi) fighting from lower ground proves tactically superior. Musashi just rolled over in his grave.

3. I get killed by the first boss (several times) and I‘m forced to watch myself lying dead on the ground for a good 12 seconds without ability to skip. Must I really wallow in failure? A loading screen finally appears, which takes me, what? … back to title screen. I have to start a new game. Ok, can I change my options now?

I retry stage 1. I end up killing the first boss by waiting until he locks in a sword clinch, parrying to the side, then scoring a side shot knocking the chump off a cliff. Good night sweet prince!

4. In between stages, I manage to buy one skill with my accumulated experience. It’s unfortunate that was I 100 points short of buying a second skill, because, regretfully you lose all that wonderful experience you fought for in battle. Since when can you “lose” experience?

Stage 2. The key to killing the Yagyu ninjas, who talk a lot for ninjas(!) is to lead them to the dreaded staircase, and hack at their feet. I’d love to recommend you use your sword fighting tactics, and even perhaps your new skills but how could I recommend that when you can perfect ninja after ninja by cheesing them on the staircase?

The Yagyu boss kills me. I’m done for Night 1.

Night 2 of Kengo: Legend of the 9.

Ok, I found the way to cheese through most stages: find a location with stairs, a ramped incline (bridge, walkway) and play the altitude game. The designers didn’t make the game around fighting at different heights. They focused on other mechanics, so the exploits were left in this area of the fighting mechanics.

A few more things reflect very poorly on this game (to add to the list above):

The camera is atrocious and often starts right behind you. A perfect example is the instant your fight begins with Sasaki Kojiro on the beach. Thanks a lot guys, can you stop centering it right on my back so I can see something other than the fabric of my kimono?

6. Why does your stamina not recharge in between the initial fight with the minions and the boss? It forces me to recharge a little before engaging the boss. I know I know, I’m supposed to learn better how to manage my stamina right? Well then, If you’re going to make me manage my stamina in such a way, then the least you can do in return not have me listen to my character and the boss talk rubbish for 2 minutes. If I have time to smack talk, then I have time to recharge stamina, dammit.

7. The AI tries to watch your fighting style as you play and chooses traits it believes fit you, the player. Traits such as “swings through air” and “weak to attacks” are just plain insulting. Who the hell wants to have the computer tell them they suck when trying to build their legendary fighter? Seriously… I had the computer AI imitate “myself” versus “myself” and it was two Musashi’s hacking each other without ever blocking and even suffering multiple double strikes where they’d both fall down and bleed. It was laughable and equally insulting!

I’m sure the maps are lovely in Kengo, as the background artwork is nice, but why would l walk around and see the great work they put into the backgrounds when it’s simply a waste of stamina? It’s more economical to stay in one place. This works against the one of the game’s strengths.

8. Ok. After a few losses to Kojiro, I finish the main character mode with Musashi. Now that I’ve built my character just how I want, I’m rewarded with being unable to play him again in story mode. The good news is I unlocked Kojiro. I play him a little and lose to Musashi. The computer loves to start up a nice fast combo every time you try to clinch - evil.

That’s enough for Night 2. I turn off the game.

9. It’s true; Kengo has one big strength – the fighting mechanic. There lies a potentially deep strategy below much of the rubbish in this title. Someone was on to something. The one recourse this game could have is in its PvP game. But, the ninth deadly sin of Kengo is lack of online play. For a game that really only has a singular strength in it’s mechanics, to omit online play is unforgivable.

Frankly, the largest motivation I had to continue playing Kengo: Legend of the 9 was that it provided me a great opportunity to understand and analyze why it’s so poorly polished. Kengo seems to make an exerted effort to defeat your will to enjoy the game and it’s horribly regrettable because many of these small issues could easily be fixed. I could focus on the good aspect of this game, but Kengo better illustrates what doesn’t work for a game.

Stumble it!

The year is 1988 and I’m sitting in a room in a trailer with cat litter on the floor. My fingers hover over the keys of an Apple IIc. I pop in a 5.25” floppy, close the side hatch and flip the power switch in the back left of the machine. The monitor lights up, the computer beeps at me through a tinny PC speaker, and then the hard emits its quintessential rumble. The Ultima 5: Warriors of Destiny boot screen slowly renders on my screen. Ok, it’s my friend’s screen. I couldn’t afford a computer so I mooched his during the many, many weekend sleepovers.

