Having recently completed Zero: Tsukihami no Kamen for Wii, or more accurately the unofficial English translation patch entitled Fatal Frame 4: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, I figure this would be a logical time to detail my thoughts on the game.
The latest in Tecmo's excellent Zero horror series, also known as Fatal Frame in America and Project Zero in Europe (the latter being the result of PAL edition publisher Wanadoo mistaking the development team's name for the title, and the former being cheesy enough that they felt compelled to replace it in the first place), it is sadly the first to remain a (REGION LOCKED) Japanese-only release. Much like its predecessors, Zero 4 combines linear Adventure/Survival Horror exploration with RPG stat upgrading and an ingenius first-person photography combat system. The most obvious distinction between this and previous games is the presence of Co-director and Co-writer Suda Goichi (a.k.a. Suda51, who has long held the prestigious position of my hero) and other Grasshopper Manufacture staffers in the team.
Chief among the mechanical changes is the new and interesting twist to exploration. In the original trilogy critical items would be represented as glowing blue blobs that appear when certain conditions were met (Zero's equivalent to the classic Resident Evil glint) while health and ammunition resources would be hidden with no visual clue among examinable bits and pieces in the environment such as drawers, suits of armor, etc.; the idea being to reward players for exploring thoroughly, though in practise leading to the pragmatic (and so not especially atmospheric) technique of wallsurfing and mashing. Zero 4's solution is extremely elegant. The game has dispensed with the fixed-camera view, instead opting for an over-the-shoulder Resident Evil 4 camera system where the character's torchbeam is pointed at the centre of the screen, and view is controlled by tilting - not pointing - the wiimote for pitch or pivoting with the thumbstick (pivoting the view can also be achieved without turning your character by tilting the wiimote while stationary if desired - I dunno, maybe you want to see the character model from the front or something). When standing in the vacinity of items, a blue filament appears on the HUD that glows brighter when facing the correct direction, and should the torchbeam pass over any interactable item in the area it will appear as the old glowing blue ball for you to pick up. The system requires enough precision that waving around wildly for a few seconds when entering a new room will not be tremendously effective, but little enough that locating well-hidden items is not frustrating. Once an item has been located, you must examine it, the process of which is itself a new feature: while health and ammo is granted instantly, files, key items and upgrade resources (more on them later) are examined by slowly reaching out for them by holding A (where releasing A will retract the character's arm). Rather predictably every so often a ghostly hand will emerge to grab you as you reach out, requiring you to shake it off - literally, since this is the Wii, but at least the traditional wiimote waggling represents an action which is similarly wild and aimless - and preventing you from collecting the item (of course this only happens with the nonessential upgrade items - never with files or keys). My initial reaction to this system was rather cynical - I couldn't see any pragmatic value to retracting my hand as the ghostly grabbing hands cannot be dodged in this way, so it just seemed like an unnecessary time-padding barrier to progress - but when the concluding ghost battle of the second chapter was triggered by similarly reaching out to touch the shoulder of a character I had been searching for, I understood its worth. In Zero games, all the major story events - and crucially the most threatening ghost battles - are triggered by the player picking up an item, be it a file, an abstract key or a literal key. The combination of the knowledge that a critical item could spell serious danger to you and the uncertainty over whether the item is critical at all grants the reaching-out sequence a great deal of tension, and the opportunity to retract your hand becomes a means of changing your mind - perhaps this item looks to be in too important a location and you want to be more prepared for what it might throw at you. It's a beautiful new way of abstracting the question "Are you sure? Yes/No" which gamers naturally associate with extremely significant decisions. While I must say it's a shame to lose the gorgeous standard of fixed-camera cinematography from the old games, it's definitely worth it.
Playing on uncertainty in a similar manner to the above, nonaggressive ghosts are not distinguished from their aggressive counterparts when they appear. In the originals, filament colour would determine whether an apparition was a threat - blue for safe, red for danger - but here the blue filament is already in use for locating items. Instead, all ghosts are indicated with the red filament. Some ghosts are deliberately intended to function as a false alarm by appearing in threatening positions, while some lull you into a false sense of security by doing the opposite before beginning their attack routines.
Another new feature is the shop available at save points. Points earned from combat and nonaggressive ghost photographs can be spent on healing items and film (that is, ammunition). Points are plentiful enough that cautious players could easily reguarly arm themselves to the teeth and equip more healing items than there are ghosts to harm them, but endgame ratings are awarded based heavily on the amount of points that remain on completion. It makes a lot of sense to do it this way - presumably the players who actually care where they fall on the D/C/B/A/S scale will be the same players who want the game to offer some degree of challenge, so everybody wins. While it doesn't make much sense from a narrative perspective to have old stone lanterns function as herbal medicine vending machines, it provides a nice means of ensuring players are equipped in a way that makes them comfortable to play on and prevents sticking points from emerging.
While levelling up your camera's capabilities used to be done with that score currency, now it costs two other resources - blue and red crystals - found as reach-outable items in the environment. Blue crystals upgrade your camera itself, while red ones upgrade the special ability lenses (which are, incidentally, also found in the same way). There isn't much to say about this beyond the fact it works.
