tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12366814045341460682024-03-21T13:18:07.101-07:00The Game Philosophegamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-56374843666528783342016-09-01T17:18:00.002-07:002016-09-01T17:21:09.520-07:00Teleportation Horror<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEcFNENg1VfZTY_7_C7u47MutsegqhjCAccqSRsDqANrO9ZWmyItUbtESQWjaLISZmcngli_K8o9yHy9UiNS7xKW0N7WzsC6xDP6T4ihLDwrrpDajIXB7IxeazEdBMNwmg2G7P_jXt9rY/s1600/Brundlefly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEcFNENg1VfZTY_7_C7u47MutsegqhjCAccqSRsDqANrO9ZWmyItUbtESQWjaLISZmcngli_K8o9yHy9UiNS7xKW0N7WzsC6xDP6T4ihLDwrrpDajIXB7IxeazEdBMNwmg2G7P_jXt9rY/s400/Brundlefly.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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I've been playing <i><a href="http://www.teleglitch.com/" target="_blank">Teleglitch</a> </i>recently, a top-down shooter inspired by the likes of <i>Doom </i>and <i>Quake</i>. The game has text logs that can be accessed from terminals that give insight into the lore of its universe. One the logs states this:<br />
<br />
<i>"The Teleglitch Incident 2"
</i><br />
<i>The key for unlimited teleportation range is software that uses
well packaged fuzzy randomness inside a fractal information structure
that copies the human brain neural layout. Using the fuzzy randomness
has a small chance to ocassionally [sic] produce super huge calculations in an
instant, making teleportation possible for hyperlong distances. </i><br />
<br />
I found this statement to be both a disturbing and compelling as a fictional explanation for teleportation. Disturbing because it seems to place the life of the person being teleported at the mercy of some ill-defined <a href="https://youtu.be/F9pqmW-D14I?t=1m2s" target="_blank">"fuzzy math,"</a> the sort that George Bush liked to accuse his political opponents of using. Compelling in that such super jumps of physics are made possible by ambiguity, which you might say is an inherently literary concept. Numbers aren't ambiguous but interpretations are. So teleportation, in this log, ends up being where science and art meet, so to speak. The fusion of that which is inherently calculable with that which is inherently incalculable.<br />
<br />
Anyway, this got me thinking about the use of teleportation more generally in fiction, games, and movies, and in particular, its application as a source of dread. Consider David Cronenberg's <i>The Fly</i>, or Frederik Pohl's <i>Gateway</i>, or even id Software's <i>Doom</i>. In each, teleportation serves as the main vehicle for narrative horror. There is something deeply unsettling about been transported, electrically, computational, across space and time, and each of these works taps into that in their own way, through mutated bodies, the fear of the unknown, and the threat of otherworldy intruders. But I wonder, what unites them all? Beneath the mutilations and invasions, what is the most basic thing that teleportation symbolizes that imparts to us such menace?<br />
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One possible reason has to do with what teleportation implicit says about the nature of the self. If a human can be broken down into a stream of data that can be re-assembled anywhere, then there isn't much room left for any sort of essentialist notion of the self or the soul. Teleportation basically says people, mind and body, are just data, no different than any other block of code. That's potentially a real blow to our collective egos. Saying I'm an individual (and think about how the word indicates something that can't be broken up) and realizing I'm a particular pattern of information are two very different things. In the latter, there really isn't any "there there," no true "I" behind the things we think and feel. Just a simulation of constancy that could be coming apart and back together again millions of times with every breath we take. <br />
<br />
At the same time, teleportation horror is characterized by the trope that the transmission of data never goes as planned. Dematerializing and rematerializing from one location to another should be as easy as making a phone call or sending an email. But something always goes wrong. Bugs get in the unit, glitches get in the system, and the dream of pure communication becomes a nightmare of monstrosities. One of my favorite <a href="http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Second_Chances_(episode)" target="_blank">Next Gen episodes</a> has Riker meet his teleportation-error produced doppleganger. The two gradually come to see each other as an enemy, even if they are technically the same person.<br />
<br />