Ultima 5 is a game that I’ll never forget, partly because it took me 15 years to beat it, literally, however, think of the pull a game has that draws back a player for 15 years. Ultima presented such a challenge that finishing the game became an obsession for many. And it was never so much fun.
So what made Ultima 5 succeed in holding my attention far longer than games like GTA4 and Metal Gear Solid 4?

First, back in 1988 my expectations of what a good game was lower than today. Only a couple years earlier, the best game in the world was Super Mario Bros. Secondly, I had limited options. Today I can have almost any game I want – back in 1988, I had zero income so whatever friend had the game of interest was my best option. But 15 years after the fact, these issues were not concerns. Ultima 5 remains a phenomenal game. Let’s examine.

Ultima 5 mastered the idea of consumption – exploring all land for the sake of exploring it. There were no mapping features in games at the time, but a nice cloth map, yes cloth (!), came with the game. Britannia was like a real globe, there was no end to the world – it would wrap around on itself. Travel in Ultima 5 was difficult. It was as if you were traveling in real life. You needed a means of transportation unless you wanted to walk. If you resorted to walking, time passed by very quickly because walking on foot is slow. This meant that you had to make camp and sleep more often, and consume more meals between travels. Resting was also a dangerous prospect in Britannia. If you wanted to truly have a chance, you had to post a watchman every time you slept such that if you were attacked, you could be alerted to the threat before it could surround and attack you. During certain moon phases, a wandering spirit would heal you if you rested enough. The mere fact that the game progressed in minutes and seconds, days, nights, and the natural phases of the moon was amazing. Seriously. If you bought a pocket watch and looked at the time, then pressed the space bar on the keyboard, and looked at the watch again, it had progressed a few seconds. Very detailed. Every NPC (non-player character) in the game lived on a daily routine. Come 6 a.m. villagers would start to wake up and go for breakfast at the town hall. Shortly thereafter, they’d proceed to work. This included the merchants whose stores you wished to purchase from. At night, everyone would proceed to bed and occupy the beds in the town. If you took rest in a bed during the day and decided to sleep 8 hours, its occupant’s kick you out of bed come nightfall.

Another amazing aspect of Ultima 5 was its spells. There weren’t many spells, but that didn’t matter. Even the basic spells were cherished. To cast a spell, you first had to know the spell even existed, which meant that you had to have adventured somewhere to find someone knowledgeable enough to inform you of the spell. Next, you needed ingredients. Ingredients were not easy to come by. To get a full load of all the ingredients in the game of Ultima 5 would require trips around Britannia to at least a few cities, which specialized in each type of reagent.

Photo: The Map of Britannia

Even having the reagents and the knowledge of the spell’s recipe wasn’t enough. You then had to successfully mix the reagents together to create the potion, which could be used to cast the spell. You had to become an alchemist as well as a magician.

Photo: Ultima 5 screenshot

Ultima 5 didn’t give up its secrets easily; you had to work very hard to progress. Finding better weapons was very difficult. Often many hours of dungeon crawling were required to find a great weapon, such as the magic axe. Fighting was also difficult. Often, your player would attack during his turn only to completely miss the enemy. There were no registered hit points on enemies. You only knew the condition of the creature. When a creature was killed and left a treasure chest behind, it was possible that the treasure chest was rigged with a trapped that needed to be disarmed. Every step of the way, Ultima complicated progression without feeling unfair. This made attaining goals ultimately satisfying.

The Ultima 5 storyline could also be ignored. The story was not linear at all. Many of the dungeons could be explored out of order. The primary goal of the game was to save Lord British, but the intermediate goals were to find the three items of Lord British, his crown, scepter and amulet. Another intermediate goal was to pray at shrines and gain stat points, which was a task taken seriously as any boost to your fighters possible was worthy. However, at times the storyline would be pushed aside and I’d mess around. For example, there was a town right next to Lord British’s castle (British himself is missing, and so the throne is occupied by a daemon). Britannia therefore is in relative chaos, though the rule of law remains strong due to very aggressive and authoritative guards. However, this town only had several guards. At night you could sneak into the guard’s sleeping quarters and strike and kill one of them. But then you had to high tail it out of there before the other guards woke up and chased you in pursuit. As long as you made it successfully out of town without incident the guard would be gone forever. Slowly, I killed every guard in the town. My wrath descended upon this township. I was now ruler. How many games today allow you to kill all vestige of authority and truly rule a land? I pillaged the farmland stealing all the farmers planted crops. This prevented me from having to buy food indefinitely. The sense of exhilaration from the opportunity of being able to kill all the guards and take over a complete town felt amazing. Another aspect to this is that it felt like the game never planned on players even attempting such a thing. As a player, I felt like I had discovered a hidden aspect of the game. This resulted in a genuine feeling of discovery. I believe that even few games today feel as limitless as this felt. Even more, once I conquered the three town’s surrounding British’s castle, I started my career as a pirate.

