#oneaday Day 76: The Alternative Video Game BAFTAs

So the BAFTA Video Games Awards happened. Last night, in fact. And while the nominations were fairly predictable, there was a relatively pleasing spread of different titles that actually won. In fact, I did a lovely writeup over at GamePro that you should probably go read.

But enough of that. Those awards are all very conventional. So I thought I’d come up with some of my own. Without further ado, I present the Alternative Video Game BAFTAs.

Most Opportunities To Go To The Toilet In A Video Game

Winner: Heavy Rain, where despite the fact there is no logical reason for you to make your characters go to the toilet, you find yourself doing so anyway.

Honourable mention: The Sims 3, which only didn’t win because it didn’t come out in 2010, unless you count the console version, which I don’t, except when putting it in as an Honourable Mention.

Game No-One Had Heard Of When I Played But Now Most People Have Heard Of

Winner: Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale, one of the most charming games I played last year, promptly got very excited about and some months later everyone else seemed to discover.

Game That Has Been On My Shelf The Longest, Unopened

Winner: Resident Evil 4 on PlayStation 2, which I’m not sure counts any more because I started playing it last night.

Former Winner: Final Fantasy XII.

The “MMO That Isn’t Boring” Award

Winner: DC Universe Online, which I am aware came out in January of this year, not last year, but these are my awards, so my rules.

Game Most Likely To Make You Feel Uncomfortable If Someone Walks In On You Playing It

Winner: Deathsmiles, for reasons that are well-documented.

Runner-Up: Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale. “That looks shit and cheesy and their voices are really annoying and my God that music!” “No, but it’s really funny! Seriously!” “Shut up. I’m going to go and play Starcraft.”

Honourable Mention: Dead or Alive Xtreme 2, the most summery game in the Universe. I know it didn’t come out last year, but I still play it in the summertime because it’s like being on holiday with improbably-proportioned women who like jetskiing. I have an Achievement and everything.

Sadomasochism Award

Winner: Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, a game which enjoys kicking you in the balls so much that it’s enough to put most people off within a matter of minutes. I, on the other hand, have sunk over 20 hours into it and have just started playing it again.

The “I Love You But You Make Me Angry” Award

Winner: Mass Effect 2, for being a magnificent game that I finished before all the DLC came out and considered going back to just to play the extra stuff but then decided to wait for the “definitive” PS3 version, which then has some extra DLC announced for it, too. STOP IT. STOP MAKING THAT GAME. YOU FINISHED IT. MAKE THE SEQUEL. AND DON’T FUCK IT UP OR RUSH IT OR POST REVIEWS FOR IT ON METACRITIC.

The Game I Keep Forgetting Exists But Is Actually Really Good

Winner: Frozen Synapse, a wonderfully inventive take on the competitive shooter that is turn-based and play-by-email. And awesome.

The Game I Got Best At While I Was Really Totally Off My Face On Expensive Cider

Winner: Joe Danger, a game which my friend Sam and I started playing early in the evening, got drunk and accidentally played for over 3 hours. Highlight of the night was when I discovered how to get massive scores while Sam was in the toilet, meaning that when he came back my average score was roughly 1,000 times more than when he left.

Best Game

Winner: Deadly Premonition. No further explanation required.

Best Video Game Podcast

Winner: The Squadron of Shame SquadCast. Of course.

The Alternative BAFTA Fellowship

Winner: @SpaceDrakeCF from Carpe Fulgur for the magnificent localisation job on Recettear. We’re talking a translation of Phoenix Wright quality here. Not only that, but he was consistently entertaining to follow during GDC and provided some excellent “liveblogs” of the sessions he attended.

#oneaday, Day 332: Fire The Canon… He’s Not Pulling His Weight

What are those games you have to play?

The answer, of course, is none at all, but there are plenty of people out there who believe that you can’t call yourself a “true gamer” (whatever that means) unless you’ve played this game or that game. And for sure, at one point that was true, simply because the volume of games being released was such that it was easy enough to keep up to speed on at least all the big releases, if not absolutely everything that was available.

