Streamers May Cry - Devil May Cry 5 Full Spoilercast

Devil May Cry 5 has been out for quite a few weeks now, and by now there's been enough time for most players to complete the story and start on some of the higher difficulties.

With that in mind, I requested a few of my friends, ZeroAsher (Sam) and AShadowLink (Matt), join me for a discussion about the game in its totality.

That's right: This is a full spoiler, comprehensive run down on our combined thoughts every single aspect of Devil May Cry 5. From the story to the casts and the gameplay, everything is fair game.

I apologize for the poor audio mixing for the first part of this recording. Once we were made aware, it was addressed.

Making Magic in the Arena - Mardu Aristocrats

I've been playing Magic the Gathering: Arena on and off for quite a long time now, but it only recently occurred to me to post the matches to YouTube. I want to try to start showing off some of the decks I'm building. Even if they aren't the best, I think there's some good fun to be had there.

First off, a deck I've wanted to try for a long time, but never had the pieces for it in one Standard environment until now: Mardu Aristocrats.

#64: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Retrospective: Where it All Began

(This article is spoiler-free, for those of you who, like myself until recently, have yet to play a game from 10 years ago.)

As a child gamer, I was told of the greatness of the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time trilogy. Despite the praise, I had never played the games because I had somehow convinced myself (with reasons that I can no longer recall) that I would hate them. Last summer, the HD collection of the franchise went on sale on the PlayStation Network for about $7.50. Even then, I was not terribly interested in the trilogy. However, this time I was much more open to the opinions of others. Hearing recommendations from a few people and considering how cheap the collection was, I decided to finally throw caution to the wind and take the plunge for myself. Now that I have played all three games in the trilogy, I strongly believe that they serve as an interesting case study in game design from the PlayStation 2 era. Because of this, I will be running a series of articles discussing each game in the franchise, along with its positives and negatives. There is no better place to start than with the game that started it all, so without further ado:

The Sands of Time trilogy began, fittingly enough, with the 2003 release of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. This game served as a reboot of the Prince of Persia brand name, since the original incarnations did not do terribly well in their day. Rather than shy away from its roots in difficult platforming, the game opted to embrace this tradition at the core of its design, setting the tone for the gameplay of the franchise henceforth. Death defying jumps, wall running, and various other feats of acrobatics and athleticism were par for the course. Fans of the platforming genre would be immensely satisfied by this element of the Sands of Time. However, the developers knew that they needed to do more than that.

Given that this was in the PlayStation 2 era, consumers were just beginning to shy away from the unforgiving style of older games. The mechanics of the game had to be updated in order to avoid the pain of constant failure states. This is likely what inspired the most well known mechanic from the trilogy: the ability to rewind time. In the beginning of the game, the titular Prince acquires an artifact called the Dagger of Time, which allows its user to absorb the Sands of Time into it and use them to manipulate time. With this weapon, players could rewind time up to 10 seconds into the past, allowing them to recover from receiving large amounts of damage in short periods of time and/or dying from a fall during a platforming section. In this way, players could recover from failure states, if only a finite number of times, and try sections again without getting a game over. Though this does not completely prevent the frustration caused by failing a difficult and long platforming section, it lessens the pain by giving players multiple chances to get passed troublesome obstacles with having to redo entire segments of play.

Another aspect of the game the seems geared toward limiting frustrations are the visions that the Prince receives throughout the game. Scattered throughout the game world are plumes of the Sands of Time that the Prince can step into. These plumes have two purposes. The first purpose is to provide save points for the player. The second is to give visions to the Prince. Visions give both the player and the Prince previews of future events, displaying a rough picture of what to do in order to complete the next section leading to the next save point. This removes part of the trial and error commonly associated with platformers of this type, especially when coupled with the ability to rewind time. As a result, the challenge of the game is preserved while stifling the unforgiving nature of constant game overs.

