The Disappointments of 2018

Now that I’ve gotten all the positivity of gaming in 2018 out of the way, it’s time to go into the games that left me unsatisfied. As per usual, just because a game is on this list doesn’t make it necessarily bad. All it means is that, either or technical issues or questionable design choices, it left a sour taste in my mouth.

That being said, the disappointments of 2018, presented in random order, are:

The Highlights of 2018

Another year has past, and with it another assortment of fantastic games. It seems that as the years go by, I find it harder and harder to keep up with the near constant flood. Even if I quit my job and spent all my free time playing, I'd never be able to come close to touching all of the remarkable games that game out in 2018 alone.

That said, there is still a respectable number of games that I did play this year. And, as in previous years, this space is dedicated to the ones that stood out. This list is presented in random order, and just because a game you like doesn't make this list doesn't mean it's bad. Rather, it means it didn't evoke strong enough feelings from me to make this list, or I just didn't get around to playing it.

With that said, the highlights for 2018 are:

#73: THIS GAME IS TOO LONG!: The Myth that Length is Objectively Good

As an amateur, avid game critic, I follow gaming news and releases religiously. As I read press statements, game descriptions, and reports on games soon to be released, there is a sentiment that I repeatedly see among them: One that I cannot agree with. There is a notion from publishers, developers, and their fans that the length of a game should be a compelling selling point. A game that has “50 hours of content” should be more compelling than a similar game with “20 hours of content”. I see why this is an easy mistake to make. Nonetheless, this assumption is incorrect. Length in games cannot, and will not, ever be an indicator of a game's overall value. This week, I aim to explain exactly why that is.

The biggest reason for this is that the amount of content says nothing about the overall quality of that content. I have mentioned this point a few times in earlier pieces, particular a few pertaining to Assassin's Creed 3, but it is one that bears both repeating and elaborating on. A game can claim that it contains “40/50 hours of content”, as Watch_Dogs and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag both famously did. However, that point does not say how good or how bad that content is. For example, Assassin's Creed 3 is now infamous for how bad it was, especially in comparison to earlier entries in the franchise. Yet it sold itself partially on the claim that it had many untold hours of gameplay.

Hindsight has revealed it to be a pox on the franchise. The tale of Connor Kenway had terrible writing with laughably camp antagonists. Missions were overly linear to the point where even the exact path players took to their assassination was determined by the game. Collectibles and side content did not serve any purpose nor provide an adequate enough challenge/reward to be gathered for their own sake. Lastly, the ending is a standout for bad endings in games, even when the game was released in the same year as Mass Effect 3. Though the game has many, many hours of content, a lot of it is not particularly good. The only real standouts are the parts with Connor's father, Haytham. Were all, or even most, of the game's offerings up to snuff, many hours of it could be a fantastic selling point. However, in the context of the game, all that content ends up being a negative. Other games like Watch_Dogs can be said to suffer the same fate in different ways.

That being said, there are other dangers to relying on the length of a game as a measure for value. When it is, the temptation arises for developers to artificially add more content into the game. As a direct result of these additions, the game's pacing can be negatively affected. I posit that happened in the creation of Dragon Age: Origins. I already laid out the premise of The Fade in last week's post and discussed how it hurt the overall game, along with The Deep Roads. While I cannot be sure of it, I am willing to claim that at least The Fade was added in after the fact in order to reach some artificial length for an average playthrough. It is the kind of section that has almost no bearing on anything else in the game, not even in the Circle of Magi module that it is a part of. Modders have proven this to be true thanks to “Skip the Fade”. There are other such examples of content that feels artificial even in other games, like the Navajo scene in Beyond: Two Souls or latex nuns in Hitman: Absolution. Most of them contribute adversely to the narrative pacing.

My final reason for why length of a game does not make for a good measure of quality is that using it in such a way could end up lowering the overall quality of a game's content. My logic for this is as follows: A developer who believes that quantity is important will attempt to provide as much content for their consumers as they possibly can. Creating all this content requires the developer to spread their resources thin so that more content can be created. When content is created with such limited resources, it will be lesser in terms of quality. Therefore, creating as much content as possible will result in at least some of that content being not as good as it otherwise could have been. While treating length as the end-all-be-all does not necessarily imply that a game will be poor, I would be willing to make the claim that, using this logic, it is safe to conclude that it raises the odds of a lesser quality.

As a final note to this piece, I want to say that I do not mean to say that length should not be a factor in purchasing decisions. What I actually mean is that it should not be treated as the most, or even one of the most, important considerations. When a developer says that there is game “has X hours of play”, you should sit down and think for a second. You should wonder if the game's design was affected just so that the publisher could use that length as a talking point when discussing the final product. Marketers do count on us being easy to manipulate. That is just the nature of their job. It is the responsibility of us, the audience and the consumers, to be aware and to think about why and how our games were designed the way they are.

#72: Narrative Pacing: The Oddity of Games

It has been some time since I finished my adventures in the world of Dragon Age: Origins and its various DLC packs. To that end, I have been comparing my experiences with that game to others that I have played. What I was pondering through this introspection is the question of narrative pacing in the world of video games. As with most properties of storytelling, the general rules governing narrative pacing undergo changes when applied to this new realm of media. Since a lot of my problems in Dragon Age: Origins came from its pacing, and Awakening felt better because it improved said pacing, it would be pertinent to contemplate the topic in this week's post.

