The Game Critique

So, I’m leaving this to last possible moment this year…again. But I have a better excuse than last time of not being able to decide. This time it’s because my time has been filled with other projects, the most notable, or at least the one that has been revealed was the rebirth of the Critical Distance podcast.

Suffice to say I also haven’t played all that many games from this year. I missed out on most if not all of the major releases and most of the secondary releases. This is all depending on your deification of AAA release and AA or A release. I also had a bit of trouble deciding on which game I thought was the best. There was no supreme standout like ’08 or at least a powerful shortlist like in ’09. As I said on the CDC podcast, this year seemed to be a bunch of lackluster releases. All had great promise and all seemed to trip over themselves in some way or another. Even those that some have said didn’t, I haven’t got around to playing yet. I’m still waiting for a laptop with a dedicated graphics card so I can play the Mass Effects and Metro 2033. Bayonetta, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and Red Dead are all sitting in my play next pile having got them over the Christmas break.

It’s not surprising since I was broke for a good amount of the year and spent 3 full months getting reading for and taking a language class to graduate. Now it just sounds like I’m making excuses, let’s get on with it. There won’t be a long set up and handing out of awards, but before I announce my game of the year I’d like to get talk about my honorable mention.

Honorable Mention

Minecraft was the breakout hit of the year, literally coming out of nowhere to being a million dollar seller. The fact that or most of the year it was is alpha is absolutely incredible. The creative force behind the game comes from the player almost if not more so than the creator. Both the creative and the survival aspects of the game create a special sort of game that creates a unique and personal experience for every individual. There are many things about the game that subvert many of the notions of modern AAA gaming. There is no instruction manual requiring you either to figure it out before night falls or search the internet for only the most basic of facts about what can and needs to be done. There is no real goal once you create a basic shelter; you make your own fun. It’s the digital equivalent of going to the park. There are monkey bars, there are slides, there are swings, but the fun you get out of it is only what you put into it.

Before the October 31st update, I created two worlds and spent most of my time in large dungeons/cave complexes I found. In the second world I found a mountain and started to dig a D&D style dungeon before digging straight down and hit a large cave complex. I spent days exploring and ended up getting lost in circles and then three dimensional figure eights. I went further into the system where figure eights blended with more figure eights. Eventually I hit bedrock in several locations. I nicknamed it Barad dur. I didn’t even get to finish exploring it. I failed at building a bridge across a lake of lava.

I built another world after the October 31st update to see the new biomes and other features Notch had coded into the game. Unfortunately for all the universal praise I could give the game’s design, creation and otherwise soul it came with a memory leak. A basic, 16 bit game after a few minutes eventually monopolizes over half of my computer’s processor and third of my ram, over a full gig. I can play only with every other nonessential program turned off and few of the essential programs and only for a limited amount of time before the frame rate makes it unplayable. I wish I could still play the game and maybe it will be fixed by some update in the future. I hope so, because I’d like to continue extending my Barad dur and build my great wall. Because of this major technical hiccup I can’t really rate the game. Without this issue, it would have been my runner up, or maybe even my game of the year.

Runner-Up

Heavy Rain was and is a game plagued with problems and issues. The walking is stilted, the story is full of holes, actions scenes come and go that make little or no sense, characters are stupid and the dialogue wasn’t written or translated by a native English speaker. I think the game is great despite it’s flaws. For all that it does bad, it creates a world and sinks you into it. All modern AAA talk about immersion, Heavy Rain succeeds by having a story and set pieces that are quiet. Explosions and gunfights are not the word here, in fact when these things happen it breaks the immersion somewhat. The best scenes are those that allow quiet contemplation about what you are making these characters do.

