Brainy Gamer

When we discuss great games, we often cite particular moments burned into our brains: seeing Hyrule Field for the first time in Ocarina; the chainsaw zombie in Resident Evil 4; the death of Aeris; "Would you kindly..."; "The cake is a lie"; emerging from the sewers to gaze on Cyradil for the first time;  insult sword fighting; the final ascent in Journey; "Kick, punch, it's all in the mind." Those are a few of mine.

System Shock 2 has many such moments, perhaps more than any other game. When devoted players discuss storytelling in games, someone inevitably declares System Shock 2 one of the best ever, and rightly so. Its canny mix of FPS, RPG and survival horror elements remains among the most thoughtful and well-balanced in video game history. Today, nearly every game is a mash-up of familiar genres. System Shock 2 was the first to do it right.

And if you're an audio nut like me, SS2 remains one of the most affecting sound designs ever created for a game. Critics routinely describe SS2 as "atmospheric," and it certainly is, but more of that feeling creeps into your ears than your eyes. Wear headphones for this one, and don't ignore the audio logs.

Let's play it!
Today is a day to celebrate because Good Old Games (coming soon to Steam) has released System Shock 2 for all of us to revisit...or play for the first time. Along with the game, optimized for modern systems, players will receive the soundtrack, artwork, concept maps, an interview with Lead Designer Ken Levine, and the original pitch document, which is a fascinating read for anyone interested in the history and evolution of games.

So is System Shock 2 the great game many claim it to be? Are we wistfully clinging to a critic's darling that's fashionable to talk about, but no longer fun to play? Can a 14-year-old game with primitive graphics speak to modern players? Is it possible for a game to improve with age?

Now is your chance to answer those questions for yourself, in the company of friendly folks who enjoy playing and discussing older games together. You're invited to join us at the Vintage Game Club for our collective playthrough, which begins Monday, February 18.

Good Old Games has released SS2 in a DRM-free version that runs well on modern PCs. If you already own a boxed version of the game that works on your system, that's great. Players on GOG's forums report that community mods (Hi-Res, widescreen, etc.) appear to work with the GOG version too. 

We all have busy lives, so the VGC 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. We're here to have fun and broaden our knowledge and awareness of important games. All are welcome!

The Vintage Game Club

We routinely discuss The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time as if we've all been there, done that - but I have a feeling many of us haven't. When I mentioned it recently in conversation with students, all of them had heard of OoT, but only two had actually played it. Which got me thinking.

With the remastered 3DS version due in a few days - and 2011 marking The Legend of Zelda's 25th anniversary - what better time to host a collective playthrough of arguably the greatest game of al time? What better time to invite folks who've never played OoT (or players who'd like to experience it again with fresh eyes) to play and discuss the game with others on their first ride?

So I've decided to host a playthrough of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and welcome OoT noobs with open arms. I'll organize the discussion to be newcomer-friendly, and I'll ask veterans of the game to approach it as if for the first time. I realize this may seem a little silly, but I believe there's great value in taking a fresh look at an older game and purposefully encountering it anew.

OoT is available on several platforms: the original Nintendo 64 version, a Gamecube port, a Virtual Console port, and the new 3DS version, which I can tell you is a stunning remastering of the original, sure to become the definitive version of the game. Keza MacDonald's review at Eurogamer captures my sentiments exactly, and it's a terrific read. Is the new version worth buying a 3DS for? Given the historical impact of OoT and the brilliant treatment it receives on the device, I gotta say yes. YMMV.

I'll extract parts of our conversation and post them here as we go along. OoT has received a lot of critical attention over the years, but I want to explore how this 13-year-old game is received among current players accustomed to contemporary games.

If you're a newcomer to Ocarina of Time, I hope you'll join me. If you're a veteran willing to play along with a "noob-mind," I hope you'll jump in too. Post your thoughts or simply lurk in the shadows. Whatever works for you. Here are the details:

Where: Vintage Game Club (a forum I founded a few years ago with my pals David Carlton and Dan Bruno)

When: Playthrough begins Monday, June 20th.

All are welcome. Happy gaming! 

Twenty years ago this month, Lucasfilm games (now LucasArts) released a graphical adventure game like no other: Loom. Led by lead designer Brian Moriarty, Loom's design team departed from the standard point-and-click adventure formula and devised a fantasy-themed game with no maps, typing, or inventory management.

Instead, the player adopts the role of an outcast weaver named Bobbin Threadbare who makes his way through Loom's strange and beautiful world relying only on his distaff and a collection of 4-note tunes he can play to cast spells.

All the music in Loom comes from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, and as the game progresses, the sophistication of the musical passages grows. Coupled with the game's lovely landscapes and clever writing, the music adds an aesthetic dimension to Loom that still resonates today.

Moriarty recently discussed the game's influences:

We found ourselves gravitating towards Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty as a model for the look and feel of the game. Sleeping Beauty has a very distinct aesthetic, unlike any other Disney film. The production designer for the film was Eyvand Earle, a painter known for his flat, stylized shapes and planes. 

