“You’re not the boss of me!”

Difficulty in gaming. An oft discussed topic nowadays, and perhaps relating to the “ageing population” of gamers, who suddenly find what with adulthood (and in the case of many of my friends, childhood, just not theirs!) and work and so on, gaming time is a little restricted.

What might have been seen as a challenge a while back, has now become an irritating sticking point, blocking progress. Also in terms of actual skills, a hardcore gamer will dedicate time to a title and really “settle into the groove” of both its visuals and its control layout and responses. Picking up a game after time away really shows you how much you learn by experience while playing. It’s no coincidence FPS’s are ‘pwnage zones’ as well practised players put the smack down on ‘noobs’ and rookies. EVE online too, the space based MMORPG, and in my eyes, one of the best games ever made, was ruthlessly ‘elitist’, where veterans often made mincemeat out of new players, even if the newbies had better equipment or outnumbered the veteran players. Even good gamers usually suffer a little when they switch to a new title. Thus our new ‘old timer’, part time gamers (like me!) don’t have the time to really soak up the skills for a new title, when they just manage to play it in small time compressed chunks. We never really get over the rookie hump, and into “the zone” of the new title. Of course, this initial learning period can be half the fun of a new title, especially when you get the satisfaction of realising you have cleared the “rookie hump” and are now the one handing out the pain. The satisfaction of gaining new skills and “making the grade” may explain why people move onto new FPS titles so often….


While progress can still be made even by amateurs, it’s often when bashing into what has often ruined a game for me, the “BOSS” that everything grinds to a halt.

A notable case in point for this was in a title I actually really enjoyed (and aside from the BOSS HELL) would highly recommend, Conan on my Xbox 360. The slashing sword fighting was great fun, with a real visceral control and feeling of achievement. I slogged through to the end, defeating some huge bosses at the end of each level (often with great difficulty and multiple retries…. In fact I nearly gave up at about 3 of the bosses, but carried on doggedly, as I enjoyed the mainstay fighting so much).

I was playing on hard level, which I often do as I don’t like to ruin a title by revealing everything dashing through on easy. I enjoy a challenge, so I hope this entry doesn’t make me look like a whiner! I don’t mind dying as long as I’m enjoying it! Anyway, after I completed the game, I immediately started a replay…Not a chance on the hardest setting after ‘my boss hell’, but actually a level easier. What do you know, the sword play was still great fun, and the bosses were a cinch. I still got to enjoy their grandeur, but actually got past them quickly and without being reduced to tears!

Now why was the “hard” setting seemingly exactly the same, except for the bosses having 3x the health, and just making them into an immense pain. There was no difference in the victory technique required; you just had to do it over and over and over again. I was terrified at even the thought of the bosses on the most difficult setting. My question is what do some designers think they are achieving by adding ridiculously difficult bosses in, especially with the growing trend of having them being defeated by QTEs (as indeed Conan features in some places)? OK the great graphics and sense of scale or menace is introduced, but rather than crushing the player, they should help him feel heroic and special, after achieving victory and moving on. If you want to use QTE's, why not make a success be an awesome kill, and some failures an ever more mundane and struggling one. Let the player see a cool Beast / Mech / Demon / Wizard / Mafia Don death of some kind, and move on!

I was reading NGai Croal’s piece in this month’s Edge, and was inspired to write this entry. I totally agree with his idea of “on the fly” changeable difficulty. If one part of game is annoying me, the customer / player, why not give me the option of making it a little easier? I especially liked his “drop difficulty level down one, for one checkpoint” idea. Perhaps it could even be handed out as a ‘reward item’ which could be used only a few times, to keep a sense of challenge for the player…. After all if I can only use it a few times, I might just try and beat this bit a few times first……

Anyway, little blog entry over. I bought the game, so I should be the boss!

Close Combat – In Praise of Modding!
Well my state of the art Xbox 360 is back doing it’s original job, streaming video to my TV. For gaming I have returned to my all time favourite game (possibly juuuust ahead of Eve Online), the Close Combat series, in this case, Close Combat 5. The series, a top down tactical / strategic game set in World War II first came out in 1996 (yes over 12 years ago!) and is still unbeaten today. It was the computerised equivalent of much loved tactical board game, Avalon Hill’s Advanced Squad Leader. Now in one player mode, the game is quite fun, but stupidly easy. However, the game comes alive head to head, as a human rival makes the game a thrilling and tense duel, like chess but with heavy artillery support, and psychological damage.
The beauty of Close Combat is that it models real combat, taking into account troops experience, equipment, physical state and most importantly of all, their mental state. Rookie troops, surrounded, low on ammo, out of contact with allies and under heavy fire won’t do much other than cower and scream, and if you are unlucky, just surrender. No Tank rushes, no confusing weird sci-fi weapon sets (well not if you know your WWII history) no production or bases to take care of or build. Just a tactical struggle to the bitter end.

