DayZ Standalone

DayZ Standalone

Morning! This is me writing down some of my thoughts and impressions from the newly released DayZ Standalone Alpha, and why I think you should play it. For the record, I played the DayZ Mod for so me time, but ultimately stopped playing due to the vast amount of security breaches, which lead to large groups of players running scripts that compromised the games integrity and more importantly the game dynamics that are at the core of DayZ’s strength.

At first glance, or reading a few hotly contested forums, the inexperienced  DayZ player will assume this game is strictly about PvP and less about survival. They wouldn’t be entirely wrong, but I’m here to tell you that it is much more than that, and even though the DayZ SA is only in Alpha, the reworked mechanics and engine are setting the stage for a unique experience you can’t find anywhere else.

Let me first start by telling you a brief story. Since the Alpha has launched, I’ve lost several characters. If you are completely new to what DayZ SA is, you spawn with a character, you try to scavenge for gear, food, medicine, clothes, and more importantly weapons. If your character dies, it is done, you respawn and try again. You can die from zombies, sickness, disease, exposure, dehydration, hunger, and more commonly from other players.

Continuing with the story, after several deaths, I had a character that had been alive for several days, and running with a group of friends in RL inside of the game. ( Banding into social groups is often the only way to increase your longevity for any length of time ) We found ourselves a nice part of the map ( Which is over 230 sq km in size ), and eventually we were all considered “geared” with military and hunting gear. I personally had the Mosin ( the current bolt action sniping rifle )

As a general rule, our group doesn’t automatically shoot other players unless they pose a threat, especially in towns, coastal areas, and in the forest. However, when raiding military camps, all bets are off. It is an unspoken and understood rule of DayZ SA. This is where my story leads, I want to tell you about the first player life I took, how it made me feel, and why I had to do it.

Several of my pack were raiding a valuable military structure, and were completely exposed from the windows and doorway entrance. I personally was on over watch, or in a “guardian angel” designated marksman position. I warned my squad over chat, and proceeded to dial in on the back of the unsuspecting player at around 400 meters.

With uncommon amounts of adrenaline pumping into my system, I steadied the scope and lined the shot up. He was alone, I knew he was here for the same reason we were. He wanted to survive, he was looking for military grade gear and weaponry to facilitate that survival so his character might live a day longer…… or, he could be what is referred to as a “bandit” in DayZ SA. People that gear up, head to the player spawn areas, and purposely kill players for the sheer enjoyment, and their gear.

Either way, as is the most time tested ROE ( Rules of Engagement ), he was a threat, and being on the airfield, there are never any negotiations. I radioed in to my squad that I was taking the shot. Barely able to keep the scope still due to anxiety, I fired the first 7.62 bullet square into his back, reloaded, and then fired a second shot. He dropped immediately, never knowing what happened, and likely not even hearing the shot before it hit him.

Now why is this story important? It’s the only game, ever in my opinion, where you truly experience several phenomenon in a digital video game to this extent. First and foremost, players can generally experience something called “pathos”. It is essentially when they are vicariously living through their character, and display interesting psychological things about them. Like having vested interests in their well being, referring to the character as themselves, especially in a spacial reference. Due to the harsh nature of DayZ SA, the longer your character is alive, the better gear you get, and the more healthy you make him/her, you really start to care about your character. You’ve survived countless terrors and engagements with players, hunted for food/water, scavenged for gear, and deep down you know that in one wrong move and in a single instance, it can all be taken away from you.

As human beings, we all at some level understand loss, risk, reward, forming social structures/communities, and more importantly we understand predatory survival. DayZ REALLY plays upon these exact instincts. Everything about the game is designed to encourage that. There are no annoying and intrusive HUD or UI elements, no player nameplates or target reticles ( so the only way to spot a player is to literally see them )

Most games, especially action/horror games employ a design technique called “negative space”, or commonly referred to as “pacing” in level design. Basically, think of any horror game, Dead Space being a great example, and think of the parts of the level where the bad guys leave you alone, you calm down, maybe read some story segments, regain some health, find some ammo, etc. However, you know, in the pit of your stomach that the next engagement is around the corner, and the anticipation starts building.

This is another reason why DayZ is so powerful. The game takes advantage of the powerful Arma II engine, and gives you over 230 sq km of play space ( if you aren’t familiar with measurements, that is roughly over 142 sq miles of play space ) while also rendering scenery, players, and vegetation at an extreme distance. With all of these elements intertwined, you and your friends ( or just you ) will spend HOURS alone, but you have to be prepared and watchful, because if you run into the wrong people, your characters life can be ended in seconds. So when something does happen, your adrenaline literally shoots through the roof. There’s been times where I can barely keep my hands from shaking due to the sheer anticipation or adrenaline while trying to stay alive.

Inevitably, loss happens, and it’s amazing to see the game dynamics that happen all on their own, nothing scripted or predestined by the game. When a friend or a player goes down, you are not prompted to do something about it, they either die, or you try to help them.

This is a real scenario I took a screenshot of with the group I play with. Nobody told that player on the right to take up security and watch outboard, nobody told the other two players not in the screenshot to post up security down the street, and most importantly, nobody told the player with the defibrillator to try and save the players life. DayZ SA is just a game with a set of systems, that can be understood, and used to whatever purposes you see fit as a player. You can try to save people, you can mug people, take prisoners, avoid players, be a bandit, whatever.

This is all possible in a game that is only in Alpha. Repairable vehicles, hunt-able animals, a full crafting system, player build-able structures, are all coming. Can you and your squad last long enough in the future to establish a base in the forest, build up fortifications, defend against zombies, infection, starvation, and the biggest danger of all, other players?

That all being said, there are a few caveats with the DayZ SA. First and foremost, you have to get used to the inventory and movement system. If you have never played Arma at all, it will come as a little “clunky” to you at first. The game doesn’t move like a FPS or Action Hack & Slash, it moves like a war simulator, as that is what much of the code is based upon. Fortunately, Dean Hall and his band have revamped much of the inventory and added a hotbar, which are GREAT improvements over the Mod. They also moved most of the processes server side to combat cheaters/scripters, etc. So far, it’s working great.