Nowadays, though, gaming is such big business that it’s impossible to keep up with triple-A releases, let alone delve into the increasingly-awesome pool of independent and/or smaller titles out there.

Rather than this being a frustrating thing, though, this is a very positive sign. Speak to someone who’s a film snob and they will probably turn their nose up at the prospect of a Michael Bay film, yet there are plenty of people out there who go and watch various childhood-raping movies that ensure you can never look at Transformers in quite the same way ever again.

And it’s the same with gaming. There is no one set “canon” of games that you absolutely must play. I’ve come around to this idea, having had it first mooted by my good buddy and fine, upstanding gentleman Calin. There are games that are important to the history of gaming, sure. But they’re not things that everyone has to play. If everyone plays all of the stuff from history that is supposedly “important”, they’ll never get to anything from today. It’s a balancing act.

What I’ve been wondering is if it’s possible for someone who is a full-on gaming enthusiast to spend their time playing nothing but non-triple A titles. Surely there are enough indie and “cheap-fu” titles out there now to enable someone to have an enjoyable experience without having to spend $60 a time for the privilege? And yes, I’m using dollars to illustrate my point because I’m in the States. When in Rome and all that.

This approach isn’t for every gamer, just like watching only foreign and/or arthouse movies isn’t for everyone who purports to “like movies”. I love ASCII-based roguelike Angband, for example, and have sent any number of heroic @-signs to their death now, but I don’t expect everyone to find that sort of experience palatable. I can certainly play that game and find it enjoyable, however, and there are times when I’d pick playing that over something like, say, Halo. I’d certainly always pick it over Call of Duty.

But there are people who feel the opposite too. And it’s pretty cool that we’ve reached a stage where we can say that about the gaming industry. The only difficulty that comes with this territory is the fact that the gaming press is not able to cover everything that is out there, meaning some spectacular stuff can get completely overlooked, or sell poorly, or be unfairly judged.

This is where word of mouth comes in. You found something awesome you think friends might enjoy too? Tell them. Don’t keep it to yourself. I know that I’ve convinced at least a few people to play Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale since I started banging on about it a few weeks back, and I’m sure there are others out there who might be interested in trying other things I’ve mentioned. Similarly, my obsession with Persona 3 and 4 can be entirely attributed to a blog post my friend Mark wrote extolling the virtues of Persona 3, a post which was enough to make me think “I have to play this game.”

We’re in an age of active involvement and active socialisation. The gaming press still certainly has a place—I should hope so, anyway, since I’m involved in it—but there’s just as much importance, if not more, on word-of-mouth recommendations and discussion.

Think about the last game you played. Was it something you played because reviews were good? Because people were talking about it? Or something you took a chance on and then felt like telling everyone how good/bad it was?

In my case, the last two games I played (Recettear and DEADLY PREMONITION) were the latter two. I took a chance on Recettear and adored it. And I couldn’t not play DEADLY PREMONITION after hearing some of my closest friends discussing it in appropriately reverent tones. I actually can’t remember the last time I bought a game purely on the strength of a review.

#oneaday, Day 318: One Day in Gameland

In discussing Deadly… I mean DEADLY PREMONITION with a couple of others recently, we came to the conclusion that the universe of games has such a distinct logic, such a distinct culture, that you could probably write an entire treatise on the culture, physics, metaphysics and theology of Game-Land.

I will settle for one blog post.

