Perpetually Gaming » Thoughts

All I Want for Christmas is to Murder People with Da Vincian Gadgets: An Assassin’s Creed 2 Wish List

Sean Pagano — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 06:43:10 +0000

When that first footage of Ubisoft’s Jade Raymond playing one of the first demos of the original Assassin’s Creed came out, I was immediately interested. In fact, it’s the game that convinced me to buy an Xbox 360. The game had some really interesting mechanics like the passive and active modes of the face buttons for combat, take downs, and just plain old walking around, some free running elements that felt really good, as well as some new takes on stealth. But not all of the elements of the original Assassin’s Creed were as compelling or polished.

While Assassin’s Creed was touted as an open world experience, and while that was fairly true the game tended to swing wildly between heavy-handedly guiding you through a situation and giving no direction at all. The main assassination target missions were fun, but the extremely repetitive nature of sub missions it took to get there were excruciating, and when you finally were able to take out a major target, the game backed off a bit too much. I found myself struggling with taking out a target in any badass manor. All too often I had to take out guards to get to the target, and by the time I reached him he was long gone. Most of the time I killed these main targets by being persistent and chasing after them and then killing them when I finally caught up.

So needless to say, with the announcement of Assassin’s Creed 2, came a bit of apprehension. And after a recent video was released of the gameplay, which is extremely reminiscent of the footage from the first game, I began to feel the same amorous feelings, but like I said. Not without some major apprehensions. So here is a list of some things I’d like to see changed, things that will make this a definite purchase for me if I know they’re in there.

No More Flag Collection – in the original Assassin’s Creed there were flags you could collect scattered throughout each city you visited. There were way too many to keep track of and were way too many in number to bother with. Collectible items are great, but only as long as you can make a lot of them accessible to the average player, and the rest pretty challenging for the completist. There should also be scalable rewards for hitting landmark numbers of items. Please keep me interested or I won’t want to collect your hundreds of items.

Relatable, Interesting and Experiential Side Missions – There’s nothing wrong with occupying a players time with side missions while they build there way up to a main story mission. But if the side missions are the same 3 or 4 types every time, largely unrelated to the story itself, and sometimes involve just sitting on a bench and eavesdropping as an objective, you’re going to lose a lot of interest. So in this iteration of the series I think it would be really nice to give Ezio some better motivation for slaughtering all of the nice people of renaissance era Italy. At the same time it would be great if these missions were varied in type as well as give the player some streamlined but subtle instruction on what might be the best way to take out the next main target. Make a player feel like they know how to beat a boss, and they’ll be pleasantly surprised when they figure out a new way to do it.

More Malleable Combat – While, as I stated before, the combat mechanics in Assassin’s Creed were innovative, they weren’t always fun. Most times you’d find yourself surrounded by guards in a “fight or flight” moment. When I played through I generally always chose to run if I could because mastering the combat to the point where you’d feel confident that you’d come out alive seemed near impossible. A combat system that felt more flexible and malleable, dynamic, and versatile would make taking on a mob of angry guards a bit more of an enjoyable gamble than a death sentence.

This is a just a short list of the improvements I’d like to see in Assassin’s Creed 2. This might not be a day 1 purchase for me but it’s a game that is going to dominate the holiday gaming landscape. Let us know what you’d like to see in Assassin’s Creed 2. Leave us a comment.

Video Games – Still Fun!

Bryan Wojciechowski — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:38:18 +0000

Red Faction: Guerrilla

We’ve been meaning to write more around here, but as we’ve both been taking summer classes and working, those opportunities are fewer. Hell, for me, even opportunities to play games are limited to late night sessions that I usually regret as I wake up the next morning to head in to work. So, to offset this fact, my gaming time has really been limited to games that I have good, old-fashioned fun with. Most of that comes in my group sessions of Rock Band or Scene It, however, when flying solo, I’ve been taking to Red Faction: Guerrilla.

I got the game from GameFly a couple days after its release earlier this month, and I have not sent it back yet (this was much to Sean’s chagrin, as he had been waiting for them to send him a copy until last week). The game, which I have described to my friends as “GTA on Mars”, places you in the role of Alex Mason, whose brother was just killed by the Earth Defense Force, the governing body of the Martian colonies, and you’ve taken to the Red Faction to get your revenge. The Red Faction is a group of miners and workers who aim to overthrow the martial law of the EDF – giving that word red in the title a new meaning when you realize the socialist undertones of the game.

However, the story is really ancillary to the world and gameplay, because that is far more compelling. These days we’ve got our Bioshocks, our GTAs, our Fables and our Fallouts to give us gameplay that mixes weighty moral character driving into our gameplay, and while morality becomes a bigger fixture, sometimes people seem to forget why we play games. Listen to the most recent full episode of Robert Ashley’s A Life Well Wasted and you’ll hear that a lot of people play games for fun. Red Faction: Guerrilla is, without a doubt, a game designed for the sole purpose of fun.

