Tag Archive for 'RPG'

Reflecting on ‘Morrowind’

Published
on March 3, 2008
in Review
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I stumbled on a fantastic piece of “The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind” fan-art whilst browsing the ever-time-consuming DeviantArt and it got me all nostalgic. The picture is titled “Morrowind Days” and drawn by DA user SnowSkadi.

Morrowind Days by SnowSkadi. Click for full-size.

And that about sums the game up. Everything that made “Morrowind” (and “Tribunal”) so utterly fantastic. Sure there were technical problems, things that could have been done better, unbalanced gameplay. But whatever, that’s life. And for every flaw, every inconvenience, there was something so real and lifelike about that world where you would get destroyed if you set one unprepared foot out of Seyda Neen and into that memorable cave of slavers.

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Final Fantasy XIII Extended Trailer Released

Published
on December 15, 2007
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Gametrailers has extended versions of the trailers for Final Fantasy XIII and the tie-in Final Fantasy XIII Versus.

The trailers come from a promotional DVD included with “CLOUD,” Square Enix’s book of concept artwork.

The Final Fantasy XIII trailer includes some more CGI action, a better look at the game’s world and a clearer shot of a second main character in addition to “Lightning” from the first trailer.

I still haven’t played Final Fantasy XII, but this looks really good. The art decoration is incredible, as can be expected from Square. And it’s nice seeing a feminine protagonist who is actually a woman.

Thanks Joystiq.

Game Award Shows Get It Wrong

Published
on December 11, 2007
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Both Spike TV and Time named their top games of the year this past week, and both demonstrated that most game awards shows are not fully representative of the gaming industry.

Spike TV named BioShock Game of the Year and Halo 3 Most Addictive Game Fueled by Dew. Despite the “X-treme” pomp and circumstance and GameCock’s ridiculous outburst, I thought the recipients were all very deserving. A panel of U.S. journalists chose the awards and included Dan Hsu, Jeff Gerstmann, Dean Takahashi and Chris Kohler.

It is a step in the right direction for Spike, who’s past awards shows have been irreverent to say the least, but they still have a way to go. As long as they pack their shows with explosions, tits, Samuel L. Jackson and bad rock music to appeal to the 15- to 30-year-old male demographic, it’s impossible to take their choices seriously.

The “Top 10 Video Games” section of Time’s 50 top 10 lists was written by their book critic, Lev Grossman. Grossman listed Halo 3 as the best game this year, with The Orange Box and Rock Band holding the second and third spots.

“Halo 3 has become the perfect hardcore first-person combat simulator,” Grossman said. The game has been refined to a degree where “every combat is even-sided and complex and can be waged in multiple ways, using an arsenal of long- and short-range weapons, plus grenades and hand-to-hand moves.” I enjoyed Halo 3, but there are games that do all this and do it better.

“Every level is perfectly paced and balanced and graced with soaring architectural compositions,” said Grossman. Maybe he didn’t make it to the Cortana rescue mission at the end.

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REVIEW: ‘Mass Effect’ Experiments In Sci-Fi Storytelling

Published
on December 3, 2007
in Review
. 1 Comment

[More updates soon -- the video project that consumed two weeks of my life is now complete.]

I probably should be commenting on Actiblizzard, the Gerstmann-gate or similar overshadowing news items, but I’m still so smitten with Mass Effect, the newest offering from my one fanboy passion, BioWare. Despite my awe, I have some criticisms.

Set in an original futuristic universe, Mass Effect combines aspects from nearly every science fiction franchise and icon into one daunting game. Interstellar exploration, automatons gone bad, hive-minded bugs, a struggling humanity, etcetera ad nauseum.

What impressed me most about the game is the degree of cinematic immersion it achieves through gorgeous graphics, a breakneck pace and a fantastic conversation system, which allows fluid conversation between Shepard and NPCs (if you haven’t played the game, you should really check out a video of the conversation system in motion). I felt like I was watching and participating in a thirty hour space opera instead of playing a game.

Now for the criticism.

The conversation system makes for a cinematic experience, but can be unintuitive at times. It uses a radial menu of heavily abridged topics that do not always represent the actual dialog. A few times I found myself choosing one option only to hear something I definitely did not intend come out of Shepard’s mouth.

