2009 in Review: Left 4 Dead 2
I’d thought that Among Thieves would be here, at the top. This is the last of these year in review thingies, because I can’t think of anything I liked more than Left 4 Dead 2. Yes, when Among Thieves was on its way (and while playing it), I thought that I wouldn’t play a better game this year. I still love Among Thieves, and maybe it will get its own post, as a consolation prize (a runner-up spot, maybe), but for now, it’s time to talk about L4D2.
Divinity 2: Ego Draconis Review
Divinity 2: Ego Draconis is a video game about dragons, knights, and goblins. It’s like Drakan, but better. Here’s the first couple of paragraphs from my Divinity 2 review. It’s a fun, exciting, rather different game, and I quite liked it. Read this bit here, and if you want:
Divinity 2: Ego Draconis is a bit of a monstrous game, like the dragons that supposedly burst from its world. A third person European RPG, it is like its recent comrade, Risen, in derivation alone. While every second in Risen is a dark, dangerous, desperate fight for survival, Divinity 2 is a long hard slog, for the most part. Surprisingly, it feels quite unique in most ways. It takes familiar settings, plots, characters, and gameplay and turns them just a bit, so that you can see a different side of everything. Similarly, the developers at Larian have managed to twist all of these tired fantasy and gameplay tropes to their own will, making for a game just different enough to stand out from the rest.
Larian has quite a history on the PC. Their breakout title, Divine Divinity, was a game that most took for anotherDiablo clone. It was, in fact, much more akin to one of the more complicated Ultima games, and featured strange, troubling, and sometimes brilliant design decisions and idiosyncrasies. While the game’s sequel, called Beyond Divinity, was less popular, both games shared the same peculiar sense of humor and an interesting view on what was “good” gameplay. These were the kind of games that featured surprisingly intelligent writing, a healthy dose of irony, and incredibly detailed and interactive environments.
Divinity 2, then, looks like somewhat of a departure for the studio behind such quirky, anything-but-mainstream entertainment. While it might seem like just another Tolkien-aping third person fantasy epic from a distance, taken as a whole it is an interesting and surprising game. Divinity 2 takes place in a land where Dragons, Dragon Knights, and Dragon once battled each other for supremacy. Now there is but one Dragon Knight remaining, and you, as a newly minted Dragon Slayer, must destroy that Knight.
If that tickles your fancy, head over to Sleeper Hit and read the whole thing (at this link here).
Interview: Jennifer Hale is Amazing!
As if you didn’t know. You had better know. Really, if you don’t know, you might want to mosey on out of here. Head over to Simon’s blog, he might take your kind over there, what with loose standards and his ludic bent. Bah!
Here we have an interview with Hale (at Destructoid, strangely), in which she is funny and smart, and says things about acting in games that we all wish more people knew. It’s a cool interview, so I’ve linked to it, in my generosity, right here. Just to give you an idea of what’s being discussed, here are a few excerpts. The first is Hale explaining how she gets all of her characters to sound different from each other, and the second is her discussing working on Metal Gear Solid 4. Enjoy (or else)!
It’s nice that that has gotten across. It’s specificity. It’s all about specificity. If you’re general in your approach to playing characters, and you’re playing “a commander,” frankly that’s uninteresting. I think you’re cheating [the people] who play the games or the audiences who watch or listen. I think it’s lame. I don’t think it’s doing your job.
I think you have to be incredibly specific about who this person is, why they say what they say, why they say it how they say it, and what they want. When you get into those specifics, the writing will take care of you.
And here’s the second bit:
I did have the good fortune on Metal Gear [Solid] 4. We were brought in together. Dave [Hayter] and I worked together a lot; we had known each other for a long time…over ten years. So, it was fun working together on that. And Christopher [Randolph] and a couple of other groups of us got to work together on that in the same room at the same time, which was awesome.
Reading this, you realize A) how much Jennifer Hale rocks, and B) how great the characters in games could be if companies had both the will (apparently quite lacking, from the way companies write their characters) and the money (obviously an issue) to get actors and writers and directors together and make awesome stuff. And I still have to wait a week for Mass Effect 2!
[PS: That's Torry Shepard up there, about to make her Paragonly way to the end of the game. She'll be my first character in ME 2.]
