This is the second part of a two-part series. Read “Part 1: Discovery”

I started thinking about writing full length reviews of video games in late 2001. I was still at University. I was going to make a website and came up with some generic name I thought was edgy and reflective of what I wanted to accomplish. It was going to cover more than video games. I had some things to say about popular culture.

After talking to some friends at school about my vision, there was some interest in this collaborative effort. There was already a zine floating around our faculty, but it was horrible. It was a soapbox for people frustrated with school and mostly contained their annoyingly priveleged views on an “oppressive” society. Instead of being provocative or insightful it was lampooning popular culture with pedestrian observations and half-baked philosophy. I could do better.

Of course, when you rely on friends to produce something for free, it doesn’t happen unless you get on their case about it. And I wanted to keep my friends. Plus, the whole “trying to graduate from University with a degree” thing. The project died on the vine, and I gave up the dream. For the time being, anyway.

I graduated from school the next spring, and started playing video games while I looked for work. My comptuer was getting old, and at this point the most it could muster was Unreal Tournament and Civilization III. I read the issues of PC Gamer that were mailed to me to keep up with the industry and the hobby I loved. I hung out on the internet a lot, and read too many terrible reviews that people actually got paid to write. My head started filling with ideas again. I could do better.

I started thinking about another website. Something that would capture my love of video games and provide an outlet for my brand of scathing commentary. I would call it “Tales of a Scorched Earth”, because I am an insufferable Smashing Pumpkins fan. I would adopt the handle of “Gatmog”, because it sounded cool and it provided the mystery any good internet handle should have¹.

During this time, I started playing and thinking about video games as if it were research. I built a new desktop PC after I got a job and some money. I had a new purpose: I would record my thoughts on video games, write some reviews and share them with others. The availability and ease of use of self-publishing tools made this easier than I expected. I thought I would be doing something different than the typical weblog, and I used that as inspiration.

I wrote a lot of reviews and embarrassing posts during that time². I published most of them. It was a start.

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (2002)

When Medal of Honor: Allied Assault was released, it recieved endless praise from the entire video game industry. The word that reviewers liked to throw around was “cinematic.” The movie reviewers liked to reference was Saving Private Ryan. Which was completely natural, seeing as how Spielberg himself had something to do with the game. But this was the start of a recurring problem with video games.

With the success of the Medal of Honor franchise, everyone wanted to tap into this new sub-genre. We started to see a lot more games use World War II as a setting. And the people that loved every single one of them would soon turn on them as fickle audiences often do. And not because the setting had nothing new to offer (Brothers in Arms proved that³), but because it was simply a skin designers would stretch over the same tired FPS formula. Will World War II games ever be fashionable again? Will they ever explore anything deeper than gun-toting heroics? Maybe we’ll see a bunch of games about Iraq in 40 years that leave out all the bad parts, too.

I didn’t actually get to play Allied Assault until later in the year, when I upgraded my desktop. In hindsight, this was fortunate, as everyone was over the initial hype and playing Battlefield 1942. I played the Omaha Beach landing and took part in what everyone called “the most intense experience you will ever encounter in video games.” At the time, I agreed with these hyperbolic reviews. And I still do, mostly. It is intense. It is absorbing.

But is it accurate? And, even though we already know the answer to that, is it right to give these games praise for offering a sterilized simulation rather than realism?

The World War II genre is simply a manifestation of the gaming industry’s obsession with “cinematic presentation.” Big budgets and bigger expectations encourage developers to create the equivalent of Hollywood’s summer blockbusters, in the hopes that this will somehow contribute to the validation of the medium.

However, by doing this you have now have reviewers who base their opinions on how games reference the “source material”, which are movies, and are themselves not entirely genuine. No one who reviews one of these games understands what happened out there on the battlefield. You can’t expect a veteran to play this and give their solemn nod of approval⁴. They fought so we wouldn’t have to. Why do we insist on reliving these horrible events? Why do we call it a game?

Allied Assault got me interested in the history behind the events of these games. I started reading about World War II, and the famous battles and operations summarized and retold by its various missions. I wanted to know what it was really like. I read the first hand accounts of Allied soldiers who were just kids thrust into the front lines and expected to carry the weight of the free world on their shoulders.

In Allied Assault I had autosaves and quick reloads when I died. After reading some of these books, I found the whole concept disturbing. At this point, I wanted to study these games. I wanted to record and categorize the effect of this genre on people’s impressions of World War II, and war in general. I wanted to prove how out of touch our generation was, and how these events are being perverted by an industry.

And yet with all that introspection, I was ensnared just like everyone else the following year by Call of Duty⁵, designed by key members of the 2015 team who left EA to create Infinity Ward. This was a game I could get behind. You weren’t Rambo, you had buddies standing around with you joining the fight for freedom. See how much personality they had? See how everyone reacted when they died?

I wouldn’t articulate these feelings for another few years, in an article I wrote for The Cultural Gutter⁶. I detached myself from the spectacle of it all. I thought about those 20 minutes spent in 2002 trying to beat the Omaha Beach mission in Allied Assault, and how I was annoyed at the number of attempts it took me to complete. Indirectly, these games still had a lot to teach me.

Rise of Nations (2003)

I played Civilization II along with everyone else in University. I stayed up way too late for “one more turn”. I tried out Alpha Centauri after Sid Meier left Microprose to form Firaxis in 1996. I felt that Civilization III was a richer game than its predecessor and probably the best in the series, even though the critical reception for Civilization IV has long since overshadowed it. When I heard that Brian Reynolds was leaving Firaxis to form Big Huge Games and was planning to make a real-time Civilization, I was a little shocked. Would this be a travesty or the breakthrough crossover that everyone had been waiting for?

I got Rise of Nations the week it was released. I played it for at least three months straight. I introduced it to friends and acquaintances that had never played Civilization, and whose experience with Real Time Strategy was the brute force reactive tactics of StarCraft and Command & Conquer. I watched as they succumbed to the spellbinding combination of civilization building and front-line battles. Tales of a Scorched Earth was almost ready and this would be the first review I would write.

My review for Rise of Nations became an obsession. I was struggling with the review style I would use on my website, as I wanted to avoid the type of product summaries that everyone else slavishly followed. I had to pick apart this game and figure out what made it work so well. I wanted to trace its influences back through video game history, and put words to Reynolds’ brilliance in how he selected the best aspects of these influences and combined them into a satisfying whole. As I struggled to find my voice, I also tried to develop my own rubric for reviewing video games with words and not numbers. While I was familiar with the criticisms surrounding either approach, I just wanted to write.

I never did publish that review; instead, smitten with the recent purchase of a Game Boy Advance I finished and published my review of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. A more simplified effort, and what I thought was the safer bet. I didn’t know what audience I would acquire, and I didn’t have confidence enough in my detailed analysis of Rise of Nations to think anyone would find it worth reading. Going back to read the Castlevania review is disappointing. I could have set the tone for this website a lot earlier.

Rise of Nations is stilll one of my favorite games. But it also remains one of the most important in the development of this website.

Metroid Prime (2002, played in 2003)

One of my friends got an XBox and Halo: Combat Evolved the day they were released. I was still in University. Naturally, I had to see for myself what everyone was getting excited about. Microsoft entering the console market? Preposterous!

Halo was a first person shooter, designed to be played with a gamepad. As an overzealous PC gamer⁷, I looked upon this game as an abomination. How could anyone get used to this? Nudging an analog stick provided nowhere near the same responsiveness or precision as a mouse. There had been numerous attempts prior to the XBox to bring FPS to game consoles, and this effort would be no different. I’d give it a try, just to say that I played it. I made it a third of the way through the co-op campaign in two sittings. You know, to humor him.

A few years later, Halo would be identified as not only the XBox’s “killer app”, but the game that made consoles a viable destination for FPS. With the introduction of XBox Live, people were playing Halo 2 online like I was playing Unreal Tournment a few years prior. This was it. The end was coming.

I refused to legitimize this shift in attitudes towards console gaming, even in light of what I called “PC Defectors”: developers and gamers who were growing tired of the PC as a platform, and moved over to the XBox for a more streamlined and hassle-free experience.

Back in late 2003, the Gamecube was subjected to a massive drop in price by Nintendo. It clearly couldn’t compete with the PlayStation 2′s stranglehold on the market, or the unexpected rise in popularity of the XBox. The Gamecube had a limited selection of 1st party titles, but no “killer app” that would sell consoles the way the Grand Theft Auto and Halo series did for the PS2 and XBox. At this cheaper price, Nintendo would settle for being someone’s second or third game console. This is how I got in.

I had heard about The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker, Metroid Prime and Super Mario Sunshine. I knew they were good games, and reason enough to own a Gamecube. However I found myself connecting the most to F-Zero GX at the time, because I had so many great memories surrounding the SNES version. For $150, how could I go wrong?

Well, I was wrong. About the title I bought the console for, anyway.

Metroid Prime caused an uproar among fans of the series. Like everyone else I was astonished at how such an iconic side-scrolling action game could be transformed into a first-person shooter.

