Some Potentially Unpopular Ideas.

Games are at a great point right now. They’re beautiful, enthralling and tell amazing stories, but what’s the future for gaming? The graphical quality is always going to improve with time as hardware becomes more and more powerful, the stories will get better as companies have more money to employ superior writers and this will in turn make games more appealing to play.

 

I have a feeling that what I wish for games in the future will be unpopular but they may make games a lot more interesting. First of all I would like to see games that do away with a tutorial. Sure, tutorials are necessary in order to help the player navigate the game world, but what if the player was just left to work it out? What if the tutorial was just a learning curve? What if it was a room that you have to navigate towards the exit door (learning to move and interact with objects); a room with a little platform before the door (jumping) or a room with a key and a locked door (interacting with objects) and so on? I think that this style of learning will produce a more rewarding game and will therefore mean gamers that are less spoiled when it comes to gaming (especially in recent days), gamers are so used to checkpoints, dying without consequence etc. that we don’t treat games as giant puzzles, we treat games as trial and error tasks and though in some games this works I believe that it is a style of gaming which needs to be reconsidered.

 

 

Another feature I would like to see more in games is a lack of a HUD, we’ve seen it in games like Metro: 2033 where you know how many bullets you have due to being able to see them in your magazine, your health is displayed by the colour of your vision and your objectives are displayed on a notepad that you physically have to look at. I enjoy this clean, simple, realistic visual style, perhaps with the additions of a button that you press to physically remove the magazine or clip from your gun and look at how many bullets you have left, or a button that you press to check your pulse and therefore have to use a little guess-timation to determine what the state of your health is. Admittedly this would be harder on console games but still doable and would add to the atmosphere of games that are supposed to be more realistic.

 

 

My final wish for the future of games is that games that are in a trilogy should force you to play from the first game, whether that is in a slightly more deceitful form, (perhaps a randomly generated code is shown at the end of the first game which the second game requires in order for you to play it, while reading game saves a la Mass Effect) or in a more legitimate form (the game’s difficulty curve increasing exponentially over the three games in a way that means most players will only be able to cope with the difficulty of game 3 if they’ve been exposed to the learning curve of games 1 and 2).

 

 

Anyway, there are a few notes on what I’d like to see in gaming future. I admit that a few of these ideas would be very unpopular and could be used be games companies to generate more income rather than creating a more interesting game but as with many modern ideas that are now used for greed or destruction, they were often created to benefit the masses. Many thanks to Thomas Jancis for helping me with the thought process on this article. Make sure that if you haven’t you take a look at some of the other articles I’ve posted and question/comment on them as much as you feel is necessary.

I won’t see you as I’m no longer part of the heads-up display.

My Top 5 Pieces of Art in Magic: The Gathering

I am a pretty big fan of Magic: The Gathering, I love the gameplay, I love the social aspect and I love the lore. Another thing I love about it but don’t talk too often about is the artwork, which is a bit silly of me as half of the card is artwork. So here are my 5 favourite pieces of art in Magic: The Gathering.

 5: Endless Ranks of the Dead

 

I have this card in my zombie deck (naturally) and I love it because you get two pieces of art for the price of one, you have the card and the gorgeous stained-glass window, and the use of silhouettes here makes this a simple card with a really effective outcome.

 4: Gilder Bairn

 

 

This card is just so freaking adorable. I was introduced to it at my MTG meetings in Bristol buy a guy who, for him, this was his favourite piece of art. I can see why, there are just so many cute things going on here, the glowing jelly beans, the fact that it’s a small child and the little onesie are just too precious to not have this included in the list.

 3: Plague Spitter

 

 

Weird weird weird. That’s the first thing I think when looking at this card. It’s one of those pieces of art that can even be regarded as difficult to look at. It jarrs you. However the Tim Burton-esque feel of this card works really well to convey a sense of surrealism, and for this mixture of jarring and cartoony style, this card gets the number 3 spot.

 2: Showstopper

I don’t really know why I like this card so much. I think it may be how well it works with the flavour text: “The audience quickly realised a few things; it wasn’t a magic trick, there wasn’t candy in there, and they’d need new clothes.”

Also the style of the art feels almost like Manga, and if that was intentional then this card definitely deserves number 2.

1: Etched Champion

Right, the number one spot is always a touchy subject as everyone has a different favourite, here is why etched champion is mine. He looks like a real fighter, like he was created to be a champion rather than just accidentally falling into the role. I also find how the position of the lights in the background correspond to the lights on his armour really interesting and if that wasn’t enough, the artist; Matt Cavotta, has gone to the effort of making sure that over every single inch of the champion are those beautiful engravings that tell of “a future fraught with war.”

