Variety Friday: Online Passes

More and more games are including codes in new copies that are required to access certain in game content.  Now, is doing this actually good? I say no.  Specifically when these codes are required to access content that is part of the main game is when this is really bad.  Because from a development standpoint, it ultimately means that content that a lot of developers put tons of hard work into will end up being seen and played by less people.  It’s never good to purposely limit the amount of people who experience a game, because if they are limited to what they can do they’re probably less likely to buy DLC or any sequels.

The reason I’m bringing this up, is that I recently got Saints Row 3 from Gamefly, and when I went to try some co-op with Allan Muir, I got a message saying I needed to activate a multiplayer code.  First off I didn’t even know I needed a code, but it’s also limiting me from experiencing the full game because Saints Row is based a lot around fucking around alone, as well as with a friend.  Now because I couldn’t experience a rather large part of the game, my opinion of it dropped and now I don’t even what to buy it anymore, or recommend it because it limited me from experiencing the full game and thus limits my opinion and understanding of it.

Now while some may argue that it’s your fault for not buying the game, I don’t think that’s a valid argument.  Because while I may not have given the developers my money, that doesn’t mean I won’t later, but making me possibly not like the game because I can’t experience a part of it, doesn’t make me want to buy it.  Also, games are an art form, and while this doesn’t really apply to AAA titles because usually they just want to make money, the more people who experience it, the better.  Finally, not buying the game doesn’t mean I’ll never give the developers money because I may buy DLC or future games, but making someone dislike one game by limiting their overall experience makes them less likely to buy any future titles.

Now if developers do feel like they need a way to get more people to buy the full game; instead of limiting those that don’t buy it, reward those who do.  Instead of taking away part of the game, provide those who buy the game with free DLC or additional content which isn’t part of the overall game experience.  Take Dragon Age: Origins for example; instead of limiting the game, they gave the players around $20 of free DLC which included an additional companion which could be used and talk to throughout the whole campaign with his own missions, just like any other companion, but without him the game isn’t limited in any way and you don’t miss out on all that much.  The players who didn’t buy it still get the option of buying the DLC, but they still get to experience the whole game the way it was meant to be.

Also this is a good time for me to say: Thanks Gamefly for including any original codes that came with the game whenever someone buys a used game from you.  This is why this article was more directed towards people who rent games for long periods of time, rather than used purchases.

Variety Friday: Batman Arkham City - Not All Games Need Choices

While playing Arkham City, there were a few moments when I thought to myself “What if I wanted to kill him?  Why couldn’t the game have let me choose?  It didn’t have to affect the story...” and that got me thinking about the differences between games that offer moral choices, and those that don’t, why sometimes one way is better than another, and why all games don’t just use moral choices in the first place.

Now, starting with “why all games don’t just use moral choices” I’m not going to bring into the argument anything about development time/cost, I’m going to keep this strictly design based.  Now some of the pros of having moral choices include being able to have a deeper connection to your character, since you get to shape him how you see fit, you also get to have a more impactful story.  Now, what if you’re playing a character that isn’t supposed to be the player, instead it is a narrative of someone else and it’s trying to tell their story.  Games like this really relate more to TV and Movies, since the original Star Trek was you simply watching the events of the Enterprise, you couldn’t actually affect them (as awesome as that’d be).

Games without choice really need to have good gameplay, so that the players can get the same type of immersion from simply controlling the character, and frankly, there is no problem with this.  While you may not have as much control of a character, I’ve always wanted to see an RPG with choices that aren’t presented in dialog, and instead are all portrayed through actions. But, back to the question at hand, games don’t always use moral choices, because it isn’t always necessary.  Some games don’t want you to have that connection to character(s), and instead want you to try and predict what happens next, like in any good novel.  It’s less about choices, but more about the experience of “going along for the ride”.

