Gamer Melodico

Game Over, Man!

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Apczynski) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 01:26:00 +0000

One of the toughest things about not having a bona fide career in games writing is not getting to join in the exquisite fun of lambasting a terrible game.

I’m almost certainly over-romanticizing the notion. I suppose I’ve played enough games that were soul-crushingly bad—and plenty of others that were on the fence but just bad enough to make me wish I’d gone to play outside—to know that playing enough of an awful title to give it a proper review can be a rough experience. But it’s an easy fact to forget when, for the past few days, my Twitter feed has been a mob of game journos gleefully chomping at the bit for Gearbox’s Aliens: Colonial Marines embargo to end.

As a semi-semi-professional games writer (“semi-professional” would perhaps be overselling my current freelance backlog), watching a release like Colonial Marines go up in flames is a uniquely frustrating experience. There’s a palpable desire to contribute to the bonfire—we are compelled to write about video games because there are compelling stories to tell, and what’s more compelling than an abject failure?

Penny Arcade Report’s Ben Kuchera at least makes me feel a little better about my lack of insider status:

Colonial Marines made me wish for a 9 to 5 job in the city. Something with a nice cubicle and a packed lunch.

I hate to go all Metacritic on people’s carefully paced reviews, but I can’t help but be awestruck at the degree to which this game has offended the sensibilities of games reviewers from around the globe. Nearly every aspect—gameplay, writing, animation, sound, and “tone deaf adoration of the source material” (says Kuchera)—has been found wanting. Polygon’s Arthur Gies explores that last point a little further in his review, outlining the degree to which the game leans on the legacy of the Alien movies while also circumventing canon.

Rather than work around existing fiction that most licensed games follow, Gearbox has instead taken it upon itself to play the part of revisionist. Aliens: Colonial Marines actively rewrites the film canon, and they do it in the most hackneyed way possible: by bringing back the dead . . . The end result feels craven and exploitative of its source material and the fans that will hopefully know better.

And perhaps most damningly of all, in a bullet-point review that also includes the words “Oh God, why won’t it end?”, Rock Paper Shotgun’s John Walker offers:

The saddest thing to report is that Aliens: Colonial Marines doesn’t even achieve that “so bad you just have to see it” place . . . It’s not even the “If you found a copy in a charity shop you’d have to experience it” level of awful.

That last part is pretty much the nail in the coffin for me—what’s left to say after we can’t even hold onto “so bad, it’s good”? Not much. I did not play Aliens: Colonial Marines, and it appears I never will.

Don’t misunderstand; I’m glad to see the system in action. There may be the occasional disagreement about the nature or purpose of a game review, but as a games consumer for whom the original Alien trilogy maintains a somewhat sacred status (let us speak not of Alien: Resurrection), I have to be glad not to have wasted precious funds. If you’re like me, please join me in my thanks to the brave Colonial Marines who sacrificed their time so that the rest of us might never have to.

10000000 Reasons to Love Freedom

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Apczynski) — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 18:30:00 +0000

I had the strangest dream, you guys.

I was playing around on Twitter and I noticed a few people talking about this game called 10000000. It seemed like they were having fun, so I went to the app store and found it.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up in this tower full monsters whose only fear was my skill at Bejeweled.

It wasn't exactly clear what I was supposed to be doing, but that number haunted me at every turn: 10000000. Reminders of that cruel figure were everywhere, and nowhere. I nearly drowned in zeroes. Were they real, or imaginary? 10000000. What number is that, even? The lack of commas reminded me of the editor I once had been. I played Bejeweled with all my might, and yet it seemed that 10000000 might as well be 100000000.

As the enemies fell around me, I began collecting RPG tropes: Experience, gold, weapons and armor, perks, building materials... but for the first time in as long as I can remember, it was my score that mattered. In the dream. My dream had a scoreboard.

I'd perform an epic run through the dungeon, but I'd wake up back at the top of that tower to do it all over again. And again. And then some shopping. And then again. My score crawled painfully skyward, pushing into the 2000000s, the 5000000s, the 9000000s. I grew stronger and stronger, until I could advance no more. And yet, for all my strength, I felt weak. So weak. So powerless.

And finally, I launched my ultimate dungeon run.

11164589! There had never been a more beautiful random string of digits. I'm not entirely sure how to say that number, but I was almost certain it was more than 10000000.

But then I woke up in real life at the TOP OF THE TOWER FROM MY DREAM. "NO!" I cried, "THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!" But then it was totally just like the last morning in Groundhog Day because this time there was a door:

So I walked into it. And then:

Truer words there never were. Free from zeroes. Free from gold and stone and wood and experience. Free from 10000000.

A Lazarus Project of My Very Own

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Apczynski) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 21:09:00 +0000

When last I left John Shepard: Infiltrator, he was a man defined by flux; caught between life and death, rugged heroism and chaotic neutrality. My Mass Effect 1 paragon had died and been reborn a Mass Effect 2 renegade, and while the change didn't always sit quite right by me, there was at least comfort to be found in one constant: that ugly, familiar face.

I wasn't sure who my Mass Effect 3 Shepard would turn out to be when I slid the game disc into my Xbox for the first time last night. Considering this, I instructed the game to import my ME2 character, and four years of decisions spread out before me. My Shepard had spared Wrex and the Rachni queen, destroyed Mordin’s data, bedded Liara and Miranda. Most recently/controversially, he had turned the Collector base over to Cerberus. They weren’t all pretty, but those were the choices he had made. I hit the A button to continue.

At first I didn't understand. “Mass Effect 3 cannot successfully determine the custom face code used by this imported save game. Please update your character's appearance.”

I blinked at the screen. I pressed A again. An alternate Shepard stared back at me. I recognized him as the quarterback-looking Shepard from the game’s packaging. I moved the cursor down to custom appearance. A different Shepard this time—face vaguely shaped like John Shepard: Infiltrator but with utterly indistinct features, as though my Shepard had been blasted with sand.

I pressed B—take me back. The game dumped me out onto the main menu. I tried again, unsuccessfully. It was a bug, and there was no going back. John Shepard: Infiltrator was gone.

Was it a sign? Had my Shepard run his course?

I had resisted the near-unanimous cries of others that FemShep was the real Shepard; maybe it was time to give her a try. But I just couldn’t bear it—the game wouldn’t allow me to change sexes while preserving my previous choices. I had to decide between playing with a different backstory entirely, or building a brand new, male Shepard.

I considered it: the Lazarus Project had rebuilt Shepard once—maybe this was my chance to rebuild him myself. And so I gave it a try. I fiddled with the sliders trying to get that lovable boot-face just right, pitting jaw size against ear orientation for a good 20 minutes. He’s not pretty; nor is he a perfect replica—but here he is: John Shepard: Infiltrator, back from the dead once again. Click the image for a closer look, and let me know how I did.

The Art of the SOPA Blackout

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Apczynski) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:25:00 +0000

I’m home sick from work today, and as is my home-sick routine, I spent some of this morning watching the Today Show in bed. I don’t know why I do it—it’s a terrible show, but it’s a tradition. And a dependable one: I always know it will be there, Matt Lauer turning the organ crank while his castmates grind out center-right headlines and neutered advertorial. It’s awful, but I can’t look away.

Today, the crew spoke with Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of Product Development, about today’s “Google Doodle” (a black censorship bar across the usual Google logo) in protest of SOPA. Lauer & Co. gave her about five seconds to discuss Google’s opposition to the legislation before saying that the bill was supported by NBC’s parent company, Comcast, and moving on to talking about the Google Doodles in a more general, apolitical fashion.

Google is not alone in its protest—many large sites today have either altered their homepages or even suspended activities to illustrate their stances on the bill. As much as I personally detest SOPA (that’s the Stop Online Piracy Act, in case you haven't heard, and you can read some great pieces about it at Kotaku, Gamasutra, Wired, and Unwinnable), it just doesn't make much sense to take Gamer Melodico dark—it'd be too difficult to tell the difference!

Instead, let’s take a minute to reflect on the blacked-out pages themselves, and ponder how a closed Internet would change the way we communicate in the digital age.

Google:

Wired:

Firefox:

Boing Boing:

Wikipedia:

Reddit:

Gamasutra (whose homepage links to the article mentioned above):

Imgur:

Cracking Final Fantasy XIII's Immersion Problem

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Apczynski) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:12:00 +0000

Last week, in anticipation of Square-Enix’s upcoming Final Fantasy sequel-within-a-sequel (INCEPTION!), Jason Schreier wrote a piece for Joystiq titled, “Why Final Fantasy XIII Just Didn’t Work.”

It’s a fine title; Final Fantasy XIII absolutely did contain serious problems that took an immersion-breaking toll on the experience. Last year, I wrote a thing about where I felt the game’s storytelling had gone awry, but Schreier’s piece hits at a deeper issue—a player-experience problem entirely prior to character or story or setting:

Other Final Fantasy games create the illusion of choice, using techniques like sidequests, towns, world maps, vehicles, and even optional bosses to make you feel like you can actually veer from the script . . . You can’t progress until you do what the game wants you to do next, but you can see more than what it wants you to see. It feels like you're visiting the world of Final Fantasy VII, not just watching it.

And he’s really onto something! I’d add to Schreier's thoughts that it’s more than just the freedom to explore that creates that feeling of immersion. While the earlier games do involve the “illusion of choice” that he identifies, it’s more than just a narrative sleight-of-hand—it is the pivot point for the in-game challenges that have kept players buying ether potions for all of these years.

