Author Archives: Leigh Alexander

Yes, It’s True

It’s been kept under wraps long enough. So without further ado:

Why did Nintendo launch the 3DS in the middle of Spring with so little fanfare? Because the company has something bigger under its belt for E3. Think not-portable.
And speaking of 3D, expect a “D” in “Gears 3″.
Project Natal will be big, but not as big as the legal battle you can expect to see hit immediately after it launches. You don’t want to know what Microsoft did to get that tech.

The Real World

You can change your LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook portraits back to your real face if you had a Second Life portrait up. I mean, seriously, please do, because when you use an avatar picture as if you were an in-world character instead of a real human being, it looks weird. Especially ’cause that whole thing is kinda over.

Sincerely, hey, y’know, whatever you’re into, I don’t judge (see my Formspring anonymous question repository, where someone asked me if playing Bayonetta naked is wrong). But the big virtual worlds boom seems like it’s all but done to me — y’know, kind of like what I thought might happen in an environment driven by ideals that were a little bit too eager to throw out established best practices and declare gaming, online social behavior and the web itself “over”.
When I spoke at Worlds in Motion cautioning excited virtual worlds gold-rushers not to get too lost in a fantasy of actualizing Snow Crash and to pay a little more attention to the way users were already doing things I fielded an impassioned argument from someone who basically said I was wrong. That person made their living selling virtual something-or-other in Second Life. I wonder how their business is doing these days.
Anyway, back then, the loudest voices in favor of the new paradigm’s triumph were those who had already had tons and tons of the Kool Aid (and who had put millions and millions of dollars behind the ideas). It kind of reminds me of the echo chamber around Facebook gaming right now. Don’t get me wrong — I think Facebook gaming is a lot more relevant and viable than the “3D Web” and “virtual life” fantasy ever were, and I think Twitter really has changed the world forever, but there’s definitely something of a bubble forming.
I reflect on this bubble in my latest editorial at Gamasutra. The virtual worlds craze wasn’t entirely wasted time, of course — I parse out the permanent lessons that we learned and the way we’ve incorporated them into new media, too. Caution and pragmatism, entrepreneurs!

The Ick Factor


During our discussion the other day on Crysis 2‘s ashen New York City in the context of the attack earlier this decade, Modern Warfare 2 and its imagery — however nonspecific it aims to be — of a fresher conflict came up. No, the Modern Warfare games are not explicitly “about” nor are they set in the real Iraq and Afghan wars, but to say that absolves them from a relationship to current events gives them too easy a pass. They are a reflection of our times.

Because of its ability to make me think about real soldiers, real foreign combatants and real war, I’ve never enjoyed the Modern Warfare games’ campaigns. Regardless of political stance, to “enjoy” war or think of it as something to “play” is anathema to me. The franchise’s success is primarily attributable to its multiplayer, of course, but its spirit isn’t something I think can be so easily divorced from it no matter what mode you’re playing. Imagery’s imagery and association is association.
As the game is apparently quite decisively the “biggest entertainment launch of all time,” or so says the Guinness Book of World Records today, the things about it that bother me clearly don’t bother an unprecedentedly large portion of the global population. Either that, or it does bother them, and they like to be bothered.
I strongly believe the thing about the Modern Warfare games that nobody ever admits is that they must be for many people — consciously or subconsciously — an outlet for common feelings like anxiety about the global environment, or nationalism; in some cases they must be outlets for darker feelings, like revenge fantasies, xenophobia or political supremacy. Frankly, it creeps me out, but not as much as the fact that it’s never discussed.
Real-world soldiers must take a very specific psychological approach to a job where they daily know they may end up losing their own lives or needing to end someone else’s. They tend to be cavalier or even upbeat about it probably by personal necessity. They are allowed to cheer and fistbump when they blow up a helicopter. Gamers doing that is a different matter to me.
I’ve added a new poll to the SVGL sidebar: Does Modern Warfare make you uncomfortable, or is it “just a game?