 So there you have my five personal favourite pieces of art in MTG. Again I’d normally try and gleam a universal truth from this article but every once in a while I enjoy just leaving it open to any interpretation desired, sit back and go “Oh wow, so pretty.” If this is the standard of art at the moment I cannot wait to see what’s going to appear in Modern Masters and M14.

 I’ll see you in a brand new frame.

Will Games Ever Be As Frequently Re-Made As Movies?

So I’m not a huge fan of film re-makes, I don’t hate them (except for when the film in question was re-made a decade or less after its release) but I’m not keen on them. Admittedly some aren’t bad, some are surprisingly good (The Amazing Spider-Man anyone?), some are just awful and some aren't obviously remakes (I wonder who among you noticed that Avatar was just Pocahontas in disguise), however it’s something that’s not seen often in gaming. Why? What is it about the video game as a medium that means it is treated differently from a movie?

 It is not unheard of for games to be remastered, the original Xbox version of Chronicles of Riddick was updated for the Xbox 360 and with the recent release of Halo: Anniversary it seems that no game is safe from it. Even Edmund McMillen, creator of Super Meat Boy and Binding of Isaac has confirmed he will be remaking the latter (though ‘de-making’ may be a more appropriate term as it will be trading its cute trademark ‘newgrounds’ flash animation style for a 16-bit retro lick of paint) in order to re brand the product and combine it with its expansion for a more fully rounded gaming experience (McMullen, 2012).

With this in mind it seems like most games when they are remade are done so by their original developers. So why this difference between game and films?

Steve Martin says that films are remade so much because times are constantly changing (Martin, N.D.). Even if this is a legitimate reason then why don’t games follow the same suit? Why not just make a film that changes with the times rather than remaking an old film so it fits in with today’s world? It could be the speed of technological development; games tend to advance more quickly and encourage expansion of ideas slightly more than films, however it could also be to do with the number of different teams that end up working on a game. Films tend to involve very few production organisations when compared to games. Due to how collaborative the creation of a game is it would be more difficult to remake a game as the rights are harder to obtain.

When I watch films there are definitely some times where I will say to myself “I could have made this better.” Whereas when I play a game I indentify flaws and rather than saying to myself that I could do a better job, I simply believe that if I was ever involved in creating a game I simply would be more aware of those potential problems. It may just be me or it may be a different attitude possessed by the gaming generation. Was the mentality more of a one-upmanship train of thought whereas video game developers assume a more introspective idea of personal excellence? Whichever it is, its something that is interesting to observe, and maybe it shows that games developers are more mature artists than their ‘behind the camera’ peers.

 

I’ll see you after an 18bit demake.

A Few Games that Turn Their Genres On Their Heads.

In my previous posts I have mentioned that there are certain things I look for when buying a game: story, innovation and gameplay. More often than not it has been the story which I’ve looked forward to experiencing. Well today I’d like to look more at the second point in that list, innovation, by analysing some games which take their genres and twist and shape them until they are a different animal entirely.

One such game is Fez which, at first glance looks like your traditional puzzle based side-scroller. It really isn’t. It becomes apparent very quickly that Fez is a three dimensional game set in a two dimensional world. When faced with an impassable obstacle you simply rotate the world along its X axis and you see the same area from a different point of view. Often the obstacle becomes a platform or bridge to help you pass it. It’s a game that is hard to describe in writing (so I’ll include a link to a video here) but one I definitely urge everyone who is a fan of side-scrollers to play.

A genre which is constantly receiving innovation is the racing game. Sure the basic principals tend to be the same, don’t crash, maintain the racing line and try to come first but some clever so-and-so didn’t think that was enough, so they added inhabiting the bodies of other drivers. Yes I’m talking about Driver: San Francisco, the fourth instalment in the Driver series. In the game, John Tanner, the main protagonist throughout all the Driver games (which is a bit weird right? I mean Driver doesn’t say exactly when it’s set but it feels very late seventies, so if we’re assuming that Tanner is, I dunno, twenty in Driver, that would mean that Driver: San Francisco, which, judging by the car designs is set in the modern day, makes Tanner at least 50…hmm, seems he ages well. Sorry, so as I was saying) is rendered unconscious by a car accident. The rest of the game take place in his head where he believes he is awake and has developed the superhuman powers to, among other things, boost his car up to insane speeds and inhabit the bodies of other drivers to assist him. If you haven’t played the game I know it sounds really weird and is probably a bit of a turn off. But trust me when I say that it is truly a fantastic reimagining of the racing genre.