Sailing the open seas in Britannia is no easy chore. Shallow waters can be traversed in a rowboat but the deep waters require a serious vessel. Buying a boat is super expensive, so the easiest option to us adventurers was to lure a big pirate vessel toward shallow waters, avoiding the canon fire, and board and usurp the vessel. This earned me my first ship. Sailing is another task, which requires an understanding in Ultima. Rowing is tiring and slow, so utilizing the wind direction allows for faster travel. You must be mindful however or else you can run into land and damage your ship. There are many pirates on the open seas of Britannia. Exchanging cannon fire is never preferable to boarding the enemy vessel and dispatching its crew. The ancillary benefit is that you get an additional ship, which stays on the open seas until another pirate crew boards and overtakes it, sometimes taking weeks. Saving the game recorded details such as this. Eventually I had reached my height. I managed to dock 17 full ships at the dock to Lord British’s castle. Slowly pirates stole these ships, but the golden age of my ventures into piracy will never be forgotten.

Ultima 5 was amazingly charming, even in the simple text conversations you had with peasants, merchants, and villagers. One thing was clear: the residents of Britannia do not enjoy foul language. Uttering the “F-word” to anyone in the game led to the reply, “With language like that how did thou become an avatar?” The F word was not the only word recognized. Even the C-word was recognized! (C-nt). I was surprised that such a simple game would go so far.

Exploring dungeons and the underworld was major chore as well. You could obtain these gems that would allow you to see a map of the surrounding area. Mapping information was scarce and valuable. Having mapped a dungeon could make you popular with friends also playing the game. It was timing consuming and treacherous to undertake mapping he underworld. Eventually you would run out of food, or be weary from surprise attacks upsetting your party’s rest. Sometimes you could actually become trapped in the underworld, and forced on a march to find anyway possible back to Britannia. Sometimes, you’d be caught in a whirlpool in the ocean and your ship would sink down to the underworld far from a portal. Other times, you’d reach the bottom floor of a dungeon only to discover that the entire dungeon was a door to the underworld – the adventure wasn’t ending, it was just beginning!

Ultima 5 had difficult puzzles, requiring players to map and record information. Even the language in the game at times had to be translated, much like the language in Lord of the Rings. With 8 dungeons (64 levels total) a complete over-world and underworld with dozens of towns, keeps, and castles, both land and water travel, Ultima 5 felt truly limitless. This doesn’t even take into account all the characters you could meet at a pub or wherever and convince to join your party.

Today, games work hard on creating elaborate worlds, visually rich and aesthetic, but few worlds despite consisting of primitive tiled graphics, felt as vast and wonderful as Britannia.

References:

http://www.kehlet.cx/articles/87.html

Stumble it!

I pre-ordered Grand Theft Auto 4 for PS3. It came in the mail shortly after release day, just in time for me to play it all weekend - and play it all weekend I did. My first impressions were that the graphics were the best I’ve seen, an opinion I still hold. I made this statement in a review on Metal Gear Solid 4, which has amazing graphics, but GTA4’s blurring effects, especially at high speeds, gives it a special feel. Also, the colours feel washed out, similar to Shadow of the Colossus, a favourite.

I thoroughly enjoyed GTA4 right up to shortly past the Snow Storm mission, which was quite a rush. Shortly after that mission, however, I stopped playing GTA4. Reaching toward my entertainment center itching to game I hesitated to put GTA4 back into my Blu-ray drive. But GTA4 is a superior game right? Even I didn’t know the reason, but there is something within us that directs our attention and desire towards what we choose to play.

