Yearly Archives: 2004

Neon Leon

  • Reading time:5 mins read

I have progressed a bit in Lament of Innocence; I am now closing in on the end of the first level. All I have to do is beat the boss (I died toward the end of my first attempt), and I may move on.

The controls — I don’t know that there is any end of praise I can give to how they are designed. The only flaw I can find is that there is no way to cancel an attack with the block button. So if you see, say, an incoming spear, and your whip is extended, you can’t make Leon lift his gauntlet and block the attack until after his animation is completed. By then, it is usually too late.

Otherwise… well, I will dissect it all later. The mechanics are precise and splendid; they are exactly what I remembered from E3.

The real problem — again! — seems to be in level design. See, now I enjoyed the E3 demo. It was just room, room, room, room, room, room, boss. Clear all of the monsters; move on. Clear the room; move to the next room. Occasionally the player would face a small puzzle room or a platforming section; then he would move on. At the end, the boss.

That was it. It was fun! It was mindless, yet wholly entertaining. It was a straightforward action game, as with the original Castlevania, yet organized like the first well-made 3D brawler I have played. Castlevania: Fists of Fury. No nonsense. Just leap into the game and have fun with it.

When people complained of how shallow the full game was, I scoffed. Well, duh. Igarashi has already said that he intended the game to be a shallow hackfest. And it looked like he succeeded in making an enjoyable one. If the demo was any good representation of the finished result, then I did not see how a person could confuse the game’s ambition for anything else.

The problem with the full game — from what I have so far seen — is that it is no longer so focused. Now there is… wandering. And it is not particularly enjoyable wandering. It is not the sort of “backtracking” that one sees in, say, a Metroid game — which consciously exists to create a coherent sense of place, for the player. It…

Well, take the first level. There are two doors you need to open, to reach the boss. To do so, you need to go out of your way and flip six switches in far, unmarked corners of the level. To do that, you need to zigzag across the same collection of flat, almost wholly non-interactive (if pretty) rooms over and over and over again, fighting or avoiding the same respawning enemies over and over — to no benefit, given that the game contains no experience points (since it was supposed to be more of an action game).

There is almost no verticality to the rooms. When there is, it is usually just to hide a money bag or some other trinket; there is nothing vital on the upper plane. There is no sense of coherence, as the player wanders from one room to the next, as there is a scene transition every time the player opens a door. This, again, is because the game is supposed to be an action game: room, room, room. Clear a room; move on.

That ain’t how the levels are built, though. Instead, it seems like somewhere along the way, someone became worried that the game was too linear. So the rooms became connected to each other in a big enough network as to necessitate a map. In order to encourage the player to explore every corner of that map, the designers threw in obstacles such as those doors and switches. Puzzles now, instead of existing as a relief from battle, act as yet another hinderance, preventing the player from just trudging forward as she is supposed to.

At this point, I think you can see the problem as well as I: it is that Igarashi did not stick to his original idea. If he had just made the game he wanted to make, I am confident that it would have had a bunch of energy and would have been a blast to play. This is just tedious, though. Either someone interfered, and told Igarashi to make the game longer and more complex — although the game was not designed to work that way — or Igarashi himself lost confidence in his design somewhere close to the end of production, and tried to spice it up.

Not a good plan, that — as I am sure you are aware by now.

Oh well. Igarashi does have him some great ingredients, anyway. And heck, maybe the game gets more focused as it progresses. We shall see.

Whithervania

  • Reading time:2 mins read

GAR RAR

In a sudden hurry, although I just woke.

I acquired Castlevania: Lament of Innocence the other day, for… almost nothing, along with the Xbox version of Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams, for a similar price. I have not yet played past the introductory area of the former. It still controls as well as I remember. I enjoy the campy voice acting. The plot is… well, there’s something wrong with it so far — even if it is sort of clever in how it intertwines the Castlevania mythology with history.

