Not quite there yet: Giants - Citizen Kabuto

The year is 2000. Planet Moon Studios published their first game, "Giants: Citizen Kabuto". It wasn't the first game for the developers. The reason they were allowed to make a game as a brand new studio for four years was that their previous project in 1997 had been "MDK", the visionary third person shooter. They came with a pedigree, is what I'm saying.

If you don't communicate your rules

This post comes out of a new series of writing I do on ASOIAF meta and other topics of popular culture over at the Patreon of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour. If you like to read stuff like this, chime in just 1$ and you get access to everything I write. If you throw in 2$, you even get access to mini-podcasts I'm doing with Sean T. Collins answering questions by listeners of the podcast. Give the Patreon a look

 

I like playing the X-COM games. In case you never heard of them, you're tasked with defeating an alien invasion that threatens the whole world, which has taken the sensible step of pooling all its resources into an organization that has around three squads of very good soldiers and can respond to exactly one crisis at a time because they have only one transport. When the aliens become stronger, your funds are cut. Exactly what you'd need to do in case of an invasion. It reminds one of the premise of Pacific Rim. 

 

Anyway, the games are round-based tactical strategy, which means you order around your squad on a tactical map where each soldier has certain actions he can perform and try to outsmart the aliens. Between missions, you research new tech and perform other more strategic tasks. It's good fun if you like that sort of thing. 

 

If you REALLY like that sort of thing, you install the "Long War" mod. It's a giant fan-made modification that blows up the length of your average campaign from the reasonable twenty-ish hours of the basegame to something around 80-120 hours. It also offers a wealth of new options in upgrades, skill trees, strategic choices, etc. And it's fiendishly difficult to boot. 

 

Now, you might say: "Stefan, don't be such a coward! Difficult games have their challenges, and I'm glad that there are games like this!" And sure, I can see that argument. But the Long War mod does have three problems that for me destroy what in theory I could really like. 

 

You will inevitably fail. This is ok, again, it's upposed to be difficult. The problem is that your failing happens around ten to thirty hours before you notice it. That means you can be forty hours into the game and only then realize that you fucked up thirty hours ago. 

 

The second problem ist that your failing comes in the form of a vicious cycle. One mistake, or simple bad luck, can start such a cycle that will lead you into an ever devolving drain of further failure with practically no chance to escape. That's bad. The same happens for the base game as well, but because that game doesn't suffer from problem number three, you usually notice your failing earlier and don't lose too much time. 

 

So, problem number three is the one I can't excuse. The other two you can file under "high difficulty", and if you like that, fine. The third, though, I don't accept. It's not communicating your rules clearly. 

 

The Long War mod does something quite a lot of more complex video games do (Paradox Interactive is another perpetrator here): it gives you a ton of interlocking systems that work quietely in the background that you can influence indirectly and which are HUGELY important. But the game doesn't explain to you how they work or how you can influence them OR THAT THEY'RE EVEN THERE. 

 

And that's not difficulty, that's just bad programming. You can essentially only play the Long War mod (or one of those Paradox monsters) when you open the fan-made Wiki in another window and permanently cross-reference it. Because it's not like that stuff would work randomly in the background, work as essentially a Fate putting down her weight on the scales of destiny. That's Darkest Dungeon, and you can do that, and it makes a game difficult, and that's ok. 

 

Long War and other games guilty of this sin simply outsource writing a good manual or tutorial to the community. And that's really, really not ok. 

 

And then, because these people hate you, there will be semi-regular updates that change whole features and variables, so you'd need to constantly start the learning process anew.

I'd really like to like Long War and other games like this. In theory, they're totally my thing. But Problem Number Three breaks them for me. Sorry.

How "The Banner Saga" conveyes a sense of doom

It's really hard to tell stories of downfall and doom in a video game, since so many games revolve around fulfilling power fantasies, at best creating a sense of ludo-narrative dissonance when trying to reach for that feat. It's even harder to tell a story by gameplay mechanics as well as written dialogue. If all this succeeds, you get a product like "The Banner Saga", the first part of (currently) two tactical roleplaying games. 

