Games Gone Feral

This weekend I spent some time at the World Cyber Games at the Qwest Field Event Center. I was manning a booth for Surreal, as part of an special section of the event hosted by local game school Digipen. They were holding a series of presentations, most notably a Symposium for Women in Gaming that included our own Brigitte Samson, who gave a presentation on the growing role of the technical artist in game development. There were booths from other local developers there too, so it was great to get a chance to talk to folks from Zombie, Flying Lab, Monolith and Valve while at the show.

The booth, which we had to whip together sort of last-minute, was purposed as somewhere between education and recruiting. Unfortunately we didn’t have an announced title to talk about or show, so the theme of our booth was more about Midway overall than specifically about the Surreal studio. Luckily, we had some nice materials from Blacksite and Stranglehold… and since we share technology and even assets with those groups (our kick-ass artists and FX group have contributed some great work on those games as well), we consider them to all be part of the same family, so it was cool to represent our peeps nonetheless. (more…)

`Things have been really crazy lately at Surreal, but in spare moments I’ve been thinking about Rick’s manifesto on Japanese games and what it means to me. Certainly a great deal of the debate is personal taste… The cultural differences in the east that gain us interesting premises and memorable characters also net us irritatingly angst-ridden heroes, preachy monologues, immersion-breaking cutesy sidekicks, and existential, introspective endings. I had a similarly inspired discussion this week with some of the guys on the virtues of stealth games. Some love them, some hate them.

Somewhat coincidentally, I’ve been immersing myself in the work of three different continents lately: Bioshock, Overlord and Persona 3. While perhaps they are not completely iconic of the values of their respective region-coding, they certainly reminded me of some of the cultural differences I’ve seen in their products over the years. Here are some broad generalizations on the qualities of Japanese and American games:

Japan:

• Japanese games tend to mix up settings, so that fantasy is often mixed with sci-fi, psionics, westerns, or whatever. The setting and content often just serve the game creator’s style, creating a certain type of character, or having some sort of visual impact, even if explanations are thin.
• Content is experienced in a fairly linear fashion, even in open-ended RPG’s. Major events are always presented in order, as there is no expectation of “the player writing their story”. The player is definitely being “spoken for” by the mostly mute main character.
• Characters are strongly defined, very early in the game. Each has a distinct look and clearly identifiable motivations. Even when the game has customization of equipment, it tends to not interfere with the character’s graphic. Whether he or she is wearing a feathered cap or a robot helmet, they still appear in the stylish outfit the character designer created. (more…)

Last week I noticed that my playing habits were heavily slanted (on a measure of 10 to 1) towards titles coming out of the East (primarily from Japan) over anything from the West (North America and Europe). That sparked a seemingly simple question: Why?

There is no easy answer. It’s not “is this black and is this white”? It’s “why do I feel this way about games?” Of course, that doesn’t mean I won’t step up to the line and try to tackle it…

After some pondering, I’ve thought of a number of reasons. None of these answer everything, and of course I’m painting with a broad brush here… Certainly there are Western games that succeed on some of these points and there are also Japanese games that fail on some. That’s a given. First, some quick thoughts: (more…)

At E3 2006 I was surprised by a game that came out of the blue and had interesting, exciting combat, a very cinematic style and a cool-looking character. On the show floor I played through the arena they showed twice, despite the lines and all the other things there were to see. It was Heavenly Sword, and it was the reason I finally broke down and bought a PS3.

I had a brief moment of doubt when the demo came out and I didn’t have as much fun as I did at E3… it seemed to be missing a sense of context, and the frame rate seemed worse. Nonetheless, since I had owned a PS3 for two months and still had no games, I bought it this weekend and cracked it out on Sunday.

I love it. Screw the people that gave it weak reviews. It’s got: (more…)

So I was chatting with Pat a couple days ago and while everyone else was drooling over Bioshock, I was hammering through Persona 3. I’m salivating for Warriors Orochi which, as the tenth or so iteration of a last-gen title, I’m probably the only one in the U.S. dying for it. It was at that point, as I set Pat straight on the differences between Warriors Orochi and the in-development Dynasty Warriors 6, that I had a rather startling realization: I don’t care about “Western” games.

It wasn’t intentional or anything… I didn’t wake up one morning and say, “Hey, friends and co-workers: F’ You!”. But, like it or not, just looking at both the games I’m anticipating and the games that I’ve played in the last two years,I’ve really only gotten into a grand total of two games not developed in Japan: One from North America (Oblivion) and one from Europe (Overlord). I average about 20 games a year so we’re talking almost twenty to one! (more…)

I hit PAX on Friday and Saturday, so I should post my notes before they become irrelevant…  It was my first PAX, although I’ve been to many similar con-type events in the past.