I became bent recently on figuring why I hadn’t returned to GTA4. I still haven’t even though I’ve played a few additional missions since it fell off the proverbial cliff.

I decided to understand my aversion to GTA4. Returning to the game to investigate, I realized right away one thing I dislike: the incessant cell phone calls from friends and girlfriends looking to hang out, under the penalty of losing face with them if you decline. Ignoring the phone calls from girlfriends and friends obviously has consequences, but I didn’t know how negative the consequences were. Perhaps the thumbs down you get and the loss of a few points is all that is lost, or perhaps you might permanently lose the ability gained from a friend such as the legal support from Kiki or the racing with Bruce if you neglect them enough, and perhaps that loss is permanent. Now, surely it’s known now what the repercussions of neglecting the calls are now, but I refuse to refer to a FAQ on a game to find out. Once you open the door to using a FAQ, the temptation to completely submit to using the FAQ for the rest of the game is present. I’ve sworn a code not to use a FAQ on a game I have decided I want to thoroughly enjoy.

So back to the dilemma with refusing phone calls. Because I don’t know the total potential penalty for refusing phone calls, I answered them all, and had to race around Liberty City for a booty call here, and billiards there, and getting plump with Roman at the diner. This presented the first big turn off. Think about it. I’m a badass killer yet I can’t even be free from the nuisance of a cell phone! I began to cringe whenever my cell phone rang. Eventually I broke down and started ignoring all calls out of spite – even mission related calls. GTA’s needy, nagging, friends might seem to complement the game play experience, and for some it likely does, but for me it drove me away from the game. The thought of actually having to hang out with friends in the future just to gain back skills and favour with them seems like a waste of time. To this day I haven’t spent one second on such a task. Repetitive tasks have to be done for earning something of worth such as skill building, or earning something new - not as a means of continuously re-earning valueless, or things of limited value.

Dwelling on it some more, another theory I have is that the world of GTA4 feels limited. Yes, that’s right, it sounds crazy to say that. If you pop up the map in GTA4, Liberty City is very large. In fact, driving around Liberty City can take hours and never in a game has a city been laid out in such detail. When you look at the map however, how many places on the map actually host activities – options – for Nico? There is bowling, billiards, darts, diners, comedy clubs, clothing stores and a handful of other options. I’m not saying the mini-games are poor, because they aren’t. In fact the mini-games are designed quite well. But they are nonetheless mini-games, which are only enjoyable to a certain extent. It doesn’t take much to master darts or billiards in fact. It also seems a little meager to indulge much in the mini-games in a game centered on cars. Racing is perhaps one of the more useful mini-games, but you have to be able to stomach time with Bruce, that putz. Even then, you don’t earn much for winning. Money? Where the hell-in GTA4 can you spend your money? To my knowledge, there are few options.

How long do you spend in the Internet café browsing the web once you’ve met and laid Kiki? Almost never - other than to answer email that might progress the story. I personally can find few tasks in GTA4 that provide a strong sense of worthiness to proceed with other than the primary storyline. Granted, I’m likely a little spent on GTA as I thoroughly played, and enjoyed, part three for the PS2. GTA4 really is a better version of that game released years later on better hardware. I’m saying this as a fan of the series – but I must be honest. The fun to be had by simply voyaging the city and wandering into trouble is not zero, surely. GTA4 can easily surprise you with some of the randomness it presents, and I believe this achievement in gaming is almost unparalleled. Only Assassin’s Creed comes close to a world as detailed as Liberty City. I wanted to believe that the sense of limitation of Liberty City is that its far less desirable for a game to present a large world with few options, then a small world with enduring options infested with goals and tasks of merit. The rebuttal to this theory though is Shadow of the Colossus (SoTC). I love SoTC, yet SoTC also has a large world with very few options. So why do I love the world in SoTC but not Liberty City as much?  Perhaps it’s the isolation you feel in SoTC that makes the difference. I often find myself enjoying riding Agro, my trusty horse, observing small details of the empty world that surrounds me. If you’ve ever ridden through the dust storm in the desert near the Phalanx boss in SoTC, you might remember seeing the sun through the dust and the beautiful shades of red. There is something aesthetically special and artistic in SoTC that stimulates an interest. Thinking about this further, I must admit that I also have enjoyed sitting on the beach in Liberty City watching the airplanes in the sky. I think part of the answer is that in SoTC, the exploration of the world is about consumption. I ran into an article on this and it opened my eyes. If GTA4 had made the map initially unavailable or obscured, I would have found some sense of accomplishment in exploring Liberty City, but each section of the city immediately becomes available to you throughout the game. SoTC creates a sense of exploration (through consumption) by obscuring the map cloudy until you manage to travel to each area. Other notable games, which do the same, are Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and Super Metroid.