It’s no surprise to hear that a game so focused on having fun is done by Volition, whose Saint’s Row 2 ads made a point to acknowledge the tedium that occurred at times in games like GTA4. While I have not played SR2, I have heard enough of it from CheapyD on the CAGCast to know that it is a game that stresses having fun more than the choices you make in the game. RFG gives you a sledgehammer in the beginning and lets you know that you can use your hammer to take down the man, and the game’s physics system makes doing so incredibly fun. While it comes off as a standard, open-world, third-person shooter at first, and the average shooting controls make this part of the game seem lackluster. As the ListenUP! guys mentioned, once you realize the potential of the weapon set that you are given, you realize that it’s much more about destroying the world than it is about running and gunning, and at that point, the game becomes much more fun and satisfying.

While the single player is fun – I spent hours simply taking the time to level the entirety of enemy bases, sometimes with only my sledgehammer – they tacked on two multiplayer modes that compound the experience. Wrecking Crew is an awesome pass-and-play local versus-mode that up to 4 people can play, each taking turns to see who can do the most damage in a variety of ways. My friends and I gathered and enjoyed watching to see how the others thought to destroy buildings in a bevy of creative ways. For example, when armed with only a jetpack and a sledgehammer, I took to the roof of the building and set about smashing through the roof, with hopes that falling debris from the top would crush everything on the way down. My friend Dave took a different approach and systematically took out all the supports for the building, and in the final seconds, it crashed to the ground, and he gained triple the score I did.

There is a full multiplayer suite too, and instead of tossing you into the open world, it has a bunch of smaller maps styled after sections of the main game, but specialized for the multiplayer modes. This is great, because as my friends and I played GTA4 online, there were many times where we would be on different parts of the map, and the game felt very empty because of it. The game has an XP system, as well as modes that range from standard deathmatch and CTF variants as well as Battlefront/Battlefield-style command point chasing. However, there are a variety of different character ability backpacks and the destructive weapons from the single player game, and it all takes place within the same high-destructibility level of the game. It breathes a whole new life into the multiplayer, which is fairly generic on paper. I normally stray from online play with strangers, but I’ve found myself playing it for quite some time now.

When too many games are spending time on things that aren’t condusive to the standard idea of fun – such as choice and morality, which are weighty, real-world situations some people play video games to escape from – RFG puts fun at the forefront. It’s the kind of escapism that only games can provide. It does not do anything to advance games as an art form, or as a medium of change. Sure, it’s got a heavy socialism coat on, but that won’t do anything to sway someone’s political views. It’s just fun to destroy stuff with a hammer.

The Fraternity of Third Person Action Games

Sean Pagano — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 01:39:29 +0000

If game characters had their own personal ad section on Craigslist, I can imagine that as of the past few years a lot of the postings would sound a little like this:

***

LOOKING FOR A LITTLE ACTION? – m4w – 28

Some people call me a mercenary, but I’d like to think I’m just a nice guy with a wild streak. I’m into firearms and explosives but I can never get enough ammo I like riding in and hanging from a lot of different types of vehicles (just to spice things up). I’ve been described as a packrat and I’ll admit to that. I just like collecting odds and ends I find throughout the world.

I’m about 6 feet tall and weigh about 175 lbs. I’m a white guy with short hair and dreamy blue eyes. I usually wear a hoodie or a coat and I have a gruff voice. Sometimes I try to be stealthy, but I’ve found that tactic to be less effective lately. I always seem to attract attention wherever I go. Oh, and people say that I look best from behind and at a slight angle. Like what you hear?

Send me a message! No pics, no response.

***

Gears of War's Marcus Fenix

If you think you can pick out which video game character I just described here… you’re wrong. That description is what seems to be the cookie-cutter, go-to version of a majority of the game protagonists in the past few years. I’m looking at you. third person action games. And while this isn’t a secret and you might be aware of it, you might not be aware of how strangely repetitive it’s actually getting.

Starting last week and continuing for the next two following it, a strange alignment of the game-playing planets is occurring. Let’s take a look at a highly anticipated release for each week.

This week (5/26/09) – InFamous – a third person action adventure game with a gruff talking mid to late 20’s male protagonist.

Next week (6/2/09) – Red Faction Guerilla – a third person action adventure game with a gruff talking mid to late 20’s male protagonist.

The Next Week (6/9/09) – Prototype – a third person action adventure game with a gruff talking mid to late 20’s protagonist.