Camera combat remains largely unchanged from previous games, aside from the extremely forgiving lock-on function, presumably there to prevent the wiimote tilting pitch control's inherent instability from interfering too much, though it still can be problematic when locked ghosts vanish and the view suddenly snaps back to full player control. The camera users can also dodge ghost grapple attacks (once a certain item has been found) by waggling at the right moment, which is rather reminiscent of Resident Evil 3's evade system. Much faster paced than the second game's extremely slow building combat tension but nowhere near as bastard hard as the first game, the third game's combat makes for a fair comparison. New to the combat aspect is character Choushiro's "Spirit Stone Flashlight" - a device which seems utterly absurd until you remember that it's not really any sillier than the series' trademark magical excorcismal camera - which doesn't allow fatal frames or shutter chances (for those unfamiliar, these are brief moments during enemy attack routines at which they can be hit for extra damage). The flashlight deals damage determined by how long the fire button is held down, drawing from a limited power resource which must be recharged every so often by switching back to third person for a while. Choushiro can't lock on, and has by far the most group fights, turning his game into one of gradually backing away while dealing as much damage as possible, and interrupting incoming attacks with stronger shots. It certainly keeps things interesting, as even when fighting the same ghosts - with the same AI no less - Choushiro's system offers a completely different experience.
The story has all the basics of a classic Zero plot - someone goes to an old haunted place in Japan in search of someone else who went missing there, and finds the aftermath of an ancient Shinto ritual gone wrong, relating in some way to a gate to hell - but plays with the formula in inventive and satisfying ways which I shall try not to spoil too much. Rather than seeking a lost loved one as were Miku, Mio and Rei, the protagonists of Zero 4 are searching for their lost memories relating to a mysterious kidnapping ten years prior, that occurred during an old festival popular among tourists on an obscure Japanese island. The setting - an abandoned psychiatric hospital specialising in treating a local illness known (in the translation) as "Luna Sedata Syndrome" - combines the classic Zero traditional wood, paper and stone Japanese architecture with early-mid 20th Century modernity, granting it a creepily familiar quality reminiscent of Silent Hill.
If I was to criticise anything (aside from the occasionally problematic wiimote pitch controls in combat and ghost hunting), it would be the anticlimactic nature of many of the boss fights, notably the final one. I would approach significant fights expecting them to be a serious challenge, and would appropriately equip powerful film I had saved in the same manner as one would a Resident Evil grenade launcher. But nearly every time this occurred, including the final battle, I completely crushed my opponent in two or three easy shots. Where bosses are large group fights they provide the necessary challenge (if not perhaps too much challenge), but solo opponents rarely take any time let alone draining the resources you have collected and retained for them.
I'm currently replaying on Hard mode to see if it provides the kind of game I was expecting. So far the primary differences appear to be the frequency with with grabbing hands interrupt your item examinations, the damage that enemies deal and take, and the cost of items in the shop. The HP changes might have granted significant fights appropriate longevity if not for the fact that I am equipped with almost fully upgraded cameras and a huge stockpile of film and health supplements from my previous playthrough - Hard mode is only available as a New Game Plus.
But all together an excellent entry into the series. I still call the extraordinary second game Crimson Butterfly my favourite, but Zero 4 takes a more than respectable second place, and with the region-lock bypassing English patch now available, comes as a highly recommended import.
Thursday, 4 March 2010
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Stephen Totilo Doesn't Understand Words - Episode #8,649,365,871
Short filler post!
You may have heard the unfortunate news that some Ryu Ga Gotoku 3 content is to be dropped for the forthcoming Yakuza 3.
Here's Kotaku's Stephen Totilo on the subject.
And here's a recap of the pertinent details:
Totilo appears to believe, then, that localisation consists of taking a disc image and sending it through Google Translate.
How do Kotaku writers manage to dress themselves every morning?
As for the story itself, as someone who was rather fond of the previous two games I find it a real shame, but there remains the possibility (however unlikely) that some or all of the missing content could be translated and included as DLC should the game sell well. Or that its sequel could be afforded a localisation budget sufficient for the whole game. So buy it you goddamn philistines.
On an unrelated note, I recently felt compelled to start another, more frivolous blog. Have a gander. Or don't, it's up to you really.
Coming up next time: a review-ish thing of Zero: Tsukihami no Kamen.
You may have heard the unfortunate news that some Ryu Ga Gotoku 3 content is to be dropped for the forthcoming Yakuza 3.
Here's Kotaku's Stephen Totilo on the subject.
And here's a recap of the pertinent details:
"Regarding Yakuza 3, we had a tight schedule to abide by for localizing and releasing Yakuza 3 in the west. Due to the limited time we were given we had to leave certain bits of the game out..." - SEGA
"Yakuza 3 was released a year ago in Japan this week, which makes Sega's comments about time pressures confusing." - Stephen Totilo
Totilo appears to believe, then, that localisation consists of taking a disc image and sending it through Google Translate.
How do Kotaku writers manage to dress themselves every morning?
