The Brainy Gamer

Podcast update and other stuff

The podcast has been enjoying a summer respite, relaxing on sunny beaches and shooting the breeze with other vacationing podcasts. But a new edition is in the works, and I think you'll be pleased with what I have in store. No spilling the beans here, but I hope you'll agree it was worth the wait. Look for it near the end of this month.

In the meantime, the Vintage Game Club begins its collective playthrough of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask today. You're welcome to join us and be part of the conversation. Or lurk and smirk. Whatever suits you. ;-)

Finally, we're taking a brief child-free getaway (highly recommended if you have kids and forget what it's like to be a couple), so I'll be posting infrequently for the next week. I won't go silent, however, because a little portable game called Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor is going with us, and it's already provoking me. Oh you pesky divine Atlus. Every time I think JRPGs are finished, you put out a game that makes me eat my words.

Happy gaming, everyone!

Staggered madness

This all started last month at my local Wal-Mart, the only place in my small town that sells video games. A man named Ted came to the store to purchase a copy of Virtua Tennis. We struck up a conversation, reminisced about the Dreamcast, and sorted through all the reasons why that glorious system failed to catch on.

Ted is light on funds these days and can't afford any of the latest consoles, so he's strictly a PC gamer. He saw an ad for Virtua Tennis "available now for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and PC," but searching through the PC game section (shrinking, it seems, by the day) the game was nowhere to be found. A sales associate arrived to help, informing him the game was in stock for all the other platforms, but not PC. Ted left the store game-less and disappointed, but not before we exchanged phone numbers. I promised to let him know what I could find out about Virtua Tennis for the PC.

When I arrived home, I quickly discovered that Sega hadn't released the PC version yet, and no one seemed to know when it would appear. Weeks passed with no new information, but plenty of clamoring on Sega's boards for news on the PC version. Finally, on June 30, VT's Twitter feed posted: "We're pleased to confirm that the PC release date will be July 3rd. Sorry for the delay but we hope you find it worth the wait!" I called Ted, but he's lost interest now. Somebody told him it wasn't very good anyway.

Old-school types like me were excited about the release of Tales of Monkey Island yesterday, and Steam subscribers are happily plowing through the game today. But Wii owners are still waiting, despite Telltale Games' original announcement that the game would appear on both platforms simultaneously. Maybe next week, says Telltale. It's out of their hands while they wait for Nintendo.

"Nobilis and Frozenbyte are proud to announce that the fantasy action game “Trine™” (PlayStation®Network and PC) will be released in Q2 2009."[1] I wrote about this wonderful game a few days ago after playing it on PC, and I extolled its virtues in co-op mode. Three people hunched over a shared keyboard, however, is less than ideal, so I had hoped to play the game on my PS3. That version of Trine is somewhere out on the horizon, but no one at Frozenbyte or Sony will say when we'll see it.

This happens all the time, but it needs to stop. My recent Twitter lament on the subject turned up quite a few culprits: the piracy bogeyman, publishers at the mercy of hardware makers, expensive concurrent release costs for small studios, onerous console manufacturer submission guidelines and approval delays, etc.

Regardless of the culprits, it's no way to do business. The game industry must figure out a way to overcome the madness of staggered release dates. Longtime gamers may overlook these snags because we've grown accustomed to them. But to most consumers, like my friend Ted, it makes no sense. They just want to buy the game. Too often, we make that harder than it should be.

Would someone please pass the Trine?

Playing Trine is like savoring a sumptuous souffle and allowing your taste buds to separate the hint of cognac from the dash of orange-zest. Trine is a terrific game in its own right, but half the fun is seeing how Finnish indie developer Frozenbyte assembled its familiar ingredients to cook up such a tasty, yet original, concoction.

Here's how lead designer Lauri Hyvärinen describes the game:

Trine is a physics-based jump’n'run game that features three characters in a quest to save the fantasy kingdom from evil. So basically it’s a platformer game for the modern era infused with action and puzzle elements, with a fairytale atmosphere.[1]

That's an apt description, but it only hints at the genre alchemy that makes Trine so interesting. At first glance, the game looks like a high-def version of Odin Sphere with its luscious 2-D art style. That comparison slips, however, when you notice the steampunk elements and psychedelic mushrooms.

As a colorful side-scrolling platformer, Trine's whimsical roots in Mario games are easily seen, but its hack and slash gameplay links it more closely to Golden Axe. That is, until you realize some of your toughest obstacles aren't trying to kill you; they're blocking your path. So it's a bit of Mario with a skewed Odin Sphere art style meets Golden Axe meets Lost Vikings. But wait, there's more! (We miss you Billy Mays.)