2009 in Review: Dawn of War 2
I’m pretty wretched at RTS’s. I don’t say this out of some kind of misguided attempt to curry favor or make myself look different in some way (I’m sure lots of people are bad at these games). I don’t have the kind of mind that can properly analyze and respond to complicated moment-to-moment tactical developments, or one that can remember what to build fastest, first. Sure, I have a fuzzy idea of what does well, but playing against a human (or a computer above Easy) I’m weak and easily destroyed.
A few years ago I welcomed (a step above my normal “tolerate” policy for RTS’s) Relic’s Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War. It was like a mix of an FPS control zone capture-based mode and a cool, almost squad-based RTS. I was still bad at it, but it was tons of fun. I avoided the sequel for two reasons: at the time, my computer whimpered at the site of the game’s menu, and I figured I’d explored everything Relic had to say about that world.
I was, luckily, wrong. Not only had Relic plugged an amusingly simple (yet enjoyable) narrative full of ridiculous growly men into their world, they’d done it while pretending to be making the sequel to Dawn of War, while they were really working on the continuation of Company of Heroes, Relic’s awesome WW2 RTS (which would be on this list if it hadn’t come out prior to 2009).
It seems like a lot of people compare DoW II to Diablo. I suppose they aren’t far off, in some ways. The maps do all resemble dungeons (in their similar structure and makeup), there is a lot of loot, and there are mobs, boss units, and levels to be had. Playing the game (on a higher difficulty), the last thing on my mind was Diablo. Battles in DoW 2, when not handled properly, are quick, deadly things. Upon returning to the game after a month-long break, I started up a campaign mission. I’d forgotten who my best troops were, what powers and items they had (and what each power did best), and what abilities I’d gifted them with. It was like dropping into Baldur’s Gate 2 after a long hiatus. The first hour or so is spent enduring brutal, near-instant humiliation at the hands of the game’s enemies and AI.
What DoW 2 does is actually quite impressive, when you think about it. It takes that (necessarily) cautious, often-brutal squad gameplay, lowers the difficulty (just a bit), and turns everything else all the way up, especially in the explosions and eviscerations department. While that might not necessarily be your thing, as it is not mine, it facilitates (graphically) the game’s desire to let you mess around with every map and battle. The game is constantly, entertainingly willing to let you attack your enemies using a vast array of powers, in a surprising number of tactically viable ways. Again, I’ll compare it to a Bioware game, in this case, Dragon Age: when you come up against a horde, you might lose half or all of your squad before regrouping and healing. So how do you take the enemy out? In my case, you think, and you examine your crew. Maybe you restart the mission so you can drop in different units. Then you use your sniper crew (who I quickly upgraded to have super-ultimate cloak) to utterly destroy the enemy with satchel charges. Or you send out your heavy gunner crew, alone, and have them drop two devastating sentry guns in at the last minute, just as the horde is upon them.
It takes the tense tactical play of a squad-based RPG, and then takes almost all of the standard attacks, maneuvers, and abilities and makes them seem outrageous and ridiculously fun. In that way, it kind of is like Diablo (and its story is definitely closer to something you’d find in a Blizzard game), but only if Diablo was a game that focused on smart, squad-based tactical RPG skirmishes. It’s also beautiful, and almost every unit in-game moves and attacks with obvious weight and purpose. Watching giant mechs and aliens explode through walls, while smaller units use heavy ordinance to open new avenues of attack onto sniper units for the first time, I couldn’t believe (and still can’t believe) that games can get away without including this kind of fluctuating, controllable terrain (this is beginning to sound familiar). Despite these new levels of tactical nuance, the game is also, somehow, quite laid back in its pacing. My units may attack using ludicrous space laser swords, but battles are not quick affairs.
The pacing is also just about perfect. It is just fast enough that I can lose a battle in a few minutes, but i i’s also slow enough that I can think as I play (no need for a pause button), adapting to new threats as they appear, and reallocating my units as need be. It’s a far cry from my normal thought process in RTS’s, which is normally this : “Oh shit, here they come I’mgoingtodie!” The fact that this excellent gameplay comes packaged in a silly if mostly fun universe just adds to my delight every time I open the game. I can’t think of another game released this last year, be it an RTS or an RPG, that satisfied me and made me feel smart in this way.