Currently my long term opponent, (my brother) and I are engaged with Close Combat 5 (released in 2000) which via the use of mods is enabling us to fight the WWII campaign from start to finish. We have completed Meuse 1940 mod, which shows the German Blitzkrieg into France, and Stalingrad, which moved us from the fields of France to the bitter house to house fighting on the Eastern Front. Both were harsh losses for me as the Allies, where we caused significant casualties but couldn’t turn the tide of battle against our Nazi foes. However for the first time, the Allies are on the front foot as we play the SDK (Stalingrad Der Kessel) mod, which replicates the Soviet ‘Operation Uranus’ offensive from the 19th of November 1942 through to the end of December. The campaign is well suited to a back-story both in history, and one created by my brother and myself, as propaganda flows back and forth, and the game allows heroes of legend to be born and tracked (and unfortunately, often to die horribly). Currently, our alter egos, German Field Marshall Hans “Choco” Liebnitz, and his Soviet counterpart, General Lebedev of the Marines, (a promoted survivor of Stalingrad, appointed to raise morale after the terrible politically inspired leadership of Commissar Ivan C U Znaipov) are engaged in a titanic struggle, now nearing the end of November.

In the future, we will move on to the Western front, with the Gold Juno Sword (GJS) mod, on D-Day, march up the coastline with the Scheldt mod, suffer a counter attack with the Battle of the Bulge mod, strike to end the war early with a “Bridge Too Far” Arnhem mod, and then finally fight at Kursk and in Berlin. All this is possible thanks to fans and committed coders and mapmakers who create these amazing mods, (often far better than the original game, pace the creators!) and keep creating them.
The audio alone in SDK is amazing, and often inspires terror or elation as one hears the beginning of a Stuka raid, or HQ radios in the availability of an artillery barrage, or just relief as a sergeant tells me that Pvt Sulebovskiy is rallied and ready for duty.

So I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the modders out there, of all games, who show such creativity, and who inspire humble gamers such as my brother and I to new heights. SDK’s realism has taken the propaganda war to new heights, and I hope I can publish some of our exchanges below (once I figure out where I can host the PDFs). These add significantly to our enjoyment, and I firmly believe that ‘story driven’ is not necessarily the aim, but ‘story supported’ can only be good.

Initial Day 19 and 20
http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/view.php?id=1063813&da=y
Days 22-24
http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/view.php?id=1063814&da=y

Fable 2 - The delayed review!

OK. So it's 2009. You may have noticed that some time has passed since my ‘just prior to buying Fable 2’ post. Well I bought it, I played it and I enjoyed it. That’s the summary. Now let’s have a little more detail. First of all I went into the game with a vision. A character I wanted to be, and to see how the game let me deliver the character. I wanted to be an ‘east end gangster’ type. Loved in my hometown of Bowerstone, (because I was kind and generous) and hated and feared elsewhere in the kingdom. I would be handsome to start, with good gangster family values, but a womanising badboy when out of town.

All went well, aside from very worrying initial doubts, when after playing for a while, I thought to myself, “Hang on. This game is boring! What’s so great about Fable 2? All I’m doing is being a blacksmith!” Then the game began to charm me. My character developed. I bought a house and got married and had a child, (verrry evil!) and Gargoyles began to abuse me. After being held captive (SPOILER ALERT!) for a decade my character became even more evil, not to mention a sex crazed alcoholic fat killer. Wow! Fable really let me do it. Gaming fun and I never really felt compelled to act contrary to how my character, as decided pre-game, should act. The sound again lived up to what I expected, although my gaming conspirator rightly criticised the initial quote, “and so the story begins” (or something) NO IT DOESN’T! It continues!!! How hard is that to do! It only begins with a new game!

OK. That quibble aside, the sound and music was very good, as was the dialogue.
Game wise the much vaunted co-op play was a joke. It’s not coop play. It’s just a chance to share a friend’s world and look about. Play is severely restricted and the camera is a pain! So co-op should have been mentioned as a tourism feature, not a gaming feature if you ask me. As that it would have been a success. As compared to co-op play in Crackdown for example? Well no. It just doesn’t compare.

