Again with the story in games: Rise of the Argonauts is apparently a pile of shit. That's disheartening, because all of the articles I read about it years ago talked about a lot of interesting things that more developers need to consider, such as innovative combat systems, new ways to "level up", and using dialog in quests to just as great effect as a sword. I remember reading a story about how this game got pushed back a year, and then like a couple weeks later it was slated for release. This game screams "pushed out the door way ahead of its time" from every pore, and I tend to have a lot of sympathy for games like that, considering Knights of the Old Republic II is probably my favorite game of all time.
What probably happened is that Codemasters needed some revenue, was hurting bad thanks to the shitty economy, saw how much money everyone else was making this holiday and went "GAHHHHH US TOO WE WANT ON THE GRAVY TRAIN SO BAD" and forced it out. Probably didn't have much choice, my guess is it was either try and make some money back on this game or shut the doors and cancel it anyway.
They even got screwed from that angle, as their "have to release it now" emergency date just happens to fall on the tail end of the biggest release schedule in game history. It being the rush job that it was, they didn't even have the time to wind up and let loose the hype machine, so all things considered this game is probably going to sell five copies then drop down to twenty bucks new, where it will languish in bargain bins for the rest of this generation.
Why is it that games with interesting ideas and so much potential are rushed along to destruction by their parent publishers, while Capcom gives shit like Spyborgs all the time in the world it needs to start from scratch?
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
Uh, wut
So literally a day after I make a post regarding more story in games being the only thing that can save the videogame industry, a trailer for a game based on Dante's Inferno sprouts up on the Spike Videogame Awards. NOT WHAT I MEANT GUYS. I'm not exactly a huge fan of classic literature, but Dante's Inferno is one of the few bits of classic literature I actually have read, and I can't imagine this game not absolutely missing the entire point. It's going to be some God of War action clone probably, they'll have you fighting demons and damned souls based on each circle's theme or something, which doesn't make any sense. The demons that are there are ripping damned souls apart for all eternity already, they're just doing their job. It's when demons are flaying anyone BUT damned souls anywhere BUT hell that they become a problem.
As for the souls themselves, they're not going to be fighting you, or at least they shouldn't be. They should be way too busy being flayed, re-killed, sauteed, re-raped and everything else by the demons to bother with you. You shouldn't be freeing these souls from demon rape-flaying either: They're in hell for a reason. They deserve it, apparently. God says so, and he's a cool guy, at least in Dante's world.
You can go several ways with this to actually make it make sense, which is sad because none of these will happen:
1. Inferno Tycoon. You have a quota of torture to visit on an ever increasing number of damned souls daily. You have several rings to oversee. How do you organize your rings of hell to maximize eternal suffering? Make sure to put the anus hornets near the heretics to save valuable transport time, and have ample bathrooms so the ever-agonized don't piss themselves.
2. RPG. Dante himself must navigate each ring of hell to his eventual goal of enlightenment, but he must perform quests for souls and demons in need to open his way forward. See, this rape demon would love to open the gates from the Lust ring, but he's chafing from all the rape he's had to do over the years. If you can convince Lou the anger demon to give up his salve, he'll do you a solid and let you through.
3. Action brawler. The opening cinematic is the ring of damned souls lining up to get eviscerated for the day. The sword of the demon raises high and then comes down, only to have the hand of the prisoner catch the demon's wrist and stop the plunge. You hear a gravelly "That's enough" as you cut to the eyes of the tortured prisoner. "Let's blow this joint" he growls as he cuts down the demon, puts on some sunglasses and starts hacking his way out of hell itself.
What's sad is that it'll probably be a whole lot like number 3, except they'll be one hundred percent serious about it.
As for the souls themselves, they're not going to be fighting you, or at least they shouldn't be. They should be way too busy being flayed, re-killed, sauteed, re-raped and everything else by the demons to bother with you. You shouldn't be freeing these souls from demon rape-flaying either: They're in hell for a reason. They deserve it, apparently. God says so, and he's a cool guy, at least in Dante's world.
You can go several ways with this to actually make it make sense, which is sad because none of these will happen:
1. Inferno Tycoon. You have a quota of torture to visit on an ever increasing number of damned souls daily. You have several rings to oversee. How do you organize your rings of hell to maximize eternal suffering? Make sure to put the anus hornets near the heretics to save valuable transport time, and have ample bathrooms so the ever-agonized don't piss themselves.
2. RPG. Dante himself must navigate each ring of hell to his eventual goal of enlightenment, but he must perform quests for souls and demons in need to open his way forward. See, this rape demon would love to open the gates from the Lust ring, but he's chafing from all the rape he's had to do over the years. If you can convince Lou the anger demon to give up his salve, he'll do you a solid and let you through.
3. Action brawler. The opening cinematic is the ring of damned souls lining up to get eviscerated for the day. The sword of the demon raises high and then comes down, only to have the hand of the prisoner catch the demon's wrist and stop the plunge. You hear a gravelly "That's enough" as you cut to the eyes of the tortured prisoner. "Let's blow this joint" he growls as he cuts down the demon, puts on some sunglasses and starts hacking his way out of hell itself.
What's sad is that it'll probably be a whole lot like number 3, except they'll be one hundred percent serious about it.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Oh, what the fuck.
So I think on the weekend I'm just going to put in a little funny thing, and on my actual days off (Monday and Tuesday) I probably won't write anything.
Today, let me regale you with a little story. So a couple comes up to me in my store and says "Hey, can you recommend a PC game for a ten year old that's really creative and engages his mind?" and I thought for a second and said "You know, you might want to check out Spore. It's a really creative, engaging game from the creator of Sim City, and features you bringing an entire species up from single cell organism all the way to a space faring race. It's basically Evolution: The Game".
