Death by Glow

Embarrassing. :)
In a race for who’s going to find the next coolest fluorescent colour to stick on your combat gear, and be sure to get shot within 0.158 seconds on the battlefield, I put an option on the pink, with, if possible, a heart shape gouged in the chest plate.

The problem, if there’s one – I think there is one – is that apparently, at some point, character designers forget about the people they’re creating, their purpose, and suddenly focus on the aspect to meet certain criteria and demand. Well, they’re asked to do so, and their stuff is greenlighted.

In some cases, it’s just for the worse. Wearing luminous beacons is not what I’d call a thoughtful moment of military design.

Most of them are well trained no-bullshit soldiers supposed to infiltrate epic enemy hideouts, or the most heavily guarded hives.
Monsters, aliens, spies, commies, whatever.

I’m not trying to badmouth those games. They are great pieces of actionware, and Dead Space looks absolutely promising.
But you know, in the army, shooting first is not an opportunity you’d turn down. Not being shot is even better, if you’d ask me. Making sure everybody can spot you in the dark is probably the last thing you’d actually put down on your wish list. I mean, why bother with camouflage and seamless colours then?

There are mitigating factors though. In Gears of War for example, the heroes are brutes with guns and chainsaws, they’re as sturdy as buffalos (I’m sure they couldn’t poke their noses with those fingers), and don’t wear any helmets, despite the presence of ranged weapons among the opposite army. So much for suspension of disbelief. But the game is about fun mindless high octane action, it’s not really meant to be that serious (though it does try in some ways), so this problem is not really one.

Another puzzling case is Haze. OK, it’s not true glow per se (even if promo shots have the gears literally puke yellow glow), but the spirit remains. Large patches of glaring yellow are featured on the combat suits, and they stick out so much that you still face a daring issue of nonsensical contrast which the super villain army doesn’t seem to care about. Why bother with high tech stuff and nectar biochemicals, when you give your men some equipment which dramatically reduces life survival on the terrain?
We understand nectar is yellow and is a big part of Haze, but you don’t see US troops wear red shirts with white stripes just because they may drink Coke.
Bee impression.

Now check out the Snakes, they’re given real stuff, gears which make a bit more sense.
On the good note, you also have the soldiers from Crysis (you know, the demo tech), or even Master Chief from the Halo series, thankfully spared the edgy glow. The Chief’s dark golden visor is reflective, but not shiny, if that’s what you want to know.

What really bugged me for all these years was how the much revered Tom Clancy would have games series, about tactical espionage and infiltration, rely on an action hero who wears goggles with three green torchlights in lieu of discrete hi-tech lenses. The Splinter Cell series take the crown here. The guy’s advantage is supposed to be his ability to slip through shadows, become the darkness, reach out from unexpected corners and ceilings, kill silently and return into the void. That’s without counting on the three stupid dots of light, which for some reason, seem to escape the sight of Sam Fisher’s targets. The game is cool, but I can’t help chuckle at this stuff.

In those dire times of design, where we keep hearing that games have to be more involving and have to rely on better storytelling, which means get infused an hefty does of credibility, even if the milieu is about fantasy or SF, you have to smile at the idea that those pleas for better immersion have to cope with credibility-depleted bullet-patterns of pure coolness blasting fist sized holes through the much precious faith.

Of course, games couldn’t be blamed for being alone there. In a large portion of futuristic TV shows, you’ll often see military men, humans or aliens, carry those gears or weapons with some glow on it, because glow is just so much better and, well, futuristic. If you have some glow, chances are that you’re advanced. In what? I don’t know, but you’re advanced nonetheless.
Somehow, this makes Old Snake’s sober gear even more primitive, coherently supporting the overall grandpa aura of the last volume.

At least, if you want to wear glow, do it right!

Who?

