Destructoid posted a blog about Clint Hocking (the lead designer behind Far Cry 2, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory and the latest Prince of Persia) and his discussion at the Game Developers Conference about how, basically, his plans for Far Cry 2 failed.

Hit the jump for excerpts and my thoughts.

The intentional sandbox of Far Cry 2 had nine essential systems: the map system, which allows the player to scout a location for information before entering it, weapon load-outs, which were constrained (you can only carry one type of each weapon at a time) in an attempt to ask the player to define a specific set of abilities, a safe house, allowing the player to rest and formulate a plan of attack or choose the time of day they wanted to attack, the fire system, which was meant to leave a quick area of dead ground where hot messy death radiated outward from, the combat AI, which Hocking admitted he wouldn’t really be talking about, the HMR (health, morale, reliability) system for each of the two factions in the game, where different weapons would have different effects on the different HMR systems (sniping removes morale, for instance), the infamy system, which gave positive feedback to the player for enacting disturbing behavior like shooting medics, mission structure, which specifically requires the player to strike directly at the rival faction’s HMR attributes – destroy a weapons outpost and the rival faction’s weapons will jam up more often, kill one of their leaders and they’re lose morale, etc.

Reading this made me really think back to when I first played Far Cry 2.  I had a vague feeling that there were a lot of systems like this in place, but none of them seemed to have any significance and/or impact as they should have.

In reality, the beautifully theorized mission Hocking referenced earlier actually turned out to be simplistic and boring: all you get is cash and plot progression because the HMR doesn’t really exist, your buddy side-mission doesn’t mean anything, when you begin to scout and try to plan an attack, you’ll get a malaria attack and be spotted and then panic and throw molotovs insanely and have to heal yourself and eventually find yourself trapped on all sides by enemies and right as the tide began to turn, your gun would jam and get killed. Your other buddy would pick you back up and help you, but you’d get separated, and you’d eventually find your other buddy mortally wounded. This is sort of interesting in its own way, but nowhere near the initial idea, turning more into a “ride-like structure” Hocking mentioned earlier where the composition part of intentionality takes a distant backseat to execution.

This pretty much sums up why I ended up getting pretty sick of the game after an extended period of gameplay.

However, despite Hocking’s failure, I feel that he touched on a very important essence of gameplay, something which we can easily glance over, like breathing air.

Hocking mentions three elements of gameplay:

Composition – The stage where the player evaluates the situation and plans a course of action.

Execution – Carrying out the intended act according to plan.

Improvisation – If an unexpected change comes about, the player must quickly think on his feet and act accordingly.

I felt that I had a much deeper understanding and appreciation of what this developer was trying to create, but I could only look back and realize that these ideas fell into the trap of repetition.  For example, when I chose a mission, it was always the same path: get a phone call from a buddy,  drive to buddy, get sent on a sidequest by buddy, then proceed with true objective, kill, blow up something, come back home, take next mission, and so on.

Perhaps it was my lack of imagination when I approach games, but I always found this same pattern to be the most efficient approach for every mission.  Why WOULDN’T you want to be prudent enough to have backup, when it only costs one more side mission to improve relations with your friend?  Why WOULDN’T you choose to snipe the enemy first before rushing in to clean up and get your objective done?

]]> http://theintellectualgamer.com/?feed=rss2&p=50 0 http://theintellectualgamer.com/?p=52 http://theintellectualgamer.com/?p=52#comments Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:28:49 +0000 Arthur Han http://theintellectualgamer.com/?p=52

Hello readers!

I’ll be joining The Intellectual Gamer as an associate editor and contributor. In addition to Leo’s wordy walls of text, I will ensure that all my posts have colorful eye-catching pictures and maybe a video or two, because colors stimulate the mind and everyone likes to be stimulated.

A brief intro:

My gaming interests revolve around my gaming PC (which totally pwns Leo’s),  my Xbox 360 (which has never had a hardware problem, thankfully), and my Nintendo DS lite. Being an OCD ADHD gamer has its challenges since that means I get bored of any game after less than 2 weeks of play, so I constantly have a rotation of about 20 games on my roster and it’s quite unusual for me to completely finish a game unless it’s short and/or very good. I am biased towards shooters, strategy games, RPGs of all genres (Western, Japanese, Tactical), and puzzle games.