Are you seeing the trend forming here?

inFamous' Cole

The only thing that seems to separate these three games is the settings and circumstances that drive the stories. And while I’m sure all of these games will be at least pretty decent (I’m honestly looking forward to playing all three), I’m seeing a wall quickly approaching. The wall is my tolerance for the repetition of third person action games with the brazen, quick-talking, wild-eyed, former-frat-boy-turned-hero characters that have been shoved into our consoles for the entirety of this generation.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m not against playing games like this as long as they contain elements that would make them great games. Innovative game play, a compelling original story, and smart stylish aesthetics are all elements that I believe make a great game. It’s disheartening to see the games coming out that have tried to synthesize those elements into a formula. Is it really that hard to sell a game that doesn’t fit this now very standard mold? Have we run out of ideas to create stories with a compelling beginning, middle, and end? Do we really need any more space marines or gravelly-voiced action heroes?!

It may only be fair to mention that it’s probably not all of the developers who are at fault for this repetitious trend. I’m sure many publishers have realized that these games make money, and money is good. But good money means that people like you and me are buying these games time after time. Maybe it’s our game decisions that need to be re-examined.

Some of the best games of all time were driven by a character that rarely spoke, if at all. They are characters that had an element of mystery to them through the minimizing of some aspect of their interaction with the player or world. Take Half Life’s Gordon Freeman: the man doesn’t speak a word of dialogue through 4 iterations of the game so far and the games are still interesting. The original Grand Theft Auto 3 guy: he also never spoke a word (he doesn’t even have a name) and GTA3 is still one of the most impressive games of its time. And everyone’s favorite, Halo’s Master Chief. Sure, he has a few lines of dialogue here and there since the first revision of the game, but it would’ve been just as fun and interesting without it. Plus, we never even get to see the face behind the helmet.

These examples just go to show that while gruff, mouthy, frat boy-esque protagonists in space suits or hoodies are great every once in a while, it would be nice to see someone be daring and leave some things to the imagination. Don’t give it all away on the first date, or in the Craigslist ad, or in the box quotes. Save some for the honeymoon.

Are there any recently formed gaming archetypes that really make YOUR skin crawl? Leave us a comment or talk about it in the forums.

My Father: Hero of Hyrule (A Non-Mushy Tribute)

Bryan Wojciechowski — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:53:30 +0000

Today was a beautiful day here in Michigan. So, when class got out early, I decided to take a bike ride. On this ride, I decided to listen to the Experience Points podcast. It’s always a short podcast, but that’s because Jorge and Scott usually pick a topic, give it a “serious, but not humorless,” once-over and call it a day. This week’s episode was about introducing non-gamers to gaming. Scott told a story about how he got into gaming, and it got me thinking about the topic. I kind of enjoy telling the story of how I got into games, mainly because of the role reversal that plays out.

My gaming origins are actually fairly similar to Scott’s situation in that my parents got me into gaming by purchasing the family’s first console, in our case the NES. My dad and I shared a lot of time together in the 8-bit era. We would play Super Mario Bros. 2-player, or play Rampart against each other, but when I was young, he was definitely the preeminent gamer of the family. My grandparents had actually bought him an Atari before he met my mother, so he was already into it. Then when our family got the NES, I remember sitting and watching him play through Zelda II (still the only man I know personally who can say they’ve finished that game) or Rygar. He also enjoys puzzle games, and is always down for a good game of Tetris, plus he got my mother into Dr. Mario. Seeing my dad play really only made me want to play more.

As time passed, I played more and more games. My gaming phase really kicked in during the era of the 16-bit SNES RPGs. The Final Fantasy games, Zelda and Chrono Trigger really got me involved in games. As time passed, I broadened my horizons to more and more games, picking up more genres as I grew. As systems evolved, though, it became less of his scene. In the SNES and PSX eras, he did not play anything. We bought him a NASCAR game, but he only played it twice or so.

It wasn’t until SOCOM for the PS2 came out, with it’s voice activated squadron, that he took interest again. I don’t even know how he found out about it, but my mother informed us one day that he wanted it, so we bought it for him. He has always been a war movie buff, and the way war-themed shooters have taken the limelight was a way he could get back into gaming. It was great to see him get back into gaming, often spending several nights a week occupying the PS2 so he could bark orders into his headset to his AI teammates. He spent a few months playing it, but after that, his gaming time dwindled down to nothing.

Now we come to the current generation of systems. I got my Xbox 360 in November 2007, and I purchased him a copy of Call of Duty 2 (I don’t buy Treyarch games, but that’s another story for another time). He couldn’t handle it. There was too much going on for him, and adapting to the Xbox 360 controls were difficult when he did not have that squadron to back him up like he did in SOCOM. He enjoyed watching me play Bioshock, and he even took a shot at Call of Duty 4, but things did not click. He tried, but he cited the controls as too difficult to work with.

Enter the Wii. He was the one who decided to purchase it for the family, and has taken to playing Wii Sports and Wii Fit with my mother. As I mentioned in a post way back, he even went out to try and find a better game to replace Wii Sports bowling, because he felt the experience could be better. However, not only that, he sometimes returns to “real” games as well, after enjoying the control scheme of Medal of Honor: Heroes 2. He even enjoys rocking out a bit on Rock Band. Now, the roles are reversed though, as he is not usually the one playing and often finds himself standing over my shoulder watching me play. He was particularly intrigued by the latest Prince of Persia. He still challenges my mother to the occasional game of Dr. Mario whenever they head up north to our house on the lake, where the NES currently resides.