By not placing you on rails toward your next destination, earlier Final Fantasy games gave us a series of simple problems to solve—in particular, “Where do I go next?” Although this sounds more like an Easter egg hunt than a fantastic puzzler, this ambiguity tugs at the player throughout. By necessity, our intrepid heroes (a long line of attractive yet emotionally reclusive swordfighters pushing back against emerging imperialist forces) engaged townsfolk, gathered clues, and followed the compass rose in uncertain directions. The games’ gradual reveal and sense of freedom allow us the chance to experience the world just like our characters (who, in most cases, are also experiencing parts of the world for the first time). Our decisions, challenges, and victories are united, creating a genuine feeling of shared experience.

Was this exploration occasionally frustrating? Of course it was. Striking out from the safety of the village to follow a rumor along a vague northeasterly diagonal carried no guarantees and could easily prove hazardous to your party. This particular strain of questing promoted grind and gold farming (the former of which, some have argued, remains a problem in FFXIII). Particularly when coupled with the exhaustible resources that marked the earlier games, this provided a difficulty curve that was severely handicapped in XIII. These challenges (and rewards!) created a trustworthy relationship with the player that helped in part to dull the sense of grind. The predecessors demanded our attention, because without it, the games could not progress.

Despite or because of these issues, the opportunity to rise to the games’ challenges has traditionally been one of the most rewarding things about the Final Fantasy series. While the earlier games’ story and characters may be the selling points for many fans, I’d opine that the ability to forge our own paths—even within the confines of a script—is the vehicle toward participating more fully within that story, and that Schreier’s article is right on when it points to illusion of choice as the core difference between FFXIII and its predecessors. Head over to Joystiq and check out what he has to say, it’s a great read!

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Lead image was heartlessly pilfered from Siliconera's interview with Square-Enix’s Motomu Toriyama.

Under My Thumb: Super Crate Box

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Apczynski) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 06:58:00 +0000

Just the other day, I posted about how, despite the wonder and convenience and social acceptability of iPhone gaming, the nature of touchscreen controls left me wishing for buttons and/or invisible thumbs.

The very next day, a maddeningly addictive game called Super Crate Box came into my life. I've never wanted buttons so much in my life.

In case you haven’t played, here’s the basic rundown: You assume the role of one of a surprisingly diverse cast of Meat Boy-esque action heroes, and find yourself at the center of a Mario Bros-inspired set of platforms. There is a single crate to collect. Once you get it, another randomly generates somewhere on the screen. Each crate holds a weapon, and each new weapon automatically replaces whatever weapon you had just a moment ago. Add a boatload of enemy creatures who end your game with a single touch, and stir.

After an evening’s worth of crate collecting, I have a whopping high score of 13.

It’s not that the controls aren’t tight—they are. But with a game this challenging, in which every fraction of a second absolutely means life or death, there’s just no substitute for tactile controls. Beyond that, new crates often warp in directly under the dedicated thumb-spots, camouflaging beneath the controller icons even when you’ve moved your digits out of the way. Observe the following screenshot (with a cameo by my actual thumbs):

It’s pretty easy to take a clear limitation like this and say, “If only I could play this with an Xbox controller—I’d be SO MUCH BETTER AT IT¹.” So that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

Am I nitpicking? Absolutely, I am. Priced at $0.99 for iOS, Super Crate Box is an absolute steal. Dig around for change in your couch and go buy it. Don’t think about it. Just do it.

I dare you to try and beat 13 crates.
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¹ PC and Mac OS versions are actually free and available right here, so if I really wanted to test the truth of this, it would completely be within my power to do so. As it is, I’d prefer to ignore this and let my assertion stand.

Update: New high-score as of Jan 11 is 60 crates. Although, apparently, that's nothing.

3DSuccess! A Tale of Two Handhelds

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Apczynski) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 07:29:00 +0000

Today, Nintendo announced that the 3DS cleared 4 million units in the US in 2011. Last week, I bought Grand Theft Auto III for my iPhone.

These facts are completely unrelated. And yet, one has me thinking about the other.

My last dedicated handheld gaming system was Nintendo’s Game Boy, a constant companion for me throughout most of grade school and then again (in color!) during a brief hospital stay in the late ’90s. The controls were rudimentary by today’s standards: just two main buttons and a directional pad—essentially an NES controller fused onto a tiny screen, packaged in a unit that was as heavy as it was greedy for AA batteries. I kept it in a zippered pouch made for the device and big enough to hold 10 games. It was black around the sides with a neon green top and bottom. It had a shoulder strap. I was very uncool.

My iPhone 4S holds more than 10 games. I just counted them—including GTA3, I currently have 26 installed and ready to go. (I’m counting my beloved IF app Frotz as just one game.) The device is super lightweight, and its batteries recharge nightly. I don’t have to carry it around in a bright green purse, and I can play a discreet round of Drop7 on MUNI without feeling utterly self-conscious about my gaming habit. I am still uncool, but I fake it alright.

But despite the convenience and technological marvel of smartphone gaming, I still miss having a dedicated handheld. It’s good fun messing around with a nostalgia title like GTA3, but running around a game world like Liberty City with my own thumbs in my face just isn’t as satisfying an experience as when the controller and screen are separate entities. (Although it’s worth noting the fact that GTA3’s left "analog" control brilliantly centers wherever your thumb lands near the lower left corner of the touchscreen. It’s a nice improvement.) And while I do adore innovative touchscreen-specific titles like Cut the Rope, the amount of time I can spend pressing fingers into a stationary object before repetitive stress sets in is just not as long as I’d like it to be.

So congratulations, Nintendo. You’ve had some bumps along the road, but I’m glad that when the titles are there, there’s still a market for devices like the 3DS.

And as long as we’re on the topic, I’m standing by to receive my review unit. Call me!

A Handy Guide to the Literature of Skyrim

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Apczynski) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 22:10:00 +0000

I have to admit to a bit of a healthy preoccupation with the literature of Skyrim. I actually enjoy taking a moment away from adventuring to cozy up with a good book. Being a Skyrim bookworm has provided a big bonus for my skill trees and a boon to my character’s hobbyist fascination with alchemy, and occasionally even leads to a genuinely enjoyable work of in-game fiction.

At the same time, this preoccupation has not exactly affected my playthrough time in a positive way. There just isn’t enough time in a Dovahkiin’s life to read every book under the sun—and there are a lot of clunkers out there besides.

To cope, I’ve had to develop a system for separating the wheat¹ from the chaff, and there’s a definite method to my madness. Here's a handy flowchart:

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¹ This reminds me: just in case there are any other hobbyist alchemists out there who aren't already aware, wheat and blue mountain flower can be combined for a very handy healing potion. I didn’t learn that from a book, but whatever. Sometimes you have to just go live your life.

30 Minutes with Dark Souls

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Apczynski) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:30:00 +0000

I didn’t really believe it, but I get it now.

I recently spent some time discussing cruelty in current-gen games, and a friend asked why I had left out Dark Souls. The truth is that I hadn’t played it (or spiritual predecessor Demon’s Souls). After a single half-hour session with the game, I’m beginning understand why my post got him thinking about it. I haven’t encountered any actual cruelty yet (i.e., situations that have rendered a playthrough entirely unwinnable), but I can safely say that Dark Souls ranks among the most hostile games I’ve ever played.

The game’s unwelcoming attitude toward the player runs so deep that even before the game began it was clear that I was on enemy turf. When the initial options menu and character creation screens forced me to use the XBox 360 controller’s D-pad instead of the left control stick, I actually found myself wondering if it was already passive-aggressively trying to show me who was boss.

30 minutes later, my bloodstain (along with all of my collected souls and whatever else I dropped) now sits in a room with the huge Asylum Demon, who took me out during our second encounter after a surprisingly close battle. It was the second time I had died, but my first time dying in a room with a thing that I didn’t particularly want to go back and have to fight again. As far as I know my things are all still in there, waiting for me to fight my way back and claim them. After respawning, I turned the game off (not out of frustration, but in an effort to bring my heart rate down out of the cardio zone).

One hears the word “evil” thrown around a lot with regard to this game, and as strong as it is, it’s a pretty appropriate descriptor. The lack of any tutorial beyond superbrief fighting instructions occasionally scribbled along the path (As an aside, I’m really supposed to just remember these button combinations? Is this a fighting game?) leaves the novice player feeling isolated and alone—I’m as utterly unsure of the rules of this universe as I am about what lies in wait.

All that, and I’ve been thinking about it all day long.

So bring it, Dark Souls. After years of namby-pamby checkpoints and un-droppable quest items it’s good to find a game that doesn’t take me for granted. It’s good to have an enemy.

On Roman Numerals, Abuse of

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Apczynski) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 05:30:00 +0000

I can appreciate a good set of Roman numerals, I really can. There’s a certain elegance to a well-placed II or a III—a primitive sort of appeal that cuts above the artifice of language and says in the simplest possible terms, “This many.”

By IV (which is still a nice, elegant figure) the prima-facie simplicity offered by II and III has been thrown out the window, replaced by a demand that we know not just the significance of V but also a trick of subtraction that defies self-evidence. Roman numerals greater than X serve exactly two purposes in our everyday world, and grandfather clocks stop at XII. If you see the number XIII in print, you can be fairly certain you’re reading about a sequel to a long-in-the-tooth series from one of the following categories: slasher film, sporting event, or Final Fantasy game.

XIII is a hellish piece of typography. Look at it up there. They’ve gone and added a “-2” to the end of it.