Trine is a heavily physics-based platformer that shines most brightly in co-op mode. If you enjoyed Little Big Planet but found it not "game-y" enough, Trine may be just your cup of tea. Trine delivers LBP's sense of real-world movement (manipulating weighty objects, swinging on ropes, etc.) with a bit less floatiness than LBP. More importantly, all this jumping and swinging around supports gameplay that feels more aggressive and less whimsical than LBP. Co-op in Trine varies significantly because players have differing abilities, but both games place a premium on working together...and occasionally shouting, blaming, and apologizing. Both also share a sardonic narrator with an English accent.

We're not done yet. Trine also employs a Diablo-esque action role-playing system of collecting loot, leveling up, character classes, and managing spells and equipment. You play as one of three characters (switchable at any time): a wizard, knight, and thief, each possessing unique skills. One of the most notable design elements of Trine is the multiple creative possibilities for proceeding through each level. If your wizard dies, you must figure out how to get by without his special abilities.

But wait. I hear you saying "I like this Mario / Odin Sphere / Golden Axe / Lost Vikings / Little Big Planet / Diablo mashup idea, but could I also have a dash of Crayon Physics with a smidge of Okami in my Trine?" No worries, my friend. The good 20-person design team at Frozenbytes has you covered. The wizard can create physical objects out of thin air simply by drawing them. These can be used to overcome environmental obstacles...or you can drop them on the heads of skeleton zombies.

Did I mention the Thief's grappling hook works just like it does in Zelda?

If, like me, you fancy yourself an amateur video game anthropologist, Trine (pronounced like 'mine') is a mini-compendium of genre and gameplay from the last 25 years. To its credit, the game also stands firmly on its own, weaving together its disparate strands remarkably well. I encourage you to give the game a go (demo available on Steam, coming soon to PS3) and, if you can, find two other people to join you. For your neighbors' sake, try to keep the shouting to a minimum.

Bringing home the mutt

When it first appeared nine years ago, Majora's Mask already had several strikes against it. The game was a follow-up, of sorts, to Ocarina of Time, an instant classic now routinely hailed as the greatest video game of all time. It relied on a repetitive time-limit mechanic many players detested; it told an uncharacteristically bleak story set in a decidedly non-uplifting place called, appropriately, Termina; and Nintendo released it only 17 months after Ocarina, an unusually short interval between major console Zelda games.

And there's Tingle. Yes, Majora's Mask marked the debut of everybody's favorite eccentric, paunchy, middle-aged man in the tight red shorts. I have a contrarian but earnest fondness for the much-despised Tingle that I'll elaborate on some time, but this isn't the post.

In the years since its release, Majora's Mask has generally been seen as the mutt of Zelda litter, a disappointing sequel to Ocarina with less-inspired dungeons, weighed down by burdensome mask collecting and frivolous sidequests. Reviewers liked it overall, but lots of us who bought it and played it in 2000 found it oddly disappointing and incongruous.

Now the sands are shifting. Many of us, at roughly the same time, have begun to reconsider Majora's Mask. Edge Online posted a feature on the game a few days ago; Toronto Thumbs has an especially thoughtful piece entitled "At the Edge of the World" in response to another interesting assessment at 4 color rebellion. Finally, the incomparable Margaret Robertson recently wrote lovingly about Majora's Mask in an essay for Offworld. What's going on?

I think it has to do with a sense that Nintendo took some interesting risks with Majora's Mask that we're able to better appreciate in retrospect. As we learn more about the next Zelda game in the works - Miyamoto: “I don’t think it’s going to be that radically different.” (Nintendo Power, Aug. 09) - it's possible to see Majora's Mask as the game that pushed the series thematically to a place with enticing possibilities for further exploration.

I also have a feeling we may be drawn to Majora's Mask for the same reasons certain Shakespeare plays ebb and flow in popularity. We live in a social, cultural, and political climate that renders certain works of art more relevant than others. A few years ago, theaters all over America were staging productions of Macbeth and Richard III. Today, we all seem focused on The Tempest. No one sits in an office somewhere coordinating all this. It just happens. I think we've grown interested in Majora's Mask for similar reasons.

A further bit of proof is the Vintage Game Club's choice of Majora's Mask for its next collective playthrough. When we decided to devote our 7th game to a Zelda title, I would never have predicted Majora's Mask would carry the day. But it did and convincingly. It would be foolish to think this outcome proves anything conclusive, but the conversation preceding the vote suggested plenty of us are willing to tolerate the game's flaws in order to revisit the game's other, more vital offerings.

Is this game the mutt of the litter or an underappreciated gem? The best way to find out is to examine it purposefully and discuss it with friends  If you'd like to play The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask along with the VGC, you're welcome to join us. We'll begin on July 10 and continue for approximately a month. You can find out more here.