What "Stellaris" told me about the dangers of technology

In case you never heard of "Stellaris", you're either living under a rock or really aren't that much into really complex and heavy strategy games that need real effort and time to learn. Damn, that came out wrong. So, I'll take it you don't know Stellaris. It's a game by renowned studio Paradox Interactive (Hearts of Iron, Europa Universalis, Skylines, among others) in the 4x genre, allowing you to guide a civilization from its earliest FTL days to a sprawling intergalactic empire. As you marrily colonize new planets, research new techs and observe strange phenomena, you're range of options grows and your empire gains in strength, eventually resulting into First Contact with other civilizations and even war. So far, so good. But the game also has some really interesting other features, among the "crisis". And that one's a real bitch. 

Still no country for Old Gamers

Exactly a year ago, I jumped onto the Anita Sarkeesian bandwagon with both feet. I had encountered her "Tropes vs. Women" series roughly two weeks prior, which got me to really challenge some of the beliefs I had held previously, and when in late August 2014 the #gamergate scandal fully broke, I wrote an article called "No country for Old Gamers" to stake out my position, which is pretty deep in the Sarkeesian camp. This position, I have to say, was a personal break for me in many respects and a harbinger of my turnaround on other related issues in social policy as well, and it produced some serious stress in friendships in which the other guys weren't making the same turnaround, and it still is. In the discussion that I had with some readers in the original article, I had an argument with an anonymous reader about whether or not Sarkeesian was hurting the case, how the #gamergate movement's proclaimed issues ("ethics in video game journalism") and how it would play out in the medium term. He challenged me to take a look again after a month, and I said that this was too short a time and we should make it a year. Well, today it's a year. So, let's have a look how the situation is today, but first, the last bits of the discussion for context: 

A review of Telltale's "Game of Thrones"

Warning: Mild spoilers for the first episode ahead. 

Telltale is by now a household name for dramatic storytelling in video games, with well developed characters and intriguing, entertaining plot lines. Games such as "The Walking Dead" or "The Wolf Among Us" have shown new heights that can be reached even with mediocre source material, and the recent "Tales from the Borderlands" shows that they also succeed at comedy. Their track record gave rise to hopes for a good "Game of Thrones" game, of which there haven't been much lately. So, did Telltale succeed? Not to beat around the bush too much: most of the time, yes. 

#Gamergate is not one debate, but two. Plus, it's a culture war.

In my latest post linking to Sarkeesian's latest video, I talked about her and the other "Social Justice Warriors" winning the fight. One reader then asked me the following: 

Stefan, i'm wondering where you're getting your sources on GamerGate because i've seen lots of one sided pieces on each side of the aisle and as someone without a dog in this fight I have to say that a lot of the feminists sites like some of the posts you've linked to don't talk about any of the negative things there side are doing. There supporters have done plenty of doxxing, threatening and throwing there weight around as well. I'm not even a video game player anymore but i've found this whole saga interesting. Anyway, read this interview today with developer Brad Wardell and I think it's one of the few examples of someone able to talk about the plusses and minuses of each side.

I initially wrote a comment, but my argument grew longer, and so I'm making a blog post about it. Advantage if you're the owner of the damn thing, I know. ;) So, on to the argument.

Discussing Sarkeesian with 16-year-olds

Today, I used Anita Sarkeesian's "Women as Background Decoration" in class. The pupils are 10th graders, which in Germany means they're about 16 to 17 years old. The class is small, consisting of ten boys and one girl. Much testosterone to fly around, I can tell you. Since I know that all of the ten boys are playing video games, asking them whether they heard of #Gamergate, I expected some positive answers. In fact, two people had heard of it, and two others joined in once they understood what I meant. The term itself was new to them. We watched the aforementioned video together, with me pausing several times to explain some of the heavier vocabulary, but refraining from taking sides. During watching, they constantly shouted out their disapproval, citing that men get beaten and killed in these games, too, and that it's just "normal", and that if Sarkeesian didn't like it she should stop playing. Two pupils grew a bit more thoughtful after a while, pondering the arguments, but didn't get on Sarkeesian's side. All pupils stated how dismayed they were at the fact that Sarkeesian countered all their own arguments in advance, calling it unfair.

