So, Soul Calibur IV comes out this Tuesday. So today. I will be buying it. It’s a little-known secret that I love fighting games–particularly Soul Calibur. At first, I wasn’t too thrilled by the screens I saw of Soul Calibur. The same old, same old–just more glitzy graphics and some finishing moves that looked like they might break the game. But as time has gone by and the release date come closer, I popped in Soul Calibur 3 just for kicks and messed around for a while.

I missed Soul Calibur 3.

And to be honest, I wouldn’t mind getting a little shot at Darth Vader. No, he shouldn’t be in the game. No, I’m not going to buy the game just for him. But really, playing as Darth Vader and maybe even Yoda is admittedly pretty cool.

So I’ve had a bit of Change of Heart, and my opponent has stolen me for a turn and put me on their side of the field (curse you, Yu-Gi-Oh!).

The problem is, it seems like they’re looking to sacrifice me. And all of us.

From this nice analysis put up by “Mike Masashi Murakami III“, seems like Yoda will be unlockable on the PS3 version and Darth Vader on the 360 version–but only if you scrape up the cash as downloadable content. In other words, you have to go on the PlayStation Store or onto the Xbox Live Marketplace and buy something that’s already technically on your disk.

Now, I have absolutely no qualms with forking out money for stuff I don’t have. That’s the point of buying. But when I need to pay money to get stuff I already own, I get a little pissed off. Example: iPhone. I want to use my songs as ringtones. You’d think if I can put them on my phone and listen to them, I should be able to use them as a ringtone. Wrong.

Instead, I have to actually go onto the iTunes Store and buy them again. Not only that, but I think I need to pay a $1 fee to turn them into ringtones. That’s two dollars–for a sound your phone makes when it rings. You may think it’s not a lot, but two dollars is the price of a quarter gallon of milk. Two dollars is enough to buy some stuff on the PlayStation Store that I don’t own. Whereas these songs? I already freaking have them on my phone. Why can’t I use them?

That’s much the same situation we’re finding in Soul Calibur IV right now. I could pay money in order to be able to unlock Yoda on my game. It’s tempting. But at the same time, why should I have to? He’s already on my disk! Can’t I just, I don’t know, beat the game on Very Hard Mode without dying? What happened to unlocking content based on skill?

Mike Masashi Murakami III is calling for people to boycott the downloadable content for Soul Calibur IV. Maybe they’ll make it free if they see how few people are accessing it. Then again, why would they make it free? It won’t benefit them in the slightest.

So I guess we’re just royally screwed. If you 360 fans want Darth Vader, or if us PS3 owners want Yoda… we’re going to have to deal out the Washingtons. Or maybe even the Lincolns.

Or yen and Euros, if you’re that person.

Share on Facebook

I’d like to remind everyone of PS3 Fanboy’s predictions for 2008. Here’s a look at the next three predictions on the list, now that we’re halfway through the year.

PS3 Prediction #2: A new color for PS3 will be introduced.
Expect some sexy new colors for PS3, many of which won’t appear in the US. Our European and Japanese friends will get special skinned systems for high profile games, like Metal Gear Solid. America may introduce a new premium bundle in White that includes an even larger hard drive and a hotly anticipated game.

PS3 Prediction #3: Video rental service will begin this year.
Sony will finally allow PS3 fans to download movies from the PS Store later this year. However, just like Xbox Live, the movies available will be rentals only and will require the PS3 to be signed into the PSN for playback. Sony won’t want to cannibalize its own Blu-ray sales with fully downloadable movies. At the very least, Remote Play will be enhanced so that you will be able to stream these movies to the PSP.

PS3 Prediction #4: Expect more price drops.
PS3 finally dropped to $399. Expect it go down even further later this year, so that it can remain competitive against the Xbox 360.

Silver PS3. PSN Video. New 80 gig at $399.

Wow. Hit it dead on the head. With a nail.

Of course, #4 is really a give or take, with the new 80 gig version not being the hardware everyone would like it to be. But damn. They’ve either got a mole in Sony or they just have good instinct.