Warning: mage on stage

What's the world coming to? Get this. A flock of crazed thespian gamers are hauling their anti-social, brain-rotting hobby onto a stage and calling it theater. What next? The Monster Truck Rally Repertory Company?

I'm so appalled by this deplorable project that I plan to urge everyone I know not to see GAME PLAY: A Festival of Video Game Theater at The Brick Theater, 575 Metropolitan Avenue in Brooklyn, one block from the Lorimer stop of the L train or the Metropolitan stop of the G train. If you happen to know anyone who plans to order tickets online, be sure to forcefully dissuade them from doing so, lest our art culture suffer further abominable cross-breeding.

Better the devil you know, I always say, so I will grudgingly provide the dreadful details. Erase them from your memory as soon as possible to avoid permanent damage to your soul.

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Adventure Quest
The town of Perilton has been invaded by an evil wizard, and only our hero can save it! Cheer as he fights for the hand of the mayor's daughter! Gasp as he infiltrates the bloodthirsty Octopus Cult! Watch as he meticulously collects inventory items! Shift uncomfortably in your seat as the narrative gradually implodes! Glance around nervously as characters are brutally murdered for no particular reason! Despair as your faith in a meaningful, ordered universe is shaken! Evoking the Golden Age of home computer gaming, Adventure Quest is both a nostalgic treat and a glimpse into the yawning Void.

Thank You, But Our Princess Is In Another Castle:
Four Live-Action Machinima Theater Pieces
Utilizing World of Warcraft, Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto 4, Machinima Theater Auteur Eddie Kim presents four classical theater texts, as performed by online video game characters manipulated by gamers live on stage. Video games as digital puppetry! Technicians will use several X-Box 360 consoles and laptops linked to each other and to gamers over the internet to control digital characters in real-time in front of an audience. See the stories of Niobe and the Japanese poet Ono no Komachi as never before. A digital movement piece, chiptunes interludes and a version of Alvin Lucier's legendary "I am Sitting in a Room" also will be presented. Including live chiptune music by OxygenStar (http://www.oxygenstarpower.com)!

Suspicious Package: Rx
Following last year’s hit show, Suspicious Package, The Fifth Wall is proud to present an all-new adventure employing the same revolutionary technology that turned audiences into actors and the streets of Williamsburg into a stage in what NY Press called “one of the best times I have had at the theater.” Suspicious Package: Rx takes our intrepid audience/cast into a not-too-distant post-apocalyptic future in which happy pills don’t make anyone happy, memories can’t be trusted, and everyone seems a little suspicious. Told via provided Zune Media Players, the story unfolds as audience members (six at a time) are guided through their roles with both aural and visual cues. Video flashbacks and narrative voiceovers fill in your backstory while maps of locations and your dialogue are displayed on screen. Part theatrical experience, part live video game, part Williamsburg walking tour, Suspicious Package: Rx immerses its audience within a 1960s sci-fi dystopia of a far-flung future that could be right around the corner.

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If you decide to attend any of these exciting atrocious plays and have a wonderful miserable time, don't say I didn't warn you.

The Darkness

This post contains relevant information about The Darkness, but no major spoilers. If you prefer to know nothing about a game before playing it, stop reading now.

Jackie, don't hesitate. Don't be confused. I am here now.
                                                             --The Darkness

The Darkness takes you to hell and back. Twice. In between those hallucinatory detours, the game spins a familiar mob story of betrayal and revenge set in the lower third of Manhattan. There's a power-crazed mob boss, an innocent girlfriend, a corrupt cop, and a motley assortment of savvy wiseguys, dealers, and street toughs. As a crime family story, The Darkness sticks to a well-trodden path. Fortunately, there's more to the story.

The Darkness is a character-driven game, and Starbreeze clearly lavished attention on this element of its design. The quality of the vocapped performances rises well above other games because the dialogue is exceptionally well written (script by Paul Jenkins and Mikael Säker), and every character - even the corner junkie and paranoid woman in the subway - is voiced by a convincing actor, with all the subtleties and imaginative inflections professionals bring to the process.

When a developer hires a seasoned actor like Kirk Baltz (best known for playing the tortured cop in Reservoir Dogs) to play a small supporting role (Anthony Estacado) in its game, that developer is trying hard to do things right. In The Darkness, the effort pays off. Okay, maybe a few of the collectible answering machine messages sound cheesy, but we'll chalk that up to 'bonus content' not relevant to the main story.

But let's be honest. The dialogue and characters in The Darkness are impressive for a video game. The highest production standard we can find (and this game is among the best I've seen) is the bare minimum one would expect from a film or play. When you objectively consider the game's latex-like facial animations (especially among the older characters) and dodgy lip syncing, the verisimilitude gap widens significantly. Some reviewers see "great storytelling" in this game; but The Darkness is, at best, a potboiler crime thriller with a supernatural twist.

