Monthly Archive for December, 2008

‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ Game of the Year

Published
on December 22, 2008
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Grand Theft Auto IV nabbed the 2008 Game of the Year slot in Time magazine, the New York Times, the Spike TV Video Game Awards, and in other critical lists, and for good reason.

Rockstar’s newest crime simulator definitely attempted something different than its predecessors. It cast off the minigames and bicycles of San Andreas in favor of realism and immersion. Instead of playing off the strengths of the series, it tried something new and risky.

A lot of what Rockstar attempted with GTA IV failed — the relationship building aspect was distracting and the open world did not fit with the linear storytelling, to name the largest flaws — but it failed in a fantastic way.

Even though your interactions with the world are fairly straightforward, they involve and engross the player. Driving and shooting through the beautiful, vibrant, living playground of Liberty City feels fun and strangely realistic.

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‘Left 4 Dead’ and the Cinematic Tutorial

Published
on December 16, 2008
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Last month’s zombie apocalypse game Left 4 Dead offers one of the best co-op experiences of the year in one complete and functional package that the team at Valve has gained a reputation for.

Unlike most Valve games, however, this one includes a very cinematic cutscene at the beginning of the game. An article by John Brownlee on the Offworld gaming blog explains how this cinematic is actually a tutorial which combines storytelling with the utilitarian function.

Left 4 Dead’s opening cinematic is a shockingly complete primer to the rest of the game. With only a few exceptions, almost any player going into Left 4 Dead for the first time will know exactly how to play the game: they already know the gameplay, the weapons, the enemies, the win scenario and the strategies they need to get through the game alive… the only thing not covered in the opening movie is the specifics of the interface.

It is one of the most useful tutorials ever put together: both broad in scope and minute in detail, with no strategy or major gameplay element overlooked. And as much as I love Left 4 Dead, I think the opening movie is probably the most brilliant thing about the game. While other developers put together opening cinematics that ignore the elements of the gameplay to tell a story, Valve made theirs a tutorial… one so subliminal that almost no one realizes they’ve sat through one.

In the article, Brownlee says point-by-point how Valve demonstrates game mechanics — like special infected behaviors and the use of pipe bombs — unintrusively through the opening cinematic, and how gamers naturally understand all these mechanics when they start the game.

One thing I liked about the cinematic is that it leaves the four characters on top of the building where they start the “No Mercy” campaign. It has a context within the story of the game, establishes the characters, and shows how the gameplay works. This is how game stories should be told, and it’s not surprising that the move came from Valve.

‘Fallout 3′ Procures Mods and DLC

Published
on December 13, 2008
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Bethesda’s Fallout 3 mod creator, nicknamed the Garden of Eden Creation Kit, went online this week.

The new Web site has the mod tools available and a library of how-to articles. Fallout 3 Nexus is a good community source for new content.

Bethesda has a history of good mod support for Morrowind and Oblivion as well as downloadable content, and Fallout 3 is getting the same treatment.

Three downloadable packages have been announced — “Operation: Anchorage,” which simulates a battle between the US and China, will come out next month, followed by “The Pitt” and the new city of Pittsburgh in February and “Broken Steel,” a continuation of the main quest, in March.

IGN has an in-depth interview with Producer Jeff Gardiner about January’s “Operation: Anchorage.”

“The Chinese red army is everywhere, and the player will first have to secure the surrounding mountain side and then fight their way into the Chinese base,” summarized Gardiner.

“The player will have to use a lot of their standard combat skills, along with several new tools that will only be available in the downloadable content. These include interactive Strike Teams under the player’s command and unique armor, weapons, and other exotic gadgets.”

The packs are exclusive to the Xbox 360 and PC, and they will cost $10 a piece. 

Despite the price tag, I think Bethesda’s new DLC is exactly what it should be: four to five hours of content that supplements the main quest and expands on the story and gameplay of the core game. They are substantial, experimental mini-expansions rather than superfluous aesthetics like Oblivion’s infamous horse armor.

As Gardiner said in the interview, “It’s important to our team to use DLC as a way for us to flex our creativity, to try new things and answer the ‘wouldn’t have been cool if we did this?’ question that always comes up towards a games completion — when it’s too late to try them!”

Steven Spielberg Skips the Cutscenes

Published
on December 9, 2008
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Blockbuster King turned game developer Steven Spielberg talked about his hatred of cutscenes that interrupt gameplay in an interview with Yahoo! Games.

