4 reasons you should care about who makes video games

[Here is one extra post for 2011. Regular updates are not returning.]

Much has been said about the legitimisation of video games as a medium. From countless debates about whether games are art, to just trying to get an uninterested parent/roommate/significant other to see how the latest thing from E3 is so totally amazing and will change everything forever. But one aspect seems missing in gaming culture – the attention paid to the people who make the games themselves.

With movies we care when we hear about the latest from Steven Spielberg or Christopher Nolan, or with TV shows from Joss Whedon or JJ Abrams. But we don’t care when we just hear Warner Bros. are making a new movie or NBC are making a new show. So why does video game culture focus so much on Sony or Square-Enix instead of the actual people, like the creative leads designing their latest games?

Sure, there’s the occasional figurehead like Shigeru Miyamoto or Peter Molyneux but they tend to gain attention more for PR celebrity than design substance. Not to mention the amount of attention paid to Assassin’s Creed producer Jade Raymond.

Anyway, here’s a convenient list of examples demonstrating why, if you take video games seriously, you should care about the people who actually makes them.

The End?

This is the last, final, ultimate update of Grimly Enthusiastic. Probably.

A variety of personal reasons mean I just can’t really keep it going any longer. But feel free to subscribe to the blog just in case I do ever post again.

This seemed like a good time for a reflective list of highlights from the last 65 or so posts. If you’re a random internet surfer from the future who has stumbled upon the blog, this is a good place to start!

The Best of the Blog:

Let’s Ruin Tetris! – What happens if you take a classic game and update it to modern, corporate standards? (Spoiler: The Worst Thing I Have Ever Done.)

Top 5 games that COULD make great movies – Basically a list of ideas and some cool trivia you might not know. Note that David O. Russell’s Mark Wahlberg mob movie is how not to adapt Uncharted.

Final Fantasy XIII sucks a lot like XII – An unrestrained rant, has some interesting comparison pictures and was one of the most popular posts on the blog.

The value of life in video games or: How not to throw disposable henchmen at the player – Because seriously. Stop doing that.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory guide for the PC – A serious take on the weighty issue of anti-piracy DRM for PC games and the effect it has on consumers.

The trio of comics:

• Alan Wake
• Red Dead Redemption
• Red Dead Redemption Again

(With props to hatebreeder for the great art on the first two.)

The Game Design category – is actually full of posts I believe are worth reading. That’s why half of them stopped being about game design and were just fun list articles. Whoops!

Anyway, I enjoyed writing here and I’m proud to have not missed an update in over a year. I hope everyone who read the blog and the extra lovely people that left comments enjoyed it too!

Thanks for reading!

Top 5 games with the best dialogue

Stories in games can be good. They should be good. But this list isn’t about the whole – grand scale, interwoven plot threads or dramatic storytelling – this list just about the words that carry the tale.

It’s also worth mentioning this isn’t too definite a top 5 and might be more of a list of games with writing that I personally liked. With that bit of criticism nullification swiftly out of the way, let’s get on with the list!

5. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Uncharted 2 was praised for it’s funny, charming, Whedon-esque dialogue. Unfortunately, as is the nature of the polished “summer blockbuster” style, it doesn’t provoke much thought or emotional response. It does provide enjoyable exposition and likeable characters, however.

This exchange between Nathan Drake and a female companion is mainly what earned it a place on the list:

“So, on a scale on one to ten – how scared were you that I was gonna die?”
“Four.”
“Four?!”
“Yeah, why?”
“A four?”
“Yeah.”
“You were at least an eight.”
“An eight?”
“You were a total eight.”
“An eight? Those Guardian things were an eight.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Yeah, those were terrifying.”
“Then what’s a ten?”
“Clowns.”
“…Clowns over my death?”
“I, I hate clowns.”
“Clowns?”
“I hate clowns.”
“Oh my word. You thought I was dead.”
“No…”
“No, you thought I was gone.”
“No…”
“Yes, you did.”
“No, I had you all along.”
“I saw you shed tears. You shed a bunch of ’em.”
“Tears?”
“Um-hmm.”
“It was raining.”
“No it was not.”
“You were unconscious and it was raining.”
“It was totally sunny out and you were bawling.”
“It wasn’t sunny and you were unconscious.”
“Whatever, I kept your tears in a jar. I have proof.”
“…I’ll give you a five, how’s that?”

The 5 dumbest parts of the Dragon Age 2 story (SPOILERS)

“The members of his karataam were killed by Tal-Vashoth but their disposal leads only here, to Saarebas and you.”