However, these elements cannot simply exist in a vacuum. Like any somewhat modern game, there needs to be a solid story to tie these elements together into a cohesive whole. Though I cannot be sure as to what the thought processes were behind the development of the game, I suspect the Ubisoft created the story to the Sands of Time in very much the same way that Naughty Dog created the story for the Uncharted franchise, which is the same way many industry veterans have done it. They created a set of mechanics and level designs, then wrote the story around them. Unlike many other stories generated in this fashion, it was very well received by those who played the game and stood out in its own right, for a number of reasons.

One of the smartest moves that the game made regarding the story was to present the entire narrative as a tale told by the Prince to somebody else after events have already unfolded. This alone serves multiple purposes. First, it allows the Prince to explain details of the plot that needed to be elaborated on, but the developers lacked either the time or resources to delve into. Like any good storyteller, the Prince is willing to fill in details and lampshade otherwise absurd notions in the story through his narration. Second, this gives an in-game justification for all of the countless deaths a given player will receive in a playthrough of the game. Although the game does a lot to keep players from reaching such a state, it is still possible, and quite likely, that players will achieve a game over at some point. When this happens, the Prince says something along the lines of “Wait. That's not right. I didn't die. Let me start again.” and the game gives the player the option to retry the section they died on. Instead of doing what most games do and making death something that never truly happens, The Sands of Time acknowledges the fact that it can happen and framed the story in a way that allowed it to account for player death.

Another intelligent choice made by the writers of the game is to only have a small cast of three major characters with only one or two minor characters. The Prince, his captured princess turned unlikely partner Farah, who players meet and befriend fairly early in the game, and the evil vizier are the only real characters who drive the plot. This allows the plot to be basic enough that any form of level or gameplay design can fit around it. Rather than complex politic intrigue and reputations with large factions, The Sands of Time chooses to focus on interactions between these characters and how their relationships and opinions of each other evolve throughout the course of the game. Instead of a global, world-spanning story, it is a personal one that, except for the prologue, takes place entirely with the Sultan's Palace. The way Farah and the Prince grow to respect one another is interesting, especially since they both have a snarky attitude that makes it nearly impossible for them to just come out and admit that they respect one another. Like the time reversal mechanics mentioned earlier, this lack of characters would grow to become a recurring element in the trilogy.

Lastly, the narrative is bolstered by a strong Arabian theme that is present throughout the entire game. Areas in the Sultan's Palace seemed ripped straight out of One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. From the castle terrace to the caged gardens, and even the top of the Vizier's Tower all look distinctive in their own right while retaining a continuity of theme and setting. Another notable way that the Sands of Time establishes the Arabian theme is through the game's very impressive soundtrack. While many tracks utilize an electric guitar to an extent, they weave together Indian and Arabian instruments and sounds, resulting in a musical score than further immerses players into the story. Further selling the setting is the fact that the Prince can only regain health by drinking out of bodies of water. There are even special magical bodies of water players can stumble onto throughout the game that will increase the Prince's maximum health. In the desert, having a steady supply of water is very important. Making water a resource that players will need to seek out in order to keep themselves alive is a nice subtle touch that adds a layer of plausibility to the world. Together with the titular Sands of Time, these small, seemingly minor details form the gestalt of a believable Arabian setting.

However, despite the vast amounts of praise I can levy towards the game, there are a couple of problems. The biggest issue I have with the Sands of Time is its combat. The way combat works is that in certain areas of the game, Sand Creatures, humans and animals possessed by the Sands of Time, will spawn and strike out at The Prince. The easiest way to defeat these enemies is to attack them until they are downed, at which point The Prince can use the Dagger of Time to extract the Sands of Time from them and add those Sands to Dagger's supply of sand. Players can attack enemies with their scimitar in order to inflict damage, but they also have access to the usual arsenal of blocks, counters, and dodges. Since the Prince is an acrobat at heart, he is able to dodge over most enemies and strike at their blind sides. Furthermore, the Dagger of Time is given more uses than simple extraction and time reversal, which can be used to recover from battles that are not going in the player's favor. Other time powers that utilize the Sands include a freeze attack that leaves the afflicted foe open to an instant kill 2-hit combo and a move called Mega Freeze that drastically increases the speed and power of the Prince, allowing him to dispatch numerous foes in a short time.

