Category Archives: My Articles

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.”

Post-GDC Mega Catch-Up, Yeah!

Well, I’ve been home for a few days from GDC — every year it’s an amazing, inspiring and invigorating time. I got to see Jason Rohrer discuss his new DS game, Diamond Trust of London (but Brandon Boyer’s writeup of Rohrer’s Sleep is Death is far more interesting than my article); he was talking alongside Molleindustria’s Paolo Pedercini, whom you know I adore.

I saw some truly impressive Unreal Engine tech demos and received reassurance on the future of AAA gaming from Epic’s Mark Rein (despite the concerted attempts of social gaming venture capitalists to discourage me) ; I heard wonderfully wacky Metroid and Wario Ware visionary Yoshio Sakamoto discussing his creative strategy, and I was refreshed to learn that at ThatGameCompany, development process actually comprehends that game developers are human beings and not design robots that produce when crunched upon.
It’s amazing what happy people who work well together can create, isn’t it? One of the highlights of my GDC was meeting many of the members of the team at Naughty Dog, who swept the Game Developers’ Choice awards (which I also attended, enjoying the hosting talents of Kyle Gabler and Erin Robinson). Friend and awesome person Andy Schatz won the IGF with Monaco!
To be quite honest, I have never been a big fan of the Uncharted games; when people ask me what I think of Uncharted 2, I use words like “impressive” “an achievement” “a beautiful game” and “very well done.” I mean all those words, of course, but when I’m writing criticism I tend to prize other traits. And I always like to root for underdogs; while I knew there was no chance whatsoever that Demon’s Souls would beat Uncharted 2 as Game of the Year at the Choice awards, I selfishly wanted to see it happen! I also would have preferred to see Brutal Legend recognized for writing, but hey.
However, having met a handful of the team’s senior members during GDC, I’ve gotta say I’ve never met a nicer or more humble group of game developers, and can’t help but feel that nobody deserves the recognition more. They are the kind of people who, when you ask them what they do while chatting at the bar, are humble to the max –you have to push to even get them to admit they made the Game of the Year, and they all seem thrilled and bewildered by the recognition.
(Leaders on a certain couple of 2009′s other major game successes often do not deign to socialize with us commonfolk, and if they did they would come in all popped collars, snakeskin boots and chest pounding over what they developed.)
The Dogs told me they feel like a family and love working together. I think that makes a difference. I would love it if more publishers got the idea that the way to get developers to make excellent games is to allow them to work according to their own internal culture (provided it’s a positive one).
These are the kinds of people and ideas that inspire me most when I am at GDC, although the indies tend to be my very most favorite. The Los Angeles Times has just run an article by me on the constituency of the Experimental Gameplay Project, many of whom I got to say hello to at the event this year. While at GDC I also heard 2DBoy’s Ron Carmel explain how a group of indie “angels” hopes to support independent designers in self-publishing.
I spoke on a panel, too. Mia Consalvo, Manveer Heir, Jamin Brophy-Warren and I discussed issues of diversity and race both within video games and on the development side. My friend Michael Abbott of Brainy Gamer fame (who is so warm and nice I cannot quite believe he is From The Internet, and who as usual I did not get to see enough of!) did an excellent write-up of our discussion. There seemed to be a great response to the discussion in general, and Cliff Bleszinski said it gave him ideas and “white man’s guilt”!!
Friend and fellow Kotaku columnist Tim Rogers completed a speaker evaluation of my panel that indicates he would not recommend it to others out of the desire to “keep it as a secret weapon,” that all speakers received zeroes except for I who received a rare “heart” ranking, and that “Bikini” is required to improve the panel. This was my favorite GDC Souvenir:

(courtesy of Tim, the high-res version of his speaker evaluation is here.)
The combination of hard work and hard drinking killed many of my brain cells, I’m sure — it was a whirlwind time and I’m glad to be back bumming around in Brooklyn with my snobby cat and not-snobby friends, but there’s nothing like GDC. I had a wonderful time, and to those of you who did come up and say hello to me, it was nice to meet you!
Don’t forget, you can find all of my GDC coverage, as well as the fine and excellent work of my colleagues, at Gamasutra’s designated GDC 2010 landing page.

Are We Gonna Be Together?