As for the story itself, as someone who was rather fond of the previous two games I find it a real shame, but there remains the possibility (however unlikely) that some or all of the missing content could be translated and included as DLC should the game sell well. Or that its sequel could be afforded a localisation budget sufficient for the whole game. So buy it you goddamn philistines.
On an unrelated note, I recently felt compelled to start another, more frivolous blog. Have a gander. Or don't, it's up to you really.
Coming up next time: a review-ish thing of Zero: Tsukihami no Kamen.
Thursday, 14 January 2010
2009: The Year in Review(s)
New hiatus record! I doubt I'll beat that one, but you never know.
So then, twenty-oh-nine. What a year.
Since my posts last year generally strayed away from the review format that dominated 2007-8's output, I'll make that up here by briefly discussing a few of the games that have particularly excited me over the last twelve months.
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
Some of you may remember me describing Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 as the finest RPG I have ever had the pleasure of playing.
This is no longer true.
Instead, that honour goes to its extraordinary successor, unsurprisingly entitled Persona 4. Major changes from P3's formula are few, and are vastly outnumbered by refinements. Most obviously, the player now has the option of direct control over all partymembers in battles, not just the protagonist. Difficulty is ramped up appropriately to account for this greater degree of tactical control, though with this in mind one wonders why the P3 AI options are not only still present, but enabled by default whenever a new character joins your party. This - a reduandant optional feature hungover from the previous game - is as close to a criticism as I can muster. I similarly struggled to criticise P3 of course, but next to its sequel the flaws seem so obvious: the new game's characters are far and away more interesting than Yukari, Junpei and co.; all partymembers now have their own 'Social Link' sidequests and offer special abilities as an incentive to getting to know them; the music manages to be - despite the lack of slightly absurd Japanese rapper Lotus Juice - even more catchy and enjoyable; the English voice cast is a massive improvement; the story is engaging, and doesn't sink into wangsty melodrama (P3 played the tragic parental death card far too often); the randomly generated dungeons are much more varied; and the setting, a small rural town as opposed to a major coastal city, has far more character.
I look forward to the inevitable Persona 5 making me view this game as tired and dated. But until then, Persona 4 is the finest RPG I have ever had the pleasure of playing.
Batman: Arkham Asylum
An exercise in how to do a license justice. With no cinematic blockbuster or new TV series to tie-in with and promote, Rocksteady were able to make a Batman game that stands on its own two feet. Or hangs upside-down from them at least.
Based on the tried and tested Metroid formula of exploration unearthing tools and those tools facilitating further exploration, and borrowing Beyond Good & Evil and Metroid Prime's scanning for secrets, Arkham Asylum primarily alternates between stealth and melee combat.
Stealth is mostly very simple (enemies aren't very good at spotting huge men in bat costumes dangling from gargoyles - considering the license you'd think they'd have received special training) and only occurs in controlled environments, but offers an extremely wide range of techniques to play with. Fun comes not from overcoming the challenge itself, but instead from finding imaginative and unusual ways of doing so.
Melee combat is an elegant system, focused entirely on the art of selecting the right kind of moves - strike, dodge, throw, counter, block, stun - to maintain an unbroken combo. The greater your combo the more experience awarded, which can be spent on nonessential things like health upgrades or new special moves made available after a threshold combo number is reached.
The essential tools are, generally, grappling hooks. There's the basic hookshot, the long range hookshot, the zip-line launcher, the claw for yanking things, and the stronger triple claw for yanking things. There's also explosive gel, which you squirt on things and then blow up. Pretty straightforward. They all have their uses in stealth, combat and exploration, as they should.
As for criticisms, the script (performed by the excellent cast of the acclaimed 90s cartoon) is a little... gamey at times, bosses (few and far between though they are) are often frustrating and repetitive, and the Killer Croc sequence - built up as a huge dramatic climax for almost the entire game - is incredibly boring. But all in all, a great Metroidvania with masses of Batman fanservice, and fun and inventive mechanics. Highly recommended.
1 vs. 100
And now, our live host.
... ...
... ...
... ...
... ...
... ...
... ...
... ...
... ...
... ...
Thanks host.
Seriously, he either doesn't exist in this second series or he doesn't know what button he's supposed to press on the desk and has spent the last two months talking to absolutely no one.
A live multiple-choice trivia quiz show available to Xbox Live Gold members, 1 vs. 100 is far more entertaining than it might seem to the uninitiated in the hardcore gaming community. The main show, on Tuesday and Friday evenings between 7:30 and 9:30, offers actual prizes in the shape of a selected Live Arcade title (different every week) and Microsoft Points (which I prefer to contract to "Microints") to the players selected for the 'Mob' of 100 and the 'One' contenstant - randomly drawn from the best players from previous rounds.
A rather hollow experience when played solo, but the point is that it's great fun with friends to compete against. I am currently one series up and tied for the current season title with Mr Tony.
There we go. A top three for the year, again in no particular order, and again not in any way implying that nothing else of worth came out last year. Don't you ever say I'm not treating you right.
So then, twenty-oh-nine. What a year.
Since my posts last year generally strayed away from the review format that dominated 2007-8's output, I'll make that up here by briefly discussing a few of the games that have particularly excited me over the last twelve months.
