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Saturday, October 18, 2003
Saturday, October 18, 2003
A console game is not a PC game, and cannot be treated as such
I did something yesterday that I�ve not done in a very long time. I bought a game without first hearing any reviews or recommendations from people I trust.
It�s a daft thing to do. Videogames aren�t cheap. I�m not particularly convinced that they�re overpriced, mind. The content of a movie DVD is exhausted after four, five hours at best, all for �20. You might watch the film itself around five more times, but it�s doubtful that you�ll ever watch the extras again, so let�s knock the total lifetime figure up to about the fourteen hour mark for an exceptional movie. A new videogame on a home console will cost you roughly twice the price of a film. The oneplayer mode in a shooter will, on average, take around twelve hours to complete. Chuck in a multiplayer mode and the life-expectancy of a truly superb game can be limitless. A role-playing game will nowadays take no less than 20 hours to complete, often exceeding 30, 35. GameBoy carts can be even better value. Pok�mon Ruby, for example, cost me �26 and the on-cart clock has now reached 83 hours. I�d have to conclude that videogames are remarkably good value for money when compared to other consumer products.
That said, �40 is a lot of cash. �40 is a hell of a lot of cash to spend on a gamble, but that�s what I did yesterday. The reason? Rebellion�s Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death.
Comics nuts will know that Rebellion are the guys who bought 2000AD a couple of years ago. It was a smart move � one purchase has provided them with a wealth of instantly-recognisable and potentially valuable IP, a huge amount of which screams out for translation into videogames. 2000AD IP has traditionally been poorly-treated by videogames, but both screenshots and previews made this latest title look promising.
Rebellion are also the people behind the PC�s original Aliens vs. Predator game. It�s this latter fact that helped make up my mind - AvP remains one of the best videogame adaptations of licensed material around and is far superior to its non-Rebellion sequel. I was pretty much convinced that this would all add up to a good thing, so I went ahead and bought the Xbox version.
And, so far, it�s good. I�m a quarter of the way through the levels and I�m enjoying it. Problem is, it�s missing that certain something that would lift it up from merely good and enjoying to excellent.
Designing games is not a science. There are no hard-and-fast rules about how to create an instant classic. There are, however, things which are � or should be � obvious, and there�s one piece of fundamental common sense in the development of console games which worryingly few developers appear to be aware of:
If the player wants to do something, you let them do it.
Don�t hem the player in with invisible walls. If you�ve stuck them in a huge, sprawling, open space and need to gently guide them through it you�d better provide them with a damn good reason why they can�t walk wherever they want. Similarly, if you�ve given them access to a piece of kit, you�d better make sure that they can exploit it in all the ways they can think of. A flamethrower as a weapon in a first-person shooter? Buddy, you�d better have ensured that any objects they can see within the gameworld will burn when they shoot them, or else you�ve just killed any sense of universe consistency and, therefore, player involvement.
You�ve got an even bigger problem with this kind of thing when you base your game in a world that they player is already familiar with, and this is where Dredd vs. Death falls down. I�m Dredd, therefore I should be able to arrest people and dish out sentences as and when I feel the need. Rebellion have tried to implement this, but it�s severely limited, almost to the point of being useless. You can arrest people by shouting out a warning. Some will drop to their knees, others will run. Most will give up after a fight or if you manage to relieve them of their weaponry. Great, fine, good. Then you sentence them. How?
By walking up to them and pressing a button.
Hello? Anyone home? I want to dish out the sentences myself. You�ve spent ages trying to get your game world to look right, peopled it with recognisable characters, done a reasonable job of providing me with some feeling of connection to the character I�m supposed to be playing, then you�ve pulled any sense of control away from me at one of the vital points. Not clever.
There�s another thing that you can include in a console title that will increase its longevity and pull the player in, and that�s something that will indulge the player�s completist nature. Look at some of the best games of recent years and you�ll find this sort of thing in the majority of them. Examples: the player can reach the end of Mario 64 by collecting 70 stars, but there are 120 in the game; Metroid Prime, Timesplitters 2 and Ape Escape all contain gameplay features that are superfluous to the �completion� of the title, but that provide the player both with further challenges as and when they require and an increased sense of immersion within the gameworld � Metroid allows you to scan all the enemies you face, building up a database of information on them, Timesplitters 2 has character profiles for every enemy you face and Ape Escape includes a directory of every monkey you catch, including their name, personality and likes/dislikes. These are features that add charm, an extra layer of involvement, extra hours onto the lifespan and help increase the feeling that the developer has loved working on the title and thought about every last detail. Why, then, when Rebellion have gone to the trouble of giving each of their in-game characters a name and some background info (including the crime that you�ve arrested them for) do they not allow you to view it at any point other than in the two seconds immediately after you�ve apprehended them? This is stupidity.