The thing which most bothers me, though: I spent an hour wandering around, before I managed to find my way out of the first three or four rooms. All I had to do was double-jump off a block (which I knew was suspicious, and I had double-jumped off any number of times), and not move, and Leon would automatically pull himself up to a ledge which was imperceptible from what the camera had to show me.

And… right after I found a way up, I had to do something else. I will say more later.

I will say more on other things later.

I will, for instance, comment on whether this trend toward showing me level geometry then putting up invisible walls so I can’t interact with it will continue.

Later later!

Galaga, Fear, and the Power of Four

  • Reading time:6 mins read

Galaga is a refinement of a refinement of Space Invaders. It is entertaining and well-made, if a bit limited. Shots are slow.  The ship is slow.

The game does not really build; it progresses level-by-level, in a slight variation of the classic model: each level is a little harder. Galaga does throw in some variation, and the occasional bonus round. Nevertheless, the structure is the same as Pac-Man: you conduct the same task over and over. In this case, you clear the screen of enemies.

Tetris works on a different dynamic level, one more akin to the likes of Centipede. The world is constant and malleable. There is cause and effect. Just by virtue of playing the game, the game world itself is altered. Every choice you make will affect the future dynamics of that play session.

Unlike the overused shooting formula of Galaga and Centipede, however, Tetris puts the player in direct control over the environment: the playing pieces are the very objects which form the world. On top of this, Tetris randomizes the pieces that it allows the player, for his building. In this way, it forms something of a poignant model for life. We have liberty to build what we will with what we are given; depending on our skill and preference for risk, we can organize our world however we wish: build up pressure and risk of failure, or keep a steady release for lower rewards yet more assured success. Even the wisest and most expert of us, however, have only that liberty; we do not have full freedom, as there is only so much we can control in our lives. There is always an element of fate, or luck, thrown into our own structured determinism. We can usually see ahead a bit, to our next immediate task — yet beyond that, there is no telling what the world will throw at us, and ask us to deal with.

To play Tetris is to be in touch with one’s self. To play Galaga is to defensively distance one’s self from the world to the end of a barely-adequate gun barrel, and resign one’s self to the tireless, repetitious onslaught of a vindictive world in hope for the occasional small reward and a possible note in history, earned through one’s own sheer resiliance to harm.

Tetris, to me, seems a far more fundamental and organic parallel to the human experience, than any shooter is likely to be. Then, perhaps I am too optimistic.

An oppressive fear is the primary motivator in a game like Galaga. I am getting tired of fear. As I get older, I am less interested in hiding. I find it far more useful to deal with what the world gives me, as it comes, and in my own way.

The world truly is what you make of it.

Could this be said of all shooters, at their cores? And what does that say about shooter fans, in general? Are we all just afraid of some unnamed evil?

Perhaps. There is a sense of isolation and sadness that I feel in this kind of a stab at interaction. Almost a resignment to the overwhelming futility of life; there is no other way to deal with the world than to peck away at it as it flies at you, and try to come out unscathed — or even superficially on top, for a moment or two. Yet, that is generally only when you have killed everything else in the world — or, anyway, have cleared away more than anyone else.

Though it really depends on the game. As I mentioned, Centipede and Asteroids have an element of malleability in their game worlds. Although you still just peck away at the outside game world, your deeds do have an effect. You are clearly a part of your world. Your firing, in these cases, operates like a probe. There is, in a sense, a slight feeling of epiphany here in that the results of the player’s interaction is contrasted so clearly with the limited nature of those probes. Even the smallest action is relevant, in some way. Tetris is, in its way, the evolution of this thread.

Scrolling shooters add another element, that alters and enriches the dynamic somewhat (although this complicates the matter to make the message somewhat muddier to me, at the moment). The modern shooter — typified by Mars Matrix and Ikaruga — is so abstracted that it has come closer to the Tetris model of dealing with the world. It is, however, somehat more carefree.

I… there is noise here. Hard to think.

