The next game on the “required playing” list for this Notebook is simply titled VVVVVV and is an interesting contrast to Spelunky. Like Spelunky, VVVVVV is an unforgiving platformer; unlike Spelunky, VVVVVV’s uniqueness comes not from randomness, but from a single mechanic. Aside from moving left and right, there is a single action the player can take: reversing gravity. This is perhaps the most basic action set available to a character in a videogame since Mario’s days as Donkey Kong’s “Jumpman”. In fact, the sparse (but not unpleasant) graphics actually look like they might have come from the Donkey Kong era (with the exception of some interesting, but still minimalist, background animations).

In a way, though, it’s fascinating that you can’t jump; not in the traditional sense. The game takes this “up or down” mechanic and explores it in incredible depth. Most areas and obstacles in the game introduce new and ever more fiendish puzzles where precision timing of the gravity flip and direction changes are the only way to get through and avoid a horrible death. And you will die. A LOT. The game’s obstacles often span multiple screens; I often found myself simply changing the direction of gravity and taking a “leap of faith”. More often than not, my faith proved unjustified and I ended up impaled on one of the ubiquitous spikes that are found throughout the game. I felt the game required me to die; these leaps were more a “scouting mission” than a serious attempt to get through an area. I did this knowing I would immediately re-spawn at one of the game’s many, many save capsules, which seem to be placed just before and immediately after each challenge of any difficulty. In many ways, VVVVVV is the reverse of Spelunky; where Spelunky forced you to do things right the first time and play as conservatively as possible, VVVVVV makes you hurl yourself into the void and explore and react fast, with few, if any, consequences for failure.

Amazingly, despite the demonic and at times frustrating challenges of VVVVVV, I found myself enjoying it more than Spelunky. The sense of persistent accomplishment and thin but present narrative of trying to find lost crew members aboard the hellish station are more appealing to me, and I went ahead and bought VVVVVV on Steam; I hope to keep playing and rescue the whole crew. I wonder what that says about me as a gamer.

So, the Gameplay Notebook returns. This time, ten of the games I’m going to be looking at will come from a list of assigned titles. Frankly, I’m glad to try them; these aren’t games I’d usually play, and I definitely welcome new gameplay experiences.

First up on the resurgent GN is Spelunky. At first glance, Spelunky appears to be a cutesy, retro-styled action platformer. The main character is clearly styled after Indiana Jones, and most of the interaction consists of running, jumping, and attacking with a whip, while ropes and bombs represent a finite resource the character must use carefully. Judged by these elements alone, Spelunky might be considered a charming and entertaining, but average, platform game. What really sets Spelunky apart is the difficulty (if you die, it’s game over, and you start from the beginning) and most importantly, the randomization. The entire game is randomized, and as far as I know, it’s never the same game twice. This is a very interesting mechanic with two important effects: the first one is that each playthrough feels unique and precious. Your chance to explore the level is fleeting; if you play poorly, you’ll never again have the chance to do it correctly. This also adds weight to your choices of where to spend your consumable items; if you waste one at a bad spot and then need one later, you cannot restart and play the level differently with knowledge from a previous playthrough. The second main effect this has is to alter the perception of difficulty and reduce frustration. On the one hand, you cannot get “stuck” in a specific area or get frustrated with a specific challenge; it will simply not be there again. On the other hand, there is no memorization; with traditional platformers, players often memorize the various levels and enemy patterns of the game (leading to the speed-run phenomenon). With Spelunky this is simply not possible.

I find Spelunky to be a fresh take on the platformer genre; it’s both a throwback and an original concept. Still, with its relatively limited variety of interactions and having little to no narrative, I doubt I’ll play it as anything more than an occasional diversion. I can see how the challenge and unpredictability would be very appealing to some, however, and I applaud the concept.

Games currently playing:
Global Agenda
Star Battalion

A Battalion of excellent knock-offs?

This week as finals raged on and the rush to complete and clean up projects intensifies, I’ve once again had to fall back on portable game systems to get my moments of relaxation in. But after analyzing the anything-but-casual Infinite Space early on, I decided this time I wanted some lighter-but-quality fare, so I fired up my iphone and checked out the latest offerings from Gameloft.

Gameloft is hard to categorize as a company. They are mostly known for essentially grabbing high profile console games, adapting them to the iPod, and substituting slightly more generic but still recognizable characters in place of the licensed ones. In the case of Modern Combat, a blatant ripoff of Modern Warfare, since the theme is generic modern soldiers, they don’t even have to do that. It’d be easy to dismiss them as disgusting producers of Transmorpher-style mockbuster shovelware, except for two things: first, they are genuinely performing a service by making these play experiences available on the mobile device and second, the games they produce are genuinely of the highest quality yet sen on the iDevices.

Want to play Halo on the go? Grab NO

VA instead. Gran Turismo fan? GT Academy. God of War? Hero of Sparta. Diablo? Dungeon Hunter. The list goes on. As someone with interest in the industry as a whole I’m not sure what to even make of it. Should they be applauded for their technical and artistic prowess, or shamed for their lack of originality and mercenary business knowledge like using this paystub format maker? Or both? I have to admit though, when NOVA 2 comes out I’ll be there waiting.

Star Battalion

This time, however, I found a pleasant surprise waiting for me at the app store. Gameloft has released a space shooter/arcade style flying game for the iDevices that I can’t actually pair up with a specific recent blockbuster game. If anyone can, actually, do let me know. Quality shooters of its type have been absent from consoles for too long. I suppose the nearest analog would be the Rouge Squadron series of games or maybe Starfox 64; 3D shooters that are primarily action games (not space sims) but they do retain full capacity to fly in every direction (in other words, not “on rails” like the original Star Fox). The characters and tone, however, certainly don’t match either the anthropomorphic animals of Star Fox nor are they a blatant ripoff of Star Wars. They remain well within the boundaries of generic sci-fi, though there is an accompanying free comic in the app store; there is a real attempt here in Gameloft’s part to create a bit of political intrigue and characters as backdrop. Still completely one-dimensional and generic from what I’ve seen but I respect the attempt.

