My new appearance on Big Red Potion is up in which we discuss Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. I'm sure this is a game I'll write more on later as it was one of my most pleasant surprises of the year, but for now enjoy the show.
One quick afterword though: I may have to eat crow on what I said about the puzzles being too handholdey. Justin Keverne's wrote a wonderful piece on the game, explaining how Drake is a man of action and shouldn't be held up for too long. In other words, the puzzles are easy to the player because they're supposed to be easy for Drake. In a sense, they're hardly even puzzles, but rather the illusion of puzzles to help drive the narrative along. While I appreciate my masochistic LucasArts and Braid-like mind-benders, they wouldn't have fit the flow of Uncharted's more guided experience. The game is always throwing something new at you, whether it be a shootout, an extended platforming sequence, or petting a yak's butt. Just because I like hard puzzles doesn't make them necessary for every game. It's good to be wrong sometimes.
One more thing- Drake kills a lot of people in this game. Granted they're all bad and trying to kill him, it still seems a bit sociopathic (which is brought up at one point). The game introduces stealth, but only insofar as stealth kills go. You cannot bypass a combat zone entirely by sneaking past enemies. I think that would be an interesting addition to Uncharted 3, so long as it's only optional and the game doesn't rate you on it ala MGS. Maybe then he can only kill 400 dudes, rather than 900. Just a thought.
My newest appearance on Big Red Potion opposite Justin McElroy (Joystiq) is up at bigredpotion.com. I was unusually quiet during this week's podcast as I was so fascinated by the discussion already happening around me and my rant about Assassin's Creed was cut probably because Sinan was worried what would happen if we said bad things about Ubisoft*. More accurately, I found myself too shy to interrupt such great conversations, instead opting to think of brilliant things to say and then not finding the opportune moment to say them. Until now, that is...
I've already written about the topic of game reviews here, but I wanted to talk about price and value bit. My feeling is that value is an incredibly subjective thing and based on three things: game quality, the budget of the consumer, and the free time available to them. The latter two are specific to the individual and cannot be judged by a critic.
We all want the best bang for our buck, but there's a stigma in our society that that somehow means longest game for least amount of money. Now that makes sense for some. I certainly remember when I was young and my parents would only buy me one or two games a year, so I'd have to make sure to get the longest games possible (provided they were also good, of course). If you have little money and lots of free time, you'll fall into this camp and be wise to spend your $60 on Fallout 3 rather than say, Mirror's Edge.
However, for many, price may not matter all that much. What matters more is quality. And we've reached a point where there are so many great games being produced that it's nigh on impossible to keep up with them all. As such, greater gaming enthusiasts (such as myself) will want shorter games, so we have time to check out more of them. Obviously my view is a bit skewed as I'm a far greater game enthusiast than most and often get free games to review, but it's not uncommon for gamers to have a backlog of games they'd like to play, but just not had the time for for one reason or another. As such, the prospect of a great 6-8 hour game priced the same as a 60-80 hour game doesn't seem as skewed as it would have to me when I was younger.
Of course, one could argue that you could just rent shorter games and then buy them later after a price drop. That's a totally acceptable way to go about it and entirely economical, but let's face it; people like to collect stuff. Think about movies. How many times do you think the average person watches the average movie that they buy? Conversely, think how cheap and easy it is to rent movies these days. It would probably be cheaper to just rent whatever they want to see when they want to see it (even if it means renting it multiple times). Though there's something very appealing about just having it there at a moment's notice. Going back to games, I think it's important to mention things like length and replayability for the those in the small budget/lots of free time camp, but criticizing a game for being too short isn't really a criticism at all as far as I can tell. It sounds more like praise and that the game was so good and that they didn't want it to end. So yeah, value is in the eye of the beholder and docking a review score for a game being too short is akin to a food critic rating a burrito poorly for not being lasagna. Damn review scores! (Which I hear were invented by Paul Rooney.)
I also wanted to go into the concept of rating a rerelease. I disagree with Justin about them not needing a review. I think it's great to reevaluate how well a game holds up. Saying something was great "for the time" just doesn't cut it with me. I want to know how well it hold up to the current competition.
The Secret of Monkey Island is an interesting case though. Based on what I've seen and heard, the remade elements aren't that great (notably the new character model for Guybrush. Seriously. What were they thinking?), but the original game (included as part of the package) still holds up amazingly well. So how the hell do you score that? It's taking a great game and making it worse, so it should get a terrible score. Yet it still has that great game on it. Personally, I'd say the original game itself is worth $10 easy, and a reviewer could go into lots of detail on why that is and why it's held up so well over the years.
Beyond that, I feel like a review is little more than an interpretation of a game- or rather the experience playing it. We're all going to approach a game from our own perspective, and I've always personally found reading other people's perspectives on a game fascinating. It helps shape my own and often leaves me appreciating a game more for reasons I wouldn't have thought of on my own (or criticizing a game for reasons I wouldn't have though of). Writing about what's in the game isn't enough. A reviewer should write about what stood out to them, what it was like to play, and what things frustrated or delighted them about the design. A game is an interactive medium. As such, a review needs to focus on that interaction. Readers will be able to figure out from there whether it sounds like their cup of tea or not.