One of the things that stands out most to me with regards to video game pacing is how players are willing to wait a little longer for the plot to advance, in comparison to consumers of other media. In a book, if the plot was about solving a murder mystery, and then the author spent an entire chapter discussing the philosophical nature of crime scene investigation and criminology, people would wonder why that decision was made. While that information may certainly be tangentially related to the plot and interesting in and of itself, it would not be relevant to the mystery and the main plot of the book. Film also has this kind of problem. If a movie character in a spy movie was talking to another character, then some random bad guys step into the scene for the protagonist to beat up for five or ten minutes, followed by the protagonist resuming their conversation where they left off, the audience would be completely confused. They would think to themselves what the point of that detour was, why it took so long, and why it was not cut from the final product.

However, this is demonstrably not the case in video games. As players, we accept when a conversation in a video game is interrupted by an attack by random gang-bangers. In fact, that tends to be fairly normal as far as games are concerned. The reason is pretty obvious. People purchase video games so that they may play video games. It is okay for the story to briefly take the backseat, because more often than not it is not the reason players are sitting on their couch with a controller in hand. We can comfortably go dungeon crawling for about an hour or so without any advancement of the main plot until the end. The model of story->gameplay->story->gameplay has been a mainstay in gaming for as long as games began to focus on their narratives. Most other mediums would consider it weird for the plot to go so long without advancing in a meaningful way, but that is so common that it still remains a very ingrained model for game designers.

Less, but still fairly, common is when the story of a game takes a detour in order to prolong the length of a game and allow for more gameplay. These kinds of additions can be hit or miss, depending on their context. For example, Fort Frolic is one of the most loved segments of the original Bioshock game. In terms of the central conflict of Atlas vs. Andrew Ryan, nothing major is accomplished in Fort Frolic and the plot comes to an overall standstill. Having said that, both the environment Fort Frolic and the madness of its master, Sander Cohen, are so interesting that most players either would not notice or would not care. Though it adds nothing to the narrative, the game is richer for the existence of this content.

By contrast, The Fade in Dragon Age: Origins is one of the most reviled example of this going wrong, for good reason. While attempting to rescue the mages in the Circle Tower, the player party is ambushed by a Sloth Abomination and forced into a deep sleep. In the world of Dragon Age, a person's soul is in a spiritual realm called The Fade, home to both divine and demonic entities alike, when sleeping. This sets up a three hour segment where the protagonist needs to break out of The Fade, rescuing his/her other party members in the process. Like Fort Frolic, it does not serve any real purpose beyond adding length to the game. Unlike Fort Frolic, it is not interesting enough in its own right and drags too long to hold the attention of the player. Along with the Deep Roads, The Fade has a major negative impact on the pacing of the game. It is so reviled that there are mods whose sole purpose is to remove that one section from the game. Regardless of the rest of the game, the mere existence of this content does make Dragon Age: Origins lesser.

There is also the fact that gaming is a unique medium in that the skill of the player can also have a direct impact on the pacing. A skilled, or veteran player will have an easier time completing individual sections of a given game, resulting in an overall faster pace than a newcomer/novice player. Books and films have easier times in pacing themselves because they do not require such skill, thanks to their passive natures. The game has a tougher time because the mechanics need to be paced as much as the plot or any individual gameplay section needs to be. Even then, there always exists the possibility than a player will never finish a game because they just cannot complete a difficult mission. It is a unique challenge that I truly do not know how to overcome.

In the end, it is hard to determine if there is a specific pacing that can appeal to the most people. Like many things in life, it comes down to the individual to decide if a game's pacing is fit for them or not. Movies and books tend to have very specific formulas for the way they are paced, but that is something others have discussed before. Because each game is so radically different from the next, they call for different structures and styles. Each such structure requires its own unique pacing to best take advantage of that. I do not profess to have concrete answers as to how games should be paced or how developers should consider the type of game they are making when considering pacing. However, I do think it is an interesting question to ask after playing a game like Dragon Age: Origins.

#57: A Challenger Approaches (And Discusses Role-Playing in Strategy Games)

Hey guys! Instead of your regularly scheduled dosage of newdarkcloud, you’re going to receive a heaping of MaristPlayBoy, courtesy of what I like to call a “writer’s exchange program” between PSTD and my own blog, the Red Shirt Crew. That said, since this is a gaming-centered blog, I figure I should use this time to talk about my personal favourite story-telling games: the turn-based strategy genre.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: strategy games aren’t known for their story-telling abilities. That distinction usually goes to RPGs (both of the Japanese and Western variety) and can sometimes be extended to an action adventure (Assassin’s Creed) or shooter (Bioshock) that rises above its peers. With the exception of series like the Fire Emblem games, turn-based strategy games are supposed to be devoid of all story elements, as scripted events would take away the control of the player in ways that would likely be unfair. After all, Civilization would not be a better game if every advancement in technology featured a five minute cutscene explaining the background of the guy in the town who made the discovery and how his life was affected by it.

However, I stand by my previous statement: turn-based strategy games are my favourite kind of story in games, and while their stories take a very different form than those in the genres mentioned above, I think it’s worth discussing what sets strategy games above other genres in terms of story.