That last paragraph was a straw man, by the way. Time to tear him down.

"I'm a contract killer. I, uh, kill people for the Franchetti crime family."
The Darkness isn't about traditional storytelling at all. Sure, it has a linear plot and characters voiced by actors, but The Darkness isn't a video game knock-off of Goodfellas, nor is its presentation especially cinematic. The Darkness is an unflinching exploration of a tormented man's psyche. It relies on the power of first-person interactivity to bring the player face to face with the seductiveness of evil. Seeing the world through Jackie's eyes enables you to explore the life of a contract killer - a man, ironically, of honor - in ways that go farther and deeper than merely pulling a trigger and watching a cutscene.

The Darkness is a shooter because that's what Jackie Estacado is. Jackie kills people for a living. He has awesome powers at his disposal because the Darkness has chosen Jackie as its vessel. These powers come at a terrible price, forcing Jackie to live in the shadows and taking control of him at the worst possible moment.

The player sits squarely between Jackie and the Darkness. We empathize with Jackie, but we need the Darkness to survive. Like the Darkness, we can control Jackie's actions, but not his mind. Like Jackie, we can hold the Darkness at bay, but never silence it. Sometimes we choose dark powers simply because of their allure. A gun would do the job...but not nearly so thrillingly.

Weapons and destructive powers rarely mean anything in games. They're tools that must be reloaded or recharged. At worst they drain mana or energy. Every time Jackie summons the Darkness, it's a small self-loathing surrender.

Video games are forever trying to integrate their gameplay mechanics with their narratives. The Darkness succeeds where so many others fail because the act of killing, especially when enabled by Jackie's malicious dark powers, functions as an ongoing dialogue between the honorable man Jackie wants to be and the hungry creature lurking inside him. At every turn you have a choice: not a choice of whether to kill, but a choice of how. In Jackie's world, there's a right way, a wrong way, and an expedient way.

"Ever been in love with somebody who was so beautiful and pure, you couldn't bear to show them your own darkness?"
Much of the game's narrative impact comes from the struggle within Jackie to confront the darkness inside him. It's possible to see the entire game as a meditation on this struggle. Jackie's trips to the Otherworld, his relationship with Jenny, his (and your) choices to accept or reject side missions - all these activities are accompanied by gameplay that informs the meaning of Jackie's actions. You can cuddle with Jenny on the couch and watch a movie, and you can shoot a man in the head, tear open his chest, and devour his heart. You will probably do both.

The Darkness isn't a sandbox game. It's a carefully authored experience, and in this context 'choice' isn't so much about branching paths as about constructing a persona for Jackie in your own head. Behaving honorably or viciously won't alter the outcome of the game one way or another, but your lingering sense of the Darkness' (and its haunting pleas for "more, more blood") will deeply affect your thinking as you make your way through the game. When you are confronted with choices, such as accepting leadership of the crime family late in the game, you will likely weigh that decision against the path you've charted for Jackie throughout the game. That choice has no meaningful outcome in the game, but it still felt terribly important to me.

"There's always a little light in the darkness."
So much more can be said about The Darkness. The locations, especially the subways, are visually terrific and full of content worth stopping for. The gleefully malevolent Darklings are hysterical ("Human flesh is porky meat!"); the nightmarish settings and characters of the Otherworld tell their own haunting story; Kirk Acevedo's vocal performance as Jackie is among the best I've heard in any game. And then there's the couch. I'll let you discover that one for yourself.

Lots of us overlooked The Darkness when it appeared two years ago. As Paulie Franchetti says, "If you know what's good for you, don't do that Jackie."

Double take

   

I'm doubting myself a bit lately. Two games - The Darkness and Mass Effect - are making me wonder why I responded to them so negatively when they first appeared. Revisiting both games this week, I see them in very different lights. Both have flaws, but looking back on my original responses, I somehow overlooked or blinded myself to the many ways these games succeed, and I'm trying to figure out why that happened.

I was especially tough on Mass Effect. In one essay I scolded the game for its awkwardness as interactive cinema. In another, I took issue with an infomercial produced to publicize the game. In a third piece, I wrote disparagingly about Mass Effect's unfortunate visit to the 'uncanny valley.' To be fair, I did praise the game for its depictions of race, but my overall response was mostly negative. Looking back, I realize that I never bothered to write about the game. Instead, I zeroed in on its stylistic elements and promotional campaign. Why did I do that?

The Darkness received even worse treatment from me. I completely ignored it. Didn't even bother to rent it. Playing the game now for the first time, it's clear to me that nearly all my preconceptions about The Darkness were wrong. It's difficult to reconstruct the circumstances, but I'm fairly sure I looked at the game, read a review or two, thought "just another shooter," and moved onto the next shiny box. The Darkness isn't just another shooter at all. Why did it take me two years to figure that out?