The mom of the couple is already grimacing and turned off by what she perceives as grotesque monsters on the box, and the second I say "evolution", she goes "No, we don't believe in evolution" and the dad chimes in "Yeah, it's not something we want to teach our son". They then hand me back the box like it's filled with hardcore bestiality porn. Keep in mind here, this couple isn't redneck. The mom isn't four billion pounds with a stained Looney Tunes shirt on, and the dad doesn't have on a trucker hat and a Dale Earnhardt wife-beater. These guys look like a normal couple you might find anywhere. So I tell them where the Bejeweled, Sudoku and Chess games are and abruptly leave, because this kid is ruined already. There is no software in the world that could save him now. Had I any balls whatsoever, I probably should have said "Well, maybe you'd like to go out in the parking lot and pick up a stick, so your son can scratch in the dirt. Maybe a nice rock with some heft so he can beat in the skulls of the other apes?"
I hope I don't have to point out the irony of parents wanting creative, brain challenging software to use on their family computer and rejecting the best choice out of the lot because it's loosely based on a scientific theory that their ancient magic Jew book says isn't real. Spoilers mom and dad: He's probably not going to be a scientist at this rate regardless of what you do. How far does that go, I wonder? The bible says that ghosts don't exist. Can he not watch Ghostbusters? Bible says that practicing magic is evil. Harry Potter books out of the question? Bible says that fortune telling, seeing into the future is evil as well. Sorry son, can't be a Star Wars fan.
I cannot wrap my brain around the kind of mindset that creates a person like that. Not really the fundie christian personality per se, I'm more talking about the sheer idiocy that those type of parents suffer from that truly make them believe that if they're stubborn and strict enough, their child will turn out exactly according to template and plan. He might turn out to be an excruciating youth minister or a missionary or some such, but mostly he's probably going to dump all that retarded bullshit the second he hits puberty and resent them for the rest of his life for not letting him see or do anything cool. I can't imagine a person so arrogant that even though they didn't learn that lesson from when THEY were young they still think that they're wise enough that their iron willed plan is the only way their child will turn out excellent.
Normally the story would end here, but I told a co-worker this story after it happened, and they go "Awww, well you have to be tolerant and respectful of other people's beliefs". No, you know what? No I don't. These people threw out probably the best game for children in the last ten years simply because I said the word "evolution". I don't have to respect that. I am fully allowed to think you're fucking sub-human apes for raising a child in the year of our Lord two thousand and eight like that. Listen, there are some people who enjoy poop sex a whole lot. Like, it's their main hobby, their lifestyle. They think about sex involving poop during the day at work, they go home and post about how good it feels to shit your pants on a poop sex forum where other poop sex enthusiasts will agree with them, and then they'll shit their pants and jerk off that night, and it's their God's honest belief that that's normal and healthy. Guess what? That doesn't make it not fucking gross and weird. I don't have to respect that lifestyle, and I don't have to respect the fundie christian lifestyle either.
The Internets not good for much, but it's shown us just how many shades of fucked up lunatics there are out there who are deadly serious about their various fucked up subjects, and the more of them I see the more they are indistinguishable from those that are truly serious about religion. Poop sex or Christ the Lord, it's really all the same.
Today, let me regale you with a little story. So a couple comes up to me in my store and says "Hey, can you recommend a PC game for a ten year old that's really creative and engages his mind?" and I thought for a second and said "You know, you might want to check out Spore. It's a really creative, engaging game from the creator of Sim City, and features you bringing an entire species up from single cell organism all the way to a space faring race. It's basically Evolution: The Game".
The mom of the couple is already grimacing and turned off by what she perceives as grotesque monsters on the box, and the second I say "evolution", she goes "No, we don't believe in evolution" and the dad chimes in "Yeah, it's not something we want to teach our son". They then hand me back the box like it's filled with hardcore bestiality porn. Keep in mind here, this couple isn't redneck. The mom isn't four billion pounds with a stained Looney Tunes shirt on, and the dad doesn't have on a trucker hat and a Dale Earnhardt wife-beater. These guys look like a normal couple you might find anywhere. So I tell them where the Bejeweled, Sudoku and Chess games are and abruptly leave, because this kid is ruined already. There is no software in the world that could save him now. Had I any balls whatsoever, I probably should have said "Well, maybe you'd like to go out in the parking lot and pick up a stick, so your son can scratch in the dirt. Maybe a nice rock with some heft so he can beat in the skulls of the other apes?"
I hope I don't have to point out the irony of parents wanting creative, brain challenging software to use on their family computer and rejecting the best choice out of the lot because it's loosely based on a scientific theory that their ancient magic Jew book says isn't real. Spoilers mom and dad: He's probably not going to be a scientist at this rate regardless of what you do. How far does that go, I wonder? The bible says that ghosts don't exist. Can he not watch Ghostbusters? Bible says that practicing magic is evil. Harry Potter books out of the question? Bible says that fortune telling, seeing into the future is evil as well. Sorry son, can't be a Star Wars fan.
I cannot wrap my brain around the kind of mindset that creates a person like that. Not really the fundie christian personality per se, I'm more talking about the sheer idiocy that those type of parents suffer from that truly make them believe that if they're stubborn and strict enough, their child will turn out exactly according to template and plan. He might turn out to be an excruciating youth minister or a missionary or some such, but mostly he's probably going to dump all that retarded bullshit the second he hits puberty and resent them for the rest of his life for not letting him see or do anything cool. I can't imagine a person so arrogant that even though they didn't learn that lesson from when THEY were young they still think that they're wise enough that their iron willed plan is the only way their child will turn out excellent.
Normally the story would end here, but I told a co-worker this story after it happened, and they go "Awww, well you have to be tolerant and respectful of other people's beliefs". No, you know what? No I don't. These people threw out probably the best game for children in the last ten years simply because I said the word "evolution". I don't have to respect that. I am fully allowed to think you're fucking sub-human apes for raising a child in the year of our Lord two thousand and eight like that. Listen, there are some people who enjoy poop sex a whole lot. Like, it's their main hobby, their lifestyle. They think about sex involving poop during the day at work, they go home and post about how good it feels to shit your pants on a poop sex forum where other poop sex enthusiasts will agree with them, and then they'll shit their pants and jerk off that night, and it's their God's honest belief that that's normal and healthy. Guess what? That doesn't make it not fucking gross and weird. I don't have to respect that lifestyle, and I don't have to respect the fundie christian lifestyle either.