While Arkham City was initially what got me thinking about “why doesn’t this game and similar ones have moral choices”, I didn’t actually find an answer until I played the Dragon Age: Origin’s DLC “Leliana’s Song” earlier for the first time.  This DLC takes a turn from everything else Dragon Age in that you play as one of the well known characters in a prequel, and Leliana is a voiced character unlike the character you play all throughout Origins/Awakening.  While at first I was iffy about the character actually being voice and me controlling her, I finally realized that it was actually for the better, since I was reliving a story from the character’s past, which had a deep moral lesson embedded with it, ultimately I didn’t need the choices or the feeling of it being my own character, because in the end I “went along, on a ride from the past”.  This allowed me to get a deeper understanding of that character which was really interesting, after already knowing some things about her.

I think this actually comes down to two things.  If you know of the character you’re playing as, it allows you to enjoy the game with the mindset of further understand whoever that fictional (or on rare occasions, non-fictional) character may be.  Or, if you’re living through a specific flashback or experience(s).  These are perfectly valid reasons to why a game without choices may actually be the better route.  But this doesn’t mean the game has to sacrifice narrative, one great example of this is Bastion, you don’t really have moral choices, it is instead a story of survival (and of rebuilding) which presents its narrative in a different, yet interesting way which takes the “try to understand the character” approach, even though you don’t know anything about him.

Now to get back to the actual question at hand, not all games have moral stories, because, frankly, it would be bad if all games were like Mass Effect.  Games need to tell stories, immerse in stories, immerse people in worlds, aswell as simply letting the player have fun.  This brings up another problem, in that every gamer experiences fun differently, but I digress (possible future article?)  In a past setting, the player shouldn’t be able to affect the past, unless that’s a gameplay element.  Besides, sometime game designers aren’t trying to immerse players with the character, but instead with the world and the overarching story, like TV Shows and Movies do.  Now there are a lot of times when moral choice are good and make a game much better, but this isn’t always the case, because in the game industry there are so many different ways to portray narrative, there can’t be one precise way, it depending on the game, the setting, and the situation.

Happy Halloween Everybody!  PS: I would have made this Halloween themed if I didn’t just realize Halloween (AKA Nightmare Night) was in 3 days…because I already wrote this article.

Variety Friday: The Main Character

Main characters in games tend to have a few things in common.  First, they are usually male, and if they are female; they are usually badass, or over sexualized.  They usually do not represent the “every-day man” and are in general, bad ass.  Now I’m not saying having a badass dude character is bad, but it is bad for the industry when it’s true for nearly every game.

The problem is that I believe it is easier to simply have a badass character, it allows the developers to focus on another aspect of the game, other than “progressing the character”.  If you wanted to have a badass character, why couldn’t you have it like that in the end of the game, and at the beginning have the character be a complete n00b.  Not only would it help the player relate to the character, it would help them see how the character evolved into a badass.  Think of if in Mass Effect you started out as a recruit and shit went down, Mass Effect 2 you heard of the reaper invasion and had to serve under someone to fight the reaper threat.  Then in Mass Effect 3 you were a lone survivor on Earth and had to start from scratch.  Now that doesn’t sound as fun does it?

The reason for this is because it shifts the focus of the game, the game would have had to be envisioned completely different, and I believe that it honestly would have allowed the player to really connect to Sheppard, or whoever the main character may be, more so than starting out as a badass.  Now since Mass Effect is a great series, I’m not saying that all games should do this, I’m saying more games should take risks and try this.  A game that did this on a smaller scale is Dragon Age: Origins.  You chose an origin story and it dropped you in, showed you your characters previous background and had the player play out the events that lead up to him becoming a badass.  Within the experience of “n00b-to-pro” the player made game altering choices.  Now the game didn’t solely focus on this, which is okay, what’s important is that it builds upon the player’s initial actions and let the player create a larger bond to their character through interaction and choices.

Now a much simpler example of “The Common Man” who starts out not knowing much can actually be found in one of this year’s most popular games, Minecraft.  If you think about it the actual character within the game doesn’t know anything except how to punch stuff.  It is up to the player, who at the beginning also knows nothing, to learn how to make a simple shelter, and learn from mistake the dangers of night.  As you play more you as a player learn how to make more and more advanced stuff, this is a great example of having the character, and player, learn as they play.