I haven't completed either game (near the end of The Darkness, but a long ways off with Mass Effect), so I'm not prepared to write about them yet. But in the meantime, I'm curious to know if anyone else has shared my experience. Have you revisited a game and discovered that you somehow failed to properly appreciate it the first time?

If so, can you account for why? Are we drawn into a blog/website/forum hive mind that prevents us from seeing clearly and deeply for ourselves? Or do we sometimes behave as contrarians looking for an angle ("Everybody thinks Mass Effect is great. Let me tell you why it isn't."). Maybe we don't stop and smell the roses often enough. In the perpetual onslaught of game releases, do we narrow our focus to bullet-point features ("Mass Effect is like an interactive movie!") rather than the whole experience offered by a game?

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Maybe you'll help me figure out where I went wrong.

Safari with me

I've played lots of game lately: InFamous, Prototype, Zeno Clash, Blueberry Garden, Tiger Woods 10 (play the Wii version, folks), Punch-Out!, Plants vs Zombies, Space Invaders Extreme, Zen Pinball. Summer game drought? I don't think so.

I've greatly enjoyed some of these games, but none has captured my imagination like Afrika, a safari simulator developed by Rhino Studios in collaboration with National Geographic. First announced at Sony's E3 press event in 2006, the game was released last year in Japan, China, and Korea, but never appeared in North America or anywhere else. Eager to get my hands on it, I recently imported the Korean version (renamed Hakuna Matata) which contains an English language option, and I've been playing it nearly every day since.

In Afrika, you take photographs of animals and other wildlife. That's it. That's the whole game. I'm calling it a game. You may decide to call it something else.

Afrika does offer a familiar gameplay formula: you're a photojournalist, and you receive assignments via email. Successfully completing assignments opens up new areas to explore and unlocks new equipment, such as camera lenses and camping gear. But this framework adds little more than structure to the experience. The real heart of the game is simply being there, in the Serengeti, with your camera.

When I write about games, I usually look for a hook; something about a game that makes it distinctive or meaningful to me. Afrika throws me a curve. I don't know what the hook is. I love this game - I mean, I truly adore it - but I'm struggling to account for precisely why. I can describe the things I like about it, but none of them quite captures the essence of the experience this game delivers.

Maybe that's because Afrika relies so much on my imaginative engagement. What I bring to the experience is at least as important as what the game brings me. When I play Afrika, I feel like an explorer with a purpose. My camera is a personal extension of me, and it encourages me to define my own objectives, capture my adventures, and share them with others.

For example, sometimes I focus on taking good pictures (you can see a few of my photos here). Lighting, camera angle, and choice of lens are all dynamic factors in Afrika. If I want to set up a tripod to capture a family of meerkats at dusk with just the right depth of field and a backdrop of reds and oranges, I can do that. No mission on my in-game computer is imperative. If I want to spend three days tracking a herd of elephants, I can do that too.

Sometimes, I explore just to explore. I wander around and watch the animals. The environments and animations in Afrika are astoundingly vibrant and detailed. Occasionally you may encounter a group of flamingos all locked in an animation loop, but such occurrences are surprisingly rare. For the most part, the world of Afrika seems to exist on its own, regardless of your presence, and its inhabitants do what they do...including hunt and kill each other, which you can photograph. If you're looking for violent content, that's as close to it as Afrika gets.

The game insists that you remain an observer. Some players may find this separation from the environment disconcerting. You cannot run over zebras with your jeep. You cannot kill or set fire to anything. If you bump into a shrub, it's like bumping into a wall. You can't destroy or otherwise alter anything in the environment. You can only photograph it.

The animals, on the other hand, are keenly aware of your presence, and if you approach a hippo or elephant, they will charge at you. Other animals are skittish and flee if you move too quickly or get too close. This element of interactivity affects how you function as a photographer. Climbing a tree may offer your best vantage point for capturing your subject. Unfortunately, the game's missions sometimes insist on those moments happening elsewhere, and you'll discover that the nature magazine cover shot of elephants bathing can only be found at the waterfall.

Afrika may be the game that best illustrates the folly of inserting ludic elements into an interactive experience that really doesn't need them. To be sure, Afrika is a PS3 "game." Most players will approach it as such, inserting the game disc prepared for a game experience. Afrika conforms, but it could have been the game that purposefully didn't, providing a model for self-directed interactivity, unbounded by arbitrary gates and locks.

What if the whole map was open to me from the beginning? What if I could navigate my own way around the various environments, mapping the locations myself, and discovering where the game's dozens of animals can be found? The base camp could remain and so could my laptop computer. I could still send off my photos for publication and earn money for better equipment, but what if I initiated these contacts myself, taking charge of my own career and pursuing my own interests, rather than waiting for the next email to tell me what to photograph?

