Survior: Videogame Idol

Recently I’ve been playing a lot of Super Mario Galaxy, a game that has changed the way I look at videogames in many ways. The very first thing the captured my attention is how complete the gameplay in SMG is. You will find it hard to find another game that controls this well, varies its objectives on every level and makes you want to explore its many planets (levels). The next aspect of the Super Mario Galaxy that speaks volumes to the abilities of Nintendo’s artists and programmers is the visual polish present in this game. I doubt you can find a better looking Wii game, or a game on any other system with the subtle yet intelligent visual cues that guide the player through the game.

However, what I find myself pondering now is: where is the story?

To its defense, the Super Mario series has never been about making players think about world events, social strife, or other such things that are not goomba related. The problem is, without a cohesive story to keep all of the fantastic gameplay elements together, Mario may be starting to lose his identity. Yes the game is full of classic Mario characters, music, and power-ups, but the problem is that you could replace all of these pieces with any other character and the game would still be exactly the same. The only emotional attachment that gives the player the feeling of connection with Mario’s latest outing is nostalgia.

I would blame Mario’s roots as a quarter munching arcade game as the scapegoat for Super Mario Galaxy’s lack of a cohesive story, but the truth is Nintendo has already provided great storylines in Mario games. The Paper Mario Series and Super Mario RPG games are perfect examples of weaving a fantastic story involving classic Mario characters. Although these games deviate from the usual Super Mario run, jump, stomp gameplay mechanics, they prove that Nintendo’s writers do have a knack for creating funny and compelling story arcs.

Moreover, stories with emotional hooks (humour, empathy, vengeance, etc.) have propelled numerous “average” games into a higher echelon of critical success. Heavenly Sword, Max Payne, Stranglehold, Grand Theft Auto and even classics like Earthworm Jim all contain story elements to which a player can personally relate. All of these games are decent games in terms of game play, but the story/emotional elements are what drives many gamers to the end of a game. Without the story/emotional/character development present in the above listed games, each would have been merely average.

Even “Triple A” titles like the Ratchet and Clank, Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty (only the CoDs developed by Infinity Ward) series are full of gameplay experiences found in many other games. It is the story/atmosphere in each of these series that plays the major role in their critical and economical successes. The Grand Theft Auto Series is probably the greatest example of this as the game itself is based on numerous gameplay types (driving, shooting, fighting, etc.) that are average in execution, yet pulled together into one story experience that makes whole greater than the sum of its parts.

This all reminds me of the current state of television. There are plenty of great shows that draw on compelling writing, complex characters and interest generating situations. Dexter, Battlestar Galactica, Oz, Dead Like Me all demonstrate the ability to tell a fantastic story with elements that make you examine the way or world works, make laugh all while providing enough “action” to please most people.

On the other end of the spectrum we have American Idol, Fear Factor and other such “reality TV” shows. Season after season these shows dish up lots of “great” moments but they are all disjoint; individual memorable moments without any glue to hold them together. How long can we retrace the same paths before the “immediate gratification” of Simon Cowell shattering another bad singer’s dream no longer captures our attention?

And this leads me back to Super Mario Galaxy. I absolutely love playing this game, but once I am finished playing it I will be extremely pleased with the experience but have no emotional response other than “I beat it”. This is a true shame as any Princess worth saving should generate an unforgettable adventure.

Mass(ively) Effect(ive): Face up to it

I recently read a really unbalanced and very negative article about Mass Effect (Mass Effect: Lost in Space, Greg Orlando, Play, December 2007). I found the article really frustrating partially because the writer contradicted himself and partially because I couldn't get a clear idea of what it was that he kept finding so negative about the characters (and everything else, for that matter). He writes that the characters have histories and personalities (which you learn about through frequent conversations with various crew members) but doesn't feel that they are believable: "The impact is missing because the characters are, for the most part, zeroes. They have all the charm and depth of an ATM card." He criticizes the characters heavily for the reactions they have to situations "who cares about a character who's so malleable?" (why? because he showed a sense of reasoning in a difficult situation?) "who cares because he wasn't that interesting or well developed to begin with?" (but I thought you said they had history and personality?) with regards to the situation with Liara and her evil mother: "It doesn't ring true" (it does if you've actually been paying attention to the storyline and have actually heard what Liara had to say about her mother and their relationship). Although I agree that the side mission planets are all very 'same-y' and that in many instances lack some depth, I'm still wondering what game Greg was actually playing.

