Fairy Tale

The review copy of Guild Wars came. Haven't had time to look at it properly, but initial impressions aren't overtly strong. Streamlining is fine, but gamers also like substance. If you feel like what you're doing isn't substantial, the epic-ness RPGs famously evoke can be lost. Perhaps its that I haven't seen what it has to offer yet.

Either way, it's absolutely stunning to look at. The dreamy bloom effect that mimics HDR puts a far away, fairy tale impression on things.

In Pictures

One mustn't judge based on first impressions, particularly ones as limited as this, but I find it hard to believe 3D Realm's Prey will include

...a tightly integrated story that packs an emotional punch, unlike other first person shooters.

based on:




But let us all keep open minds. For now.

We can instead point and laugh whole-heartedly at Digital Extreme's Pariah. If you pitched a film or a game synopsis to someone saying, "it's a mix of this, this and this", you'd be suggesting something new and interesting based on a blend of elements. Pariah's pitch could have sounded like, based on the multiplayer demo: "Halo, Unreal Tournament, and Not Fun." Vehicles and health system from Halo, but without the great physics and damage balance, plus the wackiness of UT, but slower and less wacky. Not Fun isn't a game, but there's definately some of it in there.



Oh, and the screen turns an ugly green when you equip the plasma rifle (not pictured). Presumably to curb what little enjoyment you might have pretended you were having.

Napalm Sprites

The best stories capture something about humanity, illustrate something about ourselves that we hadn't seen before. Games very, very rarely do this.

Remember when Alyx is trying to get a word in between Barney and Dr.Kleiner? She's saying, paraphrased, "What cat? Uh, someone? What cat!?" When she gets no response from either man, who talks over her, she rolls her eyes at you and walks away. At you. Never have I felt so important in a computer game than at this moment, when this girl chooses to relate to ME. I laughed out loud with the surprise of feeling that caught me. It's something human, and humanity is something games severely lack.

Absurd isn't it? The most unemotional expression, and it strikes me as a historical gaming moment. Imagine, then, a properly intense interaction like a marital break down or a tender first kiss. Imagine if you were one of the participants in a charged, important social situation, in a game. The shy slightness of your partner's upward glance at you, or a hateful glare as your best friend fills with colour while you blunder into a comment they didn't want told in front of others. Games could, can do this, and it would be glorious.

Earlier, I was examining some low res gameplay videos trying to identify whether rag dolls in Battlefield 2 apply only to enemies killed by explosions - it looked to me like gun kills were animated. We seem to be limiting 'realism' in games to destruction detail and the quality of grenade shadows. Realism should constitute the quality of cohesion of the game's characters to the world. Fuck the resolution of the napalm sprites, I'd much rather see how my squad mates reacted to the plane dropping the stuff.

Anyway, we're not far off now. I can see the playable intro now; it'll be a ceremonial dinner, a close affair for the family. The women laugh and fuss around the cooker, asking you and the children how much gravy you all want. The men will sit back, elbows on the table, talking over each other and dipping their bread in the dip, served in the traditional crockery. Candles light up their smiling faces, the small yellow fires reflecting in the special glasses. When everyone's finally sitting down, ceremonial hats are donned, and the reading takes place.
"This is where we are from," quietly points your aunt, who's sitting next to you. A picture on the facing page of your ritual book, issued to all, depicts a far away land. One quite different to that you can half see through the darkened windows at the far end of the room.

At the head of the table, father booms the old language you don't understand. Children and adults sit with their heads bowed in concentration, but when any one of them meets your upward gaze, it is offered with affectionate return. The gleaming display of food between them all. The floral pattern of aunt’s dress looms large on your left side as you look around. A brother, his fringe cut crooked, frowns at you - motioning that you look at the reading as the others do. You concentrate on the picture of the far away place. None of children, even you, can follow the Old language father, with his loud breathing and louder Aramaic diction recites. The crude drawing seems to hold your all your attention. The foreign monotones and dim colours start to blur. When the discordant siren whines into blaring action, the recently happy faces become taut with fear, they seem displaced. A hand pulls you forward, you stumble across an over turned chair, the candles light is quenched.