Liberty City too has its aesthetics, but another problem is Nico, the main character. I can’t really relate with Nico. I also don’t feel any sympathy for him - his problems are not personal for me (read about this in the Everyman reference). Actually I don’t really care about any character in the game except perhaps Jacob. Moving back to Nico, compare him to Wanda in Shadow of the Colossus. In SoTC, the character is mute, which allows for the player to imprint on the character the emotions and image that they want. This is not possible with Nico. He is a character with dialogue, emotions, and an image. He’s not a bad character by any means, but certainly the reception the player gives Nico will differ from that of Wanda in SoTC. With Wanda, I’m able to picture him in my mind as I would myself.  With Nico, I picture him as a Russian veteran of war newly immigrated to America – an image far from my own. It takes quite a bit of skill for a developer to get a teenager to relate in any serious way with such a main character. Perhaps the recognition of this difficulty is a testament to the mute everyman protagonist, and why so many games use the silent everyman character model. I do believe that I would enjoy Liberty City more as a mute character, or a character I can customize, rather than as Nico. GTA3 felt closer to being a mute character than GTA4, which lent to me enjoying the game more. Thinking about this further I wondered why it is that Solid Snake is an exception to this rule. I believe the answer is that Solid Snake started out as a mute character and only after many games was he fleshed out with a personality, by then, the sentimental aspect of Metal Gear Solid exceeded any issues with character personality relation.

Back to the feeling of limitation in Liberty City, I want to understand this sentiment. Another theory is that in SoTC, few options are available to me, but I am aware of it. It becomes very clear that you only have a sword, bow, and horse and that the land is simply a vacant territory long lost to the ages. That’s part of the challenge, you have nothing! The rest of the game is your skill and wits uncovering its ancient mysteries. In GTA4, I seem to have many options, weapons, and a big world to explore, but end up finding those expectations fall short. Perhaps it’s that there are few mysteries for me to uncover in Liberty City. This also includes the lack of options for which to spend your money. I believe the point to be made is, it’s better to present a player with few but solid options than to over-promise options and under-deliver. In an interview, Hirokazu Yasuhara comments, “There’s a difference between making a game and making a virtual world and putting it in a package. It’s the job of the game master to take that world and give you the motivation to move through it. If you don’t, then that won’t leave the player satisfied.”
The design by subtraction employed by SoTC apparently works. I plan on investigating this more. The player is given more latitude to imprint what they desire on what is omitted. There is a saying that it takes 100 compliments to compensate for one put down. The corollary of this would be it takes 100 pleasant surprises in a game to compensate for one letdown.

In SoTC, the control system for the player is rather complex. It may seem awkward at first and some decry SoTC’s controls, but I am of the opinion they are actually intentionally designed that way. Wanda seems to move like an unskilled fighter. When you play as a warrior who moves similar to a novice, you are more likely to relate to the character, as most video gamers are not experienced warriors or swordsmen. Comparatively, I believe GTA4 has improved controls over the previous entries in the series, but not controls that are central to the game. I’m not referring to car driving primarily, but rather the gun fighting and melee controls. Unrefined controls also seem to limit the sense of what is possible in a game. It immediately sends me the signal, “There isn’t much to look for here.”

Another point, In SoTC, you build a sense that you own the territory that you are a conqueror. Dispatching the colossi only furthers your sense of accomplishment as all threats to your territory are removed. In Liberty City, I never gain the sense of ownership over anymore than the loft from which I save the game. I don’t even feel I own the cars I drive. They can be lost in a heartbeat. Moreover, the cops are so plentiful in Liberty City that you always feel on the defensive, frustrated if you happen to bumper-kiss a police cruiser. Perhaps the ownership idea can be used as an advantage in a game, removing the sense of security from the player and adding to the stress, or drama. But this leaves me with a sense that there is no reason to conquer anything in Liberty City, as there is nothing to be gained.

