The Toughest Questions in Gaming

To simplify matters without much flowery language, to game is to experience. What we experience varies specifically from game to game, but generally each game we play is the result of a great many efforts finding some form of cohesion, and being laid in our hands via a controller. So, now that we’ve knocked down two questions already—those being what it means to game and what we experience when we game—we’ve still got two more to confront: how do we choose which games to experience, and why do we choose to experience them at all?

Well in terms of how we choose which games to experience, the easiest conclusion to come to is that we use the information around us. There’s a little-known tool out there, and I think it’s called the internet. With our lives so centered on computers and the services available to them, we can’t escape the gushing geyser of opinionated garbage which is force-fed to us on a daily basis. And even if we could escape the monstrous advertisement campaign that is word-of-mouth, there are still like-minded, pretentious critics who take it upon themselves to tell us first how they feel about a certain game, and then assure us that their opinion is good enough to spend money on.

Let’s put the easiest conclusion aside, though, and focus on the tougher explanation to intelligibly deliberate. What we like can more specifically be determined when we know what are personal tastes are. For example, if you like co-op gameplay, zombies and guns, Left 4 Dead would be a perfect fit in your library; but if you don’t particularly prefer to work alongside anyone, usually partake on games which are driven more by narrative than gameplay, and don’t like first-person shooters, then Left 4 Dead wouldn’t be such an intelligent purchase, to say the least.

These preferences are generic, though, and undermine the importance of deeper personal values when it comes to deciding to experience anything, whether it’s a videogame or something else. How you feel about sexuality or sexism’s prevalence in any given title may cause you to steer clear of it. Ninja Gaiden, for instance, is a perfect example of what could go wrong if immature men ran rampant with female characters in videogames. However, on the other side of the spectrum are things like your stance on racism, violence, politics, the environment, advertisement and many other important areas on which the average person must take a definitive stance.

If these core values were ignored in making a decision to experience a game, a person who’s sensitive to commonly-used racial slurs might have a tough time stomaching Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. But then again, the same person might not find the violence in it as compelling as—and therefore not as entertaining as—that of a game like Manhunt. This same person, still, could also call a game like Mario Party the best game they’ve ever played. What makes all of this possible is a combination of our personal tastes, core values, and something else just as important as the two put together: personal experiences.

If I were to come home from a long day at work, get to my PlayStation 3, and put in a game like InFamous, that would directly affect how I perceived that one time playing the game. If I never played it again, that one impression, marred by other unrelated factors, would shape how I viewed the game. That isn’t to say that my long, laborious day would most certainly make me look on any game I played at that moment with bitter discontent, rather that if it isn’t a game I’m more inclined to enjoy, when I’m not in the mood to deal with small foibles in a game’s makeup, my dislike for these issues may be amplified. Oh and by the way, this amplification works the other way, too.

So that one guy who gets squeamish when he hears the N-word, loves unruly amounts of violence and thinks that Mario Party is the ultimate experience one could enjoy might believe so because of some unrelated factors. This all said, I’m not discounting the ability of a professional critic to judge a game objectively. After all, most respectable websites and publications offer their own rubric by which they grade the quality of a game, and so long as the writer follows these guidelines, the review should be founded completely on the standards of the website or publication.

With that all in mind, we can now easily understand how we discern the games which we would enjoy from the games which we would hate. The reason why we choose to experience these games is much simpler. We choose to participate in these experiences because we collectively understand that little else in this world can replicate the satisfaction of leaving our mundane lives for however short a moment to become an unstoppable warrior capable of taking down a god in as little effort as it takes to tie one’s shoes. We suspend all disbelief in these small instances, and exist as untouchable immortals that always die—but always come back.

Sure, to game is to experience. Anyone can figure that out within ten minutes of picking up a controller. But what does it mean to experience? Is that meaning a finite one, which is the same for any person? It’s hard to tell whether these questions and more like them will ever be answered, but for now we’ll have to be content with what we do know. What we know is enough to keep us forever enthralled by the gaming universe, and all that occurs within it—whether good or bad. And that is why we choose to experience gaming.

