Friday, October 9, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Tyranny by Majority: The Marketplace & You
(Okami vs Wii Sports)
I’m going to share a little story with you of an experience I had not too long ago when a good friend of mine came to visit (Hi Chris if you’re watching *waves*).
But a little background first – it may come as a shock to many but I own a Nintendo Wii. It was the result of a compromise (read: manipulation) with my non-gaming roommates who’d advised that if I bought a Wii rather than one of those ‘other consoles’ (Playbox 3DS-what?) they would be interested in having a go. Excited about making a few converts of worship to the one true god, I ran out and bought a Wii along with a number of games I thought would be good. Anyway, long story short: they played a couple games of Wii Bowling then lost interest, I finished Zelda & Metroid in a matter of days and there now exists about ten inches of dust on that infernal little white box.
However, through means of which I cannot remember I found out that there was this really good game that has kinda existed in limbo for a bit because its makers went under that was going to be given a new lease of life on the Wii. Great I thought, so without further ado I went down to the local Game Traders (not in Robina) and bought a copy. This game was Okami.
Okami is amazing. I mean, game play and design wise it really is a lot like recent Zelda games in many aspects (world PvE, quests, boss fights, etc) but in many ways it is very very very different to anything else that’s out there on the market.
If I were to describe it using reviewer-speak, I’d say it was a cross between Zelda and Final Fantasy without the annoying random encounters.
The main thing that is spoken of about this game (and the one thing that stands out immediately) is the art style that the developers decided to go with. Rather than go with the ‘as realistic as possible’ approach that was all the rave, the designs instead went with a rather colourful and obscure art style that makes the entire look like you are playing inside one of those old woodcut, watercolour Japanese paintings – which considering the main storyline is based off Shinto myth works really really well. However, it goes a bit deeper than that… I don’t want to give away too much otherwise I’d spoil some of the experience for those who have never played this game, but let’s just say that about half-way through you start to realise that ‘things aren’t quite as they seem’…
All in all it was an experience I wanted to share. So when my friend came up to visit the opportunity arouse and I took it.
My friend loves his shooters. Unreal Tournament is his favourite game (I think). But he also enjoys the odd RPG and racing game. I should note that this wasn’t the first time I had shown him something completely different – I introduced him to the Heroes of Might & Magic series and he absolutely loved it – so I saw this as simply another act of spreading the joy so to speak.
It did not turn out well.
There is one thing about Okami that I should mention – it suffers from ‘JRPG Syndrome’. That is, it is extremely wordy. My friend and I had had a few beers first before I decided to show him this game so I’d forgotten to elaborate on this – the intro on it’s own is at least five minutes long and consists of nothing more than still images, warbled voices and acres upon acres of text. My friend did not approve. I watched as he sat there, controller in hand slowly becoming angrier and angrier. It was quite hilarious. By the time it got to actual game play he was telling me just how angry he was. Having not completely lost hope (and also because I was enjoying his suffering) I made him play for a few more minutes. No good – the weird art style, dialogue and gameplay made him visibly uncomfortable. In the end he threw down the controller and demanded we go back to playing Wii Sports. Not wanting to get my face smashed in, I relented.
This is a good example of why Okami failed along with all the other awarding examples that led it’s developers to a similar end. The key words here are: Target Audience - most people don’t want you’re completely ingenious example of games as art, they want entertainment often in a form in which they are familiar with and which they know will make them happy. Why else do you think Hollywood keeps churning out the same crap all time, it’s what the people want.
It is a shame, because Okami really is a very good game. But it has no appeal to the mass market because it includes all those ‘tedious’ niches such as over-developed storyline, excessive text and a world in which they simply cannot relate to. Wii Sports on the other hand is the complete opposite – grab a controller, grab a friend, pick a game and away you go. Wii Sports understands that the player isn’t there to think and be moved they’re there to play and have fun.
