City 16

There’s a problem at the heart of the current generation of Rockstar open world games that is perhaps best summarised in a post on the Gausswerks: Design Reboot blog,

The actions of the player character in GTA4 can best be described as the actions of two separate characters, one who reflects the player’s decisions during normal gameplay (run over a sidewalk full of people, kill a bunch of cops), and one that is unilaterally imposed through scripted sequences. (Look at Niko as he shows that he loves Kate. Look at Niko as he feels bad about crime.) The game privileges the “choices” of the second over the first, even when they’re in direct contradiction.

Essentially the Niko of the game’s narrative – an ex-soldier still haunted by his actions in the war and unhappy that he has to continue to kill and steal for America’s criminal underbelly in order to carve out a peaceful existence for himself and his cousin – doesn’t correspond to the willfully destructive Niko of my time between cutscenes.

Aww, he's a sweety.

It’s unfair to suggest Rockstar are solely responsible for this as a factor in any cutscene-driven narrative game is that, once that cutscene ends, the game has to give control of their protagonist back to the player – an agent of chaos. My Gordon Freeman smacked friendly NPCs in the face with a crowbar in Half-Life 2 just to see their reaction and my Solid Snake (and there’s a phrase you can rarely use innocently in a sentence) tortured guards in Metal Gear Solid 2 because he enjoyed their hobbling animation. Neither of them reconcile with what we’re told about the characters through their respective narratives.

Perhaps, then, the reason the Rockstar examples are so conspicuous is because of how extremely it pushes in both directions. Their recent games have tried to push the depth of the story on offer, rising above parodying movie genres to become their own critique of American culture. Where Vice City’s Tommy Vercetti was an even twattier version of Scarface; GTA4′s Niko Bellic is written to elicit sympathy and understanding from the player in order to tell their (admittedly over-the-top) tale of an immigrant resorting to a life of crime. Conversely this is a Grand Theft Auto game and, while the ridiculously cartoonish nature of the violence has been dialled down a notch, it still enables a cacophony of violence and mayhem. Between cutscenes my player-controlled Niko will plough his car through legions of pedestrians, murder hot-dog vendors that refused to serve him because he’d jostled them and nudged passers-by into the sea because they’re pathetic little ragdoll animations made it funny. He also shows an alarming disregard for his own safety. In fact he acts almost as if he were a videogame character in a digitised playground of guns, cars and explosives.

Don't worry, I'm sure he was really conflicted before he set this petrol station on fire.

Here’s the thing. This protagonist gap never bothered me in GTA4. It was clear where the Niko of story-led narrative ended and the Niko of player-led super fun times began. The tonal shift may have been extremely blatant, but it’s exactly that blatancy that makes it so easy for the player to mentally shift between the two positions. When faced with a late game decision I chose to spare the life of the man Niko had been searching for because it felt like what the story-Niko would have done. The player-Niko would have probably thrown a grenade in between the two of them and then jumped at the point of explosion just to see how far across the road he’d fly.

In Red Dead Redemption, however, a similar disconnect does bother me. It bothers me a lot.

It wouldn’t if I was playing Red Dead Redemption in the same way played GTA. If I happily went about killing, stealing and lassoing characters, suffering the trivial consequences of my anti-social actions, the game would have unfolded with the same disconnect described above. The character: a former outlaw, troubled by his past and with his own personal morality code, blackmailed into bringing his former brothers-in-arms to justice. The player: attempting to create fun through an ever-changing series of events pushing the limit of what the game will allow like a child with ADHD. Bizarre? Sure. A big deal? Not really.

Okay, so I did do this a lot. But otherwise I've been good.

My problem is that I’m not playing the game like that. I’m actually playing the character like Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name. Ostensibly someone who is out for himself yet has a tendency to get embroiled in other people’s problems and usually resolves them in a way that satisfies his own code of honour. For a long while my role-play matched perfectly with the intentions and attitude of the character I was controlling. It was the first time in a Rockstar open-world game since Bully that I felt my actions actually matched with the character shown in the cutscenes.