Keeping an eye on our local BioShock sidebar poll here, I’m actually fairly surprised at what an overwhelming percentage of you are Little Sister rescuers. I think the SVGL audience skews more empathetic than the average core gamer, judging by the discussions we have here — but even still!

I find the results especially surprising because of all the talk I’ve heard around the Little Sister choice in the games — people always say it’s not really a “choice” since you receive a gameplay benefit in either case, or because it doesn’t change much about the story save for the ending; people find them creepy AIs, not cute little people at the crux of a meaningful moral conflict, blah blah. If all that is so, why do so many of you care?
I killed all the Little Sisters in the first BioShock. To me, to do so seemed to suit the narrative better — I was a faceless stranger in a man-eat-man world. I liked the repellent desperation that made Rapture so lawless, and so amoral was its world I thought I’d play along. Did I feel good about doing it? Not exactly, but to make my decisions based on a hunger for power felt appropriate for the story.
And I’ve always maintained I had a better experience in the first game because of it. When the things I was led to believe came crashing down, having to face what I’d done made the story’s later revelations more of a gutpunch. Arriving at Tennenbaum’s safehouse as a Little Sister killer was one of the most memorable gaming experiences I’d had that year. One thing I wish is that the game could have given me the opportunity to redeem myself, to start handling the little sisters as fellow victims instead of as prey once I knew what the real deal was — but then, that might have violated the game’s message of “no real agency”.
I am hesitant to say much yet about BioShock 2 because I’m doing a review for Paste, but I’ll say that the choice felt much different to me this time. Although the harvest-or-rescue decision is more nuanced and complex from a gameplay perspective, it seems not a decision at all from a narrative standpoint — in the first BioShock, it felt equally realistic to take either path. In the second, I personally find it implausible to do anything but rescue. But maybe that’s just me.
It does bring me to an interesting point: What’s your motivation when you play a video game that allows you some agency? Are you writing a story and creating a character? Or are you using the medium of interactivity to express your own self — and see how the environment responds to you?
What determines your harvest-or-rescue decision, for example — something inside the game, or something inside of you?
Bonus Content: Header image is this wallpaper.
August 2007, I write my Aberrant Gamer column for GameSetWatch on the original Little Sister choice and what creates emotional impact versus basic cost-benefit analysis.
August 2007, I write a different Aberrant Gamer column on the Little Sisters themselves, and the use of creepy girlchildren in survival horror.
July 2008, at Kotaku EA boss John Riccitiello tells me that he, too, was a Little Sister killer.

Playing Catch-Up, Again

I’ve been sick. I’ve been busy. And it’s always sooooo much easier to tweet at you guys and reach out to you instantly than it is to write blog posts I don’t get paid for. But you love SVGL, and SVGL loves you, and so we are doing science and we’re still alive. What game was that again? Tsk, this industry, you know?

Anyway. I’m long overdue in pointing out to you a couple recent articles of mine you may have missed. Lately, I asked Ian Bogost what he thought of the indie scene — we ask the same question of all IGF finalists over at Gamasutra (check ‘em out so far; Bogost’s will run soon). His answer was, “You mean the puzzle platformer scene? It’s awesome, isn’t it?”
Sad but true. It seems that brutally difficult platform games have become the new paradigm for genius. In my latest Gama editorial, I wondered whether there’s a new trend going on – how did “hard” become the new “good”?

You can’t have missed my Kotaku feature, right? RIGHT? Well, if you did, you’re in for a doozy. I write about Katawa Shoujo, the erotic novel about disabled girls that originated on 4chan. As I like to say, if you hated that I was okay with Bayonetta, you’ll hate what I’m okay with now!
What about you guys? Favorite IGF nominees? Currently playing?

Gotta Have Faith


Does this picture of Faith from Mirror’s Edge look a little… different to you? In case you didn’t catch it today, my latest Kotaku feature is up! I’m too tired to explain it, so please just go read it.

Speaking of Mirror’s Edge, in case you’re wondering what’s going on with EA today, I wrote at length at Gamasutra both about the financial results and the layoffs as well as EA’s long-term plans.

Lord, I worked a lot this week. I’m moving this weekend and my first act in my new place will be to place myself face-down in my pillow.