Oppressive fear could be said to be the primary motivator in everything in life. Even Tetris. But maybe I’m just being too pessimistic.

Yes. I suppose the point is, how do you react to that fear?

Are you saying that Tetris itself is an evolution of Galaga and Space Invaders, in that it gives players more freedom over their world? Or did you mean something else entirely?

Spacewar/Space Invaders -> Asteroids/Centipede -> [something] -> Tetris

It is not so much about what level of control the player has over the game world, as it is about the level of attachment or detachment that the game emphasizes. What control is offered, is reflective on the individual in accordance to the significance of the player’s actions, and indeed presence, within the world. It is an existential problem.

Pac-Man branches off in a different direction from the likes of Galaga, and pretty much founds the original principles behind the Japanese videogame aesthetic (later adopted and expanded by Miyamoto, Yuji Hori, and others). With Pac-Man, videogames went through an iconographic objectification process. On its own, that is not so bad. I am rather unfond, however, of the side effects it has had in the hands of those who do not quite understand the principles behind the change, and who tend to take that surface as-is, as the reality of the medium. That is… problematic.

On the other hand, I wonder how much further we can venture down the introspective route. I suppose the best way we can find out is by turning back and exploring what we have forgotten for the last two decades or so.

In a way, Rez is like a new abstraction of Centipede. I am curious where else this strain might go.

Dissonance

  • Reading time:1 mins read

ICO, the premise, is darling. ICO, the game, has begun to irritate me.

This could have been designed plenty better.

Eek? Oh.

  • Reading time:1 mins read

Today, between not killing myself on a bicycle and not killing myself by running face-first into a tree branch, I went to a used game shop. There, I found… games. I saw a loose cartridge of Dynamite Headdy, and one of Rocket Knight Adventures. I passed both over, as I do not accept Genesis games without cases if I can help it. I saw a copy of The Adventure of Link, gold cart, mostly unblemished, for five dollars. It rattled.

I walked out of the store (collectively, over two vacancies over five minutes) with Tengen’s version of Sega’s Alien Syndrome, for the NES; Acclaim’s version of Toaplan’s Tiger Heli, for the NES; Capcom’s version of Capcom’s P.N.03, for the Gamecube; and ICO.

I… think the above cost about fourteen dollars, in total.

My only memory card is currently elsewhere. After plummeting twice off one or another high precipice, I have decided not to play too much of ICO until I have something to fall back on. Nevertheless, I will comment on what I have seen thus far:

Damn.

…

I need juice.

Another Month

  • Reading time:1 mins read

If you have not seen our GDC report, it is… perhaps worth seeing. Simon Carless, of Slashdot Games, seems to enjoy it.

I think I am finally unwound, now. Perhaps I can get caught up on all I have ignored.

The Secret of Pac-Man’s Success: Making Fun First

  • Reading time:2 mins read

by [name redacted]

The radios were on the seats, this time. Most of the radios remained in place. On the screen to the right, An isometric illustration of Pac-Man greeted newcomers. A scruffy middle-aged man fumbled behind the podium. Brandon and I chose seats close and to the right of center. When most of the seats were filled, the man behind the podium turned on his microphone; it was Iwatani. He introduced himself, and his topic, in an English which might have carried him through the lecture, were he able to keep it up.

He wasn’t. To fill in the language gap, Iwatani was given a tag-team of feuding translators. Every few minutes, one woman would trade off for the other. It was a little bizarre to listen to, as it was clear that neither translation was as accurate or well-phrased as it could have been. One of the women tried at least three times, and ultimately failed, to pronounce “Galaxian”. Neither seemed to notice Iwatani’s well-organized slides, which almost narrated his lecture on their own. According to Brandon, who chose to listen to the Japanese channel on his radio, there was a point when one of the translators shouted at the other to “shut up”.

