dead console, Dead Space

Well, I had been planning to finish Dead Space in time for a Halloween review, but my 360 died on me. Fortunately, this is only the second time I've had to replace a 360.

That I consider two replacements fortunate is certainly a testament to the console's terrible reliability. When my first 360 got the Red Rings of Death, I donated the replacement to my brother and bought myself a 360 Elite, believing the updated console would last longer. It didn't. Apparently, Microsoft decided at some point that it would be cheaper to stomach the cost of countless console replacements and continue to sell blatantly unstable hardware than to meaningfully modify their original design and forge new contracts for the manufacturing and shipping of new parts.

As I've always said, the Xbox 360 is unreliable hardware saved by an excellent library of software.



I've highlighted a lot of stuff in this review for quick browsing.

Anyway, Dead Space. Before my console broke, I had only completed the first chapter or two of the game, in between sessions of Saints Row 2 and Fable 2. But I've decided to go ahead and offer my impressions, however limited, because this game is awesome and the perfect center of a Halloween party.

The other day, I was playing Dead Space on a friend's console as he watched. Even though I was playing on a small TV and with sunlight streaming through the windows, my friend was enraptured just watching. And this is a friend who's as fidgety as can be. Dead Space is one of those rare games that's almost as enjoyable for those watching as those playing.

The first thing you notice is the stellar graphics. Dead Space looks as close to film quality as games come. The animations are fluid and believable, matching well with dialogue. The voice-acting is excellent.

The storytelling early on is compelling overall, accomplished largely through player interactions. It has a lot of what I'll call "soft" cutscenes, for lack of a better term, because they're basically cutscenes that occur without removing the player from gameworld. So, for example, rather than watch a movie, your character is separated from other characters by a locked door as he watches a scripted scene through windows (ala Bioshock). At many points, you'll pick up an audio or video log which pops up in front of your character, allowing you to move as it plays and continue imagining yourself as Isaac.

My only gripe with the story so early in the game is that one of the main characters, Kendra Daniels, strains believability. Kendra is the tech support of Isaac Clarke, the player's character. What is hard to swallow is that her relationship with Zach Hammond, sergeant and apparent captain of their ship, seems to suggest Kendra has no experience working with captains or military, even though her earliest dialogue suggests she is not a rookie at her job. She's brazen and independent... that much seems real. But who tries to countermand a captain's orders to his pilot and constantly act like she knows better after having worked with captains or military many times before? She's hysterical, and people prone to hysteria aren't uncommon, but I would think that sort of behavior would be dulled somewhat by experience. Wouldn't you? Kendra's actions don't seem to correspond with the experience her dialogue suggests.

But that's really the only significant flaw I've found in the game so far.

The controls are direct, simple, and fluid. Using one of the 360 controller's bumpers to sprint throws me off sometimes, since the opposite bumper is used to sprint in Saints Row 2. Arm and boot swings feel appropriately weighted.

The UI is completely integrated into the world so as to be unobtrusive. The health bar on the spine of Isaac's suit doesn't dominate attention the way typical health alerts do. I'm very impressed by the ability to click on the Right Stick and see a momentary blue line appear on the ground and direct me to my next objective. That's so much nicer than constantly having to look at a map (the game also provides a map, though I never needed it). The blue line doesn't linger on-screen like Fable 2's golden trail does, a small but appreciated difference.

But none of that really says anything about the game, because the ultimate point is: this game is scary.

Like Bioshock, Dead Space has a unique and intricate setting which is fulfilling all by itself. Even before I saw my first enemy, I was sucked into the game. The audio is full of eerie noises that keep you guessing at the source. The lighting also toys with your expecations. Sometimes the lights go out, leaving you with only the light on your weapon's sights; you're sure you're going to be attacked, but then the lights come back on. Sometimes you'll enter a room that you've been in before, but you don't realize it's the same room right away because the lighting is different or now there's water dripping from the ceiling.

When you do start encountering necromorphs, the audio is often what alerts you to danger. You'll hear movement, or breathing, or the music as it rises to a terrible scream. And the game doesn't just frighten you with attacks. Sometimes the monsters will be crawling toward you from the other side of a grate, unable to reach you. Sometimes you'll only catch a brief glimpse of one as it jumps into a ventiliation duct or runs past a corridor.

The combat in Dead Space is the edgiest I can ever remember playing. You never know when a necromorph is going to lunge at you or is sneaking up from behind. One caught me completely unaware from behind as I was focusing on killing another in front of me. They don't all charge you from the moment they see you. Some creep toward you, then sprint toward you suddenly. Some leap out at you. Some fall from above. It's the unpredictability of enemy locations and behaviors, as well as all the uncertainty of sights and sounds (the lighting and audio), that keeps you on your toes and makes familiar enemies fresh terrors.

I'm surprised to find a good degree of replayability in Dead Space. Horror games are always so linear and static. But Dead Space allows some variance through the strategic selection of supplies, the customization of gear through power nodes (a branching modifier system), and dynamic AI.

You loot money from necromorph bodies (they used to be humans, afterall) and can sell surplus items for more, then purchase gear and items at stores. How much surplus can you afford to sell? If you're a little short on cash, do you sell an extra med-pack to buy that new gun? Which weapon will you buy, or do you prefer an upgraded rig instead?

You also must choose what to apply your limited power nodes (upgrade tools) to and how to apply them. Do you go for better armor before damage? Is increasing your suit's air capacity for ventures into space or vacuums a priority? Damage, rate of fire, and clip size are other possible gear upgrades.

And lastly, the enemies themselves offer some replay value. The ship has a fully developed ventilation system for the necromorph AI to use in response to your varying actions. So enemies won't always come at you the same way or time on your second or third play-through.

Anyway, as I said, I only managed to play through a few hours of Dead Space before my console died on me, so these impressions aren't based on a complete experience. I haven't even experienced zero gravity in the game yet, which comprises a significant chunk of the game. But I'm very impressed with what I've seen so far. Dead Space kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time I played.

It's too bad it had to be released in the middle of so many other great games. But if you've got the free money, consider Dead Space an investment in this and future Halloween get-togethers. Turn out all the lights, crank up the stereo, and watch your friends jump as you play the game in front of them.

imperfections and details

Again, I'm going to use a comment of mine as my post for the day. I have many good games right now that are demanding my attention (Fable 2, Dead Space, Saints Row 2, Spore, etc).

Savid Daunders asks whether or not imperfections, like flawed architecture of a building, are important to good level design. Well, consider these examples.

My first thought when commenting on his article was of modeling human faces. Modelers learned long ago that old people are easier to simulate accurately than young people, because the skin imperfections make the skin seem more real.

Another example is tree modeling. Trees generally don't look realistic without variation. Each tree is shaped by its response to unique challenges (ex: competing for sunlight) and setbacks (drought, bugs, disease, etc). One might argue that a perfect tree is one unhindered by any obstacle. The variety we see in believable tree simulation replicates the plants' struggles to survive and conquer. In other words, good simulations mimic the results of tree vulnerability to conditions and interactions.

Now consider item placement and arrangement in interior settings. Games started simulating building interiors more accurately when they started to include random objects and messes, like magazines scattered on tables and floors. When an interior setting is entirely neat and orderly, it feels unnatural. This might only suggest that someone recently cleaned it up for a special occasion, like guests coming over, but that's still an impression that should be deliberately created by artists when it exists.


Unlike novels and films, games are still only conceptual presentations. A concept is abstracted enough to lose many particulars. It's used as an inexact representation of actuality, begging forbearance from the reader or listener who is well aware of what detail the abstract omits or blurs.

Compared to best-selling novels and films, games include far fewer and, generally, less accurately rendered details of every setting, object, and character. An average book or film places dozens of high-detailed objects in one room which the audience might only witness a single time in the story. For example: in the film I, Robot, only five minutes of the movie occurs in the AI creator's home office; yet there are bookcases full of unique books (individually titled, colored, shaped, etc), many pictures and framed photographs, loose stationary, and countless other peripheral elements of setting... including a cat.