For the record – I really hate Wii Sports and all it stands for because it’s a shinnying example of what mass market influence can do to an art form (that and I’ve pretty much had an objection to any sport ‘videogame’ which parallels an activity that you can easily do by going outside and picking up a ball). Yet I understand it and that in a way it is genius: it might not have the looks, or really work too well, or require much skill, or be immersive and engaging but it is still FUN.
I’ll admit it even – after my friend and I got back to some Wii Golf I had an absolute ball… after which I had to play numerous hours of D&D inspired Neverwinter Nights just to get the bad taste out of my mouth.
I’m going to share a little story with you of an experience I had not too long ago when a good friend of mine came to visit (Hi Chris if you’re watching *waves*).
But a little background first – it may come as a shock to many but I own a Nintendo Wii. It was the result of a compromise (read: manipulation) with my non-gaming roommates who’d advised that if I bought a Wii rather than one of those ‘other consoles’ (Playbox 3DS-what?) they would be interested in having a go. Excited about making a few converts of worship to the one true god, I ran out and bought a Wii along with a number of games I thought would be good. Anyway, long story short: they played a couple games of Wii Bowling then lost interest, I finished Zelda & Metroid in a matter of days and there now exists about ten inches of dust on that infernal little white box.
However, through means of which I cannot remember I found out that there was this really good game that has kinda existed in limbo for a bit because its makers went under that was going to be given a new lease of life on the Wii. Great I thought, so without further ado I went down to the local Game Traders (not in Robina) and bought a copy. This game was Okami.
Okami is amazing. I mean, game play and design wise it really is a lot like recent Zelda games in many aspects (world PvE, quests, boss fights, etc) but in many ways it is very very very different to anything else that’s out there on the market.
If I were to describe it using reviewer-speak, I’d say it was a cross between Zelda and Final Fantasy without the annoying random encounters.
The main thing that is spoken of about this game (and the one thing that stands out immediately) is the art style that the developers decided to go with. Rather than go with the ‘as realistic as possible’ approach that was all the rave, the designs instead went with a rather colourful and obscure art style that makes the entire look like you are playing inside one of those old woodcut, watercolour Japanese paintings – which considering the main storyline is based off Shinto myth works really really well. However, it goes a bit deeper than that… I don’t want to give away too much otherwise I’d spoil some of the experience for those who have never played this game, but let’s just say that about half-way through you start to realise that ‘things aren’t quite as they seem’…
All in all it was an experience I wanted to share. So when my friend came up to visit the opportunity arouse and I took it.
My friend loves his shooters. Unreal Tournament is his favourite game (I think). But he also enjoys the odd RPG and racing game. I should note that this wasn’t the first time I had shown him something completely different – I introduced him to the Heroes of Might & Magic series and he absolutely loved it – so I saw this as simply another act of spreading the joy so to speak.
It did not turn out well.
There is one thing about Okami that I should mention – it suffers from ‘JRPG Syndrome’. That is, it is extremely wordy. My friend and I had had a few beers first before I decided to show him this game so I’d forgotten to elaborate on this – the intro on it’s own is at least five minutes long and consists of nothing more than still images, warbled voices and acres upon acres of text. My friend did not approve. I watched as he sat there, controller in hand slowly becoming angrier and angrier. It was quite hilarious. By the time it got to actual game play he was telling me just how angry he was. Having not completely lost hope (and also because I was enjoying his suffering) I made him play for a few more minutes. No good – the weird art style, dialogue and gameplay made him visibly uncomfortable. In the end he threw down the controller and demanded we go back to playing Wii Sports. Not wanting to get my face smashed in, I relented.
This is a good example of why Okami failed along with all the other awarding examples that led it’s developers to a similar end. The key words here are: Target Audience - most people don’t want you’re completely ingenious example of games as art, they want entertainment often in a form in which they are familiar with and which they know will make them happy. Why else do you think Hollywood keeps churning out the same crap all time, it’s what the people want.
It is a shame, because Okami really is a very good game. But it has no appeal to the mass market because it includes all those ‘tedious’ niches such as over-developed storyline, excessive text and a world in which they simply cannot relate to. Wii Sports on the other hand is the complete opposite – grab a controller, grab a friend, pick a game and away you go. Wii Sports understands that the player isn’t there to think and be moved they’re there to play and have fun.