Evolution, Revolution

So while I’m putting things into moving boxes and wondering how Zelda will tolerate taking a long subway trip inside a duffel bag thing that’s made to carry cats, you should read Stephen Totilo’s chat with Miyamoto. I can’t say enough good things about the work Totilo does, especially as far as his interviews, which I tend to find the only ones worth reading out there. I especially like the way (you’ll see if you read the piece) Totilo presses Miyamoto on a question he didn’t exactly answer, which I dunno if many game journos would have the balls to do. Most interviews game journos do with him read like holy shit, it’s Miyamoto, and I’m quite sure I wouldn’t do any better.

I did squeeze in an interview of my own lately, though. No, not with Miyamoto. You may or may not have noticed I’ve had survival horror on the brain all month, writing about the state of the genre, reviewing and discussing Silent Hill, chatting with Mitch and Michael on the Brainy Gamer podcast recently — and most of that discussion ends up coming down to the combat issue. How much to have, how capable the player should be, whether there are better ways to create a horror mood than by attacking the player.

I’ve never played Frictional Games’ Penumbra titles, which take the minimized-combat approach (since the nightmares of my brand-new PC continue, it’s not hard to see how I’d rather put nails in my eyes than rely on computers for large games) — but real survival-horror buffs always bring them up to me, and the games enjoy quite a loyal following online, from what I’ve always seen. I had a chance to interview the devs about their approach to the genre — frightening without fighting — and the new game they’re working on now.

While we were talking Miyamoto walked in because he just wanted to hang out with us but he didn’t really say anything interesting so I just left that part out.

…Yep. But anyway, back to Totilo’s article. Was talking with him about it after it ran — mostly about Miyamoto’s most interesting question (he turned the tables and started interviewing the interviewer!): What’s innovative about today’s hardcore titles?

Just that question alone, and the things he says about his recent projects do provide a bit of insight into how he’s seeing this casual-hardcore spectrum — in other words, not as a spectrum. To Nintendo there’s “different” and “not different.” And I’m sort of torn about it; on one hand, you could call Nintendo “different” or “innovative” because its games are distinctly different than anything that’s available on the other platforms, arguably with a more consistent vision and a stronger identity than any other developer’s first-party stuff.

But that consistent vision and strong identity has been built by iterating very subtly, not by taking particularly high-risk moves. I’ve admired Nintendo most for the fact that, as technology evolves, they always manage to produce a franchise title that leverages the new tech while still keeping, say, Mario’s literal formula straight. What impresses me most about Galaxy is that it’s exactly what Super Mario Bros would be on spheres; it’s a Super Mario Bros. made precisely for the Wii era, taking the “words” from the 1980′s, so to speak, and translating them verbatim into the newer, more complex language of the new century’s first decade.

But it’s still the same words in newer language — that’s evolution, not revolution; it’s iteration, not innovation.

I’m sure, though, when we look back in twenty years at Nintendo’s innovations, it’ll be things like motion controls and wide-appeal Wii Fit-style things that are more “products” than “video games” for which they’re remembered. Point is, what I took away from Totilo’s Miyamoto interview is that he simply doesn’t see “casual” versus “hardcore” the way we do.

Which would probably explain a lot, huh?

A Controversial Tracklist, An Awesome One, And A Terrible One


Keeping up with blog topics is almost as difficult as keeping up with games. There are a couple things I want to write about before they get away from me, as most everything else is — and I will. Soon. But for now, just a couple of quick notes.

Controversial: Stephen Totilo spoke to Toumani Diabate, the Malian musician behind the song that got LittleBigPlanet pulled (but not before I got it here in the ‘hood when they broke street, nyah!). Fascinating article — not only does Diabate explain his intentions behind putting the words in his music, but the record label discusses the context for the Koran words in his song. Beliefnet editor Dilshad Ali and Council on American-Islamic Relations spokesperson Ibrahim Hooper also weigh in on why, precisely, the song might offend Muslims. Interesting stuff.

“I could see Christians or Jews objecting if verses from the Bible were used in a similar way,” Hooper told Totilo. I puzzled over this a little, because I’m not so sure that’s the case, at least not in any kind of broad way here. Quoting the Bible casually has become a part of American culture, even for the non-religious, and plenty of pop songs have biblical references, even direct quotes.

I remember people getting worked up over Madonna’s Like A Prayer video, but I believe that’s because she was burning crosses in it, right? I don’t really remember.

