Escapism

What defines escapism for me?  Well, when sitting down to play a video game, it’s usually the ability to do things my way.  To suffer the consequences and progress with failure as a lesson, that’s how I roll.  Obviously a good game can consist of anything.  My personal belief is that when considering immersive games, an experience should either accept and move forward with my failure/choices, or just not bother.

The games I’m referring to are two rival console exclusives that were released at more-or-less the same time in early 2010. They’re not small deals either, in fact they’ve both been pushed heavily by their publishers.

Mass Effect 2 and Heavy Rain are games that understand how to warrant real responses from players.  After finishing both of these games, I was left with the sense that I had immersed myself in experiences that were entirely exclusive to me.  I felt encouraged to approach each decision with clear criteria of the kind of person that I wanted my choices to reflect.  This level of role-playing meant that the nature of my rewards – and ultimately my investment in the fiction – were emphasised even further.  I didn’t choose to roleplay with these games, I was required to!  Honestly, Dungeons and Dragons isn’t my bag.  The most exciting thing about these two games is that they both use a different methodology to their design, yet achieve the same goals in emotional response.

I see Mass Effect 2 as the dark horse here.  Whilst Heavy Rain was marketed and heavily featured as a personal gaming experience, Mass Effect 2 was generally perceived as your typical sci-fi adventure with blue people.  Mass Effect pioneered a casual collation of all your decisions from previous games, interfacing the variables of your previous/current exploits to distil a story, one that’s exclusive to your actions.  The way that this fit into an overall bigger picture and gameplay, was just so elegant. 

I feel that all video games can learn from this to further realise gaming as a valid medium.  The feeling of “hey, I’ve been here before, and I’ve left my mark on this world”, is something that should be utilised by all developers as a way of speaking to us in a way that really resonates.

Heavy Rain was more geared towards these “personal” ideas, and a little more broader with it’s strokes, but arguably a tighter experience.  You can’t really rate them against each other, as they’re still totally different experiences.  Perhaps a fun comparison would be to equate Mass Effect 2 to watching a whole season of Battlestar Gallactica, and Heavy Rain to watching Seven.

The area that both games completely nail is entrusting players with a sense of empowerment to make their own choice.  RPG games are an old genre, but it’s rare for you to play a story-driven role and leave such a personal impact on the arc of the narrative.  Both of these games are essentially ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ novels, filled to the brim with characters holding severe psychological issues and conflicted beliefs.  It’s your choice to decide who YOUR character is going to be, how they will fit into the incredibly well realised world, and how he or she will deal with their surroundings.  And that’s probably the only similarity that these games share.  Though, I’d like to argue that it’s their most defining characteristic.  To break it down any further would just not do these games enough justice, they need to be played.

Spelunky... Universe?

“The idea is that you start at the top of the cave and you work your way down through these caves, and as soon as your health has gone, you die, and that’s it… So in no single life or play through this game will you ever possibly see everything that this game has to offer… When I’m playing a game usually my goal is to gather all the items and see everything that the designers have put into the game as I play through it, but in this game you have to have a different sort of mindset because you don’t see them all in one life, you see them piecemeal as you play through every little bit at a time… and because the levels are randomly generated – always different – you never know what you’re gonna come upon.”  Ryan O'Donnell of Area5.tv

When hearing Ryan O’Donnell’s description of Spelunky my bus couldn’t get me home fast enough, my hangover had disappeared, and all I could think about was the appeal of the kind of exploration that he had described.

For the most part Spelunky lived up to my expectations.  Exploring the caves is fun, and each time there’s a genuine sense of awe when stumbling across different areas or scenarios. 

However, O’Donnell’s summary oversold it in a way that didn’t necessarily negate the experience of playing the game, but rather just imbued my imagination with wild dreams of the direction a game like Spelunky could take.  The simplicity of his perception combined with Spelunky’s new spin on traditional 8-bit games, has left me craving a game with a simplicity that lies in rewarding discovery with the opportunity to discover more.  I’d like an experience that counteracts the failure of one story with the beginning of a completely different one that will snowball into something entirely unique.