I finished the game in the main, and was looking forward to continuing, but basically got darked out by Fallout 3. And that stopped my 360 gaming for the present time!
What has replaced it? Read my next blog for a blast from a long distant past (in more ways than one….)

In Praise of Able (with an F)

I thought I would take the time "Pre-Fable 2" to look at the reception of the original Fable and what made it, in my eyes, a big success.

For a game that I loved, I thought Fable received quite a harsh critical reception, partly because I think it dared to do a variety of things differently. And I hope that Fable 2 continues along this road…but more of that at a later date!
Let’s start with the feeling I got playing (and finishing..sometimes a rare thing) Fable. Well firstly, and this is important in a game, I enjoyed it. I felt I was a hero. I wasn’t particularly challenged; in fact I thought it was fairly easy. But I enjoyed it. And I’m sure Mr. Molyneux set out to achieve that, rather than laughingly sitting at his desk stroking a white cat as I tore my hair out in frustration, crying “Why is this game so hard!” That’s right; games don’t have to be hard. In fact, one of the things that occurred to me while playing Halo 3 was that a lot of the time I didn’t feel like an invincible super-soldier, but some poor grunt who got repeatedly gunned down after going over the top. OK, I selected the difficulty and wanted a challenge, but I basically lost the vision of being the protagonist that Bungie had created.

I think this is an inevitable part of “single protagonist” shooters, where you can die. They are nearly all one man armies in the Halo, Gears of War, etc mould. One of the good things about the COD 4 single player experience was the fact (SPOILER! LOOK AWAY!) that one of your protagonists dies in the course of his mission. It lends a little mortality back to the game, and the idea of war. I think some games in the future will have the nerve to address this, and create a different feeling game, perhaps in army /war styled shooters such as Gears or the Battlefield or COD series. Why not have the players character as the general, who gives feedback on story and progress and accomplishment in between missions, while you play as a series of grunts who have to carry out the missions. The amount of corpses the player accrues can act as a score as well as giving an emotional weight to your achievements in the game. If the unit runs out of men, then maybe that mission fails. All the while the player character “General Chief” can boast of his cunctation skills in preserving his boys, or coldly pronounce that the mission was accomplished regardless of casualties. Or break down weeping, “War is Hell!”

Which leads me back to Fable. I finished it easily, and I had a blast. So much so, that I made a new character and jumped right back in vowing to do things differently this time (in fact, evilly!) The game’s enjoyment came not from the progress alone, but through the environment and the atmosphere the game conjured. In fact I can sum up my love of Fable in two words: “Chicken Chaser!” The character of the game was embodied by brave use of audio, and it still resonates today as one of the few games whose audio signature stays with me and epitomises the game (alongside the fantastic chatter of the original Halo). In fact I remember being quite angry reading an Edge magazine discussion which dared to criticise the use of audio in Fable, seeming to prefer yet more bland “thou & thee” mid Atlantic RPG speak. I hope Fable 2 continues in the path it so ably beat before, and from the few clips I have seen, it seems to do so. Its humour shone throughout the game, and was a big part in making it a comfy gaming experience that will long stick with me as a uniquely identifiable game. Chicken Chasing was not just an amusing audio clip it was a fun experience in the game, one which had nothing to do with “storyline” and “progress”. Again, Fable acted as a gaming enabler; the ability to spend time in the world mucking about, boasting in front of crowds and scaring passers by took the pressure off the player to ‘accomplish’ and progress, and let them proceed as they saw fit. Progress might be buying another house, or getting a new haircut. Either way, it was an enjoyable gaming experience, and something other games could do well to learn from.

Perhaps more games, even those not starting with an F, should make the player Able.

Social Gaming. A new imperative for older gamers?

I have come to notice recently that my gaming habit has become a means of communication, rather than just a means of play. As I have gotten older, and my circle of friends has expanded (and I mean that in a geographic rather than quantative sense!) it’s been very hard to ‘hang out’ with my friends. A current swathe of babies among them all has only added to the time pressure being felt by many of them.