I could spend all day talking about the individual mechanics, player dynamics, but I’ll sum it up in a statement from one of my squad mates while having this conversation during a long forest trek. “Why is this game so awesome? That’s because, in DayZ it isn’t ‘what’ can happen, it is that ‘anything’ can happen”.

Plus the amazing sunsets!

The Typing of The Dead: Overkill

Obviously one look at this game and two things should be obvious. The first, is that this game does not take itself (or anything) too seriously. Second, that the game is based around a zombie killing grind-house type genre. So why am I writing a blog post about this game? Because it’s refreshingly fun, and also because it has the potential to do something amazing for education type game. Now before I talk about that, let me explain the basic mechanics and what you can do in this game.

The game actually does a great job at introducing you to new mechanics and events in the game. Obviously as the name implies, this is a typing game. I’m sure we all remember the old style “space invaders” typing games some of us played back in the MS-DOS days on an old 486. The crafty folks at Modern Dream have basically taken the same concept of educational typing challenges and slapped it into a cheesy zombie shoot em’ up type action game. You don’t actually control your avatar, which ends up being great later on because you are obviously typing! The camera movement is reminiscent of any arcade shooting game you would have played in the 90’s. If one doesn’t come to mind, just think of Time Crisis.

Kill it before it gets to you!

Your avatar will navigate various levels, where you will literally be presented with typing challenges. The basic mechanic is you shoot zombies by typing whatever the presented word is. Naturally, depending on the difficulty of the enemy, the typing challenges are often time sensitive. If you take too long, you’ll start getting hit or eaten by the enemy. Successfully typing the word results in shooting the enemy, target, or challenge. The overall concept of the mechanic might not sound engaging, but it’s actually very cleverly executed. Word of warning though, as I previously stated, the game does not take itself to seriously and is plainly meant to target adult audiences with the crass humor and violence.

Like I said, crass humor.

While playing the first couple of chapters ( yes there is a story ) I found I was actually experiencing anxiety as hordes of zombies closed in on me and I struggled to blast away on the keyboard to execute them in time before they started chewing on me. Most of the time however, I found myself literally laughing out loud at the audacity and slapstick type humor the game possesses. Not only are the game events ridiculous and over the top, a lot of the humor is built into the words the game presents for you to type. Sometimes, it is just senseless random words, other times full sentences of the most ridiculous phrases you can imagine.

Example of ridiculous phrases

To keep the gameplay from getting stale, or giving you cramps in your wrists, they incorporate pickups and bonuses in the rooms your character clears. You activate these when you see them by simply hitting ‘tab’. Sometimes they are bullet time items, which can be strategically used to slow time down when killing multiple enemies. The game will also sometimes give you just single letters on a group of zombies or projectiles being thrown at you, which helps break up typing full words or phrases. A lot of them will also be bonus based twitch skills. The majority of the game is actually based around your ability to react and prioritize targets. You will often be approached by several obstacles or enemies and have to figure out which one to start typing first. You can even back out of a phrase you are typing in order to engage another target first. At first glance, this would sound kind of clumsy and an overall pain, but the game handles the transitions very smoothly. The game will also automatically pick the correct phrase you wish to start typing by the first letter you hit. So no two phrases that you are presented at the same time with will start with the same letter. Upon  completing a level, challenge, or mini-game you will be presented with your stats, so the game even has leaderboards!

I’m good at typing!

As you’ll notice from that picture, the game even incorporates a multiplayer game mode. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m assuming it functions similar to Time Crisis which I mentioned earlier. You can play with random people on the internet through matchmaking, or you can invite your friends via Steam. The game does an interesting job at pacing, level design, and unique events throughout the levels to keep you excited and perhaps a little anxious. There are even boss fights, which are usually involved in managing multiple typing challenges with varying time sensitive twitch typing events. Overall, the gameplay is fun, surprisingly engaging, and actually refreshing.

This baddy likes to throw stuff at you.

So now that I’ve covered the basic mechanics and what you do in the game. I want to talk about why I was really impressed with this game, other than it being engaging to me. After the initial “sticker shock” hit me when I found I was enjoying something that I didn’t expect to like in the first place. The thought occurred to me, “I’m having A LOT of fun with a game that’s just making me type words….” So once you look through the over-the-top humor, classy grind-house action and art aesthetic, this game is doing something pretty amazing. You can literally have a lot of genuine fun playing this game, and all you are doing is practicing your typing skills.

So from a design perspective, I’m immediately drawn to other possibilities… what if you could do this with math? Programming? World History? Can you imagine if portions of your high school experience taught you various subject matter via interactive methods like this that ACTUALLY engage you? If you actually look at how much information in the typical game a player is required to learn, memorize, and retain it is pretty amazing. I think this is the power that games can have, and it is an untapped potential. Our education system is long over-due for an overhaul. It hasn’t had a major overhaul since the industrial revolution, or thereabouts. I urge you to take the time and watch some of this gentleman’s lectures. http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

So at the end of the day, this game is not only fun, engaging, but it is also making you practice and refine what would be considered a “hard skill” on your resume. ( My WPM is 150, or something crazy ) It also does a great job of showcasing how we can create games that are unique and refreshingly fun while being outside the “norm” of game genres. You can pick this game up for $20 on Steam right now, so if this looks like it would appeal to you, I urge you to take a look.

Thanks for reading!

Final Fantasy XIV: Realm Reborn: First Impressions

 

 

So as many as you are probably aware, Square Enix bravely decided to reboot their own MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV after a less than cordial reception upon its release. Originally, I had been so turned off after playing the original FFXIV beta that I wasn’t interested. However, after I began to really think about it, and just what they were undertaking, while publicly acknowledging their own failures, I decided it was well worth a second look.