Maybe, like me, you'll decide to be subversive. After proceeding far enough into the game and unlocking enough content, you can turn Afrika into the game you want it to be. In my case, I show our 20-month-old daughter an encyclopedia photo of a Hartebeest, and I ask her if she'd like to help me find one. She invariably says yes, so I hand her a battery-dead controller (so she can "help" me) and we hop in our jeep and go searching. When she locates one, we park the jeep and head out on foot to take the best photo we can. Then we show it to mom.

Of course, the designers clearly built Afrika to enable such freeform gameplay (once you open the locks), so maybe I'm not as subversive as I think.

Afrika has lots of other content, including a Field Guide, a huge selection of photos and video from the National Geographic Library, and a wonderful Viewer mode that cuts from one virtual camera to the next as a day slowly passes from sunrise to sunset. You can also upload your photos in online competitions or save them to a USB drive for your own use. Afrika's terrific soundtrack was composed by Wataru Hokoyama, who channels John Williams without aping him. All in all, it's quite a package.

If you're willing to shift your perspective and expectations a bit, Afrika is a pretty sensational experience. And good news: you don't have to import it like I did. Natsume is publishing the game for North America and, presumably Europe and Australia, with a release scheduled for August. Hakuna Matata!

Next stop: Hyrule

Attention all Dodongo duelers and Skulltula sharpshooters. The Vintage Game Club is planning its next community playthrough, and this time we're traveling to Hyrule. That's right, folks, we're devoting lucky Game 7 to a Legend of Zelda title, and this self-confessed recovering Zelda fanboy couldn't be happier about it!

But which Zelda game? That's the question we're pondering at the VGC forum, and we'd love your input. If you think you may be interested in joining us for the playthrough, come on over and join in the conversation. We'll discuss possibilities for the remainder of this week, then we'll hold a vote like we always do to choose the game we'll play next.

In case you're not familiar with the VGC, a couple of blogger pals and I - David Carlton of malvasia bianca and Dan Bruno of Cruise Elroy - started the club nearly a year ago in hopes of creating a friendly place where members can collectively play through older games, sharing our thoughts and observations with each other as we go.

The VGC is for people who may have missed some of the classic titles gamers often refer to. It's also for people who enjoy revisiting older games to see how they hold up after all these years. Anyone who loves playing and discussing games is welcome to join in.

As I've mentioned in the past, we all have busy lives, so the club is a no-pressure environment. If you decide to start a game with us, but can't continue it, or if you post a comment but can't return to follow up, no big deal. The club is just a framework for bringing us together. Join in, drop out, come back...whatever. We're just here to have fun and broaden our knowledge and awareness of important games.

The Zelda conversation is happening here. If you'd prefer not to join the VGC but wish to toss in your 2-cents on a Zelda game, feel free to post your comment below.

Zeno vision

Thank god for the internet. If it weren't for this tube attached to my computer I would have walked right past Zeno Clash. Steve Gaynor stopped me in my tracks with his admiring essay. The RPS guys rang in with their praises. Finally, Matthew Gallant tossed in an enthusiastic Twitter salute, and I knew I needed to give Zeno Clash a closer look. I owe you one, guys.

Zeno Clash is a game of astonishing vision. It bears the signature of game design artists who know exactly what they wish to communicate. It's the rare game that conveys a singular (and wonderfully peculiar) aesthetic universe and then unifies its distinctive elements – thematic, visual, narrative, character, gameplay – into a game experience that plays and feels different. We keep saying to developers, give us something new. Zeno Clash is that game.

Zeno Clash is set in the land of Zenozoik, a name clearly inspired by the Cenozoic Era that saw the demise of the dinosaurs, the continents shifting to their current positions, and the appearance of mammals both strange and familiar, including mastodons, saber-toothed cats, whales, and primates.[1]

Anything is possible in such a world, including hermaphrodite bird-people and parachuting squirrels. Zeno Clash's Chilean team of indie developers turn “strange and familiar” into a design motif, rendering a world that's a bizarre amalgam of prehistoric, fantasy, punk, and Salvador Dali.

But it's an inspired and coherent lunacy. Everything curves in Zenozoik, as if straight lines are an offense to organic nature. All the characters, even the most strange, seem to belong in this sometimes fetid, sometimes alluring world. As art direction goes, Zeno Clash is a triumph of maximizing limited assets, proving there's plenty of vibrant life in Valve's aging Source engine.

Unique environments and character designs are welcome features, but what most distinguishes Zeno Clash is the moral and spiritual universe it establishes via its storytelling. The game's hero is aptly named Ghat. 'Ghat' is a Bengali or Hindu term for the steps leading down to water, most specifically to the Ganges. Ghats are the conduits for ritual cleansing and ablution. They are the means for people to reach the healing place. Ghat doesn't fully understand his purpose in the story, but the mysterious Golem (another carefully chosen character name) seems to see Ghat's role as very much like those river steps.