The same can be said of the gameplay. There is nothing really new here but what is here is all very well done. And I suppose that shows its still very much the Gameloft I’ve come to accept and even respect. Nothing inspired or groundbreaking or even risky here, but all is accomplished to the highest technical and artistic standards the device will allow. The game is definitely fun as you perform the usual missions of protecting ground targets, engaging enemy aircraft, protecting transports, and attacking the weak spots of larger vessels. It is not, as many would love to see, a next generation version of those classic sci-fi staples; this is the iPod after all. Those of us waiting for a cutting edge HD version of Wing Commander or Freespace will have to wait a little longer. But it is nice to get a solid if generic example of the genre in portable form. This is one I’ll definitely be playing til the end. The game can be controlled with the accelerometer or the gamepad; I appreciate the inclusion of both as the accelerometer needs constant recalibration if you have to be moving around (or fidgeting) and Gameloft makes as good a virtual joypad as any; which is to say not fantastic, but serviceable.

And at the end of the playing session I was right back where I started, trying to decide what to think of Gameloft as game developers.

Games currently playing:
Global Agenda
Star Battalion (ipod)

Coincidences, conspiracies and agendas

Its a strange coincidence that I started playing Global Agenda at about the same time as I started becoming interested in applying for SCAD. A cynic might assume I started playing precisely because it is a game created by a growing game developer near the school where I was going to be studying. The truth is the two are (or at least were) completely unrelated events. I’m not sure I remember how I came across Global Agenda; possibly through a Steam promotion or perhaps during one of my periodic searches for a good Sci-Fi MMO to play. Whatever the case, I have come to be interested in GA both as a gamer and professionally, and its become sort of my go-to game when I have time for just a quick session. I think its therefore past time that I focus a gameplay notebook on it.

Global Agenda

Global Agenda is a class-based third person shooter with RPG and MMO elements. I often consider it part of a recently released trio of games that all hybridize RPG and shooter elements; the other two being Mass Effect 2 and Borderlands. The three create an interesting spectrum; ME2 is a single players, Gears of War style tactical cover-shooter with character advancement. Borderland is a cooperative first person twitch shooter that is where character advancement is key and an intricate randomizing loot system, and Global Agenda is an online competitive/cooperative team based class shooter with some character advancement but emphasis on class-based tactics and twitch-skill. Of the three, GA is oddly though perhaps appropriately due to it competitive nature the one where character advancement matters the least as opposed to player skill. HiRez has managed to strike a very delicate balance and the game succeed because of it. I’ve said it many times and insist upon it; GA succeeds because the core gameplay mechanics work. As a persistent world or MMO of any type GA is a bit thin and repetitive, frankly. Much less so now than when I started playing just before the summer, and reportedly even more less so than when it lunched, but it still has much more in common with an online shooter like Team Fortress or Unreal Tournament.

That being said, it has started to borrow some of the more addictive aspects of RPGs and this has served it well. Even though character advancement and loot plays a smaller role in GA than in almost any other online RPG; it does indeed play a role; and having a persistent character with customized appearance adds a sense of personal investment into matches that would  otherwise be irrelevant or disposable. However, all those RPG elements would be worth little if the core game wasn’t as solid as it is. The four classes feel useful and powerful; the games pace, speed, and physics all work well and the interactions between the classes successfully create a wide variety of strategies to attempt in the matches. I’ve heard the producers at HiRez speak several times now, and they always emphasize how it was the iterative process that led to GAs current system and I find that quite easy to believe. It definitely feels like a fine tuned machine. Just about the only criticism I can  level at is that maybe it too sleek  and shiny and as a consequence not very deep. There is perhaps a hint of a feeling of “design by committee”; the gameplay has been smoothed out to the point that is suffers from occasional lack of personality. That is not to say that GA doesn’t have aspects that are distinctly its own, but in the end it is a game that finds is greatest success from playing a balancing act of various genres while relying on rock solid gameplay to sustain it as it continues to be fleshed out.

I have to note that it was absolute genius on HiRez’s part to drop the monthly fee requirements for several reasons. As a small-to medium studio they would have been hard pressed to justify a monthly fee, and frankly the game does feel a bit too thin in the content variety department to justify a repeating investment. I must say the Sonoran Desert summer expansion was exactly what that game needed; it continued the introduction’s storyline at last, and added some much needed personality and landmarks to the game while also adding new gear and competitive/cooperative game modes. If this was a preview of the expansion model they are pursuing, I believe they have a very solid business model to go along with their solid gameplay. I had long bemoaned the fact that more companies hadn’t adopted the Guild Wars-style MMO model, but I believe that HiRez is doing that brilliantly with a few twists of their own. As a SCAD student and gamer its exciting to watch this happening in what is practically our own back yard.

Games Currently Playing:
Global Agenda (well, a bit)
Strange Adventures in Infinite Space
Red Faction

An architect’s nemesis

I’ve been vaguely aware of the shooter series called Red Faction for some time now, though for some reason or another I’d never actually played one. I was aware that they were known for interactive, destructible environments and were generally well received, but never I think considered quite “A” list. Indeed, the latest game, Red Faction: Guerilla, scored seemed to score mostly 8s of 10 in the gaming press. I put it on my “I might get to that” list but as usual never did. I was aware that the game had later been released on PC for a slightly lower price and some extra content, but I still hadn’t managed to gather up enough interest to bite. I recently booted up Steam, however, to find that it was THQ week and that Red Faction was on sale for 75% off. A year ago the game had been given an 8.0+ review by IGN and called a good value at $40, and here it was staring me in the face at $5. Well, Steam will slowly but surely lead to my financial ruin.