Before I launch into my first impressions after a week of play, and why I think you should give this re-launch the time of day. Let me first start by acknowledging, and repeating, exactly how much of a big deal it is that Square Enix was able to basically say, “Yah, we know our game sucks, and we aren’t happy with it, so here’s what we are going to do…” Based on the sheer amount of effort, time, and money it takes to release an MMO ( and I know first hand, as I physically work on an MMO at Arena Net ) it dawned on me just how humble and revolutionary this idea was.

From a design perspective, designers have a classic mantra to the effect of, “We learn to eat our young”. Basically, that means that you have to learn how to be told that your game, idea, or work in general, sucks and needs help. So because of all of this, and my first week of experience inside of FFXIV: RRB, I believe it’s worth your attention. ( +1 Point )

Story

So, first things first, if you played the first FF XIV, you are probably wondering, well how are they going to tie the story in? Well have you ever heard the expression, “Nuke it from orbit, and burn it with fire.” Well, this is literally what they’ve done. Without going into TOO much detail ( and spoilers ), an event happens that basically nukes half the planet, and a few years after that, that’s where you pick up. So far, it seem pretty interesting, and from what I can tell, there looks to be several quality story arcs developing along my chosen characters path. Suffice it to say, my curiosity is piqued. ( +1 Point )

The only oddity that I’ve encountered, and this may be patched over time, is that you start the game, and there are ZERO VO’s ( voice overs ). While it’s a Final Fantasy title, this doesn’t inherently bother me, just feels a little retro. Except, once you start to get into some of the important story cutscene’s, you start to hear VO’s…. and some of the English voice actors, are well… pretty terrible so far. So to remedy this issue, I switched the VO’s over to Japanese, and even though I can’t understand what they are saying, the passion in their voice acting is apparent, and I have subtitles to read besides. So needless to say, I know voice actors are expensive, and it costs a lot of money to get all of the proper localization and post processing done, but so far, the English voice actors sound like shit. ( -1 Point )

Closing with the story, the questing appears to tie directly into the story narrative, and FFXIV: RRB does a great job focusing your attention on what you should be doing, and when. In the first twenty levels, there was never a moment where I stopped and asked, “WTF am I supposed to be doing here?” ( +1 Point )

Classes

During the beta phases, I tried playing several disciples of war ( didn’t have time to check the magic users ),  and I finally settled on Lancer while picking the “Miq’ote” race ( which some of you fondly remember as “Mithra” ). I don’t profess to fully understand the class system yet, but it appears that you can basically play ANY of the base classes with one character, but you can only specialize in one or few of them with that character. What I mean by specialize is that my “Lancer” will eventually be able to turn into a “Dragoon.” ( +1 Point )

As is traditional with oriental game developers, and audiences I think, the game restricts you heavily on what you can do early on. It forces you to finish your quests ALL the way through level ten ( which is a hefty amount of quests ), before you can begin to learn other classes from other guilds, etc. While this doesn’t bother me, I believe it’s a common method in oriental games, which is to heavily teach the game, or class, before physically letting the player explore other areas of the game. This may sound very heavy handed to some of you, but I assure you, the game keeps you engaged enough, you won’t even notice ( that much ). ( +1 Point )

Combat

Ah yes, COMMMMMMBAAAAAT… ( wait… wrong game.. shit ) everyone’s favorite, and rightfully so, one of the most important topics of the game! As if the core gameplay mechanics suck, well, then so must the game no? So let me first start by saying, if you played Final Fantasy Eleven, there’s enough here in the combat mechanics to make you reminisce, but with enough innovation and improvements not to scare away everyone else. Interested yet? Well you should be! So basically, they took the traditional tab targeting system, and the class based combo system from eleven, and gave it some crack cocaine…. By that, I mean they sped it up. So a lot of the structure operates the same, as far as chaining kills, targeting enemies, doing combo’s off of other’s skills, but at a much faster rate of speed, which I believe was much needed. ( +1 Point )

Related to this, once you attain other classes, your character will switch classes by just changing your gear out for the appropriate class, and all of your stats and hotkey items swap with it. It’s fast, seamless, and you don’t have to talk to a damn kupo to do it! ( +1 Point )

Crafting

Here is a topic that I can’t talk to heavily on, as I currently have two crafting professions started, but not very high. The point I’m going to stress, is that the way they handled it is very interesting. Basically, you go to a “guild” and learn the crafting profession that you wish, and all of the regular hubbub that you would expect ensues, you get some crafting tools, some quests, a speech about how you suck and show learn the trade to be super awesome, etc. etc…… except one major caveat. Crafting professions behave identically to a regular character class, so that means, when I’m running around as a botanist, or a carpenter, I have my own unique stats, gear, hotkey items, etc. This is interesting as it presents a sort of, “meta” game for cutting down trees, or for whatever you are doing. It singlehandedly makes crafting more interactive, and likely more difficult in the long run. ( +1 Point )

The only point of contention that I have here, is that they make you wait till your level 10 quests are done on that character, until you can begin to think about cutting trees down, so far, not a fan. ( -1 Point )

Graphics

Not a whole lot to say here, but that the game is absolutely gorgeous, well if you are fortunate enough to be playing on a PC, if you are playing it on a PS3…. I’m sorry for you! ( +1 Point )

Although, speaking on that point, I’ve been asking myself for years, “Why the hell isn’t there cross platform MMORPGS??!” Well, they have just proven that it’s a matter of policy, and political arrogance and likely not much more, that is keeping more MMO’s from being on multiple platforms, and to that, I say boo! ( +1 Point )

Quests

In FFXIV: RRB, Square Enix decided to keep with the traditional method of having a “Journal” and tracking your quests as you collect them. Normally, I’d say, “SCREW THAT!” especially after being spoiled by Guild Wars 2 and their questing system that they built. However, so far, it seems like you are never overburdened with too many quests that you lose track, and I always knew what was the most important, and never really had a hard time tracking them. ( +1 Point )

That being said, and this could probably deserve its own category, but when you receive a quest or an objective to navigate to somewhere else, the map is not very helpful, it’s hard to explain, but if it’s somewhere you haven’t been, the quest marker doesn’t give you shit for a clue on how to get there. What they really need here, is some type of pathfinding tech that will kinda “point” you in the right direction of a new area that you need to go to. ( -1 Point )