And I get it—I’ve been a fan of the series since its first title came to the NES in the late ’80s—real O.G. shit, all the way. This is the first time we’re continuing a storyline from one installment to the next, and I suppose it warrants some kind of a new title convention. But mixing Arabic and Roman characters like this, it’s just—

Hang on, there’s blood coming out of my ear.

I’ll spare you the FFIV rant. I’ll just leave this here instead.

If I’m truthful about it, I really don’t care about the syntax of the thing—the bottom line for me is that I’d have no real problem embracing a “-2” Final Fantasy sequel if I felt attached to Lightning and company. Truth is, I’m still not exactly sure what happened at the end of XIII-1. (If anyone has any thoughts on that ending that they’d like to share, I’m happy to extend a blanket SPOILER ALERT over the comments section of this post. Let’s talk.)

If you disagree, forgive me—I’m just speaking my mind over here, so let me pose the question to the group. Is Final Fantasy XIII-πr² (or whatever) something you’re eagerly anticipating? Mildly interested in?

Word on the street is that the sequel’s sequel will be easier to follow* than the previous installment. Here’s hoping.

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* After a cursory fact-check, I can’t seem to verify the sources behind this link, so please don’t take my word for it. Interesting nevertheless...

Thumb Crusher

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Apczynski) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 22:50:00 +0000

I recognize the irony in embedding the following video the day after splashing a large PETA logo at the top of a post, I really do.

A friend of mine forwarded me what you’re about to see, and I initially watched just enough of it to get the idea—it’s really kind of amazing! I’m no biologist, but I have to reckon that the frog is acting on instinct, responding to the ant-like visual stimuli the only way it knows how. And while it’s safe to assume that Mr. Frog’s actions only resemble “play” as we know it, the whole thing does sort of make one wonder just how close our own mental processes are aligned when we play whack-a-mole-style games like Ant Crusher—or even more complex games that require fast reaction to visual cues (I honestly can’t stop thinking about Left 4 Dead).

It wasn’t until I started preparing this post that I finished watching the video. Is it possible that the human’s response to the "Game Over" screen is a similar sort of reflexive action?

Because if so, HA. Either way, I believe this round goes to Mr. Frog.

Throw Lamp into Chasm: The Cruelty Scale

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Apczynski) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 18:44:00 +0000

“Cruelty.” Don't do a Google Image search, trust me. As far as games are concerned, it’s a great word.

As I have come to know it, the “Cruelty Scale” was devised by IF author Andrew Plotkin (a.k.a. Zarf, creator of a ton of amazing interactive fiction, including the insidiously cruel A Change in the Weather), will be relatable to any fan of the genre. Here’s a quick copy/paste of the scale from Plotkin’s own summary:

Merciful: cannot get stuck
Polite: can get stuck or die, but it’s immediately obvious that you’re stuck or dead
Tough: can get stuck, but it’s immediately obvious that you’re about to do something irrevocable
Nasty: can get stuck, but when you do something irrevocable, it’s clear
Cruel: can get stuck by doing something which isn’t obviously irrevocable (even after the act)

While many games from outside the IF genre can be plotted along this spectrum, it's not a concept that fits very well with regard to games from more recent generations. Maybe the frustration players receive from “getting stuck” was enough to have it all but banned from use in today’s big-budget titles. Compare Maniac Mansion, which could quietly be rendered unwinnable from within the character selection screen¹, to Skyrim, which forces you to hold onto an inventory full of quest-related items so that none of its many tangled storylines becomes un-finshable.

Dragon Age: Origins and Cruelty By Stupidity

Where was this guy when I needed him?

It’s been a while since I played a really cruel game. Close for me was my playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins, during which I absolutely failed to pack enough health potions before signing on for the game’s final act. Slogging through the Darkspawn apocalypse while waiting for a shop that stocked an ample supply of potions or ingredients (it never came), I began to wonder whether I had played myself into a position where there was no way to win.

And yet, it’s disingenuous to place Dragon Age on the above scale—DA:O turns on a combination of skill, strategy, and dice rolls, so there was never a point where my playthrough had technically become unwinnable. But insofar as “cruel” describes a game that you can continue to play without realizing that you’ve passed a point where win conditions are no longer realistic, my experience was at least very close—in order to survive the final battle, I had to choose between backing up to an old save or lowering the difficulty. (After four hour-long battles ended in defeat, I went with the latter.)

That experience was a bit of a bummer, but real cruelty can actually be a good thing—when it works, cruelty adds something special to a game. Webster’s defines “cruel” as “disposed to inflict pain or suffering; devoid of humane feelings.” While they didn't have games in mind, I like this definition a lot, because it lends a game a certain diabolical consciousness. A cruel game doesn’t just allow you to get stuck—it delights in your pain and wasted time. A cruel game wants you to get stuck, and if you’re oblivious to the futility of your actions after you’ve passed the point of no return, all the better.

Moreover, a cruel game gives players an adversary outside the boundaries of narrative. Cruel games become a sort of meta-antagonist—you can thwart Zork’s thief and dwarf and grue, but you’re still left to contend with Zork. Better yet, this relationship means that the player must respect the tools he or she has been given to solve the problems that a cruel game presents.

No Consequences: The Cruel, Uncruel World of L.A. Noire

Looks deadly, sure, but he’s shooting blanks.

Forget Dragon Age—what really got me thinking about cruelty was L.A. Noire, which I completed recently (after putting it down and picking it back up many, many times). Everything about the game suggests that it should involve some degree of cruelty. Much of the game actually plays like an IF mystery title—you’re given areas in which to find and examine objects, characters to meet and evaluate, and crimes for which you must assemble solutions and carry out arrests. It’s possible to miss clues entirely or completely blow an interrogation—both fantastic and necessary parts of any respectable detective game. What good is it to try and solve a murder without the possibility that the perpetrators will go free?

And yet, despite my pathological insistence on achieving positive results from its interrogation scenes, the game gave not one shit about my commitment to crime-solving. As Detective Cole Phelps, it is entirely possible to fail spectacularly and yet progress through the game a legendary sleuth, garnering promotion after promotion even while intentionally shooting your cases in the foot (which you might as well do, because you can’t shoot much else).

Without much gameplay to fall back on, I felt compelled to stick around for L.A. Noire’s storyline—and when the story didn’t seem to care much about my level of participation, I couldn’t help but feel a little cheated; like I had purchased a game but was playing a film. Here was a game that easily could have involved a set of win conditions or even alternate outcomes based on performance, yet offered none of these. By allowing the player to fail both upward and forward, the game creates the uneasy feeling of a world with no consequences whatsoever.

Considering the themes established in the game’s opening and closing chapters, this is more than a little bit fitting—but it also establishes L.A. Noire as one of the most mind-blowingly uncruel games I’ve ever played. Its actions have no reactions. Its causes have no effects. Its crimes have no punishment.

One cannot fail to win because there is no way to lose.

And what could be crueler than that?

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Lead image for this story was unceremoniously stolen from PETA, whose website is a fantastic resource for real cruelty-free products. For what it's worth, L.A. Noire is not currently listed on their site.

¹ I sure hope you picked Bernard for your team. Does Maniac Mansion hold the record for fastest game-breaking?

Hurricane Heroism vs. Videogame Heroism

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Elmaleh) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:59:00 +0000

Wow, I am not a disaster fetishist. I loved Leigh Alexander’s article on the subject, which dropped just before Irene hit (or swung at and kind of missed New York City). Because I get my disaster updates along with all my other news from blithe, snarky old Twitter, that article might have been the thing that made me actually get disaster-ready serious. Like, “I’m not sure whether we should duct-tape the windows I guess we won’t but in case we’re wrong I’m going to buy bandage squares and gauze for our glass-serrated, wrong-ass faces” serious. I was moved and compelled by the latent human instincts that bubbled up in Leigh: the desire to rescue alley cats and help old ladies up stairs, to huddle together en-masse and bust through society-circumscribed personal space radii. Once I appreciated the potential gravity of the situation, the first impulse to bubble up in me was “BOLSTER THE BUNKER AND HUNKER THE FUCK DOWN, BITCHES!”

Hunkering down for an evening normally means videogames. Preparing for the worst, we bought a battery-powered radio and candles and planned readings of Nabokov—but we ended up having power throughout, which means throughout we played videogames. I couldn’t help but experience nagging feelings of cognitive dissonance—in part because of Leigh’s article, and in part because of the games I played. Videogames, as you enlightened people know, can be mirrors to our deeper selves. They highlight the disparity between who we are in reality and who we are—or wish to be—when the stakes are imagined. They are rehearsal, and rehearsal can have a crucial impact on how you respond during a “real event.” Granted, the type of rehearsal that proves effective in real life is more likely to be safety drills than videogames. Coincidentally...

The first game I played leading up to the hurricane was Pippin Barr’s Safety Instructions, a browser-based game that requires quick and accurate typing to follow conventional safety instructions during an in-flight emergency. (That is, you carry out instructions by literally typing them—going over the allotted time or making an error will get your blocky little avatar killed.) It’s a surprisingly effective marriage, producing an insane amount of adrenaline and panic while demanding you nonetheless retain enough composure to complete complex multi-step tasks. What frustrated me more than anything was the child seated next to me. You don’t have to tell me twice to put my oxygen mask on before his. But when the game continued despite my failure to secure his mask, I rebelled. Every other failure (except inflating your life jacket) blessedly results in a quick retry—but if you let the kid suffocate, his slackened face a stark, merciless shade of CMYK black, the game goes on. “Poor kid.” Unable to live with the knowledge that I let my child expire in my arms, I restarted the entire game again and again until I was able to rescue little Bobby. That’s the kind of player I am: If I can see you, I will save you. If the game had been like, ‘Oh, him? He belongs to the guy stuck in the bathroom,’ I’d have ultimately felt good about my persistence, and actually a tad resentful that the game suspected me of feeling otherwise.