Since Bioware took the extra time necessary to mo-cap and perfect facial movement, these characters should have technically created greater emotional attachment than any other previous game. Facial expressions are a primary form of conveying social information among humans (and other mammals for that matter...but I'm not getting into that here) and can be so strongly tied to our emotions that our expressions are sometimes involuntary. Current anthropological views of facial expression tend to focus on contrasts between universal and culture-specific explanations of facial expressions. Cross culturally, they identify six 'basic' emotional expressions: fear, joy, disgust, surprise, sadness, and anger. In addition, there are also what Schmidt and Cohn call "coordinated, stereotyped facial expressions", including the eyebrow flash, yawning, startled, coy display, embarrassment, and shame (display of) (2001, Human Facial Expressions as Adaptations: Evolutionary Questions in Facial Expression Research, Yearbook of Physical Anthro, 44:3-24).

Bioware has included these expressions in their game making their characters (with visible pores, wrinkles, scars) easy to relate to. In a telephone interview with Seth Schiesel (Computer Game With a Special Special Effect, Facial Expressions, New York Times, November 22, 2007) Bioware “We wanted to create a video game that had the potential to rival live-action movies in terms of cinematic, dramatic power. We wanted our characters to be able to just raise an eyebrow and have it convey a thought or emotion just as it could in a film....what makes the story exciting is emotion. And what makes emotion is wrinkles. When you take the wrinkles away, you just have parts of the face moving around like a cartoon, and it really takes away a lot of the subtlety we intuit in human emotion. We did a lot of research into the psychology of what creates and portrays a compelling emotion. "

To finish off my rant about Greg's odd review and close off this post:

Comparing the game to Bioware's other smash-hit title Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR), he writes "In Republic, players got to partner up with a homicidal assassin droid, deal with a woman who had an uncomfortably strange relationship with her robot, and control the pace and timing of great banter between the Jedi Revan and Bastilla. There's almost none of that in Mass Effect." Well no, of course there isn't. It wouldn't fit in with Mass Effect. This is a serious game, with a serious finale. The game is funny, just not 'quirky' funny. I laughed out loud many times. Funny doesn't always have to be silly. This is a mature title, much darker than KOTOR.

To top this little bit of candy off, he speaks quite highly of the game dialogue system then throws in a "..after pressing the 'x' button on the Xbox 360 controller, can cut off a speaker to fire of Shepard's response. The system works well, and definitely allows players to plow through conversations with boring non-player characters as they would, say, quickly dismiss an annoying telemarketer" for good measure.

After all this, he still gives the game an 8.5 out of 10. Riddle me that, Batman.

Call of Duty: Become More Aware

Call of Duty 4, much better than the first three (Seriously, any more WWII shooters and I'd have to start 'taking names', if you know what I mean). Now I'm a pretty big fan of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six series, don't mind a round or two of Ghost Recon, and can more than hold my own in Warhawk. That said, Call of Duty 4 introduced me to a whole different level of warfare gaming: the bomber pilot.

While the Gaming Addict faithfully plays through Activision's newest title, I look up from my sewing machine to find the view has changed. The Gaming Addict is now a pilot and his screen is b&w with all the little houses and cars laid out just so, far below. This image is disturbing to me because it is so realistic, bringing to mind the first bombings of Iraq shown on television. You know the ones, shown through night vision lenses, the houses and buildings all just outlines as though they had all been sketched in charcoal. The Gaming Addicts job is dropping bombs and firing on various 'bad guys' in the area, providing cover for various 'good guys' flushing out the baddies and helping the civilians escape.

But it really bothered me because this is what it really looks like to those pilots of war who are really firing upon a city. This is what our homes, our cities, our civilians, our vehicles, our lives look like to them through their screens. And these cities and civilians could be anywhere, not just some small village being used as a terrorist hideout. We look like this through that lense too.