Still, I think there's something far more fundamental about teleportation horror. More than telling us we are just information or threatening us with mutants and clones, it seems to me that teleportation symbolizes in an interesting way our relationship with language, the oldest information technology known to man, and in particular, its use of metaphor. Metaphor, in its Greek roots, means "to carry over or transport" (meta=across/over, pherein=to carry). And that's what metaphors do too. They enable leaps of logic where two disparate things can be brought together. The flower of my heart or the apple in my eye. These things have no natural relationship, but with metaphor, they become welded together in a way that seems natural.<br />
<br />
The horror element, we might say, comes from what literary critics call
"catachresis." It denotes the way in which metaphor is inherently open
to misuse and abuse. All metaphors are on some level disfiguring and mutating--a flower is grafted onto the someone's heart, an apple inserted into someone's eye. Convention, however, lets us pass over statements like apple
in my eye as normal because we have heard them many times before and think we know their proper meaning. But say something like the apple in my ear, or even apple in my
pupil, and suddenly people will look at you funny, like you yourself are
some kind of monster. There's nothing less logical about these latter examples. They just aren't part of the established linguistic pattern.<br />
<br />
What's more, new metaphorical combinations are appearing all the time, and
nothing legislates which will be repeated and accepted and which will
not. They are really out of our control and they remake the world anew
over and over again with each new combination, linking our eyes to plant
matter, our feet to wings, and our teeth to skin. And they are a
foundational part of our thinking too because we often come to understand
the world precisely through such metaphorical amalgamations (see Lakoff and Johnson's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Metaphors-We-Live-George-Lakoff/dp/0226468011" target="_blank"><i>Metaphors We Live</i> <i>By</i></a> for a great discussion of this). They are, to return to the opening quote
from Teleglitch, that fuzzy math of randomness that
nonetheless allows huge "hyperlong" calculations. <br />
<br />
So if what comes out of teleporters in fiction is so often hybrid creatures and disfigured mutations, metaphors could be said to have been doing the same since the beginning of human consciousness. Both are about combining objects in unnatural ways through by overleaping time and space, and both come with the built-in threat of unpredictable distortion. The only difference is that one is a future science fiction and the other an ancient practice.<br />
<br />
That leads me to say that teleportation horror is a metaphor for metaphor, or perhaps less playfully, metaphor made literal. Not <i>a </i>metaphor
made literal, but metaphor itself render as a literal process. They're both scary because they both tie us deeply to something that we don't fully control or understand, but also compelling because they have so much to do with what we are and how we experience the world. Teleportation horror, as a kind of meditation on the mutating, hybriding, transporting power of metaphor, ends up being a representation of our complicated relationship with the world as language using beings.<br />
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<br />gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-28066856440713386852015-06-03T14:05:00.001-07:002015-06-05T08:47:43.968-07:00Misunderstanding Feminism's Critique of The Witcher 3<br />
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Erik Kain's recent <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/05/31/why-feminist-frequency-is-dead-wrong-about-the-witcher-3/" target="_blank">article on the issue of sexism in <i>The Witcher 3</i></a> has prompted me to write a piece in response. The reason for this is not that Kain's arguments are particularly interesting or novel, but because they highlight some of the most common misunderstandings that prevent many intelligent people from grasping the feminist arguments advanced by critics such as Anita Sarkeesian. I'm going to elaborate on three of these misunderstandings in this blog post in order to bring some clarity to the situation. <br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Misunderstanding 1.</b> <b>Confusing the portrayal of sexism as dark and gritty with its thoughtful criticism. </b><br />
<br />
Kain uses his defense of George R.R. Martin's <i>Song of Ice and Fire </i>series and its representation of rape as an example of how the sexism in <i>The Witcher 3 </i>might be justified. He writes:<br />
<br />
<i>Some critics at the time argued that author George R.R. Martin included
rape to titillate, not to show how dark and gritty Westeros was. They
responded to the argument that this was a genuine attempt to show how
bad things were for women in Medieval times by saying “Well it’s fantasy
so that’s just sexist.”</i><br />
<br />