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
Some of you may remember me describing Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 as the finest RPG I have ever had the pleasure of playing.
This is no longer true.
Instead, that honour goes to its extraordinary successor, unsurprisingly entitled Persona 4. Major changes from P3's formula are few, and are vastly outnumbered by refinements. Most obviously, the player now has the option of direct control over all partymembers in battles, not just the protagonist. Difficulty is ramped up appropriately to account for this greater degree of tactical control, though with this in mind one wonders why the P3 AI options are not only still present, but enabled by default whenever a new character joins your party. This - a reduandant optional feature hungover from the previous game - is as close to a criticism as I can muster. I similarly struggled to criticise P3 of course, but next to its sequel the flaws seem so obvious: the new game's characters are far and away more interesting than Yukari, Junpei and co.; all partymembers now have their own 'Social Link' sidequests and offer special abilities as an incentive to getting to know them; the music manages to be - despite the lack of slightly absurd Japanese rapper Lotus Juice - even more catchy and enjoyable; the English voice cast is a massive improvement; the story is engaging, and doesn't sink into wangsty melodrama (P3 played the tragic parental death card far too often); the randomly generated dungeons are much more varied; and the setting, a small rural town as opposed to a major coastal city, has far more character.
I look forward to the inevitable Persona 5 making me view this game as tired and dated. But until then, Persona 4 is the finest RPG I have ever had the pleasure of playing.
Batman: Arkham Asylum
An exercise in how to do a license justice. With no cinematic blockbuster or new TV series to tie-in with and promote, Rocksteady were able to make a Batman game that stands on its own two feet. Or hangs upside-down from them at least.
Based on the tried and tested Metroid formula of exploration unearthing tools and those tools facilitating further exploration, and borrowing Beyond Good & Evil and Metroid Prime's scanning for secrets, Arkham Asylum primarily alternates between stealth and melee combat.
Stealth is mostly very simple (enemies aren't very good at spotting huge men in bat costumes dangling from gargoyles - considering the license you'd think they'd have received special training) and only occurs in controlled environments, but offers an extremely wide range of techniques to play with. Fun comes not from overcoming the challenge itself, but instead from finding imaginative and unusual ways of doing so.
Melee combat is an elegant system, focused entirely on the art of selecting the right kind of moves - strike, dodge, throw, counter, block, stun - to maintain an unbroken combo. The greater your combo the more experience awarded, which can be spent on nonessential things like health upgrades or new special moves made available after a threshold combo number is reached.
The essential tools are, generally, grappling hooks. There's the basic hookshot, the long range hookshot, the zip-line launcher, the claw for yanking things, and the stronger triple claw for yanking things. There's also explosive gel, which you squirt on things and then blow up. Pretty straightforward. They all have their uses in stealth, combat and exploration, as they should.
As for criticisms, the script (performed by the excellent cast of the acclaimed 90s cartoon) is a little... gamey at times, bosses (few and far between though they are) are often frustrating and repetitive, and the Killer Croc sequence - built up as a huge dramatic climax for almost the entire game - is incredibly boring. But all in all, a great Metroidvania with masses of Batman fanservice, and fun and inventive mechanics. Highly recommended.
1 vs. 100
And now, our live host.
... ...
... ...
... ...
... ...
... ...
... ...
... ...
... ...
... ...
Thanks host.
Seriously, he either doesn't exist in this second series or he doesn't know what button he's supposed to press on the desk and has spent the last two months talking to absolutely no one.
A live multiple-choice trivia quiz show available to Xbox Live Gold members, 1 vs. 100 is far more entertaining than it might seem to the uninitiated in the hardcore gaming community. The main show, on Tuesday and Friday evenings between 7:30 and 9:30, offers actual prizes in the shape of a selected Live Arcade title (different every week) and Microsoft Points (which I prefer to contract to "Microints") to the players selected for the 'Mob' of 100 and the 'One' contenstant - randomly drawn from the best players from previous rounds.
A rather hollow experience when played solo, but the point is that it's great fun with friends to compete against. I am currently one series up and tied for the current season title with Mr Tony.
There we go. A top three for the year, again in no particular order, and again not in any way implying that nothing else of worth came out last year. Don't you ever say I'm not treating you right.
Thursday, 1 October 2009
Achievement Locked
I was recently wondering about region locking on today's home consoles. On Wii it is mandatory as per tradition, while on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 it is simply an option open to publishers (though locking is far less common with PS3 games).
As far as I can see, the only justification for a region lock is to encourage consumers to buy games in their own region where they otherwise might be able to import sooner or for less money. This keeps the gears of the games business turning worldwide (I have mentioned the folly of taking retailers for granted before) and also provides potentially useful information to marketing folks about how to treat future products in specific regions.
But with region locking now optional for the most part, I have to question the thought process behind its use on games that are entirely unavailable in certain regions. For example, a look over Play-Asia.com's handy compatibility guide for the Xbox 360 shows several games unreleased outside of Japan, but only playable on Japanese systems - games for which there are no plans (and little to no chance) of further localisation, such as visual novels or danmaku shooters.