Now female characters in games are an entirely different subject, since game developers (I’m looking at you Japanese!) have an odd tendency to give almost any female character big breasts so she is less of a main character and more of eye candy.  Bayonetta for example, it was a fun game, but the main character may have been a bit overboard, it may have fit that game’s style, but it doesn’t fit all.  Even Catherine!  At the beginning it seemed like it was all well and good until miss I’m a Demon or Something (Spoilers!) comes walking in all sexy and ready for a good time.

A game that has done a female character well is harder for me to think of, but the first…and only thing that currently popped into my mind, besides certain MMOs, is Hydrophobia.  Their goal was to have a female main character with an obvious weakness which she then was forced to overcome.  Unfortunately the game had subpar voice acting and didn’t really show the aspect of Hydrophobia all that much, as within 15 minutes the main character was essentially diving headfirst into giant swimming pools, but they tried to portray an average female character, and did it well.  Not only that but the game was fun, they also didn’t have a “badass” female character, instead they had an intelligent one.  The game’s gameplay aspect was to use your environment to kill enemies, so the character, and player, had to be intelligent which made the gameplay unique.  As far as the problems go, they released the game on steam with tons of fixed and additions so it is probably better to be played on PC.  Unfortunately I played on the 360 when it first came out.

Now as far as races go, I’m just going to give one example and call it good, Dungeons and Dragons.  That game allows you to play any race with any skin color with any attitude.  More games need to be as free as DnD and let the character fully choose how they want their main character to be, whether it be race, gender, or traits.  

Variety Friday: RPGs

I recently decided to give tabletop Dungeons and Dragons a try and have been loving it so far. It then got me thinking the state of RPGs in the currently gaming industry, and, specifically, how there seems to be a lot less traditional RPGs coming out now as of, say, 4-5 years ago.  I don’t mean Final Fantasy 13; I mean more like the original Final Fantasies, The Witcher, and The Elder Scrolls.

Now specifically I am talking about the lack of said RPGs on consoles (as I am majorly a console gamer).  If you look at the release schedule for the past months (again, for consoles), the best you will probably find is Dragon Age 2, which I don’t think really counts as a tradition RPG, because a lot of the good RPG elements from Origins were taken away with 2.  The point I am getting at is that console RPGs seem to be slowly fading away, and I contribute this to a few things. 

First is that the market for console RPGs seems to be going away.  With the amount of money Call of Duty and similar games are making, studios are telling developers “Yeah, that’s a great idea, but our stock holders want money, so go make a game like Call of Duty”.  Due to the limitations based on large studios by investors, publishers, and etc. to make games that sell well, the idea of a “Great Game” isn’t as well received as it used to be, people no longer want to take risks, so instead they misunderstand their entire market and want clones, expecting them to sell well.

That is probably part of the reason why Dragon Age 2 was so different from the original, was that they wanted to appeal to broader audiences, but screwed up, and being under strict deadlines couldn’t have helped.  The second reason I can find is that what IS demanded by modern RPGs is a very tall order indeed.  I don’t think most developers are willing to put so much time and effort into a gamble as big as a new IP.  That is why I honestly believe that good modern RPGs are probably better coming from indie studios.  Now so far the only way that a series of RPGs have been good and from a large developer is if they solely focus on RPGs.  My main example being CD Projekt, and my other being Bethesda (who may have done some other games in the past, but still mostly make RPGs).  CD Projekt recently released the sequel to the loved but unknown game The Witcher, and from what I’ve heard, The Witcher 2 is a great computer RPG, with full support for an Xbox controller which gives it the possibility of a future console port.

Because they focus on one game at a time, it really allows them to take the time needed to make a good RPG.  Then my other example, Bethesda, the developers of the very popular franchise, The Elder Scrolls, who also happen to be some of the only people releasing a traditional RPG for consoles anytime soon, and I am looking forward to trying it.  These have been two developers who stick to the traditional RPG style and who I admire for doing so. 

