#oneaday, Day 32: Brown Ops

Earlier today, this animated image from Insomniac Games’ Resistance 3 did the rounds. Impressive. But also rubbish.

Ooh, controversial.

But seriously, look at it again. What is the one thing that sticks in your mind after watching that short clip? You probably answered either “post-apocalyptic”, “monster” or “brown”.

The trouble with things like this is that they completely lose their impact after a time. I’m sure Resistance 3 is technically very proficient, particularly if that clip was rendered using the game engine, which I’m guessing it was. But the fact it looks like Gears of War meets Fallout meets any other post-apocalyptic brown “destroyed beauty” sort of environment completely kills any interest for me—there’s just too much of it around. And not just in the sci-fi genre; I haven’t played Modern Warfare 2 for months (I traded it in after I got bored and decided I had no interest in the rest of the Call of Duty series after it) but my one enduring memory of that game, too, is that there was a lot of brown around.

This is nothing new, of course. I vividly remember getting all excited over the original Quake, the first high-profile “true 3D” first-person shooter. My brother, obviously already sick of it having been exposed to it every day on PC Zone, referred to it as “oh, the brown game”. And yes, Quake was overwhelmingly brown, though there were a few blue bits in it too. This was just the beginning, though.

Yes, post-apocalyptic environments probably are going to be grey, brown and miserable. Although one thing that Halo: Reach shows is that it is possible for armageddon to be happening and it still be a vibrant place filled with colour. In the case of that game, it’s arguable that the impact of the destruction is all the more profound because of the splashes of bright colours that are everywhere.

Or alternatively, developers, how about fewer games involving things that have collapsed or are in the process of collapsing? Fewer games where there’s nothing but rock and stone? More games in organic, natural environments that aren’t dead. More games that aren’t afraid to take a few risks and be a bit more stylised rather than “gritty” and “realistic”. Some of my favourite games of all time are the Timesplitters series, proving once and for all that I don’t hate FPS games, I am just very tired of them all being identikit and boring. Timesplitters was colourful, distinctive and humorous but still managed to be atmospheric. And the news that CryTek are considering resurrecting the series fills me with an enormous amount of joy… and hope that they don’t fuck it up.

Perhaps this is why I like JRPGs at a time when more and more people seem to be getting switched off by them. They may be their own particular kind of generic, but at least they offer some colour as part of their aesthetic.

#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 251: Teamwork, Do It Together

I’m going to quote a LazyTown song at you and there is nothing you can damn well do about it.

Links in a chain
Tracks for a train
They’re always better together.
A cocoa in a mug
A kiss and a hug
They’re always better together.
When nothing seems to fit
And you just want to quit
Teamwork, do it together
Teamwork, friends forever
We’re all for one and one for all, we’ll—

Okay, enough already. Even I’m feeling a little nauseous*. But it’s an apt introduction to the matter I would like to talk about today, which is collaborating, working together, being a team player, whatever you want to call it.

In life, teamwork is essential, even for the most inept recluse there is. At some point, they’re going to have to deal with other people. So it may as well be a pleasant experience for everyone involved.

The thing I don’t understand is why so many people don’t seem to get this. For example, I was talking to a friend the other day and it seems that a work colleague had gone behind her back and caused an unpleasant, tense situation when in fact all that was needed was a quiet, friendly word. In fact, given the situation in question, even that wasn’t warranted at all, but this isn’t the time or place to discuss that.

But it seems to happen over and over again; I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard friends comment about the stresses of working with other people, either because they don’t pull their weight, or because they’re the sort of person described above, who is only concerned with making themselves look good and balls to how everyone else feels.

If you’ll indulge me a moment, here is something which truly can be learned from the world of video games. I was enjoying a friendly game of Halo: Reach with some friends earlier, and we were playing Team Slayer. For the benefit of my readers out there who don’t play games at all, an explanation: this mode splits eight players into two teams of four and tasks each team with blowing seven shades of snot out of each other until one team or the other has scored fifty kills. Very simple. And yet what many people who play it don’t seem to realise is that by working together—simply a case of sticking with someone else and protecting them, and occasionally telling other team members where opponents are—success can be pretty much guaranteed, at least until the other team figures out the same thing. Which often doesn’t happen.