One prediction left before the year’s over, guys.

PS3 Prediction #5: PS3 sales will get better, but won’t be able to beat Xbox 360 in 2008.
In spite of a much better library of games in 2008, the PS3 will trail behind Microsoft’s competing system. The PS3 will do stupendously in Europe and decently in Japan, but American gamers will remain hesitant about Sony’s system. Momentum will certainly help PS3, and critics and analysts alike will predict even better things for 2009.

Think this one’ll come true?

Share on Facebook

Please listen.

I’m not one. I never was one. People, if I were a Sony fanboy, I wouldn’t carry my DS around everywhere. It’s in my backpack right now. I’m playing Animal Crossing. I have Jam Sessions. I loved Twilight Princess. I have a Triforce badge and I own original copies of SNES Chrono Trigger and Earthbound.

The thing is, Nintendo has let me down. Check this comic out, and you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Scott Ramsoomair knows it. I know it. We all know it.

And Microsoft has been doing things wrong from the start. Porting games to the PC because you want to sell more copies of your software is not good business for your console. You wouldn’t have to charge for online play if you just let exclusives sell your console. But Microsoft doesn’t care–they seem to just want to crush the competition. They deal out absurd amount of money to turn titles like Final Fantasy XIII and GTA4 multiplatform.

What happened to when we were all calling the Xbox 360 the “Xbox 180″? Why have people overlooked the hardware limitations and the RROD? Have we forgotten how cheap Microsoft has been with us? Are we all going to be hypocrites and pretend we like Halo 3 just because everyone else says they do?

Here’s Halo’s story for you: A race of English-speaking aliens whose ethnic groups don’t look anything alike despite supposedly being the same race put a jihad on humanity for no real reason and follow religious leaders blindly to a giant Ring Planet which is secretly a massive weapon (which, for some reason, is left floating in space, abandoned, and easy to access) designed to starve a race of evil crap that lives on it. A dude with no personality called Master Chief (why have people forgotten how stupid that name was from the original Halo?) blows up the ring planet. Then the aliens invade Planet America and afterwards teleport to another giant weapon, and then there’s seven giant weapons.

Then Master Chief just kicks everyone’s ass, practically alone. There’s also an alien called the Arbiter. He has no other name.

The only reason I’ve stuck with Sony–despite delays, broken promises, lost exclusives and titles that are not as impressive as advertised–is because they still release exclusive content and they still have the best policy and strongest hardware out there, trying to give people more power to play with when developing games, allowing them to do more and more. There’s a lot you can do with a pencil and paper, but Nintendo went for construction paper, and Microsoft turned into a printer. When are people going to realize what painting in three dimensional space can do?

PS3 is my only hope for this Next Generation. Come on, guys. Just try to break out of the box and look at the situation.

Share on Facebook

Sony’s conference at E3 this year consisted mostly of self-aggrandizement and jabs at other gaming companies, and a lot of previews that made me excited. I guess Sony has the one-up this year since a lot of what people want from the console hasn’t actually been released yet, unlike Microsoft which released Halo 3
on the 360 and suddenly found themselves without anything that people were actually waiting for, except maybe Fable 2 which is made by Peter Molyneaux which means that half of what he’s said about it won’t be in the actual game. Sony’s currently waiting on half of its big propaganda movers like LittleBigPlanet and Killzone 2 and Resistance 2. The other half–Heavenly Sword and MGS4–have already come out and have helped establish the system. Much like Gears of War and then later Halo 3 for the 360.

Why am I the only person drawing parallelisms?

Anyway, to the conference.

The Good: Greatest Hits games being released. That means I can finally get Sigma for cheap. Though most people who have a PS3 already have these games anyway. It’s really just there to get people to buy more consoles since those games are cheaper. Revealing PS2, PSN and PSP content. The PS2 is still alive? Apparently. Even so much that it’s getting The Force Unleashed. How? Search me.