Red Faction: Guerilla

One of the first things I noticed about RF:G was the developers: Volition! I had always wondered what had happened to them after the glory days of Descent and Freespace (and they were glorious!) and it looks like they’ve been devoting themselves to the Red Faction franchise. I immediately felt a little ashamed I hadn’t been aware of that. With solid reviews and a good developer behind them, my expectations or the game were up, but there was one thing that had always bothered me. In the Red Faction games you play a vaguely communist-y revolutionary with bombs. RF:G was also being touted as an open-world game. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind violence in games; in fact I’m somewhat ashamed to admit I really enjoy a good fight. That is not the same, however, as enjoying killing civilians or committing crimes; the dark fantasies of the GTAs never really appealed to me and playing a terrorist bomber is perhaps even less appealing given current real-world realities.

I needn’t have worried. It was perfectly clear within 10 minutes of starting the game who the bad guys were in the game, and you are actually penalized for harming non-combatants. The oppressive enemy faction is so openly corrupt and cruel that Hitler might’ve blushed. I was pretty sure then that I wasn’t in for an amazingly deep story on the one hand, but on the other I was happy to note I’d have no lingering moral qualms about blowing the crap out of stuff. The first thing Red Faction tasks you with doing (shortly before your brother gets killed off and the corrupt military decides to kill you too for being there without even pausing to twirl their collective mustaches) is break stuff. With a big hammer. And then… some bombs. It turns out that you’re playing a demolitions engineer. It is apparently a bad idea to piss off someone who has earned a University degree in blowing things up. And that’s where Red Faction shines, as advertised. Almost everything in the game can be blown up. It’s the game’s greatest strength, but also the cause of its weaknesses. It becomes quickly apparent that the designers concentrated all their resources on developing the ultimate engine for destructible environments; unfortunately one single activity, no matter how well crafted, is not enough to make an open world game come to life.  The designers are aware of this, so you are given other tasks. Conventional gunfights, driving challenges, and other quests compliment the explosive mayhem. The problem is that none of these other gameplay tasks have been given anywhere near the same level of attention as the destructible environments. The shooting feels a bit sloppy (perhaps forgivable because the character is an engineer, not a space marine), the driving is not great, and the enemy AI is reasonably insane. I know these guys are heartless, but I witnessed truly excessive amounts of friendly fire “accidents” in  the game.

Granted, for the purposes of this analysis I only played the first of four sectors; the game’s high-end goal is to liberate sectors by destroying enemy buildings, raising morale, and then completing scripted missions in each zone. It reminded me somewhat of taking down Crackdown’s three gangs in order to liberate different areas of that game’s city. The problem is that to add variety, some of the scripted missions rely too heavily on these flawed systems. The final mission I played, the last one to liberate the first district and one that made a lasting impression, involved essentially running over some destructible towers with a large truck, while enemy vehicles tried to intercept me. By intercept I essentially mean ram. Repeatedly. And more and more vehicles kept spawning out of the thin air. Even more ridiculous, as I got off my vehicle to escape it (as it was smoking and soon to explode) the vehicles ran me over, and did minimal damage. Suddenly APCs piled up on top of me like a defensive line on a too-slow quarterback. It was funny, which given the context I don’t think was the intended effect. Worst of all, it took me a minute or so to die from this, and die I did, many times. I eventually beat it, liberated the zone, and finished up my play session with very mixed feelings. Keep in mind that this was the final story mission for the zone, and therefore unskippable; I can live with subpar design on secondary tasks on a large game like this, but not if its something that is going to interfere with completing the main plot or even reaching other areas. The game has enough going for it that I’ll probably give it another chance, but I found it significantly flawed.

I believe its all tied up with the same thing; as much as it wants to be an open world game, Red Faction is basically a one trick pony. Destructible environments have long been seen as desirable to new cutting age games, but here we have a game that exposes and exemplifies the best and worst aspects of that possibility. Destructible environments are simply not something you can drop into a game and it’ll magically be better. First of all, anything and everything not destructible will stand out as an arbitrary game design decision, making the invisible walls/magic circle that much more obvious.  And second, dealing with its effects on gameplay may be far too much work for all but the very largest teams to handle, unless the game itself centers on the destruction. When it sticks to its “thing”, Red Faction is a great game. When it shines a spotlight on its lesser systems though, the imperfections become glaringly obvious and off-putting.

Games Currently Playing:
Global Agenda
Super Mario Galaxy

Entry 5: Plumbers in Spaaaaaace…

This past week I had a house guest most of the week, leaving me with less time than usual. My guest is a fairly solid gamer, but not the kind to play the hardcore sci-fi strategy niche games I’d reviewed the last couple of weeks. So I decided to break out Super Mario Galaxy. I’d played the game a bit before, but sadly I hadn’t had access to my Wii in a long time. In fact, that system never made it out of my house; I purchased a new one when I moved here to Atlanta. New Wii meant new save file so I handed my friend a Wiimote and we got to playing.