One of my creative writing instructors used to say that good fiction, like good lying, is in the details. Good storytellers make ample use of peripheral details to project a setting that can't be accurately portrayed with adjectives.

Technical limitations are certainly at the heart of this shortcoming in games, but also production focus. Developers make a conscious choice to focus on expanse, rather than depth and detail. It's a balancing act, and the proper course won't be the same for any two games or teams, but it's a necessary consideration in the process of planning and implementation.

There are many ways to tackle this issue, of course, but I recommend making it the sole concern of one employee to create details for the game's settings and characters. Let one person focus on fleshing out the presentation.

Anyway, the game industry still has a long way to go before our stories and experiences are as detailed as other media. And I say that will due respect for the admirable amount of detailing in games like Dead Space and Mass Effect.

marketing Alan Wake

There's nothing wrong with a story-focused cinematic that reveals almost nothing of actual gameplay, provided that cinematic excites people and interests them in the game's setting. But Microsoft and Remedy must to do much more than this if they me to take Alan Wake seriously.

The problem is we were offered the same vague hints at gameplay, albeit presented through superb graphics, over three years ago with the launch of the Xbox 360. Alan Wake screenshots and videos were a vital selling point for the console's release, yet still today there's nothing beyond Remedy's reputation suggesting that this is an actual game. Judging from its use years ago in 360 marketing, I'm inclined to think it's really a tech demo which is merely being glittered with gameplay.

I could be wrong, and I hope I am. I like the concept of alternating players between safe daylight (investigation) and dangerous night (defense).

But if this really is a game through-and-through, it still seems Microsoft marketed this game too strongly when the developers hadn't solidified anything beyond the most basic premise and graphics. To use something unformed and unproven as a major selling point seems unethical to me. What do you think?

the LBP delay

I have mixed feelings about LittleBigPlanet being recalled by Sony worldwide because of a song that includes a verse or two from the Koran.

The song in question was written by a Muslim musician who supposedly cares himself about being respectful. Even if he considers his action honorable, the other Muslims who disagree should also be listened to. But the key here is who has the most reasonable argument. There will always be people who are offended only because they are being unreasonable, short-sighted, or selfish. Such people should be engaged in conversation, but it is only reasonable objections that should be acted upon.

To some extent, I agree with this guy, also a Muslim. He does not like to see holy verses used in songs not of praise or in frivolous games (as opposed to educational games), but he also does not like to see censorship for the sake of guarding someone from conflicting beliefs. Speaking as a deeply religious person myself (orthodox Catholic), I can see the balance that must be found between open expression and sacrificial respect.

If someone insults a person I love, it's right for me to stand up for that loved one, but (in most cases) that person should be free to insult. We don't want to encourage people to be harmful or callous, but free will should be honored and people should often be allowed to act with even unreasonable disrespect. It's complicated when that loved one is your King, Savior, and Creator, but the same principle basically applies. People should be generally free to insult God. God is the giver of free will, so to undermine free will is to disrespect God.

Free will is not an absolute freedom, of course. Some censorship is justified. But it's right to generally rely on self-censorship. It's right to allow informal interventions to ensure interactions between persons and peoples are respectful. In that article, Jasser calls these informal interventions the "free market", but that seems to me a limited view of our informal interactions.

So what do we have so far? (1) Act only on reasonable objections. (2) Honor free will and allow informal interactions to filter discourse. What else needs to be added?

Well, we also need to recognize Sony's freedom to govern its own operations and determine what works will represent it in the market. Whether or not we believe the Muslims who objected to this song in LBP are reasonably offended does not matter as much as whether or not Sony agrees with their objection. Even if Sony's thinking is flawed, it is still that company's decision to make. As a publisher, it has a duty to honor the free expression of its artists, but those artists reflect on Sony and the publisher has a right to filter them within reason.

Ultimately, I think it's good if Sony decided to delay LBP because they agree the objections are reasonable and LBP is not intended to be a game that challenges ideas, though the disappointment of thousands of anxious fans should certainly have been a factor in the decision (as I'm sure it was). I only think this reflects poorly on Sony if the decision was more political than sincere. Like Tipa, I have to wonder if Sony is just following the popular trend of protecting Muslims while caring nothing for Christians and Jews.

Saints Row 2 single-player

I've beaten the single-player campaign, though I have a nagging suspicion that I haven't seen everything in that mode (I can't explain without giving something away). I haven't tried multiplayer yet, co-op or competitive. I'm really looking forward to trying the co-op, since the entire single-player campaign and gameworld is open to it.

The Saints Row series is about silly, raunchy, over-the-top gameplay in an open world. The heart of its appeal is variety and that it seldom takes itself seriously. Saints Row 2 expands and improves on the original game in more ways than I could list. A few annoyances remain, but the game offers a truly unprecedented variety of activities for the player to enjoy, and the humorous tone only adds to the replay value.

There's so much in Saints Row 2 that I'm only going to talk about a fraction of it. So, for example, I'm only going to talk about three of a dozen or more Activities.


MISSIONS AND ACTIVITIES
The old activities are back, along with new ones and a lot of mini-games called Diversions.

One new activity has you riding in a sewage truck spraying people, buildings, and cops with crap as your communist driver makes comments like "I shed no tears for the bourgeois!". Another has you in an attack helicopter guarding a homie driving below as he makes his drug deals. That one is particularly fun and unlike anything I've seen in other games. Unlike the aerial guard duty in one of the Call of Duty 4 levels, this makes you fly as well as aim and attack. It's easy to bump into a skyscraper while focusing on the ground.

The activity Fluff is also a lot of fun. In it, you pose as a cop and take a cameraman along as you distribute justice in, shall we say, eccentric ways... including shooting streakers and cutting up violators with a chainsaw (which looks very much like using the chainsaw in Gears of War). It's particularly funny when you get called to break up a fight between pirates and ninjas, or when there's a "hooker uprising in progress" and you get called to "inspect" the hookers.

Old activities have been improved and expanded upon. Insurance Fraud again has the player leaping in front of vehicles, but now you can build up to Adrenalin Mode. With adrenalin, you're knocked much higher and farther, allowing you time to aim for other vehicles and be knocked around like a pinball, earning more fraud money. Destruction Derby allows limited customization of vehicles. You earn points with each win, and those points can be used to increase the offense, defense, or speed of your vehicle. Defeat all levels of Destruction Derby to unlock the Special Derby. In that derby, you can compete in monster trucks, golfcarts, 18-wheelers, and even Lamborghinis, just to name a few.

Diversions include familiar activities like taxi driving and tow truck driving, but also new stuff like blackjack and poker, flashing, streaking, zombie uprising, and drive-bys. Diversions also include what I'll call passive activities, because they have no set timeframe or clearly defined challenge. For example, as you drive, near misses (with other vehicles) and driving against oncoming traffic will earn you respect with your homies, as will jumping ramps and driving on two wheels (or one wheel on a motorcycle).

Simple additions like enabling the taking of a human shield or tossing NPCs make a big difference. The ability to throw NPCs is much like the sticky grenade in Halo, in that there are countless ways it can be used to different effects. You can toss someone head-first into a brick wall, or toss him over a rail, or off a building, or into an oncoming vehicle, or through a window, etc. And this time around, you can click a button to enter an over-the-shoulder view for better aiming and a more intense FPS-style experience.



OWNERSHIP AND CUSTOMIZATION
Just like in the original game, you can customize your character's appearance to fine detail, both at the onset and mid-game. The amount of sliders will annoy many gamers, but there's a Randomize command so you can just flip through optios until you see a face you like. What's really great this time around is that you can choose from one of three voices for your character (three male, three female), as well as choose a compliment and taunt. I can't help but think my character's British accent goes perfectly with his giant green mohawk and punk-rocker style.

This time around, you can customize your gang with a general theme (80s, prephop, pimps and hos, gangstas, sporty, etc), a taunt, three vehicles, and... umm... something else.