PSN Video is finally out, and I can rent movies without going anywhere. It’s not as awesome as Netflix, but who wants to pay for Live and Netflix subscriptions anyway? I don’t watch enough movies to care all too much. The feature is cool.

God of War 3 finally announced. Apparently the CGI trailer revealed at E3 is supposed to resemble the actual graphics of the game. That’s kind of scary. Now I’ll need to get it or be killed.

LittleBigPlanet is looking more cute than ever. Apparently you can make PowerPoint Presentations with it. You know I’m never going to use Office again. Sony is also getting two MMOs on the console: DC Universe Online and The Agency. Wow.

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm and Fallout 3 (also out on 360) look great. Both are on my to-get list. I’m going to be poor.

Sony reveals MAG: Massive Action Game (or Mega Awesome Game in my book) which is finally what feels like an all-out war between two teams of 128 players, each divided into squads of 8, led by one particularly talented player. Lots of awesome.

The Bad: First off, I want to say that I in no way condone anyone talking like their console is cooler than sliced bread and sounding like you’re in an infomercial, even Sony. This goes for Nintendo and Microsoft, too. This E3 was filled with words like “successful” and “engaging” and “most” and smatterings of features everywhere (“Blu Ray Storage capacities” and “crisp high-definition” and “innovative gameplay”) and Sony was just irritating as they overflattered their system.

PS2 is dead. Leave it alone, Sony. They keep releasing bad softcore versions of next-gen games on the PS2 and Wii and it’s driving me crazy. Wii Rock Band and PS2 Rock Band were awful. Just get with the program.

Nobody likes Buzz. I don’t know anyone who thinks Buzz is a cool game. Why are we getting seven hundred different versions of it? And SingStar is fine, but do you have to make a new version every two months?

You talked way too much about stuff we don’t really care about. Also, releasing two MMO simultaneously is really bad business. Of course, Sony still hasn’t caught on to the MMO craze, since they’re responsible for the disasters that are Everquest 2, Star Wars Galaxies and The Matrix Online–all of which I have played recently and been frustratingly disappointed with.

What happened to Final Fantasy? Are you going to talk about it? Where’s FFXIII Versus? That’s still an exclusive, right?

And of course there’s the fact that the conference was mostly filled with fluff of developers talking about how awesome the PS3 is and not about how many other games and features we want to see. When’s Home coming out? What’s the new stuff Kojima’s working on? What about Zone of the Enders 3? Or Heavy Rain? The elusive Quantic Dream title was shown behind closed doors, but why?

Sony has plenty lined up for the future–they just refused to share it with us, and instead gave us a lot of lofty crap about how awesome they are. At least they didn’t throw too many numbers at us like Nintendo did, and end with words about how much they’re not a fad. But still, the lack of information was bothersome.

Also, the PS3 80 gig at $399 is not a price cut. It’s a 40gig with 40 gigs more space. Not that Sony ever said it was a price cut, but it was conveniently misleading. So while it’s better for the buyer–get a bit more bang for your buck–remember, it’s not the same as an old 80 gig, which has a few hardware advantages.

In the end, I liked the Sony conference. I had my qualms with it, but I hated the other companies’. I guess you could say that makes me a fanboy, but to be honest it’s just logic that goes into my appreciation for the PS3. The Wii is an overhyped gimmick. The Xbox 360 is a faulty tool that doesn’t push next-gen far enough. In the end I like the flashiest, most powerful and most accessible technology. I don’t pay monthly fees and I don’t have friend codes to bother with. The PS3 and I are a perfect match.

Sony is just evil.

Share on Facebook

Okay, so this post came much later than it was supposed to. So sue me. I’m here.

Nintendo’s skinny comes as a surprise–before E3, they were boasting the best sales in the console race to the point where they’re no longer part of it–the Wii is no longer considered next-gen but new-gen, a new generation of “more innovative” consoles that allow new player experiences. More on that later.