A good friend of mine posted on his livejournal concerning this issue.

There are several factors that amount to why gaming might feel different now than it did before back in the “good ol’ days.”

The gaming market has changed.
Let’s face it…as gaming became popular, publishers started catering to a newer generation of gamers, and since there’s more money involved, they’re afraid to take as many risks as they used to.  This means less creativity, more graphics, more technology, more sequels.  In other words, as an industry grows and cash begins to flow, people want “smart investments,” which shuns creativity in a medium that is meant to thrive on it.  No longer is the videogame market free to “make mistakes,” even if those mistakes are what made the industry what it is today.

Even the gaming community has fallen into a comfortable, complacent position…just look at the droves of people who bitched about Killzone 2’s controls/gameplay when it was merely trying to set itself apart from just another camera-on-rollerskates style point-and-click shooter like Halo or Call of Duty 4.  Not that those games don’t have any merits of their own, but who dictated that all FPS’s should be the same?  Let the dutch developers at Guerilla Games create their own style of FPS for christ’s sake!  Let the genre evolve!

How important is it to really cater to the masses?
We already know that videogames make bad movies (and vice versa), but videogames as an industry is finally being recognized as a serious competitor for the consumer’s money spent on entertainment.  Now the industry is growing into something that appeals to the masses, just as movies are right now.

It’s true that movies can be enjoyed at different levels for people of all ages; all it takes is for them to sit through the entire movie.  However, can this principle really apply to videogames?

What makes a game what it is?
It would be silly to directly compare movies and games simply because they are different forms of entertainment.  This would be like comparing watching TV to acting in a play. They both have storylines, they both have a set beginning and end, yet one is passive in that you are merely absorbing through your eyes and ears, and the other is actively involving your entire body throughout the process.  The reason why one can enjoy movies such as Spiderman just as any older or younger generation is because we all have eyes and ears, and unless we are blind and deaf, everyone can enjoy it.  This is also precisely why it is silly to apply it to videogames since they require so much more than just sights and sounds (i.e., reaction time, hand-eye coordination, wits, logic, etc.).

The process (and unfortunately, the trend) of “casualizing” videogames to appeal to the masses is against what videogames are all about because it is trying to “melt down” all of those extra-sensory functions one needs to PLAY AND ENJOY videogames into one giant goop of just sights and sounds.  This is the reason why “hardcore” gamers are lamenting the casualization of videogames in general, along with the advent of the Wii.  It is as if publishers are sucking the interactivity, challenge, and essentially, the FUN of the game to make the game more about “watching and absorbing” rather than “actively participating,” all in the name of involving more people.

The latest relevant example of this would be the Prince of Persia game.  While I applaud the artistic direction and the fact that they dared to eliminate the game-over screen with a seamless magical transition to your previous platform spot, but they really have created exactly what the casual crowd wants: a game that basically plays itself, with minimal effort.  It has become pretty sights and sounds, and a mere shell of a game.  In other words, it has reached the ultimate middle ground between movies and videogames; just barely enough button prompts to keep the “movie” going.  This is why this game has lost its soul.

This brings us to the opposite end of the spectrum: the hardcore crowd.

How hardcore IS hardcore?
In order to determine this, we must first differentiate and dissect what makes a game challenging in the first place.

First and foremost, a hardcore/challenging game must be fair. There must not be any camera issues, controls should be tight, and there must be a way, at LEAST by trial and error, that there is a “correct” way to play the game.  Basically, the tools for playing the game should be there from the get-go to aid the player, and every death/punishment the game deals to the player must be entirely due to the player’s faults or mistakes.  Some examples of this would be:

-Final Fantasy Dissidia
The game really confused me at first, but the story/tutorial mode really helped me understand the system and timings of when to block, when to dodge, and when to counter.  Since then, every defeat I suffered was due to my being impatient or just plain careless.