2009 in Review: Red Faction: Guerilla
Lots of games purport to deliver an amazing, open-ended experience where you can go anywhere and do anything. They all do their best, it their little (and sometimes bug) ways do deliver on this concept. Red Faction: Guerrilla delivers on its promises of wide-ranging, highly destructible combat with style and skill. Of course, unlike other open-world games, RFG fails to provide any kind of compelling narrative, its world, while beautiful and convincing in its austere, Martian way, is often drab and unexciting. The people and ideas that populate this game are old and dying, close to the point of carrying on as some kind of unhealthy undead fiction. Of course, absolutely none of that matters after the first hour (or after the sixth or seventh hour, for that matter).
Playing this game, I wonder: how can games get away with the ancient non-destructible (or in many case, scripted destruction) environments. Watching something built by designers topple thanks to my hard work is unique feeling. Watching it topple again in a completely different way, just because I wanted to do it better, is something else entirely. Games like GTA IV, Just Cause 2, and Crackdown 2 (along with shooters like Modern Warfare 2) all feature outrageously overpowered ordinances and explosion-ready targets. It’s actually quite surprising that more games don’t license the technology used in Red Faction: Guerilla and the Bad Company series (the only other mainstream action game to use such effects), now that those games have attained such success. It isn’t a gimmick. When everything (but, sadly, the ground) can be destroyed, a player is encouraged, allowed, and thrilled to approach missions and map-traversal in new, exciting ways.
Thankfully, the rest of the gameplay isn’t bad at all. Cars drive with an appreciable Martian lack of heft, enemies are dangerous, ever-present harriers, most of the weapons are fun and punchy (or even better, explosive), and multiplayer perfectly translates the single player gameplay into fast, frantic bouts of wall-breaking, jet packing deathmatch (in fact, the game earns a lot of points just for the inclusion of an amazing jet pack). Really though, what makes this game impressive is the way that the player is constantly encouraged (by what she has seen, what the game has taught her, and the options available to the her) to solve tactical situations using less-than-average techniques. In fact, in light of this recent blog post over on BLDGBLOG, I’d like to recognize these wonderful parts of Guerrilla for what they are: liberating, exciting explorations of unorthodox, randomized destruction and traversal of ever-changing architecture. I’ve played all of the open-world, sandbox games (of this and the past generation) out there, and this is the one that actually feels fun and dew when I start it up after a long break. I never have to watch warehouses blow up in canned animations, and I never have to work with anything less than what I want. It’s an impressively liberating experience, and it is fun.
2009 in Review: Dragon Age
At the behest of some of my supporters (er, I mean readers), I’ve decided to do a 2009 year-end summation type article. I’m late on this, and I’m unsure how to do it. I’d love to just steal from Simon’s version, but then he’d know, since he reads this. So, originality. Tricky. This will be the first of many posts, I hope. This one is about the game that I wish I could leave off this list. I love it too much to exile it, as you will see:
The worst game that I still genuinely enjoy, and actually kind of love: Dragon Age
Dragon Age. It’s a game I’ve been waiting for for a long time, a game I hoped would replace BG 2 as my go-to CRPG in the years to come (when that old itch showed up), and a stop on Bioware’s road to their ultimate narrative-centric RPG (they sure haven’t perfected it yet). It’s a game I’ve played at least 40 hours of, and one I still can’t bring myself to finish. The setting is wearing on my nerves, I’m having trouble getting excited over new, high level powers, and the silent protagonist stands out among her verbose companions. I still love it though, and it’s still Bioware, but for me, whatever magic they brought in BG 2 is less in evidence here than I thought it would be. They’ve shifted it, focusing on Mass Effect more and more of their considerable, admirable talents. I fully expect that game to be as brilliant as I thought the first one would be (and I think the first one is brilliant). Dragon Age is stilted, static, and turgid. I love the characters, much of the writing, and the spirit with which the game thrusts its universe into your face.
In comparison, in Mass Effect, conversations felt dynamic, fast-paced, and exciting. They weren’t perfect, but they sold the immediacy of the world much better than DA can possibly manage. Every conversation in DA is interesting and deep, and the characters are wonderful, but after a while I just wish they’d get to the damn point. Bioware’s strength these days is in highly cinematic (yes, I know, I mean that their attempts to replicate certain filmic visual gimmicks is always better and better, in-cutscene, that is) conversations and small groups of NPCs. Dragon Age just throws to much shit at me. Maybe I’m getting older and nastier, but I don’t care about my avatar, my hero, unless she’s a talker, a doer, and an obvious agent within the game. My character in Dragon Age tries, but she just doesn’t seem to do much, unless she’s having awful stilted sex with another robot.
