We All Fall Down

This Week’s Releases (April 10-14, 2006)

  • Reading time:11 mins read

by [name redacted]

Week thirty-five of my ongoing, irreverent news column; originally posted at Next Generation. Two of the sections are expanded into full articles, posted later in the week.

Game of the Week:

Tomb Raider: Legend
Crystal Dynamics/Eidos Interactive
Xbox/Xbox 360/PlayStation 2/PC
Tuesday

Something that people keep bringing up, yet probably don’t bring up enough, is that the first Tomb Raider was a damned good game. And what it seems Crystal Dynamics has done is go back to the framework of Tomb Raider 2 and to break it down, analytically. What they chose to do is bring the focus back to exploration – in part by introducing some new gizmos, in part by making the environments more fun to navigate. Reviews nitpick a few fair issues; still, the overall response seems to be a huge sigh of relief. Maybe it’s not the best game in the world, or all it ever could be. Still – it’s not terrible! The theme that keeps coming up is one of nostalgia – that, for the first time, someone has managed to recapture what makes Tomb Raider interesting. And that sentiment is itself interesting.

This Week’s Releases (April 3-7, 2006)

  • Reading time:7 mins read

by [name redacted]

Week thirty-four of my ongoing, irreverent news column; originally posted at Next Generation.

Game of the Week:

Tourist Trophy
Polyphony Digital/SCEA
PlayStation 2
Tuesday

Back when the PlayStation was new, Ken Kutaragi asked all his employees for new game ideas. It didn’t matter how silly; he just wanted input. In particular, he wanted a mix of input from people who were deeply invested in videogames and people who barely had anything to do with them. Kazunori Yamauchi’s response was that he wanted to be able to drive his own car on his television screen. Kutaragi thought that was sort of clever, so he put Yamauchi in charge of producing that game; what Yamauchi turned up with, of course, was Gran Turismo.

Gran Turismo is, as these terms go, a very hardcore game – not necessarily in the “hardcore videogame” sense, except as far as a person who is hardcore about anything technical can usually apply that to something else hardcore and technical; it’s hardcore in the sense that it is an ode to the motorcar in all the layers of obsessiveness you might ascribe to a Gundam. Each game incorporates an increasingly disturbing number of makes and models, each tuned to as close an approximation as possible, given the current state of videogames – all for the ultimate goal of allowing the player to reproduce his exact car (or perhaps his dream car) and drive it from the safety of his living room.

That’s an impressive effort for an idea that, on the surface, sounds so pointless.

Experimental Gameplay 2006 – Part 2

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

Jonathan Blow showed what appeared to be a humble-looking 2D platformer, that at a glance could well have been designed in Mark Overman’s Game Maker, and mumbled a few things about time manipulation. He referenced Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Blinx: The Timesweeper, calling them relatively traditional in application. The player can only go back so far, and only under certain circumstances, making the time element sort of a gimmick. Blow wondered what would happen if the player were able to “undo” however many mistakes he pleased. What would that mean for design? Could it even work? If so, how?

( Continue reading at GamaSutra )

Experimental Gameplay 2006 – Part 1

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

As in past years, Wednesday’s Experimental Gameplay session attracted a throng. Beyond standing-room only, the lecture hall was crowded enough to concern and irritate the local fire marshal. Ultimately, the session went on around fifteen minutes longer than expected – and even then, the presenters had more material than they were able to show.

Comprised as it was of enthusiastic young developers, eager to show off their new toys that (in several cases) nobody else is allowed to play with, the energy level was high, keeping the audience clapping and cheering when appropriate, and vocalizing when not.

( Continue reading at GamaSutra )

Spore: Pre-Production Through Prototyping

  • Reading time:2 mins read

by [name redacted]

Maxis Senior Development Director Eric Todd shifted foot to foot as Namco’s Keita Takahashi slowly gathered up his notes and folders, grin plastered to his face, slowed by the occasional autograph hunter. It seemed like every time Takahashi thought he was ready, he realized he had failed to retrieve something else. Eventually he cleared off the podium and exited stage left. Just as Eric Todd stepped forward, to belatedly start his lecture, Takahashi swooped by again to collect one last article before dashing to the hall doors, seeming suddenly preoccupied. Todd blinked at the audience and introduced himself.