So what advantage could this possibly offer to publishers? Without a big enough foreign market to justify localisation and shipping across further regions, surely by preventing any foreign players from playing their games imported they are essentially costing themselves local sales. Likely not a huge number of sales, admittedly, but sales nonetheless. It leaves import gamers with, bar piracy, two options: modifying their console to bypass the region lock - not something platform holders would be quick to encourage, and illegal in some places; or importing a whole new console, which is of course prohibitively expensive.
Another curiosity of Play-Asia's list is that all of the 360's unlocked games are major cross-regional releases such as Star Wars: The Force Unleashed or Halo 3: ODST - surely the only sort of game that could actually benefit from region locking, though to be fair in this age of near-simultaneous worldwide releases even that is unlikely. And these games are generally also available completely locked in certain regions, such as Gears of War's Japanese edition (presumably a decision made based on the disc space available for different languages), confusing the matter further.
It just strikes me as backwards, and I'd like to see region locking done away with altogether, or at least its general use reconsidered. Not that my weblog's audience is likely to include very many Japanese videogame publishing executives, mind.
As far as I can see, the only justification for a region lock is to encourage consumers to buy games in their own region where they otherwise might be able to import sooner or for less money. This keeps the gears of the games business turning worldwide (I have mentioned the folly of taking retailers for granted before) and also provides potentially useful information to marketing folks about how to treat future products in specific regions.
But with region locking now optional for the most part, I have to question the thought process behind its use on games that are entirely unavailable in certain regions. For example, a look over Play-Asia.com's handy compatibility guide for the Xbox 360 shows several games unreleased outside of Japan, but only playable on Japanese systems - games for which there are no plans (and little to no chance) of further localisation, such as visual novels or danmaku shooters.
So what advantage could this possibly offer to publishers? Without a big enough foreign market to justify localisation and shipping across further regions, surely by preventing any foreign players from playing their games imported they are essentially costing themselves local sales. Likely not a huge number of sales, admittedly, but sales nonetheless. It leaves import gamers with, bar piracy, two options: modifying their console to bypass the region lock - not something platform holders would be quick to encourage, and illegal in some places; or importing a whole new console, which is of course prohibitively expensive.
Another curiosity of Play-Asia's list is that all of the 360's unlocked games are major cross-regional releases such as Star Wars: The Force Unleashed or Halo 3: ODST - surely the only sort of game that could actually benefit from region locking, though to be fair in this age of near-simultaneous worldwide releases even that is unlikely. And these games are generally also available completely locked in certain regions, such as Gears of War's Japanese edition (presumably a decision made based on the disc space available for different languages), confusing the matter further.
It just strikes me as backwards, and I'd like to see region locking done away with altogether, or at least its general use reconsidered. Not that my weblog's audience is likely to include very many Japanese videogame publishing executives, mind.
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Videogames and the English Language
Of course, Deep Impact didn't wrap the action around the edges of the screen, unless there's any continuity errors I missed. Maybe Asteroids will be filmed in 360 degrees or something.
And if I let the posts bleed into each other like that, maybe you'll be less likely to notice the vast chasm of time in between them.
I recently re-read Politics and the English Language by George Orwell; a short piece about what he saw as a decline in English writing as a result of pretentious language, and overused metaphors and idioms. An excerpt:
I didn't hate the crouching feature because it broke the game, making it too easy or too hard. The opposite in fact: I hated it because it was completely redundant - there was absolutely nothing to duck under.
Since it was redundant, so that it could easily have not been there at all without affecting any other part of the design, a more charitable person might have just overlooked it entirely. But I think Orwell's writing does a good job of explaining the reason I was so irritated by that useless ability: It demonstrated a total lack of consideration on the part of the designer.
You could crouch in that game simply because the designer had made the lazy observation that you can crouch in several other 2D platform games. At no point did the designer ask why you can crouch in any of those games - they just allowed that "ready-made phrase" to think for them.
When Sonic the Hedgehog ducks, he can view the level directly below his position, and perform his spin attack ability. When Mario ducks he can evade certain hazards, and use his momentum to pass through small gaps. When Toejam & Earl duck (specifically while in Panic on Funkotron) they are immune to certain enemy attacks, and can plant their magic jar weapons on the ground with a short timed fuse. But in this unnamed Flash game, nothing. There's no secret passages to spot, no abilities to enable, no low ceilings to negotiate, and critically, no enemy attacks high enough to dodge.
I'm not disputing that convention is a valuable thing. If your players are accustomed to certain ways of doing things, it is often wise to conform to their expectations. But this is no excuse for throwing together a bunch of generic features without considering their appropriateness.
Now let's look at commercial videogames in the same light. Take recent Wii FPS The Conduit, for example. Last September, High Voltage ran a competition for fans to submit their own suggestions for the game's control schemes. In doing this, they presented the full list of commands to be assigned to the controllers:
When High Voltage set out to make "the Wii's defining FPS", it seems as if they became preoccupied with their dogmatic interpretation of the FPS side of it, and neglected to fully consider the Wii. Rather than finding the most effective way of shoehorning traditional features onto a nontraditional input mechanism, would it not have been wiser to design the product around the system itself from the ground up?