Super Mario Galaxy

Mario. This short, chubby, Italian plumber has long been been gaming’s #1 ambassador to pop culture everywhere, having eclipsed the previous title-holder, Pac-Man, ages ago. Pac-Man ruled the arcades once, but it was Mario who conquered our home TVs in 1985. The bright, colorful, side scrolling world of Super Mario Brothers was truly a revelation to us children of the 80s. SMB was not Mario’s first game, of course, but while Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. Where both excellent arcade games, SMB was really the game changer. And I believe there lies Mario’s continued appeal; though each new Mario game in the core series builds on what has come before, Nintendo’s designers (including of course the legendary Shigeru Miyamoto) have always been willing to try new things with the ultimate mascot of gaming. And frankly, no matter what else one might think of Nintendo’s marketing strategies and corporate policies, the fact is that their core brand games usually succeed brilliantly, even when they do try new things.

Mario 64 was arguably as influential a game as the original SMB. It was hardly the first 3D game anymore than SMB was the first sidescroller, but for whatever reason it was the game that heralded the arrival of 3D as one of the primary ways to design games. By comparison, Super Mario Galaxy is perhaps not as revolutionary or influential, but it still manages to wonderfully embody the best aspects of Nintendo’s current strategy while at the same time succeeding at being an excellent “pure” gaming experience.

SMG’s “gimmick” is multi-sided, spherical worlds. Apparently inspired by the notorious Mario 128 GameCube demo, it is this “spherical” gravity centered gameplay that sets the game apart from other platformers and its own predecessors. The game is a level designer’s ultimate fantasy; every conceivable shape becomes a surface to play on. While the early levels seem inspired by The Little Prince’s tiny homeworld B-612, things quickly get ever wilder from there. Aside from the odd angles at which the action often happens, gravity manipulation and distortion quickly becomes a factor, and soon Mario is traversing spacescapes that would give MC Escher vertigo. Actually, perhaps one of the most remarkable things about the game is how quickly one adapts to the strange space it inhabits. Any feeling of discomfort at the weird angles and strange circumstances quickly passed. The game has been criticized for being too easy, but in truth I think that is a testament to the excellent level design and very tight controls. At one point I remember getting to a level that looked so insanely challenging I laughed out loud; partially at the absurdity of the setting, but partially at the realization that I was about to run through that at full speed and I also knew that somehow I’d make it; perhaps not at the my first try (I didn’t) but soon. That tightness of control, combined with the bright colors and beautifully rendered cartoony environments (truly impressive on the Wii’s hardware) makes the game a joy to play. And that’s what I meant when I called the game a “pure” gaming experience; there is a pleasure to be found merely in experiencing and traversing the environments that I can compare only to the PS3 title Flower; except that where Flower was serene, SMG adds a constant element of danger and challenge.

I must admit my gaming preferences usually steer me towards games that are high in drama or have rich, deep story lines, there is something very nice about going back and enjoying the basic pleasure of interacting with something so stimulating on a purely sensory level. A basic example of this is Mario’s spin move. It is multi directional to subtly help the player cope with having to hit enemies coming from many possible directions; it is accomplished by quickly shaking the wiimote, a gesture that works consistently, and it is accompanied by one of Mario’s yips of joy. Nothing in that basic action is revolutionary, but its plain and simple good design from start to finish.

There’s one more thing I would like to mention about the game: the cooperative multiplayer. Its an asymmetrical mode, with the primary player still playing Mario as in the singleplayer, but the second player can sit in and help by grabbing things, stunning enemies with star bits, collecting more star bits, and in general being helpful to the first player. It does make a relatively easy game even easier, true, but I cannot think of a better way to involve a casual or non gamer in a core franchise like this. My friend is not a fan of platformers or Mario in general, but she genuinely was having a good time helping me out as I tackled the game; for new players or players who frustrate easily this is perfect; they can be very helpful, but they can’t really hurt the player no mater how badly they play, and they have no avatar on screen that can be hurt by the enemies or environment. I’m hardly advocating this kind of multiplayer be added to every game, but its different and fun and very successful at doing what it was meant to do.

My hat is off (once again) to Mr. Miyamoto and the rest of Nintendo’s designers. If he continues to star in games of this caliber, I’ll be happy to allow Mario to continue his ambassadorial duties on behalf of gaming in general.

Games Currently Playing:
Ascension War: Incursion
XBL Indie games
Infinite Space

Entry 4: Infinite potential, limited success.

Midterm crunch is on, but as always bits of gameplay happen here and there. Still, as day to day happenings change, so do the games I play, and as usual, when the going gets tough, the portables see more use. An interesting thing that did happen this week though was that while doing research for my 503 class, I ended up spending some time in the indie games area of XBL; while I wasn’t there to play games, I couldn’t resist downloading a handful of trials, to predictably mixed results. Still, its an interesting way of getting some games out there to be played. I sat through a session on XBL publishing at SIEGE and am ever more intrigued by the possibilities here.

Infinite Space

Infinite Space is a game that I picked up with some doubts. On the one hand, the subject matter and touted features couldn’t be more up my alley, but on the other, it is essentially a jRPG, a genre I have long since ceased to have much patience for. Its not surprising then that my analysis is pretty mixed.

I decided on Infinite Space (IS) this week for several reasons. I was going to be on the road, so a portable game was ideal. Like Sins, its a game that I’d purchased but hadn’t gotten around to playing. It also has some thematic similarities to Sins and has some elements that I was interested in exploring due to some of where my thoughts are going for a future game. It’s developed by Nude Maker and Platinum Games, two Japanese developers with solid reputations, and not known for jRPGs, so I had some hope for this one. During development, the developers compared the story and scope to Arthur C. Clarke’s novel “Childhood’s End”, a hard sci-fi classic. The premise, to have a deep space combat and exploration game on the DS, seemed very promising and ambitious.