Your memory doesn't seem to serve you well enough.

Chaos Theory

Splinter Cell 3 has been added to archive. The piece was for Thunderbolt Games

Alas, in these times of guarded profits and publisher control, innovation suffers. By way of example; the colourful DVD case sings the addition of a knife to your arsenal. “The ultimate stealth equipment!” It proclaims. Rather anti-climactic to think that not since the medieval Thief games has there been a development in plundering paraphernalia. On the other hand, perhaps in Splinter Cell 4 we’ll get moss arrows.

Full Review

Gordon of Arabia

Valve aren't doing enough. Yeah, Robin Walker is right in admitting "Right now, we're really, really good at making Half Life 2" but that's exactly why they should push it further than ammo crates and crowbars. Valve could be the developer that makes a game to really turn outsider's heads, who'd say, "If that's a computer game, I'll eat my hat. The one that says 'Games are limited stupidity for children' in big felt letters."

It's fine to stick with the same technology, it's by no means lacking, yet. But more of the same? Exactly the same? There's no excuse for such shameless stretching. The first game - Ok, so we want to make a really good first person shooter. Tick. Second game - Whoa, could we do it again? Next gen style? Look! We can add twiddly bits and re-define the genre! Tick.

The time is now, Gabe. You're riding on a wave of vast success; six Baftas, a publisher destroying distribution system, a huge, loyal audience base and a solid engine. If there's ever been a better position for a developer to do something really, really wild, I'd like to see it.

So carry on with Gordon and co, that's fine. But lets do something interesting with the content. Lets put in some seamless character interaction maybe. Lets make the escape out of City 17 and across the badlands into a vast epic. We can have some shooting along the way, defending the human convoy against the creatures of the flats, some hostile outback towns perhaps. But lets add some complexity.

You are the Shepard of the straggling survivors of the carnage. Alyx is injured early on and is carried in one of the makeshift wagons that make up the trail. More able citizens ride other machines or walk along side. Replacing destructive hardware, your default usage becomes an initially clumsy pair of hands. Actions like tying ropes, soldering metal or tending to the injured are managed with fluid, integral player-skill movements.* The various wheeled elements of your precession are physically governed - bits of scrap metal, armaments, tyres, perhaps even suspension can be added or swapped out of the wagons with rubbish you find on your travels. Each must be attached physically, and as best you can using the limited adhesives around you, again through the player-skill manipulation interface of dexterity.

Navigation across the open, barren (but far from empty) wastes is managed on the map screen. Send search parties looking for water, enemies, supplies, and outposts/settlements with simple commands, or do it yourself selecting members of your teams to assist you, riding your rag-tag, self-fashioned vehicles.

At the same time as manually adapting and maintaining your vehicles, re-supplying, planning your journey, scavenging, raiding and fighting off attackers, the recovering Alyx has to be tended to. How high your priority of defending and attending to the needs of Eli's daughter, as well as your performance in frequent, (subtle) optional choice dialogue scenarios attribute to her loyalty to you. Defend her not only from attack, but from Barney’s rival advances.

You could construct a tower on your flagship vehicle. Spread out the base with a longer axel you’ve found, then erect some piping, bit of structure, and a short ladder. You’d have a watch post to snipe or defend from.

Nights spent guarding the sleeping heroine in the rattling frame of her lightly armoured cart, threadbare curtains swaying with the movement and the dim light illuminating her strained features, you think about those trailer guide ropes that need replacing. Peering out from a viewing strip you made by re-attaching an upper corrugated iron slat with a gap between it and the lower one, you wonder: how many more miles for water? Ammo? Just then, she mumbles some sleep-bound incoherence. She just drank half an hour ago, you think. Food, maybe. A simple directional mouse gesture towards her nose with a spoonful of rice in your weather beaten (now gloveless) hands produces a slightly positive countenance. You move the mouse down a bit, she eats a few grains. For added effect you could mutter a silent 'Not far now,' or 'Nearly day light'.
Through the slats, you see a citizen jogs past, moving up the line. His face is barely visible for the dust guarding cloth around his head but he sees you as he passes, nodding an accustomed, "sir", on his way.