Metroid Prime was the game that proved me wrong about FPS on a console⁸. Retro Studios made a PC gamer feel right at home with the Gamecube controller, creating an accessible blend of action and adventure in a vibrant new environment, while still retaining everything I enjoyed about the old Metroid games (even the backtracking!). The combat may have been made easier with the lock-on feature, but the controls were forgiving enough to allow me to get comfortable with the idea of using a gamepad to move and jump and shoot instead of the trial-by-fire approach to Halo‘s brand of action. Metroid Prime may not have been a true run-and-gun FPS, but it allowed me to get comfortable with the concept. There was nothing to fear about FPS on a console.

While those sentiments were sincere, I still remained faithful to the PC. My aversion to console gaming wouldn’t be dispelled until much later.

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines (2004)

Like everyone else, I bought Half Life 2 on the day of release. I can’t say my excitement was of Diablo II-proportions, but it was a day that would cement Half Life into the video game collective conciousness, after attracting a cult following since the original’s release. It would also mark the launch of Steam, which would bring Valve’s authentication servers to their knees. Half Life 2 redefined acceptable linearity in FPS by creating a compelling narrative driven by the player⁹. I fully acknowledge it as one of the greatest games ever made.

Unfortunately, Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines had to compete with the blockbuster release of Half Life 2. Being the first game to use the Source engine, it was rushed to coincide with Half Life 2‘s launch, and it showed. The textures were plain and uninspiring, the facial animations stiff and inhuman, and there were numerous game-crippling bugs. Players and reviewers thought this was reason enough to overlook the game. There was Counter Strike: Source to be played, after all.

This would be devastating to the sales and critical reception of the game. It was Troika’s last effort before shutting down in February 2005. It was also their greatest achievement.

As soon as I finished Bloodlines, I wanted to play it again. This was a game that captured everything I loved about the tabletop RPG, and about computer RPGs in general. It was an example of what these games should be striving for. The voice acting was superb, and the dialog felt completely natural and engaging – something I wouldn’t encounter again until I played Mass Effect. I loved Bloodlines unconditionally, and as a result it changed the way I thought about video games. If a game is deeply flawed, yet so perfectly displays an aspect that defines the genre, it should still be recognized. Maybe I had too much of a personal investment in this game, but I made a point of advocating it to whoever I talked to. I even called it the best game of 2004 when everyone else was handing those accolades to Half-Life 2¹⁰

In early 2005, I got an email from someone who read my review of Bloodlines. Up until then I had received a few emails since starting the website from random visitors with mostly disposable praise or criticism. The useful feedback usually came from the comments section after each post. I appreciated every single one.

This email, though. It was from someone who had been turned off of Bloodlines by all of the negative press surrounding it upon release. He saw no reason to pursue it.

That is, until he read my review.

At that point this person, whoever they were, completely validated my existence. I wielded the power to influence people to play good games; I wasn’t just screaming into the void with opinions no one cared about. This is the most valuable piece of feedback I have ever received in the entire life of Tales of a Scorched Earth, and I will never forget it.

After that I knew my purpose. I would not be content to simply play video games and write up a review. I wanted to critique them. I wanted to contextualize them in our culture, and provide more than just references to other games. I wanted to cut through the hype and evaluate a game on its own merits, not popular opinion. I wanted people to recognize the flawed ones that deserved better.

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines is the reason this website still exists.

Gears of War (2006, played in 2008)

When the ad campaign started for Gears of War, I was filled with seething rage. My allegiance to PC gaming was as strong as it had ever been, and seeing Epic use their Unreal Engine to create what appeared to be a third person shooter in some darkened and grunge-layered science fiction setting felt like a betrayal of the highest order. These were the same guys that brought us the brightly colored and meticulously balanced Unreal Tournament 2004. What started with Halo would soon completely reshape the landscape of first person shooters and multiplayer gaming on the console. It was a sobering revelation, and I despised Gears for perpetuating this trend.

Time passes, people have children, and they tend to unclench a little. Maybe that’s all I needed.

In the summer of 2008, I bought a laptop to replace my desktop. In hindsight this may have forced my hand in the decision to purchase an XBox 360. But I’ll get to that.

I got Gears of War for my PC, because I wanted to try it out for myself. I already had a XBox 360 controller from my time with Assassin’s Creed, and I used the HDMI-out to plug my laptop into the TV. It was an instant XBox 360!

I played through most of the campaign. Visually, the game was a lot more detailed than what I originally gave it credit for. The duck and cover, shoot and run mechanics flowed naturally, and I was able to get a grip on the control scheme for the most part. But something didn’t sit right. I tried with the mouse and keyboard, but it felt sluggish and unresponsive. I didn’t like the story, or the neverending stream of gender stereotypes and macho overcompensation coming from my television. I gave up on Gears of War. I moved on to something else.

In November 2008, I played Horde mode in Gears of War 2¹¹. It taught me to use the 360′s controller for shooters, and revealed an “endless mode” with an intensity of play that stripped the game down to its basic elements. I loved what I was experiencing.

I went back to Gears of War on my PC and finished it. I then started to write one of the longest, most positive reviews I have ever written at Tales of a Scorched Earth¹². Playing the game long after it was released I could ignore the press, and write what I truly felt about the game. Writing the Gears of War review was the most fun I’ve had since starting Tales of a Scorched Earth.

So I bought an XBox 360. I had to be able to play Gears of War 2, you see.

I was wrong about Gears of War. It is a prime example of the exploration of video games’ basic tenet: kill or be killed. It is Space Invaders with a Lancer, and yet it refines a mechanic for FPS and third person shooters that would be shamelessly copied by the video games that followed it.

Gears of War taught me to slough off platform evangelism. If there is a good game somewhere, I should play it. I dispensed with any rhetoric I had written in the past¹³. I would focus on the games themselves, not get caught up in the fanboy politics that accompany them. I revisited a pact I made with myself shortly after starting this website: I will write here until I have nothing more to say about video games.

And since expanding my horizons with the XBox 360, I have a lot to say about video games.

The “Gaming Made Me” series of video game retrospectives started by Rock, Paper, Shotgun came from games industry writers, journalists and the designers that make them. It’s become a kind of collective autobiography sourcing the video games that shaped who they are.

Of course, the cynical part of me expected this community-driven effort to consist of mostly name-dropping key titles from the history of video games. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the response of webloggers that have taken up the mantle where Rock, Paper, Shotgun left off¹.

So now I feel the need to contribute, because I think it is absolutely necessary for anyone who loves to play or write about video games to recognize the ones that got them into the hobby. Or in the case of game designers and professional writers, what made them get into the industry itself.

I have been into computers since very early on in my life, and playing computer games was a natural extension of that interest. However, I had no idea that this hobby would result in me creating a website to talk about them. I’m no industry figure, weblogging personality or budding game designer – I’m just a guy that loves to play video games, and write about them. For the people that truly love video games, they are as important as the books they read or the movies they watched when growing up.

For any game weblog, I’d say that writing something like “Gaming Made Me” is more essential than an “About” page. It’s important to let readers know where the author is coming from, and what games influenced their lives and opinions of what makes a great video game. It provides context for the reviews and criticism they produce.

At this point in my life, video games are no longer just a hobby. They have made me a writer, and they have taught me to be critical of things beyond video games. Both video games and this website have become such immutable aspects of my life, that I can’t imagine it without them.

It was hard to come up with this list. So hard, that I had to split it into two. I wanted it be a list of games that shaped me as a player of video games, as well as my viewpoints on what makes a great video game, instead of simply rewording a “favorite games of all time” list. So I’m not going to list off the Zeldas, the Half-Lifes, the Thiefs, or the Rainbow Sixes. That would be too easy for me. No name dropping of the classics and pretending as if they meant something to me in my early development as a gamer. The following list of games got me started in the hobby, tempered my opinion of the medium, and introduced me to the genres I love. Most importantly these are the games that eventually led me to write about them². They are the ones that left an indelible mark. And for that, they must be recognized.

Alley Cat (1984)

Bill Williams’ Alley Cat was one of the first games I got for my IBM clone desktop PC when I was nine years old (it had been out for a few years). The PC had no hard disk, and I had the game in PC Booter format – it booted right into the game without the need for an OS. The computer and game arrived in my house at the same time a lot of my friends were getting NES consoles for their TVs. I thought the whole home arcade thing was stupid. I could do more with a computer.

Except that all I had for my computer was a monochrome monitor. So I could play Alley Cat in black and green, or black and orange, or black and pink, or black and white. That’s some variety! Who needed the NES and its 8-bit graphics and low-fi chiptunes. I had a PC speaker.

Obviously, these experiences established my allegiance to PC gaming at an early age.

I played the living shit out of Alley Cat, mostly fueled by a white-hot jealousy of the friends that had an NES and Super Mario Brothers. So I got good at it. And for what appeared on the surface as a game for kids, it’s actually pretty hard. Jump into a window in an apartment compex, play a mini-game: a maze in a giant piece of cheese, a fishbowl with electric eels…it was pretty surreal and often frustrating. One of the mini-games involves seducing a female cat to increase the difficulty level, after which the other mini-games could be replayed. Alley Cat helped me define “keyboard bashing.”

Alley Cat was the first computer game I remember committing myself to, even if was for the wrong reasons. I consider it the start of both a rewarding and extremely damaging relationship with video games.

SimAnt (1991)

After the success of Will Wright’s SimCity, there were a series of games developed to leverage the “Sim” brand, which included SimEarth, SimLife, SimAnt, SimTower, SimTown and SimTunes. Little did we know this was just the beginning of a publisher’s business model built on the sales of expansion packs!