Still, this game is, without a doubt, the most impressive thing I’ve seen this year (last year now, I know). For the first 30 hours or so, I wasn’t overwhelmed, I was swept up in their fiction, for all its faults. It’s a fictions as thick as any I’ve ever seen in a game, and it doesn’t rely on cheap tricks and tired methods of exposition to tell you the story of its world (although that codex is just unwieldy). It avoids the increasingly annoying “journal entry” and “voice recording” filler that stands in for a fully constructed world, for exposition delivered in an interesting fashion by characters, and in turn, by every inch of the world itself (not to say that Dragon Age does this, but it does a better job at letting its world and people tell a story than many games full of video diaries, blabbering NPCs (who we’re told, lyingly, are not cutscenes. THEY ARE), and loquacious robots and mysterious guides. I’ll finish it, because it proves to me that Bioware is on the right track in many ways (let’s consider this award from Able Gamers, for a moment, linked here), and that they’re hearts are in a better place than most. They’re creating games that are less and less marginalizing, offensive, and exclusionary. They’re so far ahead of so many companies, it’s just a bit sad. So, here’s to Dragon Age, the one game that shouldn’t be on this list (if this list is a tally of what I consider to be the best games of the year), but is so good, it found its way on anyway.
News: Rockstar San Diego and Metro 2033
Two things caught my eye today: the now (or soon to be) famous “Rockstar San Diego Wives’” Letter (link here), and a new video for the exciting-looking Metro 2033 (link aussi).
Let’s get the easy (but less depressing) stuff out of the way first. Metro 2033 is a game that a lot of people (including me, until the most recent Edge arrived on my doorstep) probably thing of as “a STALKER game that isn’t be the STALKER people.” It is not that. It sounds like a much more driven, linear experience (from the recent Edge article, it really sounds like their Half Life, if I may be reductive) as evidenced in the above video. It looks quite impressive, from a world-building and graphical perspective. The game itself is apparently still a little iffy control and balance-wise, but I’d love to see a different take on the post-apocalyptic that wasn’t direct from STALKER and Fallout land.
Now that other thing I wanted to talk about: Rockstar San Diego. There’s a letter, apparently written or overseen by the wives of people who work for Rockstar San Diego, detailing Rockstar San Diego’s reprehensible treatment of their employees (it’s a similar situation to the old “EA Spouse” letter from years ago, it’s just a bit less detailed). Still, it’s pretty damning, as shown in this bit of the letter:
Little is there to motivate continuation as they also have lost a free vacation week between Christmas and New Year. Without time to recuperate and no efforts made to alleviate the stress of such conditions would procure on an employee after a period time, serious health concerns. Yet, now the health concern becomes another financial concern as the stripping of medical benefits surfaces to realization. It becomes rather worse rather than better as employees gain experience and become “senior”. Instead of appreciation, numerous non-exempt designers and artists have had their overtime pay cut as a result for being “too senior”. Looking to upper management provides no comfort rather the contrary. With unsuitable behavior from a newly promoted studio manager that vulgarly speaks the F word in most sentences and those who refuse to look at the workers’ faces as they pass in the hall, it is clear their attempt to ignore the injustice they have implemented on their once valued and appreciated employees. Perhaps it should be them who explain to our children and loved ones the absence of their increasingly frustrated fathers.
As pointed out in the comments, the letter is in need of an editor, but the point it makes (and the points made in the comments by people who are, apparently, either present or former Rockstar San Diego employees) is an unpleasant and immediate one. I’ll re-post one especially interesting bit of commenting:
And don’t believe for a second that it’s just the management at Rockstar San Diego. It goes straight back to the boys in New York. Their lack of understanding of the development process has led to this whole mess. When you let a team create a game for 2+ years, building technology with little or no feedback, then jump in months before the project is to be shipped and *DEMAND* sweeping changes, you’re going to have deadlines slip, unstable fixes, and unhappy workers.
Now, given that (as I am honor-bound to note) we have no idea how much of any of this is true, I’m still curious to read that little snippet up there. If that person is telling the truth, then the people who made Redemption may have been completely screwed in several ways while they were trying to make this game (more so than normal, considering this is the video games industry).