It’s the same in reality, only with less shooting each other in the face with rocket launchers. Usually. Rather than striking out as a “lone wolf” that just happens to be part of a larger venture, working together with others is a far more sure-fire way to get things done. Things get done a lot quicker and everyone is a lot happier as a result. So I have to wonder why so many people try and put up barriers to this sort of collaboration. Whether it’s wilfully ignoring things that they’re told, making themselves inaccessible, refusing to listen to feedback or simply not chipping in their bit of effort at crunch time, it makes life unpleasant for everyone. Those who are spurned by the git who isn’t helping end up feeling bitterness and resentment. And said git often starts to feel superior, like they don’t “need” to get involved.

I’m very fortunate in that all the ventures I’m currently involved with are very much team efforts run by people who are friends with mutual respect for one another, and people who talk to each other. There’s no bitchiness, no backstabbing, no resentment. I think. Unless I’m causing it.

Oh God, am I the git?

* inserted to draw attention away from the fact that I have listened to the LazyTown soundtrack on Spotify far more times than is really healthy. This is just between you and me.

#oneaday, Day 244: Halo? More Like…

I have a peculiar and complex relationship with the first-person shooter genre of gaming. On the one hand, I have very fond memories of growing up playing Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. In fact, as I may have shared before, such was my obsession with Wolfenstein 3D and the early days of the mod scene, that 10 of my levels are part of the official Apogee “Super Upgrades” expansion pack, a feat which netted me $200 and means that I can technically call myself a professional game developer.

On the other hand, I have vivid memories of playing Halo, Gears of War and Modern Warfare 2 and getting inordinately frustrated with sequences that are so difficult they require you to play, die, play, die, play, die, play, die, sometimes for hours at a time until you figure out the way to beat that particular sequence.

Such is the experience I’m having with Halo: Reach at the moment. There’s no denying it’s a great game, and the sheer amount of stuff that Bungie have crammed into the game is incredible. The fact that any mode can be played in multiplayer, and the fact that Forge World actually allows the construction of some truly hilarious structures, is enough to make me adore the game and praise its name for all eternity.

What was almost enough to make me fling it out of the window, though, was the Campaign mode. I had played through the mission called “The Long Night of Solace” and was reaching the end of it. Those who have played that mission will know it’s the awesome one that includes space combat. As a matter of fact, the space combat was so good I happily proclaimed on Twitter that I’d play a whole game based on that engine. And I stand by that. It was stunning. Not only that, it allowed a full 360 degrees of movement, which is practically unheard of in console-based space sims. So hats off to Bungie for that.

Unfortunately, all of the hard work that mission did to convince me that yes, Halo is not all that bad really, was promptly undone by the very last sequence of that mission. Here, you get jumped by about six Elite Specialist enemies, all of whom are armed with weapons that are quite capable of one-shot killing you. Not only that, but they spread out around the room so there is no place where you can find cover. Not only that, your companion who, it should be added, has an absolutely fucking massive gun and is invincible, is utterly useless at killing them, so of course it’s up to Muggins, sorry, Noble Six, to save the day.

I must have repeated that sequence a good thirty or forty times. By the end of it I was literally screaming obscenities at the television. I was very glad that no-one else was in the house.

“Well, then,” you may say. “Don’t play the Campaign mode. Play the stuff you do like.” But… Achievements…

In seriousness, I do kind of want to play the Campaign mode through to its conclusion because of my good friend Mr George Kokoris‘ regular assertions that Halo‘s lore is, in fact, far more in-depth and interesting that “OMG SPACE MARINEZ AND ALIENZ LOL”. And to be fair, thus far I’ve mostly enjoyed the Campaign. I just find it a pity that there are short sequences such as the one I’ve described above that (temporarily at least) spoil the experience. It causes a curious ping-ponging effect where I bounce back and forth between loving and hating the game. Sometimes I get stuck on the “hate” part, and it’s for that reason I never beat the original Gears of War and have no interest in the remainder of the series. There was one sequence that involved a sniper who repeatedly one-shotted me in that game that eventually caused me to turn it off, put it in its box, trade it in and never speak of it ever again except to slag it off.

Hopefully it won’t come to a fit of nerd rage with Reach. At least there’s plenty of other stuff to enjoy if the Campaign does get too much.