The other major influence was Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake. ...The majestic sweep and melancholy atmosphere seemed perfect for a wistful story like Loom. All of the music for the game was transcribed note-by-note from Tchaikovsky's score. I also borrowed the swans, the owls and a few other elements from the scenario of the ballet.[1]

If you've always been curious to try a graphical adventure game, Loom is a terrific place to start. You can't die or get lost, and the game offers three difficulty modes for handling the musical notes. Players with no musical chops will have little trouble with Practice mode; and players who enjoy a challenge will find one in Expert mode, which requires you to play all the music by ear.

If you'd like to give Loom a go, now is a great time to do it because the Vintage Game Club is hosting a collective playthrough. We're a group of friendly folks who enjoy playing and discussing older games together, and we'd love for you to join us.

As I've mentioned before, we all have busy lives, and the VGC 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. We're here to have fun and broaden our knowledge and awareness of important games. All are welcome.

PC and Mac versions of Loom are available on Steam for $4.99. If you can find and run them, other versions are also available for Amiga, Atari ST, and FM Towns. We'll be happy to help you get the game running on your system if you ask for help in the VGC forum.

Happy weaving!

At some point in nearly every conversation about storytelling in games, someone will reference Planescape: Torment. At the very mention of the title, clouds open, angels sing, and we wistfully ponder why so many games released in the intervening decade have failed to match its narrative greatness. Kieron Gillen at Rock Paper Shotgun calls PS:T "as close as we've come to the videogame equivalent of a Tolstoy or Dostoevsy...and worthy of real literary consideration." Heck, I've waxed philosophic on the game myself.

PS:T is awesomeness, gameified. It is your father, Luke. It stands at the summit of a mountain few games have climbed. ... Too much? Yeah, probably. 

So why all the effusive praise for a game that failed to generate big sales or critical interest when it was released? Have we created a critic's darling that's fashionable to talk about, but no longer fun to play? Can an 11-year-old isometric Advanced Dungeons & Dragons RPG speak to modern players? Is it possible for a game to improve with age?

Now is your chance to answer those questions for yourself by examining (or revisiting) Planescape: Torment in the company of friendly folks who enjoy playing and discussing older games together. You're invited to join us at the Vintage Game Club for our collective playthrough, which begins tomorrow.

Good Old Games has re-released PS:T in a DRM-free version that runs well on modern PCs. If you already own a boxed version of the game, that will work too. We'll be happy to help you get whatever version you own running on your system. We can also help you install widescreen and UI mods if you're interested in those.

We all have busy lives, so the VGC 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. We're here to have fun and broaden our knowledge and awareness of important games. All are welcome!

The Vintage Game Club

Back in 2001, Jordan Mechner teamed up with Ubisoft to resurrect his Prince of Persia series, which first appeared on the Apple II in 1989. 

Lots of us had doubts about how that game would withstand a "next-gen" treatment, but Mechner proved doubters wrong with the release of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, widely considered one of the best action adventure games of all time.

PoP: Sands of Time is the next game up for the Vintage Game Club. If you've never played this game, now is your chance to correct that glaring omission in your gaming vita. If you've already played it, you're welcome to join our conversation and give the game another look.

As I've mentioned before, we use the term "vintage" purposely because its primary definition: "characterized by excellence, maturity, and enduring appeal" strikes us as just the right way to describe the games we play together. As far as we're concerned a vintage game can be 20 years old or 2 years old. For our purposes, it doesn't really matter.

We all have busy lives, so the VGC 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. We're here to have fun and broaden our knowledge and awareness of important games. All are welcome!

The Vintage Game Club

In 2008 my friends David Carlton and Dan Bruno teamed up with me to form the Vintage Game Club. We wanted to host a friendly place where gamers could collectively play and discuss games out of the just-released spotlight. We believed (and still do) that older games have much to teach us, and we savored the chance to revisit some old favorites in the company of like-minded folks.

Two years, ten games, five-hundred+ members, six-thousand+ posts, and over a million page views later, we've been thrilled by the success of the VGC, and we're grateful for the support it has received from members and visitors. 

But we believe there's plenty of room for improvement, and we recently solicited feedback on ways we might improve the VGC to better serve the community. Having gathered that input, David and I met last month at GDC in San Francisco to draft some changes, and now we're rolling them out. Vintage Game Club 2.0, if you will. 

The new stuff:

1. The Champion - From now on, we will require someone to serve as a "champion" for each game we select. The champion can be any club member; moderators can serve as champions, but other club members are also strongly encouraged to serve in this role. If multiple people express interest, they can serve as co-champions for a game. The champion's role is to organize the playthrough and generally help members get as much as they can out of the game.


2. Game Selection - We want to move away from a moderator-directed system and be more responsive to games people want to play, so we've opened a "game proposals" discussion thread in the "What game next?" forum. If someone suggests a game and wishes to serve as its champion, he or she may open a vote-gathering thread for that game. If five or more people are willing to join the champion, we'll open a dedicated forum for playthrough and discussion of that game. 
   
   Unlike in the past, we ask you vote for a game only if you will make time in your schedule to play it, even in the face of other known commitments and new game releases. Multiple game playthroughs can take place simultaneously, though we will space the beginnings of playthroughs at least two weeks apart.


