Some Thoughts on 2010: Part One

Like most of you, I played quite a few games this year, and I've had one or two interesting thoughts about most of those games. I'm not very good at end-of-year lists or rankings, so instead I thought I might just write a couple of paragraphs about the games that I remember of 2010, something I found interesting about those games, and some good pieces of writing I read about them. This won't be an exhaustive list, nor is it in any order other than the order that the games came to mind. Feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments, or links to any other interesting articles from this year. Suggestions of games I have missed are also welcome, but you might want to wait until I finish the series!

Bioshock 2

Nearly every review of Bioshock 2 that I read called it "the perfect sequel to a game that didn't need a sequel". For my part, it was a delightful return and fleshing out of a world I never expected I would visit again. I was wary the game would ignore the themes of the first game (much as the second half of Bioshock ignores its own themes when you are asked to continue taking orders mindlessly after the encounter with Ryan), but Delta's mental conditioning and the way it affects his decisions is blatant from the start. As you go on your quest for Eleanor, you know exactly why you are doing it: because you have no choice.

Gameplay and mechanics wise, Bioshock 2 improves on the first game's already solid systems nicely. The more open-ended design adds new dimensions to the city of Rapture and combined with the various new weapons and plasmids adds a whole new layer of potential tactics.

Bioshock 2's greatest achievement for me was that I truly felt like a Big Daddy. I felt big and bulky and heavy. My feet clunked on the timber flooring, my drill crushed the skulls of splicers, my rivet gun recoiled as the rivets punched through the air.

Also interesting was how my choices affected gameplay. Instead of the number of little sisters I saved just affecting what cut-scene plays at the end, it instead affected the kind of person Eleanor became and the decisions she made. Towards the end of the game, choices are no longer yours to make and you must stand by helplessly as Eleanor makes up her own mind. Yet, it was your decisions earlier in the game that determined the kind of person she became. You stand by helplessly, knowing that the choices you made allowed this to happen.

Probably my favourite Bioshock 2 related writing this year was Justin Keverne's "Groping the Map" series on Pauper's Drop. Definitely still worth checking out.

Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect 2's cinematic trailer ranks as one of my all time favourite game trailers, just behind practically ever Grand Theft Auto IV trailer. It was good enough for me to finally play through Mass Effect so that I could play Mass Effect 2. Sadly, I found the game only a fraction as enjoyable as the trailer. After all of Mass Effect and more than enough hours of Dragon Age (by which I mean ten very dull hours) I am completely over Bioware's "gather a party and save the universe/middle-earth" plotline. 

Which is not to say I couldn't at least appreciate Mass Effect 2 is a good game, just one I didn't enjoy. Unlike Dragon Age, the universe is at least interesting and well thought-out (even if you only get to discover most of it in the 'codex' menu). And the symbiosis between player and character in Commander Shepard is done superbly.

Yet, the gameplay was disappointing, and I couldn't help but feel I had done it all before. I didn't 'quit' Mass Effect 2 so much as just stopped playing one day and never started again. I just didn't see the point.

Minecraft

Rarely will I classify a single game my Game Of The Year, but 2010 has a clear winner in Minecraft. Probably the only release this year that I sunk more than a hundred hours into, and I don't regret a single one. Minecraft means something different to each player. I never built more than a single-room hut, and I was never more than a tourist on the various multiplayer servers. For me, Minecraft was about the lonesome exploration of new worlds. I spent countless nights exploring the deep places of various worlds, filling chests with diamond and redstone, then moving on to another.

The game could evoke emotions unlike any other game. Distress, anger, exuberance, sorrow, disbelief--all from a procedurally generated world with no set goals. That every action is final and irreversible certainly had a say in this. The experiences and memories I have from my all-night sessions of Minecraft easily surpass any other gaming experience I had this year. Surprising, considering I am usually one for the authored narrative.

And then there is Towards Dawn. What started as a simple musing tweet of "I wonder what it would be like to play as a nomad?" has turned into a forty-day-and-counting adventure across strange and beautiful lands. Though, it has stalled the last few weeks over Christmas, I'm afraid.

Many people wrote many things about Minecraft. Experience Points had many a good post, as did Rock Paper Shotgun with their "Mine the Gap" series and their Game of the Year post. Meanwhile, at Binary Swan, Gerard Delaney was one of the first to unwrap, for me, just why Minecraft feels so good.