The first thing that makes a strategy game great for stories comes from the actual mechanics of the game. Anyone who’s played a Civilization game knows how rewarding it is to crush a country that betrayed your alliance, or how incredible it feels to see a single archer fortified within your city walls repel swordsman after swordsman, overcoming the odds. Civilization 5 executed this perfectly through their revamping of the game’s combat system. By emphasizing the strategy and limiting the effectiveness of the brute strength approach, every successful or failed combat meant that much more, as it always felt like a reflection of your own skill as a commander. If you defeated your enemy despite being outgunned, the tales of your conquest will be sung all throughout your Twitter feed as you brag about your awesome techniques to your peers (Take THAT, Cleopatra), while a loss can be devastating and make you question while you play this stupid game to begin with (Screw you, Napoleon). While not a story in the traditional events, the sense of responsibility for your country’s victory or defeat ensures each playthrough will be memorable.

While the Total War series also creates story through their mechanics (gotta love that real time combat), it’s the characters presented that keep me coming back to each game, especially Rome: Total War. See, in that game, generals aren’t just random people that you’ve conscripted to serve you: each man in power is a member of your family, or a highly esteemed soldier who marries into the position. They each have traits and retinues that give them memorable personalities and, like members of any family, you’re pretty much stuck with what they give you. The pride of watching the first born rise to the occasion and lead your armies to countless victories is contrasted with the struggle of making his good-for-nothing cousin stop taking bribes and maintain an efficiency in city management he clearly lacks. That said, I love that I can get stuck with bad generals or agents (to a lesser degree, though Medieval II: Total War fleshed assassins, diplomats, and priests out to make them equally interesting in their own right). It makes the empire feel real, as these are real struggles that empires in that age had to undergo. Creating a badass general or reforming one who seemed doomed to failure is as satisfying as any great military victory, and all of it creates a campaign I want to play over and over again just to see what happens next time.

That said, my favourite strategy game of all time, and my personal winner as Best of 2012, has to be X-Com: Enemy Unknown. Why? Because never before in my life have a played a game in which I felt a need to tell people about what just happened than in X-Com. It’s a perfect example of what makes turn-based strategy games great: the non-combat mechanics are difficult, but endlessly intriguing, the combat is exhilarating, and the character customization breathes new life into the game.

Out of combat, X-Com makes a name for itself by forcing the player into difficult decisions regarding the survival of the planet and creating the best opportunities to succeed in repelling the invasion. See, you need money to buy or upgrade just about anything in X-Com, and each action requires time to complete. Since neither is a limitless resource, it becomes necessary rather quickly to plan ahead and utilize your resources in the most efficient way possible, understanding that sacrifices will have to be made. You can’t save everybody; countries will fall, soldiers will die, and some upgrades will have to be put to the side to make way for others. Each of these decisions greatly impacts the flow of the game, and as a result, it is one of the most immersive games I’ve ever played.

X-Com’s combat system is quite invigorating due to the lack of information given. The whole game is based on aliens coming to invade Earth using various tactics. Regardless of the type of mission, you never know how many aliens you will encounter, where they are located, or what type they will be. New types are introduced regularly and without warning (for the most part), making it impossible to plan ahead with anything but the most basic strategy. This creates an incredibly tense atmosphere, made even tenser by the combat system, which works on percentages of success instead of any hard numbers. Every move you make has risk attached, making successes that much more rewarding, and failures all the more devastating. The resulting combination leaves you on the edge of your seat in each mission, equally excited for the possibility of improving your men and gaining supplies while being terrified of the cost that comes from losing a soldier in battle.

What makes that cost so much higher, and what makes the stories of this game the most uniquely interesting and memorable stories of any game I’ve played thus far in my life, is the time and effort put into your characters. Characters come from all countries across the world, and each can be customized to your liking. By the time you’ve created a character and watched them grow into these battle-hardened veterans, you gain an attachment for them unlike anything I’ve experienced in other strategy games. At that point, they’re no longer just “Squad Member #5”; they become “Luigi Pasta-Sallad, the rookie from Italy who was taken over by a Sectoid Commander and had to be killed before he became a danger to others” (RIP Luigi). Every decision you make both in and out of combat becomes crucial when it could be the difference between life and death for your favourite squad member.

I could write all day about the many memories I’ve formed from my time in X-Com: Enemy Unknown. I would love to spend hours touting the comeback story of Zathura Ho, a sniper that went through four battles without hitting a single target before becoming the squad’s most accurate killer. I could speak of Swedish Chef, the medic with fiery red hair, and of his triumph at the destroyed bridge in South Africa, saving the lives of three rookies while shielding them from incoming fire with his smoke grenades. And it would be remiss of me to ignore the sacrifice of Yugi Moto, a heavy that allowed himself to be surrounded by Chrysalids so that other squad members could get into position to take out the enemy hordes.

But to close, I can think of no tale worth telling quite like the tale of the valiant Assault Commander Hingle McCringleberry.

See, back in the day (meaning my first playthrough), rookies tended to die a LOT. So often, in fact, that the X-Com project decided that all rookies would be forbidden to be given nicknames or called by their real names until they had survived their first encounter and specialized in a field (hey, I was really bad at the time; you wouldn’t want to customize rookies if half of them were dying on each mission either). Still, that usually didn’t matter so much, as there was rarely more than one rookie in any particular squad mission.

Unfortunately, things were quite dire in the barracks, as all but one of the troops that had survived past the rookie stage were in the infirmary. Had the aliens waited just one more day, a more experienced team could have been sent to stop the invasion at that warehouse in Brazil. Sadly, the aliens weren’t really in an understanding mood, and HQ had no choice but to send three rookies in with the best soldier X-Com had to offer: Hingle McCringleberry.