But what about the child on the other side of me? Seeing my kin all settled in a safe place, would I go out in a storm just to find and help strangers, or wait till they banged on my door begging for sanctuary? I mean, I didn’t go out. Obviously. The mayor told me to stay in.

Different game, but content appropriate!

Thinking we ought to sharpen our reflexes and teamwork instincts, my boyfriend and I also played maybe the most enjoyable round of Left 4 Dead I’ve ever experienced. For ages I’d been wanting to get in a campaign with a couple of friends (Claire and Pete, hilarious people, gifted actors, and dedicated shooter fans). L4D moves a hell of a lot faster with good, live people, and we blazed through a campaign in about an hour despite several 5- to 10-minute breaks while Claire was fielding calls from her family. We bore the interruptions with saintlike patience. “Her parents don’t like the idea of Claire and hurricanes mixing,” explained Pete through Claire’s headset. (Claire was at Tulane during Katrina.) We only had one headset per couple, and the girls were in charge of communicating on behalf of everyone. Jokes and cries for help were passed secondhand.

While everyone largely watched each other’s back, we noticed that if it came down to waiting for someone to catch up, or backtracking to revive or rescue another player, the virtual lines were drawn between the real-life cohabitant groups. Lovers looked out for lovers (which made adorable sense with regard to Zoey and Francis, but implied a sort of Louis/Bill slash-fic I’d rather not picture).

I didn’t want to be that kind of player, and I don’t want to be that kind of person. Whether the terms of herodom—or good citizenry or decency—are objectively, ethically the same for real life as they are for games, they are for me. I can’t help but enact something very serious in my playthroughs—either idealized values or honesty, and where they diverge is what concerns me. I have never let a Sim drown in a pool. Never. If my little families are unfulfilled, it is my fault and not my whim. Yet I have three Commander Shepards—one Paragon, one Renegade, and one who takes everything on a “case-by-case” basis. All three are principled, but why is the self-sacrificing Paragon my canonical Shepard, while truer to my own private logic is the Shepard who believes that her life—with all her world-saving capabilities hello—is more important than the lives of others?

At any rate, I’ve learned that my disaster instincts suck. Or they’re not necessarily what I wished they’d be. The world shrinks and my vision narrows and I clutch at those in the innermost circles of my concern and everything else comes after.

At least I know. I can always decide how to behave; which “me” to present to the world. I can draw those circles wider and wider, by choice. Next time I’ll check in with everyone before we lose power. Even if we don’t. You’ll keep my secret, won’t you?

Now Playing: Josh and Jay’s Excellent Videogame Show

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Pullman) — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 16:00:00 +0000

Quick question: Do you like podcasts about videogames? Yeah? Cool, because I wanted to pop in real quick and turn you on to a new project that I’m working on with friend and fellow videogame nerd, Joshua Doan. We’d been toying around with the idea of doing a podcast for awhile, so we finally mustered up some motivation, got together last week and recorded some colorful conversation about videogame stuff. Nothing fancy, just a couple dudes having a beer-dazzled dialogue about our favorite pastime.

In our first episode, Joshua and I talk about the trials and tribulations of Rock Band, S-ranking Oblivion, owning a Wii, and the Driver series (about whose sequel I articulate some rather passionate opinions). So without further ado, I give you the world premiere of Josh and Jay’s Excellent Videogame Show.

Please, give it a listen and drop a line or two in the comments to let us know what you think. More episodes to follow, so stay tuned!

UPDATE: No iTunes? Here's a direct link to Episode 1. Enjoy!

Musica Musica Musica: Spotify and Vice City

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Apczynski) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 00:17:00 +0000

Last year at PAX, I found myself debating with a pair of Melodico writers past and present on the topic of the worst song ever recorded. The rules of our little game involved each of us choosing one regrettable cut and arguing its case for the No. 1 spot. I’ll spare you the full list of nominees, suffice it to say that they were all truly terrible songs, and by the end it was clear that we had all lost.

The Worst Song Ever Recorded
My “worst ever” pick was REO Speedwagon’s “Keep On Loving You.” It's a really, really bad song. Let’s look at that chorus for a moment:

I’m gonna keep on loving you
Cuz it’s the only thing I wanna do
I don’t wanna sleep
I just wanna keep
(On loving you)

Ugh. The parentheses are mine, but I think their inclusion here helps to explain what it is that I find so objectionable about this particular track. Double ugh. At what time in history could this travesty of rhyme and repetition have been not just accepted but actually popular?

I Just Wanna Keep On Sharing Tunes
Last month, I wrestled my way into a Spotify invite, and I’ve been playing with a free account ever since. For the first time in my life, I actually feel like subscribing to a pay-for-access music service might just be a possibility—I’m still feeling it out, and I definitely feel a bit of a twinge when I think about the many thousands of dollars I’ve spent over the years in the pursuit of owning music (or whatever the courts have decided I purchased with that money), so we’ll see. The ability to make playlists from songs one doesn’t own is pretty central to the service, as is the ease of sharing playlists with other people.

To try it out, I thought it would be fun to make a playlist for readers of this very blog—a collection of music from one of the most evocative and fulfilling videogame soundtracks of all time: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Exactly four songs into my playlist, it dawned on me that this would mean inflicting “Keep On Loving You” on some of the people I love most in this world. And for that I am sorry.

The GTA: Vice City Playlist
The playlist is solid but incomplete—without the DJs that helped make Vice City seem so vital and self-aware, it’s just a collection of good songs. And while it would certainly be fun to drive around your city while streaming via mobile (for those with Premium accounts), there’s something about launching a Corvette off of a highway overpass that really makes “I Ran (So Far Away)” and “Working For the Weekend” come to life. The list is also missing a few tracks that simply weren’t on Spotify, including Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Two Tribes,” a handful of obscure Latin and R&B tracks, and tragically, the works of fictional GTA band Love Fist.

After some weird experiences with Spotify’s playlists (including some dropped tracks, ugh) I spent a work week listening to the sweet sounds of Vice City, during which I endured more than one mocking playthrough of “Keep On Loving You.” In the context of the other ’80s classics—not to mention caviar memories with Tommy Vercetti—I found that after a while, I stopped clicking past it.

If you’re on Spotify and looking to scratch that GTA- and/or ’80s-nostalgia itch, here’s a link to subscribe or follow yours truly.

A WINNAR IS YOU!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Annie) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 21:01:00 +0000

Good day, Melodicans. It’s been a while. I’m sorry for the long absence, although some of you may already know the reason for it. Allow me to rewind a bit:

Back in March of this year, when many of us were just beginning to recover from GDC in San Francisco, a lively comment thread erupted here at Gamer Melodico in response to J.P. Grant’s astute observations of this year’s PAX East keynote speech. Much of the reaction in the thread was focused on the breaking Chain World fiasco. By definition, games are entertaining (at least, that is the initial intent), and well-designed game makes us want to keep playing. The concept of using such a mechanism to educate and affect social change for good is alluring.

However, as demonstrated by the controversy surrounding maneuvers to use Chain World for this purpose, it can be difficult to execute this concept. As one of the other people in the aforementioned comment thread happened to be my friend and neighbor, Willow Brugh, we decided to sit down for an hour or two at our local hackerspace and continue our discussion so as not to completely hijack the article’s feedback. Sorry, about that, J.P.!

After nearly 7 hours of whiteboard scrawling, drawing input from friends, and mass consumption of coffee, Willow and I came to some conclusions. The first and most obvious one was that in order for a “social change game” to be successful, it appeared necessary to find a way that would build upon antecedent gameplay mechanics, but would do so without altering them in such a way that they are no longer fun.

Ideally, such a game would also incorporate some aspect of education or training, so as to be sustainable in a way that a one-time fundraiser would not. We knew that this would depend heavily upon the specific problem being addressed, which drove us towards the field of disaster relief, particularly in light of the earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand that had just occurred.

Finally, it was decided that the most effective way of engaging participants in the project would be to gamify the participation process by making it a competition. Thus, GameSave was born.

Many weeks later, the judges have deliberated, the votes have been cast, and it appears we have a result. There is no better place for GameSave’s grand finale than Gamer Melodico. I am honored to be able to make our big announcement here, which I will do without further ado (because we've already had way more ado than we could have dreamed):

The winner of the first ever GameSave Concept Competition is CERTSim, submitted by a mighty team of one, Paul Cull!

Paul’s game concept allows the player to run through a number of actual disaster events, each composed of a series of scenarios designed to test the player’s knowledge of the standard Community Emergency Response Team skill set: Fire Suppression, Disaster Medical Operations, Light Search and Rescue, Team Operations, Disaster Psychology and Hazmat/Terrorism.

Paul wrote CERTSim in Visual Basic 2010 for the Windows platform, reaffirming the fact that PC gaming is still going strong. Congratulations, Paul!

Congratulations are also due to our fabulous runner-up, Team Seattle, for their RPG-inspired take on a Choose Your Own Adventure game! Said one judge of Team Seattle’s idea, “It communicates valuable information in a uniquely game-like way. It is quite ambitious, but if fully realized it could be a valuable tool in disaster-preparedness training.”