Like many jRPGs, Infinite Space is a menu-based game. By this I mean that as a player, one never gets the impression that one is controlling the ship/character represented on screen directly; the graphics rather are there to essentially illustrate what you are doing with the menus. This can lead to the player feeling removed from the action; I often feel more like a manager or planner than a hero or even a general. I feel this is an interface issue; games like Baldur’s Gate and Knights of the Old Republic are equally decision based, as opposed to direct-control like an action game or even action RPG, but because of the interface design it often feels more like I am in direct control of my character or units. Particularly with the DS’s stylus, I feel like there was a missed opportunity to add somewhat to the immersiveness of the game. On the other hand, because the player is representing the commander of a small fleet of ships, rather than a single character or even a small party, I feel that the sense of remoteness is less jarring; the player is after all sitting in a command center giving orders, not personally manning the cannons.

The basic combat system is simple; it takes a paper-rocks-scissors approach (literally, there are three choices). The player can choose to dodge, to take a normal attack, or a full barrage attack. A full barrage does a great deal of damage, but is negated by a dodge. A normal attack does less damage but is harder to negate, and a dodge protects you from a barrage but actually makes you more vulnerable to a normal attack. To this you add a dimension of time, since you must wait for a gauge to fill up before you can perform actions, and a dimension of distance, since you can choose to fly either towards or away from the enemy (but not to the sides; combat is literally linear). Underlying this is a complex system of stats representing your ship and crew members that affect everything from the ships speed, to the accuracy and damage of the weapons, and even how fast your actions gauge fills up. This creates an interesting and somewhat frustrating dichotomy. The combat system itself, though not a bad design, can quickly become repetitive and tedious. This is made worse by the three biggest flaws of the jRPG genre: length, grinding, and random battles. On the other hand, the underlying strategy and construction “games” in which you design your ship and assign crew members and the like can be very interesting, and apparently gets more so as the game progresses and more options become available. You are then playing an enjoyable sub-game whose ultimate purpose is to make it easier to succeed at a less enjoyable sub-game.

The story is presented via dialogue between the characters over still images. To advance the plot, it is often necessary to go to specific place, or trigger a specific conversation at a given planet’s space port. The problem with this system is that it is often unclear where you have to go next or what the trigger is, so the player ends up having a lot of conversations at random bars. Even worse, sometimes to move things forward you have to speak to a certain person a second or third time, and there is nothing to indicate this. So in my playthrough I often found myself speaking to everyone twice to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, and since most characters only have one dialogue, this led to many repeated chats. The story so far is interesting and well written but unspectacular; however one does get the impression it really hasn’t gotten going yet. From what I’ve read from reviewers it gets more and more intriguing and is one of the reasons to stick with the game, but ultimately that the ending is unsatisfying.

Aside from being menu driven, the game’s presentation is quite good. Ship models are varied and I found most of the designs appealing; the interface looks appropriately futuristic, and the bridge views are well done and reinforce the feeling that the player is in command of a great space vessel. Being able to fly back and fourth can be confusing (and a little frustrating given the tedium of random encounters) but it does create a feeling of freedom and exploration. Characters are rendered in somewhat stereotypical anime fashion, but while unremarkable they are attractive enough.

Overall Infinite Space is almost frustrating to analyze. There is no denying the game’s ambition given the DS format, and the depth of both the story and the underlying ship-and-crew creation system are impressive and satisfying. Yet for every two steps forward, the game takes a step back by holding on to conventions of a genre that in my opinion is for the most part obsolete now. Combine with a combat system that though clever cannot sustain interest for the length of the game and you have a mixed bag of a game that though hardly bad, is full of missed potential.

Games Playing:
Halo: Reach
Global Agenda
The Dig and other Adventure games.

Exercise 2: The Dig and other Adventures

In preparation for my proposal and first prototype I’ve been trying my hand at classic point and click adventure games. I’m hardly a stranger to the genre; the first computer game I ever saw was Kings Quest 2. The first PC game I ever owned was Quest for Glory I: So You Want to Be a Hero. These games and their sequels, along with the Space Quest saga, will always have a special place in my heart. But the truth is it has been several years since I’ve played them, and when I do play them I find it hard to look at them objectively. Therefore, before writing my proposal I wanted to get myself reacquainted with that type of game by playing something similar I’d missed. There were definitely plenty of titles from back in the golden age of adventure gaming to choose from. I knew I didn’t have time to go in-depth with more than one of them however, so I chose LucasArt’s “The Dig”.

Before I get into my thoughts on “The Dig”, I’d like to mention that I did also try a few games made with the Adventure Game Studio (AGS) engine that I intend to use for my own project. Essentially I wanted to make sure it was up to the task and I was very pleased with the results. The games I tried varied wildly in quality, but the engine ran well in all cases. I was impressed by how customizable it seems to be; some of the games had very traditional interfaces, but some were very different. “A Second Face” uses a traditional interface and seems to be very large and epic in scope; that might be its downfall however as some of the areas seem under-detailed. “A Day in the Future” does quite a bit with a single room though it was apparently originally in French and the translation is a bit uneven. My favorite of the bunch I played was a game simply titled “Automation”. Its very short and the design is very simple, but the art is very well done and the puzzles are clever and logical. Its polished and the limited scope means that a lot of care went into the environment; it even has a clever sense of humor. All these games have one fault in common: linearity. I’ll return to that subject below.