The final game I want to talk about is a game that slipped under most people’s radar (including mine). The genre? Tower Defence. The game? Sanctum. So how can you flip the tower defence genre? By turning it into a first person shooter. Each level of sanctum featured two stages, the first had you building your traditional tower defence level, playing walls and turrets to aid you and funnel your enemies so they follow a specific path. The latter stage released the hordes and as well as these creepy little aliens following a path they would also act aggressively towards the player. So if an enemy was too tough for a turret you could finish them off, however when you approached, the pre-set path took a back seat and that enemy would come after you.

This game in 2013 received a sequel and is available to download from steam and various console marketplaces.

So there are just a few games that turn their genres on their heads. As I mentioned I don’t usually focus on innovation as much as storyline and it’s for this reason I feel these games deserved a mention. It makes a change from the same game being pushed out every year with what is essentially a new coat of paint, and while these games may contain great stories they tend not to exceed our expectations of how the overall experience of a game will pan out. They are the boy bands of the gaming world, and yes, boy bands are great, they maintain the status quo and observe our predictable tendencies, however, occasionally you need a good progressive electro metal trance beat poetry comedy act to break up the monotony of that world (is it just me or did I basically describe Enter Shikari just then?).

I’ll see you on the flip side (see what I did there?).

My Favourite Journeys in Gaming.

Every time I buy a game I tend to get giddier than a schoolboy after stealing a bottle of his Dad’s whiskey. That same giddiness occurs whenever I see the beginning of a game I’ve completed.

I’m excited because of the journey I am about to embark on, and if it’s a game that I’ve completed, when I start it again I think about the end of that epic yarn and say to myself “This is where it all started. I know what’s coming, but this is where it all began.”

I could talk about the beginnings of these journeys, like the beginning of Fallout 3 where you step out of  the vault for the first time and see the vast expanse of wasteland before you for the first time (which I am not too proud to admit, genuinely frightened me on my premier play through).

However this article is about my favourite journeys in full, so I will be taking the end of  them very much into consideration, and I will begin with the appropriately named Journey. This simple game has one goal: Get from point A to point B. There is no dialogue except for the odd little sounds that your character creates. This simplicity allows for so much of your own interpretation of the story arc that your own projections cement an emotional attachment to, not just your character, but the game itself. The settings are beautiful throughout, and the end (which I shall not spoil) is a real tearjerker…and I’m a sucker for tearjerkers.

Another journey that I rate highly because of its emotional content (though not the weepy kind this time) is Alan Wake. Now I’m not usually someone who enjoys games in the horror genre (while playing F.E.A.R. I had to play it in ten minute segments and would only play it while listening to Anberlin’s album, Cities), but the journey for this game was what kept me hooked. It is really clever how Remedy are able to have the player mimic the emotions of Wake consistently through the game; at the beginning the ‘taken’  are terrifying enemies but by the end of  the game it is no longer terror I felt when they appeared, just a strong desire to overcome them as an obstacle and as I said before it was this element that ranks this game highly in my esteem and in my favourite journeys in gaming.

The final game I will mention is (if you visit this site often) no surprise, as I believe I mention the series at least once every article, and that series is Fallout. The game? Fallout: New Vegas, specifically with the DLC. Why with the DLC? One word. Ulysses. I followed the clues about his existence from the moment I received the collector’s edition box with concept art playing cards. After playing the game I found out that apart from the cards there was no reference to him anywhere (except for in , and that is when I began to stalk him and his trail. From the reference to him right at the beginning of the game in Primm, to the mention of your future battle with him in Dead Money, to being mistaken for him in Honest Hearts, to stalking his trail in Old World Blues, to the final conflict with him in Lonesome Road. Admittedly I may be so in love with this journey because of the time I spent researching it, but surely the journey isn’t just the game, it includes elements outside of it like your social life, emotions and attitude. Ulysses’ story was what provided me with the most enjoyable overall journey.

It’s hard to gleam some sort of deep insight from an article about journeys. I’ve already said that a games journey isn’t just the game itself but what emotions it conjures, the way it causes you to interact with other people and how it challenges your attitude towards various things, whether they are in game or not. I think that rather than challenging a concept or teaching a valuable life lesson from this article, I would like to say, find at least one game that you can receive a full immersive experience from and love it!

I’ll see you at the beginning again.