Then I arrived in Mexico. As part of John Marston, the player character’s, search for his former comrades he starts to work for both the army and the peasant uprising that opposes them. For me it mirrored the set up to Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars. Eastwood rides into a town ruled by two warring factions, the Rojos, a local gang, and the Baxters, the Sheriff’s family. Eastwood’s stated plan is “The Rojos on one side of the town, the Baxters on the other, and me right in the middle.” However, it doesn’t take long before he’s clearly siding against the Rojos because of a young mother they kidnapped over a gambling debt they claimed her husband owed them. In Redemption, Marston stays in the middle of the two warring factions of the region throughout the majority of that section of the game.

This is despite the fact that the army is shown to be seemingly taking entire villages of women for the soldiers’ pleasure. Sure, this being a Rockstar game, the rebel leader is shown to be a vain, womanizing, delusional figure but, and this is the key difference, he’s not a fucking rapist. The set up is so ridiculous that in one mission for the army I’m using a gatling gun to cut down hundreds of rebels assaulting a train full of army supplies and then, a couple of missions later, I’m murdering soldiers guarding a train full of army supplies. During one mission, in which I was asked to torch the houses of rebels I thought “no, I don’t want to do this.” It was the opposite of the GTA problem, completely at odds with my envisioned character and, as far as I could tell, the depiction of John Marston throughout the rest of the game. Unfortunately it’s a linear story path. Unless I completed the mission I couldn’t continue the story. I kept waiting for the moment I got to choose to betray one side or another but it never came, the story plays out the same way, without any choice, no matter how you choose to play it.

The Rebel Leader: Twat, not rapist.

Redemption features a rudimentary morality system entitled Honour (or, I suppose, Honor.) The Mexican campaign betrays people on either end of the scale. Those playing the thieving, murderous bastards (the GTA4 method) can’t choose to ultimately side with the army in reward for riches. Those that have chosen to help people and stay on the right side of the law have to do an uncomfortable amount of missions doing dirty work for the army at the expense of the impoverished peasants. The only genuine surprise from these missions is that one side chooses not to turn on you.

I probably helped this soldier two missions ago. Now I will shoot him in the face.

The explanation given for the set-up is that Marston’s family is at risk unless he brings the outlaws he used to run with to justice. Except the game never earns the right to have Marston go to such extremes. The player never sees Marston with his family at the beginning of the game (I’ve not completed the story yet so don’t know if he does later on) so it’s unreasonable to expect the player to care about them throughout when the only connection we have to them is Marston’s exposition to other characters. I’m not saying I need the protagonist to be a Freeman-like blank slate for player insertion, I’m fine with my characters having their own distinct view of events, but using backstory to motivate the character to do things at odds with his own code of honour, as well as the code of honour implemented through the game’s own systems, cheapens the experience for the player.

I’m interested in hearing your take on this, assuming you have one. Many within the games industry seem to now favour the approach of emergent narrative of games such as Just Cause 2 and Far Cry 2 over more traditional stories told through cutscenes. I’m all for this, especially in respect to the ridiculous nature of Just Cause 2, but I don’t think it should completely negate traditional narrative methods especially as Red Dead Redemption is, all things considered, a brilliant game. After all, I wouldn’t have had such a negative reaction to that set of missions if it weren’t.

HOKANU-MK.I

March 2007 – April 2010

“She showed ‘em how it’s done…”

Still, did you have to eat my copy of Just Cause 2? You fuck.

Ride an explosive barrel off into the sunset.

I think I may have found my new Mercenaries 2/Saints Row 2/Prototype.

Rules of Blogging #79: Been playing a fuckton of games over the last few days? Not quite ready to focus on one of them for a single post? Unable to currently play most of them due to global PS3 armageddon? Then throw out a ‘What I’ve Been Playing’ round-up post! Maybe while listening to some 16 Volt. Maybe.

Bayonetta

If you were writing a walkthrough of Bayonetta you’d probably have to start every paragraph with “after a lengthy cutscene.” Not only is the game’s story told in excruciatingly long cinematic chunks, it is, without doubt, one of the most completely batshit insane affairs I’ve ever seen in a videogame. I remember the first time I saw the anime Excel Saga not quite knowing whether to love or be disgusted by just how brutally retarded it was. Bayonetta’s like that. It might be brilliant. I’ve completed it and I’m still not entirely sure.