The mission began as a testament to Lieutenant McCringleberry’s prowess in the field. His shotgun took out four baddies in as many turns, as each rookie fell in line behind him, watching his brutal efficiency with amazement and wonder. The man was a legend, willing to risk running directly into the enemy’s line of sight in order to execute that perfect shotgun kill. The Sectoids didn’t know what hit them.

After clearing out the storage tank, McCringleberry ran to the top of the warehouse to get a better idea of where the enemy was located. He ordered the rookies to come up to join him, as their weapons had superior range, but they were frightened by the alien noises off in the distance and chose to stay safe behind some vans at street level.

Suddenly, three Thin Men jumped out of the shadows, guns pointed directly at the spot where McCringleberry was hiding. He fired at the first Thin Man to enter his field of vision, but the shotgun was not accurate at that range, and the shot went wide left. It was the lieutenant’s last bullet in the magazine. And now that they knew of his location, he didn’t have time to reload, get into position, and take them out. The rookies were too far away to help. There was only one thing to do.

Obviously, the game didn’t provide specific dialogue for this situation, but I’d like to imagine Hingle crying out to the rookies “I’m going to buy you some time!” as he moved into the Thin Men’s line of fire. Understanding what had to be done, the rookies then got into flanking positions, unable to do anything but watch as their fearless leader faced the inevitable. The first shot destroyed the wall behind which McCringleberry had been hiding. The second shot just barely missed. The third went straight through his temple, and Lieutenant Hingle McCringleberry died on impact.

Now, just about any other squadron of rookies would have panicked at the sight of their field commander dying in battle (there is a panic function in the game, and I genuinely expected the rookies to panic here, since this would be a legitimate reason to do so). But this squadron was special. They charged into position screaming “FOR HINGLE!” and took each of the Thin Men out before they even knew what was happening. The battle was over. They had won.

True story: when Hingle McCringleberry died, I genuinely screamed “NOOO!!!” loudly enough at the screen to attract the attention of my parents. I had to report his death to my sister, who had created the character with me (inspired from this video), and she was genuinely upset at his passing. This is what makes X-Com: Enemy Unknown such a powerful game in my eyes. The mechanics come together to create the perfect atmosphere and immersion, while the customization and out of combat experiences ensure you are emotionally tied to your characters. Maybe you won’t give your characters quite the personality depth that I did, but I can guarantee their deaths will matter to you if you give them a name and make them your own.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to make sure my Irish Major Peaches O’Callahan doesn’t suffer the same fate.

Chase Wassenar, aka Marist Play Boy, is the founder and lead editor of the Red Shirt Crew (which he hopes you’ll go visit), and a staff writer for Toy-TMA. He hopes his second play through of X-Com goes significantly better than his first, as the trauma that would ensue if Peaches was killed might actually break his heart. You can follow him on Twitter at @RedShirtCrew or email him at theredshirtcrew@gmail.com.

#32: The Relationship Between Games and Religion

(Spoiler Alert for: Assassin's Creed 1, 2 and Brotherhood, Final Fantasy X, XIII and Tactics, the Halo franchise, and Skyrim. As usual, you have been warned.)

I think it can be said that games are becoming more and more prominent as a valid form of speech and expression of ideas and beliefs. With that in mind, what games say regarding certain topics should reflect the dispositions of the people who both create and consume them. One particular topic springs up with a fair degree of regularity in video games, which I find quite interesting. That topic is religion. Religion is a very huge topic in modern society that permeates all of our lives, regardless of what each person thinks regarding the subject. It influences people and their opinions. That is why I find what games have to say on this topic to be worth discussing and why I have made this subject the topic of discussion.

But before I begin, I want to make one thing completely, totally, unequivocally clear. I have absolutely no problems with religion. This analysis of the subject is intended to be as unbiased and objective as I can possibly make it. I have no desire to offend anybody and I hope what follows is indicative of that. What I am going to do is look at the common themes surrounding well known takes on religion in video games and take a look at examples of them. Then I will try to look at the big picture surrounding this and put this all in context.

One of the most common themes that games touch on regarding religion is that it leads to war. Many games build major plot points around this concept. An example of this comes from the most recent game from The Elder Scrolls franchise, Skyrim. In the game, there is a Civil War tearing apart the nation of Skyrim. The central reason for this schism, at least on the surface, is that the Nordic people have been banned from publicly worshiping the god Talos, who is the ascended soul of the first emperor of the realm, by the Empire because of a recent treaty with a rival faction. The churches were all forced to disown Talos as a god and go from praising the Nine to praising the Eight. The outrage and religious fervor was so great that it lead to the birth of the Stormcloak Rebellion. This is far from the only example of this. The original Assassin's Creed was publicized beforehand as taking place during the Third Crusade and using it as a backdrop for their story, one of the more famous/infamous Holy Wars in history (depending entirely on your viewpoint), and they milk that setting for all it is worth. The characters in the game often muse on the nature of war and the people who fuel it, pondering the causes behind and reasons for it. They constantly question the necessity of the Holy War and it is really fascinating, though Ubisoft was not the first company to question the nature of crusades in a video game.

