The Game Critique

Taking Games Seriously, Making Game Seriously: This month’s Round Table challenges you to design a game that deals with a social issue that personally troubles you. The recent months have seen controversy sweep through the video game industry. Whether people are objecting to the use of imagery widely considered to evoke racial stereotypes, or to the gameplay based on violent sexual crimes, or to the fact that anyone would complain about either topic-the discussion has been fierce. This month, contributors to the Round Table are invited to design a game that focuses on racism, rape, domestic violence, cruelty to animals, genocide, or any other serious, and potentially hot-button, topic.

IMPORTANT: Because I expect many of these posts will be difficult and/or disturbing for portions of the audience to read, I ask that you consider using a high level of language to describe the contents of your design. I also ask that you both rate your posts and include rating descriptors as laid out by the ESRB (http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp).

As per request I rate this post M for Mature. The text may be T for Teen, but I never joke around with torture.

I will admit I’ve had difficulty with this topic. Not just because it is difficult to come up with a game concept, but the subject matter. This topic came along at a point when I was reading fiction that dealt with subject matter that I found disturbing and totally within the realm of the human condition. Betrayal, greed, objectivism, sin, violation, and the manner of corruption of truth and justice, I’ve been immersed in these themes for the past few months and the real trouble is these things make me physically ill to contemplate. Lately I’ve been trying to find something happy.

Instead of exploring any of these on an emotional level I’ve instead decided to look at one of these at an educational level. Given its prominence in the news lately, I’ve decided to look at the subject of torture. Tekno looked at it from the victim’s point of view here, I’m going to look at it from the point of view of the interrogator.

The game quickly sets up the situation, a situation that never occurs in real life, the ticking time bomb scenario. You are told there is a man in the next room that has information on a terrorist attack and you are charged with getting it by any means necessary. You are given little information and few details to work off of. In fact the only concrete detail you are given is that there will be an attack.

Then you are left to your own devices and are shown a screen with all manners of items you could normally find is a kitchen or garage. Knives, tongs, wire, car batteries, saran wrap, paper clips, pencils, etc. These are your tools. You can combine them and use them anyway you see fit. You can come back to this screen at anytime to restock or switch items. Once inside the room you can set the conditions for the session, the lighting, the temperature, the position of the subject. A faucet and bucket are in one corner and a drain in the middle of the room.

You get to work and at anytime can begin asking questions to the subject. Your questions at first are very vague since you don’t have any clues to pick apart. You pump him for as much information as you can get all the while doing what you will or you have the choice of doing nothing at all. You can stick with physical abuses, but psychological and verbal abuse options periodically make themselves available.

During this you will see a timer in the corner. You are given a liberal amount of time to complete your task, 48 hours. The timer, however, will keep running even if you are not in the game, even if it is turned off.

Throughout the game your superior officer will enter at several points to see what progress you are making. Each time you will have to inform him of what has been done and each time it isn’t enough to satisfy and each incident your superior will get increasingly agitated and angry with you as the clock runs down. In the end you will try more aggressive tactics and over time will get more specific responses. Though if closely examined each response is merely an extension or experimentation of the last one. The subject will also begin to look worse and reflect the torture that has been inflicted upon him so far. The damage during will be graphic. The subject is tied down for the entire procedure. This is the only aspect of the room you cannot change.

The game will end in one of two ways. One the clock runs down because you weren’t aggressive enough and you get a game over screen. No explanation or details will be given. You will just be asked if you want to play again. The other way is that subject breaks and will admit that there is an attack and to anything else you ask him. Should you ask for details he will confirm everything. You report what you’ve learned to your superior. Then you are treated to an epilogue screen that explains that there was no attack with the inserted details learned during the sessions.

The end is left ambiguous with the more obvious reading being that the subject lied in the end. Not just about the details, but about everything. The other reading for those who see it is that the torture leads to the prevention of the attack. Either way the game will ask you to play again in the menu screen.

[bort]

Disclaimer: QWERTY’s opinions are not mine nor the site’s. The psudonym QWERTY is used to protect the innocent.

 

Let us all have a moment of silence for the stolen.