The Good: Nintendo has a new Zelda and a new Mario game in the works… in theory. They’re releasing a Shaun White Snowboarding game with the Wii balance board and Animal Crossing for Wii, as well as the long-awaited Wii Music, which should have been a launch title. Animal Crossing looks great, and I’ve always loved the game. Still a complete rehash of the old game (think Ninja Gaiden Sigma but no nicer graphics) and still not enough connectivity, even if there is more (damn you, Friend Code!). But I’ll definitely want to see it at some point when it comes out. They have a Star Wars: Clone Wars, Rayman Rabbids TV Party and Call of Duty: World at War, as well, all three of which use the wiimote sensor in some fashion.

They had Guitar Hero: On Tour which is pretty much Guitar Hero toned down a hundred times and SPORE Creatures which is a Tamagotchi Pokemon Nintendogs Designer hybrid thing. There is another Pokemon game. There’s a Grand Theft Auto game on the DS, too, which is highly confusing as to how it’ll work, and we’ve seen no videos or screenshots.

They’re suggesting some eerie things about those temporary downloadable games for DS, like cookbooks and maps and information and things that generally belong on an iPhone.

There’s something interesting called WiiMotionPlus, which is an adapter which apparently makes your Wiimote more accurate. I see it a little like the Nintendo 64 expansion pack. The way it looks, it simply reads your wrist movements.

The Bad: E3 was an awful joke this year from Nintendo. Nintendo basically spent an entire conference talking about how great they were doing and how many people they’d gotten to buy their hardware, stating that their Mario and Zelda teams were “working on games for the Wii”, which could mean anything, and then proceeded to preview games we know will not live up to the hype they generate for their “Motion Sensitivity”.

The Wii balance board being used as a “board” for everything is already sounding old with both Shaun White and Raving Rabbids using it. We know Star Wars: Clone Wars is going to be a disappointment. We expected lightsabers and swords to do what we do when the Wiimote has been in our hands, but after Zelda: Twilight Princess and Red Steel I know this is a dream and not a reality. It’s not going to happen. Watching two people duking it out with lightsabers and having to waggle their wiimotes and nunchuks back and forth in order to escape a clash was immediate proof of that. Even with the new WiiMotionPlus, which looks like it has potential, but was demonstrated with Wii Sports, a severely toned-down game when it comes to calculation, graphics and content. I’m expecting disappointment. Which I’m pretty sure is impossible.

Same goes for Call of Duty: World of War. Have we all forgotten the catastrophe that was Call of Duty 3 on Wii? Is the fact that it has no number now supposed to mask that it is a predecessor of that lousy combination of bad mechanics and awful visuals? Watching people fake it out while they hold that stupid plastic Wii Shooter in their hands was painful. Come on, people. We know the only way this will work is with lock-on. Remember Prime: Corruption? Yeah, that’s the only way it’ll work. And I don’t think COD will do that. I’m expecting somewhat of a rail shooter experience, actually. And that sucks.

Lastly, what happened to Harvest Moon and Line Rider? What, were they just not good enough to be in E3? Instead, pushed aside for stuff like Wii Speak–a microphone. It’s almost as bad as Sony putting emphasis in the Eye Toy, a webcam. At least the Eye Toy can be used for a few motion-based games like Tori Emaki. In fact, the Eye Toy comes with a microphone. And yet they promote it like it’s delivered from on high.

Wii Music looks like a great idea that will simply not be as great as it looks. While I love being able to use virtual instruments to create music, Wii Music’s presentation just was not that impressive. I know they’ve been working on it for a long time, but even so it still looks flawed. Simply not accurate enough, not seamless enough, not melodious enough. The notes Miyamoto played, opposed to what Miyamoto claimed, really did not seem to match the song. Hitting the right drum on the set seemed more trouble than it was worth. Taking a leaf out of the indy DS game Jam Sessions would have been a great idea over the system they developed.