Now, why traditional RPGs are going away seems to be due to the mixing of RPG Progression and other game elements, for example, Mass Effect.  Specifically recently, a lot of games have been mixing RPG elements with other game elements such as First Person shooters.  Ultimately this allows a compromise between Developers and Publishers, which is appealing to the RPG fans and the Shooters, which is exactly what Mass Effect 2 did.  While Mass Effect 1 was much heavily RPG focused, Mass Effect 2 was essentially dumbed down to accommodate more people, something which usually ruins games (*cough*Deus Ex: Invisible War *cough*) but actually worked quite well, even if it didn’t feel as in depth.  Though Mass Effect isn’t the only game that combines another game genre and RPGs, there is Fallout, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, KOTOR years ago, and even in the MMORPG coming from Bioware, SW:TOR.  Though The Old Republic is staying very much and RPG, it still has some elements which makes it more.

Now, I would like to clarify that I’m not saying combining elements of multiple game genres is bad; on the contrary it is actually very good for the industry!  Though what I am saying is I would like to see more traditional RPGs, and not the “Interactive Movies” that Square Enix tries to pull off as RPGs these days.  But it isn’t always good, in cases such as Dragon Age.  In my opinion, Dragon Age: Origins was such a great game!  It may have had slow combat but I was fine with it, I loved how the character wasn’t voiced, so it didn’t seem like you were playing someone else’s story, but yours.  Then there was the great cast of characters and all the choices, it was one of the closest things to my perfect RPG I have played (A full article of my opinions of Origins can be found here).  Then there was Dragon Age 2…a game which tore out the strategic combat for hack-n-slash, it made you play someone else’s story, made loot pretty pointless and over half the game seemed like (or was) pointless side quests.  I didn’t start really enjoying the game till the last few hours of it.  This is a great example of how mixing elements, and especially trying to make RPG fans and Sword Flailing Action fans happy at the same time, can fail horribly.

I see the RPG branching into two paths as the industry progresses.  There are the traditional RPGs which I believe will rise up once more and play a much larger part in the industry than they do now.  And then there will be the hybrids which include games such as Mass Effect.  Though neither of these are “Better than the other” it all comes down to opinion, as more gamers start to try new things, and more developers start to take risks, then the industry can truly grow into something great.

Variety Friday: Story Telling in Games

This Variety Friday I will be talking about story telling in games.  It is much too broad of a subject to cover all aspects of in one article, so I will be specifically focusing on the different ways developers tell the stories. 

First I’m going to talk about a seemingly less used method today as of 5+ years ago, which is dialog with non-voiced characters.  This method is very popular in indie games, due to the cost of quality voice acting.  The first con with this, is that it requires players to read blocks of text at a time, which can make the game see more like a graphic novel than an actual game.  All though this method can produce great games with great stories, it is usually harder to pull off and at a smaller scale. 

There are some indie examples such as “One Chance” which show of a simplified version of this method.  And, there have been a few cases where this was done and created great AAA games (I use AAA as a term to describe games made with a large team over a longer period of time w/ a nice budget).  A good example of these would be the Pokémon games.  But, an even better example would be Dragon Age: Origins.  Origins actually did more of a hybrid system, having the main character not talk, and have all the NPCs voiced.

What this was able to accomplish was something almost no game, not even WoW can achieve, which was feeling that the character in game was an actual representation of you, that you were the character!  The reason for this is that you got to fully be the character, choose who to like and hate, choose what you want to say, what choices to make, how to make your character look, what race and origin, and etc.  All this added up to something nearly unheard of in a game, which was allowing you to feel that you were the character.  A lot of people took this for granted and didn’t like having to read full paragraphs of dialog options and thought it interrupted the gameplay, I disagree, I believe what it did was allowed you to think about the choices and choose carefully exactly what you wanted to say and happen, unlike in mass effect where it summarizes the choices, and is partly vague allowing for some unwanted outcomes.

Now conveniently, I will be discussing the other main Bioware method, which is to tell a story through a character which has a certain back-story and name, and you just control him and make all of the choices.  The few main differences between this, and the method discussed before, is that the main character is voiced in this method, you usually don’t get to know exactly what he’ll say, and he has a set name and back-story, and usually doesn’t have as broad an amount of choices to make.  Examples of games that use this method are Mass Effect 1 & 2, and Dragon Age 2. 