SimAnt is generally considered to be a critical and commercial failure for Will Wright, as it seemed to be too eccentric a riff on the SimCity formula. Instead of focusing on large scale empire building or ecosystem shaping, SimAnt was about digging tunnels in the ground, collecting food, managing population happiness, defending the colony, and avoiding lawnmowers. Most gamers weren’t ready for that.

A friend gave this game to me to try, because he thought it was cool. I was 12. I was so past the age of thinking bugs were interesting, so why would I want to create an electronic ant farm? The whole concept seemed ridiculous. Nevertheless, the game gripped me for months. It was better than SimCity: this game taught me about sustaining life³. I was so captivated by my ant colony, striving every day to keep my Queen alive so that it may prosper, that I began to assign my own narrative to it. I would later use these ideas to write a short story for my school’s creative writing contest, where I described a lowly ant’s adventures in saving his colony. I won fisrst prize for it, too. People thought it was such a creative and original concept. If they only knew it was inspired by a video game.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (1992)

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is my favorite game of all time⁴. It made me love computer games, and electronic games in general. It made me appreciate good scripting, dialogue and voice acting. It made me believe that an original story based on a well-known property could actually result in a good game. It also made me wish it had been made into a movie.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis was the first game that helped me break down the barrier between “toy” and “medium” for video games. It is a game I go out of my way to play once a year, like watching a favorite film or reading a favorite book. The endgame brings sadness because I know it will be over soon. I have yet to encounter a video game that instills these feelings. Fate of Atlantis made me realize video games would be part of my life forever.

Diablo II (2000)

After finishing Ultima VIII: Pagan, I needed something similar. The game had captivated me with its isometric viewpoint, simple combat, epic quests and inventory management (really! I would have to leave excess stuff in people’s desk drawers and then come back to get it later). In response came Blizzard’s Diablo. While I would have to wait a year to play it (didn’t have the horsepower in my PC), I knew it was The Answer. See, Ultima VIII still had elements of adventure in it, as the world of PC RPGs hadn’t yet made the transition to the action-ready clickfests most of them have become. And you can thank Diablo for that.

Though Diablo was just the beginning of an obsession for me. The claustrophobic setting of a church with stairs that go down, down through relentless packs of monsters, down straight into hell, would occupy most of the time I spent with my computer. With Battle.net, Blizzard gave us multiplayer and co-op and (theoretically) endless replayability with their randomly generated dungeon levels, but it started to get tiresome. And with the release of Starcraft, the teaser trailer for Diablo II included on the disc confirmed its existence. It also gave me my reason for being as a PC gamer.

The wait for Diablo II was torture. It was the self-inflicted hell that the hero at the end of Diablo endured. My appetite for news on its development would not be appeased. I looked at screens, learned rumors of the new class types and the expansive maps that we would be treated to. The scheduled release was Spring/Summer 2000. I waited.

Closer to this time , I went to a local electronics superstore and asked for a specific street date. The woman who worked there looked at me funny and said, “You’re the 14th person to ask me about this game today. What’s so special about this Diablo II?” I had to bite my tongue at that point. Clearly society would never understand the cultural impact of video games.

I was away at University the week the game came out. I had to wait until the weekend to pick up my reserved copy, which was back home. After waiting over two years, you’d think that a few extra days wouldn’t matter. But knowing that it was there, waiting for me, just made it worse. Incidentally, I vowed to never pre-order a game after that. It hadn’t yet become as widespread a trend, but I could see that pre-ordering at a specific location tethers you to it. It provides no advantage over picking it up at any other store. Instead, you are made a prisoner with your own money and the con artists laughing at you from behind the counter.

But we are talking about Diablo II, the computer game.

The night I picked it up, I installed it on my parents’ computer. Over that weekend I must have logged close to 20 hours and stayed up way too late. I put the savegames on a diskette and packed up the CDs to go back to school. That week, I finished the game. In all it took me about four days, completing every quest and visting every random dungeon. I had beaten Diablo again. But where was Baal? The solid prospect of an expansion pack after I had finished the game helped sustain the euphoria of victory. These would be the best games ever made.

Of course, I was able to look past the hideous low resolution graphics (releasing a game in 640 x 480 game in 2000? Really, Blizzard?), the repetitive nature of the quests, and the game’s nefarious ability to make you want to collect things while in the perpetual loop of clicking a mouse button. Diablo II would provide the model for Blizzard’s own MMORPG, and an entire genre would be dominated by this game in the years after its release.

There’s no arguing Diablo II‘s impact on computer games, and video games in general. The simple “Click-Kill-Reward” concept had never been used to such devastating effect. This was a game I could install and play like some would play Solitaire, to pass the time. Everything became mindless, reflexive. I don’t think I’ve finished a game so many times as I did Diablo II. Hardcore mode provided an outlet for the experienced Diablo II player, where the character dies permanently. Losing my level 43 Sorceress stacked with a selection of rares and uniques to some pack of Fetish Shamans casting Inferno forced me to new depths of humility.

Diablo II was also responsible for something else. Back in that summer of 2000, another game was released. It was called Icewind Dale. Creating a mostly storyless dungeon crawler with the familiar rules and deep game mechanics of Baldur’s Gate had me equally gripped after I had finished Diablo II. So I decided to write an essay comparing the two. I thought Icewind Dale was the better game. I used pathetic excuses like “deeper”, “better soundtrack”⁵ and “nicer looking graphics”. I published the article on a website dedicated to games that didn’t last long. In time I realized I had betrayed a game that provided so many hours of enjoyment, and created stories I could share with the friends that also obsessively played it. Diablo II galvanized my love of PC gaming, and video games in general. Video games were more than a distraction to me at this point. I thought about them all the time, about their multiple layers of presentation, and how they were quickly establishing themselves in our cultural consciousness.

I began thinking about a proper website. I would have to write more about these things.

This is the first part of a two-part series. Read “Part 2: Critical Mass”

I took advantage of the Boxing Day shopping frenzy over the weekend and picked up an XBox 360 Pro Holiday Bundle at a discount that was hard to ignore. This is a purchase I had been deeply considering since my life-altering experience with Gears of War 2‘s Horde mode. My familiarity with the console was mostly limited to some time with it shortly after launch, so I’ve been relatively out of touch with what has been released for the console since then. I was also a bit disappointed at the lack of hardware upgrades: the Elite is still hoarding the 120 GB hard drive, and there is still no Wi-Fi out of the box even after three years. Though I guess I should be thankful that the power supply hasn’t burst into flame yet.

Since getting back into gaming this past summer, I’ve tried to keep myself aware of the titles capturing the most buzz on all of the next generation consoles. Over the past few days I familiarized myself with the new XBox dashboard and downloaded a grab-bag of demos: the critically acclaimed and a few others that I was interested in. I’m still looking for a good RPG other than the obvious selections of Mass Effect, Fable 2, or Fallout 3. Feel free to add any other recommendations in the comments; this is my second leap into the console world since the Gamecube in 2003.

Braid (demo)

I went to this game immediately. Not only was it the most talked about title on XBox LIVE Arcade for 2008, it was the most talked about game, period. Fiery debates raged between those that thought it was overwrought twaddle and those that believed it would change your life. Skeptical as always, I went in expecting twaddle.

After being available for four months and topping many year-end lists, Braid carries with it the burden of enormous expectations. This isn’t usually how I like to approach a game, but I just couldn’t wait to try it for myself to have some snide comments for my own year-end wrap up to fuel the continuing debate. But after completing the meager demo levels, my initial reaction was a feeling of emptiness. That’s it? Super Mario Bros. meets Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time?

The loosely strung together story, which amounts to a bunch of text that can optionally be read at the beginning of each level, is a collection of the most purple prose I have ever read in a game. If this is the reason reviews like Dan Whitehead’s famous wank-session at Eurogamer are produced, I want no part of the future of games criticism.

When the Barney look-alike says “I’m sorry, but the Princess is in another castle”, the reference might have actually been funny if Braid wasn’t so busy taking itself too seriously. And I don’t want to hear another drone telling me I’m “missing the point entirely” or “don’t get it”. The point of any game is to be entertaining, and if a player must peel back the disguises of obscure cultural references behind some interchangable protagonist’s life story to “get it”, I think the game’s designers are the ones missing the point (the atomic bomb? Seriously?). The in-game art is exceptional, but the game itself is not art. It is a platformer.

Dead Rising (demo)

Dead Rising is one of the games I regretted missing in 2006. It certainly feels like a Resident Evil game in the way it over-dramatizes the laughable storyline, but it does away with things like atmosphere and contrived suspense in favour of what people really want to do in a Resident Evil game: kill lots and lots of zombies.

The slow moving zombies practically allow themselves to be destroyed with all manner of weapons provided by the game’s environment. This is a definite change of pace from the chaotic action of Left 4 Dead as the massive, undulating crowds are rarely overwhelming. Weapons are also breakable, and this provides a bit of tension when that bat you were swinging has suddenly turned to splinters in your hands.

Based on what I was able to play in the demo, the action in Dead Rising seems pretty superficial, but I’ve read that there’s a lot more to do in the game than just kill zombies. I’m trying to track down a copy of the full version so I can make a better assessment.