For the record – I really hate Wii Sports and all it stands for because it’s a shinnying example of what mass market influence can do to an art form (that and I’ve pretty much had an objection to any sport ‘videogame’ which parallels an activity that you can easily do by going outside and picking up a ball). Yet I understand it and that in a way it is genius: it might not have the looks, or really work too well, or require much skill, or be immersive and engaging but it is still FUN.
I’ll admit it even – after my friend and I got back to some Wii Golf I had an absolute ball… after which I had to play numerous hours of D&D inspired Neverwinter Nights just to get the bad taste out of my mouth.
Taking Shortcuts: Don’t do it – it shows
(Homeworld vs Wargames)
Time for a couple late 90's Real-Time-Strategy Games now.
For those of you who have only just reached (mental) puberty, have spent your entire life playing console shooters or believe the Wii is the epitome of quality gaming there is a very good chance that you haven’t heard of either Homeworld or Wargames.
If you haven’t heard of Wargames, I’ll forgive you.
If you haven’t heard of Homeworld – sell your console, delete all your iphone games and donate your gaming PC to charity because you don’t deserve to possess either, nor should you ever even think to call yourself a gamer. Leave now and go play some football.
Anywho…
For those that don’t know, Wargames was a popular movie from the 80’s that involved a military super computer, a hacker who just wanted access to the latest games and… nuclear weapons. In short it was – just like every movie from the 80’s that used videogames as a plot device – totally awesome.
So when some good-intentioned sole gave me a copy of “Wargames” the PC game I was curious, even excited – I was also young, stupid and terribly, terribly innocent.
The problems stemmed all from the fact that not only was it one of those short-term movie licence games, it was also a port (as I only recently found out). Not only that, the original game – Wargames: Defcon 1 – was a tactical shooter…
I have to give them some credit for trying to jump onto the RTS gravy-train that was all the rave in the late 90’s but let’s just say that the decision to convert a console shooter into a PC RTS was not a very smart one.
This is turning into a rant post so I’ll just quickly sum up and move on: the interface was terrible, the mouse controls were not properly implemented (as they were originally designed for a tactical shooter on a console), path finding didn’t work (again, because the game was not designed to handle the larger unit numbers of an RTS and no effort was made to adjust this during the making of the port), all the missions were exactly the same as the PS version – except isn’t of being a shooter it was now an RTS (magic!) and lastly (of the top of my head) the game had some of the worst sound bites and voice acting that I have ever come across that not only just sounded bad, but was at times completely out of sync with what was going on.
Example: you have a small base building up when a single small enemy unit comes along and starts shooting at one of your buildings. It’s a scout unit and the buildings are very sturdy so the attack is doing virtually no damage. All of a sudden a loud terrified wail screeches out of the 4 watt PC speakers screaming: “They’re destroying our base!!!1112” over and over and over again until a squad is sent over to blow up the f***ing thing up.
It quickly becomes evident that this game is just a very hastily put together port of a completely different game slapped together slightly differently in the hope of scoring a few quick dollars out of some uninformed RTS fans. To sum up my opinion quite nicely: “The only winning move is not to play.”
Homeworld on the other hand is the complete and utter opposite. It is a shinnying example of want can be done if a design team really goes all out and makes the effort to produce a really good product.
Again, for those that do not know (shame on you) Homeworld is an RTS that tells the story of a group of exiles who re-discover their past and attempt to make the journey across a hostile galaxy back home. In it, you control a large ‘mother ship’ which acts as your centre for unit production, resource collection, research, etc.