This idea, that violence towards women in fantasy fiction works as a criticism of "how bad things were for women in Medieval times," gets raised a lot, but shows a misunderstanding of what most feminist writers mean by "critique." One point made repeatedly by feminists is that no matter how disturbing the portrayal of sexual violence against women in a work of fiction might be, it does not count as critique unless it goes to significant lengths to examine thoughtfully the systemic causes and cultural prejudices behind it. Lacking this level of development, the appearance of sexual violence ends up being a matter of exploitation, a means to stimulate and excite the player emotionally at the expense of a woman's dignity. <br />
<br />
So if <i>The Witcher 3</i>'s depiction of prostitutes, rape, and misogyny is more than just the usual forms of exploitation, it's up to the defenders of the game like Kain to show us where and how the game thoughtfully critiques sexism (beyond something like, "oh isn't it just awful!"). Kain doesn't provide such an account in his article. <br />
<br />
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<b>Misunderstanding 2. Thinking that feminists want to counter sexism in fiction by forbidding its representation outright.</b><br />
<br />
Kain makes this broad point in defense of <i>The Witcher 3</i>'s inclusion of sexism in its universe:<br />
<br />
<i>Fiction is supposed to highlight real world issues. Rape is a real
world issue. Sexism is something women actually confront in their jobs,
at home. Why is it off limits to actually address that with fantasy
fiction? </i><br />
<br />
This argument gets brought up a lot as a counter to Sarkeesian and others. It suggests that feminist critics are arguing for the wholesale elimination of the representation of sexism from all fiction, regardless of its context.<br />
<br />
This is simply a misinformed view of the situation. No serious feminist critic is pushing for sexism, or any other topic for that matter, to be off limits for fiction. That would just be censorship.<br />
<br />
Rather, what most feminist critics are focused on is how sexism is included in our fiction uncritically, unreflectively, for the sole purpose of entertainment (see point 1). Rape, physical abuse, sexual slavery, and other forms of misogyny are frequently put into fictional fantasy worlds to give it "color," to make it intense, stimulating, and/or exciting, without taking the time to responsibly explore the subject matter. <br />
<br />
Fictional sexism might be reflective of real world sexism, but without contextualizing that in some way that interrogates the situation thoughtfully, simply putting it in the fiction contributes nothing positive, but has the effect of perpetuating it without any check.<br />
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<b>Misunderstanding 3. Failing to see how one's own unconscious biases prevents one from understanding the debate on sexism. </b><br />
<br />
This one is more of a challenge than a misunderstanding. It is one of the harder points to grasp too, so I'll take it slow.<br />
<br />
First, Kain argues against having something like gender equality in <i>The Witcher 3</i> by stating the following: <br />
<br />
<i>There is fantasy out there where gender roles are much less
traditionally defined. Lots of fantasy has tough warrior women who don’t
need to be rescued by the knight in shining armor. It’s a genre that
has a little bit of something for everyone. But much of it—the good
stuff anyways—is believable.</i><br />
<br />
What Kain goes on to argue from this paragraph is that putting gender equality in <i>The Witcher 3</i> would undermine the realism of its medieval setting, and along with that, his ability to enjoy it. That's just how it was back then, he claims, and censoring that for the sake of some small group's "political agenda" would be silly.<br />
<br />
At the same time, it must be noted, he has no problem with the inclusion of sorcerers and monsters (which certainly did not exist in any period of history) and does not see them as detracting from the game's realism.<br />
<br />
Now why is this so? Why is it "the good stuff" if it breaks realism with magic and monsters but not the good stuff if it does that by changing the gender dynamics? What is behind this arbitrary preference for one flawed version of realism over another?<br />
<br />
The
reason, I would offer, is that Kain's preference is not really motivated by a desire for "realism" and beliveability but, like a lot of male gamers, by his unconscious wish to have his ego gratified. The sexism of <i>The Witcher 3</i> flatters the male ego by repeatedly asserting its freedom to objectify women. Objectifying women gives men power over
them and hence helps fulfill a typical male power fantasy. In other words, Kain tries to pass off his desire to indulge in a male-centered fantasy world in which women are objectified as a matter of realism when it is anything but.<br />
<br />
If you don't believe this, consider for a moment how Kain and others who use the realism argument to justify misogyny in <i>The Witcher 3</i> completely overlook how the game's so-called realistic depiction
of medieval sexism is largely inaccurate. Women did not wear anything