Eddie Inzauto, former features director at TGR (i.e. my old boss) has recently started up a podcast on his site, Gamernode. Last week he and Jason Finelli invited me on as their special guest to discuss the best game of 2009 so far (as well as what we're looking forward to the most later this year). Give it a listen.
My new appearance on Big Red Potion (episode # 16) is up. Check it out here. This week I was joined with Jared Newman as we discussed being evil in games: how games handle it, the pros and cons of such approaches, and why we do it. I think we all had some interesting discussion on the matter, and as always, I've thought about things I should have said but didn't get around to. So here goes:
I wanted to delve into how moral choices in games need to be less defined as "good" or "evil." It's my belief that most people are either good, or want to be good. If given a choice that's predetermined as being "good" or "evil" no one will pick the evil option unless it's done for comedic effect.
Perhaps that's just me, but I can never take being a dick in Fallout or Fable at all seriously. I laughed aloud in Mass Effect during my second playthrough when Commander Shepard refused to use the non-lethal gas grenades on the infected colonists. Even in GTAIV, where you're supposed to be an antihero, I still found it out of character for Niko to reckless run over civilians for shits and giggles as I was doing. Conversely, this bothers me a lot less in a game like Saints Row 2 where it's never attempting to be serious. Whenever I get into this mindset, I cease to take the game seriously from a narrative point of view, and merely view it as a sandbox. Think Noby Noby Boy, but more violent.
When I try to take a game seriously, however, I always naturally do what I would do in that situation i.e. play good. Though life is never that easy. In my view, most people try to do what they think is good, but end up doing evil deeds without realizing it. We brought up Braid and Shadow of the Colossus as examples of games where you only realize the consequences of your good intentions when it's too late. Both those games, however, didn't give you a choice. I would love to see a game where it would give me a choice and I'd pick the evil option unknowingly. There was a part in inFamous where you have to decide who to save. Sadly, it's very clear which choice is the "good" one and which choice is "evil" (or more accurately the lesser of two goods). Having the same dilemma without knowing how you'll be judged would have added even more weight to the situation.
I think that's really what this comes down to; games need more unpredictable results. If you know you'll gain a certain number of Paragon or Renegade points and be able to purchase certain powers, that'll strongly influence how you'll chose to deal with that particular dilemma. Having situations where you don't know what kinds of rewards or penalties you'll endure is far more interesting.
For example, Joe brought up how he'd accidentally let lose an army of homicidal ghouls into a city in Fallout 3. He thought he was doing right though. I mean, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Too bad Fallout 3 has such shoddy story-telling. Imagine that on a smaller scale more along the lines of inFamous with a fully voice-acted third-person protagonist and it could really create some compelling drama.
Joe also brought up how Silent Hill 2's ending is finely tuned to how you play. That's a truly brilliant idea and I wish more game would do that. How come in inFamous I can play as a good guy, yet still injure (and probably kill) countless civilians in the crossfire with no repercussions whatsoever? I want to make mistakes and accidentally kill people and have random NPCs hate me. Then in return I could hate them back and abuse my powers. That's how people turn evil; gradually and unknowingly.
I feel like because games require so much more active participation than any other medium, they'd make a great way to explore this side of the human condition. How frustrating is it to watch a movie where a character learns a lesson of some kind, but the whole time you're watching you can't help but think that you would have acted differently, making the lesson seem irrelevant to you? If movies and books tend to portray a character learning a lesson, what better way to teach said lesson than have the player be that character and learn it for themselves based on their own choices? That's something games can offer us that other mediums cannot, and we've only begun to scratch the surface in that regard. Amirite?
My appearance on the new episode of Big Red Potion is up in which we discuss Death in Gaming. Despite some technical difficulties, I think we all had a great time recording and covered a lot of interesting ground. Give it a listen!
Here are some of my thoughts after suffering through listening to my own voice:
I think Sinan really hit the nail on the head, when he said so-called "gamey" games need some kind of loss condition, whereas if a game is meant to be more of an experience, death is seen as an impediment. I cited Zack and Wiki on the show, but upon further reflection, a greater example of this would be the Phoenix Wright series. Those games are essentially digital graphic novels and the fact that there even is a loss condition at all impedes their pacing tremendously. If you lose a case, you'll be sent back to the beginning of the chapter, which can take several hours of skipping through text to get back to where you were. Of course, no one ever actually loses those games as you can save at any time (unless you're unfortunate enough to save right before losing your last point), so it's baffling why they even bothered to allow you to lose in the first place. It would work infinitely better if the judge simply continued shaming you when presenting the wrong piece of evidence, so you could stay in the game at all times, worry free, as it would just be a shortcut to having to save and reload all the time. I don't wish to make broad generalizations about an entire nation, but Japan does have a reputation for being a little less progressive in game design on the whole. I find that having game-overs in Phoenix Wright (and Zack and Wiki) to be remnants of this oldschool design philosophy unceremoniously placed unto a a genre that never needed it (just look at the old LucasArts adventures, as Joe wisely noted).