There are eight cribs for you to call home. Two will be earned in the beginning, but the rest must be bought. You can buy customizations at each crib, and a slick crib will add respect bonuses to your activities, but these customizations represent progression and don't reflect personal choices of the player.

You can purchase every store in the game (at least fifty) and earn daily cuts of their revenue. There's definitely a thrill to earning money through ownership. And you might even be surprised to see your character's face on a billboard advertising one of the stores you own! That one took me completely by surprise.

There are many weapons and clothes to both buy and earn. Before the campaign's end, I unlocked a new shotgun and infinite shotgun ammo, as well as a biker's leather jacket and a pimp's outfit. Different clothing shops sell different clothes. All clothing can be changed in color, while many can be accented with a symbol or word logo.

Vehicle customization seems improved since the last game. There are many more rims and other additions available. And this time performance improvements include frame and tire endurance. There are dozens of vehicles in the game. The majority of them can be captured, stored, and customized. You can also collect a handful of boats, planes, and helicopters (one with missiles and guns).

As you progress through the story, each mission will earn further renovation at your gang's hideout. It's really satisfying to see your rise to power visually reflected in this way.



STORY AND DIALOGUE
This game features an insane amount of dialogue, store signs, and other momentary thrills waiting to be discovered. It's all well voice-acted, and it plays a huge role in keeping the game fun and light-hearted.

Much of the dialogue is semi-randomly blurted from passing NPCs, but other dialogue is tailored to a specific NPC or group. For example, a student sitting down on the ground with her laptop at the Stillwater University has a line or two specific to her. Cops have different lines than hicks, who have different lines than yuppies, who have different lines than bums, etc.

You could play this game for many months and never hear every line of dialogue or notice every funny sign or store name. There's so much.

I thought the campaign was both interesting and amusing. Most of it doesn't take itself too seriously, though there are certainly some intense moments. It's well-written and well-acted. I've started the campaign over to see how much it changes with a different character voice.


PROBLEMS
Just like in the original game, all cars but your own disappear the moment you turn your view away. If you see a vehicle you want but it drives beyond your vision before you can catch it, you're out of luck. This issue is particularly annoying when playing Insurance Fraud, when the timer is ticking down and no vehicles are moving your way. I can only guess that this system of spawning vehicles only in the player's view was designed due to memory limitations, to eliminate lag, but the average gamer can't be expected to understand that this is the lesser of two evils.

My 360 has frozen a few times while playing the game over this past week. I haven't had freezing troubles since I played Oblivion a year ago. Perhaps this is just a hardware problem, but none of my other games have caused a freeze in many months.

The game stalled after I completed the campaign, forcing me to replay the last mission (you can continue to roam the city, customize vehicles, play activities and so on after you've completed the campaign). My console didn't lock up when this happened, but I was forced to exit the game and restart it.

I've gotten stuck a couple times, and seen NPCs stuck once or twice as well. It's a big, complex gameworld, so it's understandable that this could happen, but being forced to reload the game is still annoying. And again, average gamers aren't aware nor care about technical inevitabilities.

Sometimes, I get the feeling modern developers all play their games only on giant HD-TVs. On my 32" standard-definition TV, many logo and message customizations for clothing are unreadable while browsing them at a store.


CONCLUSION
Overall, it's a great game, one of my favorite games on the 360. Advancement focuses on variety of ways the player can interact with the world, more than increases in strength and challenge; and the variety is staggering.

The style of humor, the music, driving controls... whether or not you enjoy these aspects of the game depends on your personal preferences. Some people won't get into it, I'm sure. It's unfortunate that there isn't a demo, though not surprising since it's more sandbox-style than linear. If you're not sure if it's for you, then I recommend renting it and seeing if you catch yourself wishing you could play it more a few days after returning the game. This is the sort of game you can enjoy for however long, take a break, and return to it over and over again.

challenges of sci-fi

I try not to repost my comments from elsewhere too often, but since this one's article-length anyway...

The heart of any story, regardless of genre, is humanity. The best science fiction stories explore humanity and personal relationships with technology being the catalyst and/or guide of that questioning. Isaac Asimov used AI to explore what makes us human. Arthur C. Clarke used space exploration to theorize on our place in a vast universe, as well as to explore our natural origins. Kurt Vonnegut uses technology to explore the basis and limits of our morals and cultures.



The popularization of the internet has greatly complicated science fiction, I think. It has because average people now interact with distant individuals, distant cultures, distant businesses and technologies in ways unimaginable just fifty years ago. When one's life can be so directly affected by something happening halfway around the world (such as a satellite being destroyed, or some service supplied by a foreign country being disrupted), then science fiction authors must either localize their focus to a small setting or consider a vast number of interacting technologies and events.

The rate of innovation/discovery and its variety has exploded, partially thanks to the internet. One can literally read a dozen articles every day of new technologies and scientific discoveries occurring somewhere around the world. Since the Industrial Revolution, science has increased in scope and speed with every generation (scientific exploration is, afterall, a privilege of hands freed by affluent times). There have always been times when innovation proceeds before the human effects are adequately considered, but I believe that's an especially common occurrence this far down the rollercoaster.

The challenge of the modern sci-fi author is that change occurs more rapidly than it used to and plays a greater role in life. For an example of the latter claim: as often as authors like to imagine a world without oil, they never imagine a world without plastics (made from oil). We are utterly dependent on many technologies, and new necessities are added all the time (power steering, computers, cell phones, etc).

Anyway, the focus on humanity, rather than technology, is what is most often missed by would-be sci-fi authors. But I think writing sci-fi can often be harder today than it used to be. It's too easy to predict one technological advancement and forget so many other technologies. Why, the audience might ask, is a person whose car is flying still watching a TV set?

true pets are personal

A repost of my response to Brian's latest challenge, on pets:

I'm very interested to see how the dog in Fable 2 plays out. It's a combination of both combat and show, and has uses well beyond those... such as pointing out hidden treasures and reacting to NPCs.

What I loved most about the Creature Handler system in Star Wars: Galaxies was the variety in pet types and ways of acquiring them. By making wild creatures open to taming, the designers provided a huge assortment of potential pets without having to design a lot of pet-only creatures (the wild creatures could be fought and skinned, thereby providing PvE content).

A pet is much more meaningful when it clearly represents a personal choice, individualizing the player. In real life, people show off the individuality of their pets, not the common features. They might describe their pets from afar as "a black lab" or "a beagle", but they always point out the pet's individual personality and appearance when we actually meet it. And the individual characteristics are what we take the most joy in, even when watching wild animals.

Fable 2 allows individual players to train their dogs differently. That's a good example of making pets both personal and meaningful.

balance vs customization in Diablo 3

Damion Schubert gave a good talk at the Austin conference one year in which he spoke of how the game aspect, world aspect, and social aspect of any MMO often interfere with each other. He presented a triangle with those three points and argued that a good designer is conscious of where within that triangle lies the focus of the game.

Of course, tensions like this exist among many other aspects of design. One such tension is between "balance" and customization. The more influence designers offer players over direction of their experiences, the less they are able to predict and control the gameplay overall. I prefer more emphasis on customization in the games I play.

One of the most successful games that favored customization over balance is Diablo 2. It offered unprecedented freedom in skill selection, gear selection, item customization, attribute distribution, and even pacing. Because the world repopulates with each play-session, the player could choose to replay old areas rather than push forward (thereby providing excellent control of the gameplay's difficulty to the player).

Each character was not only capable of being unique and personal, but likely to be so. Through both choice and luck, five characters of the same class and level were likely to all have different degrees, and types, of power. Customization and dynamics go hand-in-hand, and that's why I and many others are still able to enjoy Diablo 2 over seven years after its release.



So I'm wary of the news that character attribute points will be distributed automatically and not by player choice in Diablo 3. Blizzard says this allows them to go even further with items, but it seems at first glance like a step back from customization and toward the more common emphasis on power balancing.