So yes. Gordon of Arabia, if you will. Nothing Source can't handle with some quick optimisations, and it’s not even far off the standard FPS mark. A year's concentrated work for Valve would be my approximation. I'd play it.




*On “fluid, integral player-skill movements”, I avoid the word ‘mini-game’ because that immediately suggests a dull formality - cute interface disguising a tedious pac-man or tetris clone.

I hazard using the term ‘gestural’, but that suggests more boredom, only synonymous with Black and White this time. These systems would be quick: painless but requiring practice to perfect. Also visually un-intruded by overlays or anything outside the standard view.

I don't believe you.

Look, lets try it again. I'll sneak out from under this pitchblack corner of the room, and you pretend to be a little more suprised at the site of a grizzled, elderly spy with a large gun and three green eyes. "Intruder!" just doesn't cut it, mate. Especially as you were asleep three frames ago.

My statement a couple of posts ago suggesting that Irrational's Swat 4, like Act of War: Direct Action was childish, I'm finding my self regretting. [/Yoda] For the game actually has a more human feel to almost any other. There's still not much, but in a genre of game where humans are for shooting, there's a suprising amount of personality in the potential ragdolls.

It's in the encounters. In fear of death, a room full of people with guns erupt into a shouting match. The masked policemen aggressively yelling 'put down your weapons!' and the hostage takers swearing hysterically over the top. Because as a function of gameplay the lives of every character is valuable, you regret a kill inherantly.
I've deviated however. My point wasn't that Splinter Cell shouldn't disallow your guns on even more of its missions, what I'm saying is that at least in Swat 4 - NPC reactions have a degree of realism.

Why don't enemies fumble with their weapons when sighting a completely unexpected enemy? Why don't they put their hands up, shout for help with wide eyed terror, simply run away, or freeze - as any real person may well do. Of course, when faced with an entirely expected enemy, NPCs will shoot on sight or react with conviction and resolve.

...Alright, that description turned into mechanics would make a game with challenges way too easy or hard. But how do you strike a balance? For a game like Splinter Cell, where the level structure needs enemies to be in certain places at certain times, with quite a strict limit on mobility and variation - what can you do with realistic responses?

How about dialogues? Before they shoot shouting "Who are you? What are you doing here!" Perhaps with some Monkey Island style optional retorts. Yes, it's late.



And I'm not sure I could see that working either.

The Music

A stupid idea for music implementation as a gameplay element of Swat 4:

A full orchestral arrangement follows the player through the tight corridors and volatile encounters of the game. Choir whispering when enemies are near, breaking into an epic theme when the action starts. High horn sections among the shrieks of 'Get the hell outta here!' and 'Police!'

As the ten or so NPC members get decimated in the crossfire, so does the density of the harmony. Your violin detail didn't make it out of the hallway in time? Then you won't hear them. Other members of the The Music will glance dismayed at the brutal death of the colleagues only for a moment between breaths on their brass notes. They won't get in the way - immediately pressing to the walls as you pass backwards by them - and will otherwise stand in formation as much as possible, tallest behind. Keen musicians, they seem surreally oblivious to the seriousness of each encounter. The deep red on a fallen soloist's bright white garments. Perhaps they're just trying to cover for a hidden terror.

Either way, they cost a zero point deduction when killed by enemies, and a minor one when eliminated by your own hand - in case some morose player had the juvenile inclination to silence them with an MP5 at the start of a mission. Enough to effect your performance if you killed them all, but not enough for you to worry about them, or mind catching one by accident as you aim over his shoulder.

An increased visual intensity to the charged urban situations of Swat 4, The Music would be a dark, surrealist joke. Hilarious.