In fact, the Halo series did this well before Assassin's Creed came out. One of the major threats to humans in the Halo games is an organization of religious alien races referred to as the Covenant. This group attacks humanity because they believe that their gods have condemned humanity and wish to have them eradicated. This is one of the series central conflicts and even gamers who are not fans of the franchise (like myself) have a passing familiarity with this plot point. Even Final Fantasy gets in on the action. In the franchise's thirteenth main installment, there are two worlds, Cocoon and Pulse, that each have their own gods that preside over them. These two worlds have been at war with each other for years. As the game's main plot progresses, it is revealed that the gods themselves are orchestrating the war in order to get enough people to all die at once for the gate to the next life to be blown wide open so they can meet the deity who created everything. The gods themselves organized a war between two worlds. That sends a pretty powerful message as to the subconscious of the developers.

The other theme that tends to surround the portrayal of religion in video games is the theme of the church as a tool for political corruption. Going back to the Civil War plot line in Skyrim, the political intrigue surrounding it is relevant to this point. The founder of the Stormcloaks is revealed towards the end of the Civil War plotline (should the player choose to side with him), to not really care all too much about the Talos worship ban. It bothers him to be sure, but it is far from his main motive. All he truly cares about is political power. To that end, he stirred up a religious movement and used it in order to take over the land of Skyrim as High King. Political motivations for religious movements is also a trope which the Final Fantasy franchise is very familiar with. At least two different Final Fantasy games that I know of (Final Fantasy X and the spin-off Final Fantasy Tactics) use this trope to great effect in their stories.

In Final Fantasy X, the world of Spira is perpetually threatened by an entity referring to as Sin. According to the reigning religion, Sin was born because of humanity's reliance on machines and weaponry and that it needs to be exorcised by following precepts and praying for humanity's collective atonement. The game reveals later on that it was all a complete lie. Sin was created as a way to preserve the collective memories of a fallen city and the religion was founded in order to gain political control through false hope that it could be defeated through strict adherence to it. The other example of this trope in this franchise comes from Final Fantasy Tactics. The game revolves around the political intrigue between several noble houses, all of which practice the leading religion of the land. According to the tenants of the religion in question, the leading Saint, St. Ajora Glabados, and his 12 disciples wielded the fabled Zodiac Stones to defeat a massive evil a long time ago. The modern church officials attempt to use the Zodiac Stones to consolidate power and maintain their influence on politics. While they are shown to be corrupt, even they do not know the truth and genuinely believe the stones will provide salvation. However, as the game goes on, a horrible truth is revealed. The Zodiac Stone are conduits for the Lucavi demons to form contracts with humans. These human gain great powers, but are eventually turned into nothing more than avatars for the demons will. Saint Ajora used this long ago and merged with the demon Ultima, head of the Lucavi, and, with that power, gained Sainthood and massive influence on the people until well after his death. The protagonist of the story works behind the scenes to collect the Zodiac Stones and prevent another catastrophe from being unleashed on the world.

My final example comes from the Assassin's Creed series again, particularly the second installment and its follow up, Brotherhood. A major plot point in the these games is that the main adversaries, the Knights Templar, have taken control of the Vatican via the papacy. They use their influence from this position to assert control over the area. They bribe officials, threaten the people into compliance, warping religious texts to their advantage, and many other things. They did not make up most of this either. The people involved, Rodrigo Borgia and his family, were notoriously evil people who abused their positions in the church to better their own ends. The only thing Ubisoft made up was that they were a part of the Knights Templar. It is interesting to see a franchise comment on history the way that Assassin's Creed does. It provides food for though and conversation.

To be fair to game developers, there are also plenty of examples of religions in games displayed in a more positive light as well, but these are typically left unexplored and exist superficially and/or as a way to give players a place to get healed and buy healing items/spells. More often than not, when a game explores the concept of religion intently, it is shown in a negative light. While this would indicate that gamer culture does not think highly of religion, I honestly do not think that is true. Many of the people I know who play games are highly devout in their chosen faith. Most of them are also very kind people on top of that. So then why do games tend to be so highly critical of the concept when compared to other media? Is it because of some subconscious reason that we are only superficially aware of? Is it because the medium itself allows more a higher degree of nuance and intrigue in this topic? Is it simply because corrupt churches make for interesting plots? I honestly do not know the answer to this question. My job is simply to highlight an aspect of games and get you to think more of the subject. I am no where near intelligent or unbiased enough to give a good explanation. I leave it up to you to think and debate with yourself and others to find an explanation behind this conundrum.

#22: Why Games Should Not Be Compared to Other Mediums

As prior articles I have written may have led you to believe, I tend to take story in games seriously. I am heavily critical of plot-lines in games and I expect narratives to be sensible. However, there are some people who are as critical as I am that I take issue with. When discussing the plot lines in video games, some people like to make the argument that “If this was a book/movie, then it would be so stupid!” More often than not, I would agree. However, that statement demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding. The stories of video game should not be compared to the stories of books and/or movies, just as movies should not be compared to books.

One of the big reasons for this is that script-writing in a game works differently than in a book or a movie. This difference is a very crucial and fundamental one. With a book or a movie, one of the primary concerns is the overall storyline. Plot, character development, continuity, conflict: In a book or movie, these are the focus of creative energy. In a game, this is a secondary concern. The primary concern (as it should be) is in the gameplay. Developers are focused on making sure that the level design and game mechanics are top-notch. They test and test to make sure that players are challenged to avoid the game getting boring, but not so much that it gets frustrating. Now, you can argue that some companies do not do this as well as others, but most of them make this the biggest thing on their checklist. The writing takes much more of a backseat. What happens more often than not is that the levels are completed and the writing team has only a rough idea of who the characters are and what the plot is supposed to be. They take these levels and the plot and form a loose story that tells the tale they want while justifying going through the all of the levels that the design team created or are currently creating. Some scenes may often require entire rewrites because of a problem on the designer end of things.