-God Hand
Once again, the tools are all there.  You have control of the camera, you have your restricted movements, you even get to choose what skills you want to utilize in your combos… there’s no secrets here, since they tell you what each move does (guard break, auto-dodge upper attacks, uppercuts/floats enemy, etc.).  It’s all in your hands, and this is what makes God Hand such an incredibly deep and satisfying game.

On the opposite side of this spectrum, we have the “cheap” games, ones that cheat and lie and excuse their faulty and broken gameplay by falsely advertising that their game is “tough.”  Two examples of these are:

-Ninja Gaiden
I don’t care if you wear sunglasses or you’re owed billions of yen for sweet sweet digital booty, Mr. Itagaki; your camera is broken, and so are the bosses in your game.  I have always felt frustrated with how people could label Ninja Gaiden as “THE definitive hardcore difficult game of all time” when it’s completely riddled with camera problems and gameplay that simply does not make any sense.  Being attacked from a deliberately impossibly difficult camera angle is like being covered in a blanket and severely beaten in shrouded darkness.  To call this a “challenge” is just delusional, if not masochistic.

-Prinny: Can I really be the hero?
This game was actually very promising.  A throwback to old-school 2d platforming mixed with cute graphics and fun combat?  I’m there!…or so I thought.  Prinny’s main sin was that it did not follow the rule of allowing the player to have tight controls over Prinny’s jumping, whereas 90% of the game is based on well-timed jumps…oops?  Of course, avid fans may argue that this is part of the “challenge” once again, but the fact that even the ORIGINAL MARIO game allowed you to control the direction of your jumps to a certain extent, it just doesn’t make sense for Prinny not to be able to do what gamers have been doing for 20+ years.  This resulted in a game that was stiff, not tight.

Conclusion
It’s not wrong for something to become mainstream, nor is it wrong to try to appeal to the masses to promote even more growth in an industry that may have grown stale otherwise.  I do admit that casual games have their uses;  they’re good for when one is short on time, or are looking for a quick fix.  Casual games may also have a role in easing someone into the digital realm, instead of giving them a disheartening crash course into the gaming world.  In terms of changes and “new innovations,” consoles like the Wii provided us with creative tools to express and entertain ourselves in ways unimaginable.  However, this does not mean that casual games are the wave of the future.  Instead, we should use this opportunity to advance gaming as a medium, not try to melt away at the core of what the gaming experience is all about in order to conform it into something it’s not meant to be (i.e., movies).

Basically, the main reason is that stories in videogames, while important, aren’t exactly considered a “high priority,” but rather a “bonus” if the story is really engaging.  In other words, “story” in a videogame is merely meant to satisfy the “why am I doing this” question, nothing more, nothing less.

This is mainly due to the fact that making a videogame is more of a balancing act.  Not only does the story have to be at least partially engaging, but it also has to have a solid gameplay experience, which involves artwork, controls, mechanics and physics.

Movies, on the other hand, need to balance the story, acting, and maybe the effects.

What we have here is basically a constant clashing of interests, like trying to make an apple out of oranges, and oranges out of apples.  You’re just never going to strike the right taste, simply because there are tastes that are MISSING from either fruit.

Playing F.E.A.R. 2 gave me the closest experience to a cheesy television action series/movie, however.  I suspect that this may be due to Warner Bros. involvement with the game’s publishing.

The game had cheesy dialogue, but it was surprisingly witty enough to not take itself too seriously.  Some classic lines involved an anonymous radio tipster who calls himself “Snake Fist” and to which a teammate replies, “are you fucking kidding me?”

Another memorable line was, of course, “You’re like free pizza at an anime convention.”  Classic.

The scenes involing the player manning a turret, however, truly felt the closest to a cinematic experience.

The first one sets you inside a subway tunnel, enemy forces swarming in on the other side of the tracks.  Suddenly, something comes over one of your teammates and he starts to stray into the crossfire chasing after a visage of Alma (the spooky girl gimmick of the game).  From a purely gameplay perspective, it just involves haphazardly pounding the enemy soldiers into pieces with your turret, but the main focus of the scene is drawn upon the strange behavior of your teammate.  I found myself panning my first person view over to the teammate, as if the camera was “supposed” to be focusing on him.