(En)Rapture(d): Would you kindly pass me the Game of the Year award?

In the 1940s Andrew Ryan got tired of the world around him so he created Rapture: his underwater utopian city. Bioshock follows the story of Jack, a man who crashes into the ocean and finds himself in the ruins of Ryan's formerly glorious Rapture.

Through various narrative forms one discovers that in a persistent desire to improve themselves, the citizens of Rapture have 'spliced' themselves into horribly disfigured humans. The extreme example of 'plastic surgery taken too far' is rather sad to witness as the Splicers bemoan their fate (well before attacking you, that is) and eerily verbalize their regrets in well rehearsed recitations.

What is particularly interesting about Bioshock is the developers' claim that the gamer here is truly in control and that it offers a first person shooter (FPS) sandbox-type experience. The idea of control is one that appeals to many gamers, particularly those tired of the same old FPS experience, who no longer feel drawn to the same platformy, find-the-key-to-open-the-door, solve the puzzle gameplay. But is this 'in control' actually freedom? Is it silly to expect total freedom in a game? I'm not convinced it is even possible. Since every game requires some sort of an overall task to be completed to draw forth the sense of reward or satisfaction that people need to keep them playing, what would total freedom in a game look like? Arguably the most successful example of a sandbox gameplay would be the Grand Theft Auto series, but even it has tasts and missions for gamers to complete in order to further the story. There has to be a point to the game, one should technically tire of driving around the city, running lights, running from the cops, driving ambulances...A little too much like real life in some cases perhaps?

Back to control: more specifically, who is in control. 2K Games claims to put the player in the driver's seat, but as you progress through the game you come to realize that you are not in fact in control, that you, game character Jack, are actually being 'mind' controlled by one of the game's main narrators. Although this comes as a shock to the player, particulary since you've been told that Bioshock is all about your choices and your gameplay (which it truly is to a degree), it isn't all that far fetched from any other gaming experience (follow the mission orders, do the task outlined). What makes it so different and surprising is that as gamers we often overlook the lack of control we have as gamers. Congrats to 2K Games for making us all aware.

Mass(ively) Effect(ive)

Last night I sent The Normandy`s Chief Officer, Ashley, to her death: holding back a line of Geth so Kaidan and I could plant a nuke and destroy a Krogan breeding facility, ultimately eliminating a Krogan army. Meet my newest addiction: Mass Effect. Move over Master Chief (Halo series, Bungie Studios), Kaidan Alenko (and Bioware) is calling me Commander...and I really like it.

I shed a tear for Ashley, the crew member I had to leave to die while the rest of us fled Virmire. The worst part of all being that first I had to get attached to her through 15 hours or so of game play. Oh how clever they are. Getting me all familiar and attached to my crew, making me learn their stories, making me care. Then Bioware got mean. They made me choose which of the two crew members I was with I was going to let die. If Splinter Cell thought they were tapping into our sense of cause and effect, of ethics and choice...they have certainly fallen short. It`s a cruel world out there in space and now I`m down a (wo)man.

Tis the season of giving and I find myself giving again and again: shredding rounds, radioactive rounds, armour piercing rounds...I am certainly in the Christmas spirit.

Facial animations move realistically, my character (a terribly attractive lady named Sheperd with a penchance for stealing ships and helping every Tom, Dick, and Harry ... including the very creepy 'The Fan') wrinkles her eyebrows, furrows, queries with a raised eyebrow and down right scowls. Very believable. The lipsyncing is also terrific, making the whole experience of `game as movie`seem more possible than ever. Not to mention the `movie filter`that can be toggled on and off as the gamer chooses.

Mass Effect is a game that plays heavily on the what ifs of our society. What if there really is life out there. What if we stumbled upon some sort of technology that sped our development as a race that we had never before conceived of as possible. Global warming aside, what if we were really faced with the potential end of our entire gallaxy (remember, this no longer includes just humans but many other races as well). To what end would we go to prevent total annihilation and would we try even if we were told it was unlikely we would succeed.

What if I figured out which button I hit that made it impossible for me to use a question mark instead of getting an `É`every time I try to use one. So frustrating!