“Prototyping”, Todd declared, “is the heart of a virtuous pre-production cycle”. He explained the premise of the lecture – that he would be discussing the value of experimental models before dedicating one’s self to any one approach to a software problem. He then explained that the following would be an “advanced” talk, that would assume you already knew what he was talking about – so he wouldn’t hold back in his explanations or references. Todd rattled off a list of books that the audience might do well reading, to better understand what he was about to say – none of which, it turned out, were altogether necessary.

( Continue reading at GamaSutra )

The Past Outrunning the Future

  • Reading time:2 mins read

I just now realized the connotations of the “return of Sarah-Jane” thing. When it comes down to it, essentially the Doctor dumped her. He left her behind. And come to think of it, she never really met any of his other companions — aside from Harry, of course. Jo left at the end of one season; Sarah-Jane showed up at the start of the next. And after the Doctor left her, he went off alone for a while. From beginning to end, she had the Doctor essentially to herself. So just as it will be a bolt from the blue for Rose to gel that the Doctor has had previous companions, meeting Rose will also be something of a first for Sarah-Jane.

Didn’t realize how tidy and self-contained this whole story is. Almost like it was waiting for closure. The K-9 issue just helps, as how often has the Doctor thought about a companion after moving on? For the most part, this is who he is — right here, right now. Except when it comes to Sarah-Jane. Then he can’t escape the past.

Between this thread and stuff like the revelation that the Time War was going on all through the old series, from Genesis on, and taking pains at every opportunity to make some actual sense out of the TV Movie, the new series is bringing a whole new dimension and context to the series as a whole. Not unlike, uh, the first Sonic Adventure?

The Localization of Counter-Strike in Japan

  • Reading time:2 mins read

by [name redacted]

Taninami, a thirteen-year veteran of Namco’s arcade division, was assigned five years ago to find a solution to the Japanese “network game problem”. Whereas the US has enjoyed about thirty-five years of network connectivity, online games have never really caught on in Japan; for some time, received wisdom placed the blame on a nonexistent or comparably obscure architecture. And yet, now that broadband is prevalent, the market still barely exists.

So why is that, Taninami asked. Flipping the question around, he then asked what makes network games fun. He concluded that pleasure comes in part from the game itself – provided it’s a good game – and in part from the company the player keeps. He called this situation a “relationship of multiplication”: if the opponent fails to play fairly, then the game fails to be enjoyable. As far as Taninami was concerned, that social angle was the biggest problem.

As Taninami had a limited budget, he figured there was no point in wasting resources on development, when there are already so many well-made games available; instead, he poured all of his attention into the network aspect, conducting reams on ridiculous reams of research on how to ensure a fun level of competition. For the game, he selected Counter-Strike, due to its popularity elsewhere in the world. He asked Valve for a license to promote the game in Japan; they said okay and everything was in order. Almost.

( Continue reading at GamaSutra )

“What’s Next?” Panel

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

Following the theme of the 2006 conference, a panel of five industry veterans (of various levels of celebrity and influence) gathered to discuss “what’s next” for the game industry, what with the pending change of hardware generations, the new and changing attitudes about game design to come about in the last twelve months or so, and serious concerns about the stability and structure of the game industry as it is now.

Gathered for this occasion were EALA VP of creative development Louis Castle, NanaOn-sha president Masaya Matsuura, Midway art director Cyrus Lum, Cerny Games founder Mark Cerny, and the inimitable Dave Perry, formerly (and presumably eventually again) of Shiny Entertainment.

( Continue reading at GamaSutra )

An Existential Panel

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

The panel stretched its joints by working out if there was any consensus as to how the balance of power is situated in the casual game universe. The thread of design was established to start at the developer and run through to the consumer in the following pattern:

Developer -> Publisher -> Distributor -> Retailer -> Customer

The implication seemed to be that the developer and the consumer should be the parties with the greatest degree of control, as they’re ultimately the parties that are communicating. Joel Brodie indeed opined that consumers are the ultimate controlling force; they buy what they want, and they don’t buy what they don’t want. Dave Williams figured the balance was pretty even among all parties. Mr. Gwertzman was certain that publishers and portals are the “God” in the equation, while Nixon and Welch agreed that retailers are the major factor in what gets seen and purchased, therefore what developments receive support.