No Longer Too Soon?

Check out this Crysis 2 screenshot:


Just kidding, haha! It’s not Crysis 2, it’s a picture of Wall Street following 9-11. This is Crysis 2:

No, I am not attempting to politicize a first-person shooter (or joke about a tragedy). I just find it worthy of note that nobody else yet has pointed out the visual symbolism. Crytek’s Cevat Yerli spoke of an international sense of attachment to, and desire to defend, the city of New York as one of the emotional forces driving Crysis 2‘s world, but 9-11 never came up. Nobody at all made that association when looking at screenshots of the city covered in drifting ash?

Really, it doesn’t seem like anyone has, and if they did, they didn’t consider it significant. Again, I’m not necessarily saying anyone should. It just seems we’ve come a long way from the time when Fallout 3 concept art of post-apocalypse Washington, mistaken for an extremist fantasy, raised government hackles.
For more context, you should watch “The Wall” trailer for Crysis 2, which opens with a series of missives and memorials for lost loved ones trying to find one another in the midst of disaster. I’ve lived in New York City since 2002, but when 9-11 happened, I remember commuting to work in Massachusetts, listening to Howard Stern on my car radio. I’ll never forget the poignancy in hearing the abrasive shock jock serving as something of a community pillar, using his broadcast platform to take calls from people who were trying to find other people, unsure whether or not they were alive.
Is there an intentional recollection in the imagery of Crysis 2 that’s no longer painful enough to employ in entertainment? Or is it truly that we can now use visuals and concepts like these without even making the connection?
Is it that we’re intended to make the connection, in the world of Crysis 2, with the sense of violation we felt at the images in New Yorkers’ backyards at that time, and that it doesn’t need to be said? Or is it that it’s simply become okay to bash up New York again, the way we can and do with any other game world?
Does this mean it’s not “too soon” anymore? Does this mean we’ve “healed”, if we can look at this and just see a video game?

Shooter Shooter Shooter Shooter

Sometimes I get triple-A fatigue and I feel just a little tapped out. I find myself a little niche where the only gaming of note I do is on my DS. I can dump hundreds of hours into a Harvest Moon or Pokemon game and never look back — in fact, I’m not even HeartGold or SoulSilver-ing yet because I’m just focusing on Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands. Yep, that’s about it!