I’m not a big fan of adventure games. They’ve always been, in my eyes, games about tiring enigmas, boring puzzles, inventory nightmares, plus lots of dialogue I’d gladly skip.
So I couldn’t truly appreciate nor contest what Ernest Adams pointed out at “Amnesia at the Game's Beginning”, in his “Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! VIII” which I commented here.
I didn’t fell there was anything wrong with the caveat as a whole.

That said, I’ve lately noticed the aforementioned amnesia pattern while paying closer attention to certain adventure games, notably two recent ones.

In Eden Games’ Alone in the Dark, your character doesn’t remember much, nor knows why he’s where he is.
In White Bird’s Last King of Africa, your character doesn’t remember much, nor knows why she’s where she is.
In Quantic Dream’s Fahrenheit, the character’s first steps were of a similar flavour, beginning in a room as he didn’t know what really happened, neither why he was there to boot.

There’s one thing all these studios have in common beyond the pattern in question.

…

Games are art

*Oh noes*

The most useless and redundant topic ever brought to life since the days of Adam and Eve. So we’ll try to get this done swiftly.

Anytime it pokes its ugly head in a discussion, half the audience looks away and leaves the room discretely, while those who remain engage themselves in long exchanges of… of what exactly?
I don't know, but many think citing famous people makes their arguments all the more solid.

If I had to think of an image, I’d say that it’s a topic as embarrassing as your toothless grandfather literally spoiling a good family dinner with remarks about how homosexuals wouldn’t get so much slack if they kept silent about their filthy ethics, when your new girlfriend is sitting next to you and comes from a family which is very open about those questions.
No, this is not based upon real anecdotes, although I can perfectly imagine this happening in Texas or Turkey. (For those who want to flame-mail me, you know where to click.)

Fun, money, interactivity and repetition have never been good arguments against art labeling.
For one, many paintings, revered as art these days, were the fruit of propaganda by the Catholic Church, notably against Protestants.
The Sistine Chapel’s ceiling paintjob was commissioned by Julius II for crissake! Yes, MONEY.
So many modern sculptures and towering architectures have a price tag attached to them.

Think on this:

It's art because I say so.
- Me, 2008.

Maybe monkeys think that yoghurt pots are art?

I think we need a game wherein you destroy art.
Or maybe a controverted FPS where you protect a group of young Jews from a bunch of heavily armed Nazis, with a stomach wrenching moral dilemma in the end where you have to let the kids be captured to complete an important sabotage mission in the prospect of nearby liberation.

The real, one, true problem is not about gaining respect by making high art, serious art or else through video games (and would they remain games then?), it’s about stopping lying to ourselves, and destroying that idea that games, under any form, are an embarrassment in that society where the workaholic is the next hero.
Everyone tries to find game principles in given domain or activities.
Political elections are nothing more than a game of combos and locks, Populous at trying to deceive pawns into getting their favours and support, with a winner in the end and the voting percentages being the top score.
The politician may think there’s a challenge, a mature responsibility, but it’s nothing more than goals, facing problems and winning while following rules.

Video games would probably earn more respect if a famous video gaming champion would gain as much aura as Ayrton Senna and André Agassi did get in their time.
Oh, sure, we’re still far from that. Fatal1ty?
Ah sorry, not there yet. Though we can hope, because there are not many reasons not to have adults sit around machines, play against each other, and have top list TV channels broadcasting the games, safe cultural bias, conservatism and a lack of preparedness from current economical powers.
After all, watching a football match is not more mature, nor more educating than watching a duel on Supreme Commander, right?

Oh, I see. The big fat lazy ass syndrome. Games are terrible because you sit (Hence Wii Sit, erm… Fit I mean). The problem is in the body position.

But… wait. How many people watch goddamn Who wants to be a millionaire again?
Sure, this is not ranking high in the charts of morality (maybe just above Janet Jackson’s wiggling boob) but there’s an audience there, there’s a business there, and people unite in front of the box to watch that.

I believe video games can do better.

I think some people are just too proud to ever “lower” themselves to the idea of playing games just because play and leisure are integral parts of us.
It’s also the whole Nintendo games are for kids again, with a different multicultural and global flavour to it, nothing more.