I also had an extremely positive experience with the last turret scene, where your latino teammate cheers you on as you make enemy bodies fly left and right while cheesy heavy metal music blares in the background.  It really felt like being in a campy action flick with quick cuts to explosions and stuntmen throwing their bodies in an exhaggerated fashion.

On top of these movie-like sequences, the pacing of the story really kept me interested till the end, and there was never a moment of feeling bogged down, stuck, or just plain dumb.  It was the closest I ever felt to actually being in a movie (even if it’s still far from perfect).

So, my theory is that if we’re ever going to equivocate videogames and movies up to the same level, it will have to be videogames that encorporate movies first, simply because story/atmosphere/art is only just some of the essential elements that make a fantastic game as a whole, whereas it would be everything for a movie.

“We were pretty sure that Dead Rising 2 video was real on Friday, now we’re positive, with Capcom officially announcing the game coming to PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.”

I just came. :O

That is all.

After their previous game, R-Type Final, Irem had announced that this was to be the last iteration of their famous series, making it an instant collector’s item for fans. Little did gamers know that Irem had another card up their sleeve, and that this would shape Irem’s franchise into a completely different form.

Story has always been one of R-Type’s stronger features compared to other shmups that simply cut to the chase. In R-Type Command, players are once again immersed into the complex universe, taking the role of a first-time commander whose armada leads the way through various scenarios. The story is told through this persona, and brief logs can be read to better understand your missions. Returning fans will also welcome the familiar ships and their alien counterparts(i.e. the Bydo), just like the rekindling of old, long lost friends.

Since this is a “tactics” game, the visual department isn’t very astounding by any means, but expecting mind-blowing graphics from a tactics game would be as illogical as expecting a moped to reach supersonic speeds. In short, the game presents itself well enough for its purposes and load times can be avoided by turning extra features off in the options.

The gameplay is where this game truly shines, however, due to the ingenious blending of shmup mechanics with hardcore tactical aspects. It may seem daunting at first to learn the details of each unit, along with their individual strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately, the tutorials aren’t much help, resulting in many initial “trial and error” attempts before players are truly able to understand the nuances of the game. After this initial grooming phase, however, the game is quite a solid and fresh take on the tactics genre that was beginning to grow stale. Units are laid across an octagonal battlefield, and combat is carried out usually on a horizontal plane. The mechanic of attaching and removing “Forces” from your ships and destructive charge beams have also been included seamlessly into this turn-based genre. Most combative encounters reward strategic players rather than those who enjoy going all-out with guns blazing; this game is not for those without patience. On top of all this, there is also an aspect of collecting resources so that players can invest in research and development of new ship types. Outside of the expansive and deep single player campaign is an ad-hoc multiplayer mode, which pits two commanders and their respective armadas against each other in battlegrounds unlocked through the single player mode, with the reward being a set amount of resources that the players can pre-determine.

R-Type Command is still a solid game for R-Type fans and especially strategy fans despite its slight flaws.

Editor’s Note: I thought this article was published a while ago, I found that it wasn’t yet.

Dead Space can be best described as a horror game that does everything right.  I haven’t been this spooked, thrilled and exhilerated all at once.  This is a harsh, brutal foray into the dark and twisted creations that lurk in the vents, under the floor and on the ceiling.

Sure enough, the premise LOOKS horrifying, but how does it PLAY?

Hit the jump to find out.

In terms of gameplay, Dead Space basically took the best of what Resident Evil 4 had to offer and improved it tremendously.  A third person view would normally pull the player out of the experience more than a first person view, but like RE4, the player is limited to over-the-shoulder angles, therefore giving the sensation of piggy-back riding the protagonist.

The weapons are deliciously robust, surprisingly original and brutally scientific.  The game is quick to remind the player that you’re just an overly resourceful engineer, and every “weapon” in the game is essentially some form of highly advanced power tool (besides the obvious machinegun).  Also, the combat system is formed mostly around “strategic dismemberment”, a term coined by the development team, and a system that works beautifully as it is gore-tastic.