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Thank you.I have been thinking. Last generation we had the na na na na na na na of Katamari Damaci to drive us all batty as it continued round and round in our heads. As I think it over I now think that we have an equally catchy tune in Little Big Planet’s do do doolde do do do do do. Of course maybe it’s a lot less prevalent than Katamri given that it doesn’t have as crazy an aesthetic to go with it.

Of course we like our dystopias. They are a land of waste and turn brown things gray. Of course we end up breaking everything there anyway so maybe we shouldn’t visit anywhere nice. Who’d want to vacation on Helghast?

 

Of course the best of aesthetics are underwater while I am in rapture of Rapture. Especially how everything looks when one walks through falling water. It all flows together like the Nariko’s hair before leaving into the vanishing point like white on white. How people can tell where the edge of one wall is from the next in a mirror is beyond me.

 

 

(See title for comment. – Eric Swain)

*Spoilers*

During the game’s tenure as the Vintage Game Club’s focus and playthrough, a lot of the discussion focused on the story and the player’s confusion that came about from it. Indeed it is confusing if you aren’t playing close attention and search out many of the details from conversations. Even then you have to make a number of inferences to get the whole picture.

First of all many people were confused about the supposed mystery in the game. There are two types of mysteries. First there is the puzzle element mystery, generally called the whodunit, and secondly there is the caper, this is generally about how is the hero going to pull this off. Beyond Good and Evil falls into the later category. We know who the bad guys are, if we couldn’t figure it out from the world setup or the propaganda, we are blatantly told by the members of the Iris network. We know the who, we even know the what, when and how. The action of the game revolves around the question “how are we going to prove it?” Everything Jade does is in an effort to answer that question.This leads to the next question that plagued many of the players of the VGC. What does it matter if we can prove the conspiracy? This is where Beyond Good and Evil’s storytelling and polish needed work. If you hunt around you can garner the details that let you infer why, but it is never explicitly explained. To understand why, you have to understand the different groups involved.

Let’s start with the Alpha Sections. This is the military that is stopping the Domz, the unquestionable bad guys of the game. The Alpha Sections work for the Domz or are a supporting arm, we don’t know the specifics, but they pass themselves off as the benevolent protectors of all the planets attacked by the Domz and are touted as especially efficient at combating them. They are an intergalactic group.

Next there is the Iris Network, a group of journalists working to expose the Alpha Sections for what they truly are. Most of the game’s conflict comes from these two groups exchanging propaganda. They are underground, but more well known than a secret terrorist organization or resistance group would seem to be. They are also an intergalactic group.

Then there is the Governor and her people. I can only assume given the themes and manner in which she runs the planet, that she is the democratically elected leader of Hillis. She has her own beliefs, but can only act in the people’s will with sufficient evidence. This is where things get confusing for some people. There is also the Hillian Military. They are the sworn defenders of Hillis specifically. They are members of Hillis defending their homes and are in no way associated with the Alpha Section,save one and this is where the confusion comes in. They both wear fully armored suits of very similar style and color. The people in the dungeons are the Alpha Sections; the people in town are the Hillian Military. You just have to talk to them a few times each to see the difference.

Finally there are the people of Hillis, the meandering populace. Understanding the difference between these groups is key. They are not all on the same side. They are not allied to each other. They all move with their own goals, most of which happen to be the same, but there are nuances and it is in these cracks that the conflict springs up.

Much confusion came up about the conspiracies and the necessity of many actions of the groups. I think there was a fundamental misunderstanding by many of the players of what the different groups were trying to accomplish. On the surface their actions are easily understood, but holes appear in their logic if the Iris was just trying to expose the Alpha Sections and were in danger why such a flimsy security system and if they did this elsewhere then why not bring those examples to light and if the Alpha Sections were imposing martial law why couldn’t they find the Iris network?

The truth I think is that none of the groups have the power many of the players thought they had. Every action every group took was in relation to the general populace of Hillis. They have the true power. The Alpha Sections could only continue their secret abductions for the Domz if they the people supported them and believed they were helping in keeping the Domz at bay. You can see early on one of the children tell Jade that he wants to join the Alpha Sections when he grows up because he thinks they are heroes. The people generally believe the propaganda on the radio and the TV. The Iris Network does want to expose the Domz, but more importantly they want to break their Alpha Sections hold on the people. They state in their early briefings that if they can prove a conspiracy then the people will rise up against them.