Despite common criticism, I do not have a complaint with the combat system itself. In fact, I think it works. Enemies are not “bullet-spongy” and can be downed in a few combos (at the same time, so can players if not careful) and the system is enjoyable enough to make these sequences entertaining. The problem I had with the combat is the sheer amount of it that was thrown at players at any given time. While the system itself is fairly solid, anything can become a problem in excess. One of the first things I noticed when fighting Sand Creatures is that the moment I had finished dispatching of two or three enemies, another group had spawned in almost immediately. This would continue on until I was defeating at least 20 and possibly even 30 enemies in the same area in the exact same fight. Often times I was getting tired of fighting at around half that number of foes. The nature of the game's lethal play makes combat seem like it goes on for far longer than it actually does, giving off the feeling that combat is padding out the game. Although this seems like a minor issue, over time it makes an otherwise interesting combat system grow dull and repetitive very quickly.

The other issue is, by comparison, not as big of a deal. Towards the beginning and the end of the game, The Prince does not possess the Dagger of Time. As a result, the time reversal mechanic is not available to the player during these sections. This is an issue that is not particularly noticeable towards the start of the game. Since the game assumes that a given player has either no knowledge or limited knowledge of the game mechanics, the platforming in that section of the game is fairly easy to pull off. However, towards the end of the game, the game no longer has these expectations. In fact, some of the platforming segments towards the ends are some of the hardest in the game. When cut off from the time reversal mechanics that made failure states less of an issue, an otherwise simple platforming section becomes needlessly frustrating. While it is an interesting narrative and thematic choice to strip the Prince of his time bending powers in the climax of the game, the gameplay itself suffers as a result.

Overall, the Sands of Time was a fantastic game released during the PlayStation 2's lifespan. There are many, myself included, who would go so far as to call it the best game in the trilogy, if not the Prince of Persia series. So many things, both big and small, were done correctly in this game that the things it and its sequels did wrong strongly stand out simply by comparison. Going forward, all Ubisoft really had to do is refine the template laid out here and continue providing excellent platforming in an Arabian-inspired setting, with some slight refinements to the combat. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. As we will see in the next article, the sequel decided to go in another direction. A very annoying and stupid direction. Until then, see you next time!

#11: Games and Storytelling (Part the 2nd)

(Major Spoilers for the Assassin's Creed series and L.A. Noire abound.)

Last week, I discussed how games could be used as a storytelling medium. I talked about the benefits of using games to explore philosophies and scenarios in a free form way: That player choice was an important concept and that it is vital to show the consequences for those choices. After the article was posted, a friend of mine pointed out something to me. In hindsight, I may have unintentionally snubbed linearity in video games. It is absolutely possible to have a strong linear narrative using video games. I would argue that doing this well is much more difficult. It has to be done in a certain way. A developer must tailor the experience to the medium of video games in order to make it work.

Again, video games have strengths that can be played with. By default, video game players are more likely to sympathize with the protagonist because they are the protagonist, at least on a superficial level. The main character (at least a well-written one) has a good backstory and motivation for his/her actions. With that, they are allowed and encouraged to have preconceived notions of morality and ethics. A good way to help further define and flesh out the character would be to use the mechanics of the game. The original Assassin's Creed did this incredibly well. The player did not have a health bar, it instead had a “synchronization meter” which showed how much the player was in sync with Altair's, the protagonist, memory of what happened. This mechanic allowed the game to inform the player of Altair's morality without bogging him/her down with exposition or allowing for Gameplay and Story Segregation. When the player kills an innocent person, the synchronization bar is immediately reduced by 33% of its maximum value. This shows while Altair is an assassin and known for killing people, he still has a degree of morality and was not a complete psychopath. It is also possible to increase the maximum synchronization by doing things in line with what Altair would do like analyze the city from high building or by saving people from corrupt guards. This avoids Gameplay and Story Segregation as well because in the story the events of Altair's life occurred very long ago and the player is simply playing a simulation created using his memory.