On top of combat, there’s the silent-but-deadly zero gravity sequences scattered throughout the game, mostly for solving physics based puzzles.

However, not only should the highly innovative system and game mechanics shine, but the pacing is what truly makes the whole package work together in perfect harmony.  Players are usually quick to fall into a pattern-recognition mentality.  In Doom 3, for example, you KNEW that monsters were going to pop out of the shadows as soon as you go pick up that piece of ammo or health pack.

Dead Space comes close to falling into this trap, but saves itself from it with its incredible pacing.  You never know when something is coming around a corner, or when something will pop out.  The music sometimes tricks your mind into expecting something to pop out, but instead there’s nothing.  Other times, enemies come out of vents that are right in front of you when you least expect it.  This is what essentially pushes the game from a mediocre game with a few new ideas, to a game that was lovingly created and polished.

The only downfall was that this is what would be a classic “movie” type game—one that will be forgotten in dusty shelves after it has been played.  As thrilling as the game was, and how brilliantly executed certain horrifying sequences were, it doesn’t really pull anyone back into it after the end.  There’s no real clear incentive to play through again, other than perhaps a stronger suit of armor.  Also, downloadable content such as the cool scorpion suit can be used from the first play-through as well, so if they wanted re-playability or download content that was worthwhile, they should have added a downloadable/unlockable weapon system to add to their incredibly diverse arsenal.

Also, it couldn’t have hurt to add more variety to the enemies as well; there were only a handful of enemy variations at most, and after a while, they became a bit repetitive.

This makes the game unfortunately feel more like a rental, or best bought at a reduced price.  Think of it as paying for admission through a thrilling haunted house ride.

A friend of mine said, quote,

“I’m to fat to do Parkour
Mirrors Edge lets me do Parkour
I love video games.” -J1n

This basically summed up my thoughts on it as well.  At first I was appalled when reviewers gave it a “mediocre” score instead of a “great” score.  Then I encountered a lot of frustrating moments (including the portions that require the frustrating combat), especially because I really wanted to achieve the “no kills” achievement.  If I had only known what was ahead of me.

I’ve read a lot of reviews on various games that talked about glitches in games and how frustrating it was to encounter them.  To this day, I have not encountered any glitches in games, and this game made me realize just how lucky I was in that aspect.

It happened during the most frustrating stage, stage 9.  I can’t believe I glitched TWICE in the same stage. 

There is one portion of the stage that requires you to figure out a way to climb up scaffolding, and the runner’s vision that highlights objects you can climb in red did not help at all at this point.  So, after a LOT of trial and error I finally managed to climb my way to the top vent.  As I turned the corner to pick up an item—it froze.  No warning, no nothing.  Just froze.  I sat in disbelief at how it could just freeze the entire PS3 on me.  Of course, I ended up resetting the game, and guess where I started?  At the BOTTOM of the SCAFFOLDING I just spent AN HOUR trying to climb up.  Frustration is too small a word to describe my feelings at that point.

A few moments later I found myself running an ordinary rooftop course, with 3 snipers shooting at me.  As I ran to the other rooftop, I did a “safe roll” to prevent myself from slowing down and getting hurt.  Get this—the screen just went completely black.  I was playing like a blind man, only with sounds.  I thought maybe if I intentionally walked myself over a rooftop and fell to my crushing death, the game would let me respawn and my vision would return.

This did not happen.

I respawned, and the screen was still black.  Needless to say, I had to reset my PS3 AGAIN.  Though, ironically, in my (literally) blind rage with this new found glitch, I ended up jumping off the roof and flipping someone off, earning the subsequent achievement for doing so.

After I got to the last part to finish this god-forsaken game, the game had the nerve of taking away my “no kill” achievement.  I just basically went through the entire game without shooting anyone with a gun, and they robbed that achievement from me???  They didn’t even give me  the achievement I’ve been working so hard for even through the nearly impossible sections where I had to FIGHT in a game where you’re meant to RUN AWAY.

It’s really a shame that this game disappointed me so greatly in the end.  I really had a lot of fun with this one, too.