Sleep is Death

For the few days after Jason Rohrer's experimental title was released, my brother and I played nothing else. The stories we created were quick, nonsensical, and improvised, written on-the-fly as we hastily found default sprites to further the story. The potential of the game was massive, but sadly I feel few have realised it. I guess the community it required just wasn't there in the way it was for Minecraft. That, or I am just unaware of it.

The greatest element of the game was cooperation. I've seen too many 'player' players play the game as though they were in competition with the 'director' player, a competition where they must break the story that the director has planned. Of course, this is a competition they usually win as breaking the story is easy. This isn't fun for anyone. It's like going left from the start of 1-1 in Super Mario Brothers then complaining when you can't go anywhere. Rather, if you cooperate with the director, the game can be an amazing experience.

In one of my brother's and mine first game, when neither of us really knew what we were doing, I managed to paint an entire scene blue by accident. My brother played along by saying "Ah! Flood!" So we went with this. His family jumped onto the bed and sailed it out to sea, living on a diet of fish until they found an island. It was these experiences that made this game awesome. Sadly actually setting up a game was always difficult and I have thus not been motivated to put much more time into the game in recent months.

Halo Reach

The end of the Halo series, as far as I am concerned, and also the most complete Halo title to date. Bungie has taken the best of the first Halo, added the improvements of the sequels, and removed the ideas that never quit meshed. The story and pacing is adequately tragic, with the helplessness of Noble Team mounting gradually at first then exponentially later. It only suffered from a lack of subtitles informing the player of how much time passes between missions. Some were actually weeks apart, and the missions would have made more sense if I was aware of this at the time.

The juxtaposition between your initial setup of Your Very Own Spartan(TM)'s armour with the customised, individualised helmet of said Spartan smoldering in Reach's rubble was excellent. Many people would have spent many minutes perfecting their ideal Spartan, excited that they would be seeing that Spartan in single-player as well as multiplayer. And then, the second they start campaign, they know that that Spartan, their Spartan, will be dead. It worked stunningly well.

I found matchmaking far more enjoyable than Halo 3, too, but that is mostly because I seem to not such at Reach while I sucked quite incredible at Halo 3. Firefight, however, despite the myriad of new options, I found somewhat lackluster compared to ODST. I can't quite put my finder on why, though. Perhaps it is the map design. Reach firefight is excellent for a short game, but it can't put a light to the multi-hour marathon's I had on the open levels of ODST.

Roger Travis wrote a great post at his Living Epic blog that looks at Halo Reach in the framework of the classic epic which is a bit heavy going at times, but is well worth the effort.


And that will do for Part One of 2010. To be continued tomorrow!

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Frayed Narratives, Closed Games: Understanding My Allergy To BioWare Games

I do not enjoy many BioWare games. There I finally said it. Baldur’s Gate overwhelmed me; I gave up on Knights of the Old Republic; I could not stand Dragon Age: Origins. I did enjoy the story and style of Mass Effect a lot, but it took months of apathy towards the gameplay before it obtained the dubious title of being the only BioWare title I have ever completed. I am currently halfway through Mass Effect 2, but the disc has not been placed in my 360 for over a month now. I just do not feel the need to complete BioWare games. There is something about them that just makes the overall experience meaningless to me.

This has always bothered me as I do not think BioWare make bad games. Many would argue, and I would have trouble disagreeing, that they are among the best world-builders (in the fiction sense, not the polygon sense) in the industry. They form worlds rich with details, bureaucracies, and consequences that make other game-worlds look like flat, cardboard cut-outs. Games like Dragon Age have an unprecedented amount of recorded dialogue so that the player’s actions can affect the story, world, and characters in meaningful, persistent ways. These games integrate story and game so tightly that the two can’t be separated. These should be the games that justify my belief that games can tell good stories in ways pre-existing mediums never could. Yet I do not enjoy them.

Meanwhile, I thoroughly enjoy games such as Red Dead Redemption, Fallout 3, and Halo 3: ODST that give me some arbitrary amount of spatial freedom to move around an open world, yet force me through an ultimately linear narrative. These games let me do whatever I want, but then remove my agency entirely to progress the story in a certain way. If I would rather be told a pre-authored story than author my own, why do I invest so much time into playing and researching story-driven games instead of film or literature?