Mirror’s Edge (demo)

If I could get every minute back spent reading self-appointed game criticism pundits fiddling with this game…Oh, forget it. The aesthetic of Mirror’s Edge is breathtakingly original, and I have to give DICE credit for creating something that isn’t another war-themed first-person shooter. These sterile environments are host to what is essentially an expansive jumping puzzle in a first person shooter. Except I can’t see my feet. It’s been a thorn in the side of any first person shooter player (even for Metroid Prime!) So why are these complaints absent from every review? Easy. They are too busy praising its originality.

I don’t care about the trend of “parkour” or “freerunning” or whatever the hell they are calling it now, but I will certainly give DICE their due for attempting such a game. But let’s be totally honest here: if you’re going to focus on jumping, let the player see their environment from a reasonable perspective. You know, like Brad Borne did with Mirror’s Edge 2D. Hopefully this is being created for XBox Live Arcade, because I will be getting it. As it stands, for washed out parkour fun I’d rather be playing Assassin’s Creed.

Castle Crashers (demo)

This shameless throwback to medieval beat ‘em ups like Golden Axe is a fucking revelation, brought to you by the creators of Alien Hominid. The visual comedy and overt references to its influences are hilarious to behold. After playing this game it becomes perfectly clear why XBox LIVE Arcade succeeds on the backs of these no-frills action games. I will be getting the full version.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Since its release on XBox LIVE Arcade last year, there have been a lot of people waxing poetic about its greatness in the pantheon of 2D platformers. But does anyone really know why this game is a 2D classic, and one of the best games of all time? Or do game reviewers and journalists just keep citing it because they know that’s what they’re supposed to say? (I also see this a lot with Gunstar Heroes – note to Microsoft, toss this one on XBL Arcade, too!).

The game is a curiosity for the Playstation generation, bravely released in an era that advanced 3D graphics for non-computer users. It is also difficult in an old-school platformer kind of way, from the days where it actually took patience and skill to run through a sequence instead of relying on auto-saves or save points that pop up like weeds all over a level. It was a refreshingly original take on the Castlevania universe by not giving you a whip, but arming you with other weapons, allowing the use of armour and providing a set of unique spells. It was before the series got unnecessarily complicated with 3D iterations and the convoluted magic systems of the portable series. This was the last great Castlevania, and for a while, the last great 2D platformer. I’m going to have to a write a full god damned review, aren’t I?

Though it is labelled as HD I probably could have played this on my PC with a decent emulator, as the sprites and animations feel like they were just bumped up to 1080i. Otherwise, the game plays like I remember it.

Kung Fu Panda

The first of the bundled titles that came with the console. Incredibly, this is a licensed game that doesn’t make me want to jump out of a window. Kung Fu Panda smartly focuses on straightforward action, fluid controls, and (thankfully) professional voice acting including Jack Black himself. It integrates well with the storyline of the movie, without veering too far off to make it seem that missions were thrown in to make the whole thing a game. My daughter also enjoys the cartoon violence and sound effects. This might actually be worth finishing.

Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures

The second of the bundled titles that came with the console. This is the first I’ve played of the Lego series of games that seem to be all the rage lately. Its cute factor is frequently nauseating, but it is fun to play. I can’t see myself spending too much time with it, though. Well, except when the little one asks for it by name (Indiana Jones bricks?)

Ninja Gaiden II (demo)

After playing the family-friendly Kung Fu Panda for close to two hours while my daughter watched in excitement, this was a welcome bloodbath. Atrocious cutscenes and polished spandex abound in the sequel to one of the original XBox’s premier titles, a game I always wanted to play for myself. The new Ninja Gaiden may be set in the same universe as Tecmo’s Dead or Alive, but do we really have to continue to watch Ryu hopping around in plastic pants through carefully constructed environments almost entirely devoid of character and substance? Is that really the best Team Ninja can do with the 360?

However, pushing graphical boundaries is not what this game is about. The combat is fast and merciless and aggressive. The mutated ninja sent to kill Ryu have no tactics, except to close in and repeatedly cut him with swords and beat with fists and throw shuriken.

With only the first level included in the demo, it’s tough to make a call on the difficulty. It’s challenging, but not impossible. It also doesn’t lend itself well to button mashing as some might have us believe. It’s no Assassin’s Creed, but the combat requires a bit of timing and proper use of blocking techniques. There is a new regenerative health system that rewards the calculated assault. There is also Ninja Magic.

There is so much blood in this game, I actually wondered if I was getting sensitive to the violence. But then I realized that the people who I was cutting up were actually coming back for more without any arms, or hopping on one leg, to finish the job. It was both ridiculous and satisfying to put the sad bastards out of their misery. I miss Shinobi, and for twenty minutes this game filled that void. I want to play more.

Devil May Cry 4 (demo)

This list is getting long, so I’ll mix it up with a Haiku to express my feelings for Devil May Cry 4.

Fancy pants wields sword
and glowing devil gauntlet
wind sighs through white hair

Wow, even writing that poem makes me want to go back and slice off bulging mutant limbs in Ninja Gaiden II.

Fracture (demo)

Maybe I’ve been too much into Gears of War lately, but Fracture seems like such a poseur in the latest deluge of third person shooters set in an embattled future.The big problem with this game is wasted potential. The ability to harness the earth itself to create cover and move through obstacles seems like a great concept gone to shit in the designers’ efforts to capitalize on the angry, futuristic shooter market. I don’t care that there’s a civil war – make a game that is fun to play!

The controls are passable, but the combat is not nearly as satisfying as Gears. And the earth shaping dynamic seems limited to certain areas of each level, which makes it completely useless as player advantage. If I can only use the ability when the game tells me to, what’s the point of introducing it in the first place? Also, game reviewers: please stop using the word “romp” when reviewing this type of game. It undermines their grittiness.

Gears of War 2

Now that I’m over how great the controls are and how enjoyable this series is to play, I can pay attention to the reasons why I’m supposed to be killing things. I had no idea it would be so disappointing. The story is a crippled mess of wartime cliché and forced emotion, and the dialogue seems less snappy and immediate this time around. Maybe it was bad in Gears of War and I just didn’t notice.

There are many notable additions to the game’s combat dynamic, and they only serve to further substantiate a solid formula. It is action all the time; it is shameless bravado; it is endlessly appealing. The Gears of War games are slowly becoming some of the greatest I have ever played. It continues to amaze me.

It’s an argument that has strong points for either case, but in today’s overly fickle game marketplace I wonder if the need for backward compatibility is only a perceived one. Next Generation ran an article a couple of weeks ago, exploring this very issue. As usual they take a business-oriented approach – ascertaining whether backward compatibility is a feature worth producing just to put on the back of the box. Aaron Ruby’s response to the article seemed to ring a little more true, citing the cultural signifigance of games over the convenience for manufacturers to be able to implement the feature in the hardware to decide its necessity. Of course, I have my own opinions on the matter.

Practically speaking, a console with backward compatibility increases the usefulness of the console overall from a consumer’s perspective. The console’s library multiplies by 100 (or some other arbitrary number), while hardware requirements have decreased. Nobody likes an entertainment center full of old consoles that rarely get touched. It also extends the life of the previous generation’s games. By allowing old games to function in new consoles it exposes them to new audiences that may not have had the chance to try them out the first time around. It also gives game obsessives like me the chance to catch up on those so called “critically acclaimed” titles, without having to dig through ebay’s multitude of old console listings.

Most importantly, I think it gives gamers a sense of history instead of being caught in the “now-ism” that seems to be plaguing the industry. Games did not always have to be hyper realistic or have cinema quality presentation to be absorbing. I’ve touched on this before, and it pains me to see a review where gaming history is cast aside in favor of some arbitrary list of features. Large scale strategy seems to only go back as far as Shogun: Total War. What about Nobunaga’s Ambition? Or Grand Theft Auto’s top-down origins? Or the Prince of Perisa’s purist platforming action and fluid character animations? Today’s hit series had humble beginnings, but it seems they have been obscured by their more accessible and attractive descendants of the recent past. PCs have had the luxury of being able to play older games through third party software and tweaking of the operating system. Consoles not so much, and as a result this “year zero” culture arises at the beginning of every generation. I think backward compatibility is an easy way to provide continuity between them. But is it essential?

I love classic gaming, but there’s something about going back to old games and looking at them with a jaded eye. Like watching a favorite old movie, nostalgia influences the hindsight that it was the best thing you ever experienced. And when you do play it again, knowing what vast improvements had been made to gaming since, a bad game will be readily apparent, ruining any fond memory you may have had. This is also a great way to figure out if a game really does stand the test of time.

Though improvements to standard genres like the First Person Shooter can’t be denied. In fact, they are probably the genre that pilots the industry machine. The basic mechanics haven’t changed in over 10 years, but the visuals and presentation have improved dramatically. I readily admit that going back to play Quake for its single-player campaign is a waste of time after playing Half Life. And after seeing the epic battlefields of World War II unfold in Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and Call of Duty, I can’t expect myself to enjoy the Nazi shooting gallery of Wolfenstein 3D beyond its immediate comedic value.