like the skimpy costumes and underwear portrayed in <i>The Witcher 3</i> during that period, nor did not speak or
behave in the ways represented in the game. No one, including Kain, however, seems to
bothered by this lack of historical realism regarding the representation
of gender in the game.<br />
<br />
Kain therefore merely picks and chooses the bits of "reality" that most flatter his own sense of self-worth and accommodate his fantasies while ignoring the inconsistencies that come from this cobbling together. At the same time, he actively resists anyone that tries to point this out. Believability
is only code for pleasure in his argument. Kain accepts what fulfills
his fantasy (consciously and unconsciously) as reality and rejects what doesn't as
unrealistic.<br />
<br />
The psychological principle operating here is akin to the one used by con-artists. People are less likely to question things that please or flatter them, so hiding deceptions and lies within compliments is an effective way to create belief in them. Kain, like many male gamers, accepts the things that flatter and please his sense of self without much interrogation.<br />
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Conversely, male gamers like Kain will fight adamantly to convince themselves and others that they are not being conned. Games like <i>The Witcher 3</i> appeal to sexist attitudes and fantasies
that are gratifying to male egos. Because they flatter the male ego, male gamers are motivated to defend it. They don't do this consciously, but unconsciously they recognize that
this certain thing (game) makes them feel good and because of this they
see anything that would force them to see it for the flattery it is as a
threat. If the fantasy were exposed, they would be deprived of the pleasure that believing in the fantasy (which is, by
definition, a lie) gives them. So they attempt to argue that the fantasy
(lie) is realistic (true).<br />
<br />
Inevitability, because this line of argument is inherently irrational, it will fall apart when anyone looks at it carefully. This is the case with Erik Kain's defense of <i>The Witcher 3</i>, which, at its core, tries to convince us that a world populated by dragons, elves, and unicorns is more "realistic" than one in which women are not subject to ritual scorn and humiliation.<br />
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<br />gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-8075545572074967892015-05-11T12:29:00.000-07:002015-05-11T13:14:10.177-07:00Metal Gear Solid and Psychoanalysis (Part I)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-dgI6lMdiAc9Br7jWkEp735PvqZ_W1Z1k1uoAksSAxM1DEUUNVmjoFok_xAnTJI6PqVzxOknDG8XGdMZhQLwHR4AsR6c0czGQXK3ZB-d-oOgFuka6NXqu65rxq0V0MbVT3I7TMAODGME/s1600/Freud.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-dgI6lMdiAc9Br7jWkEp735PvqZ_W1Z1k1uoAksSAxM1DEUUNVmjoFok_xAnTJI6PqVzxOknDG8XGdMZhQLwHR4AsR6c0czGQXK3ZB-d-oOgFuka6NXqu65rxq0V0MbVT3I7TMAODGME/s400/Freud.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Though the Metal Gear Solid series has been the subject of countless analyses, one of its most important and challenging dimensions has gone utterly unexamined: its psychoanalytic narrative. To me, this is a major oversight. Symbols of castration, Oedipal conflicts, incest fantasies, and repression are all defining components of the MGS story. But no one (to my knowledge) has paid them any attention. This article is the first part in a series that will fill this gap in our critical appreciation of MGS.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Psychoanalysis?</span><br />
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Firstly, let me explain that when I say "psychoanalysis," I am referring to the seminal theories of Sigmund Freud and subsequent psychologists exploring the contents of the unconscious mind. Later in this article, I will get into the specifics of these theories. For now, suffice it to say that the basic premise of psychoanalysis is that the human psyche is rooted a set of early childhood conflicts that get repressed in adulthood. Being repressed does not mean they are forgotten. Rather, the early conflicts become unconscious templates for our future personalities and behaviors that guide us without us being aware of them. This is the core premise of psychoanalytic theory.<br />
<br />
Some might object right here. "Hasn't Freud been discredited/disproven today?" Though this is a complicated issue, the simple answer is No. While it is true that in the U.S., psychology departments have a critical attitude toward psychoanalysis, in other regions, such as <a href="http://mindhacks.com/2009/11/17/the-argentinian-love-affair-with-psychoanalysis/" target="_blank">South America</a> and Europe, it still has considerable clout. Furthermore, in the U.S. today, psychoanalysis is undergoing a mini-renaissance in the <a href="http://www.cppnj.org/article_brain.php" target="_blank">field of neurology</a>.<br />