This question has pestered me for some time now. It would not be exaggerating to say I feel guilty for enjoying these games while not enjoying the BioWare titles—to the extent that I have even doubted my own belief that story has a place in game design. It was not until the following passage from Tom Bissell’s Extra Lives caused me to stop and think for whole minutes that I began to understand why: 

"I want to be told a story—albeit one I happen to be part of and can affect, even if in small ways. If I wanted to tell a story, I would not be playing video games."

Before I go on, it must be stressed that this can only ever be a purely subjective thing. I am not trying to argue for one form of storytelling over another. There is no single, prescriptive way to put stories and games together. I am not trying to disregard the BioWare model (that would be foolish as so many people obviously do enjoy their games) but, rather, I want to understand why the BioWare form of storytelling does not appeal to me.

If a game such as Red Dead Redemption is a closed story (one beyond my control) in an open world (one I can navigate freely), then a BioWare game such as Dragon Age is an open story in a closed world. Or, instead of ‘world’, let’s say ‘game’; that way I am not limiting my argument to sandbox games. Both Deus Ex and Metal Gear Solid, for instance, are closed stories beyond my control (my actions do affect which ending I view but each possible ending is still predetermined), but are open games in the sense that I am able to navigate and interact with the levels freely—even in ways that render the story nonsensical.

Dragon Age, on the other hand, feels like a closed game which does not give me any freedom to navigate or interact with the world. That is a contentious thing to claim that can easily be argued against, I am aware. However, each Dragon Age locale that I visit feels confined and contrived; I can talk and interact with characters to progress the story, but can only interact with the world—and by extension, play the game—in very limited ways.

Despite the rich depth of fiction supporting Ferelden, I never feel like I am visiting places, just levels. Shadow Moses Island and Deus Ex’s Liberty Island, despite the linear stories the games force me through, feel like real places. Metal Gear Solid and Deus Ex only allow me to interact with the story in limited ways, but I can interact with their worlds (and thus their games) in significant ways. Dragon Age, however, while letting me interact thoroughly with the story, rarely lets me interact with the game.

By closing off the game and opening up the story, BioWare games give me agency where I do not require it, and remove my agency from where I do require it. That is, I am able to affect the story more at the price of being able to play the game.

Narratives are essentially linear. Some are convoluted with flashbacks and various points-of-views and whatnot, but every narrative essentially starts at a beginning and progresses towards an end. Games have some fascinating contributions to make to storytelling discourse. One is allowing unique player experiences to emerge from the act of play in games such as The Sims or Far Cry 2. Another is allowing the player to partake in existing narratives by enacting a specific character role. However, I am increasingly convinced that one of these contributions is not the delinearisation of what are still essentially pre-authored narratives.

I feel that if a game has a particular story to present, it should present it. As the Bissell quote above states, I do not play games because I want to tell stories; I play games because I want to take part in a story. I want to enact a role in the game’s story, not rewrite it. The actor playing Romeo in a production of Romeo and Juliet does not get to decide whether or not he kills Tybalt, but he does get to decide how he personally, uniquely enacts the character of Romeo within the open space of the stage and the closed space of the narrative. Like the actor, the player guides a linear narrative through an open, navigable space.

Arguably, the branching dialogue trees of Mass Effect and Dragon Age are just a higher degree of this: taking part significantly in a story that is being told to me. However, for me this can never be more meaningful that those pick-a-path novels you read as a kid. I do not feel as though I am experiencing my own, personal telling of the story; rather, I merely feel like I am experiencing one of an arbitrary number of hypotheticals. Red Dead Redemption is the story of John Marsden; Deus Ex is the story of JC Denton; Metal Gear Solid is the story of Solid Snake. Dragon Age, however, is not the story of one specific character; it is the story of how a Grey Warden who may exist (but then again may not) may save Ferelden this way (but then again may save Ferelden that way). While the game’s efforts to give the player agency over the story should be applauded, the actual result was that my actions became less significant. The numerous potential paths of the narrative weakened my overall experience of the story. My actions were less meaningful because any other combination of actions could have had the same ultimate result. Ultimately, the story lacked authority.