With the amount of sequels being produced every year, going back to a previous installment would be like going back to a previous verison of MS Windows. There are too many features that have been implemented that have become commonplace. A good example would be Diablo versus Diablo II. The game world in Diablo feels smaller, it has a less interesting soundtrack, and you have to walk everywhere. I would rather play Super Metroid than Metroid. Super Mario Bros. 3 is the lowest I’ll go in the series for a serious playthrough. There is a balance between play and aesthetics that is reached; I really can’t explain it. Though in some rare cases, the previous game is actually better.

Yes, please.

Er…no thanks.

Wait. That’s the same game.

Mostly, though, backward compatibility can be bad for business. The good thing about making game consoles backward compatible is that you can play old games on it. The bad thing about backward compatibility is that you can play old games on it. The industry is well aware of these hypothetical lost sales. Why let people play the old game when they could be buying a brand new, “updated” version? Look at Super Mario All-Stars, Dune 2000, Metroid: Zero Mission, Sid Meier’s Pirates!, Doom 3. Publishers want you to be buying new stuff, not playing old stuff.

Furthermore, the funds spent on developing the means for backward compatibility may be an excercise in futility if it’s not even used. While the argument has been skewed in games media in either direction, it’s tough to really get an idea of whether this is a feature that’s absolutely required, or simply “nice” to have. While console developers have traditionally remained at a distance from the headaches of network code and constantly changing hardware, they are fast approaching the same realm of frustration that has plagued PC game development for years. The Xbox 360 has proven that backward compatibility can be a costly feature to implement – even partially. To ask that console manufacturers design their hardware for the future, but leaving it open to play games of the past is a tall order if a reasonable price point is to be maintained. Varying hardware configurations is a problem PC developers have to deal with all the time. With extra features being added to every generation of consoles to keep up with the trends in home theatre, is backward compatibility even a priority? Pursuing backward compatibility complicates the entire process, once again falling into the same types of traps as PCs – something that could have easily been avoided by not trying to replace them.

As for continuity, compiling gaming history onto one machine is next to impossible. Unless you’re using a PC. Though even running old DOS games can be tricky without using third-party tools. The history of gaming is too fragmented: we have arcade games of varying hardware specs, Atari and Colecovision’s home consoles, NES, Turbo Grafx 16, Neo Geo, Playstation – without resorting to emulation on a PC, there’s no way to play these games without the original hardware. While I’m sure there are individuals that have stacks of boxes in their garages filled with these gaming relics, it isn’t likely that the typical gamer would be able to experience these games as they were meant to be played. To ask for true backward compatibility is really asking for a unified platform. Being able to play a few hundred games over two generations on a single console is really insignificant next to having access to the countless games that influenced them.

I’m almost convinced that it’s too late for backward compatibilty. Forward compatibiltiy, as Ricardo Sanchez put it, should really be where the focus is. Make older games easily accessible by current hardware for those that want to play them. The Classics collections like Midway Arcade Treasures and the Mega Man Anniversary Collection that have seen release in recent years is evidence enough that some are willing to invest in them. Nintendo has even gone ahead and planned a service for the Wii that allows downloads of classic games for their own platforms, those of Sega, and the Turbo Grafx 16 for a nominal fee. It may not be true compatibility (the Wii will likely be running various emulators), but it involves no modifications to the console’s hardware. I’m no console hardware developer, but it seems to me it would be much easier to make old software run inside an emulator than designing new hardware to be adaptable for old programs.

It may be tough to justify spending money on a game already owned in another form, but if it means that someone will get to experience it at all, I’d consider it a small victory for the medium – not the industry. Ultimately, how backward compatibility is implemented isn’t that important. What’s important is that gaming’s collective history isn’t forgotten as the technology arms race reaches new heights of excess.

The gaming mob is fickle.

The novelty of E3 continues to wear thin, for me at least. I’d rather selectively watch coverage on the internet than be stuck in line with a bunch of people who are probably not even supposed to be there. It’s become an amusement park. A giant, throbbing, noisy commercial for games that might not even see release, but we’re going to get super happy excited about anyway. How much can you really glean from a game’s trailer or 5 minute playtest that’s been built up after waiting for two hours? The software isn’t even complete. Is it to say you’ve played it first? I’m having a hard time figuring out my former longstanding desire to attend an E3. The gaming mob is fickle.

Remember when Nintendo announced the Nintendo DS a couple of years ago? Nobody knew what it would look like or what it would be capable of doing, and yet we all took turns kicking Nintendo in the balls. I did it, because I didn’t know any better. I’m glad I’ve learned since. And not just that the Nintendo DS is the best gaming handheld available. Yes, a handheld that is designed to play games.

Remember when Nintendo announced their new controller last year? I didn’t go out of my way to say anything, because it’s a controller. I didn’t know what it did yet. It looked a bit unconventional, sure. Who am I kidding, it looked like a TV remote in delightfully trendy iPod white. But who was to say what Nintendo had in store?

Remember when Nintendo announced the name of their new console? It wasn’t “Revolution”, but “Wii”. A hideous pun that was driven so far into the ground that I’m glad it will remain buried for eternity. With the dinosaurs. Was Nintendo making a mistake?

Now everyone wants to be Nintendo’s best friend. “We have a winner!” the people proclaim, proudly predicting the results of the Next Generation War after viewing Nintendo’s presentation at their press conference and overall showing at E3. I’d prefer to continue my cautious interest. Microsoft is staying their course and is proving everyone wrong after the early release of their hardware with a solid set of second wave releases. And how the mighty Sony has fallen. A tilting controller? Please. I’m glad to see that gamers are wising up to the diversion that graphical fidelity has become – polygon pushing processors don’t ever make up for bad game design.

The good thing about this year’s E3 was that there wasn’t a shortage of things to read about. There were many games that made their first appearance; some I hadn’t even heard about until the E3 coverage. What I’ve noticed, though, are the amount of titles that are being developed for the XBox 360 and PS3. Next to the PS3′s ridiculous pricing schemes, what incentive does a person have to get one? The 360 is even getting a simultaneous release of Grand Theft Auto IV! I didn’t see a single mention of the PS3′s online functionality. I was going to get a PS3 if only to have access to three generations worth of the excellent games that I’ve missed. Now I might just buy a PS2 when the price drops even further later this year.

Of course, there were some particular games that stood out in my mind (both good and bad):

Supreme Commander

Chris Taylor’s Gas Powered Games appears to be picking up where Total Annihilation left off. This has a lot of RTS fans in a slavering frenzy. If you haven’t played Total Annihilation, you probably don’t like RTS. That really is the only excuse.

Warhammer: Mark of Chaos

Dawn of War has one of the best opening videos I’ve ever seen in a game, even next to Diablo II. And yet Mark of Chaos comes along with something so astounding that makes it me want to play the game immediately. From the footage I have seen the game is taking the epic Total War approach to battles, with each faction in the game starting with a stronghold to launch a campaign across a contintental map. This is probably the game I am most excited about, based on the limited information available.

Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway and Call of Duty 3

Why do I continue to follow this genre like a lost puppy? It doesn’t seem to change much, and yet my thirst for the same Nazi-slaying action remains unsated. Hell’s Highway tackles Operation Market Garden, while Call of Duty 3 seems to be er…still streetfighting somewhere in Normandy. Except you can wrestle guns from your opponents now. The most troubling news about Call of Duty 3 is that it’s not being made for the PC. After experiencing the low-level tactics of Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers, I am expecting a lot more from Brothers in Arms.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

This game sounds like Dawn of Sorrow‘s Julius Mode, where you can switch between Julius Belmont the whip-wielding vampire hunter and Yoko Belnades (magic user). The third dimension is being introduced, curdling the blood of any Castlevania fan. It supposedly “adds depth” to the game world, but see for yourself how out of place the 2D sprites look on a 3D backdrop. I’m also disappointed at the the lack of any “collecting” system that has been at the core of the three GBA titles and Dawn of Sorrow. Is this to be a straightforward side scrolling action game? It’s a disappointing step backward.

Shadowrun

Um. Is that 3rd person action I smell? I can see Microsoft taking a beloved tabletop RPG and using its licensing power to market a mediocre shooter. Sounds like another Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.

Sid Meier’s Railroads!

More family fun from Sid Meier! I’m anxious to try this thing if only for the implied historical content, though I’m not sure about those chunky looking graphics. Railroad Tycoon for kids? I hope the economic complexity of the Tycoon series holds up in this “reimagining” of sorts. I don’t think Firaxis will be able to get away with another remake like Pirates!, a game that actually made me feel bad for not being able to dance. But the plunder!

Mass Effect

Bioware’s latest RPG for the XBox 360 appears to go one step further than the Knights of the Old Republic series. Oblivion’s speechcraft system seems only half-realized; the dynamic conversation options in Mass Effect sound incredible in comparison. The action system is carried over from the KOTOR series in that it takes the party-based, pause to issue commands approach. Though using a brand new universe and story isn’t unfamiliar to Bioware, as one only has to look back at the well received Jade Empire. Nevertheless I’m very, very interested in what the game potentially offers. My only question is, what the fuck happened to Dragon Age?

Bioshock

Not sure about this one. All this talk about “spiritual successor” to System Shock 2 is getting a little annoying. It is, after all, being made for a console and from the sounds of it eliminating interface conventions of the CRPG experience (Oblivion is guilty of this as well). I get the sense that the story will be the discerning feature of this game, because to me they’re simply trying to make another System Shock 2.