As I said, I chose to play “The Dig”. I had been aware of this game for years and was intrigued by it but never had a chance to play. It is one of the later games to use LucasArt’s SCUMM Adventure Game Engine. For many years, LucasArt’s Adventure Games were known as being Sierra’s main competitor and the only company with as good (if not better) reputation in the genre. Other SCUMM games include the Maniac Mansions, the first two Monkey Islands, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Sam and Max Hit the Road, Full Throttle, and Loom. The Dig is the 11^th game created with SCUMM, making it one of the last titles created with that system. The original concept for the game’s story was provided by Steven Spielberg , and well-known Sci-Fi author Orson Scott Card is credited with writing the dialogue. Yet despite this “star-power”, the game suffered through prolonged and turbulent development until it was finally released in 1995. Apparently, as is often the case with games that release much later than intended, its look and technology were seen as dated when it finally launched; by this point 3D CD-Rom games like Myst and The 7^th Guest had been released and had already begun to alter the adventure game genre. As one online reviewer had it, however, the modern eye can’t easily distinguish 1995 outdated from 1992 outdated, so perhaps in the long run it’s best that I played this game now and not when it was released; though I doubt even then I would have minded the graphics.

So, the Dig. Like other SCUMM games it is a third person adventure game. The action takes place in distinct “rooms” which consist of static artwork, often hand-painted, populated with sprites which make up the objects and characters in that can be interacted with. The main objective in such games is invariable to progress the story by solving riddles and puzzles. Usually there is a clear, narrative objective that becomes the player’s ultimate goal. The Dig pretty much sticks to this formula, but after playing and re-playing several adventure games recently, I have come to realize that it is far too easy to dismiss the genre as formulaic; in many ways it is akin to dismissing novels because they’re all linear books that you read from left to right, page after page to reach a conclusion. What is actually hard to do is evaluate a given adventure as game and as experience, both together and separately.

As an experience, The Dig is a science fiction masterpiece. All of the purely aesthetic elements are superb, both separately and as a whole. The narrative is great Sci-Fi stuff, and a lot of its themes would actually be echoed in later Hollywood productions. It is a tale of a trio of Earth astronauts who go into space to deflect an incoming asteroid, but instead find themselves trapped on a seemingly abandoned alien world. The art, mostly in the form of hand-painted alien landscapes and structures, supports the story brilliantly. Much of the time in an adventure game is spent exploring, and with The Dig I always felt like I couldn’t wait to see what was behind the next corner; in fact, I’ve come to recognize that with this kind of game, simply gaining access to the next environment becomes a kind of reward-system for the player. An interesting note: some pre-rendered CG elements were added to the game, particularly during transitions; this was an attempt to “modernize” the game by the time of its final release. I’ll echo what some have said online here and say that these more “modern” elements have aged more poorly than the lovely hand painted art. CG has come a long way since ’95, but sci-fi paintings have not changed nearly as much, even if perhaps the resolutions they were presented in back then seem limited today. The final aesthetic element I’ll touch upon is the sound. The voice work is quite solid (and Scott Card’s dialogue is excellent) but it is the ambient music that really stands out. Every time I made an new discovery and reached another breathtaking new area, there would be a swell of haunting, inspiring music. To summarize then, The Dig is a tour de force of sci-fi storytelling and art. Its production values remind us that there was a time when adventure games ruled the PC landscape, but beyond that, it’s a remarkable “high” sci-fi construct in its own right.

It is much harder to evaluate The Dig as a game, but I will make the attempt. As I have said, it does not stray far from the adventure game formula, nor does it attempt to anymore than Halo: Reach attempted to be anything other than a First Person Shooter. However, the game does make one important departure from other SCUMM or SCI games relating to the interface, or rather the lack thereof. There simply is no menu to be found anywhere in the game, except a single button in the lower left corner to access the inventory screen. There is no title bar, no icons, no list of actions, not even a score tab. The player’s actions are therefore reduced to walk, use, or examine, along with the ability to use objects in the inventory with objects in the environment. Interestingly, there are screenshots from early builds of the game that do have a more traditional interface, so apparently the decision to switch to the the almost interface-less system came late in the development process. I have mixed feelings about this choice. On the one hand, it does free up the screen and removes “artificial” hud elements and icons from view; it therefore does subtly enhance immersion; there is no score bar or icons to remind you that you’re playing a game, which keeps your focus on the story rather than the mechanics. On the other hand, the lack of defined commands to try on objects can actually have the effect of making you feel less in control of the character. You click on something, and context, not you, decides what the character is going to do. This reliance on context to determine action had already started to happen when adventure games moved from text-based to icon-based interactions, but this system takes it one step further. As I said, I have mixed feelings about the results. Control in a mostly linear adventure game is already something of an illusion, but recognizing that, I believe the illusion should be maintained as best as possible. Conversely, there are elements of adventure games that dovetail better with storytelling than many other genres; once thing I’ve noticed is that in adventure games you actually play what in most other genres; including, sadly, many RPGs; is relegated to cutscenes. Linear though they may be, if an alien secret is uncovered, a peace treaty is signed, or access is gained to a new area, its because the player did it, not because you killed a boss and then it happened in an automated story segment. Again, this control is largely an illusion, but it can be very effective at making a player feel like an integral part of the events his character is experiencing. In some ways this mirrors many of the non-combat elements from pen and paper RPGs that are mostly missing from their digital counterparts.

The Dig is no exception to this. As I mentioned before when I discussed the artwork, the game succeeds brilliantly at creating a sense of achievement stemming from pure exploration. At its best, it does manage to make you feel as if you were there, meaningfully affecting a powerful sci-fi story. At its worst, however, The Dig still suffers from the genre’s long-standing pitfalls, and it all comes down to the puzzles. The trick, in my opinion, to a good adventure game puzzle is to make it seem logical and challenging, so the player feels like he successfully used his wits to overcome an obstacle, but not so challenging that it leads to frustration, devolves to a pixel hunt, and brings the game to a screeching halt. Often I think it comes down to what information the game gives the player, but there is always the danger that the player misses the information at hand. Forcing the player to receive it, however, can quickly degrade the exploration aspect and once again perhaps remove the illusion of control.