Of course, video game developer employees getting screwed is not only unsurprising, it’s almost expected, in a quiet, shameful way (especially at big companies like EA, Rockstar, Activision, and others). If even a fraction of the stuff the people in those forums (and the people who wrote that letter) are saying is true, the I hope that A) Redemption is awesome, and they’re recognized for their work, and B) Rockstar owns up to their mistakes and tries to make amends.
I’m willing to bet that last part won’t happen, especially if people don’t dig deeper and figure out what’s what, and how things can be made better for the teams affected by bad management policies and unfair work conditions. Of course, I’m not contributing anything concrete to the conversation with this post, but if ever there was a time for some actual investigative video games journalism, this is the fucking time. It’s not like we all don’t know that many of the companies that make are games act like this and treat their employees like this (even though there are plenty of companies who are great to work for). Let’s see what happens.
Impressions: Modern Warfare 2
I’ve just finished Modern Warfare 2’s single player, and I’ve played around 20 hours of the multiplayer. While the multiplayer is as addictive and well-balanced as always (despite a few strange issues here and there), the single player is a truly unique, unpleasant beast. I’m not going to write specifically about “No Russian” here (maybe Owen and I can have it out about that later?), instead I’m just going to work my way though my notes and thoughts, having just completed the game (a warning: I will tell you who the villain is. So. SPOILERS: No Really, if You Care About the Plot, GO AWAY): Read more »
News and Hype: Mass Effect 2 and Save Games
Because I know you are all waiting, breathless, your save games clutched to your chests. You had better be.
This here (linky) is a long post on the Mass Effect 2 forums concerning what will and what will not carry over when you transfer your old Mass Effect saves into the new game. It is both practical (how do PC users do it, etc.) and exciting. It tells you about all of the little things that your previous playthrough will affect, from starting alignment and money, to slightly plot-related things. It’s not much of a thread (after the initial post, it degrades into those Internet people being rude), so I guess I’ll throw this Gametrailers ME 2 page in for good measure. It has a ton of trailers (one which I had not seen when I first linked to it, amazingly), and hopefully it will make the next 4 weeks pass less fretfully.
For everyone else (and me!), there are ME playthroughs to complete. I may not be in love with the voice of male Shepard, but I feel like I should have a character to take into ME 2 that is both a renegade (all of me women renegades are on the hideous 360 version. Bah) and a dude. As always, I’ll probably spend hours trying to create a guy (who doesn’t look like their stubbly villain) who looks like a human. This is how far I’ll go for my Mass Effect love!
Somehow, I’d managed to stay away from the Mass Effect 2 site until tonight. I’m not sure how that is even possible. As you all know, in the weeks and days preceding Dragon Age’s release, I was almost intolerably obsessed with the site and its codex. Now, I discover a similar trove (an evil trove) of delights on the ME 2 page. Here, for instance, is a link to Tali’s page (with, of course, a video). No need to thank me. Slightly less exciting (but still exciting) than Tali’s page is the page on the Vorcha, one of ME 2’s new races. Not only do they look cool and scary, but their name also sounds quite similar to a certain class of Kilngon warship.
Maybe I should stop now. There’s a whole page detailing the Mass Effect 2 armory, but what I really want are lore entries. Of course, most of the lore is already in place, thanks to Mass Effect. Still, there are new races and enemies, weapons and vehicles, so I hope they reveal some of that stuff closer to the drop date (January 26th). That’s a long way off, but I’m sure that commander Tom Shepard (it’s actually really weird to give a character your own name, I’ve discovered) can keep me company until then.
Impressions and Articles: Left 4 Dead 2, Archetypes, and “Larger-than-Life” Personalities
I’ve been reading a lot of articles on Left 4 Dead 2, Ben Abraham’s post on the reasons why (initially, he hasn’t done a follow-up yet) he found the second game less compelling than the first. He has many reasons for thinking this. He singles out the new game’s failure in the area of education: more options are thrown at you than before, ill-explained options. As any newcomer to L4D2 could attest, he’s right about this. Even for a L4D1 veteran, this game is hard (at first), and I’m still working my way up to the harder difficulties. While I don’t think this is a horrible thing (I’m happy that you have to relearn the game. It makes it feel like its own thing, a separate identity from the first, unlike so many MP-centric sequels), he’s right that Valve doesn’t teach you as brilliantly and quickly as they did the first time around.