Even if it is a step towards balance, the gameplay of Diablo 3 is still likely to be more customizable than that in most games. But Blizzard has also replaced the health potion system with health globes which cannot be stored in inventory (they can only be used automatically when running over them). I like the idea, but again choice seems to be taken from the player. Will players be able to control the pace and difficulty as much as in Diablo 2?

Two similar changes does not equal a trend. But if I see a third change of this kind, I might wonder if Blizzard is bringing Diablo 3 in line with the dominant design culture of balance obsession. Will Blizzard emphasize uniform difficulty and predictability over player choice? If so, I doubt I'll enjoy it as long and as much as I enjoyed Diablo 2.

a sweet October

Graphics have definitely improved over the years:



I've got my copy of Dead Space, but haven't dived into it yet. Once the sun goes down.

I'll probably write something up on it and Saints Row 2 in the coming weeks.

scripted choices

Lionhead has come up with a cool and relevant flash game to advertise their upcoming 360 game. I call it relevant because it gives people a taste of the sort of choices they might have to make in Fable 2.



It's interesting and fun, but it demonstrates the problem I mentioned when playing Mass Effect, the inevitable consequence of offering players scripted choices: the designer can't include or even think of every choice different players would choose to make in a given circumstance. Scripted choices are still worthwhile, but the player should also be able to choose in less restricted ways.

mind games

If I were designing a game with mind control, I'd pit players against their own gut reactions.

In a normal video game, the player can imagine multiple moves before choosing one to activate with their hands on the controller. But if the game could discern what, generally, is going on in the players' minds, then it could test their instincts by removing that ability to consider before activation.

It would be kind of like removing the super-ego. In fact, it might be more fun if the game had something like the sanity meter of Eternal Darkness in which the player gradually succumbs to the danger of losing the super-ego's intervention. If the player's character becomes too sad or too angry, then the game temporarily shuts off the filter between the player's mind and character's actions, thereby simulating a fit of hysteria.

If you tell someone "Don't look!", he's probably going to look, right? Likewise, if you place a player in a situation in which his character would probably want to do terrible things (exact revenge, for example), effectively tell him "Don't do it!", and then turn off that mind-control filter... :)

It would be a hard game to design, but potentially a fresh sort of fun and storytelling. I hope the technology advances quickly.

publicizing game music

I realized today that I've never heard of game music being on a radio station (aside from internet stations). Assuming that's true, that game music really is confined mostly to the internet, it makes me wonder two things:

(1) Is this due to lack of promotion by game publishers?
(2) Is this an indicator of the game industry's cultural relevance?

It might simply be a case in which marketing hasn't caught up with product advancement. It was not long ago that the production value of game music rarely exceeded MIDI files. The Mario theme is great, but the original recording is clearly dated (and it's really no more than a short ditty). Orchestral scores and CD-quality recordings are still relatively new on the scene. Perhaps publishers have not marketed their soundtracks beyond the internet yet.

If that's not the case, then why do film soundtracks make the radio and XM stations in TV satellite programming while game soundtracks do not? My gut reaction is that the audiences for those stations do not play games and still consider video games to be childish entertainment. Esteemed composer Danny Elfman's works from Fable (most of the music is by Russel Shaw) are not heard on classical radio stations, but his works from films like Edward Scissorhands are. Laura Karpman's work for Spielberg's Taken TV series might have earned her praise, but what about her work on Everquest 2?

To be honest, I'm not sure to what degree this issue is real or imagined, since I have no idea what is being played on the radio outside the Houston area. But here, at least, it seems only hardcore gamers care to hear game music once the controller is put down.

damn the end

What's really interesting about the typical MMO philosophy of "the real fun is at the end" is that people regularly accept it with MMOs but not with anything else.

Would you watch a movie that's pretty boring for nearly two hours but has a great ending? Would you buy a song that's mediocre at best until the last 30 seconds?

Frankly, standard MMO design is based more on manipulation than quality. Even the outstanding games of the genre have failed to abandon what are clearly seedy practices.

"anything goes" settings

The benefit of a setting not meant to be taken seriously is that nothing is off limits.

For those of you who avoid links like the plague, that's a video showing a Saints Row 2 "Zombie Uprising" mini-game. That's right, zombies in a ganster's paradise. Hilarious and fun!

A more serious, focused setting is often better, of course. But the benefits of a light-hearted setting should usually be considered while planning the game's fundamentals.

Aside from making expansion content easier to come up with, such openness in the setting also allows more opportunity to pivot during the production process. If a particular feature or activity looked better on paper than it feels after programming, then there are few limits to the alternatives available to you.




Incidentally, I might be looking forward to Saints Row 2 more than any game due out this year.

After playing GTA IV, I went back and played the first Saints Row... and I'm 100% convinced Saints Row (the original) is the better game. It's what the GTA games used to be. Rockstar is free to take the GTA series in whatever direction they want, but their last few games haven't felt anything like the early GTA games. The early games were sillier, wilder, and more open. THQ took over where Rockstar left off.

That's why I think Saints Row 2 is competing more with GTA's history than with GTA IV.

creative customization

While reading George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series and Martin's many descriptions of elaborate armor sets and weapons, I had to wonder why fantasy RPGs still don't offer gear customization like that. Many games allow customization via selection, but how many offer creative customization?

Certainly, there are good reasons that games which focus on the winning or discovery of items don't favor player creativity. But there are plenty of RPGs in which gear takes a backseat to other thrills. Neverwinter Nights, for example, adhered to D&D's bland item system (Halberd +1, Halberd +2, etc), but was still a fun and bestselling game. Oblivion had plenty of items, but also seems to focus on other goals.

I think games like Spore and The Sims have shown how popular creative customization can be. The outfit editor in Spore's tribal stage offers ideas for RPG gear editors, as do the clothing and tattoo stores of Saints Row and its sequel. And as those games show, creativity needn't exclude achievement. You can offer players new options as they advance through challenges or earn wealth in the game.

Why not? Honestly, I'm surprised I haven't seen this in RPGs.

rivalries -- only for sports?

A rivalry is basically a fun sort of feud. And is it ever fun!

We rarely see them outside of sports games, because a necessary condition is that victories and defeats are not final. A nemesis or archenemy is different from a rival in that a rival cannot be permanently defeated. Each time you defeat a rival, there's a chance that rival will be back one day to defeat you. Victories are only temporary.

In fact, for the rivalry to retain emotional gravity, the competitive balance must remain relatively even. If you know you're always going to win against the enemy, then there's little emotional investment in the game.

Another necessary element of rivalries is history. Pointing a player to another as his rival can add a bit of fun, but the emotional investment in that rivalry is meek compared to if the two players shared a history. The longer and more eventful the history, the more powerful that rivalry becomes... which is why I can't wait to see Bama roll over Auburn this year!


Mario vs Bowser can be called a rivalry in Mario Kart and Super Smash Brothers. I grew up on Nintendo consoles, so I knew those two had been locked in a never-ending battle for years. I still would not call that rivalry if the those characters met only in Mario adventure games, but the many competitive spin-offs have allowed Bowser to have his share of wins, too.

Even so, Bowser and Mario share a public history only (to my knowledge) in the adventure games. Their interactions in the competitive spin-offs are limited to personal histories. Mario always wins in the adventure games, no matter who's playing. Bowser's victories were seldom recorded and shared.

Notice that those Mario spin-offs in which a rivalry exists are, again, sports games.

Warhammer Online is a non-sport that includes rival factions. For long-time Warhammer IP fans, those rivalries have long and eventful histories, so they are powerful. But for players new to the IP, like me, WAR is like suddenly joining a centuries-old feud you know nothing about. Thankfully, the history there is a living history, seen in the game's environments and felt throughout gameplay. But the rivalries are still shallow in comparison to sports if you're new to the IP. And while sports have dozens of teams with many rivalries, WAR is limited to just three (not counting the broad Order vs Destruction).


So, considering all that, how can deep and lasting rivalries be included in non-sports games or developed over time among their players? How can that gap between sports and non-sports be better bridged?

the future of gaming

What is the future of gaming? It's a fun question.