Homeworld introduced a number of design innovations to an otherwise tired and overdone RTS genre. Firstly, there are no base structures at all – everything is based around building a mobile fleet of starships. No structures also meant no base defences and the like which completely changed how the game was played. However, the biggest innovation by far was the 3D movement. Now in addition to going left, right, forward, back you could also command your units to go up and down – best of all it was coupled together with a completely new and effective interface that made such movement very simple. It just… worked. All the while the basic rules of a good RTS were retained - units fit adhered to a 'rock-paper-scissors' balance very nicely, there was no dominant strategy (that I'm aware of - frigate-rush kekeke! (y/n)?), all missions and objectives were clear and consise - yet still left enough untold to keep you guessing when need be and lastly said missions were varied so as not to become repeative or boring - yet still tied together and the storyline.
At this point they could’ve stopped, through together a half decent story with some basic missions and they still would’ve had a decent game that would’ve sold well. But they didn’t. When this game hit shelves it had some of the best produced sounds and music in addition to fantastic visuals that still look good to this day. The game had a very atmospheric feel that just drew you in and the story that went with it is worthy of any epic space odyssey ever told in previous forms of media.
In short – the attention to detail paid to this game is quite evident. It’s a shame in some way that this game came out after Starcraft (and not before) else it would’ve been much more popular.
Time for a couple late 90's Real-Time-Strategy Games now.
For those of you who have only just reached (mental) puberty, have spent your entire life playing console shooters or believe the Wii is the epitome of quality gaming there is a very good chance that you haven’t heard of either Homeworld or Wargames.
If you haven’t heard of Wargames, I’ll forgive you.
If you haven’t heard of Homeworld – sell your console, delete all your iphone games and donate your gaming PC to charity because you don’t deserve to possess either, nor should you ever even think to call yourself a gamer. Leave now and go play some football.
Anywho…
For those that don’t know, Wargames was a popular movie from the 80’s that involved a military super computer, a hacker who just wanted access to the latest games and… nuclear weapons. In short it was – just like every movie from the 80’s that used videogames as a plot device – totally awesome.
So when some good-intentioned sole gave me a copy of “Wargames” the PC game I was curious, even excited – I was also young, stupid and terribly, terribly innocent.
The problems stemmed all from the fact that not only was it one of those short-term movie licence games, it was also a port (as I only recently found out). Not only that, the original game – Wargames: Defcon 1 – was a tactical shooter…
I have to give them some credit for trying to jump onto the RTS gravy-train that was all the rave in the late 90’s but let’s just say that the decision to convert a console shooter into a PC RTS was not a very smart one.
This is turning into a rant post so I’ll just quickly sum up and move on: the interface was terrible, the mouse controls were not properly implemented (as they were originally designed for a tactical shooter on a console), path finding didn’t work (again, because the game was not designed to handle the larger unit numbers of an RTS and no effort was made to adjust this during the making of the port), all the missions were exactly the same as the PS version – except isn’t of being a shooter it was now an RTS (magic!) and lastly (of the top of my head) the game had some of the worst sound bites and voice acting that I have ever come across that not only just sounded bad, but was at times completely out of sync with what was going on.
Example: you have a small base building up when a single small enemy unit comes along and starts shooting at one of your buildings. It’s a scout unit and the buildings are very sturdy so the attack is doing virtually no damage. All of a sudden a loud terrified wail screeches out of the 4 watt PC speakers screaming: “They’re destroying our base!!!1112” over and over and over again until a squad is sent over to blow up the f***ing thing up.
It quickly becomes evident that this game is just a very hastily put together port of a completely different game slapped together slightly differently in the hope of scoring a few quick dollars out of some uninformed RTS fans. To sum up my opinion quite nicely: “The only winning move is not to play.”
Homeworld on the other hand is the complete and utter opposite. It is a shinnying example of want can be done if a design team really goes all out and makes the effort to produce a really good product.
Again, for those that do not know (shame on you) Homeworld is an RTS that tells the story of a group of exiles who re-discover their past and attempt to make the journey across a hostile galaxy back home. In it, you control a large ‘mother ship’ which acts as your centre for unit production, resource collection, research, etc.