Just Don't Bother (ODST Review)

This Review Is A Second Opinion For Digital Gigolo's Review

Second opinion pieces aren’t exactly my strongest works, so please forgive me if I get a little off base. Despite the accepted precedents set by now defunct print publications which used second opinions, I’m going to go a little in depth here if you don’t mind. Okay, so let’s talk ODST.

Halo 3: ODST is not worth its price. Thanks for reading.

What? You want me to sum up the game’s pros and cons, and use reasoning to back up my claim? No. If you’re a Halo fan, you’ve already bought the game and are only reading this review to see if you agree. If you’re not a Halo fan and need some help deciding whether or not you should get the game, I’ll help you out: don’t.

You’ll find no flowery language with me; no smoothly flowing vocabulary which sometimes poetically pummels games deemed worthy of a verbal beat down. Unlike DG, I’m much more archaic a writer. So I’ll lay it out for you plain and simple.

The campaign is four hours (don’t believe the false claims of it being six-to-eight hours of “gaming goodness”), the gameplay is exactly the same, and there’s no respectable multiplayer. The visuals are the exact same as Halo 3’s and the graphics have honestly not aged very well at all. Really, it’s like playing Combat Evolved again with the lights turned down. Most of the time it’s too bright to use the visor, yet, maddeningly, too dark to see without it. I don’t know, does that sound as fucking insane to you as it does to me?

The story is about as deep and thrilling as the first Goosebumps book, and the characters are equally captivating. Your character, the Rookie, is rather undeniably the most loveable of the bunch, and that’s only because he has enough sense to keep his fucking mouth closed. If you just can’t get enough of the army squad clichés that have been repetitiously raped over the years, you’ll wet yourself before the first cutscene is over.

Next is Firefight. Firefight… well, it sucks. DG claims it’s the best part of the package, and that may be the case, but how could it mean much for any one part of a game to be the best part when the entire game itself is so average? In Firefight, you and up to three other friends fight Horde/Nazi Zombies style against enemies infinite in number. Sadly, when your friends get bored of doing that, there’s nothing else to do with it. Since there’s no matchmaking in Firefight, you’ll never be tricked into thinking something silly like “It’s like Horde but better!”

And finally, as if to be sure they could rip off everyone possible, Bungie decided to include Halo 3’s multiplayer on the second disc. This wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that this disc also includes every downloadable map ever released as well as three exclusive to ODST. For those of you who can’t put two and two together, if you’ve already bought every map pack for Halo 3 within their respective launch dates, you’ve probably paid more for those altogether than you’ll have to pay for ODST itself.

And since they made it so ODST’s campaign isn’t downloadable, you’ll have to pay for those maps again in order to play the game. And, as if that weren’t bad enough—to make sure fans are pretty much strong-armed into buying the game—you’ll also have to buy ODST to get the three maps exclusive to the disc in order to be able to play all of the online game modes. Dick move, Bungie.

Case and point; Halo 3: ODST is not worth its price. Thanks for reading.

Blending In

Gaming has undoubtedly grown to a more universally accepted medium, which is in stark contrast to its former representation in society as a children’s toy for stupid kids and immature men. Now society better understands our passion, and moving forward maybe those who are still skeptics can at least recognize that men aren’t the only kinds of immature people playing video games well into their thirties. One can only dream. But that is an issue to tackle in another article; in this one we’re going to talk about societal integration, boys and girls. The main point beyond that is the prevalence of literature and its place in games.

Narrative is one of the things which thrust video games into the direction of being called an interactive experience. The idea is that if a game has a compelling enough plot and halfway decent controls, then it is more comparable to an experience than a game, based on the fact that you aren’t really trying to win anything as much as you’re trying to complete a story. This would all be fine and good if there were actually any games with a good narrative. Now I’m sure anyone reading this could probably list off more than a handful of games that they thought had a great story, but that would just prove my point. We gamers can’t just search for games with a respectable narrative. We have to raise the bar for what’s expected of a respectable narrative as well.