This is perhaps why Mass Effect is the only BioWare game I have actually completed. Although the player has an impressive amount of influence over what kind of person Shepard is, Mass Effect is ultimately the story of Commander Shepard, not of the player, and it is a stronger story because of this. And, as a game relying primarily on its story, is also a stronger game.

A linear story threads through an open game like a thick rope that anchors and guides the player’s actions. BioWare’s multi-branching narratives are not multiple ropes, but one rope much frayed. The number of paths is not increased (they all still end in a similar conclusion), but the overall strength of the narrative is weakened. Branching narratives is not the way to go about allowing the player their own personal stories. Games can do this, but no pre-authored narrative can. Mass Effect, with all its dialogue trees, will never have the breadth of unique stories that have emerged from more emergent games like The Sims or Far Cry 2.

This is not to completely undermine al the incredibly things Mass Effect and other BioWare games achieve. The predicament with Wrex will go down as one of my more gripping gaming moments of recent times. BioWare does an extraordinary job of making me feel for its characters and worlds. However, I believe that is more a product of their splendid, encyclopaedic knowledge of their worlds than from any number of dialogue trees.

I have no issue with linear narratives in games, and I have no issue with open, emergent narratives in games. I also have no issue with games experimenting with linear narratives in new ways. However, I do have an issue with linear narratives trying to be emergent narratives. At best, they will be complex pick-a-path stories, nothing more.

This is why I find Mass Effect the most enjoyable of BioWare’s titles. It is a linear narrative about Commander Shepard fighting the Reapers. The player is able to participate in the narrative by making significant choices along the way, but the narrative itself remains the same. This is the story of Commander Shepard. Dragon Age, however, gave me no reason to commit to its narrative as the game itself felt uncommitted. It was not a story; it was one branch no more remarkable than a thousand other branches.

It is not the number of narrative paths that fascinate me about a story-driven game—a game based on emergent play will always have an infinite number more. Rather, it is the ability to take part in one specific, well-presented narrative path that interests me. I am a player and, by definition, my participation is in the gameplay; it is in the gameplay that my agency can do the most good. Narratives, historically, have always worked best when linear and closed off from the audience’s input; gameplay has always worked best when left open to the player’s experimentation. So perhaps, instead of merging the two together, games should keep it that way. Give the player a point A and a point B and a navigable space between the two and let them find the rope to pull them through it.

As noted throughout this article, I am not trying to be prescriptive here. I am very aware that many people do enjoy these BioWare games for exactly the reasons I do not. Perhaps I am simply approaching them with the wrong frame-of-mind. I can already see some key weaknesses in my arguments that could easily be argued against (i.e. How can I say the player has significant choices in Mass Effect if the narrative is unaffected?). I welcome challenges to the conclusions I have drawn here in the comments. Not because I think I am right, but because I want to understand why I do not enjoy these games.

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Game Diary 03: 03 June 2010

[Game Diary is a semi-regular column reflecting on the games I am currently playing, articles I have recently read, and writings I am currently working on.]

It has been quite some time since my last Game Diary entry. I can put this down to one major excuse: Red Dead Redemption. Though, ModNation Racers as well as cheap copies of Mass Effect 2 and Final Fantasy XIII have not helped matters either. I now find myself in the unenviable position of having three hundred-plus hour games to complete along with plenty of articles and essays to write, and great articles to read.

Games I Played

Red Dead Redemption. Where to begin? What to say about this game that you have not already heard? While I know many of you will disagree with me, I feel Rockstar are doing some of the most exciting work out there in terms of incorporating mature, intelligent stories into videogames. I know Red Dead Redemption is created by a different team than Grand Theft Auto IV, but Dan Houser is still a major writer (if the opening credits are to be believed), and it certainly shows. The entire game drips with intelligent satire and knowing nods to the Western genre--staying true to the aesthetics and iconography while also critiqueing it with a contemporary eye. Rockstar's biting satire remains but the potty humour and mention of titties has (thankfully) largely been left in Liberty City.

The map is sprawling and vast, yet full of things to do. I rarely feel the urge to quick travel; this is the kind of world that begs you to take your time exploring. Shooting is more fun than in Grand Theft Auto IV, and actually quite challenging once you turn off auto-aim. My only major criticism is that every mission is basically the same predictable structure (ride somewhere, shoot stuff, ride back), but there are a few delightful surprises. But even when the missions are all the same, the scriptwriting and presented fiction are all so tight that I hardly mind galloping into Armadillo one more time.