The actual game is on much more solid ground. It’s clearly in the same mould as Devil May Cry but Bayonetta is much more focused on the dodging mechanic. Time your dodges right and everything slows down leaving enemies open to combo attacks. It’s also a game that demands multiple playthroughs. Your first time through the game is primarily focused on surviving and figuring out how to defeat the myriad of enemies thrown at you. On subsequent attempts, as you can afford more powerful techniques and weapons, things should become much more centred around actually moving through the levels with style. At least that’s my theory – I’m not quite ready to delve in again.

Mass Effect 2

I’ve got no excuse for having not finished this yet, especially since it’s been the only thing I’ve wanted to play for most of February. The only reason that I can think of for my slowed progress is that I’m near the end – and the end means over a years wait for the next Mass Effect. If we were further into the year I’d call it my favourite game of the year so far. It’s a true statement still, but loses most of its impact if you say it at the start of March, especially when you’ve only played a couple of 2010 released games.

I’ve got a couple of posts lined up to go into some specifics but, as a general overview, I can confirm the truth in all the reviews. The combat is much improved over the last game. I’m now actually looking forward to the fights Shepherd finds herself in instead of merely putting up with them. That said, the true brilliance of the game, as with last time, lies in your interactions with your crew members. The overall plot might be a but more clunky this time round, but the characterisation of some of your team is as strong as ever.

Battlefield 1943

I’m still going through periods of playing this compulsively. In the period between the closure of the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 demo and the release of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 this Friday it’s pretty much the only competitive online shooter I’ve played. For a console FPS that isn’t called Modern Warfare 2 it’s still surprisingly easy to find a game.

Luckily most of the hardcore FPS freaks have moved to MW2 so things are surprisingly casual for a game centred around shooting men in the face. I’ve been able to gain a respectable score while indulging in the stupid crap I tend to get up to when I become a little too familiar with an online game – excessive sniping, parachuting out of a plane at the right angle for it to cause insane explosions and parking a tank in the middle of an enemy base to see how much destruction I can cause before being blown up have all been unhelpful contributions to my team’s war effort.

Borderlands

Specifically the Mad Moxxi DLC pack which adds an arena mode to the game. With loot drops and XP earning removed for the arena battles the game’s forced to rely purely on its FPS mechanics. Luckily it rises to the challenge admirably, proving just how satisfying its gunplay is.

Because trying one of the arena battles solo is tantamount to buying a one way ticket to Rape City (which I don’t think is a real city) I’ve been forced to head online for co-op buddies. Generally I never do this with strangers because I assume they’ll be arseholes, hence why despite owning Left 4 Dead for about a year I’ve never actually played its campaign mode, but here your interactions are pretty basic. As waves of enemies flood your ranks your interactions are kept to “kill things, keep other players alive.” There’s very little room to be a dick because, if you are, you could lose a hell of a lot of progress.

Heavy Rain

This is how I’ve spent the last two evenings, and would be this evening if I could. It’s the same story as could be applied to any Quantic Dream game – if you’re the type of person who is prepared to enjoy it you will absolutely love the thing. I’m sure once I’ve finished the game and have gone back to try and elicit different results, once I’ve seen the limitations of the storytelling mechanic and the way you don’t have as much agency over the outcome as you first thought, I’ll be slightly less fond of the game. For now though it’s a rare example of a game where my decisions are reactions to often tense and stressful situations. I want to do the right thing for each character and trying to decipher just what that is where the game’s strength lies.

An example, that I’m keeping vague but is nevertheless slighlty spoilerish: A guy is pointing a gun at the head of my partner and I’m trying to talk him down. At each point I can choose a different topic to try and make him lower the gun or I can shoot him. With each attempt he’s becoming seemingly more erratic. Do I try a different approach? Have I got time? Oh God he’s going to pull that trigger at any moment… At which point I’m hammering the R1 button to take him down before I fuck it all up. Fuck. I don’t even like the guy I’m partnered with.

Yeah, Heavy Rain’s really fucking good.

Non trovo alcuna gioia in questo, ma non c’e altro modo.

Assassin’s Creed 2 is, undoubtedly, a much better game than its predecessor. That’s not to say it doesn’t have problems of its own. Essentially I’m nitpicking here, holding the game accountable for things that, truth be told, are part and parcel of its genre. The difference is that AC2 was so much the game I’d hoped for, and not the game I’d expected, that the few things that didn’t quite work bothered me far more than the collective mess of problems that usually plague open world games (hi Mercenaries 2). These, then, are those.