When you wake up in the morning, any and all injuries, however serious, will be completely healed, unless you make your home in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, in which case you will either need to give yourself an injection in the affected limb or visit a doctor, who will be able to heal absolutely any injury and make you completely intact within a matter of minutes.
If there is food on a shelf, pick it up. No-one but you needs to eat.
By extension, eating food also heals injuries, unless you’re in Greenvale.
If you’re in Greenvale, no-one gives you a second glance if you’re standing in the middle of the road chugging back a can of Hollandaise sauce followed by wolfing down a turkey sandwich which cost $75.
People only open doors if they absolutely have to and frequently just walk through them instead. This includes you. If you were planning on going outside, open the door, wait for 30 seconds, then step outside. Otherwise there will be nothing to walk into and you’ll simply fall into the void, never to be heard from again.
You can survive approximately 1.5 point-blank shotgun blasts directly to your face without permanent disfigurement.
In fact, you can survive any injury without permanent disfigurement.
If something “really important” is about to happen, no-one will mind if you do something else—anything between popping out to shop for some groceries to going on holiday to the other side of the world. The “really important thing” will still be “about to happen” when you get back. Enjoy yourself for a while.
After completing a repetitive task such as stuffing envelopes or chopping onions, you will notice yourself getting noticeably better at said task at increasingly-longer but predictable intervals.
Chop 200 onions in a row without hurting yourself for a special prize!
Sometimes when you talk to people you will have to read something they’ve written on a piece of semi-transparent plastic while they flail their arms around like a Thunderbird.
Occasionally, people will sound like they are speaking Japanese at you, but the semi-transparent piece of plastic will have English writing on it.
All shops you visit will sell exactly four items in an extremely niche category, but will purchase anything you have in your pockets/backpack/suitcase/on the back of your pack mule.
On that note, you will own a backpack which is capable of holding twenty suits of armour, four hundred weapons of different varieties and up to 99 bottles of each and every liquid you find. This backpack is invisible.
You will never, ever need to go to the toilet, even if you have drunk all 99 bottles of one particular liquid, unless 1) you feel like you are being forced by a giant green diamond above your head to do things in your own home that you probably would have done anyway, 2) your son has been kidnapped or 3) you know, or are about to come into contact with, someone whose son has been kidnapped.
Anything red will heal all your injuries if you imbibe it somehow.
Anything blue will make you less tired if you imbibe it somehow.
People with long white hair are always evil, even if they seem to be quite nice chaps.
People with short white hair are often sullen, but good people.
People with spiky hair or who are bald are probably on the way to save the world, especially if they are carrying a sword and/or a gun. Be nice to them.
Be careful when stacking shelves: lining up three or more of the same thing in a row always causes them to disappear. Stack tins of soup in a checkerboard pattern to prevent this from happening.
Pick up every flower, bird feather, human-looking bone or flag that you see: there will be someone somewhere in your neighbourhood who will give you “something good” if you bring them enough.
Having a conversation with someone doesn’t require any actual interaction on your part. Just bump into them and they’ll tell you something about the nearby caves, forest and/or the local big corporation.
Talking to yourself is absolutely fine. You may either do this by voicing your internal monologue, especially when looking closely at inanimate objects, or keeping a semi-transparent piece of plastic and a marker pen in your invisible backpack at all times.

Sounds like a simple life, doesn’t it? Ah, if only we could apply game logic to the real world sometimes…

#oneaday, Day 314: In Which I Spoil The Crap Out Of DEADLY PREMONITION

I beat DEADLY PREMONITION tonight and made the confident announcement that it was, barring any last-minute wonders, very much my Game of the Year for 2010. It won’t be everyone’s Game of the Year for 2010 by any means, for various reasons. But personally speaking, it’s very much the most satisfying gaming experience I’ve had all year. Which is nice.

Throughout the course of this post, I am going to spoil the crap out of the game, so if you haven’t beaten it and are intending to, you may wish to skip this one. If you have no intention of beating the game, feel free to stick around. And if you have beaten the game, you’re probably in a similar position to me right now.

I can pin down DEADLY PREMONITION‘s appeal to me on a personal level very simply. It takes elements from two of my favourite game series of all time—Silent Hill and Persona—and blends them together to produce a game which skitters precariously along the boundary between madness and sanity and somehow doesn’t ever completely fall into the trap of “indecipherable nonsense”.