I obviously expect everything Nintendo to sell like pancakes. I expect people to be thrilled with the WiiMotionPlus. I expect Wii Music to be a bestseller that will kill at Christmas, with no other triple A children’s games being released other than Super Mario Sluggers (a baseball Mario game, surprise) and I know they’ll continue to lead the pack as everyone thinks they will. But I hate it. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of people assuming the Wiimote is “innovation,” that it’s new and different and special. It’s just another button. A more intuitive button? Maybe. Though all that does is get you more sales. The moment you make it this easy for someone to add motion sensitivity to a game, you’re no longer being innovative. You’re being a goddamn tool.

Share on Facebook

I’m going to talk about the E3 conferences in order, starting with Microsoft today, Nintendo tomorrow and Sony the day after. I have good and bad things to say about each, and will be doing it in short blurbs.

The Good: Microsoft has things lined up for the future. Good–there’s a world outside Halo 3.

They’re changing their interface to look like Windows Media Center (which I have always hated… but it works similar to Sony’s XMB, so what do you do?) and they’re adding Avatars, which are like an answer to PS3′s Home avatars and Nintendo’s Miis, only resembling Miis a great deal more.

They’ve also got a good lineup of games, including Fable 2 of Peter Molyneaux fame and every other multiplatform game we already know about like Resident Evil and Rock Band 2. Exclusively, they have Gears of War 2 and a few Square-Enix-published games.

The Bad: I was no excited by Avatars at all. While I appreciate companies trying to represent players in a virtual environment and I’m looking forward to Home and everything, I’m starting to become frustrated that it’s becoming a gimmick to incorporate avatar representation. Hopefully Microsoft Avatars will be just as customizeable as Home avatars and will not be as static and bland as Miis have turned out to be.

I didn’t fail to notice the fact that they only had really two big-name exclusives on their lineup. Of the four Square games Microsoft boasted, only two (Star Ocean: The Last Hope and Infinite Undiscovery) will be exclusive–the other two being Last Remnant and Final Fantasy XIII–the latter announcement which I already expressed my disappointment in. Both exclusive games are only published by Square Enix, developed by tri-Ace.

Also, I feel this being more or less a confirmation of Microsoft’s less-than-honorable payoff to Square. It also details some of Sony’s sneak tactics, which I’ll elaborate on the day after tomorrow.

Lastly, why did they change their interface? I never thought there was an issue with it. I remember actual complaints about the PSN store being the reason it was changed–and to resemble Wii Channels, no less–but giving the Xbox that WMC XMB new interface is rather uncalled for.

Nintendo’s Good and Bad coming tomorrow.

Share on Facebook

Yesterday, during the E3 Microsoft Keynote presentation, we heard Yoichi Wada, president of Square Enix, give an announcement that broke millions of hearts.

Final Fantasy XIII no longer a PS3 exclusive. An Xbox 360 version will be released in Europe and North America on the same launch date as the PS3 version.

I think I’m justified in feeling terribly betrayed right now, since time and time again the world was assured that Final Fantasy XIII was to be a PS3 exclusive–the trailers had logos on the end that read “Exclusively for the Playstation 3 System”, the rumors were quelled time and time again, really–we all thought we could trust Square Enix. They have Sony’s back, we thought. Sony saved them when they were drowning after FFX-2 and Spirits Within. They gave them a huge chance with Kingdom Hearts–it’s the only reason they’ve been able to explode back up. And now this.

I can’t imagine the amount of money that must have exchanged hands for this to have occurred–Xbox 360 must have realized they didn’t have all that much in their 2008 lineup and called up Square Enix, begging for a slice of cake. I do, however, get the feeling Square won’t be having to merge with any other company anytime too soon.

To give some good news, Final Fantasy XIII Versus remains a PS3 exclusive, and XIII itself will of course still be released on the PS3. But Square has wounded me this time. I’ve been able to forgive and forget time and time again. But this? This is betrayal. I’ve been stabbed in the back. And not only me–I get the feeling Sony didn’t know about this announcement either. Nor any other Playstation advocate out there.

Square Enix, you’ve got to win back my respect and my approval. Both are gone for now. You have one more chance: make these two games so spectacular My eyes pop out, or become dead to me from here on out.

Let’s hope you make the right choice.