Now just try to imagine a world without any game.
See the collapse? It makes no sense.

So… to bring this post to an end, with no relation to the part above…

If you want to make a remarkable meaningful game, if you actually think you’re making one, or playing one, then bravo, fine, go on, may the Force be with you.
If you think games are just about entertainment, fun and sometimes barely worth a Hollywood B grade movie, OK, no problem, fine, go on, may the Force be with you.

But please. Not that. Not again.

If one unique, thoughtful and deep question shall remain regarding whether games are art or not, it would surely be “who gives?”

So much for making this short.

Prognosis on Mirror's Edge

It’s not everyday that you get a chance to see something sufficiently different from the run of the mill playware and announced WWII shooter, so let’s quickly build some hype people!
Dun dun dun. Sorry, I’m going to take the other route for now.

So what’s the recipe, chief?

As far as I saw it, it’s relatively simple:

Prince of Persia + Assassin’s Creed + Shadow of the Colossus + lotsa white + 1st person view: solving mazes through athletic super moves.

However, you still need a great cook to make the broth exquisite.

On the paper, I’d say that for certain elements, it’s “been there done that”. Safe for the different perspective. Of course, anyone knows that assimilating the meaningful details of any environment is particularly hard in a FPS.
Think about it. A 3D platform game with a first person perspective, I’m yet to find a single good demonstration that shows it works.
Even 3D platform games with third person perspectives still remain burdened by this depth gauging problem, and as a whole remain absolutely worthless, unless the paths are more on less “railed”.

I was looking at Next-Generation’s preview of the game written on toilet roll. It’s incredible how they are so hype proof. Really, I mean it.
So much that apparently, DICE is incensed as having perfectly nailed the concept of “building up speed before jumping or sliding”, like you know, nobody did it before in games.
Oh but nobody did it in a 3D game.
But… could it be that it was not the point of other games at all?
However, when they’re making a 3D platformer as Mirror’s Edge, you bet they’re going to brag about how you must run over a certain distance to complete a given jump.
Otherwise, what would be left to do?

Now, think about it. The Playstation-style 3D novelty aside, these functions are nothing new at all. Of course, you cannot always reinvent the wheel, so I shouldn’t be so negative about it. I have no real problem revisiting past game mechanics as long as it’s well done. Which I hope it is.

We’re been told the platform part will work great. Well, it might end being a tad dumbed down. Now look at the architecture. You can spot many possible paths. Now do they look exciting? Well they seem a bit predictable and observing the role of fillers, but we really need to know how far the work on the level design has been pushed, with more videos, notably to see if they’ve find a way around a real problem which occurs more than often in games which are primarily designed with an universe in mind rather than a very specific and working gameplay; that is, trying to cram a game design into a realistic environment which, at first, doesn’t seem to offer that many opportunities.




I mean, when you look at the screenshots, it’s rather easy to see how to get from a building to another. That ledge slightly higher than the opposite one, that double pipe over there, crossing the void between two buildings, etc.
In comparison, if you watch parkour videos on internet, you’ll see that most urban tracks are actually far richer and trickier than anything this game seems to provide. Structures and forms are far more varied.

The game’s principle is to find the exit of those architectural “open” mazes, and rather quickly when you’ve got a bunch of governmental dogs on your six.
There’s a good reason why the game’s environment is looking clean and luminous (one you can easily guess by yourself without watching the producer interview because, you know, it’s just that glaring).

The art has been following functionality, which is a good thing. Otherwise, the result would have been disastrous, in a game where you have to quickly understand and analyze your environment, to have most paths (pipes, poles, edges, ladders, ramps, etc.) blending with the irrelevant décor. Some of the elements composing the best paths are characterized by a red texture, and from what I’ve seen, serve as beacons for transitions either between buildings, or between indoor and outdoor locations. Not terribly hard isn’t it?

