Archive for the 'Gaming' Category

Mass Effect 3: DLC and the Loss of Certainty

How the existence of DLC undermines uncertain endings.

NOTE: I would classify this post as not at all spoilery for any of the series mentioned, but that’s just me.

There are two TV series that I love more dearly than any other series in existence (aside, obviously, from Doctor Who) and those are Twin Peaks and the Prisoner.

The astute reader might already know where I’m heading with this line of thought, but for those that may not have experienced these two televisual masterpieces, they are infamous for their endings. At the time of the Prisoner’s initial broadcast Patrick Mcgoohan had to literally leave the country to avoid fans’ ire over the fact that its final episode raised more questions than it answered and, come to think of it, didn’t really answer anything that had gone before. Twin Peaks too left its main threat very much present after one of the most powerful finales ever crafted, giving only a minimal sense of closure to a select group of characters’ story arcs.

A lot of people didn’t like this, a lot of people did. Personally I stand in the group that says; if the only way out of this dire situation is a deus ex machina, then don’t bother even trying to show me a solution because it will serve only to undermine the trials and threats my favourite characters have faced up until now.

What a lot of people didn’t do, however, was convince themselves that that wasn’t the real ending and a comforting, cosy, straightforward ending was going to appear later and consist almost entirely of going through every single plot point that had ever arisen and tying them all up in a neat bow.

Because that’s the trouble with DLC, and Mass Effect in particular has suffered from having not-quite-major-but-still-quite-important plot points being amputated from the main game to be sold on later. I know in my game the characters wouldn’t stop banging on about the destruction of a mass relay that occurred in a DLC pack six months after ME2 came out (give or take)- a piece of DLC I’d not played and I would assume most others weren’t even aware of at that late stage.

DLC storytelling sets a dangerous precedent, because it forces developers to add leeway to the plot for business reasons and so undermines any narrative decision to leave a storyline open for interpretation.

Games are a young medium, but they are also one of the few forms of entertainment where the act of selling them intrudes so strongly on the content of that entertainment. Is it any wonder, therefore, that if we present gamers with a game as open as John Carpenter’s The Thing- or even a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid- they react with cynicism rather than admiration?

 

What Gamers Want, What Gamers Need

Might Tim Schafer’s Kickstarter game be his most conservative title yet?

When superstar developer Tim Schafer’s decision to crowd-fund an old school adventure game was met with overwhelming (and record-breaking) support on Kickstarter the other week, gamers took it as a sign of things to come. In this golden future developers would make games funded by fans for fans and not have their tastes dictated by the mainstream Triple A publishing system that had long since abandoned such genres as the adventure game.

But there’s one problem with this future, and it’s the fans.

It might be a sweeping generalisation, but more often than not it’s entirely true that fans hate change. They hate CGI in their Star Wars, they hate FPSs in their X-COM, they hate Bob Dylan using electric guitars and they hate it when any film ever isn’t exactly the same as a book that it’s based on.

So when Tim Schafer, the father of old school adventure games, is funded by his most hardcore fanbase to make an adventure game- how innovative do you expect this game to be? His backers are backing him so they can get their long overdue nostalgia fix, and whilst the point of Kickstarter is the ‘no strings attached’ source of income, there’s going to be trouble if this game doesn’t fulfil its purpose of being the most traditional adventure game ever.

Fans know what they like, and because they like it they want more of the same- which is no bad thing. But in a Kickstarter future where these people are the main fundraisers, who will make the games that gamers don’t even know they want?

We tire of publishers making modern day shooter after modern day shooter, but these blockbuster games fund our Dead Spaces, our Mirrors Edges, our Mass Effects and a host of other titles that we’re fans of now, but how were we to know we wanted them before?

As much as it’s fun to call the publishers the bad guy and bemoan the general public’s lack of taste when the unfairly maligned COD sells millions year on year, we forget that without them and their blockbusters we would never be presented with original ideas made well. Instead it would be our job to scour the internet searching for great ideas in indie games with no funding because not enough people found them to donate, or they had no faith that the unknown company behind it could achieve their vision.

Publishers have the power to take risks, to find things they think we want to play. So next time we sit down to enjoy a niche gem like Alpha Protocol, it’s worth remembering that without the Call of Duties of this world, it would probably never have been made.

This post was inspired by a conversation with @worthyofmention who is indeed worthy of mention.

Over Before it’s Begun: A Request for More Retrospectives

In the no doubt complex dance between publishers, PRs and each other, any games-related site looking to retain an audience (and the ad revenue to fund it) needs to focus not quite on the here and now, but on the almost-now. Previews, making-ofs and interviews are all procured on the basis of publicising upcoming games and in the weeks leading up to a title’s release I cannot move for titbits and trailers and screenshots and dev diaries and concept art and pricing and DLC and spoiler-free story information until eventually everything culminates in the glorious explosion that is THE REVIEWS.

Yet still the game remains unreleased.

So, hyped to high heaven, I eagerly await the arrival of my pre-order. And it does, and I play it, and…

Well, by that point everyone’s moved on to the next big release.

But hold on, I want to talk about what you’ve just persuaded me to buy! Now that we can shed those spoiler tags I want to hear if you too, beloved games reviewer, were a little disappointed about the fact that Heavy Rain had a narrative twist that doesn’t sit well with the “Press L2 to hear what a character thinks” button. I want find out how you dealt with the augmented lawyer in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and why you chose that option. Hell, I just want to mutually high five you over the internet for finally taking down the latest Metal Gear in a boss battle that lasted longer than the entire rest of the game.

Because previews and reviews are only interesting until a game is released. Once I’ve played a game I want to hear other’s opinions, and a review doesn’t scratch that itch. It’s too busy dancing around the plot, trying not to ruin the experience and when I- ever current- did finally get around to playing Metal Gear Solid 2 last month I was astonished to discover that, despite it being one of the most talked about games of all time, there was almost bugger-all articles that actually wanted to write any of that talk down. Sure there are a few, quickly consumed features, but compared to the reviews available- which seem naively unaware of the eventual impact of the game and outright lie as to the identity of the protagonist- there is very little actual discussion.

Luckily in that instance Leigh Alexander had just begun her own series of retrospectives on the series so I got some kind of fix, however it only served to highlight the drought of features elsewhere. Indeed Alpha Protocol, a huge favourite of mine, would seem perfect for a spoiler filled discussion of it’s tangled and sophisticated choice system, one that had been so touted in previews but was barely acknowledged in the overly negative reviews that followed, and LA Noire may have merited further comment on why it seemed to not quite sit as well with the general public despite its stellar scores.

Retrospects are able to deal not only with the full features of a game from story to mechanics, but they are also able to do something that reviews and previews can’t- and that is to put a game in context. They can address public reaction, critical acclaim and a game’s ultimate impact on the industry as a whole. But most importantly retrospects never age, and in a world as disposable as video game journalism it would be nice to see a few more pieces that stand the test of time once the hype-dust has settled.