Tutorials

As someone who almost never RTFMs I have no desire to criticise tutorials in general. A quick overview of the controls and basic mechanics during the first mission is pretty much essential as games become increasingly convoluted. AC2 gives you a quick run down of the controls and basic mechanics during its first mission. It then continues to do so for what seems like the first half of the fucking game. Every single thing you can do in the game, from collecting feathers to beating up cheating husbands to using prostitutes (not in that way), has a main story mission attached to introduce it. The ceaseless parade of engineered scenarios explaining the use of these mechanics soon becomes tiring as you long to be let free to cause havoc your own way.

Late in the game you’re given a pistol-like attachment to your hidden blade and the subsequent mission, an actual main target assassination, is set up in such a way as to force you to use it. When you’re wasting a proper story-based assassination, the whole point of the game let’s not forget, to introduce (and perhaps justify) a weapon you’ll probably never use again then you’ve got a problem.

The truly egregious aspect of all this is how simple the solution is:

1. Display a text box showing what button activates your new weapon or move, or give a brief description of the mechanic. The game does this already.
2. Create an Animus based tutorial that the player can access to practice outside of the main game-world. Given that the game’s plot is centred around a man experiencing his ancestor’s life through a computer simulation there is a ready-made logical excuse for this. Even the first game did it in its opening tutorial.
3. Make it fucking optional.

The 'How to chase things' level. I'm not kidding.

Combat

Last post I praised the improved assassinating. This post I’m going to criticise the general combat. I’m even going to overlook how ridiculous it is that a game made in this day and age still feels the need to surround the character with enemies and only have them attack one at a time. The real problem with the combat is, ironically given the plot, how artificial it feels.

Of course the same can be said for the freerunning mechanic in which you just press the run button and let the magic happen. The difference is that when freerunning you’re constantly course correcting, looking for viable paths over rooftops, jumping, grabbing and stabbing the occasional archer, all at speed. Your own actions may only basically respond to what’s happening on screen, and there are definitely moments when it all breaks down and Ezio’s left stuck at a ledge, but the rate at which you process and enact on the visual information gives a feeling of fluidity that, mostly, matches what happens on screen.

The problem with the combat is not that its frustrating, it’s actually so easy as to be laughable, but that it’s just sterile. Every attack has a one button counter. Most enemies are taken down with a simple press of the counter-attack button at the right moment (and the margin of error for the counter-attack timing seems a lot more forgiving than the first game). For a while the heavily armoured enemies look like a problem until you realise you can just switch to unarmed combat and counter them to take their weapon and, usually, kill them in one move. The attacks from each enemy are so spaced out within a fight that there’s no sense of panic or frantic tactical assessment, just pressing the right button at the right time until, eventually, everyone’s dead. It’s not a battle, it’s fucking Parappa the Rapper with fancy visuals.

You gotta believe!

Also, it’s fucking ridiculous that a game made in this day and age still feels the need to surround the character with enemies and only have them attack one at a time.

Collectible Execution

To be fair most of the collectibles, the glyphs for example, are no problem and, as I said previously, there’s actually a fairly compelling reason to go after them. The feathers, though… Those stupid bloody feathers. You know what, the feathers are actually worse than the collectibles in most games because of the fact there’s a story related reason to find them. It means you might actually be tempted to go looking for the blasted things. Every other group of collectibles has a system attached that tells you where they are. Buildings that contain glyphs, for instance, are marked on your database which means your search of each one is limited to one small area. Not so with the feathers, which could be anywhere in the game world. You’re told how many are in each district but the districts are pretty large and the feathers, unsurprisingly, are quite small.

I’m going to do something I never thought I’d do and lift a suggested improvement from the last Prince of Persia game and its light seeds. Instead of making the player comb the game world for hidden objects, make them blindingly obvious but hard to get to. The developers of AC2 clearly think the game would work as a platformer, as proven by the surprisingly enjoyable tomb missions. If they had made the feathers into mini platforming puzzles, asking the player to figure the route and series of moves required to reach them, then the whole affair would have been a lot less laborious.