Does that mean the player is taken by the hand? Who knows… it seems that these helps disappear progressively along the game. Good.
Seeing your feet will be important. Well, how much exactly? The game’s wiki says it’s there to help you keep balance. So it’s not a revolution here, since we’ve been walking over abysses before without seeing our feet, and it was fine.

Well, there’s been one major demo thus far, and it left me quite underwhelmed. It was globally nothing more than seeing a character jump, slide, run and keep balance when walking down a narrow plank or tube of some sort (notice how the landing seems rather perfect, despite the executed jump and momentum you’re ought to get in such conditions), all that along a small playfield which displayed no challenge whatsoever.

I cannot say this was inspiring material. Oh but it’s seen through the eyes of a female Asian character.
Yes, an Asian character with all the expectable overdone stylish posing stances over ledges, numerous random tattoos and other cliché doodads. Luckily, we avoided the generous akimboobs.

Why not try a red head? Or a black girl? Or an Indian girl? We already got billions of Asian females in games, so what’s new here?
Oh, I suppose the excuse can be that she’s the lead female. Well, sure, female are slimmer and more graceful, so that fits the game (even if I’ve seen many gay men being as graceful as girls but nevermind).

My point being that it doesn’t make much difference, and while I’d like to see more real women in games and less stuffed up GI lolitas, I say don’t get all excited just because the lead is a female here. I’d rather see DICE and EA keep a low profile on it, instead of having representatives polarizing the topic once more.
Remember Beyond Good & Evil and Jade. It felt less… I don’t know… forced?

We can bet our pants, hats, pets and stock options that this will have to be mentioned like a hundred times as a key selling point in future appetizing PR stuff. Can’t wait!

I truly hope that Faith is lesbian, so the circle will be complete.

DICE has released a certain amount of videos and screenshots thus far, and what I’ve observed is a well marketed montage of totally mundane 20 years old game mechanics (ex: hanging to ledges, POP anyone?) wrapped into some fancy talk about how they’re putting us into a real body. Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know, this is not exactly what appeals to me.
Once you’ll be done with those elements, once you’ll be accustomed to the bleached rooftops and walls… what then?
Perhaps a simple experience of enjoying a fluid, free and efficient platform gameplay in a true 3D environment is what the game will pull off. Cross fingers?

We’re said Mirror’s Edge will try, a bit like Breakdown, to restore the essential meaning of the first person perspective in games, which has, thus far, taken a second seat in favour of shooting. What about FP horror games?
Fatal Frame? Having to take pictures of tormented ghosts through your ancient camera, with all the limited vision it implies, while they’re circling you and going through walls, roofs and floors, rocked a great deal.

To sum up, we have a huge amount of hype there, because it’s a game with more white than usual, and above all because it’s DICE man, freaking DICE, and they’re going to tell you that you have lowered your standards way too much when it comes to first person games! You literally HAVE TO be positive about this game.
Well, arguably, I’m positive about DICE’s new logo. It’s very nice.
I suppose that the idea is that after playing Mirror’s Edge, players enjoying the art of trick jumps in your random FPS will look as graceful as Dalek ballerinas.

Still… I advance with caution. I could be very wrong in the end, but usually, when I see a demo, I’m capable of catching the elements which tell me the game has that something which could translate as hours of fun when I’ll get my hands on it.

I didn’t sense anything like that here. I have that bad feeling that we could be dealing with a flashy gimmick.

That said, I’ll keep my eyes peeled for the next trailer, and see if my concerns were founded or not. For the moment, I think it’s going to be a meh game, sort of 7/10.

(What a fool! He’s giving an opinion without knowing much or having played the game – hey people, there’s that “prognosis” word up there, think about it.)

Age of Conan

42.

Fumito Ueda - gimmicks of Ico & Colossus

I think it was just a question of time before I’d have my first post about Ico and Shadow of the Colossus.
Next Generation (Edge, etc.) had a nice quick talk with the man behind almost everything about these two games, plus some reports of a conference (bweep).