The Alpha Sections have to keep up appearances. Everything they do is out of sight from the everyday populace. Their headquarters in town is closed off. The two chase sequences that I call some of the best in video games end when you make it back to the city proper. They can’t follow you, because they have to keep up appearances and not give anyone any reason to kick them out.

Meanwhile the soldiers you see in the city are not the Alpha Sections, they are the Hillian Military, who Double H is a member of. Talking to them over the course of the game you realize they serve not the government, but adhere to the philosophy that they serve and protect the people. One even says to Jade not to confuse them with the Alpha Sections; they have nothing to do with the war against the Domz.

The Governor, meanwhile, believes what the Iris Network is telling her, especially since she is being stonewalled by the Alpha Sections. However, she cannot simply tell them to leave, though if she did and exercised her power she could get rid of them. The problem is that the people believe in them and it wouldn’t do anybody any good to get rid of the people’s heroes, especially with the Domz attacking every few days. She has to do this intelligently and cautiously, only taking minor steps when she has enough proof so she can back up her actions should she need to. The whole story fits together quite nicely until the third act and it would have worked had they not changed the final strategy of the Domz to: this has been about Jade the whole time. This is where the major plot hole comes in and I have no way to explain it. Destroying the lighthouse and kidnapping the children can be seen as retribution and revenge for messing with much of their operations, but using it as an excuse just to get Jade to come to the moon is just too much. Why would they wait so long if they knew it was her? And why wouldn’t they kidnap her along with the others?

Another plot hole is when the people do rise up and the cavalry comes to the rescue we end up with a situation where the Domz leader is expressing victory by capturing the fleet on the inside of the shield. To me this in no way constitutes victory, especially when all your ships have been destroyed and your space squid ship thing has already been dealt with. All the military would have to do is blow up the station and the shields would come down. So I’m not entirely sure what that piece of dialogue was about, unless Jade has some ultimate power that in the Domz hands would turn the entire situation around.

This is nothing major, just me trying to clear up a few misconceptions about the narrative that came up. Not all of it could be cleared up, but the ending left a lot to be desired in more than one way. The game was rushed at the end of development that makes me think the ending suffered because of it.

Yesterday over at Kotaku they had an article discussing the idea of a Video Game hall of fame. Where would this museum be? Ottumwa Iowa. Now before you go, ‘what the hell is Ottumwa?’ it does have some semblance of legitimacy for the honor. That city is known as the Video Game Capital of the World. The title of course is self induced, but the reason for it is back in the 1980s Ottumwa held an enormous gathering of the best arcade gamers in the world, including Billy Mitchel. They got on the cover of Time magazine and everything. It also was the former home of the Twin Galaxies arcade, now closed because of the Video Game Crash of ’83, but still in business as the organization responsible for issuing and keeping track of all video game world records, arcade and otherwise.You can read the article here: http://kotaku.com/5196471/a-claim-to-fame-in-the-dodge-city-of-video-games

The reason I bring this up is because it symbolizes a greater effort to combat the problems video games face as a growing medium. The idea of a Video Game Hall of Fame offers some idea of legitimacy to our culture as a whole. This along with viable criticism towards their cultural significance, the numbers now being posted by companies, and a new set of developers that have grown up with them are all factors towards the medium growing to its full potential.

Much of the major title releases right now are settling into stagnant formulas and it is getting difficult to tell the difference between them. There seems to be little variety not just in genre, but in the notes that developers are willing to hit. Deeper meaning in video games, both story-wise and with mechanics, are in their infancy and complexity seems within eyesight, but just out of reach.

A hall of fame isn’t the solution, but it is significant towards a larger movement to legitimize video games in the larger culture. Of course all of this is in the minority. The best we can do is push ahead and some day change the backward thinking that has seeped into our stagnant niche culture.