Economy

 Last but not least, the “Economy”, probably one of the most critical elements to an MMO for success, and easily the hardest to create, innovate upon, and balance. Well, I don’t have shit for you at this point. As an obvious effort by Square Enix to “ward” out gold sellers, my character is level 17 and doesn’t have access to sell items on the auction house yet. Essentially, you have to purchase a “retainer” to help you sell your items. While this is frustrating, if it helps keep gold sellers out, then I’m all over it. As if any of you remember in eleven, gold sellers nearly ruined the game! ( +1 Point ) ( -1 Point )

Events

 So, in traditional video game industry style, Square Enix shamelessly copied some dynamic event ideas from Guild Wars 2, Warhammer online, and probably a couple of others. In FFXIV: RRB you have what are called, “Fates” that randomly spring up on the map, and anyone who runs into the area, automatically joins in to receive progress ( assuming they contribute ). It’s a nice touch, and it automatically lends itself as a design to getting players to work together naturally. ( +1 Point )

Conclusion

Obviously, I know that you can hardly judge and MMO based off of the first 20 levels, and the content therein. However, I felt that they deserved the attention based on the leaps and strides the game has come since the first FF XIV launch. I can honestly say I’m legitimately interested in seeing what they have to offer, and how the proverbial “End Game” plays out. I know the game has a subscription model, which will immediately turn many of you off, as we’ve been spoiled by F2P business models in the past few years, but I say don’t let that discourage you. If you like the art direction, or have liked ANY Final Fantasy game in the past, this likely deservers a second look by you.

I doubt I’ll reach level cap in time to do a quality “End Game” review before the hundreds of people that don’t know how to sleep beat me to it, but I felt this initial review was necessary, and deserving.

I hope you got some helpful information out of it.

 

The age of monetization

As some of you might have read or heard, Blizzard finally acknowledged the idea of adding MTX ( monetized items ) to the colossal giant that is World of Warcraft. Why is this significant? I think it’s not only a sign of the times, but the fact that the most successful MMO to date is considering moving towards that type of business structure is a huge sign. The age of MMORPG’s charging a monthly fee, plus an upfront purchase price is about finished. Now some of you, might jump for joy and release a victorious shout of “Finally those greedy bastards, it’s about time!”

What most gamers/people don’t realize, is the significant cost of building and maintaining an MMO, and in most cases, the subscription fee is well justified and needed just to keep the game running, and that’s not even addressing the issue of building new content. However, when markets stop supporting one business model and consumer spending habits change, the industry must find another ( insert cheesy “Life finds a way” quote….okay maybe not 😛 ). Thus a new age has dawned, and that is the age of monetization. When games like Puzzles and Dragons make an ungodly amount of money in a single month, the rest of the industry starts to take notice. ( Try to the tune of 113 million, and they aren’t the only example )

 http://www.joystiq.com/2013/05/13/hit-mobile-rpg-puzzle-and-dragons-earned-113-million-in-april/

Now you might say, “Well that’s not an MMO, it doesn’t compare”. However, as an individual that works on Guild Wars 2, I can tell you in-game monetization is the future, so it would be in your interest to understand it and embrace it, especially for MMO’s it’s going to be a requirement just to get an ROI ( return on investment ) for a product. It’s my belief, that the next console generation that’s starting, will also start to experiment with FTP ( free to play ) and MTX business strategies. Some will even argue that video games are moving towards being a “service” versus just a “game”, but that’s a completely different discussion.

What does this mean for you? This means that you better start being able to identify good and bad MTX/FTP business strategies. For every one out there that doesn’t feel manipulative or over the top, there’s guaranteed to be the ones that feel like they are smacking you with a proverbial MTX hammer, or if you’re of the older gamer generation “Insert coin to continue!” feeling.

Ultimately, with rising consumer expectations, skyrocketing development costs to meet those expectations, and the failing of traditional business models, the industry is in a state of flux. While this is both an exciting and scary time, I think what it means is that in <=5 years, we will be consuming video games in a way that we never would have imagined…..so in the holy words of Samuel Jackson, “Hold on to your butts…”

hahaha….yah no seriously though, you should hold on to them……

Xbox One: A rollercoaster of conflicted opinions

Naturally, unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last week or so, you’ve inevitably heard SOMETHING about the most recenMicrosoft announcement of the Xbox One. No doubt you likely have formed an opinion already as well, as I had.

I’m writing this blog piece for several reasons, one as I was forced to modify my original opinion of their announcement, and what it truly meant to the industry and me. For those of you that actually missed the announcement, basically they’ve been under siege for basically “ignoring” the “core” gamers, incorporating barely standard hardware architecture, “ignoring” indies, and possibly having some questionable implementations in their online service with how games will function.

Before I get on to my point of the blog, whether you agree with it or not, keep in mind they still have a lot yet to announce (as far as the actual gaming part of the Xbox is concerned), so I wouldn’t count them out just yet. However, that being said I was personally in the camp of the “disappointed”, which appeared to be an opinion that was ubiquitous for the most part.

That is, until I started digging and reading some very thoughtful articles, namely on Gamasutra, and other places. I literally had an epiphany while wading through the commentary (which was getting pretty hostile). This one thought struck me like a bolt of lightning, “It’s not about you anymore”. The more I thought about it, the more it began to make sense.

Traditionally, what did a dedicated gaming console target? Why “gamers” of course! (I use that term loosely as I think it sucks and doesn’t apply any more to our society). However, I believe Microsoft has come to the conclusion that it’s no longer worth the risk “banking” on the consumer that JUST wants to play games. For this reason we’ve already seen a natural progression of the Xbox 360 steadily turning into a multi-functional set top box.  The difference here is that I believe they have stopped directly targeting the younger generations. Here in lies my biggest point and argument for this piece. Think about the average generation of “gamers” that were in line to purchase the Xbox 360 when it debuted? Think about it, you could probably guarantee you had your fairly standard fare of 16-30 year old males, which usually makes up the largest cross section of people that consume video games (or at least used too).