The connection between Open-World-Games and misogyny [UPDATE]

When I talked about my relation to Anita Sarkeesian's videos last week, I found something curious: the "Women as Background Decoration" trope that she talks about and that so infuriates gamers is especially prevalent in open-world-games. GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Kane&Lynch, Hitman, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry 3, Watch_Dogs and others popped up with alarming regularity (and yes, I know they're not all technically open-world, but they give players more freedom than your average Call of Duty). I think there's a connection between this fact and the sexist scenes that Sarkeesian dissected in her video, and it has to do with the mechanics of open-world games. 

Yay, freedom for the player!

No country for Old Gamers

Bringing feminism to a gaming console near you

I have never liked feminism. Then I watched Anita Sarkeesian. This may sound melodramatic, but in the light of the developments that loosely run under the tag of "#Gamergate" these days, melodrama is called for. I won't bore you with the details of the conflict, for which you can turn to the trusted explainers over at vox.com. The reactions from the community of people calling themselves "gamers" has been so much out of proportion that "melodrama" isn't beginning to cover it. When people are forced to ask the police for protection and flee their homes, you know that something has gone terribly wrong. The hatred that Sarkeesian, Quinn and others are receiving bars no relation to the quote on quote "provocation" they are posing to the gamer community at large. I guess I'm too old to ever have named myself a "gamer" (the term didn't exist in my really active days), but I certainly would've. Now, I can only try to make a firm stand, rebuking the stupid attitudes of my teenage years and agree with the many who came before me in renouncing the term.

Review: "Valiant Hearts: The Great War"

Can you make a game about World War I? An adventure game, no less? Ubisoft tried its hand at it. The result is a game called "Valiant Hearts", built on the Rayman2-engine, that was released end of June. The concept is a daring one: You experience the first World War from the perspective of an aging French conscript, Emile, his German son-in-law, Karl, a Belgian nurse, Anna, and an American volunteer, Freddy. The game jumps between these characters as they meet and advances three years through the war. The question remains, though - is it possible to adequatly convey the horrors of the war in a comic-style adventure game? The answer is Yes, at times. 

BioShock: Burial at Sea review

A few days ago, the second and final episode of the "Burial at Sea" DLC for "BioShock Infinite" was released. The first episode was received with mixed reviews: while it was a blast to go to pre-fall Rapture, it was generally considered too short and gameplay-wise lacking. Let's have a closer look at the whole oevre, now that we have access to it. Just as a quick overview: The original BioShock took place in the underwater-city of Rapture, an Ayn-Rand-nightmare, while BioShock Infinite took place in Columbia, a flying city in which the idea of American Exceptionalism had gone overdrive. Both worlds are connected through a web of possible realities and dimension portals.

Not the Elizabeth we deserve, but the Elizabeth we need.

The Auction House, Blizzard's biggest brainfart ever

When Diablo III was released back in 2012, it contained a feature named "The Auctionhouse", in which you could sell your in-game loot for game money and, later, for real money. The idea seems to have been to capitalize on the in-game items trade that went over ebay and similar traders up to this point. What Blizzard seems to have totally forgotten is that such a feature, built in the game, would have massive consequences for gameplay. And those consequences really aren't placable in the "fun" column of gaming experiences. 

Unpracticable armor is a hallmark of Diablo III opponents.

"Blackguards" review

I have to say, the existence of Blackguards came as a surprise to me. I didn't know of the game until its release, but I was interested, to say the least. The game is a tactical, round-based role-playing-game, which in itself isn't exactly novel, but it is also set in the world of The Dark Eye, the German roleplaying system I myself have been playing for close to one-and-a-half decades now (compare here). Naturally, I wanted to try it out. I was pleasantly surprised, I have to say.

Not by the graphics, I have to say.