( Continue reading at Insert Credit )

dep3D

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

While we bode our time for Zelda time, Brandon and I drifted into the lonely walled-off corridors to the left of the main entrance. Beyond a door and a glass wall, in a far corner, we encountered a low-key display of several otherwise-unmemorable driving games. The only immediate sign of life was in that the place seemed oddly crowded. As we neared, it became evident why: the driving game on the big-screen TV was… blurry. I looked down, and at my feet I saw a bucket full of paper spectacles: 3D glasses. Oh my. It has been a while, hasn’t it. And these were not your old-style red-and-blue glasses; these are the newer type, which provide a clear, untinted picture.

( Continue reading at Insert Credit )

OutRun2

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

As we strolled past the Megaking booth on the show floor, I spotted an OutRun2 machine in the distance. Drawing closer, I noticed that it was a feature of the CRI (now a subdivision of SEGA-AM2) booth. A polite elderly Japanese fellow swiped Brandon’s and my ID cards; he handed us pamphlets and old-fashioned Japanese fans with the CRI logo on them. Only two people were before us. The initial plan was, I — being such a fan of the original OutRun — would play the game, and subsequently write up my impressions. Time was short.

As we waited, I read through a bilingual “Naze Nani CRI” comic, which illustrated for kids on both shores the benefits of MPEG SofDec and the ADX compression algorithm. A middle-aged Asian man stood behind me, arms crossed in front of his ID badge. “Do you like the original?” he asked. We nodded and grinned, politely.

( Continue reading at Insert Credit )

The Evolution of a Franchise: The Legend of Zelda

  • Reading time:2 mins read

by [name redacted]

We arrived late; the conference was already half-over, and the crowd had spilled to standing-room-in-the-hall-outside-the-conference-room-only. An Asian woman with a nervous smile asked us if we wanted headphones — sort of like what people wear during international debates. “Channel two is English” she said. I had no trouble setting my radio to channel two, or turning it on, or even adjusing the volume. Somehow, though, it still refused to work. Being the tall one, Brandon suggested I wedge myself just inside the door. I could see over everyone’s head. Eiji Aonuma stood on-stage, pontificating as if on a PBS special. To his left (and my right) was a large screen, showing a clip of Link, from The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, running through the first few scenes of that game.

I turned to Brandon. I pointed toward my radio. Brandon pressed the power button. He adjusted the volume. He fiddled with the antenna. Then he shrugged and began to turn away. A moment later, he grabbed the end of my headphones and plugged them into the radio. My ears began to melt with Hell’s very own translation. I seized the radio and spun the volume dial to half of what it was.

When my senses recovered, Aonuma was talking about all of the little, insignificant details in the Zelda series, and how they bring reality to the game. He spoke of the difference between reality and realism. “To Miyamoto, reality is far more important,” Aonuma explained. This seemed fair enough, if a bit obvious. He then took the time to give several examples of just what reality means in the context of a game like Wind Waker.

( Continue reading at Insert Credit )

The 2004 Game Developers Choice Awards

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

I watched the Academy Awards for the first time, a few weeks ago. The MPAA’s screener ban (instituted in part to cut down on indie competition, under the ruse of piracy prevention) had apparently backfired, as the 2003 nominees consisted of perhaps the most well-chosen bunch of the right movies, for the right awards, that the Academy had ever selected. I thought, hey. Why not.

After an hour and a half, three hundred commercials, Billy Crystal’s singing, Billy Crystal’s unfunny jokes, Billy Crystal’s just-this-side-of-unkind remarks to Clint Eastwood and others, endless Hobbit awards, and Billy Crystal, I wandered away. I now thought I understood, first-hand, the general antipathy for award ceremonies.

With this in mind, I was unsure what to expect when I walked into the IGDA Game Developers Choice Awards. I had read about the Gunpei Yokoi ceremony the year before; that had sounded unconventional and sincere. Yet: it was still an awards ceremony. How long could I tolerate the pomp, I wondered.