In the case of Assassin's Creed, the mechanics are more than a way for the player to get from point A to point B. They are used to reinforce the characters and the situations in which they find themselves. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood also did this in a particularly powerful scene at the end of the game. At the end of the game, the player character, Desmond, finds and ancient artifact called the Apple of Eden with the help of his friends. Someone from behind the scenes uses the Apple's power to control Desmond's body and freeze time for the other three people with him. The cutscene has Desmond extend his hidden wrist-blade and begin to move toward his love interest, a fellow assassin named Lucy. When the player regains control, he/she (if they are anything like me) will try to steer Desmond away from her. However, when the player moves, no matter which direction they point to, Desmond will move towards Lucy. When Desmond is close enough, then the player will be directed to press attack and he/she will have no choice but to comply. This is a powerful scene because it helps the player to empathize with Desmond. It demonstrates his complete powerlessness and inability to stop his body no matter how hard he tries to. This moment is made powerful because the mechanics in play support the narrative and brings the player into the story.

While a linear story can be significantly bolstered if in a video game, there are dangers to attempting to do so. If one does not keep the story and its central themes in mind, there is a strong chance of the gameplay weakening the story. A storyteller can risk undercutting the whole story with the mechanics of the game if they are not extremely careful. As much as I love the Uncharted games, they are prime examples of this. Naughty Dog has constantly said that Nathan Drake, the protagonist of the series, is the everyman. He is the person that the player can relate to. This is very hard to take seriously. The reason for this is that the Uncharted series is a third-person cover-based shooter. For the uninitiated, that means that the player, as Nathan Drake, is almost always slaughtering tons of nameless, faceless pirates/soldiers. Furthermore, he has the tendency to talk... and snark... a lot... during each engagement. The overall image of him (at least during gameplay, the actual story is significantly better) is one of a murdering psychopath who has no concept of mercy or remorse. This runs contrary to the kind of character Naughty Dog wished to make and the type of narrative they intended to weave. While they are fortunate that the overall story and gameplay hold up, many more like them have similar problems in their games and fall into this trap.

Other pitfall in making a good, linear narrative in a video game is that players will be inherently more critical of the plot. This is because the strength of having instant sympathy with a protagonist can also be a weakness. When the players feel like they are the character, there is the potential for a disconnect with the character if, at any time, the character begins to exhibit unreasonable or irrational behavior. I had a personal example of this when I was playing L.A. Noire. In L.A. Noire, the protagonist is a man named Cole Phelps, a marine recently returned from World War 2 who decided to join the LA police force and quickly ascended to the rank of detective. He is shown to be a happily married man with two daughters. The game introduced Cole to a German singer who escaped to America before the war started. In the second half of the game, Cole visits the singer in her apartment for an undisclosed period of time at night. I did not think much of it when I saw the scene (I was being pretty dense there, admittedly) until later, when Cole is accused of cheating on his wife and is demoted to Arson as a result. At first, I thought he was set up. I thought that there was no possible way that Cole would do that because it seemed out of character. As it turns out, Cole really did “pork that German whore.” I was stunned. I sat there and thought “Cole! What the f**k were you thinking!? I saw you at the beginning! You f**king kissed your wife that morning! Are you KIDDING ME!?”. This one scene completely broke the game for me. I could care no longer about the story or what happened to the characters because I felt that the game betrayed both me and any conceivable notion of common scene. Finishing the game became more of an endurance test. That is the power of interactivity. When the story makes sense, it can bring players closer to the characters and the world. When it does not, then the player can feel betrayed by the plot and disconnect from the whole mess.