Historical accuracy, games and World War II

Practically every game that takes place in the World War II era has one selling point in common, whether it's a stategy game or a shooter: historical accuracy. They all pride themselves on conveying the details of the epoch right, able to give the player that unique feeling. The shooters, like Medal of Honor or Call of Duty, went over great lengths to incorporate the correct sounds of all weapons, for example, the physics, the looks. In the Hearts of Iron series, you can equip your divisons and brigades with the contempory leaders and weaponry. And if you browse the Company of Heroes forums, you find people asking themselves how accurate the depiction of the Sturmgeschütz III Ausführung E in comparison to Ausführung F is. There's a great emphasis on getting the details right.

Detail, with a capital D

Why Rockstar can go wipe their asses with Max Payne 3

I was always a huge fan of the Max Payne franchise. The first two games were beautifully made, and I played them several times in ye olden days. Now, Max Payne 3 came out some time ago, and I never found the time to pick it up until now when it was on a Steam sale for whooping 7,50€, so no real harm to be done. I hoped for a littlebit more of Max' poetry along the way of bullet-time fights, but the actual game is such a stinking pile of shit that I get angry just to write about it. So, forgive me if this turns into a rant, but Max Payne 3 really sucks ass. 

It also sucks his skinhead, I guess.

The strength of an actual character

I played the new Tomb Raider. Ok, in reality, I played it several weeks ago, but I had too many assignments to do the game justice by reviewing it until now, so, here we go. Not exactly the most trending topic by now, but I think that what I have to say on the topic still holds enough water to revisit the game, before we can launch into an extended review of "Bioshock Infinite" at some later point, which suffered the same problem with my time schedule. So, before we actually talk about the new Tomb Raider, a caveat: I never played any of the old games. I watched the old Tomb Raider II at a friend's back in the day (it was the 90s, remember?), but never played them myself. They simply didn't interested me, neither concerning gameplay nor the character. I never found Lara Croft attractive,  not even in her "real-world"-counterpart Angelina Jolie or the several thousand models that were hired by Eidos Interactive at one point or another. 

Looking at you, girls.

Heart of the Loading Screen

Almost three years, we waited for the first expansion pack for "StarCraft II", a wait than be described as unprecedented, especially taking into account that yet another expansion - "Legacies of the Void" - is anounced for some unspecified date. Regarding that "Brood War", the expansion for the first StarCraft, arrived within a year of the release of its core game, the long wait for a mere expansion seems excessive, as does its pricing tag, which doesn't shy away from the comparison to a full-price game. Accordingly, this is the standard that "Heart of the Swarm" needs to measured on, and I have to say: after the disaster that was Diablo III, "Heart of the Swarm" continues a series of disappointments from a developer that once could do no wrong. 

Trust meeeeeeee!

Good riddance

Von Stefan Sasse

Let's begin this article with two quotes and a disclaimer: 

“This one is behind us now. We are taking Medal of Honor out of the rotation, and have a plan to bring year-over-year continuity to our shooter offerings.”
“We struggled with two challenges: the slowdown that impacted the entire sector and poor critical and commercial reception for Medal of Honor Warfighter. Medal of Honor was an obvious miss. The game was solid, but the focus on combat authenticity did not resonate with consumers. Critics were polarized and gave the game scores which were, frankly, lower than it deserved.”

- Official EA stateent

Official promotion video for Linkin Park and "Medal of Honor Warfighter"

It's a game I never played. But I did play the Call of Duty series and watched the reviews, so I'm feeling confident of being able to write the following lines.

Ill bodings for Heart of the Swarm's story

Back in 2010, there was nothing as eagerly anticipated as StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. It was high time that the torch was taken from StarCraft's hands into a more modern game that displayed more than 640x480 pixels. While its multiplayer was almost flawless, the Single-Player-Campaign left much to be desired for. In comparison to StarCraft I, it paled considerably. In my eyes, there were two main reasons for this, one in the structure of the story itself and the other one in a game design decision that never really payed off. Let's start with the latter one, work toward structural problems and finally discuss the upcoming "Heart of the Swarm" expansion that, against earlier promises, will be a full-priced game rather than an expansion. 

I sense...revenue...