Spelunky deals in levels; you get to the end of one and begin another.  There is a first level and there is a final level, and specific enemies and landmarks will be attributed to specific points in the game.  The wild card is the layout of the level, and the randomisation of a set of scenarios that have been deemed appropriate for that section of the game - so, for example, level 6 will always feature various encounters based on an ice/blizzard aesthetic.  You can hit a wall with this game, but the impact is made specifically less painful with the randomisation attributed to each level.  However, there’s no doubt that this is the successful execution of creator Derek Yhu’s vision.  It's traditional and unforgiving, yet accessible and refreshing.

My point is simple really.  I am now obsessed with the idea of a video game – similar to Spelunky – that is able to consistently generate a dynamic range of scenarios, areas, encounters, and have it all interact with each other in a way that makes each playthrough utterly memorable.  It’s been included to some degree as a way of enhancing other games (think character interaction in Dragon Age: Origins or item generation in Scribblenauts, or even multiplayer games in general), but imagine basing a whole game around it?  I want Spelunky, but I also want a different game that’s as simple as just exploring until you die.

A quick search on Twitter yields results that are littered with (albeit light-hearted) comments of never making it past the second area – would it be possible to make a similar game where this kind of progress doesn’t matter?  A game where you stumble across a damsel-clutching leviathan during one playthrough, and talk to a lost explorer on another?

Whilst playing through Mass Effect 2, I’m staggered by the amount of variables and possible scenarios in that game, and how they interact with one another to create something cohesive and personal.  This alone helps to reassure me that my Spelunky-infused dreams are entirely viable as ideas for a future game.  Now, someone, please give me Bioware and Derek Yhu’s telephone numbers…

Download Spelunky for free at spelunkyworld.com.

So, Modern Warfare 2 and Airports...

It’s quite jarring to see the gaming press so torn on the issue of the “Airport Level” in Modern Warfare 2.  Usually it’s a simple divide; gamers versus everyone else, or everyone else versus Fox News.  On one side we have those who applaud the boundaries of this form of media being pushed as far as possible, but we also have those who lament games being used in such a way.

Personally I was blown away by the power of the scene.  I’ve played Grand Theft Auto and witnessed the digital death of many civilians before, so why was this such a big deal?  The fact that you were essentially in the same moral dilemma as the spy you were playing as was one of those clever factors in game design that created a whole new feeling of weight to the situation.  I spent the duration of the level with the idea in the back of my mind that, despite the nature of the objective being for “the greater good”, this operative was participating in the murder of innocent civilians all for the sake of the mission.  Combining this thought with the horrific image of what was taking place on screen was something that left me feeling awkward, but ultimately grateful for the experience

I’ve read blog posts that are disgusted by the idea of game artists, animators and artificial intelligence techies going into work and crafting the death of a helpless person or a cop begging for his life.  They appear to be upset that the form of media they work in has been used as a vehicle for communicating scenes so gratuitous in murder and terrorism.  However, they are of the opinion that video gaming is as valid as any other art form. 

After reading from those who feel that Infinity Ward did not push this idea far enough, I would have to agree and wonder whether that is the factor that has divided the gaming community on this issue.  You can get through the level without showing the same degree of gratuitous violence as the rest of your gang, and although this does actually fit with the rest of the story, it tarnishes the reality of the events as they unfold.  The initial playthrough for this level had me so engrossed that I was unleashing short non-lethal rounds at civilians in an attempt to retain my cover - on reflection this was nothing more than mere roleplay.  Having to convince your AI partners that you’re one of them would have been an incredible tool for reinforcing the weight of the situation and contextualizing the horrific events in a way that may have actually appeared more necessary.  Perhaps if there was a specific game-altering outcome to coincide with the way in which players participated in this level, then critics may have not deemed it as offensive and throwaway as they did.

Review: King of Fighters XII

The King of Fighters series has been hailed as a top tier fighter for quite some time now, and over the years both the core fighting mechanics and visuals have pretty much remained unchanged.  King of Fighters XII breaks this tradition with beautifully redrawn visuals, whilst retaining the core fighting mechanic that fans of the series are so familiar with.