The Internets not good for much, but it's shown us just how many shades of fucked up lunatics there are out there who are deadly serious about their various fucked up subjects, and the more of them I see the more they are indistinguishable from those that are truly serious about religion. Poop sex or Christ the Lord, it's really all the same.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Innovacant
I'm sorry to harp on this two days in a row, but yesterday I discussed Mirror's Edge and my utter amazement that someone could not only call it innovative, but innovative enough that all other criticism should bounce off like marshmallows fired from those little marshmallow air shooter gun things.
I also mentioned earlier that in my youth, I was very concerned about the public perception comics and comics fans labored under. I wondered if there would ever come a time that comics as an art form could sit at the big boy table, it never occurring to me that the reason it wasn't already sitting at the big boy table after sixty years was that fifty five of those sixty years were filled with terrible shit.
These two assertions are going to have a head on collision at the main intersection of Tonight'sBlogville.
Videogames are at the tail end of one of the biggest, most relentless game release seasons the medium has ever had in its history. If Mirror's Edge can be called innovative amongst all those releases, do you realize how fucking easy it would be to create one of the most critically acclaimed videogames of all time? Of course you do, because chances are you're a videogame fan, and as such you probably have an idea that would kick the shit out of pretty much everything that was released this season. Despite what I was told when I was younger, the problem isn't a dearth of mind blowing ideas. Don't believe me? Go into any videogame forum. Start a post that says "If you could make any game at all a reality, what would it be?". Chances are at least half of those replies (if you're not making the post on an idiot factory like Gamefaqs) will be kickass gold. No, the problem is that no one with the reigns to anything important is listening or caring.
Hardly a week goes by that I don't see some article attacking videogames for something nonsensical, or some pinhead with a blog (ahem) waxing philosophical about narrative in games. I see articles at the big news sites about "the ten most powerful and important moments in games!" and it always pretty much boils down to talking about FF7, Shadow of the Colossus, and a handful of moments from ancient SNES RPG's that feature stilted dialog being spoken by expressionless, pixelated midgets. If you were like I was as a wee lad reading comics and wondering when games are going to sit at the big boy table culturally, well the answer would be when we stop pretending amatuer hour creativity and writing is something special, and start creating actual creative work like big boys and girls. See, I have a theory: Videogames now are where comics were in the early 90's: back then, comics focused on big titted, poorly proportioned ladies, impossibly huge, poorly proportioned men wielding big guns, nonsensical character designs (even from a superhero standpoint), and larger than life spectacle. What there was almost none of was any sort of character development whatsoever.
Sound familiar? Look at Gears of War. You slap a star eye and a metal arm on any one of those guys and they might as well be Cable. Today you're lucky if your main character says a fucking word. Say what you will about Force Unleashed, but at least the fucking thing had a pretty good story with a main character that actually talked.
Look at the highest regarded examples of our medium from recent memory. Aeristhshtshtshtths's death in Final Fantasy 7 is regarded as one of the most important, tear jerking deaths in all of gaming, and that scene is fucking ridiculous. No one emotes at all during the scene, not even Aeristhsthsth when she gets a fifteen foot katana plunged through her. This is mostly due to the fact that the scene is played out by what looks like marionette puppets with painted on faces, but even still the scene went down in history. Portal is regarded as an instant classic, immediately joining the pantheon of our best and brightest, and the game is like 3 fucking hours long. Don't get me wrong, it's a great time, but seriously look at what they did: Valve made a pretty innovative First Person puzzler, which would have been enough to get people to play it and enjoy it and give it pretty high praise. However, they went the extra mile and did something amazing: They hired a writer to create an actual character and give (her? it?) actual, well written, funny dialog. All of a sudden a solid 3 hour puzzler gets catapulted to game immortality, and all because someone decided to be genuinely funny and do their job. Mass Effect was lauded as having an incredible, epic story and hailed as the best game of that year, and Mass Effect's story was the kind of thing you'd find on a Sci-fi original movie. Quite frankly, the only reason that game wasn't torn fucking apart is that it was the only game made that year where, holy shit, you actually had conversations with people that you controlled and actually mattered (sort of). The best JRPG-style game I've played since Chrono Trigger is a fucking American made indie game called Barkley Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden. Not only is it fucking hysterical, but it's genuinely a fun to play RPG adventure, and no one even paid these guys. They're not even professionals and what they did kicks the shit out of just about everyone who gets a paycheck for creating games these days. Shadow of the Colossus and its little brother Ico are works of art and breathtaking, but they're really little more than brilliantly illustrated fairy tales. Braid is one of the most critically acclaimed games in recent memory, the biggest argument for "games as art" probably ever made, yet the poetic interlude text is something that fell out of a pretentious college sophomore creative writing student's asshole. Bioshock was lauded as another game of the year contender, and had many accolades showered especially on its story. While it's probably the best example of story in a first person shooter, and while it does have a couple of truly epic moments, the story kind of falls apart at the end and the game as a whole largely gets by on a sense of atmosphere. Tim Schaefer's Psychonauts is lauded as a cult classic, a must play, and all he did was slap some genuinely funny characters and situations on a pretty run of the mill platformer.
You'll notice I didn't list anything from the 90's PC scene in there. That's because, at one point, PC gaming took storytelling and writing seriously. Fallout, Planescape: Torment, Deus Ex, Lucasarts point and clicks, Bioware's early outings... PC gaming was on the fast track to becoming interactive media that could stand tall against any modern book or movie, and then for some reason things went off the rails. It took a few years, but inexplicably 99% of that evaporated and all the PC scene was left with was either first person shooters that don't give a shit about anything but multiplayer or MMO's that are more interested in revenue stream than any storytelling. Videogames should be well, well beyond this trite garbage we have to put up with seriously in Gears of War and the like. We should be well beyond mute, faceless non-characters and Alien ripoffs.