I attribute my gaming origins to my father, even if the NES was a present from both of my parents. I don’t think I would have ever gotten into games had I not seen the kinds of things he showed me as I sat next to him and watched him play in my younger days. Maybe I’ll even send him this article so he can read it and point out my factual innacuracies. Regardless, what about your stories of gaming family members? Let us know in the forum or in the comments below!

Saying so Much by Saying so Little

Bryan Wojciechowski — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 20:16:58 +0000

Sean and Bryan have both been playing some multiplayer games recently, and have each formed some different opinions on how they view them. These articles are diverse, but not necessarily opposing, ideas regarding online multiplayer gaming. Read Sean’s article here.

In today’s generation, you are hard pressed to find games that do not have any sort of online component. Even in single player only adventures like Bioshock, everyone has a list of achievements or trophies to give them some sort of online posturing against other players. However, the real bread and butter of online components is a game’s multiplayer. Games today have created such an online-centric atmosphere, games that were previously a single-player affair like Peggle have multiplayer, the sequel to Bioshock may have multiplayer, and games like Left 4 Dead are constructed entirely as multiplayer.

I was playing Left 4 Dead recently with a group of friends, and I realized how differently we communicated compared to when I played Burnout Paradise online with a group of total strangers. The big difference here was that with my friends, I had my headset on, and as I played with strangers, I did not have my headset. I know, that’s a glaring difference in the world of online gaming, but what interested me most was that I was still able to communicate with the players in Burnout just as easily as I could with my friends in L4D.

What it all comes down to is an issue that is stressed strongly in the communication discipline: nonverbal communication. Communication scholars have posited as early as the 1970s that computer-mediated communication does not lend itself to non-verbal communication. To be honest, this is mostly true. In person, you are able to understand a person’s body language, their tone of voice, their stance towards you, the way they project their voice, and so many other factors that aren’t explicitly stated. However, most CMC falls flat on its face in conveying these ideas. Sure, you can tack a smiley on your sentence, but can you really convey the nonverbal communication that you’re trying to portray? You can poke someone on Facebook, but does that hold merit as an “action” you might see in the physical world?

Games are given this awesome ability to allow us to interact via our computers or consoles in a way totally different from your standard social networking sites, forums, email or instant messenger. You get to actually do things with other people. Your team can hunt down the terrorist forces, you can have an all out deathmatch to decide the king of Liberty City, you could race against each other to see who is the fastest in Paradise City, or a million other options, considering the amount of games with multiplayer modes. When you’re with your friends and coordinating or talking smack, this is one of the most enjoyable experiences games can provide. However, as Sean pointed out, this is not always the case playing with strangers.

Cybernetic god Baldur knows you're not cool if you look into the camera.

So what do you do then? You unplug your headset and mute the voice chat. However, your team cannot interact the same way. This is where the medium of games shows the strength in its ability to convey nonverbal communication. When playing the critically acclaimed Too Human (which I admit to sinking in far more time than I should have), there were some achievements that you could only get online. One of which required direct teamwork, as one player had to shoot off the armor of a troll as the other climbed up its back to stab it in the head. However, I did not have any friends with the game, so I turned to the public games. After a few failed attempts to find a partner, I was playing through with one person who was using guns as I was using swords. Every time I saw a troll, I climbed up his back. My partner caught on and shot the armor off the troll as I stabbed him, and the achievement popped. During elevator sequences, we conveyed our boredom by spinning around in circles. I had a genuinely good cooperative experience with this player without utteirng a word. They even sent a “good game” message following our session.

Burnout Paradise gave me a similar experience as well. While playing online with random strangers, someone started running some challenges. Whenever a player got lost, someone would drive out to meet them and show them the way back. We guided each other to the rally points and events and we got a handful of cooperative challenges done, again without saying a thing. Even with the headset on, while playing Left 4 Dead with my friends, we jump and use our flashlights to guide each other to health, weapons and rally points. Even seeing the glowing silhouette of another player is especially effective.

While we often can’t bank on nonverbals to help coordinate team efforts or map out strategies, we know that as a communicative animal, mankind can’t not convey messages to each other. So even without the headset on, the other people in the game can still find ways to communicate with us. If anything, this shows us that there is always an alternative to the unfortunate cesspool of hatred one finds on multiplayer matches. Again, you can always get involved with a gaming community to find other people to play games with, and we’ve got one under our roof that you should check out!