It’s not just a cosmetic change; King of Fighters has been updated with modern day conventions such as online play.  There’s even a nifty replay function that allows favourite fights to be saved, uploaded and viewed on demand.  Whilst the interface for online play is solid, there are a few connection issues that hold the game back and discourage investing time in any ranked matches.  This isn’t always the case and some matches can go ahead without any problems, but it’s a far cry from the online performance offered by Backbone’s Rewind netcode.

There are some other issues surrounding the heart of KOF XII that give the game a rough edge.  It appears to be lacking any kind of story mode, along with a boss or any other significant hidden extras.  The main single player mode is a series of timed battles and a cumulative time at the end.  This is fine, but I’ve always found discovering a character’s backstory to be a compelling enough way of finishing the game multiple times – something that usually helps a newbie discover their favourites in the roster, as well as filling in the old fans on what these characters have been up to during their long break.  It’s also worth mentioning that the 3-on-3 battle format remains the same, but the character roster has been decreased to 22 (excluding a couple of fan favourites), which somewhat inhibits the potential variety within each match when you’ll regularly end up playing with or against at least 1 or 2 of the same characters.

Fortunately the fighting has been carried over fantastically.  It plays familiarly like the older games, and uses the traditional SNK four-button control scheme – a convention that suits console control pads well.  The flow of the combat has been improved in fluidity with easily executable counter attacks that temporarily shift the focus to timing rather than execution.  There’s also a two-button “blow back attack”, which responds similar to the “focus attack” in Street Fighter IV, and also brings another layer of strategy to the series.  The fights flow with a nostalgic feel, with more weight and finesse added to the fighters moves.  The visuals really aid the game in this respect, with large redrawn character sprites, dazzling colourful explosions and rich backgrounds - however you can sometimes spot jagged edges around the character sprites.

King of Fighters XII nails the core aspect of what made KOF so appealing and it’s a successful shift into the current console generation – it’s just a shame that a few potentially avoidable rough edges have been left in the game.  It’s likely that SNK will expand this template with future iterations, whether it will be with completely new retail sequels or downloadable content.  King of Fighters XII is a must-have for current fans of the series, but newcomers might want to hold out and see if there will be any further instalments on the horizon that may offer more value. [7] 

The roster has decreased but fans will still find some old favourites

A fresh coat of paint goes a long way to justifying the weight of this sequel

Turn your Wii off at the mains...

Contrary to Nintendo’s mantra, the Wii is not for everyone. For those who are more acquainted with games, a Wii purchase was more of an experiment – a dusty white little thing that cowers behind our 360’s and PS3’s. Like others, my Wii spends most of its time on standby. There’s no real justifiable reason for this other than the fact that I currently have nothing interesting to play on it.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories for the Wii is the first Wii game in a long while that has me genuinely excited. It’s not the stripped down gameplay mechanics or the cool flashlight that interests me – it’s the fact that it spies on you. Most horror games instil a sense of tense fear in the player with carefully considered atmospheres of isolation and surprise, and that’s usually enough of an incentive to invite your friends over and turn the lights back on. To know that you’re playing a game that is monitoring your every movement and using this knowledge against you is not only creepy, but creates a feeling of being preyed upon, which is pretty appropriate considering the main character can’t actually attack. Apparently the game can track and respond to patterns in your behaviour, such as the frequency by which you enter certain rooms and the length of time you spend looking at certain things. This is the game that would have finally disciplined my adolescent loitering in the Strip Club section of Duke Nukem all those years ago.

The game is being pitched as a flashback. Your character is recounting the events of the original game in a meeting with a psychologist, which unfold in a way that is unique to the player’s psyche and how the character remembers them. This is why players are presented with a series of questions from the psychologist before the game begins… Why does the game want to know if I have an alcohol problem or if I’ve cheated? No idea, but it’s bound to make a few people uneasy from the get-go.

I think this is one of those ambitious feats in game design whereby there is a focus on a level of engagement and interactivity that can only be delivered by a video game. Despite the mature nature, it’s a pretty apt boundary to push for the Wii – a console that focuses on bridging the gap between games and gamers.  At the same time, it's repositioning the franchise as something that's more mature, without considering the true extent of the tech it's still shaping up as a David Lynch style psychological horror - something that is itself a boundary worth pushing.