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More to the point, the scientific standing of psychoanalysis doesn't really matter for my analysis, because what we are talking about is the realm of art. Whether Freud is right or wrong, his theories have had a profound influence on writers and film makers, such as Alfred Hitchcock, Francis Ford Coppola, and Ridley Scott, who have found the unconscious to be a compelling concept for their works. MGS, as a series deeply informed by these specific film makers, inherits their Freudian influences as well, as I will show.<br />
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<b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Big Boss and Oedipus</span></span></b><br />
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To get started, let's take stock of the fact that the central drama of the MGS series is an Oedipal conflict. Big Boss is himself an Oedipal figure: a tragic hero-king who loses an eye and is punished for his unwitting "incest" (in this case, incest with himself via cloning). More importantly, the sons (Solid, Liquid, Solidus), map out an Oedipal relationship by fighting with each other and against their father for control of their destinies. The sons are completely defined by their relationship to the father, not only because they are his clones, but because who and what they are is decided by how they relate themselves to him. Some fight to overcome him, while others endeavor to complete his plans. Whatever the case, their identities spring from and are shaped by his choices.<br />
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For many of Freud's patients, the image of the father, or "father imago," played a central role in constructing the unconscious mind. In essence, he found that an image/recording of the father from childhood would be implanted in the psyche. As a result, no matter how old one got, or whether one's actual father was still living, within the unconscious mind, one was forever engaged in a childhood struggle with the father, fighting (even though one consciously couldn't see it without Freud's help) to free oneself from his control. This battle was unconsciously shaping adult behaviors.<br />
<br />
MGS essentials literalizes this relationship with the father imago by making the sons genetic clones of the father. In this case, the image of the father is literally copied into their genes. As a result, the sons can never be sure if they are unconsciously carrying out the program of the father or making their own independent decisions. This is thematizes for the player in the many instances in which Solid Snake must question the purport of his actions. Is he fighting against his father or, unwittingly, helping to create the world he wished for?<br />
<br />
For example, Liquid's exchange with Solid toward the end of MGS1 highlights how Snake's actions might not be his own, but part of his genetic program:<br />
<br />
Liquid: "So why are you here then? Why do you continue to follow orders while your superiors betray you?"<br /><br />Snake: "..."<br /><br />Liquid: "I'll tell you then. You enjoy all the killing! That's why<b>.</b>"<br /><br />Snake: "WHAT?!"<br /><br />Liquid:
"Are you denying it?! Haven't you already killed most of my comrades? I
watched your face as you did it...it was filled, with the joy of
battle."<br /><br />Snake: "You're wrong..."<br /><br />Liquid: "There's a killer inside you...you don't have to deny it. We were created, to be that way!"<br /><br />Snake: "Created?"<br /><br />Liquid: "LE ENFANTS TERRIBLES!" <br />
<br />
In MGS series in general, the sons live in the shadow of the father. They are all fighting to define themselves in some relation to him. In MGS1, this is even figured by the location of "Shadow Moses." To be in the shadow of Moses is to be in the shadow the great patriarch-father of the West.<br />
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<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Please Don't Take Away My Solid Snake</span><br />
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To go deeper into the Oedipal dimensions of the MGS series, we need to discuss Freud's theory in more detail. For Freud, the Oedipal conflict crystallizes for the child around the struggle for the mother. The mother is, naturally, the child's first love object, as she is the source of his greatest pleasures and the fulfillment of his greatest needs (coddling, stroking, feeding). The problem, however, is that the child has a competitor for the mother's affections: father. This leads to an animosity toward the father on the part of the child. He is in the way of a perfect relationship with the mother.<br />
<br />
Now Freud noted that this conflict between father and son was often "resolved" by a certain incident. At some point in the child's early life, he would catch sight of a naked woman (usually his mother or sister) and he would realize that they don't have a penis. The child would then wonder if this lack was a punishment, possibly dished out by the father (the most powerful figure in his life). This thought put the fear of god into the child and pressed him to give up fighting with father over the mother. Consequently, the son represses his desire for the mother and identifies with the father, working to become his copy.<br />