Assassin’s Creed

Likely the only PS3 game I’m looking forward to. There’s a lot of talk of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time in the previews when describing the main character’s movements throughout the game world. I don’t want an action game, though, because the medieval setting and the themes presented are easily suited for the stealth gameplay pioneered by the Thief series.

Indiana Jones

I love this character. I’ve played every Indy game there ever was. And yet something has happened over the years where the adventure is gone and the action has become the focal point. In most of the PR material, LucasArts is flogging “euphoria”, a kind of environmental awareness AI that allows the creation of unique animations during fistfights. Which sounds great, except that this does little to convince me I’m going to be getting an Indiana Jones adventure. Besides, using this new engine seems like asking for Havok’s amazing circus-like death poses that break immersion through sheer physical impossibility.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

This will be launching with the Wii. And it sounds like the controller is well suited to the series’ style. Like Hunters on the DS, Nintendo is quietly revolutionizing first person shooters for the console. I am glad that at least one console manufacturer is listening to PC gamers.

I recently finished re-reading Douglas Coupland‘s Microserfs, a well-written tale about a group of Microsoft employees that leave the company to start up their own. I first read it back in 1999, partway through University. Though published in 1993, I had avoided the book due to the overwhelming praise heaped upon it by media that had become newly obsessed with the growing subculture of the tech savvy “geeks” that would be storming the business world with big ideas and half-baked business plans for the next seven years. I felt that it captured the sentiment of this period very well, despite having been written before this subculture went mainstream. I give Coupland credit for that. The first project for the start-up company in the book is a free-form “game”, and through that he tackled the concept of “multimedia”: the software industry’s favorite buzzword at the time, and something most gamers were exposed to through games like Myst and the infamous Sewer Shark.

Besides the nuances of geek culture described within the book, what remains startlingly relevant is the main character’s list of “The 8 Models of Interactivity”, which were summarized after he attended a multimedia industry conference (see pages 139-143 for some very thoughtful remarks). I think these observations are entirely applicable today, and provide an effective touchstone in witnessing the evolution of the game industry.

The following are “The 8 Models of Interactivity” cribbed from Microserfs as I see them applying to some of today’s games:

1. The Arcade Model – Like Terminator: kill or be killed.

I’m assuming for the sake of argument that this doesn’t describe every single game in existence, and that it’s meant to address the core principles behind action-heavy titles like fighting games, platformers, FPS, arcade racers, and shmups. The object or purpose of play for these games is obvious as soon as you start, and the experience is mostly empty. I would consider the formulaic Real Time Strategy games to be partially covered by this category as well (such as the ‘Crafts, Age of Empires, etc.). The current MMORPG model also adopts this philosophy, especially when Player vs. Player combat is involved.

2. The Coffee Table Book model – enter anywhere, leave anywhere. Pointless in the end; zero replayability.

I consider puzzle games to be in this category, though I would strongly argue against their lack of replayability. Services like Reflexive and Popcap Games are providing this experience to the masses, and doing quite well for themselves. I’d also place Mario Party, and rhythm games like Guitar Hero or DDR in this category. Yes, there are new tracks to unlock, and a “game” to proceed through, but that doesn’t mean someone out there doesn’t get tired of playing the same board over and over again.

3. The Universe Creation Model – I built you and I can crush you.

Detailed empire-building sims like Sim City, Civilization and 4X games (Space Empires, Master of Orion, Galactic Civilizations) fall into this category. Well constructed Real Time Strategy games should be more at home in this category than #1. The satisfaction of these games lies in the details, and the feeling of omnipotence as overlord of the game world.

4. The binary tree model – Limited number of options; reads from left to right; tightly controlled mini-dramas.

Adventure games, and some RPGs that are heavy on story would be in this category. Planescape: Torment is a great example of blending RPG conventions and adventure game sensibilities.

5. The Pick a path model – You decide what main character does [and there are believable, dynamic repercussions]. Expensive; Unproven entertainment value. Audiences don’t pay money to work.

Both RPGs and Adventure games possess this quality to some degree, but none have really managed to believably work consequence into the gameplay by creating meaningful results to your choices. I tend to agree that they are expensive, as well as time consuming for development and the player (what if they make the “wrong” decision). I disagree with Coupland’s statement that audiences don’t pay money to work – the acceptance of the current MMORPG model is directly contrary to that, but he would have never known this at the time of writing. I would gladly pay money for a game that reacts to my decisions; this is the direction all games should be heading. However, at what point are we drifting into the realm of programming AI? I’m not satisfied that we’ve reached a happy medium yet.

6. RPGs – For adolescents: half-formed personalities roaming (in packs) in search of identity.

All CRPGs and Japanese RPGs would be in this category. Though the latter would tend to follow #4 in the sense that you have little control over character stat development or story possibilities. This is too accurate and needs to change. MMORPGs are helping in a small way, using the randomness of human interaction to flesh out the game environment. Still, MMORPGs are drifting from the human element into paper doll and stat pumping exercises as the immense popularity of World of Warcraft shows (see #1).

7. The Agatha Christie model – A puzzle is to be solved using levels, clues, chases and exploration.

Almost all adventure games, and well-rounded action/adventure games like the original Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time would meet this criteria. The experiences are challenging and entertaining, but mostly linear, with few game-shaping choices (see #4). I would change the name of this category to be more inclusive, however – it seems to want to limit itself to adventure games.

8. Experience Simulation models – flight sims, sports games.

Assuming “sports games” covers off racing games, there are obvious examples abound. Historically accurate turn-based wargames would fall into this category. I would also be tempted to add games like Rainbow Six, SWAT 4 and Brothers in Arms, as well as other games that try to recreate an authentic experience, and focus less on exaggerating physics that would require a suspension of disbelief.

After listing the 8 Models, the book also heralds some important points that are equally pertinent:

• How will games progress as 30somethings turn into 50somethings? It’s been said in many places that aging gamers do not move on or get replaced – they keep gaming. We have already seen a shift towards games that can be enjoyed in short bursts, or a gradual shortening of single-player campaigns. Furthermore, these aging gamers introduce their offspring to the hobby as a way of preserving it. Nintendo has already positioned itself in this market as someone who supplies games to be enjoyed by the entire family (Mario Party being an excellent example). This is a very lucrative demographic, in my opinion, yet no other software publishers have really gotten into it. Microsoft’s “Zoo Tycoon” and EA’s “Sims” series come to mind, however.
• In the end, multimedia interactive won’t resemble literature so much as sports. I see this as more of a statement about the current shape of console gaming. As set-top consoles have increased in power, more games that were traditionally at home on the PC are being adapted for consoles to make them accessible to a wider user base. The so-called “dumbing down” of these titles has decreased their value in the eyes of veteran PC gamers. As a result, the expectations of what constitutes a “good story” have changed (mass generalizations here).
• Games are about providing control for nine year olds… “the bigger and neater the entity I can control, the better.” I’d say this statement is only partially true; going back to the first statement above, the industry’s audience is aging, but not leaving. As a result developers are trying to create content for this demographic. While the game should still prompt the same “gee whiz” reaction, the underlying experience should remain deep and complex enough to grab and maintain the attention of someone who’s basically seen it all before.
• Multimedia has become a “packaged goods” industry now. The box copy is more important than the experience. But how do you write cool sexy box copy for a game like Tetris? You can’t. Replace the word “multimedia” with “games”. Given the current direction of the game industry and its insistence on producing sequels and copycats, this statement names the current marketing machine for what it is. New ideas are almost impossible to get funding for – Publishers want the sure thing. They want prior successes as a guarantee of return. Something they can write on the box. Katamari Damacy and Nintendogs come to mind here as exceptions. If it wasn’t for the internet spreading the meme, would they have had the same success? Think about the masses of non-gamers that bought a Gameboy/Tetris, with it being the only game they would ever play on it. Would they have given Katamari Damacy a second look? Are the masses too easily satisfied, such that innovation has been reserved for the jaded gamer?
• There’s a different mental construction in operation when you’re playing tennis as opposed to when you’re reading a book. With adrenaline-based competitive sports the thought mode is: “I want to kill this fucker.” It’s the spirit of testing yourself; accomplishment. You are gripped. Suspension of disbelief is not an issue. This prompts the comparison of the wayward adventure game versus the self-sustaining FPS genre. The former is carefully plotted; the action is limited to small, discrete events whose sole purpose is to advance the story. It allows you to think and digest all of the information that is presented. Though the deliberate pacing also provides ample oportunity to experience – and disect – the game’s faults. The action-heavy FPS, on the other hand, often contains unbelievable weaponry, absurd physics and paper-thin plot, and yet we are transfixed by clouds of blood and frag counts and explosions. The only thing you really think about is how many bullets it should have taken to kill an enemy. Furthermore, licensing an engine to create the next FPS is more financially justifiable than trying to come up with a good story and gameplay to accompany it.

I had no idea reading this book again would provide such an interesting topic, or that Coupland was able to capture the world of games so succintly before it became a multi-billion dollar culturual phenomenon. I’d be curious to read his latest book jPod, which is about a small game development studio in Vancouver. I’m sure it shares more than one similarity with Microserfs. I doubt I’ve covered all the possibilities for pigeonholing games though, so feel free to continue the discussion in the comments. Where would you put a game like Second Life, which essentially blends elements from every video game ever created? Is it even a game anymore? With a lot of talk of “post genre” in wankish new game journalism lately, I’m sure some other categories have evolved as games intermix core genre design elements (Savage, Full Spectrum Warrior, the Total War series).