Lastly, if you’ve listened to the radio in GTA4, eventually you know it by heart and get sick of it, despite the good selection and humor laced within. The talk radio stations are the first to get old, and then I usually end up resorting to the channel with the best music, or turning the radio off. I noticed long ago in Tomb Raider that omitting the music in the game could have a stunning effect. With the music off, it’s easy to become engrossed in the game play. SoTC also uses this technique of having very sparse music.

I don’t mean to single out GTA4 for criticism on its open world design. Assassin’s Creed is another game with superior graphics, mechanics, and design, which also suffers from what feels like a lack of options. A large world placed at your fingertips yet the entire experience feels like a few simple tasks before it’s complete. In a future piece I will be focusing on a game, which featured an open world that felt limitless, Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny. This game was on the Apple IIc, yet conjured a sense of depth, rarely felt since.

References:

Consumption:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1902/game_design_essentials_20_open_.php?page=7)

Analysis of the Everyman Player Character:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1420/the_everyman_and_the_action_hero_.php

Interview Quote:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3769/game_design_psychology_the_full_.php

Stumble it!

Grasshopper’s No More Heroes is a fun game. I got sucked into the game play right away in this gem for the Wii console. After hours of being glued to saber battling, I started to apply what I’ve been learning and reading to this game. What is it about No More Heroes that makes it fun? Here’s my analysis:

1.    The Wii-mote mechanics take front seat in the action in No More Heroes. Careful attention was paid to what mechanics would work what would not. For example, unlike Red Steel, the saber fighting does not primarily consist of waving around the mote. Requiring this would be too much work for the player, and even more importantly, the speed the player could swing the sword would be much slower than Goichi Suda would want. No More Heroes is a beat’em hack and slash, action packed sword-fighting game; it’s not a sword fighting game of refined technique like Kengo Legend of the 9. Speed is desirable in No More Heroes, and this is why the A button waves the sword.

2.    Throw moves add variety and add a quirky Suda tribute to his favourite, Lucha Libre. High and low sword attacks add a simple, but effective at adding an element of offense and defense. The opponents could be mindless and never block which would be too little. They could randomly block which would lead to momentum breaks that the player cannot control. Instead, having two options where the enemies block either high or low makes it enough to prevent the player from mowing down crowds of baddies too easily, while not hindering the ability of the player to continue indefinitely on streaks of sword swinging victory. The high/low block mechanism creates excellent balance between difficulty and high momentum.

3.    Suda makes use of Hirokazu’s goal creation by having short, medium and long-term goals. Short-term goals are working jobs, driving your bike from location to location, and clearing a room of baddies with your beam sword. The Medium term goals are the earning of money required to enter the next competition and defeating each of the 10 bosses in the game. The long-term goal is to be #1 ranked.

4.    The goal of the game is made very clear from the beginning in No More Heroes. This is a clever move, which relates to Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of flow requiring clear goals and feedback (Rules of Play p 337). Once the player has a clear understanding of the goals in the game, they will know what to expect and be able to focus on achieving that goal. When the goal(s) of a game is (are) unclear, the player’s interest can wane. Ever been in a game where you didn’t know what to do next? It’s no fun. Unless there is some mystery, which keeps their attention, they are likely to question why they are spending their time doing whatever it is they are doing in the game. No More Heroes makes it clear right in the opening sequence that your goal is to defeat the top ten killers and take the first ranked slot. Now all the player needs to do is hop to it.

5.    Fun through Customization: Players can customize Travis Touchdown by changing his clothing and accessories. GTA4 also makes use of this small customization as well. Many players want to look cool. They are the hero right? If they don’t like the generic look of most action hero’s default costumes, they will be less likely to bond with that character.

6.    No More Heroes makes use of the Action Hero player character model. Travis Touchdown brings the action. All he had to do was meet a woman in a bar. This man finds action wherever he goes.

