Variety Friday: Every Game Has Wrong Choices

Essentially any game needs to have “wrong” choices.  But there are many kinds of wrong actions which can be interpreted in different ways.  First let’s take a game that’s an obvious example, say, Modern Warfare 2.  The game has a simple wrong, which is dying.  You don’t want to die, you do want to kill, simple Wrong Action vs Right Action.  Though each game also has more in-depth choices but it all revolves around the main choices of right or wrong.

Now, when I say right or wrong I am not referring to the moral choices involved with right or wrong, just simply the choices which are what you are trying to do, vs what you aren’t, as in my Call of Duty example of death and living.  The reason I bring this up at all, is to simply show how game design either directly or indirectly focuses around wrong actions.

Let’s move on to a different genre with different examples, World of Warcraft.   WoW does have the basic “Dying Bad, Living Good” form of wrong choices, but that’s not all.  Another form of wrong choices can be found within the deep equipment customization.  It is always better to have better gear, and wearing beginner gear at level 23 would be considered “wrong”.  But another thing this brings up is how wrong choices can be interpreted in different ways.  Because a tank would want more health points, while a mage may want more mana, so the right choice depends on the situation.  Not only that, but wrong choices don’t have to be accepted as wrong by the player, because if a player wants to look cool and have lower stats, more power to them.

When discussing this with someone else, they brought up the example of Sim City, and how not having a Fire Department could be considered wrong, but they were working towards burning the whole city down.  This is where the player can choose what’s right or wrong.  In games such as Sim City and The Sims, the player can choose what would be considered a wrong action.  So as far as game design goes, the developer wouldn’t focus around a set amount of wrong actions, but instead, would focus around actually creating many wrong actions and letting the player choose which ones to follow or not.

My final example is going to be Dragon Age Origins.  As with most fighting games it had the main wrong actions of having a member of your party die.  But there was also the story, even the story revolved around these basic right and wrong actions, but how they were portrayed, was either that the developer was very vague about the choice so the player wouldn’t actually know what was right or wrong at the time, or that all actions were wrong, just various degrees of such.  So ultimately all games have wrong actions in one way or another, and whether you realize it or not, it is the basis of game design.

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: Moral Choices Need Repercussions

After over 5 weeks of variety-less Fridays, I’m Back!  This week I am going to focus on something mentioned in my Deus Ex review, which was how the moral choice of killing or disabling people didn’t have any repercussions, so I’m just going to broaden that into how moral choices in games need to have repercussions, or they are meaningless.

Now, first we must define what actually constitutes as a “Moral Choice”.  I would describe it as a choice which plays upon the morals of a person, usually without clear outcomes so they are solely up to the player.  You can find a lot of these within the Mass Effect series as well as Dragon Age: Origins.  Those games base their story on moral choices, right and wrong, and etc.  One thing Dragon Age did well was that many choices didn’t have obvious answers, and only at the end of the game did you get to see a glimpse of what came from them.

Now, on to one of my main examples, Deus Ex; the original game based moral choices on a simple two answer choice which was present throughout the entire game, and that was the choice between lethally killing people, or non-lethally taking them down.  Now at the beginning you were simply told “You shouldn’t kill them” and then you got to choose to take the advice, or ignore it.  But, later on certain people with certain values either liked that you didn’t kill them and gave you bonuses, while if you did kill a lot of enemies other people would believe you did what was right, while others would give you shit about what being a citizen really means.  For me it was that talk with the general-looking guy who mans the armory, he simply said that he remembered when being a good citizen came first, and that reminded me that people are people (even if they are made of polygons without fingers) and then I decided to play a bit more on the nice side.

But, this isn’t about my experiences, what’s important is how the moral choice was present throughout the whole game, and while it was essentially a choice of the player, the game rewarded you for taking certain actions, whether good or bad, which is a great way to make choices meaningful and still up to the player.  Now as I briefly mentioned in the Deus Ex: Human Revolution review, there were almost no repercussions to killing or disabling people.  Depending on the player this could still be a moral choice for them, but for others (such as myself) I found myself thinking “Why not just kill everyone?  It’s not like anything bad will happen and it’s much easier” and nothing bad did happen, not even one fuck was given, I even killed half of the Detroit PD and a minute later all was forgotten and no one cared, there wasn’t even any faction like/dislike type of stuff going on.

Now when no repercussions are added to moral choices, two main things occur; one is that the sense of realism and immersion into the world is hindered, because you know people should have an opinion and act upon some of your actions (for better or worse).  And two being that there is a big gap in the story.  For the players, killing an important person in the plot or sparing his life should have a big effect in the game, though in Human Revolution, there were two occurrences in which I didn’t hear a thing from either saved character through the whole rest of game.  For the player they don’t get to see if they did something good or bad, while also not being able to simply see a possible back story.  On the developer side, they missed great opportunities to give the player advantages and disadvantages for being merciful or not.  Now these points don’t just apply to Deus Ex but for all games, since a lot of story based games have moral choices.