My Dream of a Multiplayer Utopia

Sean Pagano — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:36:16 +0000

I’ve had this dream for a while. In my dream, I come home from a long hard day of work and sit down on my futon. I flip on my entertainment center setup and grab a game controller. I choose a high-concept, first-person shooter from a row of classic and recently released games on my shelf and insert the disc into the console. The game starts up and I jump right into multiplayer matches of varying types and have a completely enjoyable experience. On team-based games, I have clear, concise, and tasteful communication between my teammates and myself. In solo style game types, the banter is witty and relevant and everyone has fun…and then I wake up.

This dream is only a memory every time I turn on my console in the real world. It’s here where a multiplayer experience generally consists of frustration, racism, obnoxious internet memes, heavy breathing, parental interruptions, achievement farming, bug exploits, lag, and a general disgust for how hard it is to have an enjoyable experience in a part of a game I paid good money for and on a service I pay for monthly.

Since the early days of PC online multiplayer games, the experience has always been… interesting, but since it was generally all text based chat until the widespread adoption of broadband, the ugly obnoxious face of the stereotypical online gamer was easily ignored. Once voice chat came into the picture, it was harder to deny the cold, hard fact that the ugly obnoxious face of the online gamer was very often also loud, racist, eating chips into its microphone, and most unfortunately cloaked behind the anonymity that is synonymous with the Internet and a misguided and cursory understanding of etiquette and the 1st Amendment. Even more unfortunate is the fact that playing a game online is often the only way to extend the life of some games. I know that I can turn the voice chat playback off in almost every game, but often times it’s the only way to play a multiplayer game successfully and enjoyably. Hearing that games like Left 4 Dead and Resident Evil 5 are so much fun, but you shouldn’t bother playing them if you don’t have friends to play them with, is such a slap in the face to a large percentage of the people who these games are intended for.

As an adult gamer with a job and a continuing education, I find it hard to bring myself to even want to participate in an online community anymore. The reckless disregard for what was once a meaningful experience is simply appalling. It’s just so hard to find anyone worth playing with anymore, especially when most of your friends don’t even play video games.

I hear the most common suggestion all of the time: “Well, you could join a gaming community online.” Yeah, I sure could, but how are you supposed to compete or even get noticed when you have absolutely no presence on a well establish community message board with a post count of less than 10? How am I supposed to know who won’t act like a complete buffoon once we start playing? Sure, that could work eventually, but I want to find quality people to play with right now .
What’s most unfair about the entire situation is that some people who buy their own games often base the criteria of their purchases on the opinions of games journalists and reviewers. Reviewing the multiplayer aspects of new releases is just part of the process. What many people who are experiencing the same negative experience, or a lack thereof, are failing to see is that the people who are reviewing these games aren’t reviewing the multiplayer experience that the average gamer is going to have.

Instead, we need to realize that these reviewers have friends lists that are full of other games journalists with review copies of the same games. When talking about games is your actual job, I can only assume that your real world colleagues become your online friends. Do you see where I’m headed with this? The people who are playing in the multiplayer sessions that are scored for review are not the same anonymous mouth breathers that you’re going to run into after the launch of the game. Thus often perverting the perception that you will or won’t have a good online experience in said game. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing but the utmost respect for games journalists. I’m sure that someone has probably thought of this along the way. But it’s not talked about enough. There needs to be a disclaimer every single time.

Social Networking: The Bridge Between the Dream and Reality
It’s become readily apparent to me that with the rise of social networking, there is a great opportunity for like-minded mature, serious, and pressed for time gamers to take advantage of and create a way to find each other. This isn’t to say that this hasn’t been tried already.

Enter Raptr , the closest I’ve seen so far to a solution to this problem. Raptr takes the directory style of Facebook, the sociability of Twitter, and the opportunities for innovation given to them by the APIs of various online gaming services and rolls them into one, but not without fault. Raptr is new, and as far as I’ve seen, doesn’t seem to be marketed well. There is a ton of potential in Raptr but the users just aren’t there. And they don’t really do a good job of getting you started, either. You can see the listing of people there, but it’s still very sterile and anonymous and uninviting.

The Bottom Line
All I want is a place to go to say: “This is what I’m playing and have played in the past. These are the games I like to play online and when I usually play. My gaming time is precious, please respect that.”

All I want in return is to see: “Here are people who play the same games or the same types of games you like. They play at similar hours of the day, are looking for like-minded players and their time is limited and valuable too! They won’t be weirded out or accusatory if you add them to your friends list, either!” Toss in a comment system and a way to rank other players on how the quality of the experience you had with them, just for fun.

And then we all have fun.

It never should have reached this point, especially on a service with a monthly fee attached like Xbox Live. Why should the average mature gamer over the age of 19 be denied the same experience that someone like Xbox Live’s Major Nelson has? And if he does have the same types of experiences as you or I, what would he suggest to remedy this potty-mouthed, Cheeto-fingered, immature epidemic?