In most cases, any plot-centric game could never survive in the format of a novel. Take Konami’s Metal Gear Solid, written by Hideo Kojima, for example. Though most fans of this critically acclaimed series stick with it because of its deep, convoluted story, imagine trying to read something that ridiculously complicated. Many renowned novels such as The Great Gatsby are markedly complicated and can take a bit of time to understand, but there isn’t one bit of nonsense to be found. The long and short of any good plot is that it must go beyond entertaining. Entertaining is the benchmark of any acceptable plot, sure, but should it be the standard by which we judge a good plot?

At this point, we’re nowhere near ready to have games with amazing gameplay and an awe-inspiring story, but we are at a point where integration of literature should be ousting that of cinema. It’s a sad, sorry joke now to even mention how terrible the majority of movie tie-in games are, but we’ve yet to have a failure when it comes to book tie-ins. Most recently, and more successful than other game to try this method is the hugely popular sci-fi shooter, Bioshock.

Bioshock, if you didn’t know, is by and large a big dedication to Ayn Rand, a philosophical Objectivist and novelist. To Ayn Rand, paradise would be somewhere secluded from the rest of the world, where science could thrive and religion would be squelched eternally. The fine arts and forms of expression would define this place, birthing a haven where the creative could exist in bliss for an eternity. Sound familiar?

Rapture is an underground city which was designed by Andrew Ryan (similar to Ayn Rand). One of the protagonists of the game is named Atlas (ever heard of Atlas Shrugged?), and one of the main antagonists is named Fontaine (The Fountainhead). In Bioshock, Rapture represents Rand’s dream world if it had gone horribly, horribly wrong. There is probably no more harrowing an experience than that of your first fight with a Big Daddy to get your hands on one of those precious Little Sisters and the Adam therein.

This, however, is by no means a piece meant simply to praise Bioshock for what it has done by claiming it is a flawless masterpiece. However, it is to say that at some point in the near future we should be able to look back on this game as a shallow experience, which barely meets the standard requirements of a game. One can dream.

Luckily, we’re already moving forward with titles like Dante’s Inferno, which looks to turn Dante’s depiction of Hell on its head, spin it a few thousand degrees, and then drench it in blood. In terms of blending story with gameplay to provide for an intricate adventure, look for Heavy Rain, a PS3 exclusive title set to release in early 2010. If neither of those grab you, Splinter Cell: Conviction, also slated for a 2010 release, has all the makings of an experience which cannot be replicated.

Until the time comes when we can truly claim that games are on the same level as novels and top-tier films in terms of narrative and theme, we will never have the right to lobby for the idea of games as a comparable experience. By the time we’ve reached such a point in the evolution of gaming, the definition of a gamer will doubtlessly have changed as well. Hopefully we won’t lose what makes us love the games we play now in the process of growing older with the industry. One can dream.

An Aside: Writing

Today I decided to make use of the fact that A Rant With Good Grammar is, though I hate the word, indeed a blog. I’ve decided to write a piece that has nothing to do with gaming for once—imagine that. So, with that in mind, if you’ve clicked on this page somehow in the hopes of discovering quality opinionated content on video games, check out some of the other stuff I’ve written or just click off the page. For now, it’s time I step into a realm I’ve long since forgotten.

Before I’d even dreamt of entering the world of journalism, even before I was a teenager, I used to sit around in my free time thinking about how much I’d love to be an author. I was an ignorant kid who had no idea how much any given writer makes on any given book, but I kept in mind the fact that most of the people around me would rather bang their head on a wall for hours on end than read. So, with self-romanticized ideas of how glamorous the life of a writer was, I would pick and choose days to skip school so that I could stay home while my mom was at work and write the novel that would change the world.

Five years later here I am. I already work part time as a writer and I’m still not rich or fabulous, or even close. A friend of mine makes more money a day in tips than I do in three weeks, and everyday I wonder if I’m ever going to tap into that well of ideas so that I can pitch them to some jerk who I write better than and hope to make a few bucks over ten dollars.