Still, I’d like to point out that a friend of mine who never played the first game picked it up 3 days ago. Under the dubious tutelage of myself and Owen, he learned quickly, and over the past three days he’s grown as a player. He isn’t as good as we are today (nor is he as good as those people online who can determine the exact location of all enemies by sound alone), but he can hold his own. That’s not bad, for a game as complicated and intricate as Left 4 Dead 2. While most games require you to learn how to shoot and how to follow different rulesets, Left 4 Dead 2 requires you to learn to entirely different skill sets: the mechanics of play against the computer, the mechanics of play against humans, and the mechanics of play with humans. When you think about it, that’s more than most shooters, and you still learn pretty fast. Really, why I started writing this post was to address his issues with the cast of Left 4 Dead 2. I’ll let him speak for himself, and then start blabbing:
Lastly on my list of gripes, and my major concern, is the four new characters. This is entering the realms of personal preference and taste, but to me it seems that Nick, Ellis, Rochelle and Coach aren’t as memorable as the original quartet. Perhaps it’s because they are less obvious archetypes. Coach seems the closest to a recognisable archetype and for his larger-than-life personality he remains my personal favourite. Nick and Ellis both feel too similar – Nick, I know from the pre-release publicity, is ostensibly a conman but he’s much too nice and average. That aspect of his character is struggling to shine through, however and the only quote of his that has stood out for me is most revealing of that aspect of his character.
In a game recently I heard him admonish someone for shooting him, saying “You did not just shoot the man in the three-thousand dollar suit!” Nick needs to be talking about his suit way more, and Ellis needs something to give his character a similar focus. Valve has said that they wanted him to be “southern” and innocent and naive, while avoiding representing him as a stereotypical hick. While this effort is laudable for wanting to portray southern American culture in a mature light, I wonder if the character suffers for it.
Perhaps Nick’s character too suffers for being in a game as devoted to cooperation as Left 4 Dead 2. Thinking on it, it’s possible that a sharkskin-suited conman could still be an appropriate character for L4D, as he could easily be cast as The Reluctant Help, much like Francis in the original. Francis was a grouch, but he was a lovablegrouch, and it was always communicated that his character had your back. But how does one pull off “the lovable conman?” I guess what I’m suggesting is that Nick is not wisecracking enough for it; he’s not even sarcastic enough.
Regardless of personal preference, it is obvious that the characters are slightly different than they were in L4D1 (aside from the obvious differences). As he says, Coach is the one with the “larger-than-life” personality. I suppose this makes him more relatable, for some. What I think it does is make Coach the least interesting of all of the characters. Regardless of taste (I think a large portion of the things Coch says are amusing, and I can easily discern what his “character” is supposed to be), Coach is the easy way out, he’s almost the opposite of good characterization; he’s a shortcut, a cop-out (a minor one, to be sure), compared to his companions. Ellis, Nick, and Rochelle all have personalities, and they all have interesting and funny things to say about their surroundings. Coach talks through most of the Dark Carnival (about funnel cake, among many things), but everyone (as before) has enough quips and banter to keep things flowing. Everyone who has played Dark Carnival knows about the “Tunnel of Love,” since Nick spends a good deal of time talking about it.
Abraham’s issue with Ellis also seems unfortunate. I don’t think that “While this effort is laudable for wanting to portray southern American culture in a mature light, I wonder if the character suffers for it.” I don’t think Ellis suffers for it. Yes, he could have been like Jason Stackhouse. He could have been a badly written stock character, a southern hick with charm to spare and not a thought in his head. Instead, he’s (along with Coach) a Midnight Riders enthusiast, a devoted follower of Jimmy Gibbs Jr. (his love speech to the abandoned car is excellent), and he’s nota huge fan of swamp people. Likewise, Nick may seem somewhat average at the start, but he’s quickly become my favorite character. His sarcastic complaining is always amusing, as are his and Coach’s Love Tunnel conversations (how many experiences have you had?). In fact, he’s the easiest to like: he’s that smart ass, the loner (to Abraham’s chagrin), the man who wants to tell everyone else how much everything annoys him. In fact, he’s a lot like Francis, in some respects, the man who “hates” everything. The difference is, Nick is angry. He’s scared, and he deals with it by snarking on everything. It means he can’t just say “I hate _____” and get a laugh. It means the writers write better dialogue, and more of it. They have to think of how a person would say one thing, and then think how a different person would say the same thing.