Gesticulate wildly

Imagine being so damn high that you'd stand up and dance. In front of everyone. Their stunned, sober silence saying more than make shift projectiles and hateful jeers ever could.

And not just a couple of steps. Not just a quick 'back forth back forth'. I'm talking raw, honest, expressive dance. Tell everyone how you feel; use your hips and breasts, arms gesticulating wildly.

In games, you can do this.

Could there really be a better arguement than that? Play games everyone, in virtual worlds - you can dance.

Dante's Awakening

Devil May Cry 3 has been added to archive. The piece was for Thunderbolt Games

What Capcom have here is a flagship of a genre. Devil May Cry 3 is a showcase title, typical of the twilight years of an aging console. The game’s only downsides - painful difficulty and uninspired level structure - contribute to the old school theme, so whether it’s a post-modern reference or an ultimately shallow backtrack comes down to personal preference. Otherwise, its a detailed, consistent, artful slice of action adventure, bursting at the seams with the quality of the action and visuals, optimised admirably by a developer who has learned the PS2 through and through – you wouldn’t want to miss out on that, would you?

DMC3

Fetish decor

I get home tonight, and I just can't quite bring myself to launch games called 'Swat 4' and 'Act of War: Direct Action'. Leaving the house puts some perspective on things, and upon returning to my room late on a Friday or Saturday night I'm finding myself more and more averted to all these games. It's not games in general, I'd just love to be playing something truely original and with some real substance. What about double clicking on the executable for "Wuthering Heights"? Wouldn't that rock? Looking at Kathy's scribbled drawings by candle light, when suddenly her ghost raps on the grimey pane above the bed, begging you through the bars to let her in?

I know there are dozens of reasons why Wuthering Heights wouldn't work as a game, it's just and example. But that scene could work, it could be drawn out and emotive, with bump mapped detail on Kathy's face in the window, illuminated in flashes by the lightning storm. Basically, as we all know, there are very few moments in games that conjure *any* emotion in the player.

I was struck yesterday by an unexpected example of cinematic integrity in an unlikely source: ironically, Swat 4.

I'd never played any of the Swat games, but I installed this one on the LAN to have a look at. Rob and I pored over the controls and load outs for a while, then tried the first map in Co op mode. We walked up the steps of a tired looking bungalow, melting Hallowe'en lantern grinning mirthlessly by the porch. A plan was arranged for the entry of the front door - grenades were chosen, positions arranged. A couple of minutes of debating past before we were ready to pick the lock and execute our method. Nothing. bin bags lined the walls, broken bikes and stained fittings, a few closed doors, the place looked normal enough. A lamp over-turned - nothing drastic. We cautiously proceeded to the nearest door and executed a less elaborate manouver. Still, nothing.

We moved through the house like this for several minutes, our torches flashing over darkened bathrooms, locking on un-opened doors. An ambient soundtrack crept in, a melancholy, minimalist tone, contributing further to our unease at seeing no one around. Getting impatient, we half stumbled through a basement doorway into a dark, open study. Coating every inch of the walls were newspaper cuttings, layered at angles onto the woodwork behind. My flashlight caught a glimpse of the headline 'brutal killing discovered'. There were more, but there wasn't time for that. We edged in, what was it we were dealing with here? It remained unclear for only a moment longer. The next opening revealed a large man with a shotgun, a girl tied to the floor wearing half a theatrical mask, and stranger fetish decor.

That moment, the careful exploration of a sad, neglected dwelling, and the climax of the discovery of the fetish room (less the actual encounter, the suspense was dissipated) was an intruging gaming moment. What made it all the more so was the elaborate teamwork and tactical thinking necessary to proceed through the level. The language we found ourselves using to coordinate movements.

Comparison

Frank Miller's original

"I'll cash her cheque in the morning"

I could only allow myself to watch the first scene of Sin City. Still debating whether to wait for the cinema release (later this month), or watch the rest of this lower quality, possibly cammed version I found yesterday. Anyway, whoever said this film was a visual treat really wasn't kidding.