And along the same lines, why do they not allow you to view your awards on a separate screen? DvD includes a ranking system, where the better you do in each level the more extra features � character skins for multiplayer games, arcade levels � but doesn�t let you view the extras you�ve collected unless you�re starting a multiplayer game. It sounds petty, but it speaks of an underlying lack of care in the final stages of game development. Timesplitters 2 has a similar reward structure, but it properly integrates it by allowing the player to view the extra features they�ve gained on an awards screen. It makes you feel like you�ve got something to aim for and gives you another reason for doing so.
Lack of polish. That�s the final area where DvD lets itself down, and badly. Rebellion are traditionally a PC developer and all the complaints outlined above demonstrate the gulf between developing games for the PC and consoles perfectly. A PC game can get away with being rough around the edges because PC gamers are used to it � they�re used to paying for unfinished games and having to download fixes for them, so they�re prepared to let a game off if, say, the interface is clumsy or unintuitive because they think it�ll be put right later. Even if it�s not put right, they�ll still forget about it because it�s what they�re used to. You *cannot* do this in the home console marketplace. DvD has a lack of polish throughout. Menu screens lack character and are dull, uninspired. The presentation as a whole is all a bit bleh. The choice of font and colour on the text makes it far too difficult to read on a television screen. The frame rate is inconsistent.
There are other problems (the training and first level form a poor introduction to the game, being dull, lighting isn�t dynamic). It�s also fairly bloody obvious that this isn�t a game developed specifically for the Xbox � it�s been knocked up for PS2 and ported over, which means it looks out of place. Compare and contrast to Halo and DvD looks like a game that�s been stuck in limbo for two years: it feels like Rebellion were trying to develop a rival to Half-Life, a game which hasn�t aged well - harsh comment, maybe, but Halo really has knocked the bar up a huge number of notches. Bungie�s title has left all other first-person shooters floundering and I�d imagine a lot of developers have been faced with scrapping projects and staring them afresh.
It�s not a bad game, not by a long stretch. Some of the levels capture the Dredd feel perfectly (the Dawn of the Dead homage works extremely well and the sense of humour often shines through), the graphics engine's yellow shading around the edges of the characters makes them look like they�ve been plucked straight from the pages of some of Colin MacNeil�s strips (America, the one with the robo-judges which I can�t remember the name of) and if you can forgive it its faults � and chances are that if you grew up reading 2000AD you�ll be prepared to put up with far worse than you�re faced with here � you�ll have a blast.
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 21:54
Thursday, October 16, 2003
Thursday, October 16, 2003
Have I ever told you my Buffy theory? I don�t believe I have. Allow me to put that right.
Here is my Buffy theory. It�s called Why every series after S3 was a bit pap.
Simple answer: in the first three series (although mainly 2 and 3) Buffy is a cipher. A non-person. A big, gaping hole into which the audience can place themselves. She�s our avatar, if you like. Now, it�s pretty bleeding obvious that this isn�t what was supposed to happen � there�s not much doubt that she was supposed to be a fully-formed character, but Gellar�s performance was� well, I don�t exactly know *what* it was. It�d be unfair to call it one-dimensional. See, this is where my Buffy theory isn�t fully-formed.
Okay, try this. All the other main characters � Giles, Willow, Xander, Faith � the bad guys � Spike, Dru, Angelus, Mayor Richard Wilkins � and the second-tier support � Oz, Cordelia � are interesting. You like them, you don�t like them, they�re interesting. Buffy, you don�t really care about very much. She never stands out. A personality-free zone. But that�s good for the show, because it means there�s a nice you-shaped gap in the storyline. You fit yourself in nice and snug and you�re smack-bang in the middle of everything. You�re the one whose world�s torn apart when Angelus resurfaces, you�re given the little pink parasol at the prom.
