Bring on the Characters

Infinite Character?

I've recently come to the revelation that strong characters in movies, TV series, books and games are the biggest hook that makes me come back to the trough for more. The Uncharted series, Ratchet and Clank, Mass Effect and Dragon Age, to name a few, give life to some truly wonderfully crafted characters. Characters whom I would like to spend more time with in future.

The upcoming Heavy Rain for PS3 looks to be the most character driven game yet. Over the past four years Quantic Dream has been crafting an experience that has thousands of different variations that can spring from the players actions (or lack of them). It's been an ambitious project from the start and if they manage to pull it off then it will be an amazing achievement.

"The results are that there are only as many scenarios as the developers had time to create, and that eventually the player will exhaust all of the options."

The issue arises when you consider the process of making a game such as this. Every event and all of the many variables have to be scripted. Every action, every reaction and every piece of dialogue has to be built specifically. The results are that there are only as many scenarios as the developers had time to create, and that eventually the player will exhaust all of the options.

In almost any Bioware game the supporting characters will have a set amount of dialogue and when they run out of meaningful things to say they will simply parrot the same dismissive line to the player again and again. At this point any work that has been done to establish this being (as a believable and interesting character) disintegrates to reveal the cardboard cut-out underneath. This never becomes a problem in other types of media because their stories are linear, but games allow for player freedom and therefore some of the developers control over story and characters is lost.

What if you could essentially program that being's character with some level of AI? What if developers could set certain traits and attributes of an NPC? Rather than there being options A, B or C with which Bob (our test dummy) could react to the players actions; program them with the capacity for love, hate, friendship, loyalty, fear, etc. They could possibly react more organically to your actions. And if there could be a way to procedurally produce dialogue they could possibly never run out of things to say.

As games get bigger, they get more expensive. Something like this could potentially free up development time and provide deeper characters for future games. Don't know if it's possible, but wouldn't it be cool?

2009: Another Great Yeat to be a Gamer

Forget it. 2009 was a great year to be a gamer as the titles shown above can testify and it appears that 2010 is going to be another amazing year. Who cares what my game of the year was, when all that matters is that there were great games and we had tons of fun playing them.

And... we're back

My apologies to all of my two followers of this blog for the hiatus I took from writing.

Life has totally taken me away from writing more. My son: Logan Haven Connellan was born Nov 3, 2009, and the past few months have been exhausting as my family has been adjusting to life with a newborn in the house.

Becoming a father has some serious ramifications in regards to free time, the most important one being that it doesn't exist anymore. Seriously though, free time in recent weeks means that I fall onto my lounge and attempt to maintain consciousness for half an hour with a game controller in hand.

Well I'm currently working on some new posts that will be up soon. Keep watching this space

Any Room for Brutal Legend?

Double Fine Studios second release, Brutal Legend, is one of the finest creative works I've seen. A game that combines heavy metal, hack 'n slash, RTS, Tim Schafer humour, and Jack Black all into one has got to leave reviewers scratching their heads when trying to categorize this beast.

The universe and characters created by Tim Schafer and his team have a flavour of originality that is refreshing in this space marine dominated industry. Performances by Jack Black and a string of heavy metal icons are delivered with a level of natural quality that reinforce the fiction (I don't even want to know how many takes it took to get Ozzy Osbourne to form coherent sentences).

The game is solidly constructed, and I can't find any game breaking bugs or annoyances, probably thanks to the extra time the team had to polish. Gameplay is fun, the story is interesting and the humour is right on the mark.

To me Brutal Legend is everything that I love about games. An original world has been forged to be explored and enjoyed. Creativity abounds in every facet of the experience.

That said... I sold my copy to a friend yesterday.

I sold it for one simple reason... it doesn't appeal to my tastes. I've never been a fan of heavy metal so much of the humour and commentary that springs from the games primary theme is lost on me. I also found myself wanting to turn the car radio off most of the time. At that point I realized that this game wasn't meant for me. My friend, however revels in the world and lore created via heavy metal.

Through all of this I'm glad to have Brutal Legend be a part of the gaming sphere. I believe that we need more titles that explore the niches of interest that make each one of us unique. I can respect this well crafted game, those who enjoy it and it's inspiration, while at the same time not sharing in their enjoyment.

Though I can't comment on the financial status of Double Fine it seems that they really need a win to solidify their position and provide for future development. I really hope that we will see more genre bending experiences from them in the future. Only time will tell how successful Brutal Legend will be and interesting to see if a new I.P. can push past all the sequels to grab a piece of the holiday pie.

How Long is Too long?

To hype, or not to hype?
How much to hype?
When to hype?

Game releases have got to have publishers and developers alike gnawing away at fingertips and pulling out what's left of their hair. Release a game too soon and you sacrifice potential polish time that has the potential to lift the overall impression a game leaves on the gaming public. Wait too long and consumer interest may have been captured by the next guy's shiny new toy.

This has been an interesting year for releases. It seems that publishers have finally got the message that the average gamer doesn't have a spare $2000 to buy all of the games that get crammed into the holiday season. Instead it appears that we're now having Christmas '09 in first quarter 2010.

I'm not complaining. Some of the titles appeared to need some more "polish" (I'm lookin' at you Bioshock 2), and now my wife's anger over my gaming will be more of a slow burn rather than flash fried nuclear holocaust.

I am however getting a little tired of the "it's done when it's done" quote. ID, Blizzard, Valve, and Bioware being some of the greatest abusers of this line. Granted these are currently some of the greatest developers around, but I am losing the buzz for their long teased titles. We've seen what their working on and now I'd like them to go dark on these projects until they actually have a release date. I just don't want to walk up to the counter at my local games shop and handover my well earned dollars for a game which has had all the surprises ruined by a combination of gabby PR people and ravenous media.

Hi There

Welcome,

I created this blog to give me an outlet for my views on my favorite hobby, gaming. I've been playing video games since the Nintendo NES days, but began my serious gaming addiction at the age of 14 with the release of the original Command and Conquer on the PC.

I now find myself existing as primarily a console gamer as I currently own an Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and an iMac (gaming legitimacy debatable). I have to admit I never thought the day would come when I would be a multi-platform owner, but being in this position has created some interesting conflicts and stories.

I'll try to submit new posts with my reviews of games as they are released and whenever the mood strikes for a rant or two. Stay tuned, would you kindly?