The Xbox 360s ‘Xbox Live’ is a great method for sharing time and chatting with your mates, as I realised when going through a bout of solo gaming recently. In some senses I realised it felt quite an empty experience without sharing it with my friends. Often we get on for a game of Forza or Chromehounds or Crackdown, all cooperative pleasures, and achieve very little in gaming terms but have a great time and a good laugh, which in entertainment terms means these games score very highly. Not only that but they offer great longevity, as we keep returning to them, whereas single player games, once complete are often merely discarded. Perhaps when creating a brand or a new IP, games design companies should keep that in mind, as cooperative experiences can keep fans loyal and keep the brand fresh in gamers minds. Also the very fact of coop gaming, especially in sandbox style games, allows for the players to create their own play experiences. I wonder how many people out there have whiled away the hours with their friends engaging on ‘silly’ projects within a game world, rather than achieving anything the game has specifically set out for you to ‘accomplish’. Crackdown offered the chance to try and build structures out of the worlds physics enabled furniture (such as skips, cars, lampposts, and handily enough highly explosive barrels) and once the structure is big enough and packed with enough high explosive to make any pro carbomber proud, detonated for a magnificent fireworks display. Making tanks by tipping skips over small cars while you coop friend rides on top to provide the fire power is also fairly entertaining, seeing how far you can go before your smart car powered tank/skip falls apart. Co-op gaming isn’t just fun, it can enable fun that isn’t present in single player gaming, even within the same game.

I wonder how many games creators are going to wake up to this seemingly forgotten fact in the next few years? Will single player modes become the ‘tacked on’ element of new games, or will they be designed as seems standard now, as single player games, with coop thrown in if possible? Versus play is core to FPS & RTS gaming, but versus mainly uses humans to replace AI effectively and cheaply, and isn’t a shared ‘friendly’ experience (have you tried playing a bunch of American teenagers in COD4 or Gears of War on Live?! Great well made games rapidly become a hideously un-enjoyable experience…hmm online player behaviour might be another blog chapter soon!). Is co-op the new future that is starting to dawn on an increasingly large number of companies? Titles such as Fable 2,and Army of 2 may hint at it, but they still seem to be in the minority

Games are great fun. But in truth this all seems a fairly obvious reflection of what we all learned as children. Play is great, but it’s a lot better if you are playing with your friends.

Interfarce

Games are interactive entertainment.

That's two fairly obvious words. They should connect directly and honestly with the player. And they should entertain them. Simple enough, eh?

So why is that some games either think that pressing a single button counts as interacting, (yes thats right Japanese RPGS, I'm looking at you!) or that other games force pointless such 'interactions' on the player, BEFORE they can even play.

A lot of games seem to have front ends that either are the result of zero forethought or even worse, a seemingly wilful disregard for the players fingers and time. One of my favourite games, Chromehounds on Xbox360, is a classic example of this syndrome. On booting up, the player is asked whether they want to play online or single player. All well and good, but the single player is a tutorial that once over is never use again. Once Xbox live is selected, then the player must select his harddrive as the chosen storage media. After the choice there is a confirm box, which defaults to "no". WHY!?! Why would anyone say no, when there is only one choice..ie your hardrive. Once you have overcome this tricky obstacle you dive into the game lobby. Whoops! Not quite, first you must plough through a series of pointless "news" messages, each requiring a press of your A button to skip.... Great, more Japanese style interation...

All of these hurdles are pointless delays before you can get into playing a game. Oblivion, one of the Xbox's first hits set the right trend. It remembered your chosen storage device, and also where you were in game. You booted up and pressed start twice and continued playing, just as it should be.

In todays time pressed enviroment, with old fogey gamers like me having to cope with friends and families hectic schedules, each minute of gaming is a treasured haven at the end of the day. Each second spent faffing in lobbies or trying to coordinate settings etc, is a waste of time. Pressing "A" repeatedly for no real reason, other than to progress what would have progressed without you pressing "A" is not real interation. Every interaction I make should have an effect. Yes or no is a dialog choice, but just moving on, is not. If its complex and important dialog and you want to give time to read it, put it on a scroll or give me a pause / replay facility, but dont make me press the button just for the sake of it.

This short rant is dedicated to Eric who took the time to read my only other entry, and has inspiried me to write some more soon! I hope I havent wasted your time.

Press "A" to continue....

War Isn’t Hell. Gaming in the 21st Century

‘Games are growing up’ is a phrase I’ve often heard in relation to both the industry and the actual content of games. However I look at the content though, I don’t see much evidence of a maturing media. Even Nintendo, seeking to advertise their new Wii with it’s revolutionary (and so supposedly audience widening) controller, show TV ads of a man hitting people with a sword and then shooting them with guns.