Share on Facebook

Sorry I’ve been delaying my posts so much. Summer vacation’s barely been a vacation, and after lying around at home for several weeks and avoiding writing I came back to find work and no time for writing. Thankfully, I’m on top of things again, and in an environment that makes me want to write about games once more. Fancy that, eh? My immediate surroundings dictate my work ethic. I probably need to get a job immediately after graduating, else I fear my portfolio work and blogwriting might go down the drain. I need a gaming environment. Thank God, I’m back.

A while ago, months, I had been talking to my housemate and we started joking as I popped Uncharted into the Playstation 3, “What if PS3 games needed various disks? I mean, what would you fill up Blu-Ray disks with?” He mentioned textures having textures, and I laughed and replied that each molecule would be modeled in order to ensure the maximum possible true-to-life texture. At that, he mused, “It would be tight if developers could set up the code for molecules and how they behave inside a texture.”

As he said this, I suddenly remembered. They already have.

Read that article. Don’t just go past it and keep reading what I wrote. Just look at the pictures and videos if you want, but go to that site.

You did it? Good.

4D technology is essentially the use of algorithms to dictate the behavior of each pixel in a texture, affected by time and forces around the particle as if it were a regular bit of matter.

The amazing thing behind 4D technology which is slowly starting to appear in more and more PS3 games (mentioned in the article are Afrika and Killzone 2) is the way the algorithms programmed into the world allow for minimized use of textures, and yet manage visuals that far exceed most anything games have come up with so far.

That’s great when you’re doing things in High-Definition, where a low-res texture is going to look like utter crap. And if you want to fit thousands upon thousands of gorgeous upscale textures on a single Blu-Ray disc

The reason I’ve mostly used PS3 terminology is because 4D is simply not possible for the Xbox 360 and the Wii. They don’t have the power to parallel process all those behaviors. Without the core processor, there’s no way for a console to calculate the renders. So I once again wave my PS3 flag, and everyone continues to think I am a fanboy.

I really wish I could find positive things to say about other consoles for that very reason. But what do I do?

Anyway, we won’t see the use of 4D to its full potential just yet, but we will start to see games incorporating it rather soon. When this article came out, Killzone 2 was still heavy in development. Nowadays it’s scheduled for next year’s Q1 release (What? What happened to later this year? Our dear Delaystation 3) and who knows when Afrika will be released. Sometime next year.

Still, be on the lookout for this rising technology and its negative effects: soon, texture artists will not be as needed anymore, or their function will change. Get ready to no longer seek to make the greatest upscale texture possible but the most condensed, quality texture in the minimum amount of space. Be prepared to see this lose people jobs and create ones for new skillsets.

Share on Facebook

This is in reply to Costikyan’s “I Have No Words & I Must Design”, in particular his assertion that “Stories are linear. Games are not.” I recently was asked to agree or disagree with this statement, and went haywire and wrote this next rail.

I hate hearing the words “Games don’t need story.” It bothers me. It worries me. I worry that people have lost sight of seeking a more exploratory world of games, a more experimental experience. But I can respect their opinion–they’ve chosen Form over Purpose, if you’ve read Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. They want to find a refined way to create a game that will appeal to the viewer.
However, I’ve long since leapt that fence and raced to the heart of what I consider games: experiences. People developed games through evolution, Will Wright has said. It’s important for our growth and development. It’s a form of *experience*, in which our actions and the “management of our resources” affect our trajectory towards our goal. But our goal could be something far greater, far more profound than simply “Achieving victory”. “Owning all the property.” “Defeating the final boss.” By seeing games in this light, I almost feel like we’re trying to make games more shallow than they are or could be. More dry. More boring. See, if it’s just about capturing the flag, what’s the point? If all you need to do is get to the finish line before everyone else, why do it? There has to be more to designing a game, and I think by exploring the ways we tell stories through gameplay is the key. After all, people create their own stories when playing any game–they don’t just observe the rules of play, they observe the EVENTS of play–the rules simply become the reality, the medium for that story to take place.

