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: Quick Pick - Divinity 2

I'm going to be doing Variety Fridays a little different starting now.  Instead of always doing a long article about some game mechanic, I'm going to instead really make it "Variety" and do anything from a short recomendation to a long article!

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Today I'm going to give a recommendation to a pretty amazing, although a bit old, RPG. Divinity 2, and it's available for PC or Console. One thing this game really excels at is pacing; while if you watch trails it shows how the player can turn into a dragon, you can't actually do this until 20-30+ hours into the game. It really helps show the progression of the player from a nobody, to a somebody.

Another thing which I personally like is how there are no classes. You are free to use any weapon and upgrade any combination of skills/spells. Not only that, but there isn't much grinding, you can usually level up in 5 minutes of fighting and while some enjoy long grinding, I dislike it and I really like how this game handles it. The story itself is an interesting one and strays away from the usual elf/dwarf/human fantasy setting and the world itself is as immersive as it is different from most other game settings.

Although what I love most is how the game handles player choice. For one it has the basic dialog choices, but they are never overused like in some Bioware games. They present themselves from time to time in side quests, and then your choices can end up affecting the game. Later on in the game, it has you choose what 4 people you want to be your "servants" from a pool of 8, and anyone you don't choose dies. It is nice to see choices which don't have obvious good or bad answers, and you'll just have to see how they play out. The choices aren't as big as in, say, Dragon Age, but they are a good addition and work well with the rest of the game.

If you can find this game cheap and need a game to waste a lot of time on, I highly recommend anyone who likes RPGs check this one out.

Blast From the Past: Max Payne

About 8 years ago on the PS2, PC, and original Xbox Remedy and Rockstar released the cult classic Max Payne and what followed was the sequel, “The Fall Of Max Payne” which was criticized for it’s length and the lack of replay value. Next was the inevitable movie starring Mark Wahlberg and that movie failed due to bad directing. And in 2012 Max Payne 3 will be released for the Xbox 360, PS3,and PC. So now I am taking a look back at Max Payne 1. If any of you have ever played Max Payne you will know that he is largely based off of The Punisher since he is a cop who’s family is murdered and is hunting the people who took his family away from him. Also rather than having cutscenes most of the story in the game is presented in the style of graphic novels and even film elements. For instance when you are going through a building you take out a group of drug dealers and as you are killing them from afar it goes to a ceiling cam and it shows the bullets hitting them in slow motion.

So basically this was the only way to unleash your inner Punisher/Vigilante on the gang-bangers and druggies(Until The Punisher game came out a few years later).While the graphics may not hold up to Killzone 2 or Gears 2 the gameplay is better than alot of games in todays generation of consoles. Another cool aspect of the game was the interaction between the player and the world. Some examples are turning on a TV, or opening a dresser, or flushing a toilet. It just showed how grounded you were in this character rather than some spikey haired JRPG character who could shoot lightning out of his eyes. Basically what I’m saying is that Max Payne albeit a Punisher copycat borrows from films,graphic novels,and John Woo. This kind of game should be made more rather than games like “Guitar Hero: Van Halen”. Hopefully Remedy gets this game out quick unlike Alan Wake. So if any of you are interested in checking out this game again it is available on Xbox Originals for 15 dollars. Or for free on torrent sites, not that I condone that type of distribution or have any affiliation with media pirating.

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.