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Lost Odyssey to Have 20 Hours of Cutscenes

Published
on October 3, 2007
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At a pre-Tokyo Game Show conference, Mistwalker’s Hironobu Sakaguchi revealed new information about the developer’s upcoming Xbox 360 JRPG Lost Odyssey.

One of the most surprising details Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy, mentioned pertains to game length. He estimated that Lost Odyssey will take 40 hours to beat and includes 20 hours of event scenes. Essentially, it’s Xenosaga on steroids.

The game has a deep backstory, with the cursed main character having lived for no less than 1,000 years, and many event scenes explore his accrued memories. Interestingly, much of the backstory is explored via passages written by Japanese author Kiyoshi Shigematsu.

According to Sakaguchi, there are 34 written passages, and each takes between 5 and 10 minutes to read. That means as much as 6 of the game’s 20 hours of event scenes are reading.

I understand that a good story needs depth, and many a good game employ writing to explore it, including the recent Oblivion with its library of history books. But Sakaguchi may be going to far with this, entirely divorcing gameplay from what may be necessary developments in the story. It will be interesting to see how this game is received.

Lost Odyssey will release in Japan this December.

Story in Open World Games

Published
on October 3, 2007
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Gamasutra has a feature on 20 of the best open world games, an unquestionably popular genre with games like the Elder Scrolls and Grand Theft Auto series in its ranks and one with an important approach to story.

Too often does story have a tacked-on feel in these games. In the Metroid and Castlevania games, you fight and explore your way to the boss, be it an alien or vampire. Most fantasy-themed game pit you against some evil overlord, hellspawned or otherwise, and his army of minions. The most ridiculous example of ridiculous plot comes from Blaster Master, in which your frog escapes and you have to find it. This isn’t the rule with open games, but there are few exceptions.

Open world games truly are one of the best places to exercise storylines. Not only can a good story serve as a loose guide through an otherwise daunting world (such as in the Baldur’s Gate series), but a good non-linear story gives background and depth to an otherwise large, liberated and tragically one-dimensional world.

Finding such a title is unfortunately rare, and the games are usually riddled with cliches. Grand Theft Auto’s tales come straight out of gangster flicks. The Gamasutra article mentions terms like “darkness” and “corruption,” “lathered liberally” over games like Metroid Prime 2 and 3.

It’s possible that this is inevitable. Open world games today, especially ones with the scope of Oblivion, require large teams and larger sums of cash, and exploring an unconventional world is a risky move. It’s interesting to compare the originality of setting in Morrowind–with its mushroom towns, terraced stone cities, tribal natives, and strange gods–to the more generic Medieval-fantasy one of Oblivion.

BioWare’s ‘Mass Effect’ to Feature Nudity

Published
on September 19, 2007
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The British Board of Film Classification’s rating for BioWare’s latest venture, the sci-fi epic Mass Effect, revealed that the title features a “brief and undetailed” sex scene, reports Pro-G.As expected with a BioWare RPG, there are several versions of the scene depending on which character you chose to woo. One apparently involves nudity, possibly extraterrestrial. If you play a female player character, you have a choice between romancing a male or female companion.

Is this the next step in the evolution of storytelling in games? Are gamers mature enough to handle such explicit material?

Sex scenes and nudity have been tolerated in films for the past few decades and are often done with taste and a meaningful intent. R-rated films are by no means box office pariahs, although the same can’t be said of NC-17 films.

The ESRB has a similarly taboo rating — the dreaded Adults Only, which recently killed Manhunt 2. AO marks a game as appallingly offensive either for sexual content or over-the-top violence. But just as the line between an Mature and AO rating is only one year (17 and 18+, respectively), there is a fine line between mature content that is offensive and mature content that is acceptable and perhaps significant.

Of course, Mass Effect won’t be the first instance of nudity in video games: Who could forget BMX XXX or GTA San Andreas’ Hot Coffee debacle? But perhaps Mass Effect will handle mature content with respect and use it to further the story rather than draw in a hormone-driven crowd with promises of flashing tits. Perhaps it can drag the AO rating out of the gutter and make it just as viable as an R.

REVIEW: Baldur’s Gate I & Tales of the Sword Coast

Published
on August 21, 2007
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Yes, this game came out 10 years ago. Yes, I’m just now playing it. But that only means that there must be other people out there thus far uninitiated into a truly landmark RPG. The strange thing about my experience is that I’ve already played Baldur’s Gate II, and that it’s one of my favorite games.