7.    Many small elements have been added to the game to break the monotony that might be felt if the fighting game play got repetitive. Suda 51 learned this painful lesson well in his disastrous Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked for PS2. He had tried a few new ideas and it just didn’t hold up well (Sorry Suda, you’ve more than made up for it though). Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked, an ironically fitting name, suffered from lack of interesting fighting mechanics. The fighting and the music synched up, and there were some interesting combos. So why’d the fighting in that game fail miserably? There was no variety. After a few screens of fighting bad guys, you mostly likely already explored the totality of the combat options and it felt like it. No More Heroes breaks this monotony and limitation with quite a few elements: Throws, blocking, finishing moves, charge attacks, recharging your saber batteries, getting cell phone calls on your Wii-mote and to make sure there was enough to keep us interested, a slot machine was added so that every kill the player achieves spins the slot machine for a chance at a special bonus power attack. There are a variety of bonus attack types chosen at random which let the player feel there is always something different around the corner in the next confrontation (i.e. happy coincidences).

8.    Additionally, many types of enemies are thrown at you. This variety also helps. The baseball player enemies are a good example, adding the mini-game of swinging the beam saber to send baseballs back at them. Samurai Champloo suffered from lack of variety in enemies, but Killer 7 had many different enemy types, and if you remember, there was always a unique “Smile” before every boss encounter. Goichi Suda has kept this variety between his two successful titles.

9.    The Boss fights are key to the storyline. There is little value in just killing baddies with the saber, though fun. It’s the bosses that make No More Heroes special. Each of these bosses is a unique, comically absurd, larger than life character. Each of them also sets a milestone in the game demarcating the enjoyment in defeating a great boss and raising your rank and status. And personally, some of these bosses are the coolest seen in quite a while. Where did Suda get these freaks?

10.    Spectacular kills, lots and lots of blood, and tons of gold pieces flying about; No More Heroes gives the player a strong sense of victory and even the sense they are the invincible-hero (an archetype seldom seen since Steven Seagal stopped starring in films). The fighting would not be the same if the blood and all the coins were omitted. The blood is a reward in eye-candy. The challenge in the non-boss fight scenes of No More Heroes is not presented in the form of one bad guy. It would be difficult to play so poorly that one typical baddie would kill you. Rather, the player may make a mistake here and there, one on this guy, another on the third guy, and these mistakes add up. The difficulty therefore is presented in the limitations of flawless cumulative performance. This clever balance keeps the momentum very high in the fighting and reinforces the player’s feel of invincibility. By the end of the game, the player can believe they are truly role-playing the best fighter in Santa Destroy. The second form of difficulty is the boss-fights. These fights present the real substantial challenge in the game. This time the difficulty is presented in patterns, which must be understood, unwound and exploited by the player. Again, speed is maximized in the fighting. This leaves little time for the player to think, forcing more instinctive action, bringing a sense of thrill.

The sword fighting in No More Heroes is kept simple enough so that it is fast, easy to grasp and the player can hack and slash and violently and spectacularly kill bad guys without reading a manual or practicing for hours. The fast pace of the game is very important. As such, the fighting mechanic using the Wii-mote is the keystone in the bridge for No More Heroes. This game would be far less exciting on a console without the player’s motion based input. Obviously, the controller for the Wii makes the entire system - this is no surprise. Suda 51 definitely focused on the biggest strength of the system for his game. Very well done.

Stumble it!

Gamasutra had a gem of an article on Building a Better Player Character. The two optimal choices boiled down to the Everyman and the Action Hero. To get the reasons why these characters work well in games, I’d refer you to Ben Schneider’s article. It’s a great read. What I’d like to introduce here is the two types and their definitions:

“Everyman characters are always a person stripped down to just their most sympathetic qualities. They are good, but not too good, and humbly average, at least at first and in outward appearance. Their most important feature is a highly polished surface, in which we can see our own faint reflections at all times. The everyman is never very proactive, at least to begin with. As with Dorothy, Frodo, Harry, and Luke, the action must come to them.

The action hero, on the other hand, is more about who we wish we could be. This type has never seen much point in depth or nuance. A look, a particular swagger, phrase, or other gesture is all it takes to get you Indiana Jones, the dusty cowboy, Batman, or the essential sardonic, hard-drinking ex-Green Beret… Unlike everyman characters, action heroes can jump into the action. They can jump onto your screen, fist flying, doing what they do best.

Note that the action hero and the everyman are really just flip sides of the same coin. The one is action, the other responds to it. The one arrives on the scene ready to do business, while the other must slowly learn and accept their fate and responsibility in the tale. In other words, both of them are ways of letting the story take precedence. They are both children of the plot.”