The best examples this style both working and failing can be found in the Uncharted series. The first two games had very well-written and gripping narratives with character the audience would come to love and grow attached to. The third game, while still very good, had a noticeably less-stable plot. Many of the new characters went underdeveloped, certain plot lines went nowhere, and there was an entire section of the game could have easily been cut with no effect on the narrative. The developer commentaries included on the disk gave a very good indication of why. To be fair, Amy Hennig and the Naughty Dog writing team are very talented and the story is still quite good despite its flaws. It still serves as a good example of why narratives in games are not the same as in books or movies. The argument can be made that this process may or may not work and may need to be experimented with, but, for now, it is a fact of life in the industry.

Which brings me to the next point: That gaming as a storytelling medium is still in his infancy. Unlike book, which have had hundreds of years to perfect their craft, and movies, which have also had a long time, though not nearly as long as books, games have only been in the entertainment market since 1972 with the Magnavox Odyssey. Games as a storytelling medium have been around for even less time, since the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) era, when games like the original Final Fantasy were released for the first time. Before then, they were nothing more than small experiences devoid of any real story. While people have written tons of material regarding how best to write a book or make a movie, but games have little in the way of that. The visionaries of the medium are only just now really starting to experiment with how to tell really compelling stories using it to its fullest.

Which again serves as an adequate transition into may last point. Games, by there nature, are interactive. This is the biggest separator between them and other mediums. The audience is an active participant in what is going on. This lends itself to new approaches in telling a good story unheard of in other mediums. Now, I have already discussed how stories in games can benefit from this interactivity several times before, but I nonetheless find this fact is something I need to repeat again and again. The strengths of interactivity are that you are able to use the environment and the situations the player has to deal with to tell the story in much more effective ways than movies or books can with descriptions or dialog, something which Bethesda, despite all of its flaws, is known for doing very well. Also, a game can be used to explore philosophies and concepts by letting the player immerse themselves in a world and discover for themselves the implications behind them, allowing them to learn and make choices in an environment free of any real-life consequences, demonstrated in games like Fallout: New Vegas and Deus Ex. Lastly, since the player is going through the game as the main character, he/she is automatically sympathetic towards the protagonist and/or is allowed a glimpse into the protagonist's beliefs and idiosyncrasies through the mechanics of the game, something that movies and books are completely unable to do. These are storytelling technique completely unique to games. Books and movies cannot utilize this tool-set. Because interactivity makes the story in a video game so completely different than movies and books, it is unfair to compare these mediums.

Games have their own set of strengths and weaknesses when it comes to storytelling, as do books and mediums. However, they are in no way similar enough to these other mediums to warrant comparison. We have evidence of this. Whenever the make games based off movies, they are very rarely any good. If they are, the game either takes place in a different time period than the movie or the player is playing as a new character who has previously never been mentioned in the plot. The same can be said of games that are made into movies. That is what makes this particular comparison so egregious. It is possible to argue that video game plots are bad. I do all the time. However, we should not be comparing apples to oranges. Nothing will come out of it. While I am sure many of you already know this, it is such a common misconception that it needed to be addressed.

#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.

#10 : Games and Storytelling

This is a topic that I have touched on in the past, but recently, I have been given the opportunity to talk about it. A couple of weeks back, David Jaffe, creator of Twisted Metal and God of War, said, regarding to storytelling in video games, “If you've really got something inside of you that's so powerful, like a story you've got to share or a philosophy about man's place in the universe, why in the fuck would you choose the medium that has historically, continually been the worst medium to express philosophy, story and narrative?” While that sentence is taken only slightly out of context, and the underlying point that developers should focus more on gameplay is sound, I would have to partially disagree with Mr. Jaffe. If a developer wants to have a tightly woven, complex, extremely linear narrative, then I would agree that said developer would be significantly better off by writing a book or making a movie instead. However, if the developer wishes to explore a particular philosophy or a “What if?” scenario, then a video game would be the perfect method of expression, and here is why.

The main reason that a linear narrative does not work so well is also one of the main reasons that games continue to flourish: Games are interactive by their very nature. People who play games always make decisions and affect the game world, even in linear games. What type of weapons will I use? What is the best way to defeat all of these enemies? Should I play it safe or go all out? These decisions are constant being made, consciously or not. Games thrive on ability to thrust players into situations they are not used to and force them into the actions. Linear stories are the antithesis of this. Linearity suggests that there is only one, proper way to go through a player's journey and every other possibility is incorrect. Some games even have sections where there is a trap in the room that is dead obvious, but the player is forced to trigger it in order to advance the story. In an environment where interactivity and decisions are everything, this is the kiss of death of any serious story. Movies and books can get away with this because the readers/viewers are not insert themselves into the situation: They are passive observers watching a story play out. In a video game, this is not the case. Players of video games are active participants, affecting the outcome of events through their inputs. It is easy for a video game player to project their own emotions onto the protagonist of the game because, in a way, they are. The character becomes a culmination of the decisions and actions a player has made to that point. When somebody asks a reader of book how far into the book they are, they respond with “I'm at the part where the protagonist does X.” However, a gamer would respond to the same question about a video game with “I just did X, and I'm about to do Y.” For an interactive narrative that takes player choice into account, this is a huge boon and be taken advantage of to great effect. For a linear story, this can spell doom if, at any time, the player is forced to do anything that runs directly contrary to their logic or beliefs. There is a term for this: Railroading. It can even get worse when a story directly contradicts what is happening in the gameplay. Either of these circumstances can break immersion with the game and bring the player back into the real world. While I cannot be sure, I would imagine this is why Mr. Jaffe suggests that writers with sprawling narratives in mind should visit another medium.