At its best, Full Auto is a tease. For a game that calls itself “the world’s most destructible racing game”, I guess it’s pretty accurate. You can destroy lots of things in this game. Buildings, street-side cafés, fences – well, as long as it’s accessible from the race track. You aren’t offered much flexibility to drift off of it. And if you were to compare it to Rock N’ Roll Racing as I noted in Part 1, it might be a more accurate representation of the style of gameplay that is being offered.

However, while we were playing I couldn’t help but reminisce about Carmageddon 2, which was a lot more open in its design. I’d even call it ahead of its time. Free form “races” with multiple conditions for winning (like killing a certain number of pedestrians, or destroying all of your opponents), and all of it doused with a thick red coating of ultra violence. As long as you could suspend your disbelief when you ran over the pedestrians with cubic heads. Full Auto doesn’t allow you to simply go after your adversaries and destroy them, because you’re in a race. Unless the objectives at the beginning of a mission stated otherwise, crossing the finish line was the only necessary goal to complete.

To be fair, you can do a lot of damage to the environment in Full Auto, but it has no real effect on the way you drive. You can plow through three fuel tankers causing massive explosions and keep going as if nothing happened. This apparent lack of repercussions is even stranger in the face of the detailed damage modelling of the vehicles.

I found that my car was exploding without any real warning beyond the damage indicator on the bottom of the screen, which I rarely checked due to the fast-paced nature of the action. My vehicle may have looked like a scrap heap on wheels, but it didn’t drive any differently. It didn’t cause me to rethink my strategy to conserve energy or shields – I simply kept driving until I was ultimately destroyed by gunfire, colliding with another car, or simply diving headlong off of the top level of a parking garage.

Though all this can be avoided: the “Unwreck” feature is a Prince of Persia-styled reversing of time to make a jump, avoid a rollover, or even being targeted by an adversary’s machine gun. I wondered if a feature like this was even necessary. Is the ultimate point of Full Auto total destruction or winning a race? Carmageddon had an auto-repair feature you could use while driving (depending on how much money you had available). It was equally unrealistic, but was at least suited to the overall theme.

What bothered me was the lack of originality and variation in the weapons available to upgrade vehicles. They’re often made up of one forward weapon and one rear, and categorized into “packages” like Assault and Melee. Individual components of the sets can’t be interchanged. What’s worse, like the other cars in the game, the weapon sets must be unlocked.

The available game modes are pretty straightforward, and actually kind of dull after the initial novelty of driving clear through a brick building with a hot rod wears off. The most glaring omission was the lack of a free for all or arena mode included in the likes of Carmageddon or Twisted Metal. In a game that’s bent on providing wholesale destruction, why is it so focused on racing? Perhaps I was simply attributing features to the game it was never intended to have.

Nevertheless, there was something about Full Auto that just felt rushed, as if Pseudo Interactive started with a sound concept that got stripped down to meet the “arcade racing” requirement for the 360′s library. I’d call it “Semi-Auto”, but that’s too obvious. It isn’t a bad game. Just an unremarkable one.

A couple of weekends ago I spent the afternoon with fellow über-gamers Tony and Chris, where we gathered for some quality time with Chris’ new XBox 360. I’ve since had the time to record some of the following impressions. Unrelated: Chris is an excellent cook.

After setting up our XBox Live player profiles (a strange necessity), we were ready to get playing. Gripping the iPod white controller in both hands, I recognized a refined design. Elminating the annoying Black and White buttons that would often be pressed by mistake, the 360′s controller is also lightweight, easy to handle and best of all – completely wireless. Once we inserted the disc for Dead or Alive 4 we had to log in to XBox Live. And then to confirm what player profiles we wanted to use. And where we wanted to save the game data for each player. It was a bizarre amount of menu options and screens considering we were playing on a console. This is all for XBox Live’s new Gamerscore system that basically records data from every one of your play sessions, but that’s another issue entirely. What happened to just turning it on and playing? Is this what we can expect from consoles adopting online features? Being simple to set-up is one of the advantages consoles have had over PCs until this point. After selecting our characters for the game it was finally time to play.

Dead or Alive 4

We had to get Dead or Alive 4 out of the way because it was the easiest target for mockery; after all, a fighting game with this many busty females doing high kicks in short skirts is essentially pornography. I direct you to the bio for Leifang, from the official site:

It starts with a 6 year old memory, always accompanied by battle cries that sound like they come from a strange bird. The gleaming blade rushes towards her as she feels it may be too late. Then, in an instant, the young man with the embroidered dragon leaps on the scene. He massacres the hoodlums with a single blow, accompanied by a piercing yell. Since then she has committed herself to reaching the highest plateau of ability, all so that she may exist in the same world as that young man. She must defeat him!

We are swimming in deep waters here, for sure. Too bad more time was spent animating breasts than developing a plotline, but who ever expected one of those from a fighting game? After I spent a few rounds kicking everyone’s asses, it seemed that I was the fighting game veteran of us three. I then tried story mode to unlock some of the other characters. The game is ridiculously hard, and clearly rewards those that are more interested in perfecting the art of fighting than contemplating how the laws of physics defy Christie’s leather jacket so that it covers her chest in every fight. The character animations and environments are amazingly detailed, and along with Project Gotham 3 is definitely a showcase for the 360′s hardware. But that’s about it.

Project Gotham Racing 3

For the most part, I suck at racing games unless they have the word “Mario” or “Zero” in the title. The realistic physics modelling of the cars makes it tough to get used to, but is probably a boon for car enthusiasts. Even though the application of real-world physics is less intense than say, Gran Turismo 4, Project Gotham 3 still manages to convey a pretty realistic driving experience. Every car handled differently, and it’s definitely another game that rewards skill. I got bored of it pretty quickly though – I think Tony and I started doing head-on collisions after a while. It was definitely time for Full Auto.

Full Auto

After playing Auto Assault I was anxious to see someone do Car Wars right. Unfortunately, Pseudo Interactive attached guns to cars and put them on a racetrack. Except it’s not as fun as Rock ‘N’ Roll Racing. This is actually the only game out of the ones we played that prompted some deeper thinking, so I suppose that could be considered a good thing. You can read the rest in Part 2.

Kameo

Rare caught a lot of flak for this title, and I’m not sure why. It’s not particularly offensive; in fact, I found it refreshing in its presentation. The bright colors and the cartoon-like character models gave it a storybook quality. I’m not sure why I was so impressed by that, but it could be the trend towards darker, (im)mature themed games that made Kameo really stand out. It didn’t seem very deep, but I think I still would have had fun with it given the chance to spend more than 15 minutes playing.

Amped 3

Did somebody fart? A semi-serious sports title has been turned into a cartoon. Uninteresting, and probably even unnecessary.

Back to the Gamerscore. Based on point values associated with “Achievements” reached within each game on the XBox 360, it updates a player’s Gamerscore on XBox Live accordingly. It introduces a kind of arcade-styled competiton factor between players, but is anyone other than the hardcore willing to bother with this? Games like Project Gotham 3 and Dead or Alive 4 have their own set of unlockable rewards such as new cars and different playable characters, which adds incentive to contributing to the system. Though this is another trend that I’m growing increasingly uneasy about: the use of unlockable content to artificially extend a game’s life. These tactics are aimed squarely at gamers with an excess of time to complete the requirements. I can’t help but feel cheated when I’m stuck with a bunch of crappy cars in a racing game and forced to earn better ones through extended play. Shouldn’t the fun be instantaneous? The Gamerscore as an over-arching concept seems interesting, but I can’t help but sense that it imposes the requirement for an internet connection to play any game on a console, approaching the time when the patching of console games is commonplace.

Technically speaking, multiplayer originated on the console with two player games like the venerable Pong. Some of the best memories I have of the NES involved going over to my friend’s house around the corner and playing Contra after school. Years later Mortal Kombat and Super Mario Kart on the SNES further strengthened this notion: multiplayer gaming was to be enjoyed with people you know. They were right there to mock, strangle and laugh with as the situation applied.

During this time, the PC was playing host to a little multiplayer of its own – and not of the hot-seat turn-based variety, but through the phone line. With the advent of the Internet, this model would be adopted by PCs and consoles alike.

We are now at a point where a successful, PC-like multiplayer model has established itself in the console marketplace: Xbox Live. It has a ton of useful features, including “Friends lists” to manage friends that are universally implemented across all games. Even games that don’t support online play can still be monitored through your profile, allowing friends to see exactly what you’re playing. It allows easy coordination between players outside of the game, as it is clearly modelled after Microsoft’s own Instant Messenger. Live also supports random encounters: if none of your friends are online you can just as easily join any game that supports online play. Voice chat further deepens this contact between players. However having this ability at hand does not guarantee meaningful communication.

Sony’s strategy is a little more directionless, and is applied on a game-by-game basis. Final Fantasy XI and SOCOM, for example, are games that allow anonymous interaction, but only FFXI has managed to assist in maintaining these relationships as this is intrinsic to the game’s design. I’ve never played SOCOM, but I would like to think that there is some kind of Favorites list on the server browser so as to provide an indication of who you’re playing with. Though where this information is stored is another situation entirely.