What's the point of all this? The time is fucking ripe for someone to step up and make something truly spectacular, to finally take videogames as a medium seriously and bring some actual big boy writing to the table. The first person to actually create a genuinely funny and witty RPG (and I don't mean "nintendo saturday morning cartoon funny" or "Your little brother making fun of WoW on Youtube funny"), provided it has solid gameplay and graphics as well, will probably instantly win game of the year hands down. The first person to bring characters to an action game (not generic stereotypes, poorly written badass caricatures, or general archetypes fleshed out by a 14 year old), will probably go down in history as a creative genius. It seriously, honestly wouldn't be that hard to instantly become a gaming industry superstar, all you'd have to do is get hired onto a project that is semi-competent and not write a story that rips off Aliens featuring characters that just stepped off the U.S.S. Fanfiction.net.
Game producers, take note: Spend a little budget money hiring a fucking writer. I don't mean a friend of the lead programmer who took a creative writing class in college. I don't mean hire a guy to spruce up your short story about an alien invasion you wrote in middle school. I don't mean hire a comic writer who already has 14 things on his plate and just tosses out something for a paycheck. Hire someone talented who will take his time and give a shit.
I also mentioned earlier that in my youth, I was very concerned about the public perception comics and comics fans labored under. I wondered if there would ever come a time that comics as an art form could sit at the big boy table, it never occurring to me that the reason it wasn't already sitting at the big boy table after sixty years was that fifty five of those sixty years were filled with terrible shit.
These two assertions are going to have a head on collision at the main intersection of Tonight'sBlogville.
Videogames are at the tail end of one of the biggest, most relentless game release seasons the medium has ever had in its history. If Mirror's Edge can be called innovative amongst all those releases, do you realize how fucking easy it would be to create one of the most critically acclaimed videogames of all time? Of course you do, because chances are you're a videogame fan, and as such you probably have an idea that would kick the shit out of pretty much everything that was released this season. Despite what I was told when I was younger, the problem isn't a dearth of mind blowing ideas. Don't believe me? Go into any videogame forum. Start a post that says "If you could make any game at all a reality, what would it be?". Chances are at least half of those replies (if you're not making the post on an idiot factory like Gamefaqs) will be kickass gold. No, the problem is that no one with the reigns to anything important is listening or caring.
Hardly a week goes by that I don't see some article attacking videogames for something nonsensical, or some pinhead with a blog (ahem) waxing philosophical about narrative in games. I see articles at the big news sites about "the ten most powerful and important moments in games!" and it always pretty much boils down to talking about FF7, Shadow of the Colossus, and a handful of moments from ancient SNES RPG's that feature stilted dialog being spoken by expressionless, pixelated midgets. If you were like I was as a wee lad reading comics and wondering when games are going to sit at the big boy table culturally, well the answer would be when we stop pretending amatuer hour creativity and writing is something special, and start creating actual creative work like big boys and girls. See, I have a theory: Videogames now are where comics were in the early 90's: back then, comics focused on big titted, poorly proportioned ladies, impossibly huge, poorly proportioned men wielding big guns, nonsensical character designs (even from a superhero standpoint), and larger than life spectacle. What there was almost none of was any sort of character development whatsoever.
Sound familiar? Look at Gears of War. You slap a star eye and a metal arm on any one of those guys and they might as well be Cable. Today you're lucky if your main character says a fucking word. Say what you will about Force Unleashed, but at least the fucking thing had a pretty good story with a main character that actually talked.
Look at the highest regarded examples of our medium from recent memory. Aeristhshtshtshtths's death in Final Fantasy 7 is regarded as one of the most important, tear jerking deaths in all of gaming, and that scene is fucking ridiculous. No one emotes at all during the scene, not even Aeristhsthsth when she gets a fifteen foot katana plunged through her. This is mostly due to the fact that the scene is played out by what looks like marionette puppets with painted on faces, but even still the scene went down in history. Portal is regarded as an instant classic, immediately joining the pantheon of our best and brightest, and the game is like 3 fucking hours long. Don't get me wrong, it's a great time, but seriously look at what they did: Valve made a pretty innovative First Person puzzler, which would have been enough to get people to play it and enjoy it and give it pretty high praise. However, they went the extra mile and did something amazing: They hired a writer to create an actual character and give (her? it?) actual, well written, funny dialog. All of a sudden a solid 3 hour puzzler gets catapulted to game immortality, and all because someone decided to be genuinely funny and do their job. Mass Effect was lauded as having an incredible, epic story and hailed as the best game of that year, and Mass Effect's story was the kind of thing you'd find on a Sci-fi original movie. Quite frankly, the only reason that game wasn't torn fucking apart is that it was the only game made that year where, holy shit, you actually had conversations with people that you controlled and actually mattered (sort of). The best JRPG-style game I've played since Chrono Trigger is a fucking American made indie game called Barkley Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden. Not only is it fucking hysterical, but it's genuinely a fun to play RPG adventure, and no one even paid these guys. They're not even professionals and what they did kicks the shit out of just about everyone who gets a paycheck for creating games these days. Shadow of the Colossus and its little brother Ico are works of art and breathtaking, but they're really little more than brilliantly illustrated fairy tales. Braid is one of the most critically acclaimed games in recent memory, the biggest argument for "games as art" probably ever made, yet the poetic interlude text is something that fell out of a pretentious college sophomore creative writing student's asshole. Bioshock was lauded as another game of the year contender, and had many accolades showered especially on its story. While it's probably the best example of story in a first person shooter, and while it does have a couple of truly epic moments, the story kind of falls apart at the end and the game as a whole largely gets by on a sense of atmosphere. Tim Schaefer's Psychonauts is lauded as a cult classic, a must play, and all he did was slap some genuinely funny characters and situations on a pretty run of the mill platformer.
You'll notice I didn't list anything from the 90's PC scene in there. That's because, at one point, PC gaming took storytelling and writing seriously. Fallout, Planescape: Torment, Deus Ex, Lucasarts point and clicks, Bioware's early outings... PC gaming was on the fast track to becoming interactive media that could stand tall against any modern book or movie, and then for some reason things went off the rails. It took a few years, but inexplicably 99% of that evaporated and all the PC scene was left with was either first person shooters that don't give a shit about anything but multiplayer or MMO's that are more interested in revenue stream than any storytelling. Videogames should be well, well beyond this trite garbage we have to put up with seriously in Gears of War and the like. We should be well beyond mute, faceless non-characters and Alien ripoffs.