There aren’t quite the words the express how astounded and delighted we are with the participation from the teams and the response from the gaming and emergency management communities, not to mention the amazing support from friends, journalists, photographers, photojournalist friends, and especially to the volunteers who have made so much of this event possible. Particular thanks are due to the fine folks at Roar Engine for providing a development platform, and Tropo for helping us throw one kickass party.

It is often said that knowledge is power, and this statement is not inaccurate. It feels like the course of his competition has taken us around the world, but the truth is that for all the information learned and problem solving that’s occurred, barely a dent has been made. There are so many hardship-inducing things on this planet over which we as humans have no control that it puts in perspective some of the things over which we do. To entertain the idea, even for a moment, that some of these problems can be diminished even slightly by playing a game seems poetic somehow.

Of course, it may be that sleep deprivation has caused me to derive “poetic” from “cheesy.” This is entirely in the eye of the beholder.

And on that note, it is time to declare the first ever GameSave Concept Competition complete. Much love and gratitude to all who donated time, resources, money, emotional support and all the ingredients that went into making this happen. Until next time!

Living in Oblivion

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Pullman) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:00:00 +0000

It was rumored that Einstein, in all of his eccentricity, kept a wardrobe of identical outfits to alleviate the burden of picking out what to wear every day. Supposedly, the stress of having to make that choice somehow interfered with his mental process, so he preferred not to waste the energy on such a mundane activity. He also refused to wear socks (which is neither here nor there, I just thought it was weird). The point is, where most people view choice as a liberty, he saw it, at least in this case, as an encumbrance. And with every new game that comes out in the middle of what should be the summer drought, I can’t help but think maybe Einstein was on to something here.

It could be early dementia setting in, but I honestly can’t remember the last time we saw the release of so many cool, new games in the middle of summer—games like Child of Eden, Catherine, Trenched, Shadows of the Damned, LA Noire, Ms. Splosion Man, and Bastion (and those are just off the top of my head). Frankly, it should more than enough to keep the most avid gamer busy till the fall. However, it’s also more than enough to drive the most resolute gamer up a wall.

There are so many things to consider when choosing which of these new games to play first, if at all. Price comparisons, pre-order bonuses, reviews, word-of-mouth, prospective DLC, potential price drops—these are all aspects of shopping around for new games that often make them feel like anything but. And as the number of feasible solutions to the new game problem increases, the more complicated the equation becomes.

As title after new title rolls out, it begins to feel a little like being stranded in the middle of a downpour with no umbrella. Sure, it feels good at first (especially in this heat, *blech*) but then you’re just kind of stuck in this torrential chaos. Your jeans get heavy under the weight of all that water, your shirt collar starts to sag down to your sternum and your shoes make that awful squishing sound. You scramble to seek shelter but there’s basically no escape. After a certain point, you calm down and come to realize: You’re not going to get any wetter, so pop that collar and suck it up. Sometimes you just have to let the rain fall, take a cue from Einstein and say, “Fuck it. I’m playing Oblivion.”

As with any open-world RPG like Oblivion, once you begin, there’s simply no end in sight. Anybody who has played it (or any Bethesda game for that matter) can attest to the earthworm-like resilience of the active quest log. With each mission completed, two more seem to spawn in its place. At points it literally feels like the never-ending story.

Besides the main quests, there are five different guilds whose members just cannot wait to give you tons of shit to do. Better still are the multitude of minor quest-lines that do nothing to advance the main story, nor do they net you any achievements as the guild quests do. The only rationale for completing these tedious tasks is essentially to extend the length of the game and maybe work on leveling-up your hero.

But wait! There's MORE!

Specifically, DLC, which is all included in the GOTY edition. Seriously, I am up to my cuirass in unfinished quests over here, and I couldn't be happier. Needless to say, I think I’ve got my game schedule covered for the foreseeable future (or until Arkham City drops, whichever comes first).

So please, if the flood of new games is stressing you out, I invite you all to come with me, to choose not to choose, and enjoy a summer staycation in Cyrodiil. The weather’s perfect, there’s plenty to do, and you certainly get your money’s worth. I think Einstein would have dug it.

Just a Series of Tubes

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Apczynski) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 19:17:00 +0000

This past week, the fine folks over at Paste were kind enough to run my review of Double Fine’s new XBLA title, Trenched. Many, many tubes were harmed in the making of this piece.

As a member of Woodruff’s elite mobile trench brigade, you strut around a battlefield in giant metal pants and shoot cannons at Farnsworth’s electrified monstrosities, which explode in a satisfying array of sparks and convenient building materials. These victories are brief—each shattered tube gives way to more, and even with up to four be-trenched warriors in the fray, there is more than enough glory to go around.

It was a fun game to play and a fun review to write. Walking around the world of Trenched, I was struck by the limited capabilities of my mobile trenches—in addition to the familiar sense of inventory management present in all tower defense titles, trenches are ploddingly earthbound devices. They may be packed to the gills with firepower, but with scant resources and waves of enemies inbound to destroy whatever it is you’re tasked with protecting, it’s sometimes easy to feel like you’re at a bit of a disadvantage.

Owing absolutely nothing to Michael Bay’s latest affront to the series, my thoughts drifted to the TV show whose robotic heroes all but defined my youth, The Transformers. The show’s “good guys” were the Autobots, a stoic order of robot protectorate that had been marooned when their spaceship crash-landed into an Earth volcano. Opposing them were the Decepticons, a morally bankrupt faction bent on universal domination (a rather optimistic goal, considering the problems they would encounter week after week, trying to dominate one singular blue planet).

When I was young, the concepts of good and bad carried none of the heaviness and uncertainty that I would later come to assign them: “Bad” meant enriching oneself at the expense of innocents or threatening to destroy the very planet on which we live; “Good” meant placing oneself in opposition to those who would pursue such goals. There was something appealing about this restricted morality, and it’s a part of what makes the tower defense genre such a winning formula: when the roles of aggressor and defender are so rigidly defined, there is no need for an intricate narrative—bad guys are coming to lay waste to your base, and you’d best do what you can to fight them off.

The rules get a bit hazy as the Transformers legacy fragments across various media formats, but the Autobots of my youth found themselves at several distinct disadvantages. For the most part, they could not fly, whereas the Decepticons could simply blast off from the Earth’s surface at will. The Decepticons returned to each encounter with devices of increasing complexity, seemingly immune to exhaustion of either resources or will. For the weary Autobots, the primary advantage was a moral high-ground whose definition was somewhat limited—they had chosen themselves to be defenders of humanity and Earthen resources (ironic for a group whose preferred disguises were fossil fuel-guzzling vehicles from the American 1980s, but whatever).

And so it is with Trenched. Antagonist Vladimir Farnsworth returns to each new battle with an army bigger and badder than anything you’ve yet encountered, and the player, armed with only what his or her trench can carry, must convert American conviction into combat victory.

Read the review, and then round up some friends for an old-fashioned battle of good versus evil.

California v. Videogames, in Verse

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Apczynski) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 01:28:00 +0000

Several weeks ago, the state of Alaska released thousands of pages of emails sent and received by Sarah Palin during her brief stint as the state’s governor. As gripping as I’m certain they are, this 24,000-page blockbuster has not made my summer reading list.

Fortunately, author Michael Solomon, in partnership with emerging e-publishing house Byliner, has helped to pick up the slack. By merging a selection of 50 Palin-penned gems with some creative line breaks, Solomon has condensed this vast resource into an all-you-need-to-know collection titled I Hope Like Heck: The Collected Poems of Sarah Palin. It is occasionally unsettling and consistently hilarious (both evidenced by its cover image), and I cannot recommend it enough.

And so, when the Supreme Court reached yesterday’s landmark decision regarding the sale of violent videogames in my own home state of California, I turned to Mr. Solomon for inspiration—by which I mean that I’m stealing his brilliant idea to manipulate for my own use. Apologies to Mr. Solomon! Everyone go and buy his book.

What follows are lightly edited selections from Justice Antonin Scalia’s delivery of the Supreme Court opinion, with my own line breaks added for emphasis. During this process, I learned that Justice Scalia is nowhere near as deft a poet as Ms. Palin—but this digest may yet prove helpful to anyone who wants some insight into the court’s position but doesn’t feel like wading into the text of the court’s full decision (which can be found here [PDF link]).