So now ask yourself, after almost TEN YEARS (If I’m not mistaken the Xbox 360 launched around 2005) what are those people doing now? I can almost promise you that a good portion of them aren’t playing as many games, as unfortunately when you progressively get older, you usually have less time due to commitments, families, jobs, or whatever laundry list of responsibilities you’ve managed to tack on. My point is, these individuals would likely be heavily interested in a set top box that does most everything, ESPECIALLY TV, while satisfying their need to play games when they find the time. Take a good look at the Xbox One, everything about it screams that Microsoft is targeting an audience that has grown up and has different needs/expectations, not the newest one.

So next point, why isn’t Microsoft targeting younger audiences/generations? I could go on a tangent about entitlement generations and how they’d rather pirate everything, but that is not the point of this piece. Honestly think about it though, younger generations have grown up with tablets, smart phones, and almost all of the content they consume being readily available and in HD. They don’t appreciate what consoles used to represent, and honestly I don’t think they will probably care. The long and short of it is I suspect younger generations have had their attention divided across multiple sources of attaining digital content versus older generations that had fewer options, arcades, consoles, or a PC (if you were loaded with cash).

Let me finish by putting some flames out and acknowledging that yes, there are undoubtedly a lot of “younger” consumers that enjoy games on consoles, my point is that consoles as we used to know them are beginning to be less relevant and thusly you’ll start to see them go through a transformative process, they must adapt or fade into the history books. I have plenty of commentary on that, but that’s content for a later post.

-Cheers

American “Gun Culture” & Video games:

Let me first state that this is not a political piece aimed at either side of the hotly contested gun control debates on Capitol Hill. While I am very passionate about my 2^nd Amendment rights, this is not what this is about.

Disclaimer: I am not writing this piece partial to either gender, when I say “him, he, his, man” it’s an all-inclusive statement covering men and women

Frequently, I see conversations and posts from people outside of the United States whom are bewildered by what is perceived as the American “Love Affair” with guns. The purpose of this brief post is to attempt (to the best of my ability and understanding) to try to explain why America is this way, why guns are important and pivotal to our society and culture. Then I will relate that to video games, especially heavily influenced Western video games. In order to attempt to appreciate this article, I ask that you set aside any cultural or personal biases (especially if you are not an American citizen) and try to view our culture outside of your own cultural lens you’ve acquired from whatever environment you were raised in.

 

That being said let us begin! So the elephant in the room, so to speak, “Why are Americans obsessed with guns?” No doubt many countries just view us as “cowboys” and a people that are in love with themselves. In order to understand us you must take a look at our history. America was colonized and founded mainly on the ideals of independence and “freedom”. Granted, there are some very dark patches in our past, but over the course of our history you will see a common element or theme. Our society has been about the individual and their independence. Take a guess at what’s been at the corner stone to all of that, the gun. The “gun” has always done something miraculous to the Western individual, in the American mind-set; it’s a transformative tool that allows a man, an ordinary man, to pick it up and change the world, his environment, or to do something greater. This has been the case from when pilgrims settled the West, to when we fought against ourselves in the Civil War, and so on.

Do most Americans truly believe that they will have to “rise” up one day and overthrow the government? Probably not, but the “gun” is so deeply rooted in our culture that it’s a part of who we are as a people. Just take a look at the stories we write, the movies we make, and most of the video games we tend to build. You will observe ordinary individuals confronted with an unconquerable conflict, you’ll observe them taking up arms and transforming not only their mental models but overcoming obstacles that were previously viewed as insurmountable.

Conversely if you need an example of a polar opposite culture (for the sake of this anthropology discussion), take a look at Japanese culture and how they view the gun. Japanese culture is deeply rooted in both Shintoism and Buddhism which generally speaks of “balance”, “being attuned with nature”, and so on. When you view their creative works, you often see the “gun” as an extension of the self, instead of a transformative tool/object that changes who the individual was before they picked it up. It’s often also personified as channelling inner “chi” or energy, hence why many protagonists will “shoot” fireballs, have guns/cannons physically attached to them, versus being a separate object.

I apologize for going off on a tangent about Japanese culture, but I believe it’s important to showcase another cultural example for anyone having issues setting aside their own cultural biases. Although, if you are not capable of doing that you will probably have quit reading by now!

In summary, I believe the “gun” will always be synonymous with American culture and especially video games. For people who are either not American, or are American and still don’t understand guns and how they relate to our society, try to view our culture objectively and really understand how it all relates. Inevitably, this is about to get comments asking about the “violence” in America. For my one truly political statement, I believe the statistics you see so casually thrown around are greatly misconstrued and abused by being taken out of context. Realistically, violence in American is at an all-time low, the reason you see so much of it is due to sensationalistic journalism and specific special interest groups and their agendas, but I digress.

I wanted to keep this really short, as a piece like this could get REALLY lengthy very quickly. This was not meant to be a dissertation, but a brief peak into American culture in the hopes to shed some new “light” and hopefully give people outside of the United States a chance to be objective without being automatically dismissive, perhaps I ask too much.

Tomb Raider 2013 Review

 

Introduction:

I have to start off by saying that this should have been the game I’d been waiting on and following since it was announced. However, I had the misfortune of making Aliens: Colonial Marines the game I had been following and anxiously waiting for since 2007. Much to my chagrin we all know how that game turned out, but I digress on that point. What I’m getting at is Tomb Raider, for me, more than lived up to the hype it built up before release.

Lastly, before I get started, let it also be known that I did play the “old school” Tomb Raider games, but I wasn’t exactly a diehard fan, so I think my opinion should be fairly un-biased in approaching this game. (At least I’ll pretend that it is ☺)

For those of you that have not played the game, or are mostly oblivious to what this game is about, basically Crystal Dynamics decided to do a reboot on the Lara Croft franchise. Which in my opinion was a solid move as the franchise was in desperate need of the revival.