After reading this article, I went back and looked at the games I’ve listed as those that I enjoyed most over the years. I also looked at a few games I didn’t enjoy at all. What was interesting is that almost every game I had listed used one of these two types. Only a couple deviated from these two types. Here was the breakdown:

Everyman: Shadow of the Colossus, Ultima 5: Warriors of Destiny, Phantasy Star 2, Bard’s Tale 2: Destiny Knight, Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 2, Grand Theft Auto 3, Ico, Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, Panzer Dragoon Orta.

Action Hero: Metroid/Super Metroid, Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Super Castlevania 4, Street Fighter 2:World Warrior, Tomb Raider, Samurai Shodown 2, Mortal Kombat 3, God of War, Revenge of Shinobi, Zelda: Link to the Past, River City Ransom, Prince of Persia - Sands of Time, Bionic Commando, Contra 3: The Alien Wars, Streets of Rage 2, Ghouls n Ghosts, Super Smash TV, Zone of Enders: 2nd Runner, No More Heroes.

Developed Character: Grand Theft Auto 4, Metal Gear Solid 4, and Killer 7.

Other: Rez, Bubble Bobble.

It’s obvious that Role Playing games traditionally use the everyman for the player character while having developed characters for the antagonist, and non-player characters. Action adventure games typically use, and rightfully so, the action hero. Overwhelmingly the games I’ve enjoyed used action heroes.

One game I won’t soon forget with a character I strongly disliked was Zone of Enders. Leo Stenbuck. Leo was an Everyman who strongly refused to accept his fate throughout the game. It was too much and was a key reason for Zone of Enders mediocrity.

When it comes to the developed character list above. I’ve noticed that such characters typically try to draw in the player somehow. Schneider resonated with my thoughts in this comment, “Mysteries are good tools both for intriguing the player and matching character growth with plot development. For a good mystery to be more than a trick, it has to be personal: the truth about the death of your father, about the girl or boy that you love, about who you yourself are.”

Take for example, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Snake is an old man, not exactly an action hero anymore. In MGS4, the mission seems to come to Snake. But the mystery Kojima lured me in trying to understand what is actually happening to Snake’s body. Why am I aging so quickly? How long have I got? GTA4 also lures you into the past of Niko Belic and his search to reckon with old ghosts.

References:

Analysis of the Everyman Player Character:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1420/the_everyman_and_the_action_hero_.php

Stumble it!

I wrote about Braid in the previous entry, but one point I didn’t hit on was that Braid is a work of art. I don’t mean that in a complimentary way, despite my liking for the game. Let me explain. The details behind the story Braid is a subject of intense interest and by no means is there a consensus on their meaning. This is no coincidence and it’s also not a coincidence that Jonathan Blow, the creator of the game, refrains from commenting on the meaning behind his game.

The unique quality of artwork, that makes it art, is it’s ability to be subject to interpretation. Leaving a storyline or game ending open to interpretation is the surest way to enshrine a piece of work as art. A brilliant move, and Braid is not alone.

Fumito Ueda, creator of both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, is becoming well known for his “design by subtraction” approach to video game design. Ico places you in the life of a boy abandoned to a sacrificial ritual. No backdrop is provided to the cause. This has led to speculation and interpretation of the minute details of the game and the dialogue.

Shadow of the Colossus followed suit with a protagonist of ambiguous moral character. Even at the end of the game the motive of Wanda remains open to interpretation. Was Wanda a hero? An Anti-hero? The decision is left to the player.

Killer7, Goichi Suda’s bizarre rail puzzle shooter, hosts a storyline also open to interpretation. The story could be as simple as a man’s journey to self-discovery whilst uncovering a devious plot, or it could be loaded with massive symbolism of Japanese-American ideology.  Harman Smith (see photo) may be a strange guy or much, much more depending on how you view the game.

But just as the rewards are sweet when cleverly implemented, care must be taken of the pitfalls. Metal Gear Solid 2, an example of failure, featured a storyline layered so thick and confusing, that by the end of the game the player often missed the point that they are left to interpret for themselves. Metal Gear Solid 2’s message was literally that you are to decide for yourself what was the truth and what was not in the lengthy series of lies that pummeled you.

References:

The Meaning of Braid:
http://www.rllmukforum.com/index.php?showtopic=190136

Ico Interpretation:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/367472/29015

Killer7 Interpretation:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/919768/38193

Stumble it!