THE ACT

California Assembly Bill 1179 (2005)
Prohibits the sale or rental
Of violent video games to minors
And requires their packaging to be labeled “18”

The Act covers games
In which the range of options available to a player includes
Killing
Maiming
Dismembering
Or sexually assaulting
An image of a human being

If those acts are depicted in a manner
That a reasonable person
Would find appeals to a
Deviant
Morbid
Interest patently offensive to prevailing standards
As to what is suitable
For minors

And that causes the game to lack serious
Literary
Artistic
Political
Or scientific value
For minors

Violation of the Act is punishable
By a civil fine
Of up to $1,000

* * * * * *

ON THE CUTTING EDGE

California does not argue
That it is empowered to prohibit selling
Offensively violent works to adults—
And it is wise not to

Instead, it wishes to create a wholly
New category
Of content-based regulation for speech
Directed at children
That is unprecedented and mistaken

* * * * * *

CLARENCE’S FOOTNOTE

Justice Thomas
Denies that persons under 18
Have any constitutional right to speak
Or be spoken to
Without their parents’ consent

* * * * * *

SPOILER ALERT

California’s argument would fare better
If there were a
Tradition in this country of restricting children’s access to depictions of violence
But there is none

Certainly
The books we give children to read
Or read to them when they are younger
Contain no shortage of gore

Grimm’s Fairy Tales are grim indeed
For trying to poison Snow White
The wicked queen is made to dance in red hot slippers
“Till she fell dead on the floor”

Cinderella’s evil stepsisters
Have their eyes pecked out by doves

Hansel and Gretel
(Children!)
Kill their captor
By baking her
In an oven

* * * * * *

FINISH HIM

California claims
That videogames present special problems
Because they are
“Interactive”

In that the player participates
In the violent action
And determines its outcome

* * * * * *

THE BURDEN OF PROOF

The State
Must specifically identify
An “actual problem” in need of solving

And the curtailment of free speech
Must be
Actually
Necessary
To the solution

California cannot meet that standard

* * * * * *

ON CARING

And finally
The Act’s purported aid to parental authority
Is vastly overinclusive

Not all of the children
Who are forbidden
To purchase violent video games on their own
Have parents who care

Whether they purchase violent video games

* * * * * *

ON THE FENCE

California’s legislation straddles the fence
Between addressing a serious social problem
And helping concerned parents control their children

Both ends are legitimate
But when they affect
First Amendment rights
They must be pursued by means
That are neither seriously underinclusive
Nor seriously overinclusive

As a means of protecting children
From portrayals of violence
The legislation is seriously underinclusive
Not only because it excludes portrayals other than video games
But also because it permits a parental or avuncular veto

And as a means of assisting concerned parents
It is seriously overinclusive
Because it abridges the First Amendment rights of young people
Whose parents think violent video games
Are a harmless pastime

And the overbreadth
In achieving one goal
Is not cured by the underbreadth
In achieving the other

Legislation such as this
Which is neither fish nor fowl
Cannot survive strict scrutiny

We affirm the judgment below

Videogames are for Sissies (And So Am I)

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Elmaleh) — Thu, 26 May 2011 03:49:00 +0000

Have you experienced Sissy’s Magical Ponycorn Adventure? The title tells you all you need to know: it is an adventure (game), featuring plucky heroine Sissy, who saves/collects the eponymous creatures (did you see what I did there)—and it is golldanged magical. It is also the badass brainchild of 5 year old Cassie Creighton and her father Ryan, birthed at this year’s Toronto Game Jam.

When I was 5 I drew picture books, as kids do. Mine featured a lot of princesses, many of them pregnant for some reason, (a fascination that has not stayed with me, though my biological clock is supposed to be vomiting cuckoos right about now.) I also poured mostly tortured hours into my cousins’ NES, murdering wildfowl and enduring cruel sniggers from a snarky-ass hound. It would be several years before I discovered the contemplative and sublimely goofy joys of graphic adventure games.

I don’t recall whether I was conscious at that age of gender-cultural boundaries between “princess picture books” and “pixelated devastation,” but never the twain did meet. I’m certain Cassie, with her rainbow-littered videogame ode to magical ponybeasts, isn’t the first/only young girl who doesn’t seem to feel subject to such boundaries at all. But man, does she defy them with confidence, aplomb, and an infectious, wicked glee. I can’t tell to what degree she was led vs. assisted by her supportive pa as far as the gameplay, but her contributions are irrefutably substantial: she wrote and voiced the titles, drew all the pictures, and designed some of the puzzles. I have a hunch she was also responsible for the core concept, and baller ’tude.

I don’t really want to review her game. I know I’m going to feed straight into the societal habit of treating media designed by kids—with parental assistance that ranges from the gentle to the firm to the opportunistic—as mystical objects channeling a purer creativity, hovering above conventional criticism. But when such standards are applied it feels, you know, unsporting.

I am gonna go ahead and be impressed with Cassie’s internalization of and simple fluency in game mechanics, at the same age as I was wrapping my dreamy, fetus-fixated mind around basic narrative. I’m impressed with the clarity of her player objective, which totally carried my interest and commitment to the end of this short game. I’m impressed with her sensitivity to her player’s potential struggles (she planted the coconut clue, just for you.) I am impressed and utterly bewitched by her heroine’s matter-of-fact goodness and sheer spunk, the latter leaning toward and sometimes outright cribbing from classic Bro phrasing. (I must confess her gender-blending endears Sissy to me even more than, say, Scarlett, appealing protagonist of Scarlett & the Spark of Life.) As a voiceover artist, I’m downright inspired by her charisma and absolute ownership of the performance, rare for a kid actor (though not for a kid author.) She’s funny; and while girl may love butterflies and ponycorns, and yelp in fear when approaching danger, I have no doubt that if bitten she will bite you back, fool.

Beyond the game itself and its BroGrrl Power, I’m thrilled by Sissy’s Magical Ponycorn Adventure as heartwarming evidence that young kids, especially girls, are ‘thinking with games,’ to paraphrase GLADoS. It makes sense: kids learn through play, their lives are an investigative and exploration-based challenge. Their movement and access to objects are constantly restricted, stoking curiosity, persistence, and resourcefulness—they like, LIVE locked-room scenarios (though hopefully not too literally). I’m thrilled Cassie met this challenge, now an achievement she can and should be proud of forever, not to mention a special, close collaboration with her daddy. I’m thrilled that technology allows her and her dad easy access to some expressive tools for her game ideas, as well as for the easy sharing and admiring of them.

And I find this game a bit thrilling because, in its unconscious, kidly unabashedness, it feels kinda timely.

Journalists such as Leigh Alexander and Kirk Hamilton have put their fingers on a backlash against certain trite notions of artistic maturity in games, notably the pursuit of a dry and charmless literalism and its ironic opposite, a jaded, self-conscious approach to ‘over-the-top’. For some the ascendancy of the West in the game space is implicated in the death of that special brand of untamed whimsy that used to be the hallmark of the medium. As a true games criticism coalesces, it seeks not only to better analyze games, but to acknowledge aesthetic lineages and situate games within them. (I’m so pleased by the general recognition of LA Noire as an adventure game! Games taxonomy at its plainest and most satisfying. I can’t help but wonder what other liberating precedents—beyond my beloved adventure games’ mechanics, and famous wit—await AAA reclamation.)

The mystical quality in kids’ creations, that purity of spirit we wish to recapture, is fearlessness. And this is what strikes me as timely in this girl designer and her Ponycorn Adventure: their innocent, vibrant lack of concern with seeming silly or derivative. Lemon enemies (lemonies?) don’t need to make sense to make satisfyingly sour foes. The Ponycorns are hardly original or even a proper hybrid, per se, but Cassie don’t care. Likewise, ask her if she gives a toot that she heard some of these phrases—“How do you like them apples??”—elsewhere (if she even remembers.) Just try and suggest that such prose stylings belong to popped-collared, thumbs-flashing dudes and not little girls.

Games can get bogged down in external and sometimes even internal logic. Not so SMPA. They can be skittish or slavish in relationship to their influences and ancestors. Cassie unthinkingly invokes their power with a bold voice that makes them all her own. If I have any pet cause in games, as a performer and a consumer, it’s exuberance—and Cassie is my champion. She lights the way.

How do I like them apples? FRIGGIN’ LOVE 'EM, Miss Cassie.

Sword and Sworcery EP: Audience Calibration Procedure

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Apczynski) — Fri, 06 May 2011 06:32:00 +0000

Goddamn you, Dragon Age II. You timesuck. You have stolen my limited gaming hours, leaving me bereft of the time I could have dedicated to playing something (anything) more worth my while. You fill me with rage. I continue to chip away at you but it makes me very mad that I am so powerless, and if I had greater control over my completi[oni]st faculties, I would read the spoilers and be done with you. O, that I had the power.

You’re going to have to forgive me because I’m not done complaining about Dragon Age II. The game seems to have no concept of the fact that it is as repetitive as it is long. The game is absolutely greedy in that way—with its underdeveloped characters and meaningless fetch quests (most of which, I might add, offer no discernible point of origin), the game seems to take for granted the engagement level of the player; for the entirety of the game’s second act I’ve felt bored to tears but compelled to press onward.

Forcing myself in a different direction, I picked up Capybara Games’ Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP for iPhone. Watching the game’s understated visual presentation claim the Achievement in Art award at the 2011 Independent Games Festival piqued my interest, and while I had little idea of what to expect from it, I found the game to be the perfect antidote for my Dragon Age blues.

When Sword and Sworcery’s first 30-minute “episode” concluded with a message that I ought perhaps take a break and come back to it later, I was a little surprised. Whereas DA2 had essentially overestimated my ability to remain engaged with its repetitive play, S:S&SEP was very much the opposite—it actually seemed like its primary concern was not in telling me its story, but in making sure I was enjoying it.

And it completely did the trick. The fact is that behind Sword and Sworcery’s more magical elements—its offbeat first-person plural narration, quirky sense of humor, fun battle system (and other uses of the iPhone’s accelerometer), and absolutely killer soundtrack—there’s not a ton of game there. The interface is mostly of the point-and-click variety (on a touch-screen, so I suppose there’s more pointing and less clicking), with some mild puzzle elements. But I absolutely didn’t care. The game’s pacing and aesthetic offer evidence of the great care given to creating the best-possible experience for the player, and I couldn’t appreciate it more. Sword and Sworcery EP is a game with a ton of heart. I cannot recommend it enough.

Pwemed: Portal Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Jay Pullman) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 16:30:00 +0000

Greetings, beatniks.