Think of a game like the Indigo Prophecy (Farenheit in the UK). It had an amazing story which steadily became a Wachowski Brothers fest as the game continued, thanks to an unfortunate lack of funding for the tale that was supposed to be a sequel. In any case, the way the story was told was entirely through gameplay–through a set of rules that players began to learn and obeyed throughout the experience. The final goal of the game? To uncover the secret behind the murder your main protagonist appears to have committed. It’s a survival game, in a sense–the point is to survive to the end. But even if it’s such a simplistic formula, without that story the game would collapse onto itself. The gameplay is strong and interesting and experimental, but it’s simply not enough to convey the experience–it’s the story that drives that.

On the other hand, let’s take a look at a very story-absent game. Let’s take Pong. Any version–you can go from Pong to Top Spin 2 to Rockstar’s Table Tennis. The game has very little story to it. You rise to the top and all, but, really, the plot can be thrown aside and what would be left is the barebones game mechanic of bouncing a ball back and forth. But what is it that drives the player to invest in that? Is it the cheering fans, the hot asphalt? The original Pong didn’t have that level of realism. Is it the simplistic power of moving a rack and knocking a ball back across the net at the other player? Table Tennis was a great deal more complicated than that, and requires a good bit of hard work to master.
In essence? It’s the spirit of that competition that embodies the challenge and elicits the player’s emotion. We search for so-called “meaningful play” in design, but what many fail to realize is that every time a player is invested, they are alluding to yet another human story.

We shouldn’t be trying to create “meaningful play”. We should be trying to make play players can attach meaning to themselves.

The point I’m trying to make is, games create stories. People create stories–we’re a story-driven race; it’s why we spend such a great deal of time researching and conserving our hi-story. Our memory is comprised of stories and events, and those experiences dictate how and what we have learned over the course of our lives. Humans and stories are inseparable–and games are simply the setup of hypothetical, experimental universes for more stories to be created. Costikian said it himself, and I don’t know why he doesn’t recognize it: “Games provide a set of rules; but the players use them to create their own consequences.” Those consequences are being remembered and learned as stories.

I see ludology as a tool, not an ideal. Creating fun gameplay is essential to a game’s success, yes. But it’s finding a way to capture the spirit of play in the player that I find the true art. It’s why many MMOs fail where World of Warcraft reigns king. It’s why people keep buying Final Fantasy again and again and again. It’s why you keep asking your friends to play Monopoly with you–the universe created by the game is that breeding ground for all players to create their own stories. It doesn’t matter what the mechanics are, as long as they work for that specific event you want to recreate.

It’s why many people disliked Assassin’s Creed. Playing it, you’d want to recreate the story of an assassin. But the gameplay simply doesn’t lend for the creation of that experience. The game isn’t UN-FUN, per se. It just doesn’t lend for someone to believe they’re an assassin in most cases.

Give that some thought before you begin writing numbers down, ludologists.

Share on Facebook

I would be writing about Monster Hunter right now, if for the fact that the game is too long and I have simply not even reached Hunter Level 3 yet because I’ve been too busy playing Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. All week there’s been a regular storm of controversy wrapped around the so-called last episode of Solid Snake’s life and series. It seems that either our sneaky protagonist has gotten either a great deal of love or a great deal of hate with few in-betweens. I’ve heard any broad number of both ecstatic and disgusted takes on the game, so I decided to share my own observation and try to be what I seldom end up being: a median.

I loved MGS4. Let’s start out honest. I adored it. It was gorgeous, and exactly the kind of thing I want to see in a game. At the same time, I understand exactly why some people were more than disattisfied with acclaims from all over calling this a “Near Perfect” game, not to mention IGN’s PK Rockin’ Omega score of 10/10.

For a great number of people, MGS4 felt like a huge cutscene: a very pretty, very lovely cutscene sometimes lousily voice-acted with occasionally very tacky dialogue. The actual gameplay takes up maybe half of the game, while the other half is comprised of immovable cutscenes that pull you through a gargantuan action story that drags on and on. Were you to be able to compile Metal Gear as a movie you would easily have an 8 hour action adventure epic that would be very difficult for the average moviegoer to understand.