What's the point of all this? The time is fucking ripe for someone to step up and make something truly spectacular, to finally take videogames as a medium seriously and bring some actual big boy writing to the table. The first person to actually create a genuinely funny and witty RPG (and I don't mean "nintendo saturday morning cartoon funny" or "Your little brother making fun of WoW on Youtube funny"), provided it has solid gameplay and graphics as well, will probably instantly win game of the year hands down. The first person to bring characters to an action game (not generic stereotypes, poorly written badass caricatures, or general archetypes fleshed out by a 14 year old), will probably go down in history as a creative genius. It seriously, honestly wouldn't be that hard to instantly become a gaming industry superstar, all you'd have to do is get hired onto a project that is semi-competent and not write a story that rips off Aliens featuring characters that just stepped off the U.S.S. Fanfiction.net.
Game producers, take note: Spend a little budget money hiring a fucking writer. I don't mean a friend of the lead programmer who took a creative writing class in college. I don't mean hire a guy to spruce up your short story about an alien invasion you wrote in middle school. I don't mean hire a comic writer who already has 14 things on his plate and just tosses out something for a paycheck. Hire someone talented who will take his time and give a shit.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Mirror's Edge
There was a blog essay thing that was on Kotaku/Destructoid a couple weeks back where some guy called out game reviewers for not slathering Mirror's Edge with a think, lustrous coat of the highest honors possible simply because it was "innovative". I'm not going to waste my time finding this dude's blog or the news stories that covered it, you can probably find it in Google by searching for "Mirror's Edge knob slobbery pretentious Internet doucheblogger" (it'll be the link that pops up right after the link to this place, ahem self referential blog joke).
At any rate, this guy's entire thrust was that Mirror's Edge was innovative and new, and thus should be given a free ride as far as reviews go. I believe one of his points was that had it been a movie, reviewers would have heaped praise on it simply because of its freshness or daring-ness and told everyone they had to see it regardless of anything else about the film. I thought that was funny, since that line of thinking has led me to see some truly awful, pretentious pieces of shit in my day. Apparently, reviewers should ignore all other flaws in lieu of showcasing something that tried something different, because apparently simply being different is reason enough to dole out the nines and tens and tell people to plunk down sixty bucks plus tax.
First off, let's get something out of the way: I haven't played Mirror's Edge. I haven't even played the demo. I've seen the demo played, and that's about it. There's a reason for that: There are two things that have never ever worked well in First Person: Melee combat and jumping puzzles, and I certainly don't expect EA of all people to shatter those barriers. From what I've come to understand and what little I've seen, it could have been a lot worse, but that's missing the point: Those aren't barriers that need to be broken. You don't need to strive for the best possible first person jumping puzzle experience because you already have third person camera technology, and that's just better for the task. That's really the long and short of it. It's like saying "We worked really hard on making a racing game that works from street level front left wheel camera view". Why would you fucking bother? You're just making it harder simply for the sake of being different.
The only real defense for the first person choice is "It's more immersive, you really feel like you're the person!". No it isn't and no you don't. Saying a first person view is more immersive because you're looking through the eyes of the person is simplistic and childish. That's like saying the most powerful love story in a movie ever would be one told entirely from first person. You get immersion in games from controls that are simple and effective, good characters, and a believable world. Being Gordon Freeman isn't a more immersive experience than any other game because while yes, you're looking through his eyes, Gordon is a non-character who never talks and no one holds rifles and pistols out at almost eye level for 8 hours straight while having invisible feet. Mirror's Edge isn't immersive because from what I understand, the story is simplistic bullshit. The government is bad because I said so and the cities are so shiny it's sinister. Why exactly? OOPS OUT OF TIME. That's something first person view doesn't fix guys, sorry.
I'd also like to point out that having your game be in first person saves a metric ton of time and money on character animation. Faith has more animation than most FPS heroes because you actually see her arms and legs and such, but it's still ten times more simple than the amount of animation you'd have to do for a main character in an action game you see your entire playthrough.
Second off, what fucking innovation? Do you mean the parkour gameplay? You mean, the same parkour gameplay that Ubisoft blew out of the water like five years ago with Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and its sequels and to this day is superior to Mirror's Edge because you can actually fucking see the Prince do all his badassery? You mean the parkour gameplay that they blew out of the water again with Assassin's Creed (albeit the only thing they did well there)? Let me tell you something, if Ubisoft (further) lost their mind and released a game called "Reflective Surface's Side" that featured an Asian woman running over rooftops in third person, it would stomp Mirror's Edge flat. It wouldn't even be a contest, which is why EA made their game first person: If they had made it third person, people would have gone "This game is a less well done Prince of Persia" and ignored it. All of a sudden you shift the camera view forward three feet which makes the game harder to play and less cool to watch and you're a fucking genius? No, don't think so. There's a reason Jedi Knight, Jedi Knight II and the 3D Zeldas all automatically switched from third to first person based on what weapon you whipped out.
Third off, no, it doesn't get a critical free ride. When you work in a medium, be it books or movies or comics or games, you have to take into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of said medium. When you write for comics, you have to learn to show rather than tell. You don't fucking fill the page up with huge word balloons, I don't care how well the text is written. When you make a movie, you don't totally ignore lighting and camera angles and film every scene from the waist up, I don't care how fucking original your script is. True masterpieces endeavor to master every strength of the medium and minimize every weakness, they don't just try to throw different shit at a wall until it sticks and hope no one gets pissed at all the things they did wrong. If it's a videogame, I have to play it. I don't care how off the wall your concepts and controls and premise is, if your game plays like shit and is not fun, you've failed.
There's only three things Mirror's Edge should be given credit for doing. First off, hooray for actually daring to feature a world that's not composed entirely of brown and grey, although I'm not sure white and red and Bloom all over is much better. Second off, hooray for EA trying something different, and with a new IP no less. Mirror's Edge didn't set the world on fire though, so that's probably the last time they'll try and pull that shit. Unfortunately they probably won't take away the message that "making a first person game focused on jumping and melee combat was a fucking retarded idea" instead. Third off, hooray for making an action game that focuses on avoidance and quick, smart takedowns rather than straight up gunfire FPS action. It's too bad that apparently that stuff is the weakest and most boring part of the game, but hey, they tried. Protip for next time guys: Takedowns look far more badass when you can actually see what your guy is doing to the other guy.