Baldur’s Gate uses Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition rules. I know little to nothing about good old D&D (I was instead raised on Diablo and Heroes of Might and Magic), but I do know that this makes the character creation and combat system incredibly complex. Some people may enjoy the depth allowed in creating their protagonist. I just lower my head and bull-rush my way through it.

The game’s storytelling is incredible. It drops you flawlessly into the role of a self-created character, and guides you through a free-form and intriguing plot. The ability to chose between good and evil has since become a staple of BioWare RPG’s but was quite original at the time of the game’s release. Unlike many other ethics-testing games, Baldur’s Gate does a consistently good job of posing questions with no clear right or wrong answer and with tempting incentives to take each of the many paths.

The game’s graphics have aged pretty well, all things considered. The sprites still look smart and diverse, the animations well done. Many backgrounds look hand-drawn, distinguishing the dungeons of Baldur’s Gate from the cut-and-paste tiled affairs of her contemporaries. BioWare was prescient enough to allow untested resolutions and 3-D graphics, and load times have thankfully and substantially increased over the years.

Although it’s a strange way of looking at it, Baldur’s Gate has the foundations for everything which made the sequel great. The characters, graphics, sound and interface all set the stage for the excellent climax and conclusion.

REVIEW: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Pt 3)

Published
on August 7, 2007
in Review
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Twilight Princess’s final dungeons and climactic challenges are a blast, with well-designed and distinct levels and situations.

One complaint I do have is about the narrative. You spend the first half of the game pursuing Fused Shadows in three dungeons. This is sort of like Ocarina of Time, where you spent the first act as a kid collecting the three stones so you could get the Master Sword. Except after collecting the three Fused Shadows, you don’t get anything.

Zant, the game’s preeminent antagonist, knocks you down, grabs your Fused Shadows, calls you a dumbass and walks off. Meanwhile, your catty companion tells you to collect another fractured artifact and assures you that this one will in-fact work. You do get the ability to turn revert to a wolf at will after this point, but only because Zant wanted to punish you for being an idiot.

The Fused Shadows plot does eventually resolve itself and make sense, but initially it seems disposable and unnecessary. Completing this task progresses the plot in a way and provides an excuse for a bit of good old fashioned, and notably well-crafted, dungeon crawling. However, it does not come with the sense of accomplishment that is so important to video games, in which the viewer is responsible for keeping things moving.

I do love Twilight Princess despite this narrative flaw. The characters are likable, and the plot is very intriguing, especially at the end. The dungeons and the intermittent tasks are well-designed. It sticks with Zelda tradition while breaking new ground. And, most importantly, it’s a lot of fun.

So pick the thing up. Even if you don’t have a Wii, you can find a GameCube for next to nothing now, so there’s no excuse not to.

Protagonist or Pawn: Canon in Video Game Tie-Ins

Published
on August 5, 2007
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Gamers regularly make choices when playing a game. But what if those decisions were truly important? What if they changed the future of the plot?

An article in the most recent issue of The Escapist looks at how games in multi-media franchises treat “canon” — the official position on plot and characters which is necessary to ensure continuity in series like Star Wars that span films, shows, books, graphic novels and games. That is, you delivered 100 pizzas in the Spider-Man game, but is that the Sam Raimi-approved number of pizzas delivered by Spider-Man?

This may seem like the realm of nerds and Star Trek enthusiasts, but the changing relationship between canon and video game tie-ins raises an interesting question: What if the player’s actions and choices tangible repercussions in movies, games, and books to follow? What if the player could influence a franchise in a way that readers and film and television audiences cannot?

Chris Dahlen’s Escapist article, titled “The Open Source Canon,” looks specifically at The Matrix Online, a tie-in to the Matrix films with an interesting catch. Troy Hewitt, a writer and community event manager for the game, said in 2005, “Our intention is that players who play a really big role, or make a key decision, become part of the Matrix canon, and they become part of the story.”

In other words, The Matrix Online’s player-driven events and their conclusions are part of the official canon. This includes everything from small quests to major plot events given to the community to play out. In 2005, one of these events resulted in the official death of Morpheus, demonstrating the magnitude of the story decisions players are allowed to make.

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