Let us know what you think about this! Leave a comment and tell us about great experiences you’ve had online gaming with strangers. Let us know how and where you’ve found a community of great people to play with, or if you know of a better community that we didn’t mention! Of course, a great place to start a community of people to play with is our very own Perpetual Forum ! Check it out, join the discussion, and find some new friends!

I Find It Kind of Funny, I Find It Kind of Sad

Bryan Wojciechowski — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:52:24 +0000

The harbinger of death, now for the whole family!

Earlier this week, the National Institute for Media and the Family chided Nintendo for losing its family friendly image because Sega is publishing the hyper-violent action title MadWorld exclusively for the system. I first read about this over on USAToday’s Game Hunters blog, and I had this to say in the comments:

I think that NIMF has a weak argument against Nintendo. I don’t think you can chide them for allowing developers and publishers of all types to create games for the console. It’s like trying to argue against paperback books as a family-friendly medium because there are Harlequin Romance novels on the shelf.
A system truly shows its legs once you get a breadth of game types being published. The previous generation’s king, the PlayStation 2, really shows this in spades. There are honestly games for every type of gamer out there, and that resulted in an absolutely stellar install base for the console. Low development costs help to aid this, and being built on the GC skeleton helped the Wii devs. The Wii used the safe image of games like Wii Sports as a way to open the door to create that install base, but now developers are seeing the kind of opportunity it presents.
Then people want to make the argument that the hardcore crowd does not play their games on a Wii, but on a PS3 or X360 instead. But with the state of the economy, these $300+ systems are a harder sell for those who do not already have a new gaming console. It is easier for a gamer to convince their parents or spouse to buy a Wii because they know there are games that they can all play. Then, they want to be able to turn around and play some hardcore games of their own. The developers of Metroid Prime 3, or The Conduit, or House of the Dead Overkill know that there is a market for the Wii that wants a “gamer’s game”, and NIMF mistakes this appeal to other markets as betraying their family friendly image, which is closed minded from a marketing and developmental standpoint.

In the statement from NIMF, it seems as though they lose sight of what the point of video games are truly about. Like books and like movies, games are entertainment. They say:

The National Institute on Media and the Family hopes that Nintendo does not lose sight of its initial audience and continues to offer quality, family-friendly games.

However, different things entertain different members of the family. Above, I made the connection to books, but I think an even better connection is cartoons. You can’t say all cartoons are not family friendly because of the existence of some that are extremely violent, such as some anime series. You have to wonder why NIMF is crying foul here, when House of the Dead: Overkill came out a couple of weeks ago, and drops the f-bomb at least once per line. Other commenters shared similar opinions. Most of all, they felt like the breadth of the Wii’s catalog is adversely effected by the statements of the NIMF, and that statements like these make it look like the ESRB is not doing their job. Both of these sentiments were well summed up in a statement by one commenter:

I thought the reason that the games have ratings in the first place is so parents can monitor what their kids play.
oh wait, as an adult gamer I’m supposed to deal with a restricted catalog of games because parents are too self absorbed to pay attention to the ratings on the games their kids play. And just buy or allow their children to buy/rent whatever they want with no supervision. – olhoni

It’s almost as if NIMF is overlooking the fact that a rating system is in place to prevent these titles from getting into the wrong hands. We all know pornography exists on DVD, but when you’re 18, you really have to go out of your way if you want to get hold of that DVD. Mature rated games are just the same, especially with the ESRB gaining support from lawmakers to tighten their grip on retailers of M-rated games.

What gets me the most is that after running a search through Kotaku and Joystiq for NIMF, I found an article on their 2008 year-end “grade” for the gaming industry. For 2008, they actually PRAISED the industry for more strongly enforcing and supporting these raings, but scolded the retailers who let M-rated games slip through to the wrong audience. In a glaring move, they also issued an “Incomplete” grade to parents for not becoming acquainted with the ESRB rating system and the fact that it applies to games the MPAA ratings apply to movies.

So, in reality, by giving Nintendo a hard time about allowing games like MadWorld on to the Wii, they look to prevent missteps by parents who fall under that Incomplete category. It’s almost like they’re telling the smartest kid in the class to work harder to polish a report just so that the dumb kid that’s working with them doesn’t have to do as much work. Gamers cry out that they want more hardcore games on the Wii, and now that we’re finally getting them, with MadWorld and The Conduit, both of which are the first Wii games I’ve legitimately gotten excited for in a while, someone outside the industry with an agenda wants these games gone. With this type of push-and-pull over these titles, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them fall victim to a spiral of silence and slowly removed from the Wii’s repertoire over the console’s life cycle, or on the opposite side, it takes the PS2 route and begins to open doors to really creative games that all types of gamers can enjoy down the road.

I Think “Irked” is the Proper Word to Use Here

Bryan Wojciechowski — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 05:50:00 +0000

Here in the lovely realm of Communication Studies that I call my home, as well as in the world of some other social sciences, we’re pretty big on stereotypes. Stereotypes give us these preconceived notions that tell us how we’re going to act with other people. Yes, stereotypes are often painted in a negative light, and when you hear about them they’re more than likely being used that way, but thinking outside of that box, it is simple to see how we use them in our daily lives.