First, the Persona angle. DEADLY PREMONITION‘s world of the town of Greenvale is a well-realised one. As you progress through the game, you get to know the layout of the town and the routines of its residents. You also get to know each and every one of the residents throughout the course of the story. If you choose to take on the 50 “side missions”, then you get to know many of the characters very well indeed. This is just like Persona‘s Social Link system: optional material which fleshes out the game world and its characters enormously. If you take your time to enjoy this material, then events which occur later in the story take on much greater emotional significance as you really “know” the people concerned. It also means that when the time finally comes to say goodbye to Greenvale at the end of the game, it’s a difficult thing to do.

Next, the Silent Hill angle. It becomes very apparent early in the game that protagonist Francis York Morgan is not all he seems. For starters, he spends a huge amount of his time conversing with someone you can’t see named Zach. For much of the game, it seems that “Zach” is a cypher through which York can communicate directly with the player. Indeed, it certainly seems that way when York asks a question of Zach and it’s up to the player to choose Zach’s response.

But the wonderful thing about DEADLY PREMONITION‘s story is that we get to know York very well as the narrative progresses. It becomes apparent that he is scarred mentally by something terrible which happened in his past—his father killing his mother, and then himself. As the investigation into the murders in Greenvale proceeds, it becomes apparent to York why this incident took place. He accepts why his father did it when he is put into the exact same situation—the person he loves is “soiled” with the red seeds the murderer is so obsessed with. With this acceptance, York also admits who he really is—he is Zach, and York is the dual personality he invented to deal with the situation, not the other way around.

York’s mental scars show themselves in other ways, too—any time he begins profiling the killer and tracking down clues with which to determine what happened, he lapses into a dark “Other World”, much like Dark Silent Hill. It’s never explained exactly why this happens, but my belief upon beating the game is that the things seen as York and Zach aren’t to be taken literally. We can tell this by the fact that Zach fights a giant, monstrous version of Kaysen at the end of the game as the town’s iconic clock tower lies in ruins, yet when everything gets back to “normal”, the clock tower is perfectly intact. Similarly, after fighting George as a giant, muscular “immortal” monster, he dies as a normal man. My guess is that York and Zach view these monstrous people simply as monsters, perhaps to distance him/themself from their “humanity”. This is also borne out by the fact that when York visits Diane’s art gallery with George and Emily and Greenvale apparently becomes “Other Greenvale”, they don’t comment on it at all—because they don’t see it.

Of course, a question is raised when Emily has to rescue York from the clock tower—she sees the Other World and the creatures. Why? Is it because she has come to understand and love York and is seeing things the way he does? Perhaps. The fact that this isn’t explained may be unsatisfying to some people, but I like the fact that there are some questions which are open to interpretation.

I could be wrong about all of this, of course. I’m sure there’s plenty of interpretations all over the web by now—I haven’t looked at them yet. But the fact that a game offers such scope for discussion and interpretation is admirable.

Deep part over. Let’s also talk about some of the quirky things that make DEADLY PREMONITION such a memorable game. For one, the music. There are several points throughout the game where the only rational explanation for the choice of music is to be as inappropriate as possible. Take, for example, Emily following the dog Willie to track down the missing York. This sequence is accompanied by what can only be described as Latino J-hip-hop-electronica. Somehow it works.

By far the most striking use of bizarre music, though, is a flashback sequence where the player controls the Raincoat Killer, who is running through the town of Greenvale slaughtering anyone who gets in his way with a gigantic axe. The musical accompaniment to this scene? A really quite beautiful version of Amazing Grace. The juxtaposition between the music and the horrors taking place on screen actually ends up being profoundly emotional, and sets the tone for the last part of the game, which is a veritable rollercoaster of drama and emotion.