Puzzles in “The Dig” are uneven. Many rely on alien devices whose purpose is not readily apparent. Often that purpose can be gleaned by context, and these are satisfying. I did became stuck on a couple of occasions, but it’s hard to tell from my experience alone which cases where simply my lack of attentiveness and which were genuinely hard or unfair puzzles. One particularly nasty puzzle, however, involved re-creating an alien turtle-like creature’s skeleton using a pile of strewn bones. There is a fossilized version of the creature elsewhere, which is clearly the clue the game is providing the player to solve the puzzle with. But actual bones are hard to identify and building the creature becomes a matter of trial and error, even though the clue has been received and understood. To my relief, the alien turtle puzzle is much reviled in the online community as well; it does seem to be a definite case of poor puzzle-building. There is art online for an alternate alien puzzle from an earlier build; its a totally different creature that would seem easier to build. Perhaps too easy? I wonder what the exact reason for the change was. I also really do wonder how much playtesting has changed since the golden age of point and click adventures, as this seems to me the only real way to really track which puzzles are problematic/frustrating to players in general.

Finally, a word on linearity. Though the player is generally free to roam through all the accessible areas, The Dig is very linear. Every puzzle in the game, as far as I can tell, has one and only one solution, and the story can progress in only one way, with only one very minor alteration very late in the game. This is a symptom of adventure games in general, but I would note that previous games had at least attempted to alleviate this problem somewhat. The Quest for Glory games in particular had a significant amount of puzzles that could be solved in a variety of different ways, often but not always determined by the player’s class. They also had a number of side quests that were not necessary to complete the game, but which could have a considerable effect on the ending (if only in the text). In fact, even King’s Quest 1, perhaps the second graphical adventure game ever made (after Sierra’s own Mystery House), often gave you an option to either, say, slay a mythical creature, or get past it in a more clever and peaceful manner, giving you a higher score if you chose restraint. These are little things which might not significantly alter the narrative but at least give the player a sense that he or she “played their way”.

In the end, I’m glad I played The Dig. Its is very much the archetypal adventure game; it is very strong where the genre is strong and yet suffers from all of its traditional pitfalls. As a research subject it was very useful, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it. I was sucked in from start to finish and I became convinced that this type of game remains viable and enjoyable to this day.

I still think that the best “form” this game can take is by feeding from other genres, as Quest for Glory did, or by lending some of its elements to another genre altogether, as with the Metroid Prime series. I believe that the Ultime Game Ever (In the woooorld…) probably contains a generous amount of Adventure Game influence, but that is definitely a topic for another day.

Games “currently” playing:

-Global Agenda (PC, TPS/MMO hybrid)

-Torchlight (PC, Action RPG)

-Metroid: Other M (Action Adventure)

-Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS, Action Adventure)

-Mass Effect 2 DLC: Lair of the Shadow Broker (Xbox 360 TPS/RPG hybrid)

-Halo: Reach (Xbox 360, FPS)

Exercise 1: Halo Reach

Halo: Reach is essentially the 5^th game in the “core” Halo line developed by Bungie, the previous four games being Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo 3: ODST. As such its a bit hard to consider it in a vacuum, and therefore I won’t necessarily always do so. A lot has been said about the evolving Halo “formula” by both designers and reviewers, and a lot of older information is still relevant in this iteration.

I’m only a few hours into the single-player campaign and will discuss only that portion. Halo games are well-known for being “total packages” with mutliplayer as well as meta-game features such as rankings, recording and playback options, and even game design tools, but while those certainly influenced my purchase decision, they will not directly influence this writing.

The game begins with a gender decision and character creation. Previous Halo games featured some limited character customization, but for the single player campaign the player was “The Master Chief”. Though Bungie has kept that iconic hero faceless so that the player identifies with him, I think that aspect has become diluted as the Master Chief has progressed along a linear story. Its easy enough to project an image of the Chief in one’s head, but I think at this point its hard to feel one “is” the Chief, rather the Chief is like a character in a play that the director (Bungie) has given you some wiggle room to interpret as you “play” him. By letting you choose the gender and appearance of “Noble Six”, and keeping that custom appearance in all cutscenes, I immediately felt more attached to the character. Also, by making custom armor parts “purchasable” with in-game credits, another reward mechanism is added to the game. I hate to admit it, but it’s pretty effective. Most of the armors already available look appealing to me and therefore I can’t wait to see what else I can unlock through play. I get the impression I’m not done tweaking my Noble Six, not by a long shot.

The second decision I faced was choosing a difficulty level. This is an old standby of action games. Its purpose is pretty straightforward; keep the game challenging enough for veteran gamers yet accessible enough so that more casual players can still enjoy it. For some time now, however Bungie developers have been making the choice to widen the gap between “normal” play and “heroic”. Ostensibly this is because as more Halo games are released and players master the formula, the “veteran” players become more numerous and crave a challenge beyond the previous games. I think this might be a mistake however. I have played previous Halo games at “Heroic” difficulty yet I must admit that at several key moments during my early playthrough I became a bit frustrated. Upon further analysis, this was because I did not feel like I was playing badly. Quite the contrary, I felt I performed some amazing heroic feats, only to be killed in some foolish way or simply because I became overwhelmed or killed by a minor threat after having been weakened by defeating some great obstacle. This then reset gameplay to the last checkpoint, where I’d have to face that obstacle again.