As close to the comic as you could hope to get. The story board for the movie /was/ the comic - the photography is followed frame for frame. From the little I've seen of it, Robert Rodriguez seems to have made something pretty special.

Rehab

I played my first two-way voice enabled online game yesterday. It's quite a different experience to playing with just text, and one a lot of people should argue, that should become standard. Microsoft certainly think so. Their included mike has been a major factor in Live's success, and Xbox2 is rumored to come with a web cam right out of the box.

What this means could be a major shift in how games and gamers are perceived in terms social disfunction, (or nerdiness). Would a match of Unreal Championship or Halo 3 on the new console - harnessing technology that allow interactions between players to be almost as detailed as real ones - be considered as lonely and inward as a session of the original Zork in a darkened room?

There could be some really interesting implementations for a camera as a function of gameplay. The only one I can think of right now would be a kind of Poker-ish scenario, where the player would have to try and minimize or bluff their expressions for multiplayer trickery.
Of course, this opens up a whole host of options for the kinds of morons who disconnect out of RTS matches, team-kill, cheat, and generally ruin everyone's experiences.

Or would it? With a large part of the anonymity removed, would cheaters still get the same kick, knowing that all the people that were quickly learning to hate them with the kind of deep, passionate fury usually reserved only for right wing American presidents may well remember them?

Perhaps a more concrete consequence system could be implemented. Portraits of the accused nailed to virtual telegraph masts around the server. Maybe even a kind of virtual Hell, where all the perpetrators are incarcerated together in a map of whatever game, forced to play only with their own kind. Rehab?

Whatever the effects of these developments, I can't help but agree that this will a be part of it.

No

The Penny Arcade 'Spy Training Manuals' promotional work for Splinter Cell have now all been finished. I like all of them, but this is a favourite.

With new hacks being discovered for the PSP almost daily, (the latest of which being a web browser apparently hacked, somehow, out of Wipeout Pure), already including e-book viewing and PC connectivity for films and stuff, the newly priced system is looking increasingly appealling. £150, eh?



Sexy, but is portable gaming?

Hard realism

Monolith's Geoffrey Zatkin on games, at Penny Arcade:

"So, to summarize, we're a young industry full of pale, egotistical people that dream up ambitious games, work impossible hours and sometimes smell a bit funny."

What I thought was most revealing was this:

"At PAX this year I was a judge for their "pitch your idea for a game" sit-in. I got to break a lot of hearts by telling the audience a very sad fact – that in my 8+ years as a professional game designer, not once has any boss of mine ever asked me for an idea for a new game. Not once."

Some hard realism there. But I'm not convinced this is entirely representitive. I remember Hideo Kojima saying something about a system in their office where everyone involved during the development of Metal Gear was asked once a week to submit an idea for the game.

The rest can be found on their news page.

'Use camo'

"Hold down right click to use camo", he said. I did as he did, and we both melted into the hallway. The guard was just across the darkened lobby, his yellow visor clearly visible over a small wall, he wasn't looking.
"Now!" We loped up the stairs, piercing searchlights threatening our every pace, never seeing.

Multiplayer gaming, in essence, is a form of communication between the players. The more potential for expression the player is allowed, in theory, greater the experience. MMO duelling by quing up preset, purely hours-spent-playing powered attacks therefore, doesn't play all that well.

As an example of that communication; the guards intimidating, intrusive, unforgiving searchlight in SC MP is a function of mouselook - the most intimate degree of control the player has. If I can see your torch's beam, I'm seeing what you want to see, judging your mental state by how quick your mouse gestures are. To the pixel.

Overbright

Splinter Cell 3 arrived today. If I ever wondered why I bought a 6800 Ultra, my questions were answered as the reflection of the silvery moonlight caught a wet patch of metallic flooring, on the wind swept deck of the cargo freighter map. Really, stunning.