Now that I think about it, all of the characters strike me that way. They all have hidden depths, you have to get to know them to see those hidden depths, but they are there. Part of the disconnect between Ben and me may be Left 4 Dead 2’s fault. If you don’t play campaign or SP, you will never hear any of this incidental dialogue. In Versus, Scavenge, and Survival modes, you won’t hear much banter. Playing a SP game on easy, I was delighted and surprised to hear my characters talk to each to and about each other, or the environment, or the zombies. Just today I heard Rochelle apologize to the swamp people zombies that she had to kill them.
Why is this a bad thing? It is not a bad thing that a major company has decided (mostly) to create new characters for its sequel who aren’t (as obviously or as completely) tired stereotypes. I still like Coach, but I like Nick and Rochell more. They aren’t obviously, annoyingly stereotyped. They aren’t The _____ White Conman, and The _____ Black Woman. Coach almost is. Is that what it means to be “larger-than-life?” I’ll skip that, thank you very much. Broad, “relatable” characters might be more easily relatable, but they’re almost always weaker. They’re uneasily infused with nuance and heft. They’re annoyingly flat.
You have to watch, listen, and learn with everyone, even Coach. They have their squabbles, and their triumphs, and they can’t (thank God!) be boiled down to “Francis hates something again,” or “Bill made another war joke.” I like it when my characters are written in a way that makes me stop and listen, that tricks me into thinking they have more than one tic or joke. I wish more companies did it, and I hope that when Valve makes Left 4 Dead 3 (might I recommend an exciting Non-American locale? Hell, I’d love Left 4 Dead: Alpine Edition), every one of the characters is the opposite of the Snarky College Girl, or the “Lovable,” Heart of Gold Biker. It would be really nice, actually.
Grab Bag: Zombies and Ghosts
The holiday season has intervened between you and me, reader, and I have just now fought my way back to you (and to the blog, which misses me). Luckily, something besides the bighting, dangerous cold (left safely behind in New Haven) has been keeping me busy. Away from my computer (the powerful one, that is) I have sunk myself back into Left 4 Dead 2. Owen, Henry, and I play almost every night now, and it’s a welcome escape from the exciting familial homestead and all of its attending wonders.
I’ve also delved briefly into The Blackwell Legacy, an independent adventure game That stars Rosangela, a young writer in New York who discovers that she is a medium. It’s pretty fun so far. The music ranges from vaguely moody appropriately (for the various settings) mysterious tunes to some strangely appropriate techno beats. The main actress takes a little getting used to, but after a while, she and the rest of the voice cast quietly, modestly sell their world.
By far the most interesting part of the game so far (aside from the story, which I very much like) is the puzzle format surrounding Rosangela’s notebook. There, she makes note of people and places that are important to her present investigation. Thus, while reporting on the death of a college student (or learning more about your aunt’s death), you can click on each topic and hear Rosangela’s thoughts. This is nothing new. What is new is the fact that getting her to go over something in her head will often reveal a new idea or topic and add it to the notebook. In this way, a normally standard item mechanic (using items on each other or examining items to take them apart or find hidden information) is transformed into a kind of verbal archaeology. As the player, you must explore Rosangela’s thoughts and opinions on the situation at hand to solve several puzzles (I’m sure there will be more than the few I have encountered).
It feels great to explore Rosangela’s thoughts and find the answers to problems inside your own head. It has a great Blade Runner feel to it, actually (the game, that is), calling to mind the deep codex trees and investigative photo work done in that great adventure game. There a few other games asking me for some of my time, but only LittleBigPlanet (on the PSP) is getting any of it. I never played the original game, so I’m new to the catchy music (half of it seemingly cribbed from Thievery Corporation. Ironic, right?), weird levels, and the pleasant voice of Stephen Fry. I enjoy the game, for what it is, but I wish Fry had something to say about every level. I’m in Africa now (I think?), and he’s been silent for a while. Hopefully that will change soon.
Diamond in the Rough Column: Nervousness
My latest GSW article is up right here. It’s the second part in a soon-to-be three part series of articles on sexuality in games, but specifically in the not-so-new Prince of Persia and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. This one serves as a bridge between the first and third articles (oddly enough) and focuses more generally on sex in games. For a lot of you readers, it may seem kind of unambitious and obvious, but it felt like it belonged in this series, so that’s that. Here is an excerpt from the article, as always, to entice those not already convinced of the article’s excellence by its Aladdin-based moniker. Enjoy:
Video game designers, PR companies, and gamers are deeply worried about sex.
