Games Gone Feral

An article has been making the rounds on video game blogs and email lists recently. It’s about recent research done by a man named Steven Franconeri concerning the human brains ability to track multiple moving objects at one time. The researchers found that the brain seems to top out at 8 objects, even if they moved very slowly, and that number dropped the faster the objects moved. Obviously this has implications for how we think about game design. When I read the article, I started thinking not only about how the research applies to games, but more importantly how it may not. I did a little thought experiment in my head, and for this experiment my test case was Robotron.

In Robotron, the player must be aware of more than 8 rapidly moving objects at a time in order to stay alive and succeed. So this seemingly contradicts the research. However, the experiment the people in the study were asked to perform was to maintain FOCUS on multiple objects at one time. If you try if for yourself, you will see a field of balls. Some of these balls flash to let you know you must focus on them, and then they move around for a period of time at some speed. Then the balls you were supposed to focus on turn red and you can see if you could track them. (more…)

(* as in, character in many games… honest… *ahem*)

So Rick wrote a very eloquent post recently on this very blog about freedom and immersion in games… or more specifically about why the hell that bloody great hulking mute in the orange suit never talks, and in fact could be accused of allowing the action to happen around him, instead of to him.

OK, I’m with him on the idea that in-game cinematics are to a degree worse than out-and-out cutscenes. In fact, one of the problems I have with our own game Suffering: Ties That Bind is that if you’re looking the wrong way at a key point, you won’t see the cutscenes. (This happens in Torque’s apartment, for example, where his kid is running down the hallway while I’m casually studying the flocked wallpaper, so not only do I miss half his dialog, but I don’t see him getting smacked around by some demon with a baseball bat with nails driven through it).

However, I’m not a huge fan of cut-scenes for one very big specific reason. (more…)

This is, in many ways, a follow up to my last post. I can honestly say it’s great to see the blog begin to turn towards real discussion here. This is awesome. Thus for today’s topic I will forgo my intended topic and instead present the idea that refuses to die! The zombie of game design! Silent Protagonist I’m calling you out! Be prepared to receive a shovel to the head and a fistful of boomstick!

Kill the Silent Protagonist!

I am serious when I say that this is the worst idea that infects video games right now. It’s even worse than the plethora of half-hearted button combo cutscenes that have infected games since Resident Evil 4 and God of War. This evil, this disease, is the idea of a Silent Protagonist. Its symptoms are easy to diagnose: the protagonist never speaks and as seemingly important events fly by he/she says nothing further all the NPCs go to great lengths to talk around the player and advance the story almost inspite of him while he stands mute. It appears as a terrible, horrific, mark upon otherwise good or even great games. Half-Life 2 and Dragon Quest 8 are perfect high profile examples in people’s recent memories.

I understand the rationale: Because the Protagonist never speaks the player‘s immersion is never broken. The player can believe that they really are the protagonist!

I just can’t buy that… it destroys storytelling. Imagine a movie where the main character never talks? Frankly if it was actually a compelling idea Hollywood would be using it. They may recycle a lot but they’re not stupid. It is the realm of perhaps one great art movie and nothing more. Or ask yourself, were the Choose Your Own Adventure books the height of good writing? (more…)

Today I want to address one of greatest myths in the gaming industry: the assertion that freedom = immersion. Specifically I’ll focus on storytelling and cutscenes here… There are some lessons that can be carried into gameplay to be certain, but lets be clear that this is not my point.

You see, at times I have heard put forth within these very walls, the idea that cutscenes are bad and that storytelling should always be done in-game. Let me state my thesis bluntly: This is wrong. In fact, I will even argue that, when used properly, a good cutscene is more immersive than in game cinematics!

There are two schools of thought in storytelling:

1. The player plays a character. You play “Link” and there are important points where the character into whose shoes you’re stepping gets to express themselves. For example, this is when you see Midna begin to actually grow to like Link… It’s very classic storytelling.
2. The character is the player. You are “Gordon Freeman” and things happen to you as if you were the character, where your reactions are his. This shares much in common with improv theater.

Now “classic storytelling” is good, we know it is… It’s essentially been refined since the dawn of mankind. Of course there’s good and bad storytelling, and it won’t appeal to everyone, but when done well it’s strong, compelling, and doable. (And then there’s Metal Gear Solid… wtf?)

However, in what should come as little surprise, improv theater sucks when you have unwilling participants. But what throws me is why developers think that the player would (and should!) play along… Frankly, the overwhelming majority of players are unwilling participants. This is even true of gamers like me with a strong appreciation for story (in games or any format). Imagine, if you will, a band of merry stage actors with excellent improvisational skills. Now imagine a stereotypical Halo player hopping up onstage along with them. Seriously… just imagine it… Go ahead, I’ll wait…

…wow…

…omg…

…ok, yeah, that… that wasn’t cool. (more…)

Lately my wife has been playing MySims on the Wii. This game is best described as The Sims without the personal hygiene and a dash of Animal Crossing… Or actually a whole dumptruck load of Animal Crossing, where the truck in question has balloons and hearts and stars painted on the side.

The balance of building stuff instead of managing deep relationships led to lower reviews of MySims, but that’s fine, it’s what my wife always hated about the original. She wanted less of the voyeurism and more opportunities to build her house. (Women seem to dig building stuff, n’est pas?). This game not only let you decorate your pad, but build furniture and decorate them with standard carpentry hardware like anger and puppies.