Anyway, these are cultural/religious values clearly different than the ones with which I was raised, but it sounds like the spokespeople Totilo talked to appreciate Sony’s decision to remove the song and avoid offending anyone.

Second, a couple of the reviews I’ve worked on recently are up at Variety.

Awesome: Not having a huge affinity for car games, to say the least, I’m surprised at how much I like Midnight Club: Los Angeles. I enjoy playing it and keep squeezing in race time between work and dinner. The real kicker is that I liked the multiplayer. If you’ve been reading this blog, you know I’m never into multiplayer and actively avoid it when I can. It’s why I rarely give out my gamertag — I get nervous shooting, driving, or doing anything skill-based in front of other people. Still, if you pick up this game, email me your gamertag so I can add you to my friends and play MCLA with you. Just don’t expect greatness!

One thing I’m kicking myself for neglecting to mention in the review is how hawt the soundtrack is. I mean, you know Rockstar can sure pick music, but still.

Terrible: On the flip side, I did not like Rock Revolution. Like, at all.

Lonely Hearts


I returned to my roots this weekend in more ways than one! I spent an embarrassing chunk of time replaying (and beating!) the entirety of Ys I & II — man, I loved that game so much when I was a kid that I have no idea whether the awesomeness I associate it with now and the fact I had such a great time with it is because of nostalgia or because it was really, really that great. I’ll have to explore that a little more later.

Second, this week’s Aberrant Gamer column goes back to my dating sim niche. Playing Harvest Moon more than a bit lately, I noticed that I could easily predict what bachelors and bachelorettes would be available. Harvest Moon in particular tends to recycle characters, subtly and knowingly, even when they have variations on their appearances and names (this sounds like it’d be a terrible thing, but it’s actually kinda fun). But beyond the series itself, I noticed that there’s a broader archetypal pattern to the gals and guys “available” to you in dating sims, just as there are in hardcore hentai games, so I decided to have a little stab at analyzing What Your Dating Sim Choice Says About You.

All the stuff I’ve been doing lately means I am not, like many people I know, in the LittleBigPlanet beta. I can wait at least until retail for that one — since I’m rarely big on multiplayer anything, and prefer structure, and find that “making things in a video game” holds my attention for all about ten minutes, I’m suspicious that I’ll fall into the “it’s cool, but not my kinda thing” camp.

I’m also sort of leery of groupthink in general. It leads people to enthuse that Braid is super deep just because everyone else has said so, without discovering that fact for themselves — or worse, it leads them to shut up if they disagree. I had a dinner conversation lately with some fairly special industry folk who, after a moment of hesitation, all shyly admitted they didn’t “get” Braid and didn’t see what all the fuss was about — and also said they’d been afraid to admit this because they were afraid it made them “stupid” in the face of the group sentiment. These were all absolutely brilliant people, too.

And I think the same kind of groupthink might be leading to a little bit of over-hype for LBP — I’ve seen it a couple of times at events and stuff, and not that it isn’t legitimately exciting, but I confess to feeling peer-pressured to be “really awed and excited” about it when I’m merely “interested.” So yes, I do plan on having a go at LBP myself for sure — wouldn’t miss it — but as to whether it’s the Second Coming or not, I’ll actually wait until I play it at length to decide.

Anyhow, playing a retro RPG and writing about aberrant gaming was a nice refresher for me after a heavy week of survival horror and Silent Hill: Homecoming. I’m gratified, like I’ve said, to read long threads on forums and stuff to see there’s quite a chunk of players really enjoying the game, but it was still just a little bit lonely last week being one of the only reviewers to really like it (1UP and UGO reviewed it fairly well, but those are the only ones I know of).

How Mario Beat Sonic

There will be plenty more Silent Hill next weekish — I wanted to take a break from the subject of survival horror, subjective reviews and the game itself for now to give everyone a chance to actually play the thing, and point out that I actually did more than one review in the past week!

Given that Nintendo’s finally unveiled the long-fabled new DS, it’s great timing for this topic, too.

If you were a gamer child in the ’90s, you remember the rivalry. Everyone loved the plumber, until a fast, sassy blue hedgehog showed up to make him look like yesterday’s news. Sonic’s high speed, quick tricks and clever level design fast dated the Mushroom Kingdom and became the mascot, the standard-bearer for Sega’s burgeoning threat to Nintendo’s throne.

So what happened?