Does this mean that I think video games should never have stories? NO! However, a game's story does need to keep the nature of the medium in mind. The most important thing to consider is that players will want to have a sense of agency. That is, they want to be a part of the world, they want to have their actions affect the world, and they want the world to respond to the effects of these actions. Again, if at any point a player loses his/her sense of agency on the events of the game, they go from active participants to passive observers, losing the one advantage the writer has: The fact that the player will care about the protagonist because the protagonist is an extension of the player and the ability of the player to assert his/her own will. The key is to use this concept of player choice and player influence to encourage the player to explore. I will use Fallout: New Vegas as an example.

While I have a few criticisms of New Vegas (chief among them how Caesar's Legion a little too evil and hard to sympathize with), this is one thing it did very well. In the game's first half, the player travels to New Vegas. Along the way, the player is introduced to all the major factions of the game at one point or another. The New California Republic(NCR) is the stand in for old school American politics, with all it pros and cons. Its leaders are shown to want the best for the people, yet they are incompetent on many levels and often do not understand the plight of the common folk. The opposition of the NCR, Caesar's Legion, has opposing ideals. The Legion subjugates tribes under its rule. The tribes lose all their heritage, the men forced to become soldiers, the women and children forced to become slaves. (The boys are conscripted when the come of age.) Furthermore, they reject all kinds of advanced technology, in favor of old school “Roman” ideals. However, they are all united and a sense of order can be found in the Legion. Between these two factions is Mr. House, the enigmatic leader of New Vegas. After the player has been given a chance to meet and learn about all three major factions, they are given a choice. He/she can choose to side with any of the three major factions, or reject all three ideals in favor of a completely independent New Vegas, overseen by the player character. The game and the ending radically change depending on both which of the major factions the player works with/against and how he/she deals with the other sub-factions in the game.

While it is far from perfect, this is an excellent example of how video games can tell good stories. Inform players of different ideologies and let them learn about and explore them. Once they feel like they know enough, allow them the chance to pass judgment. Let them say “I believe that X is the best choice, and as such I will support them.” It does not even have to be the grand, arching narrative. Even on a small-scale, such as with a side quest, this ability to choose is what makes games unique as a medium for storytelling. This is why so many people still laud Deus Ex as an excellent accomplishment in gaming, even though it was made all the way back in 2000. The main crux of the game was that it encouraged the player to make choices, both in the way the story unfolded and in the way they play the game. The game explores transhumanism, both in gameplay and in story. It the story, it talks about the positives of transhumanism, like how augmentations could drastically improve people's lives. However, it also explores the negatives, such as the fact that it can essentially render certain people obsolete when newer, better augments get released. The game ends by having multiple factions give you their opinion on what to do and having the player decide which is best. This sense of exploration and choice extends to the gameplay, allowing the player to go through the game as an expert in combat, stealth, hacking, conversation, or some combination of the four, and beat the game his/her own way.

While I say that games can be used as storytelling devices, that is a little misleading. What I really mean is that games can be used to explore philosophies and concepts and give the player an environment in which he/she can discover the pros and cons of particular ideologies without causing any sort of real-world harm. If a game developer wished to do this, I would advise them to go for it, but to do his/her best to not insert their own biases into the game. The point is to let the players form their own opinions, not to feed them opinions. It is important to avoid veering into the unfortunate category of “propaganda”. For better or worse, games can be used as tools to learn and explore.

#9: Difficulty in Games

There is one thing that my gamer friends complain about over and over again. Since I now have a bit of a lull in regards to things I want to talk about, I might as well address it this week. Are games too easy nowadays? The answer is not nearly as simple as you probably think. A game's difficulty is affected by several different, overlapping factors. Furthermore, easier games and harder games each have their own benefits and drawbacks that must be considered. I will attempt to touch on all of these topics, but this will not be comprehensive by any means.

First off, it is important to discuss the factors that affect how difficult a game is. One of the biggest of these factors is the experience level of the player. If you own a gaming console/PC and play it often, I want you to either look at your controller/keyboard for a moment or visualize it in your head. You know everything about that controller, do you not? That controller feels comfortable in your hands and you know the layout of it. What gamers often forget is that for those who either do not play games or do so very rarely, that controller is much more complex than we realize. Take a PS3 controller for example (because it is the one I use): There are four buttons on either side of the controller for various inputs. Another four button on the top, two on each side. There are 3 buttons in the middle for out-of-game inputs like pausing or turning off the system. Lastly, there are 2 analog sticks towards the bottom, with buttons built into them as well. This adds up to a grand total of 19 possible inputs. To the unfamiliar, that is both a staggering and intimidating number. We take this for granted because we grew up with them, but those who want to join in and play games have to not only learn the layout, but then learn what each button does and then re-learn them when they play another game. Again, we can do this because we have been conditioned to expect certain control schemes with certain genres/types of games. The shoot button is almost always R1. The Jump button is almost always X. New players are devoid of this conditioning and have to figure it out, giving them a harder time than gaming veterans.