Homeworld introduced a number of design innovations to an otherwise tired and overdone RTS genre. Firstly, there are no base structures at all – everything is based around building a mobile fleet of starships. No structures also meant no base defences and the like which completely changed how the game was played. However, the biggest innovation by far was the 3D movement. Now in addition to going left, right, forward, back you could also command your units to go up and down – best of all it was coupled together with a completely new and effective interface that made such movement very simple. It just… worked. All the while the basic rules of a good RTS were retained - units fit adhered to a 'rock-paper-scissors' balance very nicely, there was no dominant strategy (that I'm aware of - frigate-rush kekeke! (y/n)?), all missions and objectives were clear and consise - yet still left enough untold to keep you guessing when need be and lastly said missions were varied so as not to become repeative or boring - yet still tied together and the storyline.
At this point they could’ve stopped, through together a half decent story with some basic missions and they still would’ve had a decent game that would’ve sold well. But they didn’t. When this game hit shelves it had some of the best produced sounds and music in addition to fantastic visuals that still look good to this day. The game had a very atmospheric feel that just drew you in and the story that went with it is worthy of any epic space odyssey ever told in previous forms of media.
In short – the attention to detail paid to this game is quite evident. It’s a shame in some way that this game came out after Starcraft (and not before) else it would’ve been much more popular.
A Tale of Two Communities or “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the I.G.N.O.R.E Cannon”.
(Nationstates vs Cybernations)
Nationstates is a free political web game created by Australian writer Max Barry in 2002 as an ad hoc method of promoting his new book at the time: “Jennifer Government” on which the game is said to be (loosely) based. It has a very simple premise – create a nation, fill out a brief survey political survey and then log in for a few minutes once or twice a week to answer a few multiple choice questions which represent issues that are raised in your nation. In return for doing this the game calculates what kind of ‘nationstate’ you are currently ruling and compares it to all the other countries in the player-created database. See? Simple.
Cybernations on the other hand is what you’d get if you took Nationstates and force fed it a jar full of steroids everyday for ten years straight. You see Cybernations is also a free political web game where you start by creating a nation however, instead of random issues gameplay in Cybernations means selecting a system of government, deciding your countries position on global issues, choosing a religion, building infrastructure – macro and micro – setting up trade agreements with other nations (the benefit of which varies depending on what exact combinations of commodities you receive from the trades… which are limited based on what buildings your nation has), building and upgrading weapons – including those of the nuclear variety, attacking and defending with said weapons – again, including those of the nuclear variety, forming alliances, non-aggression pacts, peace treaties, cease fires, vendettas, trade embargoes…
…and finally when your finished with all that you collect your taxes and wait for the turn to tick over to tomorrow whereby you start the process all over again.
Oh sorry, also forgot to mention you also have to deal with national happiness, set your tax rate and certain setting choices – i.e national government and religion type – can have a negative effect on said happiness if they don’t correlate with what your population considers to be the best. Which you have to guess based on hints… and which also can change from time to time.
Long story short: Cybernations has a very complex rule set.
But then I’m a strategy buff and I like complex rules. So why is it that after playing both games I abandoned my Cybernation to spend more time with my Nationstates?
Nationstates exhibits very strong emergent gameplay.
To explain this better I’ll add in a brief bit of history – in the beginning, Nationstates only had 30 issues to choose from which quickly became to be considered inadequate. So, in order to increase the number of issues players with nations of a certain age were permitted to draft and submit their own issues. This quickly created a community dedicated to issue drafting and submission. A United Nations (now called the ‘World Assembly’ after the real UN filed a cease and desist) added global issues which affected all nations came about and again a community was setup to see that said issues were created in a proper manner. While this was going on some players decided that they wanted their nations to go to war with each other. Yet how to do this with no actual game rules dictating the actions of war? Easy, role play it. Then someone figured how to draw out the base stats of the game and use them in a calculator to determine how much resources a country had. Then somehow decided they would create a shop of items where players could use said resources to buy weapons to go to war with. Then some players to issue with certain design flaws of said weapons so they formed design communities that would assess and criticise so that only well-thought out designs would be used… and on it goes. Basically because Nationstates as so few rules dictating how the game is played players have more freedom to play the game however they wish. Similar attempts at emergent play are often stifled in Cybernations because there is a rule for just about every situation.