Two points:

1. It appears that most of the artistry of these games was not really intended. Call that an unwitting trait of genius or mere luck, it is rather fantastic that their ruminations and critical thinking brought them to such refreshing and enjoyable designs. Truth being, I think the guy did know where he was headed for. As always, art often takes control of your mind. You may have an idea, maybe a nebulous one, but it’s not surprising that what you had planned, or wanted to do, is not exactly what you get in the end. Yet, it can be just as good, if not better.
   
   It is interesting to note how the transition from a multiplayer game, which by the description relied on co-operative mechanics and not some kind of free for all system, ended being a single adventure, where the loneliness of the player reinforces the atmosphere of the game. I am not saying that the multiplayer experience would have been bad, as after all, Ico lacked a second player’s input, since you basically had two characters to get out of a castle, sort of helping each other (well, Yorda wasn’t that helpful but, still…).
   
   Nevertheless, the sequel was apparently geared around a small group (as evidenced by scans archived at Tokyopia), but I’m convinced that there are games which have to be played alone (oh yes, this does go against recent claims about eminent industrial figures telling you the exact contrary at Gamasutra and all over the press – well, f*** them).
   
   Like I said when I started this blog, I do love ruins, and Team Ico's games are riff with them. They convey a silent story, a mystery which has the audience build up a backstory on their own.
   
   Mystery seems to be so underrated these days, notably in Hollywood.
   
   
2. Both games are summed up by one core idea, and I do think that they’re gimmicks, in the positive way. They’re simple but powerful ideas, and everything about each game appears to have been shaped around them.
   
   They stick out so much because these two games didn’t actually drown these premises into swamps of complicated overarching stories, meaningless events and whatever. In the end, it only made these gimmicks more powerful, and then fantastic experiences.
   
   One central idea, and everything articulated around it. That’s the way it is for me. It makes the games richer, and it allows me to play many of them and enjoying a different experience every single time.
   
   And this is why I’d play a thousand Icos and Shadows rather than a huge sandbox game, like some recent big name you could have not missed unless you were already dead.

Now, here’s more info about the development of Ico. It’s taken from an interview published in the Official Playstation 2 Magazine, which transcript was found at Cats Under a Tree. I don’t know if they’ve been the first ones to put the transcript on the internet, but I’d hate to see the transcript disappear, so here it is below.
+1 respect for citing Galaxy Express 999. ^_^

This interview with Fumito Ueda (abb. FU) published on Official PlayStation 2 Magazine UK (abb. OPS2) shortly after the release of ICO in Europe (February 2002), gives the reader a few interesting insights to the inspiration and motivation behind the game; the building blocks, research, its artistic approach and emotional connection between the player and the characters.

Set in a bewitching yet austere castle, ICO brings a rare beauty to PlayStation 2 gameplay. Official PlayStation 2 Magazine met the man behind the critically acclaimed masterpiece to unlock the secrets behind the castle walls.

Talking about what is amazingly the first game he has directed, Fumito Ueda remarks that in ICO he sought to create “a real fantasy experience”. The result is so much more - ICO is original, beautiful and utterly unforgettable. During his forthcoming trip to Las Vegas for the AIAS Achievement Awards (ICO has been nominated in several categories) Ueda-san is planning to visit the Grand Canyon to research his next PlayStation 2 game. Given ICO’s reception, it will definitely be one to look out for.

Official PlayStation 2 Magazine: What inspired ICO’s original concept?

Fumito Ueda: When I was in high school I saw a TV commercial with a lady holding the hand of a child, walking through the woods and the image just stuck with me. When I came up with the pairing concept I had a woman and a young boy in mind. There’s also a famous manga called Galaxy Express 999. It’s about a woman named Maetel who’s a guardian for the young hero Tetsuro as they adventure through the galaxy. I thought that even though it was an old story, it could be adapted into a new idea for videogames.

OPS2: Did you have any other ideas?