Michael Pachter made a great point about how little content for TV has changed in the past 50 years. Countless innovations have showed up here and there, but the shows in general follow the same rules and formats; they present stories, information, and views in basically the same ways. Are games different?

I'm going to limit myself to two points.


CONTROLS
Will games ever be "platform agnostic"? Some will be, of course; but never the majority. Games are not like movies in that every film is experienced in the same way at the most basic level.

No matter what cable or satellite TV package you subscribe to or what format your movie purchases are in, the basic controls are immediately recognizable: Play, Stop, Forward, Rewind, Pause, Channel Up, Channel Down, Volume Up, Volume Down, Menu, Select, etc. There are certainly control variations, but they're all based on this classic setup. With Spore, Street Fighter II, Assassin's Creed, NCAA Football 08, Tom Clancy's Endwar, Wii Sports... the buttons might look similar, they might even share names (A button, B button, Start, Select, Right Trigger, Left Trigger, etc), but they perform different functions.

Most game controls still are not intuitive enough for many non-gamers to explore gaming. The thumbstick on the Wii nunchuk, for example, is a complication. That minor addition is not problematic for long-time gamers like us, but the combination of two unrelated, graded control devices for simultaneous use on the same hand is not a minor complication for someone who has never picked up a controller. Even just a button at the end of that device would frustrate many people who are not used to complicated control devices. Sure, common electronics like microwave ovens and TV remotes have a lot of buttons, but you only have to press one button at a time.

Imagine what could be done with just one light-weight, force-feedback control stick the size of a wand. You could wield a lightsaber or sword. You could cast spells, ala Black & White. You could fish. You could play baseball. You could carve and shape objects, move and manipulate them.

The simpler the hardware you use to create deep, expansive, compelling experiences, the more money you can make off quality software. The Wii only hints at the potential simplicity of focused consoles.

Though I certainly don't think everyone should aim for simplicity. Corvettes aren't for the average car consumer, but they're still profitable.


BUDGET
Some great games will cost tens of millions to make. I accept that. But the idea that any blockbuster game must cost millions is silly.

For a long time, we've seen games of vastly different qualities and durations for equal price. Now we're starting to see developers experiment with individual pricing and new pricing models. The industry will never fully abandon the traditional models we're used to or cease to apply general standards. But a lot of strategies are being tried right now, and some of them are going to stick.

Perhaps best of all, game design is becoming more accessible. Programming is an increasingly popular skill, often the result of informal learning, and an increasing number of communities and organizations are encouraging amateur design. It's becoming easier to reach large audiences.

We might even see a revival in garage game design. More and more tools are popping up for designers. Those tools are getting better, as well as more accessible to non-programmers and non-artists. We might see a day when a couple high schoolers design a game that sells half a million or more copies.

Both costs and prices are going to vary much more in the near future.

R.I.P. Jeff Freeman

I'm going to point back to a post I made last year about another developer's suicide. I'm sure now, like then, many friends and family are having trouble understanding the tragedy and are perhaps asking themselves what they might have done to prevent it. I hope this helps.

I'm grateful to Raph for sharing a bit of his history with Jeff. To be honest, I rarely read Jeff's blog or interacted with him. But now I know that I've thoroughly enjoyed some of his works, such as the Creature Handler class in SWG. I enjoyed SWG more than any other MMO, and I spent the vast majority of my time playing with Jeff's handiwork.

will games get a Hollywood?

Keira makes an interesting observation in passing in this article:

What’s interesting is that no single country has risen to dominate. Modern mainstream games are frequently compared to Hollywood, but Hollywood is distinctly American, whilst modern games contain quite a blend.

She's right that no city has become as synonymous with games as Hollywood is with movies... yet. But I wonder if such an association still might emerge.

New York used to be more important to films. Perhaps Hollywood gained its reputation only after duking it out with that city. Or perhaps Hollywood got where it is because it lies outside a major city, rather than in one. That allowed the whole area to become devoted to films in a way that couldn't have happened in the midst of other industries. We might see someone start a suburb or town devoted to games one day.

In any case, I don't think we've seen the industry consolidate fully yet. Until that time, I'd say the industry's still in its early years and the possibility remains for a Mecca of game design to emerge. What do you think?

Spore space tips

After a couple weeks of playing (not counting the week+ I lost electricity), Space stage still feels like the focus of Spore. And after three tries, I've finally found some strategies that prevent hectic overload and allow me to progress at a decent pace.

These tips are advantageous, but whether or not they equal fun depends on your own particular tastes. So think of these as strategies to try out, rather than the way the game is supposed to be played.


LIMIT YOUR CONTACTS
You don't have to make contact with every alien species you find. Whenever you make contact with a species, you can see every star system in their empire by toggling Empires in the bottom-left corner in the galactic view. Any inhabited stars outside the empires you see in this view belong to species you have not contacted yet.

By introducing yourself to new species deliberately and paying attention to whether or not each star system is already inhabited, you can control the pace of your game to suit your own personal style. It might take a couple play-throughs (different species of your own) for you to find the pace that feels natural to you.

Don't think you have to accept every mission that's offered to you. If a friendly species asks you to destroy the turrets of their enemy, an enemy on a planet you haven't explored yet or one of your allies, taking that mission might involve you in a war. Fight one war at a time, or avoid them altogether.

Be aware that your allies might go to war with each other. If they do and they call for you to save them, you can choose to ignore the request if you want to keep both allies. Ignoring distress signals will eventually lower your standing with an ally, but it won't break the alliance immediately (at least, not on the lower difficulty levels). You can make up for it by performing missions for that ally.


WAR COMES FIRST
...which doesn't mean you should start the Space stage by blowing ships and colonies to smithereens (though you certainly can if you want to). No, I mean that once you start a war, stick to it until it's done. Otherwise, you'll keep getting called back from other things to protect one of your colonies or allies from invaders. Also, the enemy will expand its empire, thereby forcing the war to continue that much longer. Strike first, strike hard, and don't relent until the enemy's empire is eliminated.

As the great general George Patton once said: "Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man." The best generals always stay on offense.


MAKE ONE SYSTEM YOUR MONEY-MAKER
Once you've got your terraforming skills up, search for a solar system with four or five planets and two or three types of spice (blue, yellow, etc). Terraform them all to T3 planets, place the maximum number of colonies on each, and raise each colony to maximum production by installing factories and homes (I add one entertainment building as well... but I've never had a colony revolt on me, so I'm not sure if this is necessary). When you're done, you can simply hop from planet to planet within that one solar system and sell their spices to each other to make money quickly and easily.

Yes, terraforming, colonizing, and building all this is expensive. But it's well worth the investment. My system has five planets with purple, green, and blue spice... and I can make literally millions in under a minute. With three colonies on each planet and all those colonies completely built up, by the time I've collected the spice from all five planets, the first planet already has more for me to pick up. Just pay attention to each planet's prices, so you know where to sell. The highest price I've seen so far was $60k per spice crate.


DON'T TRUST YOUR OWN
Sadly, your own people will charge you high prices for some or all items. My religious herbivore colonies charge me more for colonization packs than any of my allies.

Prices seem to reflect species specialization. A battle-oriented ally of mine charges me literally half the price for weapon and defense technology than my own people charge me. Take a few minutes to compare whole species in prices. Then, if you care to, you compare at the level of individual colonies. A colony's prices for spice do not always remain constant, so pay attention to price every time you sell.


If you missed my earlier Spore tips, you can find them here. As usual, I welcome any input. If you have any tips of your own, please share them in a comment.

Spore, in a paragraph

Spore's a good game, but not as good as many (including me) expected it to be. Its basic problem is that it's too straightforward. Players can design a wide variety of creatures and objects, but there's not much to do with them once they're made. The Space stage opens a decent number of opportunities, but it takes too long to get going. Maxis will certainly expand on the original game. Hopefully, those expansions will add new layers to gameplay at every stage and not just add new editor objects.

Iron Grip: Warlord closed beta

Isotx is taking applications now for the closed beta of Iron Grip: Warlord, their unique FPS/RTS hybrid.