( Continue reading at GamaSutra )

An Introduction to Casual Games

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

All day Tuesday, a board of twenty industry insiders swapped off on a series of panels dealing with the current state of the casual game industry. To start the proceedings, a selection of five speakers from a variegated spectrum of backgrounds outlined the basic nature of casual games, as they are today.

Unlike past years, the idea this time was to present an overall “übertheme”, broken down into digestible segments. That theme, roughly hewn, was a comparison of casual games now to where the industry was three years ago. On that note, since 2003, the industry has gone from about fifty million dollars in revenue, nearly all of which came from Internet downloads, to five times that sum in downloads alone; meanwhile, other revenue streams have become more important then before. There are now two annual conferences, dedicated to casual games. And even just as far as GDC representation, casual games have gone from a handful of sessions to over twenty related sessions, including this full-day tutorial.

( Continue reading at GamaSutra )

The Future of Mobile Gaming and its Enemies

  • Reading time:2 mins read

by [name redacted]

EA Mobile senior VP (and former JAMDAT CEO) Mitch Lasky kicked off his keynote at the GDC Mobile segment of Game Developers Conference 2006 with an extended spiel about his history with JAMDAT Mobile, the changing fabric of the industry, and what he sees as the biggest obstacles (and avenues) to future growth and maturation.

According to Lasky, one of the biggest forces for change has been his own company, JAMDAT — and in its current form, as the mobile division of Electronic Arts, Lasky sees it as perhaps the most important force for future change.

Lasky explained how Jamdat went, as he put it, from a value of zero to $684,000,000 in six years. When they began, they were a team of six people; previous to the EA merger two months back, JAMDAT was already the biggest mobile publisher. To contrast, The amount EA paid for JAMDAT is five times greater than Maxis fetched, making it the biggest EA transaction to date.

Of course with this kind of growth, it is only natural for other developers to go public in search of similar success. Lasky suggested the search was ultimately futile, as at the time JAMDAT went public it was “fundamentally different.”

( Continue reading at GamaSutra )

Sci-Fi

  • Reading time:3 mins read

From the moment “Rose” started up, something seemed amiss. Eventually I hit upon what it was: somehow Sci-Fi had got ahold of the wrong edit of episode one. They showed the rough version leaked to the Internet last year instead of the final edit aired in Britain. Having watched the latter version many times over, I was startled by how much the rough edit continues to plod — especially toward the end. I’m reminded of how much I cringed during the climax, the first time I saw the leaked version. I had completely forgotten about that, as I haven’t felt it in over a year.

End of the World was just fine, though. I was impressed by how well the pacing lent itself to interruption, and by (in general) what good choices Sci-Fi made for breaks — usually right after one of the Doctor’s quips about a new situation he found himself in. One break even resumed with the “Bad Wolf” line, bringing more attention to it than you’d normally have. Eventually, after the new trailer Sci-Fi knocked up for “Unquiet Dead” (hey, they really are putting some work into this), I realized what had happened with Rose. Going by the end credits, these must be the Canadian prints. Sci-Fi must have gotten them from the CBC, rather than directly from the BBC. Aha! Hah! Ho. How odd, though.

As I brushed past a moment ago, at the end of the episode they just cut the “next time” trailer, then run a clean set of credits “crushed” to the left with a brand-new trailer (using Sci-Fi’s custom Doctor Who logo) on the right. It works well, and the new trailers aren’t bad (at least, the two I’ve seen). They work on a different level from the original ones, though. Rather than have an abstract “narrative” of sorts, they’re just a bunch of cool scenes with a voiceover outlining the plot. Less quirky-n-British, though — again — effective.

Which segues into another strange thing: these episodes never seemed so British before. Watching them on their own, I just accepted them on their own merits. Now, sandwiched between two “people in military suits standing around with bored expressions, waiting to deliver their next line of exposision” shows, everything about the show sticks out like a rock star’s errection. It feels like I’m watching A&E or Masterpiece Theater or something.

Anyway. Yeah. This looks like it’ll work well. The only snafu so far seems like it wasn’t anyone’s fault, really (except whoever sent the wrong master to Canada over a year ago). And in general I’m impressed with the care and interest Sci-Fi’s showing toward the series. It’s encouraging. The only question is, did people actually watch?

EDIT: Of course, Sci-Fi did program an entire four-hour block around the show — so if anyone flipped to Sci-Fi at all during the evening, they probably caught part of it.