Anyway, she threw herself headlong into it, playing several hours a day. She can obsess over certain tites (LOTRO being the most recent), so I expected the romance to last a week, at least. Three days later I noticed she wasn’t playing, so I asked why. Apparently, the town she was sprucing up had different sectors in it that needed exploring, like desert and forest and caves (no word on the lava-with-mine-cart sector). Each section had places that you could build houses for once you attracted a character to come to town. The reason she stopped, however, was that the town had a star rating that went up as you progressed through the game. Once you reached five stars, no matter what your plans were, the game “ended”, with credits and the whole deal. (more…)

Ah Peter… I see you like making a statement. Awesome, this blog is a mix of all our opinions, and you’ve done a good job of backing up your own point of view. I’m not particularly suprised about your reaction to Halo’s health mechanics though… You’re an old-school online gamer, forged in the searing online fires of Mount Quake.

In contrast, as I’ve stated before, I like to play shooters (starting with Doom and its awesome shotgun) balls-out fearless, working out interesting ways to leap into the fray and rely on guts and skill to get the job done. Sure I like sessions of strategy too, but there are times where I just enjoy acting like a hero and being rewarded as such. I don’t even mind getting mowed down in tragic fashion if it’s due to my bravado. Such an approach does play havoc with my survivability in certain online contests (notably against Mr. Carlson), but I have fun doing it nonetheless.

The classic 100% health model, however, played a bit at odds with my play style. For me, each room or area of Doom is a fairly self-contained challenge, but upon completion I might have lower health than is practical to move onto the next session and still survive… you can’t always rely on the placement of health kits to get you back up to snuff. I’d often load up a save and try to get through that area with more health. This honed my skill and let me practice new ways of clearing a room, but as time went on, I found myself starting to play the game very “safe”… luring enemies around corners, slowly harassing opponents and so on. Doom suddenly became a very slow game to me. I enjoy tactical exercises like Rainbow Six as much as the next guy, but it wasn’t what I was looking for in a classic action shooter. (more…)

There, I said it. And believe me, I understand that when you say something like that, you’d damn well better mean it, and back it up, because I’m just begging to be called bitter, reactionary. I just want to hate what everybody else loves. I am small-minded and I should just get over it.

But that’s not the case. I popped Halo 3 into my 360 fully expecting to love it and then I just… didn’t.

I am an avid FPS gamer, coming from the Doom tradition and yes, from the PC tradition. I love to bust in, guns blazing, reaction speed amped up to max, in the zone, a God of destruction. I’m looking for that same forced brain overclock that Geometry Wars provided, or Tetris Attack, or Soul Calibur. I recently got that fix playing BioShock and I was hungrily anticipating it from Halo 3.

But Halo 3 smacked me down, with shields. Pat Lipo will have me believe that Halo’s shield system enables me to perform heroic acts! Because I don’t have to worry about health, I can leap into the fray and be the demon that deep inside I know I am. But, for me at least, that’s not the case at all. Every time I start having fun, Halo holds up a little Stop sign, “Whoa there buddy! Sure you’re having fun now, but hiding behind a rock is fun too! Why not take a breather?” I can’t make my way through the furious battle over to that health pack and continue the carnage. I can’t load up on first aid kits and burn through them in a glorious rampage. I have to go and hide. Rampage for 15 seconds then hide and wait. I’m not a hero, I’m a huge fucking pussy. (more…)

Recently I played a game (I won’t point fingers) that obviously changed the difficulty level automatically after I failed a challenge.  Now while I appreciate that the game recognized that I had failed a couple of times and that the intentsions were good, I’m not so sure that I liked having the game take the liberty of making it easier for me “under-the-hood” without my consent.  After all, I had already chosen my difficulty level when I started the game and wanted the challenge but that’s not what I got.  Here’s what I would have preferred:  How about letting me change the difficulty level whenever I want to?  This way, if I run into something I find too difficult (or too easy), I have the option to change it on-the-fly.  Or, how about prompting me (like God of War, for example) with the option to make this particular section of the game easier if I would like to do that?  But please, don’t just change the difficulty on me without letting me know or providing me any options to either turn off the auto-adjustment or to control the change in difficulty level myself.

Lately I’ve been working on both Surreal’s current game as well as concepts for future games, and this issue has come up a few times. As you may have guessed from previous articles, the concept of “more for the sake of more” is not something I subscribe to. Game development is always about the allocation of resources and determining where those resources are best made use of. So when it comes to adding details, sometimes there are tough conversations to have about the scope of a game, along with its sibling, the scale of a game.

Think of the large, open-world of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. In this world, the player can travel around 10 miles end-to-end (representing a geographical space around 100 simulated miles long) You can drive along mountain roads, and enter cities and visit a few selected buildings. The game is primarily about getting in a vehicle and driving. When you deal with people at all, it is generally with a group or crowd. Enemies can be dispatched in 1-2 shots and can be destroyed several at a time. Aside from story moments, most of the player’s interaction level is in terms of streets, with objectives that take the player to “that building”. Sure, there are moments inside of buildings such as shootouts, but if we had to give an arbitrary scale to the game, we could say that there is perhaps 20 meters between items of interest in GTA.
(more…)

Recently I overheard a co-worker talking about how much he loved a well-designed fixed-perspective camera. Immediately I chimed in, saying how much I dislike fixed cameras, and the lack of player control they provide. Being a FPS/TPS gamer, I love the freedom of being able to adjust my camera as I play. His rebuttal was simple… “Play God of War”.

Knowing that I was the last individual I know of that hadn’t played God of War, I agreed to borrow it and give it a try. I booted up my PS2, telling myself I would keep an open mind. Little did I know that I was going to be immersed in rich, bloody combat and incredible fantasy. Instantly, the in-depth combat system made me forget the fixed camera. I was trying to stack attacks on top of timed blocks, in order to get the highest combos possible. I was so pleased with the graphics and detail that I found myself exploring the environment to appreciate it as I played through the game. (more…)