I worked for Isotx very briefly and was privileged to offer a small contribution to the Iron Grip lore. So I'm excited to see the game start to reach fruition.

Warlord continues from Iron Grip: The Oppression, a Half-Life 2 total conversion mod that you can find here. What makes The Oppression a unique multiplayer game is that one side plays the game as an FPS while the other side plays as an RTS.

Warlord, on the other hand, is not a mod. It's a full commercial game that takes place in a different corner of the Iron Grip universe (which is huge) and follows the same style of gameplay. Isotx decided to revamp the graphics earlier this year, and it shows. The game's looking good:

Freaky Creatures

I've been pointed to a pretty cool game concept by Abandon Interactive that seems to include the sort of replayability I often talk about. There's a trailer for Freaky Creatures here.

I'm impressed by how unique the game is. Most of the game elements can be found elsewhere, but it's an interesting combination of features.



It's basically a PC-based 3D online fighter game (I'm guessing it's turn-based, but I could be wrong). The hook is that you create your own character through both visuals and skills.

Starting with a basic creature of your choice and a color scheme, you can cycle through a number of head ornaments, body ornaments, and select a weapon for each hand. Weapons have stats, so that selection is not just visual. Next, you select five skills from a list. Then, name your fighter and give him or her a themesong (how exactly that works, I don't know yet).

Finally, you enter a lobby and battle other players' unique creations. Victories win you Creature Credits, and your creature levels up.


You can create a lair for your creature and interact with it, if you want to. There's also a chat window. And players can form teams, too.

From the trailer, it seems the game is aimed primarily at kids, but I expect that's only reflected in chat moderation and lack of gore. I've never played a fighter game on the PC before. And this is unique as arena games go, so I'm curious how this will turn out.


Abandon says there are "over 3.2 billion creatures" possible, so my main concern at the moment is the game's pricing model. How vital are purchased add-ons to gameplay? The game comes on a reusable USB flash drive "bundled with collectible action figures" for 20 bucks, which makes me think of collectible card games.

The Freaky Creatures site has some browser-based mini-games up, including a fun air hockey game (with some cool, if rudimentary, dynamics added). That makes me wonder if players can interact through their creations in ways beyond fighting and chatting. Wouldn't it be great to play air hockey and other mini-games with the same avatar you use for deeper 3D gameplay?


If you're not familiar with the company (I wasn't), Abandon co-published Dark Age of Camelot. They're also behind the upcoming Max Payne and Alice films.

They're taking beta signups now. Abandon expects the game to release sometime next year.

Freaky Creatures might be worth keeping an eye on. What do you think?

back from Ike at last

Apparently, I just needed to leave town for power to be restored to my house. ;) After 10 days, the energy company finally got power to my street last night. I just got back from a day trip to Oklahoma, and it's nice to have air conditioning and internet again... and lights... and refrigeration.

Honestly, it wasn't that bad for me. I adapted to the lack of air conditioning pretty quick, and I was prepared with flashlights and non-perishable foods. I still had gas to boil eggs and cook sausages. Meat and bread have always been the core of my diet, but that's about all I was eating without electricity.

My relatives, friends, and I pulled through the hurricane alright. My side of Houston (northwest) got hit with 80+ winds, hard downdrafts, and tornadoes, so pretty much everyone had branches and trees to cut and clear. I lost a bradford pear tree in the backyard, among other things, but it fell against the fence. Four of my neighbors had trees leaning on or in their homes, and that was seen on almost every street in town. My sister in the Woodlands and her three immediate neighbors had eleven trees down, each at least two stories tall. A saving grace was that the winds tended to remain high, so they didn't toss around people and cars and such.

Needless to say, we were very blessed. The weather was a full 15 degrees below normal, and the humidity ridiculously low, for this time of year (we don't get seasons here... just summer and spatterings of cool weather from October through March). A friend of mine thought that was normal for hurricanes, but we had typical 90+ heat and 90%+ humidity after Hurricane Alicia in '83. It finally got back to 95 or so this Sunday, but it wasn't that bad if you had gotten your physical labor done before then. There's a lot more mosquitoes around right now, since the storm dropped over 12 inches of rain here in Spring.

I have a cul-de-sac across the street from me, and all of my neighbors met there each night for dinner while the power was out. At its peak, we had about 30 folks eating brisket, burgers, and whatever else had to be cooked before it went bad from lack of refridgeration. We even got a firepit out there and camped around the fire as we ate and chatted.

Of course, not everyone had it as good as us. A friend of a friend lost his 10-year-old son during the cleanup after the storm. He's a professional tree remover/trimmer, but as he was cutting a loose branch down in his own yard his son suddenly ran into harm's way. One of my neighbors tried to juggle funeral plans that happened to coincide with the hurricane. Others I know had significant damage to their homes (I just got a little water seeping in around the fireplace), but the boy is the only life I know was lost near me.

In all of Galveston, as in areas around Houston, street signs and stop signs are down. Considering that the homes there were also devastated, I can't imagine how the few residents allowed back into the city are finding their ways around. I had clean water and gas -- they didn't, and still don't. Those coastal cities were annihilated. You have to expect that sort of catastrophic damage from time to time if you live anywhere on the Gulf Coast, particularly on the barrier islands and deltas, but I still sympathize with all the folks who can't even go back to their home city yet. It's one thing for your home to be destroyed. Imagine your entire town being unrecognizable. Rita was worse for Mississippi, of course (there wasn't even debris left then), but Ike was pretty terrible.

There will be a lot of talk over the coming years, similar to the talk surrounding New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina, about how much help Galveston and the other coastal cities should be offered from the rest of the nation. Please keep in mind that there is no part of the country that is free from natural disasters. The Northeast suffers from terrible blizzards. The Midwest suffers from tornadoes much bigger and stronger than the ones we get here. The Southwest has droughts. California gets earthquakes and mudslides. Hawaii and the Northwest live under the shadow of volcanoes (they don't strike often, but they do blow; the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens was lucky as pyroclastic eruptions go). All of the West is under the threat of tsunamis. Also keep in mind that humankind has always built cities along the water. I'm not suggesting all this means Galveston must be rebuilt with federal tax dollars. I'm just saying this should be part of your consideration.

And even fools and idiots, like the shocking number of Galvestonians who chose to remain in the city during the hurricane -- in fact, especially fools and idiots -- should be treated with charity. A lot of people need your prayers and aid right now. Many of them don't deserve it, but please offer it to them anyway.

I'll get back to normal posting next week.

hurricane update

I'm using a friend's internet right now, so I'll keep this short. My family and I are alright. But my power is still out and the energy company doesn't expect to have it back on until Thursday. So I'll start blogging again sometime next week, hopefully. I'll tell you more then.

hurricane hiatus

I live in a town called Spring, just outside the Houston city limits to the northwest. For the moment, it's looking like my area is going to get hit by the strongest part of Hurricane Ike, the northeast corner of the eye. That could change, of course. Hurricanes are mostly unpredictable.

I'm not too worried for myself. I've got a strong brick house that's never been flooded. It's heavily wooded here, so I'm sure we'll get trees and debris smashing cars and windows, messing up roofs. But that's minor stuff. I'm far enough inland that I don't have to worry about the surge, and that's what's going to kill people and completely destroy lots of property. We could get tornadoes here, but there's no point in worrying about something you can't predict.

But the storm will almost certainly knock out my power and perhaps other utilities for a few days or more. So I'm giving you the heads up that I probably won't be posting for a while. I wish I could say my posts have been sporadic this week because I was preparing for the hurricane, but it was more laziness than anything, haha.

Anyway, no need to worry about me. Pray for the folks closer to the coast. This hurricane might not be strong, but it's big and the storm surge is going to devastate many towns. Already, houses are starting to be torn up in Galveston by the waves, and Ike hasn't even landed yet. Pray for those people. You'll never know just how powerful those prayers are. God bless.

Spore tips

Here are some random tips based on my own Spore experience.