( Continue reading at Insert Credit )

Inner Dimensions

  • Reading time:3 mins read

by [name redacted]

A bit of reporting for Xbox Nation Magazine, which was actually printed in both the May and June issues. It seemed I had an in for writing more complex material — I notice a bunch of notes for further articles — but then the magazine folded. A shame.

As relative newcomer to the console scene, Microsoft arrived in the silence after the storm. Those who were present recall the trials of the mid-nineties, as Sony squeezed the industry through a macabre cleansing operation. Developers were forced to convert to 3D development or not only risk public dismissal, but risk disapproval from Sony. Without Sony’s OK, games go unpublished — and Sony has its own agenda. Crushing to many smaller houses, this policy continues even today.

Even so, some studios, like SNK, refuse to surrender.

STATEMENT OF INTENT

  • Reading time:6 mins read

That‘s about it. In the original Jet Set Radio, the player had five or six things to think about at any moment. Early on, there were the mechanics to worry about. Then there was a bit of an exploration element. Then there was the goal of the stage — which usually involved finding, accessing, and spraying graffiti on set locations. (The spraying itself was a change of pace, as it involved standing still and entering complex thumbstick gestures — possibly in the midst of an otherwise-chaotic scene.) Then there were the police to worry about. Then there was the strategy of which tags to save for last, to make them easiest to spray on the go while avoiding the cops. Then there were the Graffiti Souls to find and collect — the doing of which was really helpful in teaching the player how the levels were put together. There was the whole performance-scoring mechanic, which encouraged you to complete every level in style, on top of everything else asked of you. Then there was the timer.

The player always had something to think about; it was all about trial-and-error, as one learned how the game thought and how it wanted the player to think — namely, with a fast and ordered chaos. The game was a rush. And if you missed something, you could go back in and play around later.

JSRF reminds me a bit of what JSR is like when it’s beaten; one big city, that you can freely skate around and explore. No danger. No stress. Whatever Graffiti Souls you’ve missed, you now can sort out how to collect. In JSR, that was perhaps the best part of the game — yet part of the reason why that freedom was so rewarding was that I had to earn it. I was fed one piece of the game at a time, and at the end I got to enjoy how everything fit together. Also, the level design was terrific.

The level design in JSRF isn’t as interesting. Beyond that, though, the game… everything’s compartmentalized now. I never have to think. I just wander around through this city, and the game places task after task before me. “Do this”, it says. So I do it. Then I wander. “Now do this”, it tells me. So I do that. Then I wander. “Now you must knock down all of these police” it says. “Now look at this — find a way up to this Graffiti Soul.”

Hell. I…

Did I ever have to fight the police in the first game? They were pretty dangerous. That was kind of the idea, I thought. It was all about running from the cops. They kept the pressure on. Now the only interaction I have is the occasional skit where the game fences me into an arena and I have to defeat a certain number of policemen or tanks or what-have-you to continue.

Now. Come to think of it — since the police aren’t a constant problem, why is the graffiti system so simplified? All one must do now is hit the right trigger, and the graffiti appears. No stopping; no effort. Were the game more action-packed, to the point where it was dangerous to stand still for even a moment, this tradeoff would be helpful. So far, however, that just ain’t the case. Again, all of the game’s elements are now broken up. There’s no timer. There’s no danger. I’m free to wander and spray as I wish. Again, all of the danger is partitioned into these silly skits in between game areas.

Perhaps it is unfair for me to compare this game to its predecessor, as it is clear that it attempts a different dynamic — yet exactly what dynamic is that? It has become a standard exploration-collection platformer, only with even more frustrating wonky controls than the original Jet Set Radio. The only things which seem to really set it apart are its visual and aural style. And even that isn’t up to the standard set by the first game.