Er…What? Look, you’re clearly speaking English, so why have you just randomly made up words there? I’ve been playing this game for 20 hours and I still don’t know what you’re talking about. Why not just say ‘group’, ‘rebels’ and ‘the mage’?

Parasite Eve (Best games I never played, Part 2)

Much like Shadow Hearts, Parasite Eve is another game that I never played but have a tremendous fondness for. I watched the first game on YouTube, and later read a far more convenient screenshot Let’s Play of it. All credit for screenshots used in this post goes to the latter.
[EDIT: Another LP has since been done with higher quality screenshots and videos.]

With the threequel – The 3rd Birthday on the way, now seemed like a good time to talk about the game.

Challenge – a necessary evil?

“This game is just unfair! I’m not even sure you can get past this part.”
“What? That bit was easy! There’s no challenge in this game at all.”

Challenge is a tricky term to discuss in video games. We probably all recognise exchanges like the one above, which demonstrate the relative subjectivity of the matter. Balance and difficulty present a complex riddle for game designers.

One of the important factors involved is the “punishment” for failure. Usually the player character will die and be sent back to the last checkpoint. The player then has to replay up to where they were originally.

It’s tempting to say no one likes doing that, but that would be ignoring the fondness for ultra-difficult NES era games and the slightly-more-than-cult following of Demon’s Souls.

But most have probably seen the human reaction when someone watching a game being played loses interest as soon as the player dies and is reset to an earlier position, like you rewound a few minutes of a film they were watching.

Obsidian are not good writers (Alpha Protocol)

I recently bought Alpha Protocol on the cheap and it is a stupid game. Everything about it is lacking, although I expected as much from the reviews and scuttlebutt.

The thing that really bugs me is that Obsidian get a lot of credit for their writing. I do not understand this. I’ve always found them to be the ‘good ideas’ team, but definitely not star writers or storytellers.

Here’s a quick list of some of the dumbest highlights of Alpha Protocol’s story:

Top 6 video game technologies needed in the real world

Video games present us with a wealth of futuristic and fantastical technology, some more practical than others. The potential for this tech in the real world could be limitless. Scientists and engineers: These are your future goals!

Things you may expect that didn’t make the list: The gravity gun from Half-Life 2, the Portal Gun from Portal, Metal Gear Solid‘s Stealth Camouflage and…The Portal Gun again.

6. Pokéballs

These hand-held spheres can capture, contain and release Pokémon of any size or weight at the whim of the user. How do they work? Nobody knows!

Does it cryogenically freeze the Pokémon? Does it shrink them? Do they have a little apartment in there with a tiny couch and very-mini-fridge?
Do Pokéballs work on inorganic matter? That would explain how trainers can carry a bicycle in their backpacks.

Either way, think of the real world implications of the mysterious transport devices for zookeepers or for shifting furniture!

Let’s Play Dragon Age 2: The Demo!

I played Dragon Age: Origins on the Xbox 360. Thought I’d get the recently released demo of Dragon Age 2 on PC though to see if it improves anything. I want Dragon Age 2 to be good, I really do. But from what I’ve seen, I’m not too hopeful.

What better way to examine the demo and the game than by hosting a disastrous, oversized and summarised screenshot Let’s Play of the demo? Let’s get into it.

You start by selecting the gender and class of the protagonist – for the purposes of this playthrough, I choose the good old fashioned male warrior. Because tanking is just my style.

The game opens on a dwarf named Varric being dragged through a hall by armoured men. They sit him down in a dark room. He is interrogated by a woman called Cassandra, who identifies herself as working for the Chantry – because Dragon Age is too fancy to say ‘church’.

Cassie there also has that weird almost-French accent that was associated with the almost-French country of Orlais in the Dragon Age lore.

Faux Frenchy demands to know about ‘the Champion’, claiming that Varric knew him. Varric starts to talk as it cuts to a barren wasteland. An armoured man with a beard – our protagonist Mr. Hawke and a mage later revealed to be his sister are fighting what appear to be the henchmen of Skeletor…

The Social Network & The Town

(Bonus post! Don’t worry, it’s all back to games after this.)

“How was the movie?”
“The movie?”
“The Facebook movie.”
“Uh, it’s pretty good, but immediately smacks you in the face with Sorkin dialogue.”
“Sorkin dialogue?”
“Yes.”
“As in Aaron Sorkin?”
“No, as in one of the many other famous Sorkins working on the film.”