I try to be civil. I try to be nice and understanding to everyone. In other words it takes a lot to piss me off. Thank you to the asshole that broke into my room and stole my PlayStation 3. Thank you for making me have to take time out of my already packed and less than bright day to file a report and remove all credit information from my account. Thank you for changing my view of the world and making me feel no longer safe in my own room. Thank you for actually going out of your way to figure out which closed door was unlocked and which one contained an empty room so you could steal their stuff. Believe me this is one of those times I really wished I got back early so I could pound your face in. And most of all thank you for teaching me what has to happen, what a person has to do to make me hate them. Asshole, my friend, you have accomplished a rare feat in the world. You have managed to make me hate another human being. A feat that many of my friends sometimes don’t think is possible. I was going to put a real post up today. I was planning on getting one out every day this week. I had more than enough material. But somehow it doesn’t seem worth it anymore. I’ve had a busy day that wasn’t over yet and thanks to you got completely derailed. 5 hours later I find myself in an increasing state of pissed off and writing this instead of everything else I could be doing and should be doing. This was a bad day for me already, so thank you asshole for making it even worse. So I will put this in a way you can understand me. You want the police to find you, because you don’t want me to find you. I have enough stress without having to wonder if I’ll get what’s mine back and having to wonder if I have deal with this shit ever again. I don’t like having to lock my door just to go to the bathroom for 5 minutes. I’m not even sure I can get another one. They don’t make the 60 gig model anymore and even if they did, I don’t have the money. The hard work I poured into doesn’t matter anymore, my saves, my money, my time and now my critical effort. My only consolation is that a lot of my profile’s stuff is online and not on the machine.

To any readers I might have picked up I will finish up whatever work and game essays I still have. I might post a piece on what little PC gaming I own or DS gaming, but the fact of the matter is, most of the work I had coming up was on the PlayStation. Time will tell if I’ll even bother anymore.

Oh and one last thing.

Thanks asshole and FUCK YOU!

The Killer 7 Argument -noun- the reason and reasoning that despite a video game’s flaws, inconsistencies or other failings the overall package is so utterly unique that it simply must be played for the sheer experience. First coined by Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw.

This is the beginning of a new series whose purpose is to highlight the positive aspects of a game that would fall under the Killer 7 Argument and to explain why it fits the definition. This is mostly for games that have been overlooked, but any game fitting the definition is up for evaluation.

For the first iteration I’m going to do Beyond Good and Evil as if you couldn’t have guessed. It was recently the subject of a simultaneous play through by the Vintage Game Club over at Brainy Gamer.

Beyond Good and Evil definitely falls under the Killer 7 argument. It has been called a Zelda clone and in fact has even been called a Zelda for grownups. I’m not sure either of those monikers due it justice. It has many of the elements of a Zelda game: environmental puzzles, dungeons, upgradeable equipments, but there is so much more going on here.

First of all it changes the set-up slightly so we are no longer stuck with a silent protagonist and that protagonist is no longer male. However, the game defies our expectations once again by having Jade not be your standard female protagonist. In other words, she looks like a real human being rather than being some sexed up object to be ogled at and in doing so, ironically, is a far more attractive avatar.

Upon replaying it for the Vintage Game Club many subtle design choices came up in the discussions and revealed that create a simplified experience with the controls. Most of this was noticed early on, because the game doesn’t change its control scheme ever. It has a simple set of unified controls that transition from one mode to another. From this point of view, the R2 button is not the run button, but the move faster button. The hovercraft and the spaceship both use the same buttons to maneuver as Jade does on foot. On the PS2, the X button will always be action, the O button will always be item and the Square button will always be attack. I never noticed until it was pointed out why Beyond Good and Evil was such an easy game to control.

The story is original and the characters refreshing in an industry filled with derivative plots and characters that seem to fill the same shoes that they could be interchangeable. The relationships between the characters feel believable and you under up caring what happens to them and Hillis, the planet they live on, beyond just an avatar to get you to the next dungeon. The camera mechanic as well is a refreshing gameplay element that is not a gimmick, but central to the progressing through the game. It is introduced early on and in a believable manner that it does not feel like a tutorial at all.