As I did in my previous Wii FPS post, I have to return to the example of fan-favourite GoldenEye. GoldenEye shows that even the genre staple of jumping is essentially extraneous. You can't jump, but you don't need to jump, because the game has been designed around the idea of not jumping.
And I think this is the most important thing to remember when designing games. Every game is itself, so no matter how apparently generic (or not) your product is, you must always re-examine and consider your decisions as a part of that product. You must always ask yourself: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? And is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
And if I let the posts bleed into each other like that, maybe you'll be less likely to notice the vast chasm of time in between them.
I recently re-read Politics and the English Language by George Orwell; a short piece about what he saw as a decline in English writing as a result of pretentious language, and overused metaphors and idioms. An excerpt:
"A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you - even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent - and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself."As I read this I suddenly remembered a Flash game I had played years earlier on Newgrounds. Unfortunately I have no memory of its title, and likely search keywords failed to uncover it, so you'll have to rely on my description of it rather than playing the game yourselves (though if anyone can identify it feel free to let me know so I can post a link). It was an 8-bit styled generic 2D platformer, whose core gameplay consisted of jumping over obstacles and gaps, shooting forwards at enemies, avoiding moving enemies, and avoiding enemy shots. Nothing special. But one small feature got me extremely riled up. If you pressed the down arrow, you could duck.
I didn't hate the crouching feature because it broke the game, making it too easy or too hard. The opposite in fact: I hated it because it was completely redundant - there was absolutely nothing to duck under.
Since it was redundant, so that it could easily have not been there at all without affecting any other part of the design, a more charitable person might have just overlooked it entirely. But I think Orwell's writing does a good job of explaining the reason I was so irritated by that useless ability: It demonstrated a total lack of consideration on the part of the designer.
You could crouch in that game simply because the designer had made the lazy observation that you can crouch in several other 2D platform games. At no point did the designer ask why you can crouch in any of those games - they just allowed that "ready-made phrase" to think for them.
When Sonic the Hedgehog ducks, he can view the level directly below his position, and perform his spin attack ability. When Mario ducks he can evade certain hazards, and use his momentum to pass through small gaps. When Toejam & Earl duck (specifically while in Panic on Funkotron) they are immune to certain enemy attacks, and can plant their magic jar weapons on the ground with a short timed fuse. But in this unnamed Flash game, nothing. There's no secret passages to spot, no abilities to enable, no low ceilings to negotiate, and critically, no enemy attacks high enough to dodge.
I'm not disputing that convention is a valuable thing. If your players are accustomed to certain ways of doing things, it is often wise to conform to their expectations. But this is no excuse for throwing together a bunch of generic features without considering their appropriateness.
Now let's look at commercial videogames in the same light. Take recent Wii FPS The Conduit, for example. Last September, High Voltage ran a competition for fans to submit their own suggestions for the game's control schemes. In doing this, they presented the full list of commands to be assigned to the controllers:
"The contest rules are simple; using a standard Wii-Remote and Nunchuk combination, fans should send in what control mapping they think would be best for the following functions:What we see here (with the exception of the gimmick 'ASE' feature, which I recommend you look up to judge how valuable it is to the game as a whole) is a shopping list of features from other shooters. Firstly, long time readers will remember my feelings on the Wii hosting move/look controls in the manner implied above (points 1, 2 and 14), then there's weapon switching from Halo, and target locking from Red Steel. All together a massive list of commands for 1 analogue stick, 1 d-pad, 8 buttons (only 4 of which are readily accessible), a pointer and a couple of imprecise accelerometers.
- Move Forward/Back
- Strafe Left/Right
- Jump/Activate
- Shoot Weapon
- Target Lock
- Crouch
- Reload Weapon
- Scope/Binocular Mode
- Switch Between Weapons Carried
- Switch Between Grenades Carried
- Pause Menu
- Swap Between Weapon Carried and Weapon on Ground
- Equip ASE (All-Seeing-Eye) / Special
- Aim Reticule/Turn Camera
- Melee Attack
- Throw Grenade"
When High Voltage set out to make "the Wii's defining FPS", it seems as if they became preoccupied with their dogmatic interpretation of the FPS side of it, and neglected to fully consider the Wii. Rather than finding the most effective way of shoehorning traditional features onto a nontraditional input mechanism, would it not have been wiser to design the product around the system itself from the ground up?
As I did in my previous Wii FPS post, I have to return to the example of fan-favourite GoldenEye. GoldenEye shows that even the genre staple of jumping is essentially extraneous. You can't jump, but you don't need to jump, because the game has been designed around the idea of not jumping.
And I think this is the most important thing to remember when designing games. Every game is itself, so no matter how apparently generic (or not) your product is, you must always re-examine and consider your decisions as a part of that product. You must always ask yourself: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? And is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
Thursday, 2 July 2009
Asteroids: The Movie
Just a short post to fill the gap here.
You may have heard of this curious development in the always interesting relationship between cinema and videogames. That's right, a film of Asteroids.