GENERAL
Save the game! It doesn't automatically save, not even between stages (which seems strange to me), so be sure to save often.

Any cinematic you don't want to watch can be skipped by hitting the Esc key. This includes growing up from a baby to an adult after death.

I'm not sure exactly how Spore populates each play-session, but it obviously gives preference to whatever is in your personal Sporepedia. So if you want a lot of variety between playthroughs, be sure to hop online with your Sporepedia and download lots of stuff.

Find buddies. The other day, I told a friend that one of her creatures kept stealing my tribe's food. Being able to share funny stories like that with friends makes the game much more enjoyable. If you add me (hallower), I'd certainly love to hear what mischief my creations are up to in your game.

CREATURE EDITOR
Object orientation is often about finding the right camera angle from which to adjust.

If you make only a few changes to your creature at each evolution, then your creature's History timeline will be more meaningful.

CREATURE STAGE
Stay far away from Epic creatures! There can be more than one per planet, they like to wander, and they can even attack spaceships if they have a ranged attack! I lost a ship that way.

Numbers matter! Always keep your pack full. This will often be the difference between success and failure, life and death. Even if you're completely outmatched by an attacker, you can always leave your mate as a convenient decoy as you run!

If you're going to form a pack, choose an Alpha as your mate. Your nest won't always have an Alpha (leader), but look for one. Alphas are tougher than the rest of your species.

To socialize with other species, try to isolate members or find loners. If you start to socialize near a group, then you'll have to compete with that whole group's combined social power. The socializing bar will move faster for whoever has mates helping.

If your creature is social, be sure to create alliances with other species. I once had three of my species in my pack, plus four of another species, plus two of yet another species all travelling together. This small army made converting other creatures to my side a breeze.

Keep in mind when you're finalizing your creature before Tribal that you'll want free space to fit clothes on.

TRIBAL STAGE
Killing an epic creature will keep your tribe well fed for a good while. My tribe of 12 returned to carve out more meat over and over.

In Tribal, you can domesticate animals even as a warrior tribe, but you must have extra food to offer them initially.

In a typical RTS game, you can choose to build your empire slowly and finally make your move after you've built up. That's not an option in Spore. You get upgrades by conquering or forming alliances with other tribes, so try to hop on this quickly. I only take my guys out to harvest food once and fill my tribal population before making my first move against/for another tribe.

CIVILIZATION STAGE
To enter Civilization and save your game once you choose to progress from Tribal, you must design a city hall and vehicle. If you need to take a break from the game, remember that you can go back and edit your building and vehicle, or create new ones, later.

Turrets are cheap. Build up your cities' defenses and you won't have to worry as much about invasion while you're off doing other things.

SPACE STAGE
As I said yesterday, don't spread yourself too thin. Space stage offers a lot of room for personal strategy, but it's easy to become overwhelmed by trying to do too many things at once or exploring too quickly (assuming you care what happens to your former colonies). The money you spend money on ship upgrades can also go to colony development or defenses (turrets). If you explore many planets quickly, like I did, then you might have to deal with more civilizations and planets than you have the resources and time to handle easily.


I'll add more tips if I think of some.

PR filters

My response to this post by Tami, who is herself a PR person (and a good one, in my experience):


Some executives are more capable of public relations and marketing than others. In some cases, the executive should say nothing without the PR manager's approval or nothing at all, if such an arrangement is agreed to by the company owner(s).

But it's both great and possible for some executives to relay their own goals and values. Walt Disney is a great example, particularly considering how enormous that company was before his death.

In this particular case, Jacobs blog article seems professional and perfectly alright. His article is a criticism of common behavior, and any criticism in our modern culture can mean lost customers and more yelling at the customer service folks. But if he's representing a company standard of expecting people to be civil, then the article didn't need approval. The mere mention of his company's recent service difficulties isn't improper, though he's certainly inviting trolls to his blog.

PR folks are usually a company's faces and communicators, but that's not the only efficient possibility. They can alternatively be used as advisors for researching and informing the CEO or other executives before those leaders take action, as well as relaying the executive's PR decisions to local audiences.

Through her work for Areae, Tami represents another potential role for PR folks. When someone joins the Metaplace community, she's usually there to greet and help the person immediately. Walmart smartly mimicked churches by making greeters a stand-alone job. Making any one personal connection to your company available to each and every individual is extremely effective marketing and PR. It's a difficult task for companies with large customer bases, to be sure; but worth pursuing to any extent.

Anyway, not every public statement should be filtered. Customers want to deal with human beings, not abstract formalities. Thus, keeping business personal is an effective marketing strategy (and morally right, of course). Strict bureaucracy is not conducive to that strategy. It's difficult to trust anyone who can't say anything without consultation.

For the same reason, the platform for public statements should not always be arranged. Always restricting the PR setting signals to customers that the speaker has a business mode from which personal considerations are shut out. Again, trust is damaged.

Don't kid yourself. Business is always personal.

Spore early impressions

After a couple days of playing Spore (way too much), here are some semi-random impressions. I numbered them for reference, but they aren't in any order. Overall, I like the game a lot and will probably continue to enjoy it for many months, but it definitely has significant problems.

(1) The Spore series will sell comparably to The Sims series, and might even surpass The Sims. It's basically a solid and polished game with mass appeal. It doesn't begin immediately with as many options as The Sims. But it doesn't look like a dollhouse game and the setting is accessible to a much wider range of audiences, including kids. So I'd say it has some advantages over The Sims and might see better sales over time. Spore will appeal to non-gamers and semi-gamers more than most games.

(2) It's a surprisingly linear, streamlined experience through the first four stages. The cell stage doesn't have many options, plays like Pac-Man without a maze, and you'll probably finish it within an hour (if not half an hour). There's no reason to linger on the stage once you have access to the next, because you can't journey to new territory or encounter new creatures. Stages get progressively longer, deeper, and more dynamic, but there's little or nothing to do aside from tackle the strictly defined goals and progress to the next stage when possible.

Space stage is considerably more open and self-guided. One could argue that Space is really the meat of the game.

(3) The Creature Creator is more polished than the other editors. Because not every object has the same adjustment tools (the angle ball, the rotation ring, etc), placing and adjusting things in the other editors can be extremely frustrating at times. The CC offers significantly more adjustment options than the other editors.

On the bright side, Paintbrush mode in the building editor is a very nice surprise; it's comparable to the "Fill" tool in old MS Paint. If possible, I hope Maxis will add this to all Spore editors in a patch.

(4) Populations are disappointingly repetitive. I've played three games up through the Creature stage, and one into Space. The Maxis-made Brawgle has shown up in all of those. You don't have to be a statician to realize that with over 10 million creations to date, the odds of a repetition like that are ridiculously low without some sort of preference being given. Surely, the game could find a comparable creature to fill that gap in the ecosystem.

The creatures in the Cell stage are the same Maxis-made creatures every time. The Creature stage is much better in this regard, but I hate seeing so many Maxis-made creatures. No offense, Maxis, but why should your creatures get any preference before players' creatures in the drawing? I want to see more of the community's creativity.

The Brawgle isn't the only creature I've seen in multiple playthroughs. I can understand why Maxis would make the player's own creations tend to show up as AI characters (though I wish they'd allow us to adjust or toggle the frequency), but too much repetition undermines one of the cornerstones of Spore is exploration (the other cornerstones being creativity/customization and indirect sharing). I liked seeing one of my CC beasts as an epic monster, and hunting my first CC creation to extinction with my new and improved predator. But even seeing my own creations scattered throughout the game when I expressly did not select a theme at the beginning can be annoying.

(5) L33t speak is in full effect. Spore might not be an MMO in the traditional sense, but the frequency of tongue-in-cheek names and uncreative creations is saddening. Thankfully, I haven't seen anything obscene yet.

(6) It is a good teaching tool for kids. I wrote about this before, but now that belief has been verified by hands-on time with the game. There are even some realistic elements in the game that I did not expect. For example: as a predator, preying on the weak is the most effective strategy for survival, and you can cut off an animal from its herd through maneuvering and intimidation. Normally fearful animals are brave and vindictive when it comes to their eggs and young. And I even saw an animal going to water to drink once.