Zeno Clash presents a world free of moral judgments. Ghat's main task is to wake up. His teacher, Metamoq, asks him at several points what he has learned. Metamoq's philosophy is simple: "If you are satisfied and do what you feel you must do, no matter what that is, then you have reached perfection."

Ultimately, Ghat must locate Father-Mother (trying to avoid spoilers here), but the game clearly suggests that he's not actively seeking or being driven by anything. “It's funny you decided to follow me, Deadra, because I wasn't going anywhere.”

Among the most prominent characters are the Corwids. They sometimes harm people or behave self-destructively, but in the universe of Zeno Clash, they simply are what they are, with no judgment attached. Ghat describes them:

Ghat: “He has his mind set on head-butting things, and nothing will change his mind about that.”
Deadra: “Why would he do that?”
Ghat: “Why not? The Corwids are not slaves of reality, so they can be insane."

Ghat: “Erminia peed on herself and starved to death anonymously, and that is what Erminia did. Because Corwids are not slaves of their needs, of eating or sleeping. There was also Gabel. Gabel ate people, and that is just what he had to do. The Corwids are not slaves to morality or common sense. So if I were like Animasta I would have let Gabel eat me. But I didn't feel I had to be eaten.”

Zeno Clash is much more than a kooky looking brawler. It is an attempt to redefine the core narrative universe that nearly every modern game with a story defaults to. It presents an alternative mythic landscape that colors everything you do in the game, including the brutal hand-to-hand fighting. Brutality means something in this game, and in a sense it also means nothing.

Zeno Clash re-imagines the art of games in ways I find meaningful and exciting, but I have a feeling it won't be everyone's cup of tea. It's an exceptionally fine brawler, but not a very good shooter; it's too difficult at the default setting; it begs for gamepad controls; some enemies reappear too often; and it lacks a proper ending. The voice acting is pretty awful too. And, yes, and the whole thing is sort of out-there.

But if you've ever complained about the copycat sameness of games, Zeno Clash may remind you just how vital, imaginative and audacious these interactive toys can be.

Promises promises

As storytelling vehicles, 1st and 3rd-person shooters have grown increasingly conservative. Games like InFamous and Prototype bring big wow-factor gameplay (upgradeable superpowers, shape-shifting, Parkour movement, open dynamic worlds, etc.), but as stories they're cut out of the same tiny piece of cloth: dark conflicted male hero sets off to seek retribution or justice with requisite set of thrilling combat mechanics in tow. Lately, you can behave badly too. That's innovation.

Recently, we appeared on the verge of a breakthrough. Games like Mass Effect and Bioshock suggested an ethical dimension could be added to the mix, enriching the narrative and adding complexity to characters. So far, this promising element has been reduced to a binary mechanic, useful for enhancing replay value, but adding little to the experience beyond simple outcomes.

So what? InFamous and Prototype are a blast to play (I've finished InFamous, but not Prototype), and they're fun because of their gameplay elements, not in spite of them. Run/jump/climb around an open world, take on missions, accumulate awesome powers, and rain thunder whenever and on whomever I want. What's not to like? It's FUN!!

Yes, it's fun, and so was Crackdown, a game that understood its limitations and thrived within them, delivering exactly what it promised: a locomotive thrill ride of mayhem and destruction. You are a nameless Agent. A super-cop charged with tracking down and eliminating bad guys. As story/character go, that's pretty much it, and Crackdown proved that was plenty.

InFamous is an essentially empty experience because it fails to deliver on its own ambitions. InFamous aspires to be a video game with the thematic richness of a graphic novel and goes to great lengths in its opening minutes and in subsequent cutscenes to suggest its narrative elements matter: the plague, Trish, Cole's personality, his past, his relationships. But in the end these are little more than storytelling window dressing, a flimsy mystery-story framework upon which to hang the masterful and smooth-as-silk gameplay.

In InFamous, narrative depth is reduced to a plot twist, and the seemingly pivotal karma path - the defining aspect of the game's narrative system - proves to be little more than a simple-minded gimmick. Functionally, the story must explain how Cole got his powers, and it does exactly that.

The point I'm making here is that it's altogether fair to meet a game at the place it's aiming and expect it to live up to its own aspirations. While InFamous undoubtedly makes it fun to have a controller in your hands for a few hours, ultimately the game never comes close to exploring "the responsibility that comes from being so powerful."[1] I don't often complain about review scores, but it seems to me InFamous has received an inexplicably wide berth given this gaping hole.

How can a game more closely integrate its narrative, characters, environments, and gameplay? What would such a game look like, and how would it differ from a game like InFamous?