This is where adjustable difficulty comes into play. One of the major reasons games include adjustable difficulty is because they cannot be sure of the level of experience the player will have. Inexperienced players or those who do not want much of a challenge are encouraged to play on easier difficulties in order to get the best experience for them. On the other hand, the experienced and the challenge-lovers within the target demographic are encouraged to play higher level difficulties. This feature is intended to insure that the player can get the most out of a game, no matter what level of experience. That being said, some games do not always get this right by either making varying levels too easy or too hard (which is more a QA issue, so I will not discuss it) or they do get the difficulty balance right but get the implementation of difficulty wrong. Something that I have seen a lot of games do is lock the difficulty choice in at the start of the game after the player chooses it. This is a stupid move and there is no reason for that. If a player initially chooses to play a game on Hard mode, and then realizes several hours in that he/she may have gone in way over his/her head, why should he/she be punished for this? Why should the player have to choose between sucking it up and trying to proceed, quitting the game, or starting a brand new playthrough on another difficulty, losing hours of progress? The answer is that there is no reason for that. If a game is going to have adjustable difficulty, then it better allow the player to change it at any time throughout the game.

One of the last factors of difficulty in games, and I believe one of the most noticeable ones, is the player reward versus player punishment ratio. What do I mean by that? Well, in old games, if the player died or otherwise lost, it would be customary to set them back a considerable distance and force them to redo a good several minutes or so of progression in the game. No other skill-based activity does this and this is a considerable barrier of entry. For example, if someone were to want practice swinging a baseball bat, they can swing over and over, with only a little time between each swing to give the ball back to the pitcher (or to reload the machine in a batting cage). If it were a video game, the batter would be teleported out of the area and be forced to walk all the way back, relocating the baseball bat before getting another shot at swinging. This would hinder the ability to practice and improve. It sounds ridiculous, but gamers do it all the time. For new players, it can be discouraging be forced to redo entire sections just to get another shot at trying to get past the part that gave them trouble. A lot of modern games have done away with this principle by throwing in more checkpoints and more mechanics that help the player get back into the action faster. This creates an illusion that games are easier than they were in the past, but it may actually be the case that we just notice difficulty less because it does not cost us as much time to go back and redo one part of a section as it does to redo an entire section.

Now that I have discussed the factors that contribute to difficulty, it is now important to consider the pros and cons of both games being easy and games being hard to discern why games might tone down the difficulty. There are significant benefits to games being easy. One of the most obvious benefits is that an easier game has a greater potential to appeal to a broader audience. Think about it: A game that 60% of the population is able to play through is obviously much more likely to sell than a game that only 20% of the population is able to play through. This also appeals to those guys who are playing games for the first time. This is NOT a bad thing. When game developers reign these people in with easier games, then we are able to transition them into playing more difficult games, help them learn the controls, and eventually bring them up so that they can play and enjoy games as much as average gamers do. “Gateway games” are important if we want the medium to grow, mature, and expand. Another benefit in having lower difficulty in games is narrative cohesion. Games are much more than the series of “beeps”, “boops”, and pixels that they were 20 years ago. In modern times, games have grown to be full-fledged narrative mediums like books and movies. Most games have some sort of story or campaign that they want the player to go through and serves as more than just a reason to go out and blow things up. If a game becomes too difficult, then the player will take several times to go through a section. This breaks narrative flow and the player may forget details in the story or even stop bothering with the story if a game becomes too tough. Books and movies do not have this barrier. It takes no effort to turn a page in a book or stay in place to watch a movie. It takes effort and active engagement on the audiences part in order for the story to play out. This is a good thing because the player will engage more the world and the characters and empathize with them, but bad because a high difficulty will immediately shut people out of enjoying the story. Difficulty can be played with to help immersion or to hit home the themes or morals of the game, but it can never be so hard that the consumers are turned off by it.

On the other hand, there are advantages to games being difficult. The prime advantage of a hard game is that there is appeal to seeing a challenge, facing it, and then overcoming it. There are tons of thrill-lovers out there that embrace challenge and derive pleasure from success after repeated failure. Appealing to this audience can be just as rewarding as appealing to the mass market. While these people do not outnumber the masses, they are far more loyal. They will often stick with a developer if they continue to produce quality products (or even if the do not. Am I right Sonic Team?). Furthermore, a difficult game brings a feeling of excitement and tension with it. Think about it. Would you not agree that a fight where you ended with low health, few bullets left, and you got by with the skin of your teeth much more exciting than one where you launched a mini-nuke at the enemy and killed 80% of them in one shot? Players love the feeling of overcoming obstacles and figuring out the best way of proceeding through meticulous planning and strategy. This is part of why gamers decry the notion of games being “dumbed down” for the broader audience.

Difficulty is the kind of thing that takes a lot of effort to fine tune property. And sadly, even if a developer does, people are not going to be happy about. It is also something that developers cannot turn to any precedent in order to figure out. Difficulty has to be analyzed and determined on a case by case basis: A never-ending juggling act that is constant in flux. The next time you play a game that you find too easy or hard, do not immediately accuse the developer. Instead, think about why you find it too easy/hard and try to figure out what the developers intentions were. The answer you arrive at might surprise or even impress you.