Linear storytelling is a perfectly valid form of narrative in video games. It relies much more on the writer's skill than free-form games do. The key is once again to use the mechanics to reinforce the narrative. Developers and writers need to get together and stay on the same page throughout development. It is difficulty simply because it requires a great deal of synergy between all departments of a game development studio. While an amazing story is difficult to pull off, when it is, it is extremely gratifying, both to the player and the developer. I would hope developers, either in the present or future, would take a minute to think about how a narrative can be woven into and reinforced by a great game.

#2: Story Versus Gameplay: An Assassin's Creed Anecdote

(Spoiler Warning: This article discusses the first two Assassin's Creed games in great detail.)

Story and gameplay are two essential parts to current generation games. People play games not only to have a good time, but also to be immerse in breathtaking narratives and interesting worlds. Many developers struggle to find a balance between these two core pillars of game design. Hideo Kojima has been criticized for his over-emphasis on the storyline of the Metal Gear Solid series and many people believe that the most recent games in Bioware's Mass Effect and Dragon Age series had weaker plots than their predecessors, in exchange for vast gameplay improvements. In this article, I will be using Assassin's Creed and Assassin's Creed 2 as my examples for story emphasis and gameplay emphasis because while I believe Assassin's Creed 2 is a better game, the first one had a much better plot.

But before I get into that, it is important to provide background information on the premise of Assassin's Creed. The series takes place in September of the year 2012. Most of the action takes place in a machine known as the Animus, which allows its user to relive the memories of his/her ancestor in a computer simulation program. In the first game, protagonist Desmond Miles is kidnapped by the Abstergo Corporation to access the memory of Altair Ibn La-Ahad, an Assassin who fought against the Knights Templar the Third Crusade, for an unknown purpose. Altair is at first shown to be an arrogant and egotistical Assassin with a blatant disregard for his order's ways. After his transgressions allow the Templars to find the location of the Assassin brotherhood and attack, Altair is disciplined and brought down from Master Assassin to Novice. To restore his rank and his honor, he is assigned nine targets who bring harm to the people of the Holy Land (modern-day Syria). These people are later on revealed to be Templar Knights on both sides of the Crusades and who have their own designs upon the Holy Land. During the game, it is revealed that Abstergo is the modern-day front for the Templars and that the war between the two factions never ended.

In the sequel, the modern-day Assassins rescue him and recruit him. To acquire Assassin training, Desmond relives the memory of Ezio Auditore da Firenze, an Italian noble who joined the Assassin order during the Italian Renaissance. His character arc begins with the death of his father and brothers as the cover up for some sort of conspiracy. Ezio embarks on a quest for revenge beginning with the men directly responsible. During his journey, he is made aware that his father and his ancestors were in the Assassin order and that his father's death had something to do with the Assassin/Templar war. Ezio's quest for revenge eventually becomes a quest for truth and he finds himself traveling to many major cities in Italy and bringing many cruel people to justice by killing them.

In my sincerest opinion, the first Assassin's Creed has an excellent story. One reason is that the player is given sufficient motivation to go after his targets. The way they do this is fairly interesting. Because Assassins are never allowed to just go out and kill their target, they first need to gather information on their target. Before each kill, the player learns both the why as well as the how: The crimes these people have committed as well as the method in which to dispatch them. This gives the player a context for their actions and begin to empathize with the Altair and the people whose lives are to be enriched with the death of his intended victim. This also highlights another reason I love this game's plot: There is a distinct moral ambiguity between the two factions. As Altair slays his targets, he learns many things from the conversations he has with them as they succumb to their wounds. What they say reveals the big dichotomy in the game. Both factions wish for world peace, yet they disagree with the methods with which to attain that peace. The Assassins believe that peace must be earned by educating the people and celebrating the diversity of the world while removing the arbitrary labels that separate us. To this end, they would murder prominent figures who seek to keep people divided and fan the flames of war. They will also vehemently protect those who would spread knowledge. The Templars, on the other hand, believe that it is impossible to dissolve the barriers between people through normal means. They believe that people cannot know true peace so long as free will exists. To that end, they try to find ways to force people to adhere to a strict order so that they might find peace. Because the player is an Assassin, the story will obviously be told from that viewpoint, but at no time is the player ever told that either side is right or wrong. In fact, it is made very clear that both sides are in the right. This allows the player to ask himself the question: Is it possible to obtain peace and if it is not, is it worth the price of free will? Any story that can get people to think has, at least in some way, succeeded in telling an interesting tale.