On the surface it seems a bit, well, batshit insane to attempt to adapt Asteroids into a feature film. I doubt many people have played the game continuously for an hour and a half, so it doesn't seem very likely they'd have the patience to sit and watch it for that long.
But, the more I think about it, the more I start to feel as if this film has already been made.
Just consider the plot for a moment:
And in-keeping with videogame movie tradition, it was awful. So why bother making Asteroids now?
You may have heard of this curious development in the always interesting relationship between cinema and videogames. That's right, a film of Asteroids.
On the surface it seems a bit, well, batshit insane to attempt to adapt Asteroids into a feature film. I doubt many people have played the game continuously for an hour and a half, so it doesn't seem very likely they'd have the patience to sit and watch it for that long.
But, the more I think about it, the more I start to feel as if this film has already been made.
Just consider the plot for a moment:
- A giant space rock threatens the protagonists.
- A spaceship is sent to destroy it.
- The attempted destruction only serves to split the big rock in half.
- Eventually and inevitably the protagonists lose, but they have the opportunity to start their lives afresh.
And in-keeping with videogame movie tradition, it was awful. So why bother making Asteroids now?
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
The Science of Brain Training
Are there any geeks reading?
I should expect so, given the nature of this weblog's stated primary concerns. But today I will be talking about a videogame that many non-geeks will be familiar with, making this surely the most accessible post on this weblog thus far *.
We've all heard of Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training and Big Brain Academy on the Nintendo DS haven't we? Software that purports to improve the mind's general cognitive capabilities. Today, in what is definitely not a filler post, I shall examine how it works.
The basics are easy to understand. First you are instructed to do something simple, such as adding up some numbers, or clicking on the word that's coloured blue. But here comes the interesting part - the word that's coloured blue might read "yellow". So the system calculates how good you are at selecting the word that's coloured blue which isn't necessarily the word "blue", and feeds your average aptitude back to you, congratulating you for improving your ability to select the word that's coloured blue which isn't necessarily the word "blue", and assuring you that this has also somehow made you better at things other than selecting the word that's coloured blue which isn't necessarily the word "blue".
Now, I may be coming across as perhaps unfairly flippant and dismissive towards the efficacy of Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training and Big Brain Academy on the Nintendo DS as tools for self-improvement. I assure you, however, that they do work. There is a great deal of complex science behind them, which I will now attempt to explain in layman's terms.
You see, unlike other videogames, they don't simply record the length of time you take to select the word that's coloured blue which isn't necessarily the word "blue"; new hi-score; input three initials. Instead, Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training and Big Brain Academy on the Nintendo DS use real science to respectively calculate your brain's age in Earth years, and its weight in grammes at 1g. As an aside, perhaps I shouldn't have used the word "instead" there, as that implies that a simple timer-based hi-score mechanism and the complex scientific calculations performed by Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training and Big Brain Academy on the Nintendo DS are effectively equivalent. Of course, they are not.
What Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training does, is as you are playing, it creates a kind of rift in the fabric of time - a temporal nexus of sorts - inside your skull. While this is active, it reverses the physical ageing effects of time on your brain. The software, calculating from the length of time you were using it and the aptitude you displayed, gives an estimate of your brain's age in Earth years.
But wait! Why, you must be wondering, is there such a discrepancy between a first-time user's bodily age and his or her brain age? Well not many people know this, but before you are born, while you are still a fetus in your mother's womb, you don't have a brain. All human brains are granted to us at the moment of birth by the enigmatic interstellar race known as the Brainmasters by means akin to teleportation. The Brainmasters can see through time itself, and by observing the span of human existence they cultivate and raise our brains for many years before the birth of their respective hosts - the minimum age for a brain to be fit for a human being is 20 Earth years, while some supposedly 'new' brains are as old as 80 Earth years. This is also the reason that the temporal nexus brought about by Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training freezes once the brain has reached the minimum (and optimum) 20 years old. Kawashima is not so naïve that he would risk acting against the will of the Brainmasters.
Big Brain Academy meanwhile, rather than manipulating the fabric of time, instead affects the space inside your cranium. It has been clearly proven that brains of greater weight are capable of greater intelligence. It is for this reason that H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds is considered thankfully unrealistic by most scientists - Martians with brains of roughly equal mass and density to that of a human being (and of course the brains of all sentient life in the Universe come from the Brainmasters' mould), living with an equatorial surface gravitational acceleration of 3.69m/s2 or 0.376g, as opposed to Earth's 9.80665m/s2 or 1g, are capable of less than 38% of the average human capacity for intellect. Similarly, if men are from Mars and women from Venus, men have approximately 41.6% of women's capacity for cognition when inhabiting their respective homeworlds. But if dolphins are indigenous to Earth, our days are numbered as a species. That was a little joke about equatorial surface gravity.
So, Big Brain Academy uses the spatial nexus created by its subtly different blend of selecting the word that's coloured blue which is not necessarily the word "blue", to add more (artificially synthesised) grey matter to your brain via their laboratory wormholes, thereby increasing its weight in grammes. The total value of your brain's weight is then fed back to you by the software.
