Ramblings of a video game person.
A New Year’s treat for people who are into this kind of thing. I’ve very been kindly granted permission to post one of my favourite strips from my time on Doctor Who Adventures Magazine; Rory’s Story, written by myself and illustrated by John Ross.
I’m very proud of this one, and I hope you enjoy it!
All material is ©BBC and reprinted with permission.
These are dark times for the tobacco industry. For years the problem of second hand smoke and cigarette sharing between friends has been a growing concern and in these days of ever more expensive production costs, the fact that some smokers out there are inhaling the rich fumes of delicious tobacco without contributing anything to the mega-corps that produce them is something that desperately needs to be dealt with.
In fact, recent undisclosed but almost certainly true research has shown that second hand smoke and cigarette sharing is EQUALLY as bad as tobacco piracy, in which one person will steal a tobacco plant and use its seeds to grow a limitless number of others.
Now, some naysayers claim that this is not the case, that the act of sharing cigarettes will actually instigate nicotine addiction in a whole host of potential new customers who will go on to legally purchase their own packs. They might even go so far as to say that being able to count on someone to give you a cigarette if you’re caught short actually HELPS them continue the strength of their habit so that they will be able to purchase new packs in greater quantities.
But these short-sighted people haven’t factored in the hobos who smoke butts off the floor, or the social smokers who will only have one or two off a friend when they’re out on a Friday. These people will never contribute to the hard working tobacco industry, and whilst those cigarettes have technically already been purchased, the owners shouldn’t be allowed to pass them on to whoever they please just because they parted with money for them.
Therefore, in an effort to do my part to aid in the production of many more cigarettes in the future, I’ve made a list of a few things we can do to help the vulnerable tobacco industry.
As you can see, with a few simple changes we can wipe out the cancer that is second-hand smokers whilst barely impacting the experience of new purchasers. Obviously these changes will be expensive to implement and may detract from the time spent on making sure the quality of the cigarettes is maintained but it’s nothing compared to how much extra money will be gained from wiping out the non-contributing members of the hobby. And who cares if sometimes the swabs and codes don’t work and you’re not able to smoke the pack you’ve legally bought from a shop? Remember, it’s the tobacco industry that we’re helping here, not you.
This post was inspired by a twitter conversation between myself and @nolan_mcbride
There are a lot of reasons why I’ve not updated the blog in the past few weeks, mostly because of work, but also mostly because I’ve spent every free moment playing Call of Duty: Black Ops. Because it’s awesome.
Except the darned AI.
The Lone Gunman
I lost count of the number of times I’d push forward through a level, having faith in my teammates to cover my advance, only to be shot repeatedly in the back.
As my blood splattered the screen, I’d turn in my last dying breath to see my ally standing beside my enemy as if plucking up the courage to ask them on a date after they’d finished pumping an entire clip into my corpse.
And it’s a real shame. I love the Call of Duty series because the tightly controlled events create a compelling narrative that manages to genuinely emotionally invest me in its story and characters. The dialog and voice acting are superb and the plots are as bravely political as we’ll probably see for a while in a genre where propaganda rather than commentary is the norm.
In a world that is so successful at evoking period and place, it’s frustrating to be taken out of the moment by playing the equivalent of whack-a-mole in a network of Vietnamese tunnels because the AI’s only function is to jump out at you from clearly defined spawn points.
What I’m trying to say is- I never feel like I’ve outwitted a soldier in Black Ops.
But I’ll forgive that, because even without the multiplayer it’s my game of the year, and apart from those annoying moments where your teammates and targets stop to have a chat, the way the game is structured actually turns the AI to its advantage. Mason in Black Ops is a man possessed, who is so obsessed with his overarching goals that of course everything inbetween is just an obstacle to overcome. He’s running on an adrenaline rush that gives him almost superhuman powers and the game’s canon-fodder soldiers enhance that.
If the world around them hadn’t been so immersive this effect could have fallen flat, but because you believe in the world and the story- the dodgy AI only serves to highlight the driven nature of your character. You still take as many hits as your enemies, but you’re faster, cleverer, more accurate and that’s what makes you the hero and your enemies mere cyphers.
Killzone 2 does exactly the opposite.
vs. Team Spirit
Now I don’t know whether it’s because I didn’t play the first one, or whether I was too busy wrestling with the treacle-controls on the flimsy PS3 controller to pay attention- but I never had a clue what I was doing on the planet of Helgath.
Also my viewpoint was a foot below every other character’s eye-level for some reason.
Despite the atmosphere and graphics, I never felt invested in the characters until right at the very end, and although they did try admirably hard to make me care during the cutscenes- they were just too gung-ho to be believable.
But blimey the AI was phenomenal.
The reason I noticed it was because the final battle took me longer to complete than almost the entire rest of the game put together and it took me a while to work out why- the enemies were just as vulnerable as ever, I had the best guns in the game to take them out with and some fairly good cover to shoot them from. They were just too clever for me, simple as that. When they dug into cover, they didn’t come out for love nor money- I had to go to them. When I found a good sniping spot they’d smoke me out with grenades- and they wouldn’t just do that for themselves, they’d smoke me out so their teammates could flank me.
I would spend literally minutes trying to take out a single soldier, and when I died I wasn’t frustrated because I’d been overwhelmed by numbers or because my enemies had x-ray vision in the back of their heads, I was frustrated with myself for not covering my back. This was the closest a single player game had come to being as unpredictable as an online match.
And it wasn’t just the enemy AI that was that good, the friendly AI was even better. They’d adapt to where you were, moving to cover exits you couldn’t, and if I’d taken out a large group of enemies I could trust them to mop up the remaining stragglers whilst I stocked up on ammunition.
So despite the fact that I couldn’t follow the plot and wasn’t hugely fussed about the characters, I found Killzone 2 engaging. In a game where you play as a grunt who happens to be in the right place at the right time to appear in the cutscenes, you need to have smart AI to feel part of a larger whole. When your commanding officer tells you to get up to the roof of a building to cover the advance of a tank you say ‘yes sir’ because you have faith that the soldiers on the ground will be doing their job just as well as you. The beauty of the AI is not so much that it makes your enemies more fun to fight, but that it makes you feel like a regular soldier- no more or less important than any other, just following orders.
It is surprising that, although the setting couldn’t be further removed from a ‘realistic modern-day shooter’, it is Killzone 2 that most effectively portrays the insignificance of the soldier compared to the world-spanning conflict that surrounds them.