The visuals are polished; they’re sleek, and ever-so-slightly more Western in style. Yet although interesting, they lack the quirky charm that so characterized JSR. Although still impressive, they feel kind of bland in comparison. Likewise, the soundtrack — well. I’ll get to Cibo Matto in a moment. I’m not going to get into the Latch Brothers’ contributions. Hideki Naganuma must have had an off day when he wrote the music to this game. There are a few excellent tracks (“The Concept of Love”, “Like a Butterfly” (is that its name?)), yet others seem built out of pieces of familiar tracks from the first game or just… don’t have as much power to them as what he contributed before. There’s a lack of energy here.

As for “Birthday Cake”: I like Cibo Matto. I’m really fond of them. I like this album (Viva! La Woman). I like this song. You all are right to criticize the use of this song in this game. Do not, however, let it taint your concept of Cibo Matto. They are very good.

Not only is this perhaps the least appropriate song to choose for the game; it also got mangled along the way. First, someone at Sega decided to censor it; two phrases were edited out (“I don’t give a flying fuck though!”; “You made the war with the Vietnamese.”), making the song play like a gravel driveway. Then — I don’t know what happened with the compression or the EQ. I guess someone tried to make the song sound “fuller” by scrunching all of the levels together. It just sounds awful, though. It’s hard to listen to.

Yes, the song is shrill in its natural state — yet it is charming as well! It is funny! That has been effectively removed; all that remains is noise.

And again: wow, what a bad choice of a song, anyway. Cibo Matto was perfect. Just not this song.

So. There that is. The game is not awful. It is just mediocre, from what I have seen. As I have said elsewhere, however, I think I could better tolerate an all-out failure. Instead, this game feels like a compromise for the benefit of everyone who didn’t get the original Jet Set Radio. The fallacy there is: those people? They’re not going to get it. Jet Set Radio, on its own power, ain’t a mass-appeal concept. You’re playing to the wrong crowd. If you want to bring people in, you convert them through social engineering. You make them see how hip you are (perhaps through smart marketing and PR). You don’t change, or you’ve wasted everything.

Ah me. My foot is asleep.

Not mere youth.

  • Reading time:2 mins read

I think perhaps the greatest thrill and the greatest feel of accomplishment comes from what you’re not supposed to do. Every time you break an apparent rule and you get away with it, you feel stronger, smarter; more clever and more brave. All the better if by breaking the rules you are confident you’ve chosen the more true path. Then instead of a nagging guilt, you feel like a bit of a hero unto yourself. All of the fear you feel, all of the over-awareness you face, goes right to your heart. And it glows. The universe is broader than you had been led to believe; and now you’ve broken through that facade. Who knows what else is out there. Who knows what you might accomplish. It’s such a feeling of freedom. It’s moments like that which build a rich life.

And it’s moments like that which, to some extent, build art.

I think some element of this explains why I respect Hideo Kojima’s vision, even if I’ve not played his recent games and I never enjoyed his old ones. It also explains why the standard formula piece — romatic comedy, action movie, war movie, musical, western — in which so many people seem to take comfort — feels like death to me. I do not enjoy such fare because I feel like I am suffocating; like the walls are being drawn around me; like choices are being actively removed from my universe. Just as a book like Catch-22 makes me feel more alive, I feel like I am, to some extent, dying, when I enter these worlds.

I resent that. I don’t like feeling that way. It is difficult to just ignore and tolerate mediocrity; I am too sensitive to dig my heels in and endure. It takes a measure of will and security just not to lash out, but rather to take pity, to take note, and to move on in search for another deviant soul.

Xbox update!

  • Reading time:1 mins read

Knights of the Old Republic is the missing single-player mode of Phantasy Star Online.

Just thought I’d point that out.

GOD, when will it get started? I’m twelve hours in, and the plot has just barely begun to crawl out of its fetal position. Although I still am running around the same town on the same planet, now I have met a Jedi! I’ve accomplished ONE THING. Hooray!

This still is more fun than JSRF, however.

I think I’m in trouble. I really like the article I’m writing. This is never a good sign.