The third trial is the most talked about scene in the game, so I’m sure no one minds if I go on about it as well. I cannot tell you the tension this scene filled me with. I can’t think of any movie or book made me feel so terrified or shaking by watching a man sitting in a chair. That’s really all you are looking at while you manage his breathing. Just so the screen will stop it’s slight shaking. If you succeed you are give a clean opportunity to cut off your own finger. The fact that the game sets this up, so you would okay with it, but became complicit. Yes, Metal Gear Solid 3 broke this ground, but that’s all it did. It broke the ground and it took a lot of people off their guard. The impact of the scene was inherited not really because of the story or action, but its impact is from the realization the game is making you pull the trigger. It crosses that line from QTE to moment, by virtue it was a basic mechanic of the game you spent hours mastering. In Heavy Rain, it is the same mechanic used for a large variety of actions. With this setup context is everything. The abstract and representational nature of the mechanics amplified the context and the actions we were taking.

The game also had something almost no other game had, which I was grateful for: quiet and slow moments. Many have unrightfully called the beginning boring. It was slow, that is not the same as boring. Modern gaming has set us up with certain expectations and when a game defies even one of them, every claims it is bad this or that without even looking at what the game was doing. Heavy Rain was giving us contrast. Action heavy scenes only have meaning if they can be contrasted with slower scenes of quiet intensity. For all the details that were Heavy Rain’s failing, its structure, something I’ve been harping on nearly all year, is excellent. It’s pacing is right on point to tell the story it was trying to tell and matched mechanics to suit it. Everything flowed together and builds a solid super structure on which they could hang the dressings. Pity they chose moth eaten rags, nearly pretty and shiny rags, but rags nonetheless.

It’s the complicity that I loved in Heavy Rain more than anything else. It create a situation where failure wasn’t the end all be all. Every ending was legitimate, from the saccharine sweet to the soul crushingly depraved and everything in between. It really was a what-if mystery. Maybe not so much with whodunit, if you were paying attention (I wasn’t paying close attention), but rather in what will happen next. It is a roller coaster, but not the Michael Bay type and thank goodness for that.

Game of the Year

Neptune’s Pride is an online real time strategy game that takes about a month to complete. It is slow moving RTS, with ships taking hours if not days to travel between stars. It’s rather bare bones with only you only able to upgrade the three attributes of a star: economy, industry and science. The first gives you more money in the daily pay out; the second gives you more ships per day and science, which makes research towards tech, go faster. Combat automatically happens and can be calculated ahead of time. There are no random chances to any part of this game. I’d call it the chess of RTS, but you aren’t given full or perfect information. You can only see the space with scanning range of your stars. You can contact the other players and can trade with them. This is where the game takes itself to the next level.

This is a game where you can lose friends or come to hate strangers. The game becomes more an exercise in trust and betrayal than it is strategy. You can get through the early game with strategy alone, maybe, but if you haven’t set something up, something in the wings you will be destroyed. I lost a game today, because I didn’t foster any sort of relationships with my neighbors and went first in everything to 5th place behind two opponents who had been put under AI for inactivity. No video game makes you so nervous to be away from your computer. No game so simple or basic pulls you win and gets you so invested in your empire’s survival.

The ludodecahedron set up a few games in the summer to duke it out. No game caused so much battling on twitter or googlewave as the virtual fighting we did in Neptune’s Pride. Only a rule system as deep as Neptune’s Pride with the added benefit of human cunning mix to create a truly personal and memorable experience. I mastered the strategy, but my undoing is when it comes to betrayal. When it’s time to invade my neighbor, I set up too late. On the other hand I have come in first in two games, with tactics I could regale you with like the master generals.

Neptune’s Pride, a game with real people pit against real people, with no flash or complexity is my game of the year.