I think my favourite thing, though, is that despite the fact the game appears to be a horror/crime story, there’s a convincing love story element to it, too. The growing feelings between York (or, specifically, Zach) and Emily throughout the course of the game is handled incredibly well. The love story reaches its peak just as Emily is killed, making what could have been a ridiculous scene—she pulls a whole tree out of her stomach, for heaven’s sake—one with considerable impact and shock value, and one which spurs the player, York and Zach on to see the whole debacle through to its conclusion. It’s also refreshing to see a game which isn’t afraid to end some of its story threads in tragedy for principal characters.

I could rabbit on about this game for hours, but at a little over 1,000 words I’ll end that there. Several members of The Squadron of Shame are interested in recording a special DEADLY PREMONITION podcast at some point. If you’ve beaten it and you’re interested in joining us for some discussion (I’m looking at you, Raze, Schilling) then let me know and perhaps you can be a special guest. You can also drop by the Squawkbox and share your thoughts there, too.

So with that, then, it’s back to Fallout: New Vegas as the next entry in the Pile of Shame, I believe I said.

#oneaday, Day 296: DEADLY PREMONITION Must Always Be In Capslock

Ahh, all you people out there playing Call of Duty: Black Ops. I hope you’re having a good time. I seriously doubt you’re having as good a time as me. Because I’m playing DEADLY PREMONITION, a game so remarkable it insists on its title being in capitals whenever it announced you’re playing it on Xbox LIVE.

Here in Europe, we’re late to the DEADLY PREMONITION party, of course, but at least the game finally made it over here. And at a knock-down price of £24.99, too. This is very much a Good Thing, though I’m concerned that within a few weeks the game will have disappeared without trace, never to be seen again. As such, I decided that I should probably pick up a copy before that happened. I did the same with 3D Dot Game Heroes a while back, and still haven’t got around to finishing that. One day.

DEADLY PREMONITION, though, I decided to make a start on tonight after Fallout: New Vegas decided to throw a wobbly earlier on. So here, then, are my first impressions of a game I knew pretty much nothing about prior to tonight, save the fact that it’s supposedly “so bad it’s good” territory.

The first thing that will strike you upon firing up Deadly… I mean DEADLY PREMONITION is that it looks like ass. Coming off a game with sparkly hi-definition graphics like Fallout: New Vegas, or Vanquish (which I reviewed this week for The Big Pixels… go check it out) it’s a jarring change to see muddy textures and that weird “sparkly texture” effect that we used to see all the time on previous-gen consoles. But after a few short moments it ceases to matter. And if anything, so far I am feeling that the shoddy graphics are, in fact, part of this game’s charm.

The second thing which is striking about the game is that it is genuinely atmospheric. Some good use of creepy sounds, reminiscent of Silent Hill, coupled with some ugly, horrifying enemies that remind me somewhat of Fatal Frame (aka Project Zero) make for a nerve-wracking walk into town. I haven’t got very far yet, so I couldn’t say for certain if this atmosphere continues throughout. But I’m certainly impressed with the feeling of dread which the game is producing so far.

Controls are initially clunky but you soon adjust to them when you remember that this isn’t supposed to be a fast-action shooter. Yes, being rooted to the spot while aiming a gun is a pain. But it forces you to think a little bit more carefully about getting into a suitable position to fire rather than spraying bullet fire around randomly. I’m certainly fine with it, though it would be understandable for some people to hate it.

In fact, that last statement pretty much sums up what I’m expecting from DEADLY PREMONITION as a whole: something which I’m going to enjoy a huge amount, which other people will probably hate, loathe and despise for various reasons. Some may be immediately turned off by the graphics (whores that you are). Some may be put off by the control scheme (which is easier for me to sympathise with). And others simply would probably rather play something like Call of Duty. Which, as I said yesterday, is absolutely fine by me.

Me? I’ll be exploring Greenvale and trying not to get chopped up by the “Raincort Killer” [sic], as the European box would have it. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.