Universal themes. That�s the reason why you�re prepared to get involved in this manner. Everyone, regardless of who they are, regardless of the specifics of their childhood, can recognise the bigger picture in the episodes. Loving the unobtainable � you always thought your love life was some big Greek tragedy when you were fifteen. Everyone did. So, when you�re given a show (with a big you-shaped hole in the centre of it, don�t forget) that turns the teenage romance into a big Greek tragedy it fires off all those old self-obsessive memories. You get them from all the other characters� storylines too, but they feel more important because you�re there. That�s what it all comes down to.
And it�s why everything after series 3 was a bit pap. The big theme�s stripped away. Instead of being a story about, say, surviving school, finding and accepting your own identity, fitting into yourself, rebelling against authority, series 4 is a story about a girl with superpowers fighting a secret military organisation. You�ll have to forgive me if I still can�t see the metaphor Whedon was stretching for there. It bears no relation to my late teens, and I�m prepared to bet good money that it doesn�t bear any relation to yours either. Fighting a god. Rebelling against authority, maybe? Oh, hang on, we�ve already done that in season 3 and Glory isn�t representative of any authority figure kids ever meet. Hmm. Okay then, how about one of your best friends going evil? Yeah, that could be growing apart from the people you grew up with. Only, that part of the storyline takes up the last couple of episodes, so it�s not a season theme. Fighting three nerds is. Nope, sorry, can�t see any effective deeper meaning there either.
You get the picture.
The other reason for general post-S3 papness: Gellar tries to act. We don�t want that. We want a Buffy that provides us with a nice, blank canvas to paint our own emotions onto. You can�t impose your own shape onto a character when the actor playing the part has decided to actually try and play the part. It�s partly why S4�s a bit pap and it�s the main reason why S5 and S6 are so pap. Yes, we can all relate to having our first real experience of death. That�s one episode, my friends, and Gellar�s been playing the misery card in all the ones leading up to it. And don�t be mistaken, her performance *is* sulk, not depression. Then S6 commits the same crime, only on a much larger scale.
I guess it�s partly why I�m inclined to think that S7 is slightly stronger than the preceding three.
Anyway, that�s my Buffy theory. I welcome derision at the usual address.
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 21:23
Monday, October 13, 2003
Monday, October 13, 2003
Back to university for the last three months of my course = loan cheque = first bit of spending cash in too long. So then:
Buffy S7: Disappointing, but not half as bad as a lot of people have been making it out to be. The final resolution is passable enough, the problem is the way in which we get there. Too many red herrings. At least, I presume they�re red herrings, because if they�re not they�re just the result of a complete lack of communication between scriptwriters or overall series control on the part of� whoever it is who�s supposed to look after that sort of thing.
Examples? Joyce appearing to Dawn, "Buffy won�t choose you." That whole scene does a fantastic job of setting the audience up for a major split in the Scoobs, but it never comes. The scene itself is mentioned a few times when it suits the purposes of that particular episode, but has no bearing on the series as a whole. Pointless.
Angel�s sudden appearance. Nothing more than a sop to the (perceived) demands of the audience. If you�re going to shoehorn the character into the series, at least have the decency to give him something to do while he�s there.
The First's "it�s not time for Spike yet" speech. Like so many other of these pointless scenes, it�s like the writers woke up one day and realised that they�d stuck it in without thinking about where they could go with it. When they realise they�re running out of time they just discard it, hoping that the audience won�t notice.
The reason this stuff�s all so disappointing is that it makes for some fantastic foreshadowing of things that never bloody happen. It all built me up for an enormous nuclear explosion of a series finale, with Scooby fighting Scooby, death and destruction left, right and centre and a decisive end to the Buffy story. What I was left with was a final episode that felt like nothing so much as a way of minimising problems should Whedon�s career require him to produce more spin-offs. As I say, that feeling wouldn�t be half as strong if I hadn�t been presented with numerous promising signs that I was going to get something much more impressive.
Which all makes me sound very down on S7. I�m not, not really. It�s got some lovely examples of the old Buffy humour in it (current favourite bit being in the last ep, with the portrait of Angel on Spike�s punching bag), it doesn�t feel as much of a slog to get through as, say, S4, and it does a very good job of using Spike to prevent the main character from being as deeply depressing as she has for the previous three years. Here�s hoping that Angel gets more care and attention lavished on it.
E. Randy Dupre's brain told him to write this at 23:19
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Losing the fight against mediocrity for the last few years. Fire a volley |