FU: Originally, ICO was meant for PlayStation and it was the girl who had horns. She was trapped in a small room and the boy was one of the slave workers in the castle, who found the room and helped the girl escape.

OPS2: When did the game development start?

FU: It began in February 1998. We originally used pre-rendered backgrounds and then switched to real-time 3D. All the animation was done by hand and I used Simon and Garfunkel’s Scarborough Fair for the music - this later became the inspiration for ICO’s theme. We were halfway through development when PlayStation 2 came along. As a planner, I wanted to release the game on PlayStation because, at its launch, the PlayStation 2 didn’t have many good games - they were all rushed to be released on time. But as a designer, I was attracted to the PlayStation 2 high specs because you can achieve so much more, graphically.

OPS2: Both Ico and Yorda are endearing and original characters. How did you go about designing them?

FU: I wanted to achieve a look somewhere between a Japanese and foreign style. It was a long process of trial and error - actually I wasn’t sure what to do with them myself! For Yorda, I eventually asked one of the female team members to refine the character. It kept on changing things from the start, right up to the day before the master was due. I gave Yorda a haircut just at the last moment.

OPS2: Players comment that they really care about Yorda. How do you create a character that provides players with such a strong sense of attachment?

FU: The core team members and myself concentrated on characterizing her. For instance, outside of the gameplay Yorda often makes strange movements: she strolls around, follows birds and points to things. Some of the team members wondered why they were working on this stuff [laughs]. We are attracted by the quirks of girlfriends, right? We didn’t just want to use Yorda as an element to proceed through the game, we wanted to encourage the idea that the two are sharing an adventure, co-operating together. By putting in those particular movements, a player can feel that connection. Actually, I wanted to include more variations as these things were actually planned for the PlayStation version, but time was an issue.

OPS2: The design of the castle and the various puzzles are amazing. How were they planned and created?

FU: It started off as just a bunch of puzzles without textures, in a vaguely castle-like form. When the puzzles were okay’ed they were handed to the designers who would then add more details. It took a lot of work to have it all make sense because the stages were created individually. Occasionally, when we put the different stages together they didn’t fit too well, so we’d have to cut or shuffle areas around. It was a constant process of building and fixing that went on for about two years. The reason why I concentrated on this so much was that the castle had to be realistic in terms of architecture.

OPS2: What kind of research was involved in creating the architecture?

FU: I’ve never been to a real castle before and was inspired by the work of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, an artist from 18th Century Italy. Japanese rural scenery was also inspirational, things like deserted cars near rice fields and semi-built-up areas near the countryside.

OPS2: Are there any technologies or graphic techniques in the game that you’re particularly proud of?

FU: It’s kind of hard for our team to compete with, say, Square or Namco in terms of realism, so we used different techniques to make big contrasts within the environment. When you look at the castle, for instance, there are shadowy places and bright, sunlit areas for a more dramatic expression. Of course, you could present a colourful, vibrant world, but ICO has a subtle and reserved style. Take movies as an example: even with modern technology available, some movies opt for a grainy effect for the visuals as a means of expression. ICO is lo-fi (running at 30 frames) and the modeling is in low-resolution. The team intentionally avoided using the maximum graphic specs in order to give the game something different and make it stand out.

OPS2: Will there be a sequel?

FU: At this point we’re not planning one, but I’d like to create a game that shares the same kind of atmosphere and concept. I’m actually in the midst of preparing another game at the moment, but I can’t really talk about it yet.

OPS2: What’s your view on the state of the videogame market?

FU: I’d compare movies to cars and motorcycles to games. The motorcycle market is smaller than the car market, which is similar to games versus movies. But when you think about it, riding a motorcycle is more practical in a city than a car. It’s cheaper and more maneuverable, but people still prefer cars because of the image: they’re more luxurious. Games still have an image of being for ‘gamers’, or the younger generation; I want to change that image. I also want to avoid the situation where producers make games that only target the core players.

On a final note, here’s an interesting and somehow logical observation about the inspiration behind Ico’s (good) box art.