I would love to see a third person parkour game set in Mirror's Edge's shiny futurescape with a more fleshed out story, but that's never going to happen.
At any rate, this guy's entire thrust was that Mirror's Edge was innovative and new, and thus should be given a free ride as far as reviews go. I believe one of his points was that had it been a movie, reviewers would have heaped praise on it simply because of its freshness or daring-ness and told everyone they had to see it regardless of anything else about the film. I thought that was funny, since that line of thinking has led me to see some truly awful, pretentious pieces of shit in my day. Apparently, reviewers should ignore all other flaws in lieu of showcasing something that tried something different, because apparently simply being different is reason enough to dole out the nines and tens and tell people to plunk down sixty bucks plus tax.
First off, let's get something out of the way: I haven't played Mirror's Edge. I haven't even played the demo. I've seen the demo played, and that's about it. There's a reason for that: There are two things that have never ever worked well in First Person: Melee combat and jumping puzzles, and I certainly don't expect EA of all people to shatter those barriers. From what I've come to understand and what little I've seen, it could have been a lot worse, but that's missing the point: Those aren't barriers that need to be broken. You don't need to strive for the best possible first person jumping puzzle experience because you already have third person camera technology, and that's just better for the task. That's really the long and short of it. It's like saying "We worked really hard on making a racing game that works from street level front left wheel camera view". Why would you fucking bother? You're just making it harder simply for the sake of being different.
The only real defense for the first person choice is "It's more immersive, you really feel like you're the person!". No it isn't and no you don't. Saying a first person view is more immersive because you're looking through the eyes of the person is simplistic and childish. That's like saying the most powerful love story in a movie ever would be one told entirely from first person. You get immersion in games from controls that are simple and effective, good characters, and a believable world. Being Gordon Freeman isn't a more immersive experience than any other game because while yes, you're looking through his eyes, Gordon is a non-character who never talks and no one holds rifles and pistols out at almost eye level for 8 hours straight while having invisible feet. Mirror's Edge isn't immersive because from what I understand, the story is simplistic bullshit. The government is bad because I said so and the cities are so shiny it's sinister. Why exactly? OOPS OUT OF TIME. That's something first person view doesn't fix guys, sorry.
I'd also like to point out that having your game be in first person saves a metric ton of time and money on character animation. Faith has more animation than most FPS heroes because you actually see her arms and legs and such, but it's still ten times more simple than the amount of animation you'd have to do for a main character in an action game you see your entire playthrough.
Second off, what fucking innovation? Do you mean the parkour gameplay? You mean, the same parkour gameplay that Ubisoft blew out of the water like five years ago with Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and its sequels and to this day is superior to Mirror's Edge because you can actually fucking see the Prince do all his badassery? You mean the parkour gameplay that they blew out of the water again with Assassin's Creed (albeit the only thing they did well there)? Let me tell you something, if Ubisoft (further) lost their mind and released a game called "Reflective Surface's Side" that featured an Asian woman running over rooftops in third person, it would stomp Mirror's Edge flat. It wouldn't even be a contest, which is why EA made their game first person: If they had made it third person, people would have gone "This game is a less well done Prince of Persia" and ignored it. All of a sudden you shift the camera view forward three feet which makes the game harder to play and less cool to watch and you're a fucking genius? No, don't think so. There's a reason Jedi Knight, Jedi Knight II and the 3D Zeldas all automatically switched from third to first person based on what weapon you whipped out.
Third off, no, it doesn't get a critical free ride. When you work in a medium, be it books or movies or comics or games, you have to take into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of said medium. When you write for comics, you have to learn to show rather than tell. You don't fucking fill the page up with huge word balloons, I don't care how well the text is written. When you make a movie, you don't totally ignore lighting and camera angles and film every scene from the waist up, I don't care how fucking original your script is. True masterpieces endeavor to master every strength of the medium and minimize every weakness, they don't just try to throw different shit at a wall until it sticks and hope no one gets pissed at all the things they did wrong. If it's a videogame, I have to play it. I don't care how off the wall your concepts and controls and premise is, if your game plays like shit and is not fun, you've failed.
There's only three things Mirror's Edge should be given credit for doing. First off, hooray for actually daring to feature a world that's not composed entirely of brown and grey, although I'm not sure white and red and Bloom all over is much better. Second off, hooray for EA trying something different, and with a new IP no less. Mirror's Edge didn't set the world on fire though, so that's probably the last time they'll try and pull that shit. Unfortunately they probably won't take away the message that "making a first person game focused on jumping and melee combat was a fucking retarded idea" instead. Third off, hooray for making an action game that focuses on avoidance and quick, smart takedowns rather than straight up gunfire FPS action. It's too bad that apparently that stuff is the weakest and most boring part of the game, but hey, they tried. Protip for next time guys: Takedowns look far more badass when you can actually see what your guy is doing to the other guy.
I would love to see a third person parkour game set in Mirror's Edge's shiny futurescape with a more fleshed out story, but that's never going to happen.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
What Nintendon't
Let's go ahead and drop this pallet of bricks on the pavement right now: I hate Nintendo. I hate Nintendo in a way that most people might hate a parent that promises bad ass birthday presents and never follows through. I hate them like you might hate someone who gives you a puppy, lets you name it, and then stomps it to death.
I haven't even been a fan of video games for that long. I never had an NES when I was a kid (though I wanted one) and while I had a SNES, I never really played any of the classics outside of what Nintendo games everyone knew about through word of mouth. As soon as I got my Game Genie, my game selection hinged entirely on what games had the most awesome codes in the code book. I was what today would be classified as a "casual gamer", but back then would have been classified as "stupid kid whose taste in games is abysmal".