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The repression of the Oedipal conflict, however, does not mean it is over. Like all repressed content in the unconscious, it carries on in the life of the adult. In Freud's analysis, this most frequently translates to symbols of "castration," such as the loss of eyes, arms, legs, and or body parts in dreams and works of fiction. These images of dismemberment stand in for a more fundamental and earlier threat of loss posed by the all-mighty father, and serve as a perpetually warning. <br />
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MGS is covered with these symbols of castrations. Ocelot loses his arm. Liquid is dismembered. Raiden loses his arm. Miller loses a leg. Solidus loses an eye. Solid Snake loses his virility and, in a sense, his eye through replacement. These could all be read as figurations of the unconscious conflict with the father who threatens to unman his rebellious sons. In essence, all of these characters are metaphorically castrated for their opposition to the father.<br />
<br />
Castration also appears in less obvious ways in the series. I would include Big Boss in this list of castrated characters. Though he is the father in the MGS series, he is also an Oedipal figure guilty of a symbolic incest (cloning). He is correspondingly castrated for this, losing his eye and arm. More subtly, Kojima makes castration a core feature of MGS2, <a href="http://gamephilosophe.blogspot.com/2014/03/kojimas-finest-moment-snake-raiden.html" target="_blank">as I have argued previously</a>. He took away our Solid Snake (a great euphemism for an erection and phallic virility) and gave us a castrato to play with instead. The player was thus castrated by the game, unmanned by the character swap.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">To Be Continued...</span><br />
<br />
I have so much more to say in future posts, like how Solid and Liquid represent two different paths through the Oedipal conflict, the importance of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, and their relation to Outer Heaven, and the psychoanalytic significance of the clones absent mother. So please check back soon for more!<br />
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<br />gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-80844569169424710822015-02-04T21:40:00.000-08:002015-02-04T21:40:20.810-08:00A Reddit Conversation about Gender in Videogames<div class="entry unvoted">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Below is a discussion about gender representation in videogames that I participated in on reddit. It begins with redditor DeckardPain expressing his frustration over the push to better representation. He fears it might cripple artistic freedom. But he is also trying to understand why it's such a big issue today. Redditor Genermis responds, but DeckardPain feels his questions aren't being answered. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Game Philosophe to the rescue! I went about systematically answering all of Deckard's Q's on the forum. The reply ending up being quite long so I decided that I would share it with my readers. The first part is a bit of the exchange between DeckardPain and Genermis. My response follows. Enjoy!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a class="expand" href="https://www.blogger.com/null">[–]</a><a class="author may-blank id-t2_5srus" href="http://www.reddit.com/user/DeckardPain">DeckardPain</a><span class="userattrs"></span> <span class="score unvoted">1 point</span> <time class="live-timestamp" datetime="2015-02-04T21:40:42+00:00" title="Wed Feb 4 21:40:42 2015 UTC">7 hours ago</time><time class="edited-timestamp" datetime="2015-02-04T22:39:36+00:00" title="last edited 4 hours ago">*</time> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Fair gender representation really doesn't have a place in any work of fiction <b>in my opinion</b>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">If the entire gender equality issue in video games gets to the point
where developers are coerced into abiding by your specific standards and
how you want to be seen as a gender, then where does the gender
equality issue cross the line into the territory of game developers'
& designers' freedom of expression?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">If you're coercing game devs to represent X the way X wants to be
seen every time, then doesn't it step on their toes a bit too much?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Example: MGS5's character <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=mgs5+quiet&es_sm=91&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=g5DSVLGzIYqvogSYp4DQAg&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1440&bih=731" rel="nofollow">Quiet</a>.