Firaxis Railroads Take Two

  • Reading time:3 mins read

by [name redacted]

Originally published by Next Generation under a title I no longer remember.

This Thursday evening in San Francisco, Fixaxis followed an uneventful awards presentation with a smaller, boozier, more informal get-together of its own. Across the Metreon catwalk from the Walk of Game ceremony, Firaxis laid claim to the cozy SoMa Room: a carpeted, dimly-lit bar-centric private club-cum-meeting area.

Following a time of kabobs and schmoozing, the projector flipped on, the movies began to roll, and the assembly of journalists and industry insiders was introduced to a trio of new Firaxis products (one down from the advertised four): the modern-day remake of Sid Meier’s Railroads; the CivIV expansion Warlords; and the major new curiosity of the evening, CivCity ROME.

No fool like a clever fool

  • Reading time:2 mins read

McCoy presents to me what is perhaps the ideal representation of the Doctor. It’s either he or Troughton; they’re too similar. Of all the Doctors, these two are the most “clever”. They play (as Thom notes) the classic Shakespearian fool; their power lies mostly in subterfuge. In appearing stupid, or at least harmless, such as to disarm those around them and thereby to give them the upper hand.

To some extent or another, nearly every Doctor has had his tricks to this end. Hartnell just seems like a crabby old man. Davison is a wounded puppy dog. Tom Baker plays a very similar role to McCoy and Troughton, though through such a filter of mockery that you really don’t know what to make of him — thereby making him seem insane, and thereby, indirectly, probably not a threat. Though he’s erratic enough that maybe he shoots himself in the foot as often as not. Colin Baker seems like such a pompous ass that you dismiss him out of hand. McGann is so earnest, and keeps throwing out so much information that he shouldn’t know, that he’s either endearing or just plain batty — though I think more effectively than Tom Baker, in that at no point does McGann seem like a potential threat. Not sure what to say about Eccleston or Tennant.

The only Doctor who does not seem to possess this vital — and in my mind character-defining — quality is Pertwee, the “James Bond Doctor”, which probably accounts for his being my least favorite, despite his charm and warmth and whatnot. The other Doctors tend to get ranked according to the efficacity of their particular ruses.

And of all Doctors, I think McCoy and Troughton are both the easiest and most dangerous to underestimate.

Role for Ten

  • Reading time:3 mins read

Starting with Peter Davison, the ending credit shifted from “Doctor Who” (as all previous Doctors had been billed) to “The Doctor”, with the explanation that this was the character’s proper name. That continued up through at least McCoy (I don’t remember about McGann), then the show ended. When it returned last year, Eccleston was again credited as “Doctor Who” — sending the fanboys into a tizzy, because that’s not the character’s name! How could Davies be so stupid! (This among so many other things, like the episodes being the wrong length and the TARDIS windows being too wide.)

The answer is that it’s almost certainly the proper billing. From the position of an audience member, it’s more precise; where the “Doctor” billing comes from is the incredible sense of literalism that John Nathan-Turner brought to the show in the early ’80s (about the time the show began to go downhill, I’ll note). The science must be “real” science (or at least more credible-sounding nonsense), since this is a serious show; the sonic screwdriver is an easy out for writers, so now the Doctor must find a unique and realistic way to pick every lock; the Doctor is from outer space, so let’s make the intro a starfield to illustrate that; we’re in the Eighties now, so let’s use neon piping for our logo so we’ll look all up-to-date; the Doctor is mysterious, so let’s throw question marks on all his clothes, to illustrate that…

Thing is, there’s a difference between a character and a role. The person in the role of Doctor Who plays a character named The Doctor. It’s not that different from how you’ll see, say, “Schoolboy #1” listed as a role — even though the boy’s friend clearly referred to him as “Jim”. Point is, he doesn’t play “Jim”, or “Pete”, or “Ichabod”, he plays “Schoolboy #1” — whose name might incidentally happen to be “Jim”, or “Pete”. That’s the role he serves in the production. By the same stretch, the role is most unambiguously “Doctor Who”. That this is not the character’s name is kind of beside the point.

After all this, it’s worth noting that Tennant is being billed as “The Doctor” again. The reasoning here is that Tennant, as a long-time fan of the series, insisted, since he’s the one playing the part, that he be credited by the character name. Or the “correct” name, from his standpoint. I suppose that’s his business.