What I'm trying to say here is that I am 100% immune to the paralyzing, mind-addling nostalgia rays that grip most gamers today. This hate doesn't come from a jilted Nintendo Power reader. I didn't grow up with Link. I grew up with Mario, but in the way most people "grow up" with Mickey Mouse. No one but suburban housewives actually gives a shit about him. My babysitter wasn't the SNES: I was far too busy being babysat by Spider-man comics to pay attention to video games. I didn't play Link to the Past until my sophomore year of college, and Ocarina of Time my senior year.
Even so, Nintendo always meant one thing: games and systems that had that magical blend of technical prowess, creative gameplay, and good old fashioned Herculean effort. Their games were always huge, well rounded, technologically and graphically impressive, and truly creative. For nigh on 20 years they were the games you pointed to (on consoles) that said "This is how you make games". When they got down to brass tacks, they were simply the best in the business.
Unfortunately, that's not all you need in order for your system of the week to stay afloat: You also need a baker's shitload of games, which Nintendo found in really short supply once they had their first, real opposition. The Big N never quite realized just how powerful their foe was, just how hard they had to fight back, and as a result for two entire console cycles they got raped like a petite black woman that wandered too near to Mike Tyson's cage.
Here's where the hate comes in. At the start of round two of the great ten year rape-a-thon, things were up in the air for Nintendo. They were poised to take back some of the ground they'd lost with their promising new system. They had that aforementioned magical blend, they had spokesmen that weren't complete douchebags, and they had hardware that would never ever break. So I bit the bullet, bought a Gamecube, and waited for Nintendo to stand up and fight back with a string of titles that would once again show the rest of the world how you make videogames.
Nintendo opened with a solid left hook called Smash Bros. Melee, and after that Sony reared back and punched Nintendo so hard that Nintendo's head went back in fucking time and smacked Atari right in the balls, casuing them to tumble into their Great Video Game Crash.
Meanwhile, i'm sitting here in my chair, reading news about what Nintendo has in store for the little box I just bought going JESUS CHRIST NINTENDO GET UP AND FIGHT! THROW A FUCKING PUNCH FOR GOD'S SAKES SINCE I JUST SPENT TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS ON YOUR SHITBOX EMBARRASSMENT.
They never did. Sony kept punching them so hard in the face that their head was little more than strawberry jam, and all they ever did to fight back was wobble their little hands in mild defiance every once in a while. The PS2 would have more games coming out for it than people could possibly play in a month, titles that would go down as classics of the era. Meanwhile Nintendo released one Mario Sports title every six months while Professional Meatman of Inderterminate Ethnicity Reggie Fils-Aime threw the same two quotes out: "We haven't forgotten about the hardcore gamer" and "We have a really grat lineup of games this quarter, such as *bullshit no one cares about!". As all this was happening, PS2's were practically shattering left and right, and all Sony did was say FUCK YOU WHAT'RE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT FAGGOT, and then proceeded to make billions.
Finally, Nintendo had enough. Like a big fat crybaby who doesn't get his way, Nintendo took their ball and went home. Nintendo retreated into their chrysalis, and when they emerged, they were the complete and utter polar opposite of what they had been. Instead of a company that embodied creativity, hard work, and technical excellence all rolled into one, they embodied mainstream appeal, minimal work, and gimmickry. The company that once put rules in place that both made them shit-tons of money as well as safeguarded against another Atari-era crash, could now not pump absolute garbage onto the market fast enough and is the only company of the big three that has no quality requirements whatsoever. The company that once made huge, epic games like Ocarina of Time and Mario 3 that will go down in history as the best examples of the medium, now gets up on stage at E3 and tell me that their big new thing is a ninety dollar bathroom scale that I can use to pretend to get in shape.
And you know what? It's made them billions of fucking dollars, so an extra special Fuck You goes out to all the blind pricks who supported their crybaby freefall into the slimy failure bog that Atari crash landed into twenty years ago. Call me a fanboy, but since the Old Nintendo left with their guiding light in tow, games in general have been worse off for it. Alas, that's a rant for another day.
And that class, is why I hate Nintendo.
I haven't even been a fan of video games for that long. I never had an NES when I was a kid (though I wanted one) and while I had a SNES, I never really played any of the classics outside of what Nintendo games everyone knew about through word of mouth. As soon as I got my Game Genie, my game selection hinged entirely on what games had the most awesome codes in the code book. I was what today would be classified as a "casual gamer", but back then would have been classified as "stupid kid whose taste in games is abysmal".
What I'm trying to say here is that I am 100% immune to the paralyzing, mind-addling nostalgia rays that grip most gamers today. This hate doesn't come from a jilted Nintendo Power reader. I didn't grow up with Link. I grew up with Mario, but in the way most people "grow up" with Mickey Mouse. No one but suburban housewives actually gives a shit about him. My babysitter wasn't the SNES: I was far too busy being babysat by Spider-man comics to pay attention to video games. I didn't play Link to the Past until my sophomore year of college, and Ocarina of Time my senior year.
Even so, Nintendo always meant one thing: games and systems that had that magical blend of technical prowess, creative gameplay, and good old fashioned Herculean effort. Their games were always huge, well rounded, technologically and graphically impressive, and truly creative. For nigh on 20 years they were the games you pointed to (on consoles) that said "This is how you make games". When they got down to brass tacks, they were simply the best in the business.
Unfortunately, that's not all you need in order for your system of the week to stay afloat: You also need a baker's shitload of games, which Nintendo found in really short supply once they had their first, real opposition. The Big N never quite realized just how powerful their foe was, just how hard they had to fight back, and as a result for two entire console cycles they got raped like a petite black woman that wandered too near to Mike Tyson's cage.
Here's where the hate comes in. At the start of round two of the great ten year rape-a-thon, things were up in the air for Nintendo. They were poised to take back some of the ground they'd lost with their promising new system. They had that aforementioned magical blend, they had spokesmen that weren't complete douchebags, and they had hardware that would never ever break. So I bit the bullet, bought a Gamecube, and waited for Nintendo to stand up and fight back with a string of titles that would once again show the rest of the world how you make videogames.
Nintendo opened with a solid left hook called Smash Bros. Melee, and after that Sony reared back and punched Nintendo so hard that Nintendo's head went back in fucking time and smacked Atari right in the balls, casuing them to tumble into their Great Video Game Crash.