So what is my game of the year? Well unlike the last two years when I asked myself that question, there was a clear winner. In 2007 it was Portal and in ’08 it was Metal Gear Solid 4. There were plenty of other good games out those years, but those two to me were just obvious. This year has no such easy stand out, hence the lateness of this post. Just to be clear, I have not played everything that came out, not even all the better than decent AAA titles, so this really is a personal pick. But even so, among the games I played I haven’t decided which is the best at the time of writing this post. I’m hoping that getting my thoughts down and explaining why I thought each game was so great that I’ll be able to choose. I was able to narrow it down to 5 finalists, and I am a shameless showman if nothing else, so in true award show style here are the nominees:

Brutal Legend

I wanted this game ever since I first heard about it, when I was looking up what Tim Shafer’s next game was going to be. When I heard the concept all I could think to say was: ROCK ON! There has been a lot of criticism directed at the game, though to be fair it would be better directed at the marketing. Despite that and a few control issues the game is awesome. Of course I am a metal head so that may explain some part of my excitement and love for this game. I love driving around looking at the scenery and listening to the music. You can feel the creativity just ooze from the title. Everything about the game is epic and the Tim Shafer humor doesn’t hurt it either. No game since the original God of War has me leaping up in victory like a Viking warrior. Any game with that can do that purely by its pathos is a winner in my book.

Dragon Age: Origins

I’ve been called biased towards this title, because of my ungodly love for Baldur’s Gate, but honestly I wasn’t expecting the second coming with this title. I think I kept my expectations well within reason for Dragon Age. I knew it was going to be another generic fantasy setting and the plot was going to involve saving the world from some evil demonic creatures. But in a way that’s good, because it means they could really nail the details without having to explain the elves, dwarves and the rest from scratch. I haven’t finished the game. It’s long and I haven’t had the time needed for it, but from what I have played of it Dragon Age has some of the greatest storytelling of any game I’ve played. It sucks you into a world and I think may be the first game where I decided roleplaying was a higher priority than making sure I chose an optimal dialogue option or armor. In fact I got rid of armor that hindered my enjoyment of playing my character.

Flower

Sublime is a word that gets thrown around a lot when talking about Flower. But more than anything else, something I had forgotten until I booted it up the other day, it’s a peaceful game. The lovely serenity that permeates the entire experience also sinks into you while playing. It’s an effort of simplicity with controls that even my dad could figure out on the modern Dualshock. The metanarrative of naturalism and dreams somehow meld into the nature of the game and are a reminder of our own dreams and desires.  It also represents the concept that maybe we all need to slow down a little. It’s one of the few games that just make me feel peaceful. The game may be short and can be beaten in three hours or so, but if you did, you’ve missed the point.

Small Worlds

Never heard of it, check it out. It’s a game that will take you at most 20 minutes to play, but after I finished it I immediately refreshed and played again. I hesitated putting it among my best games of the year, because it was a quick flash game for a competition and debated whether or not its seemingly insubstantiality made it worthy of being a contender. Then I remember that a game is a game and it came out between Jan 1st and Dec 31st of this year. The fact that it makes me question myself given its humble origins and that it made my top 5 says something about the game. Two weeks after playing it, I went and played it again. There’s barely a narrative and no characters, yet somehow it elated me, confused me, cooed me and chilled me to the bone. From the basic idea of exploration came a game that said more than any number of space marines could hope to say.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Again I have to warn all about my potential bias towards this title. I loved the first one and love pulp adventure. I’ve taken classes on the genres and have studied the style. So my love of Uncharted 2 is no mystery. It puts you into the shoes of an adventurer in the vein of Indiana Jones and Flash Gordon on a quest of riches, greed, villainy and the extra-natural. The action set pieces are wonderful and the scope of the game so grand you can’t help but feel like you are on a wild ride. And despite what anyone says, it is well written and well voice acted. Yes it’s not Shakespeare, Faulkner or The Godfather, but then it’s not trying to be. It’s about sending you on an adventure and having a rip-roaring time along the way.

And the winner is:

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Dragon Age: Origins

Well with Christmas over and the after holiday sales taken advantage of and since everyone else has done their part, I figured I’d give my thoughts on the 2008 year end in gaming. (Spoilers.)