Now hear me out: the average “mainstream” game is both obsessed with a peculiarly fragmented (but extremely popular in mainstream culture) version of hypersexuality, and deathly afraid of more realistic, meaningful sexual connection. There’s a reason our games are filled with snarling, emotionless (aside from their totally straight love for their buddies) bros and women being crushed under the weight of their hypersexualized characterization.
People are very worried about sex. The worry may vary in its shape, orientation, and direction, but it is still something that makes a lot of people very nervous. They’re very worried about thinking about sex. They’re worried that thinking about sex, or consuming certain representations of sex will show them to be any of a number of deviant, unpopular, stigmatized representations of sexuality (or worse, to be party to those sexualities themselves).
Video games culture (at its most “hardcore”) is, after all, already a shunned, de-masculinized (in the public eye) subset of white guy culture. White men who are dorks or gamers have struggled to build up some new brand of masculinity (which will never be as good, white, and manly as proper mainstream masculinity, and white guy geeks know this) around their deplored hobby, and, as always, once they solidified that identity, they needed a new Other, a new group to define as being less than and harmful to the grand, old tradition of white male gaming. In the kingdom of the white gamer, anyone obviously not white and/or male, or anyone professing to enjoy sexuality not strictly in line with white heterosexuality is both a worry and a threat.
Already I see things I wish I’d written differently or changed (for instance, “anyone professing to enjoy sexuality” should be “anyone professing to enjoy or regularly partake in,” or anyone who is suspected of enjoying and partaking in,” obviously), so forgive me if it fails in places. I am ever endeavoring to mend my ways. Until the next post.
Heads Up: Child’s Play at Sleeper Hit
So I’ve been remiss in my Editorial duties. Forgive me, Internet, and people who work at my site. If you will.
So the place where I edit, Sleeper Hit, is having a Child’s Play Charity and Collection (here’s a link to the charity). You can donate money or games (or gaming accessories! Think how important new Guitar Hero guitars are… Right?), and you can do it here, at this link. I’ll let Ron and Melinda (the people behind our small branch of collections for this charity) explain what’s going on:
If you’ve not heard of Child’s Play, visit their site first. Then to see the effects of the charity,check this article out on Kotaku.
It’s not just gamers that can make a difference, it’s everyone. These kids didn’t ask to be sick and likely many are young enough to not really have gotten to experience life to the fullest. So giving them the gift of fun times seems like the smallest thing we can do. That being said, if helping sick kids wasn’t enough of a reason, we’re also trying to reward the generosity with some cool prizes.
So please, check out the Prize page to see the cool things you can win. Then head to the Donate page to send some money to a good charity and possibly win some cool stuff.
So there you have it. Donate some stuff. Cool stuff! Secret stuff. Donate it by going here! It’s a cool charity that gives to kids in crappy hospital-based situations who need a little help to make their situations less crappy. But if you have time/money/inclination please head over there and check it out. We’ll resume our regular broadcasting soon. Until then.
Grab Bag: A Great Disturbance in the Force
A lot of things to go over. So:
There’s a new Prince of Persia game coming in May 2010 (link). It is not a sequel to PoP 2008. It is a continuation of the Sands of Time franchise. Let me just go make myself a stiff drink, and then we can discuss this. Right. I do not dislike Sands of Time. I kind of like Two Thrones. But I am not sure what they hope to accomplish by going back to this world. They are going to need to hire some great writers (and fire everyone who want s to make the combat include more combos and weapons) to bring this series back (sans the stink of WW). They might be able to pull it off. What gets me about all of this is that this announcement is tantamount to Ubisoft saying “so that PoP 2008… That was a mistake. We’ll be going back to our regular programming.”
Maybe this isn’t the case. Maybe the next game in Elika’s series will come out in a few years. Maybe they are preparing for a potentially unsuccessful 2008 sequel by releasing a (supposedly) surefire SoT continuation. But it looks like Ubisoft wasn’t as confidant in their new series as they said they were. I wish they’d stick with it (the way they did, to great success and acclaim, with Assassin’s Creed 2), and make a second game however they pleased. Screw us critics. Of course, AC 1 may have been a critical meh, but it also sold 1 million+ copies. I don’t think PoP 2008 did quite that well. So I will wait, and mumble under my breath about kid these days, and their difficulty.
After the break, what I’ve been playing and why I like it, oddly enough. Read more »