Meanwhile, i'm sitting here in my chair, reading news about what Nintendo has in store for the little box I just bought going JESUS CHRIST NINTENDO GET UP AND FIGHT! THROW A FUCKING PUNCH FOR GOD'S SAKES SINCE I JUST SPENT TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS ON YOUR SHITBOX EMBARRASSMENT.
They never did. Sony kept punching them so hard in the face that their head was little more than strawberry jam, and all they ever did to fight back was wobble their little hands in mild defiance every once in a while. The PS2 would have more games coming out for it than people could possibly play in a month, titles that would go down as classics of the era. Meanwhile Nintendo released one Mario Sports title every six months while Professional Meatman of Inderterminate Ethnicity Reggie Fils-Aime threw the same two quotes out: "We haven't forgotten about the hardcore gamer" and "We have a really grat lineup of games this quarter, such as *bullshit no one cares about!". As all this was happening, PS2's were practically shattering left and right, and all Sony did was say FUCK YOU WHAT'RE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT FAGGOT, and then proceeded to make billions.
Finally, Nintendo had enough. Like a big fat crybaby who doesn't get his way, Nintendo took their ball and went home. Nintendo retreated into their chrysalis, and when they emerged, they were the complete and utter polar opposite of what they had been. Instead of a company that embodied creativity, hard work, and technical excellence all rolled into one, they embodied mainstream appeal, minimal work, and gimmickry. The company that once put rules in place that both made them shit-tons of money as well as safeguarded against another Atari-era crash, could now not pump absolute garbage onto the market fast enough and is the only company of the big three that has no quality requirements whatsoever. The company that once made huge, epic games like Ocarina of Time and Mario 3 that will go down in history as the best examples of the medium, now gets up on stage at E3 and tell me that their big new thing is a ninety dollar bathroom scale that I can use to pretend to get in shape.
And you know what? It's made them billions of fucking dollars, so an extra special Fuck You goes out to all the blind pricks who supported their crybaby freefall into the slimy failure bog that Atari crash landed into twenty years ago. Call me a fanboy, but since the Old Nintendo left with their guiding light in tow, games in general have been worse off for it. Alas, that's a rant for another day.
And that class, is why I hate Nintendo.
It Starts
Every time I think of something beginning, especially something long, epic, and/or harrowing, that little bit of dialog pops into my head. "It starts".
It should be noted it's read in the voice of Nathan Lane doing Timon from the Lion King, specifically from the SNES game based on the movie. See, whenever you start that game, you're treated to a (at the time) magnificently animated picture of Timon saying that phrase in a (at the time) lovely digitized sound clip, all of which was set in the corner of the stark black TV screen. It gave an inordinate amount of weight and portent to what was, in the end, merely another movie tie-in game. Consequently, that little moment will forever remain with me, filed under "things to reference when beginning to undertake something substantial".
Fitting that it should pop into my head as I sat down to start this blog. Not only is typing up rants merely to go "Look what a clever motherfucker I am!" completely contrary to my nature, but even if it weren't, i'd have to be arrogant enough to assume that enough people would find me enthralling to not make this a complete waste of time. So what to talk about? What in the world would I have to say that anyone I don't talk to daily would give a damn about? What could I compose a lengthy diatribe about that anyone who stumbled onto this post from the four corners of the Incredible Edible Internet would stop to read before hitting the "back" button and continuing their lengthy quest for quality incest pornography? This is the thing that's kept me from joining the ranks of the connected, the Web 2.0 iPhone crowd, the Twitterers and the Facebookers and the Myspacers and yes, the bloggers: I am apparently the last person left alive on the planet who has ever said genuinely to himself "Maybe i'm not that amazing! Maybe typing up every hilarious little thought would be a massive, unnoticed waste of time!".
The first daunting task I had was to overcome those very real questions. Since this is the Internet, I answered them in a manner befitting the medium: nonsensically and with little thought. What can I talk about? Whatever pops into my head that puts gasoline into the Ranting Engine. What if no one cares? Are you kidding, i'm typing on a blog. On the internet. Of course people will read it.
Jesus, is this how you people really think all the time? Stay tuned for my thoughts on love, life, the pursuit of happiness, videogames, and more.
It should be noted it's read in the voice of Nathan Lane doing Timon from the Lion King, specifically from the SNES game based on the movie. See, whenever you start that game, you're treated to a (at the time) magnificently animated picture of Timon saying that phrase in a (at the time) lovely digitized sound clip, all of which was set in the corner of the stark black TV screen. It gave an inordinate amount of weight and portent to what was, in the end, merely another movie tie-in game. Consequently, that little moment will forever remain with me, filed under "things to reference when beginning to undertake something substantial".
Fitting that it should pop into my head as I sat down to start this blog. Not only is typing up rants merely to go "Look what a clever motherfucker I am!" completely contrary to my nature, but even if it weren't, i'd have to be arrogant enough to assume that enough people would find me enthralling to not make this a complete waste of time. So what to talk about? What in the world would I have to say that anyone I don't talk to daily would give a damn about? What could I compose a lengthy diatribe about that anyone who stumbled onto this post from the four corners of the Incredible Edible Internet would stop to read before hitting the "back" button and continuing their lengthy quest for quality incest pornography? This is the thing that's kept me from joining the ranks of the connected, the Web 2.0 iPhone crowd, the Twitterers and the Facebookers and the Myspacers and yes, the bloggers: I am apparently the last person left alive on the planet who has ever said genuinely to himself "Maybe i'm not that amazing! Maybe typing up every hilarious little thought would be a massive, unnoticed waste of time!".
The first daunting task I had was to overcome those very real questions. Since this is the Internet, I answered them in a manner befitting the medium: nonsensically and with little thought. What can I talk about? Whatever pops into my head that puts gasoline into the Ranting Engine. What if no one cares? Are you kidding, i'm typing on a blog. On the internet. Of course people will read it.
Jesus, is this how you people really think all the time? Stay tuned for my thoughts on love, life, the pursuit of happiness, videogames, and more.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