Kojima has had a risqué characters in almost every iteration of the MGS
franchise. So why the problem now? Is it gender equality band wagoners
just pointing the finger at anything they can? Is it that people are
just becoming more and more meek? When did the movement of "you're
hurting my feelings, please stop" from people older than high school
kids become a thing? I'm not asking to irritate you, I'm asking because I
genuinely don't get where this shit came from.</span></div>
<div class="md">
<span style="font-size: large;">[...]</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="cobcq37"></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a class="expand" href="https://www.blogger.com/null">[–]</a><a class="author may-blank id-t2_l5l2w" href="http://www.reddit.com/user/Genermis">Genermis</a><span class="userattrs"></span> <span class="score unvoted">2 points</span> <time class="live-timestamp" datetime="2015-02-04T22:07:16+00:00" title="Wed Feb 4 22:07:16 2015 UTC">7 hours ago</time> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">We
are tired of being analyzed, defined and represented by people other
than ourselves, or worse yet, not considered at all. We are frustrated
by the imposed isolation and invisibility that comes from being told or
expected to choose either a homosexual or heterosexual identity.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">[...]</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="cobdenq"></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a class="expand" href="https://www.blogger.com/null">[–]</a><a class="author may-blank id-t2_5srus" href="http://www.reddit.com/user/DeckardPain">DeckardPain</a><span class="userattrs"></span> <span class="score unvoted">1 point</span> <time class="live-timestamp" datetime="2015-02-04T22:25:56+00:00" title="Wed Feb 4 22:25:56 2015 UTC">6 hours ago</time><time class="edited-timestamp" datetime="2015-02-04T22:30:53+00:00" title="last edited 4 hours ago">*</time> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">While
I don't necessarily get where you're coming from because I can't really
relate to your issue, I don't disagree with you or think that your
stance is wrong.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">One of the biggest problems I have with discussing any controversial
subject with someone who is a strong advocate for the subject on either
side, is that they always feel the need to go into defensive mode
straight from the start.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Try to believe me when I say I'm not typing it to troll, bash, or hate on you and your preferences.</b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Again I only posed the questions because people rarely ever think of
the bigger picture outside of themselves. Now what I'm going to say may
offend or make you angry, so I'm sorry but I'm going to say it anyways
but please try to remember what is in bold above.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I get that you're passionate about the subject, but you honestly
sound like some Anonymous fanboy preaching on your soapbox with your
first reply to me. I get that this is a product of being passionate on a
subject, and I'm not flaming you or shit talking you for it. Just
wanted to make sure you were aware of how it appears to an outsider.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The initial question I posed was:</b></span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">If the entire gender equality issue in video games gets to the point
where developers are coerced into abiding by your specific standards and
how you want to be seen as a gender, then where does the gender
equality issue cross the line into the territory of game developers'
& designers' freedom of expression?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">If you're coercing game devs to represent X the way X wants to be
seen every time, then doesn't it step on their toes a bit too much?</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">I would still really like this question answered as best you can,
because I strongly support the idea of keeping gender equality out of
all forms of fiction.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="cobqqh8"></a></span></div>
<div class="tagline">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a class="expand" href="https://www.blogger.com/null">[–]</a><a class="author may-blank id-t2_h7cj1" href="http://www.reddit.com/user/TheGamePhilosophe">TheGamePhilosophe</a><span class="userattrs"></span> <span class="score likes">1 point</span> <time class="live-timestamp" datetime="2015-02-05T05:04:06+00:00" title="Thu Feb 5 05:04:06 2015 UTC">9 minutes ago</time> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I'll answer all of your questions.</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">where does the gender equality issue cross the line into the
territory of game developers' & designers' freedom of expression?</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">First, calling certain groups' requests for representation a
restriction on artistic freedom is a stretch. How is providing more
choices and identities limiting creativity?</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">If you're coercing game devs to represent X the way X wants to be
seen every time, then doesn't it step on their toes a bit too much?</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">Again, you're framing the issue as a zero sum game when it isn't. It's