ModNation Racers. I won't repeat everything I have already said in my post on this game, suffice to say that it is an excellent, enjoyable racer hidden behind a horrible mish-mash of laggy, un-navigable menus.

Mass Effect 2. I made the mistake of walking past EB Games the other week just as their stocktake sale was commencing. Before I knew it, I had picked up half-price copies of Mass Effect 2 and Final Fantasy XIII--both games I intended to play "one day" when they didn't cost $100. I guess it is that day! 

I have something of an allergic reaction to BioWare games, I admit. I don't know what it is. Every since Knights of the Old Republic, I have started a game with high hopes after hearing nothing but positive things, and then I just get... over it, I suppose, quite quickly. Perhaps not 'bored' so much as 'intimidated'. Perhaps BioWare's stories, which I really do have some control, scare the crap out of me and, afraid of the responsibility, I run back to my more predictable, linear games. Well whatever it is, I am glad to say that Mass Effect 1 was the exception to my BioWare fallacy, and Mass Effect 2 seems likely to continue the tradition. i am glad that they have stripped back (or hidden away) the role-playing elements; though, it would have been nice if they had fine tuned the combat a bit more to make up for the lack of number-crunching depth. But it is early days yet, perhaps when I stop relying on my pistol and single tech skill it will get a bit more involving. That said, the graphics are still slick, the voice acting is still incredible, and the world(s) are still beautiful. I'm looking forward to putting a heap of hours into this one when I get the chance.

Final Fantasy XIII. Okay. I admit I have not actually played this yet, but my girlfriend has, and I have been sitting nearby for the five-ish hours she has played so far. So far it seems to be exactly as every review and article I read about it says: one incredibly slow grind that drips abilities and options to the player at the slowest pace imaginable, as though the game is afraid the player could not possibly handle two 'new' concepts at once (as if anything in Final Fantasy is new anymore). Though now, after five hours, the combat is looking a lot more compelling and I am more tempted to start up a game myself.

The scriptwriting and voice acting, while still not amazing, seems a great deal better than any previous Final Fantasy. I particularly like all the tensions and strains between the various characters. And all the nods to Final Fantasy VII are enjoyable and appreciated.

Some Things That I Read.

"I'm Your Huckleberry" at The Brainy Gamer. An entertaining and well-written little piece telling the tale of one player's perpetual fight with an anti-Semite shopkeeper in Red Dead Redemption.

"Groping The Map: Pauper's Drop" at Groping The Elephant. Justin Keverne has set himself a huge challenge of writing these massive, multi-part articles that thoroughly walk through specific game levels and explore how those levels use space and their mise-en-scene to guide the player. His first installment, on the Bioshock 2 level Pauper's Drop is nearly all up (five out of seven sections!) and certainly worth the read. Justin has a great critical eye for the ways the level manipulates and directs the player, and how the player understands the world through the level. As someone who has a great interest in videogame level design but absolutely no formal education in the matter, I'm finding these posts as educational as they are interesting.

"Video Games, I've Let You Down" at Kotaku. Leigh Alexander's piece about the difficulty of trying to explain why videogames can be great to non-gamers strikes pretty close to home. A good read.

Practically all of EDGE E215. Alas, my subscription to EDGE ran out at E214, and then E215 has a whole bunch of great articles. So I went and bought myself a copy from a shop, once they finally got it imported, and then went home and renewed my subscription. The retrospective on Halo is especially interesting, as it is a far greater version of a piece I have wanted to write for some time. Halo is a spectacular game, fanboy-love aside, and I think this piece does a good job at justifying why. The Time Extend on Sim City 4 made me pick up a cheap copy (I haven't played a Sim game since SimCity on SNES), and the LittleBigPlanet2 hype article was, well, successful. Oh, not to mention the extensive interview with Shigeru Miyamoto.

Some Things That I Wrote.

Most exciting for me since I last posted a Game Diary: Kotaku Australia published my reader review of Metro 2033. Apart from that, I have written a rambling review of why I hate to love ModNation Racers, an article to pay tribute to the heroes of the Moscow Metro that risked their lives for me, as well as a reluctant, hesitant piece defending the cut-scene as a valid mechanic of interactive storytelling. The same old university writing is continuing at the same old pace.

And that is about it.

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