 

Setup:

So if you’re a classic Tomb Raider player, you’re probably used to playing a female avatar in short shorts, skimpy top, ridiculously large bosom, and dual wielding pistols while vanquishing bandits with physics defying aerial maneuvers. While that approach worked in the 90’s, nowadays, the trend in AAA games tends to be hyperrealism. Basically, Crystal Dynamics took this idea, and really ran with it. They realized they needed a more “human” Lara Croft than in previous renditions of the game. So how do they accomplish this? They do a prequel of course! What better way to attempt actual character development with this heroine than going to a time when she’s young, innocent, and not the badass Tomb Raiding diva we were used too.

 

More than that, they needed to make Lara Croft relatable to audiences. As previously stated, the classic formula of having a cliché hero/heroine just “blowing shit up” doesn’t cut it much anymore, it’s typically far less engaging to audiences, as they want something real, like I’ve already said, something relatable.

Initial Impressions:

The first hour in the game is spent going from quick time event to quick time event while Lara is literally brutalized and beaten relentlessly, and if you’re not on the ball, killed in some pretty viscerally nail biting ways. Fortunately, the extreme linear nature of the first hour does not persist for the rest of the game. The first hour is really about establishing one thing, Lara is alone, hurt, cold, starving, in a foreign place, and most importantly, she’s incredibly afraid for her life.

This is an important fact because the rest of the game you’ll watch as Lara goes through a transformation of an innocent archeology graduate to a steadfast heroine, who is not squeamish in the least in dispatching her enemies.

Some critic argue that the transition from Lara being unwilling to take lives to when she no longer has a problem with it happens a little too quickly. While I do agree, it happens rather quickly, based on the severity of their situation in the story, it doesn’t feel too awkward or unnatural. Especially after you see some of the scenes she goes through, you probably won’t have a problem with her willingness to take human life so readily.

If you are familiar with the classical “Hero” cycle with story arcs, you’ll find a lot of checkmarks and parallels with Lara Crofts story.

Environment:

After the first hour of play, the game really opens up. For the most part, the game still follows a linear design, however, within specific areas you’re free to find tombs (which are puzzles without enemies), salvage materials in the area, hunt for food, or you can keep plowing along the main story quest. With the salvaging, there’s a nice meta experience as you constantly acquire and upgrade your gear, it adds a nice progression system to the game.

Getting back to the environment, to date, it’s one of the most breathtaking games that I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying. Keep in mind, I played it on PC but I’m told it looks very beautiful on console as well. I found myself just periodically stopping and panning the camera so I could enjoy the visuals of the island. I think out of the entire play through, which took me about 12-13 hours, there was only one or two areas that didn’t look absolutely stunning.

The environment also does a really good job of hiding the overall linear aspect of the game. It FEELS like a sandbox type game, even though it truly isn’t. One way it accomplishes this is by the “campsite system”. Once you’ve discovered a campsite location, you can travel to it from any other campsite. This allows you to go back and explore tombs, or large areas that you might have blasted through.

Speaking of the tombs, they are pretty satisfying, and some of the puzzles are pretty creative. Overall, I think they could have made some of them more difficult, but they were creative and interesting enough that it more than made up for it. From a design perspective, the Tombs are a very creative way of incorporating “negative space” into the pacing of your game. “Negative space” is time in the game where designers give you a cool down from excitement, usually that equates to time in games when there aren’t enemies trying to kill you. They do this because they want to bring your excitement (chemicals in your brain) down to a lower level, so you don’t get fatigued on an engagement level. However, I’m going off on a tangent so I digress. Basically, the tombs allow for a nice break from the action! (See, much more simple lol…)

 

Core Gameplay Mechanics (Combat, platforming, etc.):

So let’s get on to some of the core mechanics in the game. Naturally, first and foremost Tomb Raider is a platformer. You’ll do all sorts of climbing, jumping, falling, zip lining, running, dodging, and overall manipulating your environment to attain some goal or objective.

What is also unique about this Tomb Raider is that they incorporated a fair amount of combat into the game. I think they did a pretty good job balancing combat with platforming elements however. When you enter into a space where enemies are present, Lara will automatically go into a crouched combat mode. You can choose to hide in the environment and silently assassinate your enemies with a silent arrow, or you can close with them and engage with guns and a climbing pick axe.

The thing I was most impressed with was the fact that some areas require you to manipulate objects, then jump off them, or use them in some way while they are still in motion to achieve your goal. This sounds like a “well no shit it’s a platformer”, but if you know anything about game development, setting up collision volumes and the proper physics properties on objects within the game is a tremendous amount of work. Needless to say, they pulled it off pretty damn well.

UI:

To be honest, there really isn’t much of a user interface in this Tomb Raider game, which is a good thing. You have your classic non-diegetic ammo HUD counter, and when you enter Lara’s “instinct” mode, you’ll see specific objects light up in a tac-com type UI. For Lara’s health, they use the classic meta-physical system of blood splatters and your screen changing colors to represent how close to death you are. There’s no health bar, and Lara’s health will slowly recharge over time. You’ll also get audio and visual cues from Lara that she’s been damaged. Overall, there are as few as possible UI elements within the game that you actually see.

Overall this is great as you spend more time looking at your character and the beautiful environment she’s running around in.

Stability:

Like I said earlier, a solid play through with about 80% completion of everything in the game took me about 13 hours…. and the game didn’t crash once! Granted, if you have an Nvidia card, there are supposedly some issues with on that hardware setup. Or you can play on console and probably not experience any crashing either. I highly recommend you play it on PC if you have a rig that can run it on at least high graphics settings, especially as you can turn on the Tress RX function and see how it looks when every single strand of hair is animated. Sometimes, it gets all out of wack and you see some wonky animations, but overall it looks amazing.

I run a fairly decent high-end machine, and I still had to turn some of the graphics from their highest setting, so the game has a very high potential if you’re an enthusiast and like buying $600 video cards every six months. Either way, the game is absolutely gorgeous.