There are 100 feathers in the game. What the fuck are Italians doing to the birds?

The Present Day

Yeah… Those sections in the present day (or near future, I can’t really remember) still don’t work for me.

You get to do more this time and I loved the fact that the platforming, and even fighting, in these segments happens completely without any on-screen display (completely logical outside of the Animus yet so many games would have chickened out) but the story is complete shit. This time it all goes a bit Mayan, which isn’t at all an overused plot device in the run up to 2012. Worse still, the ending actually detracts from any closure to Ezio’s storyline who, you may remember, was the character I was actually fucking invested in.

Desmond can't quite get past Lucy's uncanny valley.

Hmm, all that was far more of a tirade then I’d expected to make. Still, with expectations dutifully lowered hopefully you’ll enjoy the game a whole lot more. As I draw this somewhat unplanned Ubisoft mini-season to a close I leave with one final thought on Assassin’s Creed 2: The fact that the game shows the passage of time by giving Ezio a beard in later levels is hilarious.

Vai, amico, libero da fardelli e paure.

It’s commonplace for a game sequel to improve upon the original through various methods. The obvious ones are being bigger or adding more. Those developers with a more philosophical bent will add explosive action because, in gaming, anything explosive is a sure-fire moneymaker. Sometimes people with no understanding of the concept of cliche will add a darker, more intense story… That’s always a good move.

Increasingly, though, the developer will actually look at the criticism of the previous game and take steps to significantly change the experience for the better. It’s a move that should be celebrated and, in recognition of this, I’m going to look at some of the changes Assassin’s Creed II has made that fundamentally improve the experience.

Mission Structure

I’ll start with the major one. The first Assassin’s Creed tasked you with killing nine people, each in a different district across three cities. First, though, you had to find your target. This process involved completing a minimum of three out of a possible six information gathering missions. This introduced a whole host of problems. The most important of these was that there were only a handful of mission types (usually interrogate, pickpocket or eavesdrop) so, by the time you were looking for your third or fourth target, you were becoming bored of the whole thing. The other issue was that the bare-bones nature of the set-up to each assassination meant you only ever met a few recurring characters, the defining trait of any of which was the extent to which they disliked you (ranging from ‘sarcastic pleasentries’ to ‘all out foaming at the mouth’).

The sequel presents its main story as a sequence of linear missions. At first this may sound like a step backwards, bringing the game in line with the majority of open-world games out there. In practice it, somewhat ironically, unburdens the game of its rigidity. Major assassinations now feel like a progression of events that naturally lead to Ezio being within reach of killing his next victim. It makes each assassination feel unique instead of formulaic. It also makes Ezio a much more social creature than Altair, with many of the missions involving enlisting the help of others.

Narrative Structure

I’ve already covered most of this in the last section but specific mention should go to the way the game handles the slightly bizarre disconnect between the series’ two timelines. I’m assuming a level of familiarity with the plot of the two games but, for those unaware, they essentially cast the player in the role of a guy in the present experiencing the genetic memories of his ancestors through a big machine. In the first game this manifested in the player being taken out of game-proper just as you were getting into the swing of things and dumped back into the present day to listen to a big diatribe from your corporate captor (yes, the game features an evil corporation. Quelle surprise) and go to bed.

The sequel keeps you in Italy for most of the game, only pulling you out two or three times over the course. It’s actually infrequent enough that you start to warm to the moments you do spend outside of the Animus, becoming a welcome break from the main setting rather than an annoying distraction. Unfortunately these brief narrative segments are still no-way near compelling enough to justify themselves. Still, you do get to do more than just have a lie down.

Assassinations

The biggest problem I had with the first game: you couldn’t assassinate people. No matter how stealthily you made your way to the targets, dispatching guards before they knew you were there and avoiding archers in the distance from spotting you, the final confrontation was always a standard fight, followed by guards chasing you through the city. The infuriating thing was that I remember engineering situations where, by any normal application of logic, I should have been able to kill my target without ever being noticed. I even once stood on a roof overlooking my victim and tried to leap onto him while stabbing him with my hidden blade. Instead Altair jumped off of the roof, fumbled around a bit and then engaged in a standard sword fight. It struck me as a glaring omission.