(7) Spore is not about survival of the fittest. It's about domination. The difference is that a creature can be fit and not be at the top of the food chain or pecking order. Unlike in the Cell stage, creatures in the Creature stage apparently do not earn points for merely eating, breeding, and avoiding violent death. If you're a carnivore, you get points for hunting species to extinction. If you're an herbivore, you get points for making alliances. Survival isn't enough.

(8) The history feature is brilliant. Throughout the game, you have a timeline which shows every evolution and creation of your creature as well as deaths, alliances, extinctions, and other important events. This feature is great, not only because it encourages players to view everything as one great adventure, but because you can see how decisions and events shaped your being into what it is today. I hope there's a way to save and share histories in the future.

(9) Spore has three difficulty levels (Easy, Medium, Hard). If you choose one of the higher difficulties, expect your designs to fail on occasion. Death means simply being reborn. In the Space stage, your spaceship will be recreated with all your previous inventory and upgrades.

I recommend trying Easy difficulty at some point, even if you're a more challenge-oriented gamer. The higher difficulties seem to discourage variation in creature design. For example: not giving your predator arms will deprive it of an extra attack (Strike), thereby making it less able in a fight.

(10) Spore has plenty of fun surprises. In the Creature stage, you might hear a ruckus, see animals running, and wonder what's going on. Then you see meteors crashing into the land around you. If the music suddenly takes a sci-fi edge, it means there's a spaceship flying in the atmosphere above. The first time I saw this (a very exciting moment), the spaceship just passed overhead and flew off. The second time this happened, the spaceship was abducting creatures all around me and following me around (even more exciting!). I don't know if I could have been abducted, but I'd guess that it would have simply started me with a new creature as if I'd died.

(11) The music gets annoying sometimes. How frequently this happens will vary greatly from player to player, but I expect that every player will be annoyed at least on occasion. Perhaps that's just the nature of procedural music.

When you reach the Tribal stage (or is it the Civilization stage?), you can create a musical theme for you civilization. You create this theme by selecting a Beat, an Anthem, an Instrument, up to four Ambiences, and adjusting the notes provided (the Anthem) by moving note icons up or down within an octave or so. Yes, that's a single beat and single instrument, so don't expect to make anything lengthy or complex with this editor. As a lifelong songwriter, I was hoping for much more, but it's still very cool.

In Space stage, you'll hear a civilization's theme anytime you hover over one of their cities. So other players will presumably hear your theme. With that in mind, I don't understand why my musical theme shows up in my personal Sporepedia but cannot be uploaded to the public Sporepedia.

(12) The Space stage stands apart from the other stages. In addition to overarching goals, you're encouraged to take missions from the colonies of other civilizations and your own. This is actually very similar to the typical MMO system. Mission types include eliminating diseased creatures to save an ecosystem, aducting citizens or creatures for delivery, scanning a planet's flora and fauna, conquering a planet, and learning how to do things.

Terraforming and colonization require limited resources. You can buy or discover permanent spaceship additions which allow you to do things like raise or lower terrain. But changing a planet's atmosphere or installing a colony require expendable purchases. You must buy each colony before you can place it. You must buy and drop a machine to change an atmosphere, then purchase a new one. This is good in that it introduces a strong amount of strategy to gameplay, but many players will be disappointed that they won't be able to terraform for a long time.

Even on Easy difficulty, the Space stage will challenge some players. It's easy to spread yourself too thin. Or you might spend money on ship upgrades which should have gone to colony development or defenses (turrets). If you're eager to explore, like I was, then you might have to deal with more civilizations and planets than you have the resources and time to handle.


Here are my creations. The Kreppel are my first and only civilization so far to take to Space. Needless to say, they're dark and vicious predators. I had to make alliances with inferior beings early on to protect my colonies from a couple equally vicious invaders, but planet-hopping alone to the center of the universe. The Phemos is my social herbivore. It can glide pretty fast with those wings. The Sphinx is a failed attempt to make a scary building that looks like a beast.



Tomorrow, I'll tell the story of my first creature, from single cell to galactic domination. I'll also offer tips.

the true heart of "casual"

N'Gai Croal (who I love to hear banter about games with Michael Pachter, by the way) wrote an article that inadvertently highlights the reason the "casual games" trend is a fool's errand.

GameInformer editor-in-chief Andy McNamara recently wrote (September 2008 issue) that the division between casual and hardcore gamers is an illusion. The same gamers who play Halo play Bejeweled. Quality, McNamara says, is what drives game sales. The industry is naturally growing beyond the borders of generations who grew up with video games, growing beyond its initial marketing and distributing limitations, and the major causes of that growth are being misperceived.

Croal's article points out why that argument holds water, at least to a limited extent:

"Every session that I have with one of these games feels like a complete experience – even when it’s interrupted – as though I’ve experienced a beginning, a middle and an end."

That's what "casual" games have that makes them so popular right now, particularly to new and infrequent gamers. They offer a "complete experience" immediately, at any time, and consistently.

Immediately means you don't have to work up to the thrill. The thrill begins when you start the game. MMOs are notorious for telling players "the real fun comes later", and they're shooting themselves in the foot that way. A game that gradually unfolds a story is fine, but there should be some other aspect of the game that is immediate and self-contained (doesn't require remembering what you were doing the last time you played). Fable 2 seems to be an example of a game that offers both a long-term experience and immediate experiences. The omnipresence of immediate experiences and short-term rewards is an important distinction between entertainment and the hardship of real life. Don't make players wait for the thrill.

At any time means the thrill doesn't come in spurts or need rebuilding after the game is paused. Cutscenes are often at odds with this by forcing the player to wait before interaction (play) resumes. Harsh death penalties can put fun on hold or make challenges feel more like work than fun. Pausing a game will inevitably disrupt a player's level of immersion, but keeping fun in all areas and all moments of the game allows the player to regain this immersion quickly and effortlessly. Simple, intuitive controls allow players to move from game to game and take long breaks without feeling frustrated by having to relearn.

Consistently means the thrill is there every time the game is turned on. An MMO, for example, might be inconsistent because its thrill depends on variables like how many players are currently logged in, which players are logged in, or the prevalence of lag. The degree of fun in each play-session is relatively unpredictable. Likewise, games that shift dramatically in content from one point to another, as Half-Life did (human weapons in a human environment --> alien weapons in an alien spaceship) and Assassin's Creed did (fast-paced exploration and combat in the Crusades --> slow dialogue and not much to do during the modern environment), limit their popularity by jarring many players and putting off potential players who don't see a focused game. Every time I boot up Puzzle Quest or Diablo 2, I'll face different challenges and enemies, but the basic style of gameplay remains constant.

Yes, people who are new to gaming or haven't gamed in years need simplicity to convince them they can handle games comfortably. Yes, these potential gamers are more susceptible to lower game prices, because they have not been cultured to accept the high prices of blockbuster games. But beyond that, the appeal of "casual" games is not out of reach of "hardcore" games.

the flipside

Sometimes a lot of fun can be found by flipping the usual scenario on its head.

I was playing Saints Row yesterday, in anticipation of the sequel. It's a great game, better than GTA IV in my opinion, and has me wondering now whether I want to pick up Saints Row 2 before Fallout 3.

Anyway, there's one activity in that game that illustrates my point beautifully. It's called Insurance Fraud. Whereas getting hit by a speeding car is usually one of the quickest ways to die in the game, Insurance Fraud rewards players for doing just that. During the activity, the player will take no damage from vehicles as long as the impact is intentional (if the player hits a trigger first to dive). The player tries to surprise drivers and time his dives so that his body will fly high and far upon impact. There are bonuses for being hit by certain vehicles, like sportscars, UPS-size trucks, and civil vehicles (cop cars and ambulances). There are also bonuses for being hit near witnesses or cops.

It's so much fun. What are some other examples of a usual scenario being flipped on its head?