Complaints:

I only have a couple of comments here. One is that the quick time events do not transfer very well to PC. Half the time you don’t know which button you’re supposed to be mashing, and the hit detection for the keyboard during quick time events just sucks all around. Most people I know just had an xbox 360 controller plugged into their PC, and grabbed it real quick for the quick time events. They are doable, and you actually get used to their brokenness, but easily the biggest drawback to play the game on PC. Fortunately, after the first hour of play, there aren’t very many quick time events, so it’s only a minor inconvenience.

Lastly, the only other complaint is that there are certain parts of the game where Lara doesn’t react how you’d think she’d react, there’s a few character dialogue sequences that feel….. fake. Fortunately, there are less than a handful of them, and the overall character development and dialogue are so well done that it doesn’t break the engagement of the game or story. Considering how many sequences they had to draw up, act out, animate, and what not I’d say that it’s pretty damn well executed. Especially considering that it’s not a Call of Duty 4 hour campaign, even rushing through, I still sunk about 13 hours in, so you definitely get your money’s worth.

Summary:

Overall, I think Crystal Dynamics knocked it out of the park with this game. I feel they did a good job of doing a solid heroine hero cycle as I felt a connection with the character I was playing, and not only through pathos, but in triumph in overcoming obstacles and watching the character change after life altering events. I thoroughly enjoyed the Tomb Raider reboot, and I think the new Lara Croft is an engaging, realistic, and relatable female character for audiences to connect with. If you haven’t given this game a look, I highly suggest you check it out, as you won’t be disappointed.

Feel free to comment here with your thoughts!

PS4 Announcement

I realize I’ve been absent from my blog for a while, and there’s been a TON of things I’ve wanted to discuss. Alas, changing testing jobs and keeping up with school, and admittedly trying to play through my laundry list of games, has kept me away! No more! I swear I’ll do a better job of posting from now on, especially as this is such an exciting time for the industry and the state of transition that it’s currently in!

So without further ado, I want to talk about the very recent PS4 announcement. Let me start by saying that I do not own a PS3, never have, and I don’t have plans of ever purchasing one. This was a huge change for me this console generation as I absolutely loved my PS2. I didn’t purchase one because I didn’t agree with Sony’s business decisions and how they chose to build the PS3. Let’s just say for the moment, that it’s all water under the bridge, so to speak.

If you haven’t watched the official PS4 press release that was launched a few weeks ago, you really should. Granted, most of the information presented was ambiguous and sounded anecdotally like the same empty promises Sony made for the PS3 announcement many years back. However, I don’t subscribe to “fanboy” type rages, so why am I writing this post might you ask? The answer is very simple, and it’s something I’m really excited about that Sony is doing. The ‘thing’ that I’m excited about is the fact that Sony decided to go with an x86 architecture for their new console.

For your average consumer, they probably don’t know what that means, nor do they really care. From an industry/developer prospective, it’s pure awesome-sauce! Sony has notoriously had a very closed ecosystem with difficult to developer for software/hardware setups. The fact that they chose to build their new CONSOLE with a PC based architecture means three critical things.

First of all, and most importantly, this means that the traditional lines that separated what a “PC” and a “Console” was defined as, are quickly disappearing. Whether the average consume realizes it or not, we are entering a new age. The current “console” generation marks the end of what being a dedicated gaming console really was about. More and more you’re going to see hardware performing multiple tasks outside of gaming and being integrated with other devices on a level previously unheard of.

Second, aside from “traditional consoles” changing, the PC based architecture means that developers will have a much easier, and financially cheaper, time developing games for the system. Most importantly though, this means porting games built for other systems will be cheaper and better.

Thirdly, and this one may be a bit of a stretch, but it means the utopia most of us have had in our dreams of TRUE cross platform play, in some capacity, is becoming more of a reality than it ever has been. While this may not become a reality this generation, the less consoles are like traditional consoles, and the more they become like a PC, the easier it is for this dream to become a reality. It’s already starting to happen with things like Eve & Dust 514, and hopefully these types of relationships will continue to happen as hardware, software, and closed ecosystems become less of a barrier for developers.

That all being said, I fully expect Microsoft to release a very similar architecture for their next box. You can also expect it to be fully integrated with your phone, tablet, PC, and probably a dozen other things. Overall, next generation consoles will make as great an effort as possible to be an “all in one” entertainment center, as being a dedicated gaming rig with a close ecosystem is no longer a viable platform.

Like I said, new and exciting times are coming, and this isn’t even beginning to address the possibilities, or ramifications, of all the “smaller” android based home boxes or the Linux based Steam box coming out!

Spec Ops The Line Review

I know I’m cutting this one close, but I wanted to get it in before the end of 2012. The reason I want to do that, is up until this point, for this year and gaming period, I finally played a shooter game that challenged previous conventions, and had a story that actually made me think about what I was doing.

Originally, when I stumbled upon this game, I played the demo and decided not to purchase it at full price, particularly as the demo wasn’t anything impressive. Upon revisiting the game, and actually playing it, I can tell you it’s well worth your time. Especially if you’ve been looking for a shooting game where you feel mentally challenged. Before I get to the main segment of this piece, let me get a few technical negative aspects that I didn’t like about it first. Naturally, I played this game on PC and the controls do not convert well to a keyboard and mouse. They take some getting used to and there were certain places, or controls, in the game that didn’t function well because of it. If you’re playing with a controller or on console, you’ll be fine and won’t notice these issues.

Now that I’m done with my main complaint, let’s get on to what I experienced while playing through.

NOTE: I will try to keep this as spoiler free as possible, I just want to convey emotions I experienced by certain actions, not give away key plot points.

Moving on, if you are an avid gamer as I am, than you have probably played a fair share of shooter type games, especially as it’s been an industry staple as of late, thanks to the COD’s and BF’s of the industry. Having been playing these games since as long as I can remember, I never once felt regret for having to do something, or any of my actions. The games themselves were usually over accentuated power fantasies, thusly spent the entire game ramping you up to some type of hero or badass to save the world. Naturally, there’s nothing wrong with this, but it’s an old recipe and it’s been done far too many times.