These phases lend themselves to being light on blogging — at times like that, I’m glad I have my Twitter to toss quick thoughts and links out to you guys. Of course, I’m also busy as usual at Gamasutra. You know I love indie games that try to push or change the medium; I spent time with Jason Rohrer’s Sleep is Death, my writing on which you might have read at Kotaku, so just a little bit later, I caught up with the fascinating, loquacious and giant-brained Eskil Steenberg at Gamasutra to talk about his work on the impressionist-art MMO (though he resists the word “MMO”) LOVE.
We talk about how he suddenly decided to develop his own self-contained game engine and persistent multiplayer world without any significant design experience (truly, truly impressive), and why LOVE is, in his view, completely different than other games, most of which don’t interest him much.
I went to see Crysis 2 unveiled in New York City late last week, and I talked to Crytek boss Cevat Yerli about why, in a world where crappy-looking Facebook games can pull millions of users in just a few weeks (as venture capitalists are I think over-fond of pointing out), AAA graphics still matter. Last night on Jimmy Fallon (Kotaku has video), Cliff Bleszinski answered “graphics” first of all when asked what makes a blockbuster — because they “pull people in” initially, he qualified. Yerli and Bleszinski both work for companies with perhaps the largest footprints in the high-end development engine biz, so certainly they have an interest in that point of view.
Oh yeah, Bleszinski was premiering Gears 3‘s trailer, by the way. It has a lot of ashes and dust in it, kind of like Crysis 2‘s trailer. Ashes are so in for 2011! Seriously, it looks cool, though, and as Cliff says, it has female soldiers for the first time. He says that’s thanks to fan feedback.
Most of my time yesterday, however, was spent covering the latest and greatest in the Activision-versus-Infinity Ward drama, which you know I have been following in some depth for some time. As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, exiled IW bosses Jason West and Vince Zampella now have their own studio in Respawn Entertainment, and surprise-surprise, they have EA’s backing. Wedbush’s Michael Pachter told me this is the ‘ultimate screw-you’ to Activision.
I would guess the ‘ultimate screw-you’ to Activision will happen when employees of not only Infinity Ward, but of certain other studios under its umbrella who are sick of being crunched to obscene, five-years-ago levels try to get out and send their resumes to what’s likely to be a more comfortable situation. At Respawn, I would assume they put lights in the cubicles all the time, not just when the press is visiting.
But anyway, after writing about them for weeks on weeks now, it was neat to finally talk to Zampella, West and EA (read my interview!), even if just on the studio kickoff. Most people assume the two are going to lead some kind of Modern Warfare killer on EA’s behalf, although they aren’t yet willing to confirm anything whatsoever about their project. Theoretically, they could be making anything, although I’m not exactly expecting a cartoon platformer.
It’ll be interesting to see how their product is positioned — after all, anything that competes with Modern Warfare is going to compete with Battlefield, too. As Pachter said to me yesterday, the vertex of the market that would make the most sense for the pair is the future/sci-fi-ish genre, where their only major rival would be a little franchise called Halo (and maybe Killzone or something).
Shooter, shooter, shooter, shooter. Graphics, graphics, graphics, graphics. Bummer that the industry’s top talent keeps making the same kind of games. Or maybe I’m not the market. If you’re into this kinda thing, you must be going out of your head with this bounty of exciting news.
Now I return to Harvest Moon, where I will plant and pluck turnips over and over and over and over and over.

Rationality

“Those products are developed for rational adults. You surely don’t believe that a rational adult would be influenced by such a game into committing rape, do you?… We make works of art. Let me say that again. It is just art. I assume that you are capable of distinguishing fiction from reality like we do. Are you not?”

– Manga creator Takeshi Nogami (‘Strike Witches’), in an open letter to CNN regarding “offensive” and “insulting” RapeLay coverage

Linking And Dreaming

Real busy, so just a few quick links for you guys today:

I got an early look at Jason Rohrer’s Sleep is Death. Full story at Kotaku, which I would love for you to read, because this game is like nothing else I’ve ever played and deserves all the exposure it can get.
At Gamasutra, I’ve written on why I think the demise of the console game has been greatly exaggerated, and on wondering why I’m really not that into FF13. Y’know, emotionally.
Check them out, please, and lemme know what you think. Meanwhile, did you get an iPad? I can’t really tell if I would be interested in one or not — it’d need to be financially possible for me to know how I’d feel about it, and it’s not — but no, I don’t have one.
I had a dream I did, though. In this dream, I wandered into my messy living room to find one that I’d apparently forgotten buying, lying on top of a blanket. Realizing I did indeed own an iPad, I felt silly for making fun of people who couldn’t shut up about them on Saturday. However, in this dream, my iPad needed its screen cleaned, and as I tried to polish it gently with a tissue, I caused an enormous gouge to appear on its face. Deciding I’d rather have no iPad than one with a big scratch on the screen, I tossed it aside, reasoning, “guess I’ll never use this again.”

Gotcha!

They say that if you want to trick someone with false information, you must tell a story that is at least partially true. The only parts of my most recent post that are not real are that I am quitting games journalism/closing this blog (no way!) and that I am going to rehab (I said, no, no, no).

I’m a little bit surprised at how many mails and tweets I got from people who thoroughly believed it. A game journalist on Celebrity Rehab? Really?
Anyway, Happy April Fool’s Day to the very best blog-readers in the entire internet universe.