Naturally, if you were to use both Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training and Big Brain Academy on the Nintendo DS simultaneously you would create a rift in both space and time within your skull. Theoretically, this would enable your brain to travel freely at superluminal speeds, amassing knowledge from all corners of the Universe and all aeons of time while still physically connected to your body. Scientists warn against doing this however, as laboratory tests show a significant increase in the probability of subjects being seriously injured by mopeds and bass guitars, and on at least one occasion the combination of this software was shown to be the direct cause of the eruption of giant robots from a subject's forehead.
Please use this software responsibly.
On an unrelated note, Yellow.
*This may be a lie.
I should expect so, given the nature of this weblog's stated primary concerns. But today I will be talking about a videogame that many non-geeks will be familiar with, making this surely the most accessible post on this weblog thus far *.
We've all heard of Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training and Big Brain Academy on the Nintendo DS haven't we? Software that purports to improve the mind's general cognitive capabilities. Today, in what is definitely not a filler post, I shall examine how it works.
The basics are easy to understand. First you are instructed to do something simple, such as adding up some numbers, or clicking on the word that's coloured blue. But here comes the interesting part - the word that's coloured blue might read "yellow". So the system calculates how good you are at selecting the word that's coloured blue which isn't necessarily the word "blue", and feeds your average aptitude back to you, congratulating you for improving your ability to select the word that's coloured blue which isn't necessarily the word "blue", and assuring you that this has also somehow made you better at things other than selecting the word that's coloured blue which isn't necessarily the word "blue".
Now, I may be coming across as perhaps unfairly flippant and dismissive towards the efficacy of Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training and Big Brain Academy on the Nintendo DS as tools for self-improvement. I assure you, however, that they do work. There is a great deal of complex science behind them, which I will now attempt to explain in layman's terms.
You see, unlike other videogames, they don't simply record the length of time you take to select the word that's coloured blue which isn't necessarily the word "blue"; new hi-score; input three initials. Instead, Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training and Big Brain Academy on the Nintendo DS use real science to respectively calculate your brain's age in Earth years, and its weight in grammes at 1g. As an aside, perhaps I shouldn't have used the word "instead" there, as that implies that a simple timer-based hi-score mechanism and the complex scientific calculations performed by Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training and Big Brain Academy on the Nintendo DS are effectively equivalent. Of course, they are not.
What Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training does, is as you are playing, it creates a kind of rift in the fabric of time - a temporal nexus of sorts - inside your skull. While this is active, it reverses the physical ageing effects of time on your brain. The software, calculating from the length of time you were using it and the aptitude you displayed, gives an estimate of your brain's age in Earth years.
But wait! Why, you must be wondering, is there such a discrepancy between a first-time user's bodily age and his or her brain age? Well not many people know this, but before you are born, while you are still a fetus in your mother's womb, you don't have a brain. All human brains are granted to us at the moment of birth by the enigmatic interstellar race known as the Brainmasters by means akin to teleportation. The Brainmasters can see through time itself, and by observing the span of human existence they cultivate and raise our brains for many years before the birth of their respective hosts - the minimum age for a brain to be fit for a human being is 20 Earth years, while some supposedly 'new' brains are as old as 80 Earth years. This is also the reason that the temporal nexus brought about by Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training freezes once the brain has reached the minimum (and optimum) 20 years old. Kawashima is not so naïve that he would risk acting against the will of the Brainmasters.
Big Brain Academy meanwhile, rather than manipulating the fabric of time, instead affects the space inside your cranium. It has been clearly proven that brains of greater weight are capable of greater intelligence. It is for this reason that H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds is considered thankfully unrealistic by most scientists - Martians with brains of roughly equal mass and density to that of a human being (and of course the brains of all sentient life in the Universe come from the Brainmasters' mould), living with an equatorial surface gravitational acceleration of 3.69m/s2 or 0.376g, as opposed to Earth's 9.80665m/s2 or 1g, are capable of less than 38% of the average human capacity for intellect. Similarly, if men are from Mars and women from Venus, men have approximately 41.6% of women's capacity for cognition when inhabiting their respective homeworlds. But if dolphins are indigenous to Earth, our days are numbered as a species. That was a little joke about equatorial surface gravity.
So, Big Brain Academy uses the spatial nexus created by its subtly different blend of selecting the word that's coloured blue which is not necessarily the word "blue", to add more (artificially synthesised) grey matter to your brain via their laboratory wormholes, thereby increasing its weight in grammes. The total value of your brain's weight is then fed back to you by the software.
Naturally, if you were to use both Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training and Big Brain Academy on the Nintendo DS simultaneously you would create a rift in both space and time within your skull. Theoretically, this would enable your brain to travel freely at superluminal speeds, amassing knowledge from all corners of the Universe and all aeons of time while still physically connected to your body. Scientists warn against doing this however, as laboratory tests show a significant increase in the probability of subjects being seriously injured by mopeds and bass guitars, and on at least one occasion the combination of this software was shown to be the direct cause of the eruption of giant robots from a subject's forehead.
Please use this software responsibly.
On an unrelated note, Yellow.
*This may be a lie.
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