Play the SP for the HDR. What I've played so far shows only artistic innovation. Some real thought went into the position of every light, not from a gameplay standpoint particularly, but from a cinematic one. Sheaths of over-bright, high colour that beam through orifices in the metal work to illuminate just the right detail, creating some beautiful compositions.

I'm looking forward to trying the multiplayer properly. Pandora Tomorrow was the best MP of 2004, in my opinion.

Shopping in a warzone

My parents said "Can you or Dan collect the shopping when it's delivered tomorrow?". We got talking about Tesco's online shopping, (boring, you say, Tom Francis?), and I suggested their system should be a first person 3D environment, where you could walk around and choose your items. I thought "actually, wait a second", then said "and every item should be a physics object! And you're given a bat! And you can demand that NPC attendants do things for you, really curtly. Or order a whole stack of deli meat at the counter, and then kart it around on a trolly, throwing random bits at passers by and running the rest of it into the ground with the wheels of your wagon of chaos as you speed it across the now deserted isles! Yes!" Dad was unimpressed further than the 3D environment idea. To which I responded "C'mon! The actions social pressure prevents, now deliciously plausable with pixel shading 3.0 and glorious ragdolls!" Not in those words, but regardless, neither of them were even slightly intrigued.

Well, its not the most original idea ever, but a small, detailed environment with a moderate number of sandboxy, user devised anarchic experiences to be had, Postal style, would certainly appeal to me. I got thinking about how to increase the longevity of a game like that, (Postal 2 is glorious, for about 45 minutes). Multiplayer is one option that springs to mind. Then I thought about what would keep people coming back, even if it was a larger scale, maybe retail park themed MMO.


Postal 2 - gets old fast.


So how about a game that has real, practical links to the world. How about if to do your shopping, you could enter this gang based, territorial urban wasteland, with clans and avatar customisation, voice-over-ip and melee weapons. Try to run independant super markets by day, sabatage other people's and destroy their trade routes by night. ...Well, maybe not the day part, I think a "supermarket tycoon" game might just destroy any remaining realistic hope in this industry.

I'm serious though. If you had to join the server to do your shopping, this grimly exciting, expansive, high detail world would be routine, and necessary. Gaming is no longer pointless timewasting! Set up ambushes, run for gang leader, aaaand pick up this evening's groceries!

Fooled

This must've been the best April fools prank. Sven Co op announces a new team leader! Convincingly written in a stupid way, the link to his email spans the rest of the following sentence, and its made to look like the guy even missed out the post title.

My favourite games include MS Flight Simulator (of course), Dune 2 and Civilisation 3. I've ordered a copy of Half-Life and Half-Life 2 off Amazon, which should be arriving shortly.

I'm new to Sevencoop but I already have lots of exciting idea's that you will definately love! For starters I've asked Nev and Sniper to work non-stop on inserting a flight engine into the game as I want him to combine the code with my "MS Flight Simulator 2002 Boeing 737 realism mod".



I also have many fun ideas for generating revenue for the mod. On a different topic, I buy all my jeans from http://www.hypemakers.net/azjeans/go.php?v=r&adv=1920. They are the best jeans, and there is a fun whack-a-mole game there!

Pretty good. World of Wordcraft shouldn't go without mention though.

Deterioration

99 rooms - here's some interesting visuals. Well, its some animated pictures with audio, and some graffitti in there too. A kind of lonely, industrial Stalker-esque vibe, emphesised particularly by some great music. A couple of the animations really fit the scenes, like a small figure casting a much larger shadow as he slowly walks across the image. Here's a sample, but the best ones are only viewable in the site's flash.



Another, arguably better offering in this kind of bleak, lonely photography vein can be found at Henk van Rensbergen's abandoned-places.com - this guy goes around breaking into disused factories in Germany, yielding some really atmospheric black and white results. All the images are best viewed in their sets, so go there!

Birth

Re-birth, actually. My old one was grey, and tired. Enter shiney new blogspot-dom, tadaa!