That makes a lot of people turn their noses up at the new Metal Gear, insinuating that it feels a lot less like a game and more like a big movie story you seem to have no hand in. However, what I realized as I was playing and feeling more or less the same along those lines was that there’s nothing really dictating what a game should or should not be comprised of. It was at that moment that I saw MGS4 as something quite different than what I had picked it up as–not as an intricate stealth game but an entire interactive experience, immersing me in the world of Metal Gear so deeply that when the cutscenes rolled around, I still felt like I was experiencing the action. Not to mention that occasionally the movie aspect was enhanced by gameplay aids, like the opportunity to “flashback” every now and then during cutscenes and change the camera’s POV in order to get different takes on the action and foreshadowing for future events.

The actual sneaking gameplay outside of the cutscenes is just as exciting and challenging as ever, with an even more fresh look and feel thanks to a great deal of Western adoptions by Eastern developers. The over the shoulder view, the ability to play through the entire game as Rambo as you like; all those things add a new flavor and style of playing the game that I couldn’t have expected. I’ve watched people barely using the OctoCamo, Snake’s brand-new, nifty equipment which lets him hide out and blend into his surroundings, and instead avoid enemies like mad by hotfooting their way behind obstacles and diving into cardboard boxes and drum cans. I’ve watched people take out enemies one by one, silently, using snipers and knives and a great deal of patience. My buddy Squall is trying to go through the entire game without killing anyone or being spotted once in under 5 hours on Extreme Mode, and after having ripped through most of the game with guns blazing and seeing his careful, precise art of sneaking, I decided to attempt to emulate his dedication. You can play this game in three dozen ways, and that’s just beautiful design to me.

To counter Tycho’s somewhat aloof stance on the game, I believe MGS4 can be just as much, if not more, a game about remaining undetected as any Splinter Cell or Assassin’s Creed, if not more so. You can even remain undetected to bosses if you’ve got your wits about you. The thing is, Metal Gear does not demand you play a certain way. It does not demand you kill or knock out–it encourages you to stick to Snake’s roots, but does not reprimand you for not doing so. You can actually unlock a few interesting bonuses if you go on a few killing frenzies. I think Metal Gear’s openess for gameplay and intricacy in its execution is spectacular. (Note: Tycho recanted a little earlier this week, so he’s been grudgingly let off the hook.)

But to go back a few steps, I have to agree with a few things being put out there. There’s nothing wrong with Metal Gear being over the top in story, but when it seems like the entire story is a gargantuan plot twist, the player ends up feeling a little bit alienated and confused, as if he or she has been led on a massive wild goose chase. Not to mention the fact that a lot of it is tackily written, which I tend to blame on localization. It also doesn’t help that we have some great English voice actors who are incapable of displaying certain emotions.

The game is still very satisfying to me, but not everyone has the intense analysis and following of Metal Gear characters I do, and therefore they wouldn’t be able to understand as much of the plot. It’s why Kojima very cleverly released the downloadable Metal Gear Database. But even the Database doesn’t give everyone what they want out of a Metal Gear game, and unfortunately there’s a crowd out there who just doesn’t like movie experiences in games, like Yahtzee, for example. There’s people who want the game to be strictly that, a game. As someone who loves literature and film and graphic novels, I have a slightly different focus in what I try to achieve with games. But that’s fine–nobody’s saying anyone’s right or wrong, we just have different end goals. MGS4 just happens to be one of the things I want as an end goal, with a few tweaks.

If you have a PS3, just get Metal Gear. It’s a great PS3 exclusive and most people bought the damn console for the game. I mean, even if you don’t like it, Metal Gear Online is the multiplayer shooter of the moment aside from COD4. Just get Metal Gear. Skip the cutscenes, if you like. You don’t have to watch them. Do yourself a favor and don’t be the guy who has a PS3 and doesn’t have MGS4.

Share on Facebook