A very different example is Catherine.  The moral choices are essentially in the form of what is the player’s opinion on cheating and marriage.  While many games directly relate to your choices, Catherine instead showed your overall choice play-out in the dialog, without actually giving the player an idea of what could come upon his choices, so the player knows something is happening, but doesn’t know what until later in the game.  If Catherine didn’t have moral choices, almost all of the story would be gone and it would simply be another game such as Super Meat Boy.  Games need moral choices to not only have players question themselves, but to provide deeper story.

Now back to Deus Ex, I brought up a problem now it is only fitting that I propose a possible solution.  One of the main characters, David Sarif (Adam Jenson’s boss, Adam being who the player plays as) is represented as an evil person through advertising, but is actually a very rational person with some very different beliefs, if they could have built upon those beliefs and leaned Sarif to one side or another (supporting lethality or non-lethality) it could have not only altered the story in that you could keep Sarif happy or do your own thing, he would be second guessing you since you talk to him a lot anyway.  If you did something he specifically didn’t like, he should give you shit about it, revoke a bonus or something, while also losing some trust in you.  Simply giving just one of the characters an opinion in morality could have drastically changed the game.  This is true for many games as well, sure you could keep characters neutral, or you could experiment with alignments and developers would probably find this brings a more satisfying experience.

Variety Friday: Classifying MMOs

The WoW Clone

Okay, this one may be a bit unfair, but clearly a lot of games are simply World of Warcraft clones trying to dig into their success.  Now games like these aren’t always bad, but they tend to fail in the market due to WoW simply being better.  The problem is that too many “WoW Clones” are being created because suits look at WoW’s success and want to try and replicate it, which doesn’t work because why replicate something that’s perfectly fine the way it is?  In my opinion, though correct me in the comments if I’m wrong, near no fantasy game has actually been better than WoW, now I’m not simply talking about “better” from a gameplay standpoint, but in general.  World of Warcraft has a very large community, it has a very expansive world, it is known by nearly everyone, the combat is solid, and it is overall a great game (though don’t take me wrong, I don’t play it) it really is hard to actually be better than WoW, unless you “Change The Game” in the words of Castor from Tron: Legacy.

Sandbox MMOs

When I say sandbox, I don’t mean how World of Warcraft gives you many options on what to do, where to play and etc. I actually mean quite the opposite.  I mean MMOs that truly give the play control over not only what to do, but the whole world.  My first example is Eve Online (and MMO I have recently started playing again) because Eve takes the term “Sandbox” to a whole new level.  Eve truly lets you play the game how you want, while still advancing through the game.  Due to it not having any form of XP and it being based solely on your skills and money, you can advance in tons of ways, Mining, Trading, Pirating, Exploring, Corporation PvP, and etc.  All of these lead to the simple goal of wealth, though they are different paths which require you to play different, and think different.  You need a business mind to take a business approach to the game.  Why these games are better than other MMOs such as WoW, is because players can play how they wish, and sculpt the world, it is a great example of a realistic MMO.  Though the downside is that it can take longer to advance and start having a lot of fun than, say WoW.

My next example is a game currently in open beta, Dawntide.  Dawntide is a very interesting MMO, in that it still has grind and slower combat such as WoW, but it is also a sandbox, in which players actually build towns and settlements within the game world.  This game is also realistic, in that you build your own settlements out of materials you have to farm, and when you step outside of safe town zones, it’s open PvP, which I didn’t find that bad, it wasn’t abused when I played, and I actually only died after I was feeling greedy and killed someone else to loot them.  The downside to this kind of game is it can take a lot of time due to grinding for materials and etc.

Combat Focused MMOs

These MMOs are games that focus more on the combat aspect of the game than narrative.  A good example of this type is Vindictus.  It does have some story to it, but it focuses much more on its fast paced, action packed gameplay.  The clear plus to games like this is that combat is usually simply more fun than that of turn based and slow combat MMOs.  Though these are hindered by lack of narrative and repetitive enemies.  Another example of these types are Tera Online, which isn’t out yet but from what I see has good, fast paced combat and good narrative, though only time will tell.

“Cute” MMOs

Now when I say cute, I don’t mean Toontown or My Little Pony Online cute (though I guess they would fall into this category…) I mean it more as a general term for MMOs that don’t take themselves as seriously and/or aren’t like most MMOs weather that be graphics or something else.  For this I am using the example of Maple Story.  The game is like traditional MMOs in that it has leveling up, skill trees, quests, and etc.  But it is different in how the game is a 2D platformer that also plays in more of a hack-n-slash form aswell, while still having skill trees, an open world, end game, and etc.  The plus with games like Maple Story, is that they tend to have a unique charm which can’t be found in other MMOs, and I also tend to find them more fun, because I am not a fan of the type of combat found in WoW.