Progress? I think not.

Technology is no longer an excuse as next gen consoles display ever increasing power and the PC grows ever more capable and ubiquitous. They have ample storage for immersive audio, branching stories, retaining information to allow interaction with environments, and improved AI. This combined with often impressive facial animations, and lip synching technology means there is a very clear cut (and no longer ‘cutting edge’) means of providing the player with an immersive and emotional gaming experience.

Somehow all these opportunities seem to have been lost, overrun by a desire to show ‘better’ blood being sprayed over the screen as high definition weapons spray death of all kinds (yes even the physics powered kind!) Often the only form of interactive environment is cover that can be destroyed, tyre tracks that can be admired or crates that can be smashed (wow! More ammo!)

Now as an owner of Gears of War on the 360, I can appreciate high def blood being sprayed by chainsaws over my screen. It’s a fun game, which looks and plays very well. But it seems that not only am I being offered little else as a gamer (especially on the 360, with its countless FPS shooters), but that I am being offered a crippled version of what could be presented in a ‘shooter’.

Games such as Halo, Half life and indeed Gears of War all set out to provide a single player story as well as offering up entertainment in online multiplayer mode. The mass of WWII shooters too, such as Call of Duty or Brothers in Arms, often seek to immerse the player in a “Saving Private Ryan”-esque war epic, before seeing them blast away online.

Ryan began with a harrowing sequence from ‘Bloody Omaha’ on the beaches of Normandy. It illustrated to the viewer very quickly, that when General Sherman said “War is Hell.” he meant it honestly, not because he couldn’t find another ammo crate in time. Too use another literary phrase, from Bao Ninh, “The Sorrow of War,” is very rarely shared with the player. Personally I looked forward to the original instalment of Brothers in Arms, with its promise of squad based action and an emotional investment in your fellow soldiers. The ‘Burden of Command’ was emphasised in its early cut scenes, and I took real care with my men’s lives.

Until my first squad loss…

When Cpl Corrion went down in a hail of MG fire I mourned the loss of one of my men and then rapidly began to wonder how I could progress without him. My problems were short lived when I discovered that as soon as I reached the next level my lost GI was miraculously ‘reborn’. From then on any immersion and command burden was lost and the game became yet another re-spawn fest. The fates of Corrion et al had proven to be irrelevant as they were effectively immortal.

It would have been easy to generate random new squad members every time one was lost. Survivors could have gained experience and been seen by the player as ‘more valuable’ than the rookies. Indeed game play could have been shaped as players sought to preserve their veterans, rather risking their new boys. The end of the campaign could have presented the player with a ‘butcher’s bill’ noting how many men their command skills sent to their grave. A gruesome, yet effective ‘lo score’ way of preserving the ‘War is Hell’ message within a game maybe? It certainly would have reinforced the message that Brothers in Arms claimed to be sending, whilst also allowing friends or even solo gamers a comparative mechanic to track their progress.

Keeping tally in this way and keeping track of survivors would add plenty of emotional attachment to a game, and is a valid way of sidetracking the central problem that the protagonist, that is to say the player, is effectively immortal.

This can be seen to be effective too in tactical / strategy games, which lack the central ‘player’ figure. Often certain units acquire value for a player due to ‘nostalgia’ reasons, rather than actual tactical value. A preserved hero is perhaps someone (or something) to be proud of. The Total War series is a good example of this.

Indeed in the long running Close Combat campaign between my brother and I, (currently in Stalingrad) one of his battle groups is retreating purely to preserve a legendary STG assault gun crew, rather than disband them. The addition of such characters and their respective fates adds much to each game, as a game play mechanic and an emotional hook. Throwing nameless troops to their deaths would be a hollowed experience and consequently not as much fun.

War games ought to be an enjoyable experience, and indeed often are. By why should games, a new media that often compares itself to either film or art, always seek to limit its own impact?

The search for a ‘game that will make you cry’ will never be successful if games constantly and seemingly deliberately attempt to avoid any risk of emotional attachment or depth.

War films or literature are not always gung ho blasters. There is loss, defeat, sacrifice, mourning, the ‘pointlessness’ of war, alongside the heroism, the bravery, the stark choices that must be made, and the camaraderie that can develop. How many of these themes (to name but a few) have really ever been revealed by a shooter?

Until game designers realise that war is more than just bullets, games have a long way to go.