I start with the easy one, my game of the year. The easy part was to write about, not choose. I personally haven’t played every game this year worth playing. Not even close to it. But based on my personal experience of what I have played, I have to say my pick is Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

I am a very big fan of the series, I wouldn’t say fanatic, but I still go back and play the original Metal Gear Solid from time to time. At the time of its release I was super excited. I popped that baby in and was off to the races. I plowed through the first two chapter of the game without too much mental fatigue and was eager to keep going. Then the third chapter hit. I beat it with the same excitement, but after I beat Raging Raven, one of the most difficult boss fight of the year by virtue of having no rations left, and the very long cut scene after it I went to bed having spent most of the evening and night getting there. It took me around two weeks to get the energy to go back. It is an exhausting game. When I finally did sit back back down to it I found myself faced with a 20 minute cut scene before I could move on. The game experience is like a diesel engine. Very long and hard to start up, but once it get going it grabs you and can go one for a long time. I finished the game in three extended play sessions really. At the time I was disappointed in its end. And several of its twists. Big Boss being kept alive in a hermetically sealed bag as a computer security measure. Awesome. The twist being pulled on you and finding out no, that’s a lie and that was Solidus. No, not cool.

However, now that I look back on the whole experience, I come away with a little smile on my face. I don’t think after three games of setup, combined with the amount of hype Kojima Productions put into it, that anything produced could have lived up to it. Metal Gear Solid 4 came as close as humanly possible. I remember the boss fights, Raging Raving, Crying Wolf, Laughing Octopus, the Vamp showdown (once killed him 45 times in one continue), and the final beatdown with Liquid Ocelot. I remember the closure give to the characters. Since the first game I wanted to know what was up with Meryl and this game gave me just the right amount. Jack and Rose had the right amount of angst to them, but I appear to be one of the few North Americans not to find Raiden annoying. At the time I thought Vamp’s excuse for being immortal was cheep, but now on reflection, the answer was well set up and there really was no other conceivable explanation. Even just crawling around the active battlefield of the second chapter was amazingly satisfying, killing a soldier that got too close and no one noticing, because everyone was shooting. Not to mention that the game has what I consider the second best chase sequence in gaming.

Even its ending with Snake not dying after the huge hype that he would die is growing on me and my only residual complaint of the game. The more I think about it, the more I revere the game. Every game I can think of worth talking about either comes out to acclaim or disappointment and then comes with a certain amount of backlash to counter the initial point. Eventually it settles down to apporximately where it should be or keep going with the cycle. Metal Gear Solid 4, came out with acclaim, received a large amount of backlash, some of which I agreed with. But on further reflection and the benefit of distance I can call it my pick for Game of the Year. I am going to remember it for years to come as a total package, a genuinely impactful and emotional experience only amplified, not diminished by the fact we’ve been invested in these characters for so long.The original Metal Gear Solid came away with 8s and was considered an amazing achievement, but lacking on elements, like playtime or challenge. Now its considered once of the best games of all time. The readers of IGN put it in the top 10.

Which brings me to my next point. What does that really mean? Everyone is giving out their game of the year picks or their top 10s. The Brainy Gamer did an entire three part podcast with a whos who of critiquers on that subject. Spike TV held a special, yet tawdry, award show on it, but what does it really all mean. Anyone can have their opinion. Certain sites have greater validity, because of recognition and a group of people who devote themselves to the process be involved rather than a individual. Now without getting into any discussion of ideas of integrity of such sites, I’ll leave that for the symposium, what we need is a centralized award organization. Movies have the Oscars, TV has the Emmys and stage theater has the Tonys. The closest video games have are the Spike TV awards or Game Developer’s choice awards. I’m not saying we need it right now, but really a cohesive organization of appreciation of the best art that our medium has to offer could only be beneficial. It took the various award ceremonies time to get where they right now, so there is no hurry. Just something to think about along these lines: the Oscars don’t nominated until late January and voting doesn’t close till mid February and that is for movies that are only a few hours in length not 10+ like video games and yet our awards are due two weeks after big games are still getting released.

I started late, but this is my last post of the year. I’ll start next year with the first video game critical essay for the site. I said before we can’t just talk about writing critical essays or whatever you want to call them, we need to actually write them. Best way to find out what works and what doesn’t is to get ones hands dirty.