This is where Spec Ops The Line really shines. Personally, if they had removed “Spec Ops” from the title, it would have been better off in my personal opinion, but I digress. Without any specific spoilers, you’re an American Delta Force team sent into Dubai, which is being destroyed by sand storms, to find out what happened to an American Army unit which defied orders and went in to Dubai to evacuate the citizens. Once again, without spoilers, your small team more or less gets stuck right into the middle of a civil war between American troops, CIA, and Rebels.

 

It quickly becomes apparent, that things are not going to end nicely for anyone, but you have a glimmer of hope throughout most of the game of rectifying the situation, but along the way you keep having to make decisions that are hard and feel very wrong, but as they are forced upon you, you literally have no choice but to press on. As your team progresses through the hellish encounters and decisions they have to make, their morale, dedication to the mission, and even physical appearance changes and breaks down. They react to the decisions you’ve been forced to make, which is rare in shooters, as AI teammates usually stay quiet and are hardly ever developed as characters. In this game however, everything starts to become personal for each one of your teammates, and it shows significantly as the story progresses.

I honestly can’t say much more than that, or go into detail, or I’ll be giving up key elements of the story, and nobody hates anything more than a spoiler! I can promise you, however, that the ending will definitely surprise you, and leave you trying to mentally sort all the pieces together. When I was finished playing through, I legitimately felt bad for what I’d done, but I still feel that I didn’t particularly have any choice in the matter at the same time.  A lot of it sums up to a damned if you do and damned if you don’t type scenario.

 

For me, this game was a sign that shooter games CAN be made to send a message and do something more than create a power trip type fantasy. As gamers, we don’t always need the cookie cutter shooter game, with the ever so predictable “Terrorists are going to nuke the world, and only you can stop them” plot line. I also noticed that a lot of ratings for this game were mediocre on most websites. Which surprised me, as game journalism is always crying for the “mature” grown up shooter experience that does something more than feel like an 80’s action movie. This is probably a result of the marketing team which was responsible for getting this game out there, not truly understanding what they had on their hands, but I digress on that as well.

 

Perhaps you won’t have the same experience playing this game that I did, but I honestly believe if you are searching for a more meaningful experience in a shooter game, you should seriously give this a shot. It’s fitting, that I publish this review on the last day of the year, as this game is my diamond in the rough, and to this point is the most unique action shooting game experience to date.

End of 2012 and traditional business models

Nuke Explosion Courtesy of Deviant Art – Kingsandji

So naturally this time of year people reflect upon their lives, decisions made, experiences had, and then inevitably begin to look forward to the New Year and what it might bring. Since my blog is strictly about video games (for now at least) I want to talk about what I’ve observed.

As an individual working in the industry, mass consumer of industry news, and avid gamer my entire life, I’ve observed several interesting patterns and here’s my predictions. I know I’ve said it before, but retail will soon be finished, and if consoles do not change their business models, then they will not survive past another console generation. I believe Sony and Microsoft realize this, and that’s why I believe the next two pieces of hardware that hit us next year, will not be what the core gamer audience expects. They are most likely going to be an “All-in-one” media entertainment box”, I say this because Microsoft is a metric compiling and consuming beast, and when their metric data is telling them that the majority of XBOX 360 owners are NOT playing video games, but streaming Netflix, music, and video, that something has changed. This is due to a number of variables, which I will not get into; I’d rather talk about the business model for selling games, and what has recently happened to me.

Let me start by saying, “I LOVE MY XBOX 360”, and until now I’ve been incredibly dedicated to it, only switching to PC to play a strategy or MMO game on occasion. I however, woke up one day and realized that slowly I was being sucked back into playing games on my PC, and for one major reason, it was a better deal. Yes Steam, I’m looking at you. Steam is literally the digital crack needle of video games for me. I find myself getting around to playing games that weren’t on the top of my list, JUST because they were on sale, or I find myself delving into new experiences because of a lower price point. Here is my point, the traditional “Purchase a physical copy of a video game at a brick and mortar store for +/- $60” is dying and will soon be dead. This is mainly for two reasons, one is a matter of convenience to the consumer, and the other is it is a better business model for developers. Consider the following, for a developer releasing a game through Steam (an online digital distribution service by Valve) they keep 70% of the profit from those sales versus selling in the traditional model of a physical copy at retail where they maybe see 30% of a $60 purchase, maybe.

Why, you ask, will things go this way? It’s because currently, the development costs for AAA games is NOT sustainable anymore. Most of the AAA games you see on the market that are sold cross platform, need to sell upwards of 5 million (or much more) copies just to break even, or begin to see a ROI or return on investment. The golden age of consoles has long since been done, and it’s time for something new. I am not predicting the death of consoles outright, more along the lines of their inevitable evolution. In closing, I’ll deal with the inevitable comment of “Well PC’s are too expensive, that’s why consoles will never die yaarg!” (Sorry about the pirate)

Yes, a quality PC gaming rig is more expensive outright than a console. However, the game has changed (see what I did there?) Due to changes in digital distribution on PC’s, I rarely paid $60 up front for a game on PC, while console gamers are still paying $30-$60 for games that I’m paying $15-$30 for. So do the math, yes PC has a higher barrier to entry on price, but you easily recoup the cost in saving on video game purchases. Just as an example, I ran a calculator service, just now, on my Steam game library, which calculates every game in my library at their regular cost (not what I purchased them for on sale) and currently my library is worth $1620.25, and I’ve only recently switched back to PC gaming. That’s already well over what I paid for my gaming PC, and it plays everything on ultra-graphics settings.

In closing, I know it sounds like this entire post was a Steam fanboy rage. Take it how you will, but it’s undeniable, that their digital distribution methods are changing the industry, and the way we consume video game technology. Sooner or later, you will have to get on the bus. So what has my rant about business models really been about? It’s about the wave of change we are about to see unfold next year, and personally, it’s going to be damn exciting, and the real purpose of this blog was to lessen the blow of any disruptive technologies that blindside the average gamer next year. The winds of change are upon us!

Thanks for reading!

-Cheers