Everyone’s beliefs factor in to their stereotypes, and more often than not, we see that we, as gamers, are rarely credited with a positive stereotype. Michael Abbott once spoke on a podcast (an episode that I cannot remember) that even he, as a professor, gets strange looks when people walk by his office and see him playing something on his PS2 (thus giving me a model to aspire to: an in-office PS2). Even in the world of academia, and in an age when videogames are such a prominent media, gamers and gaming are still looked at as something off-base by those outside of our world.

For a class assignment, I chose the topic of communicating while playing games, specifically, whether players prefer online or local co-op. However, when discussing the assignment with someone, a comment was made that irked me at the time, yet for brevity’s sake, I chose to look past it. This comment was along the lines that it was strange for me to choose communicating while playing games as a topic, because videogames are primarily an isolated activity. Like I said, I didn’t comment on it, but it’s had me thinking about it since yesterday.

How many people of the world still hold this view? In days when online co-op shooter Left 4 Dead has gigantic billboards and the Wii is bringing together people in living rooms across the nation, while also letting thousands of people play locally or online in Mario Kart, do people still view games as primarily anti-social activities? I know the nights my friends and I get together for some L4D online, or gather at my house for some Rock Band 2 would argue otherwise.

The Mii Effect – Ripples in a Pond

Bryan Wojciechowski — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 07:51:00 +0000

I originally wanted to just write a short post on how I was pleased to see that Microsoft was using the Avatars as a system of advertising, but not making it horrifically blatant. I’m just glad I was able to get a top hat and dress my guy up like a geeky, white version of T-Pain. Browsing the avatar clothing selection, nothing actually shouts out to you and says “HEY THESE CLOTHES ARE FROM THE NEW GTAIV EXPANSION!!” but instead promote them simply through a page on the Spotlight tab and leave it at that. I think that Giant Bomb was right on the money in their episode of the Bombcast that achievements should unlock bonus avatar clothing. Then not only would my 1100 gamerscore in Fallout 3 represent my dedication, but my Xbox LIVE avatar’s T-51b power armor would show I’m really hardcore. Looking at your Friends list and seeing your friends in Altair’s robe or Scorpion’s gi would let you better understand what kind of games your Xbox LIVE friends enjoy.

I commend Nintendo for bringing the Miis to the console generation. The Miis were just a stone in a pond for the advent of caricatures of ourselves on our consoles, and with Xbox LIVE and Playstation Home avatars, we are beginning to see the first ripples it is causing. When Miis were new, it was great to play around with, but stock facial features and lack of additional content made the fun run dry shortly after the well was sprung for hardcore gamers. The Check Mii Out channel was a great attempt to show off Mii creativity, but it never really let people express themselves. Sure you can make a face that looks like it has a penis on it if you move the nose and mouth properly, but does that really represent you? (If it does, talk to me again when you’re out of sixth grade).

This is where I feel like Nintendo shortchanged all of the hardcore fans in the Mii system. Everyone can point the finger at Microsoft and Rare saying that they were late tdo the party, and that they were ripping Nintendo off, even if the horse’s mouth says otherwise, but at this point, it’s easy to see that they kicked the game up a notch. (One could also make the argument that the idea of the avatar is hardly Shiggy & Co.’s brilliance, thanks to this thing called the internet, but for a console’s operating system they were the first.) It’s like that children’s song that says “Everything you can do, I can do better.” I feel like my avatar is a more accurate representation of myself (albeit slightly more absurd given my current outfit) than the highly cartoony Miis are. And, with the much lower barrier of entry to connecting to friends via Xbox LIVE, I feel like my avatar represents me more accurately to my friends. For example, I just ran into a friend the other day who I have not seen in at least 6 months, and we exchanged gamertags. When I checked his profile, I looked at his avatar and immediately could see the resemblance between his avatar and his real self.

What we have now are gaming consoles that take on aspects of social networking and expand the idea to allow further interaction. In this Web 2.0 world, we’re looking at more users with data presented up-front than ever before. In the early days of the internet and computer mediated communication, scholars found a lot of people hiding behind the veil of anonymity and refusing to establish our identity. However, today’s internet provides countless ways of self-expression on the internet, allowing us to establish a social presence that probably rivals that of a face-to-face encounter.

The Social Presence Theory of Short, Williams and Christie (1976) is one of the oldest theories on computer-mediated communication in our field, and was born in a world where Web 2.0 sounded even dumber then than it does today. The theory posits the idea that communication is more effective when we have more of a social presence, and our presence is most prominent in face-to-face communication. By their origins, online gaming removed our social presence entirely and replaced us with an in-game presence that often reflected the game more than our self. This is what leads to a lot of players in online gaming acting like total jerks, thanks to that anonymity. Looking at the way Miis and avatars bring in a social networking, and possible extensions outside of our consoles, we could see a future in which people are less likely to act like a complete ass in an online game if they feel like they know their team better.