I then switched to the game’s “normal” difficulty, and quickly noticed a diminished sense of accomplishment that went beyond my wounded pride. Bungie codes some devilish enemy AI that is definitely satisfying to beat at higher levels. I wonder then if the real problem is the considerable difficulty gap (an area I could simply not get past in Heroic took only one try in Normal) or rather the seemingly arbitrary “checkpoint” system. If I could manually save my game after beating the particularly daunting challenges in Heroic, I’d face a lot less repetition and perhaps less frustration. I realize a save system can be prone to abuse, however, but I wonder if that is why Bungie has stayed away from it, or if its a limitation of the hardware, or worse, simply a legacy mechanic that was determined by the previous hardware limitations of the original Xbox. It might simply be an unwillingness to stop the flow of gameplay to save or the problems of applying that system to multiplayer matches. Regardless of the reasons or possible solutions, I don’t think the developers got the difficulty balance quite right. Its possible however that my skill level just happens to be stuck at the worst possible spot between “normal” and “heroic”. Perhaps a self-adjusting difficulty? Definitely not easy to pull off but its been attempted before. It might water down the achievements and therefore the reward system. Definitely a balancing act to keep in mind.

At this point I’d like to talk about the gameplay itself. Bungie developers have sometimes mentioned that the goal with Halo is to make 20 seconds of perfect gameplay, and then extend that to game-length by creating unique and changing situations. Those “20 seconds” of Halo gameplay are now very familiar and perhaps repetitious to longtime fans of the series, but after 5 games they’ve certainly been perfected. But beyond a style of play, movement speed, and responsiveness that we have come to expect from Halo (run, jump, fire, toss a grenade, hide to recharge, run out again, etc) what Bungie succeeds in doing very well, and perhaps more consciously than other developers, is create a sandbox environment that leads to well defined yet simultaneously unpredictable results. What I mean by this is that there are many predictable aspects about the gameplay (warthog vehicles skid a lot while driving, jumps are a little floaty, grenades arc a certain way, weapons have set ranges, rates of fire and damage capacities, etc) but because of the quality of the AI, and the unpredictability (yet constancy) of the physics, the player is constantly making informed but time sensitive decisions about when to attack, what weapon to pick up, etc. I noticed while I was playing that I was constantly making decisions and varying my approach. Certainly I favor certain weapons, but I honestly believe that preference to be personal, and even when I was forced to repeat an encounter, I always felt like I could try different approaches. Unexpected, wild, “heroic” moments genuinely “just happen”, and with some exceptions there is a distinctive blend of linear level design with “set piece” conflict zones with unscripted, evolving combat situations. This is when the formula is at its best.

One last note about combat: I have mixed feelings about squadmate participation in Halo: Reach. Its exciting to feel part of a team of elite soldiers, and its nice to have truly competent AI assistance for once. But its obvious that the “named” characters have “script invulnerability” and I found myself exploiting that on occasion. It suspends disbelief and sometimes frankly I feel like they “steal my thunder”. However their presence seemed to diminish as I got further along into the game, so perhaps they are a kind of “training wheels” found mostly early on.

Progress through the levels remains largely linear. During one segment of play, I was able to choose which one of two objectives to complete first, but the non-linearity afforded by this was illusory at best. No matter which choice you make it seems both encounters proceed the same way and your squadmate verbally agrees with your decision either way. No information is given to inform your decision so the choice seems largely superfluous. Having played both paths I felt let down and even a little “insulted” by the shallowness of the choice. Perhaps because the dialogue made it seem more noteworthy than it really was.

Finally, though this might be more superficial, I thought I’d note the new game engine and the art direction in this game. Though there are superficial and iterative differences in gameplay between the Halo games, as of late the developers have relied more on ambiance and mood to distinguish the titles in the series. Also, the “look and feel” of Halo has become a part of the games’ “language” and distinctiveness. For example, the series has been both praised and criticized for its color palette of bright purples and oranges and greens in the past. Bungie tried (successfully in my opinion) to change the ambiance significantly in the recent Halo 3: ODST, but a part of the Halo “mystique” has always included strange alien megastructures and impressive sci-fi vistas. While I still haven’t seen anything as instantly wow-worthy as my first glimpse of the Halo structure in the original game, Reach the world certainly feels vaster than some of the more claustrophobic moments in previous games, and that most shooters in general. Still, Reach feels a bit too earth-like which might make sense (terraforming?) but is a bit of a letdown. Bungie has stated that they wanted to make the Covenant (enemy aliens) seem frightening again, and while they are all recognizable, the added detail and general “beefiness” of the newer models does make them seem more threatening. They also no longer speak English, so there are no more amusing quotes from your foes when they spot you or kill you. While the effect is very subtle, I think it does make them feel a little more menacing and alien.

There are other aspects of Reach to evaluate as I continue playing through and maybe I’ll come back and append some other thoughts to this exercise at a later date. I must say I don’t envy Bungie the challenge of constantly finding the balance between adding new elements to Halo while staying true to the now almost sacrosanct core gameplay. While I must admit I’ll probably continue picking up new Halo titles as they are released, I do not begrudge them the fact that they’ve decided to pass the torch and move on to other game concepts. After so much Halo it seems hard to think of them as the developers of other great games, like the Myth series.

Random personal thoughts:

I’m left wondering what the balance should be between sequel iterations and new concepts in gaming in general. Video games share aspects of movies, books and art, where we value innovation and fresh ideas, but on the other hand they share aspects with traditional games, such as poker, Risk, and Life, where we accepts variants but expect constant and consistent core mechanics, and competitive sports such as baseball and football where we’d be very upset indeed if the rules changed significantly. Competitive games like Halo and Starcraft seem to have taken a lot of aspects of these games where debates about minute rules changes can go on endlessly, complete now with “old-timers” complaining how “when I was young this game was more pure” and all. Interesting development, and not necessarily as negative as some might suggest. I think perhaps the games “industry” has room for both “classic” mechanics and innovation.