The thing that doesn’t work for me in these games are the little movies where they attempt to tell a story in between the playable levels. That’s where there hasn’t been a synergy between storytelling and gaming. They go to a lot of trouble to do these [motion-capture] movies that explain the characters. And then the second the game is returned to you and it’s under your control, you forget everything the interstitials are trying to impact you with, and you just go back to shooting things. And that has not found its way into a universal narrative.

Spielberg complained specifically about games like Battlefield: Bad Company where you can’t skip the cutscenes. His perspective comes from almost four decades of movie storytelling, and shows the importance of delivering a cohesive narrative through gameplay rather than cinematics.

“I think filmmakers are learning things from video games,” said Spielberg. “Movies are starting to look more and more like videogames, like the digital introductory teasers videogames give you before they turn control over to the player.” He added that Wanted and The Bourne Ultimatum show “a lot of video game saavy.”

Spielberg also talked about his own game projects in the interview. His puzzle game Boom Blox surprised a lot of gamers with its lack of narrative when it came out for the Wii in May. The director’s next project, LMNO, is “more of a movie-type story game” and revolves around an ex-secret agent.

BioWare Brings Companions, Epic Combat to ‘The Old Republic’

Published
on December 4, 2008
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An Edge magazine preview of the new Star Wars MMO The Old Republic has new details on how BioWare’s first attempt at a massively multiplayer game will differ from the competition in atmosphere and play style, including the use of companion characters.

“This is a faster-paced system that focuses on making the player feel like a hero,” said Creative Designer James Ohlen. “Four players all beating on one enemy; that’s not what you think of as heroic. It’s usually the heroes who are outnumbered, and that’s the kind of feeling we’re going for.”

BioWare is trying to integrate the epic, personal, and ascending narratives of their single player titles into the MMO genre, where individual players are normally cogs in a massive machine and one hero among thousands.

Lead Writer Daniel Erickson said that players would have to make big, character-defining choices and live with the consequences, but could not say if or how those choices would change the game world.

The Edge mentioned companion characters as one BioWare mainstay making its way into the game. A single ally can fight alongside a player character, and these allies have opinions and backstories.

Their role is to continually comment on, and presumably try to influence, your behaviour. Greg Zeschuk (BioWare’s president and co-founder) describes them as “the lens through which you see the world,” and they won’t hesitate to make their feelings known, good or bad, and will even abandon you if you’re constantly doing things they object to.

The article also gives early impressions of the new game’s art style.

The game takes a few visual cues from the new Clone Wars aesthetic introduced by the recent film and TV series: characters have simplified body structures, bright flat colors and the odd exaggerated feature. Each asset is hand-painted rather than using photo-sourced textures, giving everything a slightly unreal and highly distinctive sheen.

This is the same approach that Blizzard took with World of Warcraft. They compensated for aging graphics with unique art and design that kept everything fresh. Its the most economic plan for MMOs because it allows for stunning visuals and an expansive user base to play on low-end machines.

FPS Combat Most Exciting When Frequently Close-Quarters

Published
on December 2, 2008
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The most engaging first person shooters of the last few years force players into intense bouts of melee combat, Gamasutra reported today.

Game Developer magazine published the study last year. It used current generation FPS games — Battlefield 2142, Call of Duty 3, F.E.A.R., Gears of War, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, and Resistance: Fall of Man — plus two 2004 titles Halo 2 and Half-Life 2.

The surveyors recorded “300 hours of physiological and gameplay data” and tested how players reacted to gameplay by monitoring brainwaves, heart rate, breathing, blinking, temperature and motion. They found, among other things, that melee combat is more fun and exhilarating than any other approach.

Close combat was the most reliable method of creating engagement, adrenaline, reward, and all the emotions that make shooters so much fun. Certainly, this is nothing new to the genre, but the next-gen games that excelled in this area were exceptionally strong at creating high-paced close combat frequently.

This graph shows how players responded to different weapons in Halo 2, with melee combat and especially the one-hit-kill energy sword reigning as most satisfying.

The chainsaw in Gears of War generated a similar response. Both these titles didn’t just allow for melee combat. They forced it through tight level design and surprise encounters.

Close quarters combat in these games is exciting because it put players in situations where they either score a one hit kill or be killed in one hit, where they can do a lot of damage or die immediately.

This frenetic FPS melee has largely been replaced with cover and distanced enemies and regenerative health, and not unfairly because it can be very frustrating or very rewarding. Halo 2 and Gears of War both did a good job of padding these close, personal encounters with standard fare, which makes the most sense and keeps the gameplay interesting.