The sequel allows you to leap onto your target while stabbing him with your hidden blade. You can assassinate while hanging from ledges and even when hidden in hay bales. There are more assassinations to perform, both in the main mission and in side quests, and most of them allow for a silent kill. Mess it up and you’re back to a series of fights to kill your target but, with the increased number of missions, messing one up feels less like a wasted opportunity as it does a motivation to learn from your mistakes and be more careful next time.

Collectible Motivation

Generally speaking, I’m not a fan of collectibles in open world games. Often they’re a lazy excuse to encourage the player to explore the world, with little or no incentive to do so. The first Assassin’s Creed was one of the worst examples of this, littering flags all over the three cities but offering no rewards for seeking them out. For the sequel there are actually more types of things to collect but, importantly, every single one not only offers rewards but actually ties these collectibles to an element of the story. Codex pages not only unlock weapon upgrades and health bonuses but take the form of journal entries from Altair, detailing events after the first game. Glyphs are encryptions left by a previous Abstergo test subject and, upon the completion of a ‘decryption’ puzzle, unlock a segment of a video enticingly called ‘The Truth’. In actual fact the video is pretty terrible, guilty of the series’ worse tendencies toward sci-fi indulgence but, conversely, the puzzles themselves are generally compelling, each one revealing some of the Templar’s machinations throughout history. Even the feathers, the game’s direct replacement of flags, are collected in an attempt to help your mother recover from her period of mourning over the loss of her youngest son. It’s good motivation to actually go looking for them even though it was somewhat hilarious that by the time I’d collected the last one Ezio’s mother hadn’t spoken a word in over 10 years.

Character

To be perfectly honest Altair was a bit of a dick. Ultimately he was vindicated, coming to learn to uphold the tenants of the Assassins of his own volition. Towards the end of the game he was continuing with his mission not out of blind faith to the brotherhood but because the price of allowing the Templars to achieve their goals was simply too great. Boy did it take a long time to get to that point though. For a long while it’s all too easy to identify with the procession of fellow assassins who disliked him, because his main character trait seemed to be misplaced arrogance.

Ezio is much more likable character, and more human in his motivations. The ‘avenge the death of your family’ plot might not be original but it works well. One great touch is that each assassination ends with Ezio uttering “requiescat in pace” (rest in peace). It shows a sympathy for the target and, more importantly, a tinge of sadness at the necessity of Ezio’s work. It gives the character a core of humanity that was largely absent from Altair’s portrayal, and makes him a much more relatable lead.

All this isn’t to say that the game is perfect. In the next part I’ll be looking at some of the decisions that don’t quite work, and which elements could use tweaking in order to enhance the experience.

Ah crap, we’ve been at this all night

-Main Character, Dark Void

At which point, right at the start of the demo, the only thing I’m thinking is, ‘Ah crap, another main character voiced by Nolan North.’ Don’t get me wrong, he’s a really good voice actor, but after playing Uncharted 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2 fairly recently, and with Prince of Persia being a not-too-distant memory, I’m getting more than a little bored of his voice.

And the thing is I shouldn’t be able to tell. I’m almost completely rubbish at recognising voice-over artists, to the point that a friend had to point out to me that Morrigan and Alistair from Dragon Age were being voiced by the same people that did Chloe and Flynn from Uncharted 2 despite the fact they’re doing the same bloody voices in games that required them to converse with each other in a similar manner and that I was playing at the same time.

Perhaps my biggest issue is that hearing North’s voice seems to signal a very specific kind of character archetype: a cocky yet lovable rogue who gets embroiled in an escalating crisis but manages to wisecrack his way out of it with some degree of bumbling luck. Would a little bit of diversion from the stock formula be too much to ask for? Maybe I’m being unfair, but surely there are other voice actors in need of work.

Luckily the demo gave me the impression that Dark Void was rubbish; an impression most reviews have confirmed, so at least I’m getting a break.

VVVVVV - Indie platformer that plays like a cross between Portal and Jet Set Willy. Instead of jumping you flip gravity, but can’t do so when mid-air. It’s hard, to be sure, but, importantly, never seems unfair with it. Demo here.

Merry Christmas people! Or, as I don’t expect you to actually be visiting this site on Christmas day, Merry whatever day it is you decide to read this post (less catchy, I know.)