Most gamers say they prefer this method, either for lack of reading, or for a more cinematic feel.  I do agree that, at some times, this method does produce a more cinematic and “eye-catching” experience, but the first one is just due to damn laziness.  While this can give a more cinematic experience, what it doesn’t do is form that special link between the character, and the player.  Though due to player preference, this method is being used less often now, such as in Dragon Age 2 where they used the same system as Mass Effect.  Another problem, which arises from an Origin – Mass Effect comparison, is that with Origins the choices aren’t described as “right and wrong” but are more along the lines or moral choices with impactful outcomes.  Unlike Mass Effect in which everything is defined as good or bad, and it doesn’t really allow for any “middle ground” or moral choices that don’t necessarily mean you’re a good or bad person, but just reflect your personal view on the problem.  I personally believe developers need to branch away from this system and try what Origins did, but that’s just me.  It’s still a pretty good system allowing for great stories and you will see it around for years to come.

The most popular kind of story telling in games, by far, is having a character with his own voice, back-story, and actions, while the player just plays through events as the character, not offering much choice.  This includes the par Call of Duty storytelling, to the great Red Dead: Redemption system.  Though Red Dead still offer some choice and a lot more freedom, at its core it is still the same system as other games.  The reason this is most often used is because it is easy to force players to do certain things, than account for hundreds of different options, taking into account every detail.

Next is a game that allows your actions to impact the game, but not as broadly as having set forth choices, not everything is straight forward, and you usually don’t know the exact consequences of your actions, most current example being LA Noire.  You do play as a character with a defined back story and blah blah blah, but you also make impactful decisions which, unlike Mass Effect, aren’t clearly defined.  While in LA Noire on the other hand, depending on how good you are at interrogating and using evidence, it could severally impact you in the short, and long run.  I didn’t like not being able to give your personal opinion on “I don’t think he’s guilty, don’t charge him just yet” which is one of the flaws of the game, but I’m not going to hold it against it that much.

LA Noire also excels at “story through setting” partly due to the game having a huge 8 square mile map with everything detailed and polished.  If you want to feel even more engulfed in the game, then play it in Black and White, which really gives it a Noire feel you won’t find in any other game.  Though it does have cons such as not allowing opinion to come into play and the game not being as personal as it could be, the system still works pretty well with LA Noire.

Next is something which even I have a hard time of explaining, I will just say “A game in which you play, control, and make choices as multiple characters who all don’t only have their own back-story, but thoughts”.  Of course I am talking about Heavy Rain here.  What really made the game stand out, besides its ingenious control system, is that you do play as multiple characters, and the choices you make as each one, largely differ the final confrontation.  Why is this good you ask?  It allows you to gain an almost “Emotional Attachment” to the main character.  After playing the prologue you get a main idea about him and after seeing his past, you really feel towards the main character.

More games need to try to not only tell a story but try to give the player an emotional attachment with the characters in game, which is what I believe is so great about what Heavy Rain did.  I also think the multiple viewpoints idea should be used for more games, definitely not all games, but some.

The final form of storytelling in gaming I’m going to talk about can be a little controversial, but I believe it still counts, and that is table-top gaming, more so, Dungeons and Dragons.  D&D allows a group of friends to sit down and not only go on epic adventures, but also just allow people to have fun.  It is a lot more open than most games because choices are only limited to how much fun the DM is willing to have.  I honestly believe that Dungeons and Dragons is still one of the, if not the best way to not only tell stories, but do it with other people, it brings a multiplayer aspect into RPGs, something that current AAA games have been struggling at, yet it did it first.  If you are looking for a long adventure where you get to make choices and have fun, then D&D is still one of the best options even at the current point of the industry.

So overall there are many different methods to storytelling in gaming; am I saying one method is superior, no.  Am I saying that there is still a lot of improvement that needs to come out of storytelling in video games, definitely.  The reason I brought up D&D besides the fact that it does still count as a form of storytelling in gaming, is that it really is a much improved system over most current RPGs.