The whole point of me babbling about any of that stuff, though, was so I could make clear where my mind is when I wonder why anyone writes these days. The pay is shit. The work is laborious. I so rarely get a compliment on my work from anyone unless it was some bullshit top ten list I had to do. And even then, it’s not some heartfelt, rivveting explanation of why the piece was great and what sets it apart from others. You get paid your ten bucks, someone comments and says “good article” and then you move on to the next topic that needs to be written about so you can hope to afford at least one loaf of bread this year.

In protest, many writers have refused to sell their work. Who’s to say how many earth-shatteringly brilliant works are being written and saved to computers at this exact moment that won’t ever see the light of day? Emily Dickinson herself once said “publication is the auctioning of a man’s soul.” But can one really believe that? What else is there for the guy or girl whose only talent Is writing?

The answer is there’s nothing. There’s no acceptable job for a writer who’s only good at writing except for writing. Though that may be the case there simply are no jobs at all. There aren’t any now and there never will be any, whether you’re looking to be a video games journalist, music journalist, or to write about furniture for moms and elderly women. There aren’t any openings for anyone in anything.

So why write? What’s the point? I can’t say I know. I only just got back into writing this year. I was eager when I was younger, but as I aged I learned that to write is to struggle, and I quit while I was ahead. But, as you can tell by what you’re reading, I couldn’t help but get sucked right back into it again.

Nowadays, every single piece of writing produced by the up-and-coming generation truly is just a rant with good grammar, much like this. No one will ever read it, no one will ever pay for it, and practically no one will ever know it existed. Trying to start a career writing these days is like sitting at a bus stop waiting on a bus that won’t come because it already left.

And the editors and journalists and authors, whether bad or good, are all on it right now, with no plans of picking anyone else up.

Calling It Quits

All throughout the history of gaming there have been franchises and series that have well overstayed their welcome. The worst part of it was that the fans of those franchises had to suffer through one terrible sequel after another (and maybe even some dubious spin-offs). It hasn’t ended, either; we still struggle to avert our eyes as publishers and developers yank at the shriveled utters of what once were proud cash cows. Let’s look at some of the worst offenders that maintain even today.

Mirror’s Edge:

Gamers are pretty split down the middle on what to think of Mirror’s Edge. Some think it’s a success in innovation, and some think it’s a pretty-looking failure in platforming. Whatever you think, I’m sure you can agree with the notion that the game’s steam has more than dissipated since its release in 2008. Back when it was first announced, everyone thought it’d be one of the greatest games in a long time, which can be attributed to its originality. That same fervor has been dying since gamers first got their hands on it, and it’d be a stretch of the imagination to think that such a low-selling title could survive two sequels. Or would it be?

Apparently, EA doesn’t feel the same way. After a lackluster performance in retail, Mirror’s Edge’s dev team persists that it will be a trilogy, leaving many asking the question “why?” Can you take another awful pun like “Leap of Faith” without dropping your head in self-pity? Quit it, EA.

Fable:

Yes, dear reader, you are not the only one who feels Peter Molyneux needs to shut up once and for all. After announcing at Gamescom this summer that he thinks “Something is fundamentally wrong with Fable,” good old Pete went on to describe how Fable 3 will be the best thing that’s ever happened to anyone despite that key flaw. Considering that Fable was received as just a “good” game amongst most critics, and that Fable 2 was no different, (especially when competing with Fallout 3) it’s hard to imagine F able 3 revolutionizing gaming. Cut the cord, Mr. Molyneux.

Sonic the Hedgehog:

There’s really very little to say about this franchise. Making fun of Sonic has become one of the many clichés in gaming. All most people can stand to say about the game at this point is “stop.” We mean it, Sega. Just… stop.

Metal Gear Solid:

Kojima-san has promised time and again that his next game would be the final with a Metal Gear involved, and time and gain he has proven himself a dirty liar. Metal Gear Solid 4 seemed to be the for sure last game in the MGS franchise absolutely for good… and then the teaser site for Metal Gear Rising was mad public. Both eagerly and bitterly, fans flocked to the website to try and decipher the vague mask that took up the entire screen.