In fact the entire beginning section is really a disguised tutorial section and maybe one of the better introduction to a game’s mechanics that I’ve ever seen. All the controls are discernible from the HUD and new controls are delivered through in-game dialogue in a natural and motivational way. By the way, the voice acting is really good. This is something that usually gets looked over in most video games, but each actor here brings their character to life, especially Jade, Pay’j and Peepers.

The art direction is a nice set of blues and greens is beautiful even without modern top of the range graphics. The cartoon style allows the player to get closer to the character than had it been hyper realistic. In either case it’s a nice change from gray and brown.

As much as I like the game as a whole there are many problem areas, most of which I’m sure came about from the fact that Michel Ancel, was rushed through the game’s development near the end and was forced to make cuts and not properly test the whole game.

The plot while a refreshing change does begin to become more obscure and is difficult to follow without paying very close attention to optional dialogue and some extrapolation. Beyond just that there are some major plot holes. Character’s supposedly in suspended animation are able to call after a few weeks while in captivity, injuries that would put someone out weeks are up and about when you leave the bar, and why the bad guys are going through all this trouble in the first place. The ending is an exercise in Indigo Prophecy Syndrome and while the credits leave an impression of what happens afterwords the little clip after that were clearly intended for a sequel that the game really didn’t need.

I have said before that BG&E is in my top 3 of best chase sequences of all time in video games and after replaying it I stick by that assessment. There is no blur effect that makes it feel even faster like in Burnout and the camera doesn’t shake like in the Bourne series. Instead the slow pace provides a greater sense of danger and therefore a greater sense of urgency. I don’t want to spoil it, but when those sequences come up you’ll understand what I mean.

The side dungeons are really short and aren’t necessary to completing the game for resources like they might be in other games. They are short and in most case extremely easy to the point of being jokes. The gameplay is varied enough that to be interesting to the very end, but the game is short, real short. It’s only about 10-12 hours if you spend time doing all the side dungeons and extras. But that isn’t a bad thing. The game is long enough to do what it needs to do and doesn’t overstay its welcome. Plus if you are rushing through the game you are missing a lot of what makes BG&E so great, the fine detailing. The day shifts from morning, noon, evening and night with regularity and the world’s inhabitants respond accordingly. Looking up at the night sky you find your camera identifying constellations. They have nothing to do with game other than being there. Plus the wildlife that abounds in the game is not just monsters there to kill you, but give the impressions of a breathing and thriving ecology.

Does the game have issues? Yes. Is it for everyone? I can’t think of a game that is. But with all that it falls short in, it does so much else right and different than you can’t help appreciate it. I do wish it had more time to tighten up what was there and add what could have been, but as an entire package it is worth a play through.

I do have a warning for you. The game can be purchased on Steam, but I would hesitate against getting that version. Many complaints pooped up about difficult controls that did not exist with the people who played the console versions. It wasn’t poor coding, but that the analogue sticks were very necessary and the keyboard wasn’t a good substitute for several sections. If you have no other choice I still recommend playing this game.

Disclaimer: QWERTY’s opinions are not mine nor the site’s. The psudonym QWERTY is used to protect the innocent.

(I thought today would be a better date to publish this instead of Friday - The Swain)

Everyone is always comparing video games to movies and for some reason people are complaining about his. Someone says Citizen Kane this or The Godfather that and everyone gets all in a huff. Stop that. Looking to other mediums is the only way we’ll get any good games out of these people anytime soon. We need to learn so we can speed up the process.

However, I’d like to use my soapbox to correct one minor flaw in everyone’s logic. This was the logic of the time that film first came onto the scene. The first films were just plays put on movie reel. And given video games as we know then are only 30 years old, films at that time were plays.

So really we’re looking in the wrong place. Video games are really plays. People forced to move along predetermined paths with only minor variations from event to event. Regardless of those minor movement, tonal, and timing changes Claudius is poisoned, Nora walks out, and the Wingfields fall apart. Kind of like how no matter what Kratos will kill a god, Master Chief will blow up a HALO, and Bowser will always lose. It’s all inevitable. So lets take our lessons from the right source, the theater.

It’s not like our medium is bringing together material from two very different sources and forcing them to work together like comic books. Now that’s just stupid.