Meet Zeno Clash, an authentically original and inspired fighting game made by a small team of Chilean developers on a limited budget. Zeno Clash steers clear of most narrative game tropes by creating a unique game world within a skewed moral universe that invites rumination and reflection. It's like no place you've ever been in a game.

What's that? Did I just say a brawler (with bad voice acting, by the way) made me think and reflect? Yes. Yes, I did. :-) I'll return tomorrow to explain why.

All you need is a little DLC

 

This post is my entry in a cross-blog conversation with Nels Anderson about downloadable content for games. Nels is a developer who works at Hothead Games in Vancouver. He's also sharp as a tack and fun to hang out with, as I discovered when I met him a few months ago at GDC in San Francisco. You can read Nels' response here.

This all began innocently, Nels. I was playing Tiger Woods 10 on my PS3 last night when the game alerted me that a new course was available for download. I decided to check out the Playstation Store to see what other goodies I might find, and lo and behold I uncovered the duffer's motherload. More Tiger Woods DLC than I could shake a sand wedge at (full list here). I guess you could describe EA's strategy as "granular."

My first thought: "Wow, look at all this stuff!" My second thought: "Uh oh. They're charging for it. This is gonna get ugly." And I was right. It didn't take long for me to locate the Tiger Woods DLC resistance army already in full swing. From a post at Loot Ninja (a site I enjoy, by the way) called Why I've Decided NOT to buy Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10:

This year, I’m speaking with my wallet...I refuse to buy the game. Charging gamers $3.75 to get Max Stats on their golfer or $1.99 for Expert Wedges (and Irons, Fairway Woods, Drivers, and Putters) is bullshit. They’ve turned it up a notch this year with how much and the amount of cheat codes you can buy.

If any of you feel the same way, I encourage you to not buy the game as well. Let your money do the talking and don’t give it to EA.

This reaction makes little sense to me, and I said so on Twitter: "Tiger Woods 10 DLC: unlock all courses for $2.25 and max your stats for $3.75. Angry gamers call this an insult. I call it a good idea." That's where you came in, objecting to "DLC that's just cheat codes." Then we challenged each other to a dual at dawn, but cooler heads prevailed and we agreed on a cross-blog conversation instead. ;-)

EA made a good move and here's why. They've found a way to balance the needs and desires of two very different types of players. One savors the challenge of unlocking courses as a reward for progressing through the game. The other has no interest in plowing through challenges or racking up points. This player sees the list of courses available and wants to play them immediately. The first player, likely a more experienced gamer, understands the system of unlocking content based on in-game performance as a game design staple and a long-time feature of the Tiger Woods franchise. Both players get the gaming experience they want.

Isn't EA just cashing in by monetizing cheat codes? Yes and no. Yes, they've clearly figured out how to make more money, and that never seems to go well with gamers, especially when those gamers perceive they're being charged for something that used to be free. I don't begrudge a developer or publisher charging for stuff they've made. If the market doesn't want it, that message will be delivered. Bethesda learned from the Oblivion horse-armor brouhaha, and they altered their approach accordingly.

But the cheat code analog doesn't work for me. EA is making a play for casual gamers across the spectrum of their products. Most people new to games don't even know what a cheat code is. The very concept is a relic of old-school gaming, as is the progress/unlock mechanism that dates back to the arcades.

I think EA is looking forward by offering new gamers a familiar option they immediately understand. If you'd like to skip all the unlocking stuff, give us $2.25 and we'll open up all the courses for you right away. Are these gamers too stupid to learn how to enter a cheat code? Of course not. EA is saying we're not going to do that anymore. Gamers steeped in game culture may miss cheat codes, but no one else will. That's EA's bet anyway.

But why charge for it? Why not just add an "unlock all courses" menu option? Because doing so would destroy the balance I described above. A simple menu unlock devalues the effort of earning it. Attaching a monetary amount, even a small one, and going outside the game to download the content clearly separates this player from the one who has unlocked content from inside the game through his own efforts. As ridiculous as that may sound, I think it's a compelling difference.

We perceive value psychologically (see Xbox 360 Achievements). Games with additional content not immediately available to the player have made that content valuable. Hackers try to get at the stuff for this very reason. Cheat codes are so called because getting something of value without earning it feels like cheating. In my view, it makes sense, if you're EA, to charge for something players consider valuable...even when you've created that value by locking content.

And, of course, no one is putting a gun to your head. If you want the Tiger Woods courses or other DLC for free, play the game and unlock them yourself. No additional content is DLC-exclusive, aside from an additional course not on the disc.

So that's my best shot, Nels. Despite my tone of certainty, I'm aware there are many salient arguments against for-pay DLC. Consider this my attempt to build one side of a case. I'm sure you and others will help me see more complexity than I've acknowledged here.