Similarly, Nintendo’s WiFi service launched last year on the Nintendo DS, which now has a few titles that are supported that are dependent on “Friend Codes”. Speaking from my experience with Mario Kart DS, it’s extremely difficult to set up matches with Nintendo’s WiFi network. The reliance on Friend Codes that must be reciprocated to even be useful followed with the coordination of a play session through other means (e.g. phone, email, IM) implies you should already know the person you’re trying to play with. There are of course options to play random opponents through Rivals, Regional and Worldwide groups, but there’s no way to keep track of these people. These random battles are passively obtained by the user – you can’t set criteria, and it’s not like you can add their friend code after a race, because everything is hidden except the user’s nickname, wins and losses. They become single serving opponents, if you will, because the probability is extremely low you will ever face them again once you quit the race. There is no interaction in or out of the game; they might as well be AI-controlled bots.

However, a service like Nintendo’s Wi-Fi network significantly broadens the accessibility of multiplayer gaming to the casual gamer. There’s no need to purchase additional hardware (such as an ethernet adapter for the Gamecube or PS2) or sign up for an account (such as with Live). All you need is a wireless access point to the internet, which most internet-using households are equipped with these days. Continuing with the Mario Kart example, the the game itself is extremely basic so as not to be intimidating to the newcomer, which makes the overall experience a little more palatable. This is something that Tetris DS will be taking advantage of as well.

Animal Crossing: Wild World allows in-game chat, and the upcoming Metroid Prime: Hunters will apparently include voice chat. As new features like these get added to the online experience on the DS, I’m wondering if it will be as viable as a relationship-strengthening platform. My guess is it is simply acting as a testing ground for features to be implemented with the Revolution. Most importantly, though, I’m still left wondering where Sony’s strategy is at. There hasn’t been much talk about unified online play service, and while I hardly think they need it to survive (unfortunately a stranglehold on market mindshare and better hardware is still enough to sell the platform to their target audience), I think they owe it to themselves to show they are willing to advance with the rest of the industry. Though I still think it’s important to ask: do console gamers even want online play? Or are they satisfied with the companionship that an additional controller or two will provide?

Further to this discussion, Raph Koster declared the single-player experience abnormal – unnatural, even. This is clearly a sensationalist statement – similar to Greg Costikyan’s rant last year about the state of the games industry – but they both end up making some good points that are worth discussing. Obviously Raph is interested in online-only gameplay, being a part of MMORPG development himself. I’ll submit that online-only play has its place in certain genres, but should in no way be the norm. Speaking for myself, I hate having to depend on others just so I can enjoy a game. That’s why the solo experience in MMORPGs should still be rewarding; there’s nothing like feeling forced to be “friends” with people just to complete a quest or experience the game the way it was “meant” to be played. It’s frustrating in the way it limits the control of the player, and is dependent on so many other factors: connectivity, bandwidth limitations, etc.

I always thought that online play was for the gamer elite; traditionally only the hardcore would be able to set it up in the first place, not to mention submit themselves to the twitch gameplay offered by FPS or RTS and the strange satisfaction in playing with complete strangers. And while MMORPGs changed the face of the online gamer, their increase in accessibility expands the user base to the point where the casual gamer may not want to play with strangers, and the idea of guilds and other such social networks are more appealing. Whether we want to admit it or not, this is how the future of the industry is being directed: those that typically pushed the technology forward are disregarded in place of making this frontier more comfortable for new recruits. Gaming has no need to make new headway with existing players; this market has been captured for some time.

The list is shorter this year, because frankly I felt 2005 was a weak year for gaming. There were a lot of very good releases, but there was no game that stood above the rest, immediately recognized for its strengths or unique contribution to the medium. World of Warcraft made great strides in capturing audiences worldwide in 2005 – what is it, five million concurrent subscribers now? The XBox 360 launched with one of the worst lineups since the Saturn, with an engineered product shortage that somehow convinced people they actually needed one. But in terms of a singular victory on any platform, I am hard pressed to name one. I also could have easily padded a list with the other games that I played last year that left me satisfied, but to do that would lessen the meaning of the other selections. These are, after all, the best games I played from last year, and as such should come across as titles actually worth playing, not just looking into.

The list is not in any way intended to be comprehensive, and I encourage the discussion of 2005′s other releases – I would have loved to have checked out Guitar Hero or Battlefield 2 if I had the means. And so:

8. F.E.A.R.

Like Battlefield 2, F.E.A.R. was one of those releases that made PC gamers realize their computers were teetering dangerously close to the line that divides “decent gaming rig ” and “fan-cooled slag heap”. With some careful tweaking I managed to get the game running well, and was extremely pleased with what I experienced. Unlike Doom 3 that insists we’re still in 1993, F.E.A.R. relies on pacing and the paranoid thoughts of the player. The effective use of lighting and many “did I just see that?” moments placed the game’s atmosphere firmly into more sophisticated territory. Though the game is no stranger to cliché; the requisite inclusion of the “scary little girl” and blood soaked corridors occasionally kill the mood. With short bursts of realistic firefights broken up by periods of wondering what could possibly happen next, F.E.A.R. contends with Half Life 2 in the way it presents the game world. I’ve convinced myself F.E.A.R. is the excuse I need to upgrade my computer.

7. Advance Wars: Dual Strike

This is the stuff I was talking about when I reviewed Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. Turn-based strategy is only better served on the DS, where you are able to use the the stylus as if it were a mouse. It’s the most natural god damned arrangement I’ve ever been subjected to away from the PC. While proficient Advance Wars players may breeze through the initial half of the campaign fairly quickly, the additional units and the ability to combine the powers of two C.O.s within a map add a significant amount to the game’s strategy. And once again Intelligent Systems has included a map editor, which begs the question: when are other console games going to start offering this?

6. Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich

The original Freedom Force basically came out of nowhere, and helped gamers realize that they really did want a game with superheroes. Not the bulging chest or angst-filled/tortured-soul antiheroes that were foisted onto the scene in the late 80s and early 90s, but the ones from the golden age of comics. A time when being a superhero meant wearing a stupid looking costume and right and wrong were clearly delineated. Upon first playing, I was laughing at it, wondering what I was doing listening to the completely over the top dialogue, stereotypical characters and plot, and subjecting myself to the flamboyant costumes. Then I was laughing with it. Afterwards the laughing became something else – appreciation – for a unique approach to party-based RPGs. Irrational was on to something when they made Freedom Force. Let’s hope they continue to stick to their vision.

5. Mario Kart DS

I partially retract what I said about puzzlers being the key to a portable platform’s success, because a game like Mario Kart DS is just as capable of capturing the interest of the casual gamer. Using the universal appeal of this title to introduce Nintendo’s Wifi service was an ingeneous move, convincing DS owners of the platform’s multiplayer capabilities. There are no mental investments required; Mario Kart DS provides the conventions of kart racing in one deftly designed, comprehensive package. [Read the full review]

4. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

Just when, exactly, did 2D games become unfashionable? Is it through some need of the game developoment industry to justify the hardware arms race? I can’t stomach the thought of having to suffer through another bad port on a portable instead of seeing the preservation of a genre through a dwindling number of developers who deem it worth pursuing. Annoying seals system aside, Dawn of Sorrow chooses to refine the formula instead of building upon it. Put simply, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow was the best game for the DS released last year. [Read the full review]

3. Brothers in Arms: The Road to Hill 30 / Earned in Blood

Finally, somebody gets it. I’m actually quite annoyed at the outright hostility shown towards the WW2 FPS genre. Aside from an interest in how the games adapt history, I relish experiencing the weapons and technology at a point where they are modern enough to be powerful, but not to the point where you can put a bullet directly into someone’s nostril. Where Brothers in Arms differs is in its relentless application of suppress-and-flank tactics, but implemented in a hands on way so you can actually take charge on the battlefield, instead of playing the part of omnipotent field commander. Health meters, first aid kits and an aiming reticle are nowhere to be found; part of the game’s learning curve is figuring out how to shoot a gun using the ironsight while compensating for recoil. Like every other WW2FPS, Brothers in Arms tries to be heavy on story and culls many cinematic references, but it’s completely natural in a game where you actually learn about your squad mates, and are expected to care if they die.

And then Gearbox releases a sequel in the same year, which essentially improves enemy AI and increases the difficulty approximately 1,000,000 times. There is a 3,500 word review of Brothers in Arms sitting on my computer. I swear I will post it someday, because the gaming climate in the early part of 2005 did not do the game justice. Or perhaps FPS gamers just weren’t ready for this level of realism. It doesn’t matter. I was. And I want more.

2. Civilization IV

When Pirates! was released in 2004, it received heavy accolades despite it essentially being a remake of a ten year old game. I agreed – it was certainly the most fun I had playing a game that year. Similarly, Civilization IV is considered mostly a graphical upgrade to 2001′s Civilization III, yet it somehow manages to succeed as an outstanding game in its own right. Its endless replayability and immediately engaging gameplay assures a long-term stay on my computer. Civilization IV is a superb balancing of gameplay for both veteran and novice players that still manages to convey what made the original concept so great. [Read the full review]

And who will be number one? Who? Due to my unbridled affection for the game in question, I have decided to go into great detail about why it’s deserving of such praise. Honestly, my comments simply cannot be contained in a single paragraph, so expect a full length review.