I didn’t mention this when I played the demo, but the combat can be really frustrating.  No matter, I thought, after seeing the little help screen that said “run away from your pursuers and avoid all combat.”  Okay, so far so good.  Faith isn’t some kind of hulking beastess taking on 10 guards at a time, she specializes in OMG GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE.  This isn’t to say that she’s completely incapable of defending herself; she HAS had some form of self defense training and is able to disarm her opponents using a Tai-chi mentality of “using your opponents force against them”.

Gameplay wise, this translates to getting close enough to the guard to provoke them to swing at you with the butt of their guns, and pressing a button to counter and disarm them when their weapon turns red.  When the demo first showed me this, I was having a lot of trouble getting the timing right.  The weapon also doesn’t turn a bright red instantly.  Apparently this “warming up to red” period of time is the wrong time to press the counter button, and since you only get two chances to get it right before you slump to the floor, it can lead to instant nerd rage.

Even WITH the slow motion button, it’s really hard to tell when exactly they expect you to press the countering button, so instead of taking your enemy out in cool-slow-motion animation, you end up getting bitch slapped in slow motion. 

Parkour is meant to be about running away efficiently, and although some parts of the game truly have the right essence, they sometimes literally lock you in a room with a group of baddies to take out.  Factor in the gameplay mechanic of only being able to take out ONE enemy at a time (more than one and you just end up getting pummelled), you end up with foolishly running around the room desperately trying to lure a guard to a corner to take him out and pray that the other guard isn’t right behind him.

It’s such a shame that the game had to be bogged down by such a terrible nuisance.  I’m up to chapter 7 now, and so far the game has been great up till this point.  Let’s hope that I either get better at the game, or the game throws me a bone instead of trapping me in a room with several guards with no means of escape.

Seriously?  Seriously???  AGAIN????

Okay America, we get it.  You like wars.  World War 2 was the greatest war ever.  Yes.  It’s time to let it go.  Drop it.

No, just because you finally decided to FINALLY bring the other half of the world war does not mean you can sneak in yet ANOTHER Russian campaign, with yet ANOTHER Enemy at the Gates reference (I wish I was kidding with that one).

I really tried my best to judge this as something more than just a re-skin of COD4, but it’s really difficult when they actually managed to not only rip off the movie, but also at the same time rip off the fantastic COD4 sniper mission to a certain extent.

It didn’t even go the route of realism, either, as you find out right off the bat that you can re-load the M1 garand on the fly (previously known as a weapon that you can only reload AFTER using up a clip).

The obligatory russian tank sequence was not only boring, but there was never a sense of being part of a whole;  rather, it felt more like picking up the ENTIRE RUSSIAN ARMY’S SLACK.  I had a tank in front of me and 3 tanks behind me, and each one promptly blew up before giving me an ounce of help.  I could not believe I had to take out an entire Nazi field base with my one (inexplicably regenerating) tank.  To top it off, I used the edges of the map and ended the sequence by accident.  To this day I’m still not sure whether I should have rejoiced at the fact that I beat it, or grimace at the fact that it felt like a rushed mission.

They even added an “airplane gunner” sequence, except it was with a pacific WW2 skin, therefore no neat heat-vision sequence either.  Also, your supposed “partner gunner” is absolutely worthless as you push and shove him away casually while you frantically move between 4 different gunner positions.  What the hell was he on that plane for?  To warm the seat up for you with his ass?  It also didn’t really seem to matter how many planes you shot down, either.

I could only count 2 missions that I found myself enjoying, and those mainly involved a tight, linear indoor sequence with a standard cover/fire procedures. 

So, to put things into perspective, they didn’t really improve anything from the COD4 formula except maybe a flamethrower aspect (which was annoying since you really couldn’t tell how far the flame reaches from your perspective) and the fact that your enemies yell BANZAI instead of ALLAH.

They even added a “bonus” zombie mode, but playing it by myself was neither thrilling nor exciting.  Definitely felt tacked on.  It’s funny…it’s almost as if they knew this game was going to be so generic that they had to try to lure gamers like me by the promise of zombies.  With something as great as Left 4 Dead being released, this “nazi zombie mode” is an EPIC FAIL.