Cybernations complex rule set also makes it prone to dominant strategy. This is one thing in particular that normally drives me away from MMO games – one way is the best way, and must be adhered to if you have any chance to succeed (in your career). This is apparent in Cybernations trading system, when to collect taxes, even how you setup and develop your nation.
Competition crushes freedom.
Nationstates is a free political web game created by Australian writer Max Barry in 2002 as an ad hoc method of promoting his new book at the time: “Jennifer Government” on which the game is said to be (loosely) based. It has a very simple premise – create a nation, fill out a brief survey political survey and then log in for a few minutes once or twice a week to answer a few multiple choice questions which represent issues that are raised in your nation. In return for doing this the game calculates what kind of ‘nationstate’ you are currently ruling and compares it to all the other countries in the player-created database. See? Simple.
Cybernations on the other hand is what you’d get if you took Nationstates and force fed it a jar full of steroids everyday for ten years straight. You see Cybernations is also a free political web game where you start by creating a nation however, instead of random issues gameplay in Cybernations means selecting a system of government, deciding your countries position on global issues, choosing a religion, building infrastructure – macro and micro – setting up trade agreements with other nations (the benefit of which varies depending on what exact combinations of commodities you receive from the trades… which are limited based on what buildings your nation has), building and upgrading weapons – including those of the nuclear variety, attacking and defending with said weapons – again, including those of the nuclear variety, forming alliances, non-aggression pacts, peace treaties, cease fires, vendettas, trade embargoes…
…and finally when your finished with all that you collect your taxes and wait for the turn to tick over to tomorrow whereby you start the process all over again.
Oh sorry, also forgot to mention you also have to deal with national happiness, set your tax rate and certain setting choices – i.e national government and religion type – can have a negative effect on said happiness if they don’t correlate with what your population considers to be the best. Which you have to guess based on hints… and which also can change from time to time.
Long story short: Cybernations has a very complex rule set.
But then I’m a strategy buff and I like complex rules. So why is it that after playing both games I abandoned my Cybernation to spend more time with my Nationstates?
Nationstates exhibits very strong emergent gameplay.
To explain this better I’ll add in a brief bit of history – in the beginning, Nationstates only had 30 issues to choose from which quickly became to be considered inadequate. So, in order to increase the number of issues players with nations of a certain age were permitted to draft and submit their own issues. This quickly created a community dedicated to issue drafting and submission. A United Nations (now called the ‘World Assembly’ after the real UN filed a cease and desist) added global issues which affected all nations came about and again a community was setup to see that said issues were created in a proper manner. While this was going on some players decided that they wanted their nations to go to war with each other. Yet how to do this with no actual game rules dictating the actions of war? Easy, role play it. Then someone figured how to draw out the base stats of the game and use them in a calculator to determine how much resources a country had. Then somehow decided they would create a shop of items where players could use said resources to buy weapons to go to war with. Then some players to issue with certain design flaws of said weapons so they formed design communities that would assess and criticise so that only well-thought out designs would be used… and on it goes. Basically because Nationstates as so few rules dictating how the game is played players have more freedom to play the game however they wish. Similar attempts at emergent play are often stifled in Cybernations because there is a rule for just about every situation.
Cybernations complex rule set also makes it prone to dominant strategy. This is one thing in particular that normally drives me away from MMO games – one way is the best way, and must be adhered to if you have any chance to succeed (in your career). This is apparent in Cybernations trading system, when to collect taxes, even how you setup and develop your nation.
Competition crushes freedom.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
This space for rent
So... here's the deal: by the end of the 9th of October this blog is going to be filled with a series of posts outlining 6 games I love and 6 games that I hate - if you pretend that they were written over a series of weeks, completely based off endless hours of research, playtesting and well structured opinion polls, I'll pretend to know what I'm talking about m'kay?
...
Just kidding - I could never actually know what I'm talking about. ;)
Regards,
PH
...
Just kidding - I could never actually know what I'm talking about. ;)
Regards,
PH
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