Now, since the game’s official announcement at E3, we still know very little about the game and what the premise is. We do know, however, that players will control the girly former paraplegic bionic ninja warrior Raiden. Speculators think the game will center on the blond spy’s newly acquired ability to perform Final Fantasy’s Thundaga attack. Whatever the guy can do, it better be completely awesome after his failed first attempt at a leading role in MGS 2. And hopefully this’ll definitely be the last Metal Gear game forever… maybe.

World War 2:

Yet again, we’ve come to a cliché in gaming. Let’s not dwell on the subject, for fear of inviting another Activision-developed trek through the most played out war ever. Bring on Modern Warfare 2!

Resident Evil:

Though fans of the series may have thoroughly enjoyed Resident Evil 5, most of us can’t speak the title of the game without adding in a question mark. Resident Evil 5 was more like Resident Evil 4, except this time your character looks like he would bench press each zombie into submission rather than use the tiny pistol you start off with. That’s not a huge issue, though, right? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it… whatever.

Now with the announcement of Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles for the wii, you can’t help but question where the series will go from here. Japan? Australia? Or maybe even to… the moon? Perhaps on its campaign to offend everyone who can get their hands on the game, the developers forgot that we need a fresh premise for a fresh game, not some abridged version of previously successful games. And we need to move while shooting. Resident Evil is the only game of the current generation that doesn’t let you move while shooting for a reason, Capcom.

Concluding Thoughts:

So, now that I’ve probably sparked a firestorm of flames from every fan of every game ever, is it too late to say that I’m a fan of all of these games? Except Sonic, of course… that’d just be silly. The point of this whole thing is that a lot of the biggest games of today are a part of a chain of games that we’ve grown used to already. It’s probably a tired plea, but it’s a valid one indeed. We need new games, and we don’t need those games to come with preordained sequels following closely behind. Readers who agree with this idea can hold their heads high for now in waiting for Brutal Legend this fall.

Rant Time: Old Gamers

Not too long ago, a fellow games journalist and very talented writer gave up on the trade, and his quitting got me to thinking. When is it time to retire? It's kind of a stupid question, but when it comes to journalism, the answer can be complicated. When it comes to games journalism, there isn't any answer at all.

The games journalism field hasn't been around long enough for us to look at any examples. The oldest writers today are in their low forties, and won't be noticeably old until around the time young people like me will be ready to take their place. Obviously, something will happen that will set the standard for games journalism. George Washington set the two-term precedent for all presidents to follow, even before the amendment that legalized it. In the same way, a great games journalist may inadvertently set the precedent for how old a games journalist should be before retiring.

Until then, we can only hope that one might be able to write for a very long time before having to lay down the pen. For those of us hoping as much, it doesn't seem like a person like Adam Sessler will quit for a long time, or at least for another decade. Not too long ago he celebrated his ten-year anniversary at G4, and he's only in his mid thirties. When we start seeing games journalists who've been writing for thirty plus years, we'll know this field of journalism has aged as well as gaming itself has aged so far. And hopefully by that time, we'll have lost the idea of video games being just for kids.

Jump! Jump for Your Life!

Sometimes, you just have to wonder what it could’ve been like for developers working on platformers immediately after the incomprehensibly successful Super Mario 64. It was 1996, and though everyone expected the new Mario game to be exceptional, no one could’ve foresaw how much it would reshape the foundations of all platformers, even to this day. We now take for granted the free-roaming, combat-savvy, acrobatic characters that dance from platform to platform with graceful whimsy, but if it wasn’t for a game like Super Mario 64, none of this would even exist (or at least not as we know it).

It’s here that many people may part ways with me in opinion, because it does sound quite ludicrous to think that a pudgy plumber’s first baby step into three dimensions is in direct relation to Alex Mercer’s quest for self-enlightenment in Prototype. But my claim isn’t so bold as to say that Prototype would be impossible without the platformers of past, just improbable. I’ll prove it to you.

A lot of people are just getting past the grudge match that was the release of Prototype and Infamous at around the same time this summer. The debate over which was better wasn’t fueled by differing gameplay styles or premises, but rather which home console was better—those choices being the PS3 or Xbox 360. I can remember a similar debate, that was based on gameplay and premise rather than the idea of console wars, over two free-roam platformers of similar qualities to each other. Can you?

Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank. Ratchet and Clank and Jack and Daxter. The two will always remain coupled as both rivals and allies. Though a lot of people have, in their minds, had the two series battling it out from day one, in the real world they did nothing but aid each other’s survival. You really just have to understand that since the two were so great, and were always spoken of together, most people got a copy of each in order to decide for themselves, which effectively led to the longevity that we see these two franchises still benefitting from today.

The parallels between the war of two games that feature unstoppable anti-heroes and the war of two games that feature furry dynamic duos might seem like a stretch, but let me plead my case. Peal back all of the blood and gore of Prototype, and do away with all of the shallow good and bad karma of Infamous, and you’ll find that each is just a finely tuned, good old-fashioned platformer at the core. The correlation between any of the games—Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank, or Prototype and Infamous—and Super Mario 64 is that they capitalize on the most thrilling aspects of the best platformers: interesting characters, fun and intricate environments, unique forms of combat, and smooth methods of traversing the landscape.

There’s probably no game more emblematic of the platformer formula than the recently released Prince of Persia for the current gen consoles. Though this entry into the ever-growing collection of Prince of Persia games attempts to shake loose its predecessors by having new art and characters, while retaining the same moniker it was birthed with, no one will ever play it without thinking of what led up to it. The Sands of Time series is a staple of the platformer genre, the first of which being one of the most honored and renowned games of the previous generation.

The results of the Sands of Time series are not limited to the new flavor of Prince of Persia, either. Remember that other Ubisoft hit, Assassin’s Creed? If there were any game more strongly representing The Sands of Time on next generation software, I’d be shocked and intrigued. Assassin’s Creed takes every possible motion from Sands of Time, amps up the atmosphere and freedom, and then makes the controls ten times smoother. Though you can’t run along walls like our favorite old Prince, you can still run up walls, swing from flagpoles, and scale precarious legdes of buildings and edges of cliffs, lacking all fear of falling, and having enough grace to never need to fear it.

The next game to be looked at blends a groundbreaking new vantage point with unmistakably unique style and old-school difficulty. Mirror’s Edge was a game which blew everyone away at first site. I personally had times when, while watching a trailer for the game, a family member or some other non-gamer visitor stood over my shoulder to watch with me, and had many of the same questions I had myself. Unfortunately, the game’s ambitious style was undercut by its unforgiving difficulty, poor checkpoints, and unwieldy combat mechanics.

So what the hell inspired Mirror’s Edge, anyway? Your guess is as good as any. All that can be said for sure of the game is that its nonpareil individuality is symbolic of the nature of all platformers, which is to be as inventive as possible. Most fans of the genre, when they see such a new approach as Mirror’s Edge, harken back to the days of Rayman 64, Crash Bandicoot, Banjo Kazooie, and Spyro. At one time, it was almost commonplace that games would, while having a somewhat childish premise, but vivid and interesting. Now that platformers have taken a role in the back, it’s noticeable how much less original content gamers are exposed to.

But if we can’t praise Mirror’s Edge’s gameplay for many things, one of the few can be its throw-back to the original era of platformers, which were all incredibly difficult. Let’s face it, my fellow aerialists, everything has changed. Though Super Mario 64 did start a revolution in gaming that still echoes to this day, the games that led to it were definitely much more of a challenge. But those of us looking to grit our teeth in frustration don’t have much to worry about.

Today we have games like Splosion Man, Little Big Planet, Braid, and Prince of Persia Classic (for the Xbox Live Arcade) to frustrate us into breaking our expensive controllers. It just goes to show that platformers, though taking a back seat to more popular genres like the shooters in modern gaming culture, are still growing and expanding, while never letting go of their roots. Who knows where we’ll be jumping to next, but for now we’ll have to wet our appetites and wait for upcoming releases like Super Mario Galaxy 2, Assassin’s Creed 2, and whatever else may come our way. Jump on, jumpers.