*Snaps*

Grab a cappuccino, crack open your composition book and pull up a stool in front of the open mic. We are gathered to celebrate the release of Portal 2—sequel to Valve's brilliant first-person puzzler—with a series of "pwems" dedicated to this beloved franchise.

To mark the occasion, I’ve trudged through the depths of my own inner-turmoil and despair, bouncing between portals of thought to navigate my way through the subconscious (hey, is my beret on straight?) in order find the most appropriate literary vessel for our subject. I figured, Portal is a short game. The premise is simple (GTFO!), but it's hardly a shallow game experience.

So how does one capture this essence in a poem? The dirty limerick seemed to lack a certain drama, so I went with my second choice. Ladies and gents, for your reading pleasure, five Portal ~~haikus~~ ~~haiki~~ haiku after the jump.

______________________________________

First Encounter
human test subject
finds a weighted companion
GLaDOS to meet you

Automated Turret
incinerate me
when I shoot, you knock me down
I do not blame you

ASHPD
speedy thing goes in
existential dilemma
speedy thing comes out

Love
falling head over
mechanized heel springs for you
sweet companion cube

Black Forest
endless testchambers
tweak your morality core
I am still alive

PAX East 2011: Jurassic Park Preview

noreply@blogger.com (GM Staff) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:45:00 +0000

Editor's note: We couldn't be more pleased to announce that we've unearthed a major paleontological find—a relic from March 2011; a preview of Jurassic Park: The Game and an interview with Telltale Games' Nick Herman. From what our scientists could gather, this particular piece was ~~buried in a massive landslide and fossilized~~ a casualty of my own recent period of transition. The first of the game's five-episode season is due to be available this month and is currently available for pre-order through the game's official website.

Reporting for this piece is courtesy of Dr. J.P. Grant, Professor of Barbasol Embryo Studies at the University of Made-Up Doctorates.

At PAX East last month, I sat down with Nick Herman, Cinematic Artist at Telltale Games, who was on hand to demo the studio’s upcoming Jurassic Park: The Game. Like previous Telltale efforts, Jurassic Park will release in a five-episode format; the first installment is scheduled to drop this month on PC and Mac, and on consoles in the fall.

From the 20 or so minutes I spent with the game, it was easy to see how much Telltale is looking to the 1993 film for inspiration. Set halfway through the events of the first movie, the game will feature all original characters on another part of the island. We will visit some familiar locations, it seems: “A lot of environments that are in the movie, we revisit here,” says Herman. While there won’t be any cameos from Wayne Knight or Samuel L. Jackson, there will be references to characters, sequences, and artifacts from the movie—including, of course, the famous Barbasol can full of dinosaur embryos. Herman couldn’t get into specifics, but it looks like that particular loose thread from the movie may be tied up in the game.

So far, the game’s look tracks pretty close to the movie’s. “We want to make sure that people feel like it’s a good representation of the film, so of course we’re going to have to copy a lot of the lighting techniques and the colors,” Herman explains. He says the development team has worked closely with Universal Studios to ensure the game’s look and feel matches that of the film and is representative of the franchise. “They’ve been super supportive,” Herman reports, and have even given the developers assets to work with.

Although the story is linear—“It’s a very directed experience,” Herman says—Telltale wants to balance it with puzzle and action sequences. The player interacts with the game world through a series of Heavy Rain-style prompts, with occasional quick time events punctuating the action sequences. (I played the PC version using a wired Xbox controller; although this is the way Herman says Telltale recommends you play, the game is also compatible with a keyboard/mouse control scheme.) Unlike previous Telltale games, you can fail in Jurassic Park—leading to some brutal (and kinda hilarious) death animations. When you die, the game restarts you almost exactly at the moment you left off, minimizing frustration.

Two other conveniences help the player overcome challenges. The first is a system Telltale calls “Dialogue on Demand.” Pushing the right trigger brings up conversation options, which can lead to new actions. In one sequence, I had veterinarian Gerry Harding ask his daughter Jess to fetch an access code for a locked door. The game then transitioned me into the role of Jess so I could search her vehicle’s glove box. Later, I would guide Jess away from the gaping jaws of an attacking T-Rex. Because the story is so linear, the ability to experience the story from different characters’ perspectives is a nice twist to keep players engaged.

There’s also a sort of fast-travel system in Jurassic Park: The Game. Using the left trigger, you can pull up a menu of scenes, then use the D-pad to select the one you want to visit. Moving between scenes may transition you into playing as a different character. It sounds like this feature may be useful for solving puzzles that require contributions from multiple characters in multiple locations. Although the narrative is “very cinematic,” Herman says, the puzzle design is created to “make people feel like they’re having an effect on the world.”

Like most games aimed at a wide audience, Telltale has its work cut out for them in balancing simplicity with difficulty. While the developer is no newcomer to adventure games and even beloved movie franchises, this is the first time they’ve worked with a motion capture studio. Getting mocap data that can be used multiple times (for example, for similar animations) has been a challenge, Herman confesses. However, the result seems to have paid off so far, as Jurassic Park possesses a greater degree of photorealism than their previous efforts. And Telltale’s also been able to draw on an unexpected resource in working toward verisimilitude: a Bay Area paleontologist has been helping them integrate, as Herman puts it, some “real science” into the fantasy dinosaur fiction of the franchise.

Based on what I saw, it looks like Telltale could have another winner on its hands. However, given the limited means of interacting with the game world, the ease of overcoming obstacles, and the relentlessly linear format, I couldn’t help feeling Jurassic Park: The Game was geared toward a younger audience. It remains to be seen whether players of all ages will be willing to revisit Isla Nublar when the first episode of the game ships this month.

PAX East 2011: Roundup, Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (GM Staff) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 17:40:00 +0000

Editor’s note: Somehow, a whole lot of time went by between “PAX East 2011: Roundup Part 1” and this post, but that’s only because we’ve been WORKING ON IT THE ENTIRE TIME.

Okay, that’s not exactly true, but there is still much to be said about the weekend. For one thing, there were other people there, some of whom had things to say about other things. There were talks, meetings, gatherings, panels, round-tables, and various other community-minded experiences to be had. Let's talk about those, shall we? We are joined again by our Senior PAX East Correspondents, J.P. Grant and Sarah Elmaleh.

Do you have any thoughts on the panels you attended?

Sarah: Might as well start with people’s inability to ask proper questions. It’s a mainstay of any Q&A, across all fields and interests, so I don’t hold it against PAX or its attendees in particular. It’s just a perennial pain in the ass.

JP: Good Lord. One marvels at the consistency on that front. I mean, I understand being star-struck to some degree, but nothing excuses getting up to the mic to ask Ken Levine a tripartite question about Big Daddies’ genital endowments.

Sarah: Wow. I meant making sure to have—and justify—a question mark at the end of your comment. But that’s...that question is literally improper. I actually remember being surprised at the quality of the questions at last year’s PAX East, surpassing all other Q&As in memory. Particularly on the gender/LGBT front.

In the wake of the PAX controversy, what were your reactions to the gender-related panels, specifically?

Sarah: I bear no disrespect to any of the fun, thoughtful panelists enlisted for duty on the “Females on Female Characters” panel, but halfway through Saturday I found myself wondering whether the inevitable fate of these panels is to reinforce painfully self-evident truths about gender equality and representation. This is such a tiring and tiresome activity—all the more so because it remains necessary. For that reason, I’m still glad I went. I think it’s important that these panels keep coming up, that they’re (hu)manned by capable minds, and that they’re packed full with ardent attendees.

And who knows? Maybe these basic tenets of human dignity are news to some people. But generally speaking? Sorry, this shit is so overdue I’m just not up to clapping, per se. So, the very best/worst we can hope for is to quibble over the particulars, because sorting good, juicy character flaws from sexist character flaws is a case-by-case process. (I know at least one attendee who simply wanted more in-depth analysis of each female character.)

JP: It’s a loaded topic complicated by the necessity of presenting it in bite-sized chunks in a packed convention hall. Don’t you think that kind of lends itself to more superficial discussion? Or, at the least, more imprecise language?

Sarah <3 Garrus*

Sarah: Yeah... AJ Glasser actually sent me into an all-caps Twitter rage with a casual throwaway. There had already been some throwing around of the word “slutty” in a way that made me wince. But when AJ applied said pejorative to her FemShep coming on to Garrus in Mass Effect 2, I was like HOLD UP WHAT.

I think my (RL) boyfriend was a little unnerved by how long and hard I struggled with the decision not to wait for Kaiden in my ME2 playthrough. But I ultimately pursued charmingly, biologically awkward alien love with Garrus, largely because I was just so pleased with the way BioWare represented sex that doesn’t project an insta-future of marriage/babies/picket fences. In games we have plenty of empty and/or demeaning sex, and some sex borne of ULTIMATE TRUE MEGA LOVE—and I guess I’d been craving something in the middle.

JP: Preach on, sister.

Sarah: Just you sit tight, parishioner boy! Look: I understand an epic tale deserves an epic romance. But there is such a thing as sex between two friends or even acquaintances as an expression of attraction, affection, and yes, respect, and I was very, very happy to see it portrayed. (Setting aside the fact that “reach vs. flexibility” is the hottest and most popular innuendo this side of... I can’t think of any other great videogame innuendos. Commenters?)

JP: Well, DUH. Duke Nukem Forever hasn’t come out yet. I’m pretty sure there’s, like, an innuendo meter in that shit.

Sarah: But only one classy setting: HELLA HIGH. Speaking of that game...

JP: Let me guess. Booth babes.