Wanna Be MMOs

Now this is a gray area, in that a “Massively Multiplay Game” can mean many different things, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t classify Global Agenda.  Global Agenda is a fun shooter that, at first, was supposed to be a great futuristic shooter with MMO elements.  The problem is that as the game progressed, they tried to make it more of an MMO by adding an open world, but ultimately they hindered their game because it never was an MMO and they should have been working on other content, and still they update that god forsaken open zone.  Before that, it was called an MMO due to its persistent battle system, in that it was essentially guilds on a hex board capturing territories and trying to produce a lot of stuff, and the game still has this feature, but it is underused and too repetitive to enjoy for too long.  Before the game was released, the persistent zones actually looked good, but what they promised wasn’t there, and now it is a repetitive form of PvP like the rest of the game, it tried to be an MMO, but failed.  But the problem is that it still tried to be an MMO, which isn’t good for them in the long run, since they will keep expanding on the wrong things.

Social MMOS

This is the last type of MMO I’m going to be talking about, and that is social MMOs such as Habbo Hotel, and even Gaia Online.  What a lot of people don’t understand, is that games like these are still MMOs, the term “game” no long refers to something with combat or a certain goal, but just a way to have fun.  MMOs like these allow people to have a more enjoyable social network experience, usually with people they don’t know in real life.  Sometime it can be fun to hang around in a fake world and just talk and screw around, and it’s also great from a business standpoint if it’s free with micro transaction items, since people who play them regularly will probably have a “Need for Power” which in this case would be micro transaction items, and they’ll keep coming back.  So as long as a social MMO has a good community, it is sound on the business end.

Variety Friday: Mixing Medias

Just because a game is a game, doesn’t mean it can’t incorporate aspects from other media.  Actually, they may do this more often than you think.  When I say other medias, I can mean anything from anime to movies, to books and comics, to even some of the less obvious ones such as music and even lifestyles. 

Now movie games are a type of game well known, for them simply being bad.  These can range from the Tron Legacy and Thor games, to the, actually good, Star Wars Battlefront and Knights of the Old Republic games.  Now, games based on movies are finally starting to go in the right direction, game companies are starting to directly copy the movie story into a game less often, which is good, really good actually.  It really works in games like Star Wars Battlefront and KOTOR, in which the games are based on, not the movie’s story, but the world it takes place in, these games really show how it can be done good.  Though, that doesn’t directly relate to success, in cases such as Tron Evolution, in which the story fit itself between the first and second movie, but was ruined by bad controls and uninteresting gameplay.  The problem with most movie games are that they are rushed, which is always bad.

When you hear the term music game, you probably first jump to Rockband (or Guitar Hero if you still live in a world before Rockband stole their thunder) but you probably don’t think of Brutal Legend, which is a much better example of a game actually based on music.  Another example is the newer title, Child of Eden.  In the future of the industry, I believe that we will start using great and different genres of music to supplement gameplay.  Sure most games have soundtracks, but having a soundtrack is different from crafting your world around music as Brutal Legend did, or directly linking sound with gameplay as Child of Eden did.  If the industry starts crafting games around music (but not all mind you), we can really deliver some much more rich and fulfilling experiences.

Now another form of media that can influence games, which gave me the idea for this article in the first place, is anime.  I’m talking specifically about Catherine.  Catherine is a very…interesting game, but in a good way.  It takes risks in the way that it is designed as a story and psychological puzzle game.  Honestly, it is similar to Portal in many ways, yes you do get to know much more about who you are playing, but it is still a puzzle game, with psychological elements mixed in.  Most anime games are just fighting games, but this one is different in that it tells a story.  Honestly, a lot more games could take inspiration from an anime and do well in the market, if they tell a story with it, and have interesting gameplay, something I believe Catherine has done, just from playing the demo.

As far as books are concerned, there aren’t a lot of games based on books, but if there were more book based games instead of movie based games, it would probably be much better as far as the market and industry is concerned.  Because books are very good at explaining a world, which is the core of any game, the world in which it takes place.  Taking that world and making a game out of it is a great way to make a great game, as long as you don’t make the game based solely on the book’s story, that is.

The last type of game influenced by something else may not be an actual media, but it is close enough so that it still shows my point of how games are now affected by more and more outside sources of inspiration, this one being lifestyle choices, specifically, parkour and Mirror’s Edge, and even Brink.  This shows a way of how outside sources can fully create gameplay experiences for games, parkour in a game was a great innovation when Mirror’s Edge came out, and still is because it has barely been expanded on.  Parkour games are just a small step in our industry, which is taking more and more inspiration from life itself.  Another quick note is the Sims, because the game is based on life, which may not seem like anything special by now, but it is still a good innovation and continues to show my point!

Now those were just a mere few examples of how games are affected by other media, and on a large scale.  Sure tons of games have minor details based on other media as well!  But to simply show how the industry is expanding I used big games with big ties to other media as examples, because as games expand to other media, it can only get better for the industry, because not only will games be more different, but more widely accepted.