Mirror’s Edge is proof that publisher Electronic Arts can still innovate, but will the unique take on FPS gameplay pay off?
“Executing an unbroken flow from A to B is what Mirror’s Edge is all about,” says Edge Magazine in a staff preview of the new game. “Stringing together a few moves increases your speed, and there’s a purity and zing to bouncing between surfaces and popping over a low handrail in one smooth motion.”
The gameplay, especially the focus on weapon-less combat, that has drawn so much critical praise could turn away casual FPS gamers used to running and gunning tactics that won’t work in Mirror’s Edge. Instead the game asks players to sprint past enemies and over obstacles and to leap without looking.
This style immerses you in the world and the adrenaline-rush of its main character, but it runs contrary to a generation of FPS instinct. “Overcoming inclinations toward caution and inertia in first-person should perhaps have been one of the tutorial’s priorities,” the Edge article comments.
It’s a self-perpetuating cycle — gameplay conventions become instincts among gamers and hard to break. A steep learning curve accompanies any deviation from the old ways, and experimental games often seem unpolished by comparison to the tried-and-true.
This makes Mirror’s Edge confusing initially. “Your first steps are bewildering, but they soon become bewitching and even oddly familiar,” says the Edge preview. “It isn’t an FPS, not as we think of them. It’s a Full-on Platformer, Stupid.”
Mirror’s Edge comes out next Tuesday on Windows, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360.
Looks like the first products announced by developers BioWare and Pandemic since their acquisition by Electronic Arts are franchise titles.
BioWare announced at an Electronic Arts event that they will develop ‘Knights of the Old Republic 3.” The second game in that series was made by Obsidian Entertainment. BioWare is hard at work on the forthcoming “Dragon Age” and possibly the unannounced MMO game.
Pandemic announced at the same event that they are going to be working on a Lord of the Rings movie tie-in just as soon as “Mercenaries 2″ is finished.
While the future of BioWare and Pandemic under Electronic Arts is uncertain, this first announcement does not bode well for creativity. Electronic Arts is notorious for sticking to franchises, and I would have felt a lot better about some new intellectual property, especially from BioWare.
Accompanying an announcement that BioWare and Pandemic, acquired by the company in October, had now been fully incorporated, EA revealed yesterday that the two developers would be producing 10 new franchises based on six owned properties.
EA did not lay out a timeline for when these new games would appear. BioWare continues to work on Dragon Age, Sonic RPG for the Nintendo DS and presumably the Mass Effect sequels and their mysterious MMORPG. Pandemic likewise is still working on Mercenaries 2: World In Flames and Saboteur.
A blurb by Joystiq’s Jason Dobson on the announcement related EA’s corporate annexing to the borg. “At least it seems as though the assimilation hasn’t freed the developers of independent thought, though granted it does take some time before the implants take hold.” I saw similar comments anywhere BioWare was mentioned on Evil Avatar. I have to disagree.
Given time to calm down after the initial startling revelation, I was struck by one simple fact: EA is a business. As a business, their goal is to make money. Not to stifle creativity. Granted, EA has done as much by pumping out generic titles (Madden), hording licenses (Madden), and turning fresh meat game designers into enslaved husks, but I cannot see this happening in this case.
BioWare and Pandemic are successful studios, critically and financially. BioWare especially, a company I have a great respect for, has made hit after outstanding hit in the past few years. Why would EA want to damage two clearly profitable studios?
Continue reading ‘BioWare, Pandemic to Create 10 New Franchises Under EA (Don’t Panic)’
Like the child of a recently remarried parent, Mass Effect’s situation is dubious after EA purchased developer BioWare Corp. as well as Pandemic Studios yesterday. 1UP.com had some interesting speculation on the matter, taking into account EA’s relations with Pandemic and with previously purchased studios.
Mass Effect will still be published by Microsoft and remains exclusive to the Xbox 360. However, things aren’t so simple: BioWare plans to make Mass Effect the first game in a trilogy, and Microsoft has no contracted claim to the remaining games. EA is already set to publish Pandemic’s upcoming Mercenaries 2 game, and there’s no reason to doubt that they won’t want the same deal with BioWare.
Neither Microsoft’s statement nor an interview by 1UP with the CEO and the President of BioWare revealed anything definitive. So we turn to comparison. As the 1UP article points out, EA has already moved to put Valve’s The Orange Box on the PS3 even though Valve only developed an Xbox 360 and PC version internally. EA did so despite the outspoken criticisms of Sony by Valve’s Gabe Newell, and EA ported the Orange Box to the PS3 independently. Meaning: It’s possible that future games set in the Mass Effect universe could come out on other platforms.
Of course, the whole business of BioWare/Pandemic selling themselves to EA reeks of something. Close to two years ago, BioWare allied with Pandemic Studios under Elevation Partners, presumably to resist control by big publishing companies like EA, which has a reputation for stifling creativity in favor of generic but marketable products (not to mention for working their developers to the bone). But this isn’t a business blog.
So why does this matter?
Because BioWare is a tried and true team which has been making outstanding games for years, and EA is a polyglot borderline monopoly who’d rather make an extra buck than add depth and art to a gaming experience and who give little to no support to a game after launch.
Perhaps I’m overreacting. EA may recognize BioWare’s prowess and give them the leeway they deserve. BioWare execs said in an interview that their creativity was not threatened. But BioWare has always been one of my favorites, and I’d hate to see them go bad.
At the end of my last post of substance (on Roger Ebert’s inflammatory comments), I referenced N’Gai Croal’s blog. Croal challenged gamers “to keep doing the heavy lifting necessary to suss out where the art of videogames lies; to determine how the craft can enhance that art; and to continue the fight to push this young medium from squalling infancy into graceful adulthood.”
A bold charge. But where do we begin? I gave it some thought, and came up with two things we can do right now to start moving forward.
1. Keep talking, but keep it civil
“Yours is the most civil of countless messages I have received after writing that I did indeed consider video games inherently inferior to film and literature.”
That’s how Ebert began his response to a concerned gamer’s letter in 2005. That’s embarrassing. There’s no way games will be accepted as art if their fans respond like drunken truckers scrawling messages on the wall of a gas station bathroom at the barest whiff of criticism.
Continue reading ‘Two Steps Towards Making Games an Artistic Medium’