3. Communication - You may now follow the VGC on Twitter and on Facebook. We will post announcements of all voting threads and all selected games in both places. If you don't use either service, you can also subscribe to the Twitter account through an RSS reader.

We hope to continue improving the VGC and responding to our members' suggestions. If you'd like to join the club, we'd love to have you. All that's required is a valid email address. I will never share your address with anyone, and you will only receive email when I have important VGC news or announcements to share.

Finally, I'm happy to say that our first VGC 2.0 playthrough will be the classic and highly influential Another World (1991), championed by me, and set to begin soon. The 15th Anniversary edition of the game is available for download here. This edition also includes a manual, hi-res wallpapers, development diary, technical handbook, soundtrack, and making-of video. Fumito Ueda (Ico), Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear), and Goichi Suda (No More Heroes) have all cited Another World as an inspirational game that influenced their work. I hope you will join us.

The Vintage Game Club recently played Bioshock in preparation for the arrival of its sequel. Now we're moving on to Bioshock 2, and you're welcome to join us.

We're experimenting by playing a new game this time, hoping to capitalize on our experience playing the original. Even if you've never played Bioshock, you can still jump into our collective playthrough of Bioshock 2. The VGC is a friendly place for conversation about games. We're here to have fun and broaden our knowledge and awareness of games.

As I've mentioned before, we use the term "vintage" purposely because its primary definition: "characterized by excellence, maturity, and enduring appeal" strikes us as just the right way to describe the games we play together. As far as we're concerned a vintage game can be 20 years old or 2 years old. For our purposes, it doesn't really matter.

The Vintage Game Club

Bioshock is one of the defining games of its generation. In preparation for the release of its sequel on Feb. 9, the Vintage Game Club is playing through the original. If you'd like to revisit Rapture (or if you're visiting for the first time), you're welcome to join us as we play and discuss the game together.

Then, beginning on Feb. 9, we'll play Bioshock 2 together.

When Bioshock 2 appears, we'll open a new forum to offer VGCers a place to continue the discussion, informed, we hope, by our playthrough of the original.

In case you're not familiar with the VGC, it's 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 they've enjoyed in the past. Anyone who loves playing and discussing games is welcome to join in.

As I've mentioned before, we use the term "vintage" purposely because its primary definition: "characterized by excellence, maturity, and enduring appeal" strikes us as just the right way to describe the games we play together. As far as we're concerned a vintage game can be 20 years old or 2 years old. For our purposes, it doesn't really matter.

We all have busy lives, so the VGC 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 here to have fun and broaden our knowledge and awareness of important games.

The Vintage Game Club

Violence is the mark of the amateur. Don't kill anyone. --Thief: The Dark Project

Only a handful of games can legitimately lay claim to establishing a new genre. Thief is one of them. While other stealth games preceded it (most notably the Wolfenstein and Metal Gear series), Thief was the first 3D game to fully exploit the depth and immersive experience of stealth as its primary, defining gameplay mechanic. 

Thief was the first stealth game to use sophisticated audio cues, light, and shadows as tools for the player. It encouraged patience and deliberation. When it arrived a decade ago, it seemed to offer a thoughtful and imaginative alternative to the sea of FPS titles that dominated the PC gaming scene, and its influence on subsequent games and game designers can easily be seen.

I'm delighted to announce that Thief: The Dark Project is the next selection of the Vintage Game Club. Our collective playthrough begins October 17. All are welcome to join us.

In case you're not familiar with the VGC, we started the club 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 along the way. 7 games and 5200 forum posts later, we're still playing and the club is going strong.

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 VGC 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 Vintage Game Club has narrowed the list for our 8th collective playthrough to 4 games:

• Thief
• Star Control 2 (The Ur-Quan Masters)
• System Shock 2
• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Each is a highly regarded game (dare I trot out the overused "classic" moniker?) that set new standards of excellence when released, and their influences on subsequent games are easily seen. We're discussing the merits of each over in the VGC forum, and you're welcome to join us.

If one of these games is a favorite you'd like to play again - or better yet, if you see a game on this list you've always wanted to play - I encourage you to pop over to the forum and make your wishes known. You'll find a genial group of folks there who enjoy chatting about games in a cordial and supportive environment. 

Tough choice this time, but I guess you could say we can't possibly make a mistake with these options. All are welcome to join us.

The Vintage Game Club

We're tossing around suggestions for the Vintage Game Club's next collective playthrough. Among the games being discussed:

• System Shock 2
• Marathon: Durandal
• Another World / Out of this World
• Star Control 2 (The Ur-Quan Masters)
• DOOM
• Planescape: Torment
• Metroid Prime
• Command & Conquer
• Thief

Not a bad list, eh?

As I've mentioned before, we use the term "vintage" purposely because its primary definition: "Characterized by excellence, maturity, and enduring appeal" strikes us as just the right way to describe the games we play together. As far as we're concerned a vintage game can be 20 years old or 5 years old. For our purposes, it doesn't really matter.

If you'd like to add your support for one of these games, or suggest others, feel free to visit the VGC forum and make your voice heard. All are welcome.

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.