To elaborate on my point about JRPGs- I don't believe the genre shouldn't feature death. The genre has its inheritance in pen-and-paper games, which are very "gamey" by nature, so they require a loss condition. What I meant was that I wished RPGs let you keep all your loot and exp, so it wouldn't make you feel like the last half-hour plus was all for naught upon dying. Or perhaps just have an option as to whether to keep all your exp, as I dislike the idea of the game making itself easier in case the player may not want that. Again; different variables based on how hardcore an experience the player wants. I disliked the gamey aspects of Persona 4, but otherwise liked the experience and just wanted to press forward. Others may want a stricter challenge. I think there may have been a little confusion as to what I was talking about there.
Going with the idea of varying levels of entry, Steve had a fantastic suggestion that we discussed the night before, then absent-mindedly forgot to bring up on the show. Since he doesn't have a blog of his own, I will surmise it here: He suggested that certain games maybe not have a game over, but rather a ranking system to show how many times you "died." Something like Ikaruga comes to mind where you can unlock infinite lives after a certain amount of play, but if you really want to achieve high score status, you'll have to get especially skilled at the game. I've found that Geometry Wars 2 does an amazing job at making a single-player experience social via its friends only leaderboard. Imagine if a game like Uncharted had no death penalty, which would quasi make sense as it's such a narrative-based game and a lot of players may just want to play it for the story (though they'd have to come up with some ridiculous reason for why Nathan could constantly be resurrected), yet it could offer great incentives for replay value if you could replay individual chapters for high scores based on number of times "killed," headshots, time completed, etc, etc...
At any rate, I hope you all enjoyed the podcast and I'd be curious to hear other opinion on ways that death can either help or hinder a certain type of game.
My recent guest spot on Big Red Potion in which Sinan Kubba, Joe Delia, myself, and Xantiriad, of Ninja Fat Pigeons fame, discuss each and every aspects of handheld gaming. It was by far the longest BRP yet (clocking in at just shy of two hours), but we had a wealth of content to explore, and I think we covered a lot of interesting ground. Give it a listen.
Though I must say that even at 2 hours, there were still things I wanted to say, but never got around to. Like whether playing a handheld game at home entirely defeats the purpose. I know lots of people who prefer Zelda: Phantom Hourglass to Twilight Princess or the Wind Waker, even if they're just playing it at home anyway. I hinted at this briefly, but there's something about that the intimate, tactile feel of the touch screen that makes these sorts of games so much more accessible. Particularly in Phantom Hourglass with its note taking function. Thus, handheld games can offer an experience (beyond mere convenience) that you cannot get on a home console.
Yet, at the same time, a console experience can give you something you cannot get on a handheld (besides graphics). I touched upon that briefly citing survival horror and Silent Hill as an example, but I wanted to expand upon my belief that a portable PS2 might not work as well as we'd think as so many of my favorite PS2 games require them to be played in long doses. I don't think I could play something like Metal Gear Solid 3 or Okami in 15 minute increments on a commute. I mean technically I could, but I'd feel as if I were stopping just as soon as I'd get into the swing of things. Those two games in particular give you plenty of save points (not to mention the sleep function that is standard on handhelds these days), but I feel like they just take a lot out of me mentally to get in and out of that space.
Another thing I thought about after recording was my response to why big sites never pick a handheld game as Game of the Year- I believe there's a stigma attached to handheld games that they're just something to do as backup when you're not around a console. It seems to be a common belief that no one in their right mind would want to play these games when they could be playing a console game. That people only play portable games because they're portable. If they were so good, why aren't they on a console? I don't agree with this line of thinking, but that seems to be the mainstream media's take on the issue, and let's face it; we think about what we hear about. I loved Bangai-O Spirits, played it a ton for a week, then beat all the levels and never thought back on it. Why? Because no one else was talking about it. And that's something we need to change.
Furthermore, I hypothesized that the handheld market will be the future of the indie game market. I sure hope so. More people own DSs than any console out there, so you'd think releasing something like Braid or World of Goo on a DS or iphone would make more money, but perhaps not, as people wouldn't have written about it so much. Then again, no one expected so much to be written about Portal or Braid prior to their release, so maybe one of these days a handheld will have their sleeper-hit bringing them into the "hardcore" public eye. The World Ends With You and Patapon were a nice step in that direction certainly.
One a side note: Anyone else feel like Pixeljunk Eden would be perfect for a handheld? I may have seemed down on Sony on the podcast, but they have some brilliant software like that that would make for a great port for the PSP. There's my piece of constructive criticism for them, anyhow.
When I'm not writing for thegamereviews.com or trying to take over the world, I'm posting my thoughts, theories, and ruminations on all things videogame related here. I may also post stuff about my life, but I'll try to keep that to a minimum because it's probably less exciting.
Freelance game journalist for such sites as G4TV.com, GameSetWatch, Eurogamer, and Joystiq. Cunning, mysterious, and decidedly well-dressed, not much is known about J. Matulef other than that he has a moustache and cat named Oliver.
My new appearance on Big Red Potion is up in which we discuss Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. I'm sure this is a game I'll write more on later as it was one of my most pleasant surprises of the year, but for now enjoy the show.