It seems like the very reason Sonic seemed an initial shoe-in to relegate Mario to relic status is the same reason he ultimately stumbled. Mario was a construct, a vague pixel accessory to a world governed by laws, while Sonic was a personality in a hip, modern world. Nintendo seemed to plod along; innovations made on Mario’s world were only subtle iterations on a formula. From Sega’s standpoint, the path to advancement seemed clear — work your angle. Make the mechanics even wackier and work Sonic’s personality.

Sigh. Sonic’s personality.

It didn’t work, of course. Sega lost sight of the quintessential fact that just like Mario, the early Sonic the Hedgehog games were popular because of their formula. So while Nintendo excelled at steadily and gently adapting the Mario universe to emerging technologies, Sonic strayed from the path by declining to recognize its own formula. Super Mario Galaxy is a feat for the simple reason that it’s what you’d expect Super Mario Bros. to look like on 3D spheres, more or less. We don’t have the modern equivalent for Sonic the Hedgehog. Through several past generations, we never had it — and that’s the main problem.

Of course, Nintendo does have the additional advantage of continuing to be a platform-holder, something Sega was forced to surrender with its Dreamcast-capped exit from the hardware market. But it could be argued that, as personal standard-bearer, having a strong mascot in Mario is one of the major reasons that Nintendo sustained while Sega didn’t. Instead of trying to be an elaborate personality, each flagship Mario game was no more and no less than an ambassador for the hardware itself, a representative of the tech — as time marched on, Nintendo simply offered the familiar Super Mario Bros. again and again. The technology evolved, but the game remained quintessentially the same.

Nintendo’s striking ability to evolve subtly with the times, to conform fluidly to current tastes and technologies, to iterate without overhauling, is one of its hallmarks overall. Sega may have tried to innovate too much with Sonic; it’s likely that some other property should have been the innovation guinea pig, and it should have stuck to what was safe and familiar with its crucial standard-bearer and his games. Even today, through racing titles, the addition of a suite of pals that only furry pornographers could love and other head-scratching decisions, Sonic fans exclaim loud and clear that they just want a platformer where Sonic runs fast. Period.

I have a sister six years younger, who grew up playing games alongside me (or watching me play them, mostly). She kept all the old consoles we used to have, and still plays them. She owns a Wii and will copilot some of her friends’ Xbox 360 games, but her steps into the next-gen have been tentative and uncomfortable at best. She never really got used to controlling any kind of game on two axes (she can’t play BioShock, for example) — and moreover, she doesn’t want to. She’ll make some selective concessions, like for Rock Band or Umbrella Chronicles, but she best likes PSX platformers. Her favorite game to play remains Sonic and Knuckles. For her, nothing new has ever beaten that, and I think that’s pretty telling.

Once again we have a slate of new Sonic games on the horizon, and the hedgehog’s longtime fans (ahem) who’ve been keeping the light on for him know better than to hope (too hard) for a return to the familiar. It remains to be seen whether Sega can let us love Sonic again, but I did review BioWare’s Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood for Variety and, as RPG-lite, I kind of liked it.

As many reviewers have already pointed out, there are a lot of weird flags to the game: A Sonic RPG (didn’t Mario get an RPG like ten years ago?). Made by BioWare (are we getting an emotional space opera?) — on the DS for their first time. Containing Sonic’s crappy friends. Sigh.

Probably the only way to make Sonic’s friends digestible is to make them necessary supports in an RPG with something useful to contribute, and this game does that. One thing I feared is that it’d be too weighty, fraught with moral decisions and burdensome, over-detailed science fiction — but it’s not. Both the gameplay and the story are exactly as deep as they need to be without going too far, which is good. It’s also the first game in a while that I can genuinely say that both kids and adults will actually like — usually when I say that grown-ups will like a kids’ game, what I really mean is that they could, theoretically, like it, but this game truly manages to span audiences.

Even though my review’s already up, I still wrestle with one more question — would it have been a good game if it was not Sonic? Probably not. It’s a little bit too shallow and simplistic for that. It’s not going to blow your mind. It’s not going to give you your childhood back, and it’s not going to scratch that blue itch you’ve had since then. But it’s nonetheless decent, enjoyable, appropriate, solid; it’s respectable, as I said in the review, and it’s fun, and after seeing the mires through which Sonic has gotten dragged in recent years, that’s something to applaud.