I’m not saying everyone needs to look at the Myspace pages of their squad in Call of Duty, but maybe showing the avatars in the lobby may give you a better idea of what type of people we’re working with. A better online community would create an even bigger draw for whichever console manufacturer can pick it up. This is where Sony has the opportunity to pick up the pieces on home, and create exactly the type of situation I’m talking about, such as with Warhawk. The idea that gamers can take their avatar into Home and congregate with others in the Warhawk War Room to discuss game tips and strategies and then launch right into a game is really an exciting idea, and as a communication technology researcher, it’s something that I’d be really interested in seeing how it plays out.

Again, I originally wanted to just say how cool it is that I can get a top hat for my avatar.

Princes to Princes, Part Two: Parables and Parrying

Bryan Wojciechowski — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 03:12:00 +0000

So, apparently I don’t have a good understanding of the word “tomorrow”. I started writing about Prince of Persia monday. I also started catching up on 30 Rock, and that was very much conflicting with me wanting to write a blog post. Then the season 5 premiere of LOST happened, so that threw me off again.

Anyway, back to comparing Prince of Persia to Sands of Time. So far, the tally looks like Sands of Time – 1, Prince of Persia – 1, on the basis of platforming (the meat) and graphical presentation (the potatoes) respectively. This lecture is on the combat (the side dish) and the narrative (the gravy). Now that I’ve managed to make myself hungry, let’s have a drink of PoP. (I acknowledge the fact that that pun was horrible.) As before, SoT is obviously Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and PoP refers to the new one without a subtitle.

I can’t help but feel that in both games, the combat is one of those things that was shoehorned in because someone at a dev meeting said “BUT YOU CAN’T JUST HAVE THE PRINCE RUNNING AROUND DOING A LOT OF PLATFORMING! THERE NEEDS TO BE COMBAT!”. In the cases of both games, I disagree. In SoT, the Prince had a goal that was not directly combative: retrieve the hourglass. In PoP, the Prince aids Elika in healing the land, which for all intent and purpose, does not sound combative. However, as most platformers these days exist with enemies as a function of the level design as obstacles, or to break the flow of platforming by showcasing another way in which the Prince is acrobatic. My complaint against the combat in PoP is the same complaint I levied against the platforming: it is down to such a simplistic level that it is essentially an elevated quick time event. What makes the combat worse is that there are actual button-mashy or timed press quick time activities that actually occur. While this makes combat simpler and allows you to view the acrobatic combat stylings of the fresh Prince and Elika, you again do not get as engaged. This unfortunately also makes it aggravating though, as you’re often required to do things at such precise times it simply becomes a game of trial and error. This gets even worse near the end of the game, when the enemies are much faster and you cannot get a hit in without leading with a parry attack, which requires an extremely precise timed press. SoT allows much more room for skill and flair in its combat, and provides the Prince with a bevy of abilities that actually make fighting scores of monsters easier and less frustrating than the two-on-one battles of PoP. You may have to use more button combinations in SoT, but it creates a much more fun combat style.

The thing that really kept me going with PoP however was the story. I always wanted to know more of what was going on. Even when I got all the achievements for talking to Elika, I continued to do so because the interaction between her and the Prince was easily the most engaging part of the game. The Giant Bombcast from last week or so mentioned their favorite parts of dialogue, and one they mentioned was the game of I Spy that the Prince starts, much to Elika’s chagrin. The way the characters played off each other was very well done, even if the Prince had that tendency to come off as an arrogant ass, but even when he did, Elika called him out on it. Since the dialogue was all optional, I knew I could skip it, but I did not want to, as this world and these characters were something I gained a legitimate interest in. Unlike SoT, in which the narrative is far less engaging, and exists mostly just to explain why you are in a certain section of the palace at that time. I do not care about the relationship between the Prince and Farah as much as I do the Prince and Elika. In fact, the thing that I am most interested in about the Prince is the fact that he arbitrarily rips pieces of his clothing off at seemingly random times, or when he talks to himself occasionally and subsequently calls himself out on it. In the terms of narrative drive, I give the award to the newer PoP.

Here’s the part where I should draw my conclusions, but by now the tally is obviously split, and there’s no other factor to really establish a clear winner, and I think that is the point I’ve been trying to reach all along. These are both great games, but for different reasons. Sands of Time is a really great platformer with a well done combat system, where as Prince of Persia is an amazing looking game with a fantastic story that also happens to be a platformer. The critics simply just shit on the new Prince of Persia because it is not exactly like the old one. Sure I have complaints with it, but at the end of the day it is just as engaging as the old one, albeit for different reasons.