On the other hand, where I found that the first game had a strong story, the sequel's plot was much weaker in comparison. First of all, the Templars in Assassin's Creed 2 lack the ambiguity of their predecessors. While the Templars are seen committing many of the same crimes the Templars in the previous game, they are never given any redeeming qualities that justify their actions. Not once is it mentioned how these things further the cause of the Templar order. Furthermore, when Pope Alexander VI (He is the leader of the Templars and the final boss. Just go with it.) eventually tells Ezio why he is going to all this trouble, he tells him that he was hoping to open a vault underneath the Vatican and, using a super advanced mind-control device, bend God to his will and conquer the world under the Templar banner. This is a stupidly evil and ridiculous motivation that could never possibly make any sort of sense. Which transitions nicely into the other gripe, many plot points in the game are completely, ridiculously rife with plot holes. Take the Carnival segment for example. Ezio has to kill his target, but he will only come out during his party in Carnival. The party he is throwing is a masquerade ball with special golden masks. He cannot steal a mask because they have numbers on them (Which does not make sense, but I digress.), so he has to win a mask by winning four games. The games are stupid games like Capture the Flag and footraces (Which are not really fun either, but again, I digress.). When the games are rigged and someone else wins, he has to STEAL the mask to get into the party, which he should not be able to do, because they are numbered. And during the segment, Ezio is a wanted man, so he blends in by putting on a silver mask, despite not changing his absolutely, flamboyantly, bright white robes. It was the eyes that gave him away, not the distinct and very easy to see Assassin's robes. This is the most extreme example, but there are others like a fistfight with the pope, etc. Bottom line, I find the first game's story to be much better.

With that in mind, it is time to compare the gameplay of the two games. Assassin's Creed laid out a good groundwork for the game, but it was not perfect. The investigations, while they helped flesh out the story, began to grow repetitive around the time of the third assassination. The player quickly begins to realize that they are playing the same five or six missions over and over again, only in different locations. Players with low tolerance for repetition will be immensely turned off by these missions. This is not the only issue that crops up. Towards the end of the game, the combat system begins to grow tiring and the guards WILL attack the player at the slightest provocation. It can take a very long time to get through fights because the player can easily have over twenty guards fighting them at once. Fights like this can take several minutes and running away from them can be almost as long, if not longer because other guards will spot the player as he/she runs away. This is exacerbated by the end sequence where they throw waves of enemies at the player and enclose the area so that he/she cannot run away.

The sequel did well to improve many of these aspects. There is a variety of missions throughout the game so that it never feels repetitive to the player. There are platforming sections, chariot chases, theft missions, beat-up events, etc. Assassin's Creed 2 also improves the guard detection system of Assassin's Creed. The game features a notoriety system so that the player is not bombarded by guards unless he/she deliberately goes out of their way to attract attention. Items like smoke bombs can allow for quick escapes when the player feels overwhelmed and can also be used offensively to blind enemies, leaving them vulnerable. Other new tools like poison, throwing money, and a hidden gun also give the player options when dealing with encounters and assassinations. Combat has also been overhauled and the guards are far less likely to swarm the player. The sequel's gameplay is vastly superior to the first game's gameplay.

While Assassin's Creed has a much better story, Assassin's Creed 2 greatly improves upon the gameplay. While being in the same series and telling similar stories, the two games each have separate things to add to the table. Both are great games in their own right and future game designers should study these games to perfect their craft.