General show:

• With its unabashed “nerdcore” attendee list, PAX is better described as a mini-GenCon than a mini-E3. They have an impressive size for being a fairly young show, but it still is very much centered around fandom of the Penny Arcade comic. The sessions with the authors and on the PA game were some of the hottest tickets, as opposed to other sessions talking about more “serious” topics of development.  Not surprising, it’s not supposed to be a GDC or anything, despite heady topics about PR and episodic content.
• On the upside, it actually had a fairly impressive turnout of games in playable form, including many that I hadn’t seen before in any form. I assume that falling at the same time as Leipzig gave the publishers some ready-made material to show.
• Aside from what I mention below, there was a great spread of playable games:  Haze, Eye of Judgment, Metroid Prime 2, Conan (console), Heavenly Sword (a new demo), Warhammer Online, a big America’s Army thing, and several dozen more I’m not thinking of here.
• Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony and EA all made an appearance, which is impressive given recent news that E for All won’t have that sort of backing.
• Overall PAX surprised me with an air of “legitimacy” as a serious show. It would take a couple more years, but if it ultimately balloons into a notable national event, it’ll be cool for Seattle. (more…)

I attended PAX on Friday and Saturday. Here are some quick hits, thoughts, and impressions.

• “The new E3” is a bit of a stretch, it’s significantly smaller, but, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It definitely had the E3 vibe, but it was almost like a lot of the obscure “back basement of the expo” booths you saw at E3 made it to the frontline at PAX. This was also OK, as those obscure, back-of-the-expo booths at E3 were usually my favorites of the show.

• The large table-top gaming presence at PAX was a big differentiation between it and E3, and as a rabid traditional gamer, that pleased me greatly. The problem was that I didn’t have the attention span or patience to really focus in on someone’s demo of a new CCG or board game. So, I saw lots of games I thought would be interesting to check out, but never actually focused in enough to learn how to play.

• That’s a general problem I have at game expos. It’s all so overwhelming and coming at you, I end up staggering around like a zombie with shiny objects competing so hard for my attention that ultimately, none of them get more than ten seconds of it. (more…)

This morning I checked out the official site for Dynasty Warriors 6 (or DW5 in Japan)… and, after watching the video, I admit it. I’m excited. I’ve bought every game (including both Samurai Warriors) since I first gave the series a try at Dynasty Warriors 4 and now have Orochi Warriors on pre-order. The question I have to pose however is… why?

The Warriors series rarely gets good reviews anymore. Gametab reports a series high average score of about 80% (For DW 3 and 4) and an average score of 63% for the most recent Samurai Warriors 2. Nonetheless, my PS2 is reporting 120+ hours played on Samurai Warriors 2… There must be a disconnect! Despite poor scores, despite “playing the same game before”, I’m itching for it. I’m about ready to stage a cunning raid upon Pat’s office even as I write this. The programmers and designers between there and will never know what hit them!

So… um… WTF?

Before I go one I should quickly note why I find The Warriors series so compelling. Certainly there’s the shear awesomeness of being presented with a battlefield of hundreds (or thousands) of enemies and being able to say, “Bring it on.” But it’s more than that: It’s important to note that it’s not you vs. a thousand… it’s you as the hero of an army. (more…)

For many people a job in the Games Industry is a lifelong dream, but there’s never been a clear path to set yourself on which would take you straight to that dream. Thankfully, that’s all changing.

But first, let’s talk about The Dark Times. I think it’s important for you to understand what things used to be like, so you can fully appreciate that they aren’t like that anymore.

Then

Traditionally, getting a job in the Games Industry involved a lot of luck, sacrifice or both.

Some people, going to college for a Computer Science degree, or Philosophy, or Basketball, happened across groups of friends who were similarly passionate about games. Some very few of these groups developed games or game demos. Even fewer were somehow able to start up tiny companies, either because one of them had a rich uncle or because they were willing to sign away their firstborn to a publisher (assuming that a publisher was interested in their firstborn). This was “The Dream”, and it never actually happened to anyone you knew, and it certainly never happened to you. (more…)

Another E3 has come and gone…  This is the first one I haven’t been to in years, and from most reports it’s a very subdued event.  Sounds like I didn’t miss much.

I’m a total game trailer junkie, so when E3 rolls around I completely fill my hard drive with as much footage as possible…  and then spend a week or more getting around to seeing everything.  I also Tivo all the coverage on G4 and zip through it at a rate of probably 10 minutes per hour of footage, which is good since there was like 12 hours of it this year.

After all that watching, however, there weren’t any big reveals, no huge news.  I enjoyed seeing more Super Mario Galaxy, but much of the coverage both on the net and on cable seemed to rehash and revisit the same few titles: Assasin’s Creed, Drake’s Fortune, Ratchet and Clank, Call of Duty 4, Bioshock, and only a handful more.  Perhaps the coverage just skipped over the smaller titles (IGN has a much larger list than GameTrailers), but I hope that despite the size reduction of E3 there will remain to be room for smaller games and smaller publishers. 

One of my professional responsibilities (and something I enjoy) is to scan E3 for existing or emerging trends in games.  Interestingly, while previous years seemed to indicate that open-world games were on the rise, they (thank goodness) didn’t emerge in the everyday GTA mold.  Instead, a number of the new games have a good dose of “player freedom” and “emergent tactics”, which you could call a semantic difference but it feels more meaningful to gameplay.  Bioshock, Burnout, Skate, Mercenaries, Medal of Honor, Turok, Assassin’s Creed, and others are starting to perhaps “get it” in terms of letting the player shape their own gameplay experience…  This is certainly a much more interesting lesson to gain from the success of GTA than to simply attempt to make “yet another thug game in a modern city”. 

Even the games without sprawling cityscapes seemed to have their hands full…  most of these games had some very long development periods.  That sh*t’s hard work, and next-gen is no picnic!