Sarah: Sigh. I just wish I could be comfortable in the knowledge that all the booth babes out there brought the same level of passion and interest in games as everyone else on the show floor. I’m open to and encouraged by the possibility that some do (although I also know some people—women and men—who take strong issue with the objectification aspect on its own). I’m just guessing what really sticks in our craw is that we all care, so flipping much—consumers and devs and PR people alike—and here are these suspected outsiders. As Alli Thresher of Harmonix pointed out, their presence has undermined her own, as a female developer. Men have come up to chat at her booth, and assumed it wasn’t also her game, that she didn’t know what she was talking about.

JP: Although the booth babe presence at this event wasn’t quite as pervasive as I’ve seen elsewhere, it was still disheartening. I also suspect it speaks to a certain desperation in games marketing. With development budgets skyrocketing and the secondary market cutting into publisher revenue, it’s no wonder companies are nervous about moving units. And in that kind of atmosphere, maybe we’re just seeing “any press is good press” in action.

Sarah: Your biz-side analysis is hot. Can you say “skyrocketing budgets,” “secondary market cutting into publisher revenue” and “moving units” again? You done been objectified.

JP: Whoa. Really? That’s what it feels like? I actually...kinda like that. Thank you?

Sarah: You’re welcome. Wait. What?

What were the highlights of the panels you attended?

Sarah: Stephen Totilo and N’Gai Croal’s Canon Fodder (though I missed most of this year’s round because the dang convention center was so huge, took me ages to get a lanyard and get oriented.) What is Canon Fodder? It’s an actually enjoyable application of gamification (/spits twice).

They generate a Top 10 list of the best games of all time, and send it to one developer at a time. Each of them has the option to replace a game on the list, in that same ranked position, or swap one game’s position with another. Of course, what’s compelling about this evolving list isn’t necessarily the titles that make it on or don’t (and it’s always in a weird, surprising state because it changes one precious move at a time). What’s compelling are the developers’ justifications for their moves. I’m very interested in the criteria by which we judge games’ lasting greatness—impact, execution, vision, etc.—and Canon Fodder provides this playful way of advocating and contesting those criteria through examples.

Highlight of this year’s panel? Notch replaced Tetris, I think at #2, with Dungeon Master II. Crowd response was satisfyingly impassioned.

JP: It’s funny you should mention that panel. At the “Three Moves Ahead” brunch Sunday morning, I met two guys who walked me through how Canon Fodder works and gave me a really fun recap over pancakes and coffee. I could see their excitement as they reviewed each move and debated its merits. In a way it was almost better than going to the panel myself, because it was such a kick to watch these guys rehash the arguments in this friendly, bantering way. That ended up being one of my favorite PAX East moments—it sort of encapsulated the kind of playfulness and passion the convention inspires at its best.

Sarah: The “Interactive Dialogue as Gameplay” panel was another standout—mainly for the reminder that developers and consumers alike buy this idea at all. Dan Tanguay of Vicarious Visions defined the concept as dialogue that expresses goals, the means to achieve them, rules, consequences, a possibility space to reflect them. And I was like, “Yeah. Dialogue can have all that. And that sounds like gameplay to me.”

Why should I be surprised? Dialogue used in this manner usually means there is some kind of story at work. And I follow some very intelligent, vocal people who denounce storytelling in games altogether (Hi, Simon!). As a voiceover artist and a lover of many (admittedly, often shitty) game stories, this argument makes me a little sad. However, it was eye-opening to realize/remember that people like Simon, vocal as they are, are the besieged—not me and my ilk. It’s probably much more important to support their arguments for all the points I agree with (increased procedural literacy? yes) than to get defensive. That being said, I think Tanguay’s very simple, very apparent definition of interactive dialogue as gameplay makes a compelling case for its place in games.

Also, interactive fiction writer Aaron Reed mentioned a game in which your only control is a “sarcasm dial.” I would play that game SO HARD.

JP: You mean, with the dial turned up to...wait for it...

Sarah: Eleven?

JP: Dammit, what happened to waiting for it?

Speaking of waiting, I’m really glad I got in line early for the Irrational Games panel on Building Worlds. Ken Levine, Nate Wells, Shawn Robertson, and Stephen Alexander discussed the creation of Columbia, their floating city setting for BioShock Infinite, in front of a packed house. There’s a good recap over on Irrational’s site—by far the most interesting event I attended all weekend.

I’m sure I’m not alone in arguing the original BioShock is the Huckleberry Finn of videogames; the underwater city of Rapture, like the Mississippi River of Twain’s novel, is really the star character. It was fascinating to hear the designers talk about the cultural, historical, and artistic precedents they’re drawing on in creating Columbia. The image of a city in the clouds was inspired in part by science-fiction art of the early twentieth century—a style that fit perfectly with the optimistic philosophy of American exceptionalism so common at that time, when revolutions in technology were leading to rapid social change and the U.S. was taking its place on the world stage.

There were a number of terrific takeaways from the panel, but two stick in my mind. The first is that great games make conscious thematic use of their art style. For example, Irrational’s initial mockup for Columbia—

—was far too dark and European for the narrative they were trying to convey. The architecture felt too foreign for a nationalist American setting, and the color palette was too gloomy for a city founded on the idea of exceptionalism. Subsequent drafts painted Columbia in brighter colors, emphasizing the natural light of the sun and mixing different elements of architecture to give the city a feeling of history. It was remarkable to hear how focused the team was on creating consistency between the theme and the visuals.

The second idea that emerged was centered around something Ken Levine said: “If you can make people believe the small details, you can make them believe in the world.” Ken was talking about using in-game objects for environmental storytelling—something the team accomplished masterfully in BioShock—but I think it’s a wonderful creative philosophy in any medium.

Sarah: With you there, brother.

JP: So in the case of Infinite, the team has to figure out the logic of city life in Columbia. In a city of floating buildings, how do you transport cargo? How do people get around? Once an infrastructure is invented (in this case, Columbia’s skylines), how do you integrate that infrastructure into gameplay to make the experience visceral and fun for the player? How do you use visual cues and movement to draw the player’s attention and lead her through the environment while not taking away her sense of agency? And most of all, how do you convey a consistent vision of this fictional space you’ve created? It was a treat to be let into Irrational’s creative process on that level.

Sarah: Yeah I bet, since their creative process operates at that level.

JP: Did you have any moments like that?

Sarah: There was this great eureka moment in the humor-in-games panel when the panelists hit on the magical relationship between writer/creator and player. So much game humor—when it isn’t monologuing jokes—is based on an ability to psychically predict and counter each other’s intentions. For example, we all instinctively push what we think are the limits of the game’s internal realism, just to see what will happen—and when the designer has pre-imagined these attempts there’s the opportunity for humor. Brian Murphy of Dorkly/College Humor called out the element of discovery, literally moments that reward player exploration and persistence. One panelist described the creative process as more akin to improv with an imaginary partner, featuring generous give and take, than stand up, with absolute control in the hands of the writer: “Let the player give the punchline.” I love improv, so this was music to my ears.

I also personally find the idea of give and take the most appealing way of seeing designer/player relationships on a larger level, as opposed to philosophies that privilege either the player or the designer as the seat of meaning.

JP: Dude. That was deep.

Sarah: I LEAVE YOU WITH THAT ROCK-HARD BRAIN BISCUIT. Gnaw away, friends.

*Image of Garrus presented as evidence of Sarah's love for Garrus—a Christmas present, commissioned by her boyfriend from artist Veronica Fish (veronicafish.com, @moduslotus).

Finish Him

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Apczynski) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 06:42:00 +0000

I never would have expected today to bring the amount of Mortal Kombat into my life that it did—due in no small way to two related posts that I happened to read. What a trip. It’s fair to say that I spent more time reminiscing about Mortal Kombat today than I have in the last decade. My Kombat of choice was MK2, and it was at a lawless arcade called Tilt that I chose to nuke my 1994 allowance.

Looking back, I think the craziest part of the whole arcade fighting game phenomenon was the word-of-mouth nature of the insane button sequences required to pull off the moves—particularly the game’s trademark “fatalities”. We used to watch and wait our turns, trying to catch a glimpse of what other players were doing to generate difficult moves. The fact that I was terrible at this approach is probably largely responsible for my dismal win record (which I wouldn't have a chance to correct until the game hit consoles).

It’s been a while since I picked up a fighting game in any real way, although there was a time in my life when I considered myself to be a pretty formidable cross-title opponent: Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Tekken, and Killer Instinct were all experiences with which I was pretty well acquainted. I tried Tekken 6 a while back, and found it a pretty empty experience—it was like two close friends meeting up for the first time in ten years and realizing that they actually just didn't have much to talk about.

As Kill Screen’s piece observes of Mortal Kombat, “You beat up people/demons/robots. The game is more fun the better you are at playing it.” It’s sort of a universal maxim for fighting games—prepare to commit, or don’t even bother! The thought of memorizing the proper button combinations to pull off a finishing move is just astounding to me now—there’s just no way. I regret that I may never again be able to truly love a title like this in the way I had once been able to.

Nevertheless, upon opening the KS post, I was absolutely entranced and couldn’t stop myself from fording that river of fatality clips from MK9.

Afterwards, I must have been woozy from soaking my brain in all that serotonin, because I suddenly found myself standing in the center of the room, just kind of shifting from knee to knee while staring blankly downward and to the right.

To and fro. Swaying. Waiting.

Then, when nothing happened after like five seconds, I fell over onto my back.