not about fighting over what X should be, it's about getting Y and Z to
be part of the picture as well. It's not restricting representation,
it's expanding it, it's multiplying the possibilities.</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">Kojima has had a risqué characters in almost every iteration of the MGS franchise. So why the problem now?</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">This is my favorite bit from you because it reveals so much about why
you fail to grasp the issues at stake, so I'm going focus on it. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">You
equate the current criticism of gender representation to something as
trivial as the hurt feelings of high school kids and you wonder when
people stopped growing up. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Ironically, it is you who are still stuck in a high school mentality
and the rest of the world that has grown up. Let me bring you up to
speed.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The current critique of gender representation concerns centuries of a
patriarchal worldview that sought to impose certain normative views of
gender and exclude others that didn't fit into that scheme. This
worldview, by the way, includes the placement of men above women, the
treatment of women and objects of property (literally property not that
long ago), and the labeling of homosexuals as diseased criminals (up
until the 1970s in the US, gay men could be ordered by a court of law to
undergo electroshock therapy to "cure" them of their disorder). The
discrimination still continues today in powerful ways that include the
pervasive representation of women as sex objects in popular media (the
Quiet, for example) and the widespread resistance to recognizing
homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgendered individuals as legitimate
sexual orientations and identities.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"Hurt feelings," I hope you can see, doesn't quite capture the
significance of a centuries-old culture of systematic oppression that
gender critics are shedding light on today. Would you call the
discussion about slavery and segregation in US and the social
inequalities of its aftermath still felt today a matter of "hurt
feelings"? Would you say the discussion about the colonial rape of
natural resources in Africa and Asia by Europeans in the 19th century,
and the systemic poverty and political turmoil that carries on today as a
result of it, "hurt feelings"?</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">Is it gender equality band wagoners just pointing the finger at
anything they can? Is it that people are just becoming more and more
meek? </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">No and No. People are becoming more conscious of the historical and
contemporary realities of gender discrimination (just as they are about
race, class, and exploitation) and they are beginning to challenge
people who perpetuate (consciously or unconsciously) the values and
norms that have privileged a certain white, male identity at the expense
of everything else.</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">where does the gender equality issue cross the line into the
territory of game developers' & designers' freedom of expression?</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">I have something else to say about this question because it gets
raised a lot. No one is trying to deny artists freedom of expression in
any legalistic sense. The current criticism about gender is an extension
of the freedom of expression--the freedom of critique. Anyone who wants
to participate in any public forum, in a free society, has to accept
this as part of the package. You post on Reddit or a forum, you are
implicitly accepting that others can respond to your statements in any
way they want. The same is true for works of art and consumer products.
Creators have the right to make what they want, and the rest of the
world has the right to say and criticize it however they want.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">You might be thinking now, "Bah, bah, bah, bah doesn't that put
pressure on creators to conform to the whining babies? Won't that push
them to compromise their artistic vision?"</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The answer is that this will depend on each creator. If his/her
"artistic vision" entails a game with scantly clad women being rescued
by muscle-bound white men, he or she is free to pursue that vision to
his/her heart's content. If the voices of others point out the ways the
creation perpetuates values that have systematically oppressed millions
and this makes the creator feel uncomfortable, that's just too bad for
the creator. Freedom of expression is a two-way street.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">You see Deckard, we live in what's called a "society," and part of
growing up in this society is realizing that it consists of other people
who don't always agree with us or share our values or, heaven forbid,
challenge our worldviews (even if we are video game makers!). I know it
sucks. It'd be great if we could all just live in our own specially
designed echo-chambers and have our egos endlessly gratified, but that's
just how things are. Try to manage as best you can.</span></div>
</div>
gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-81761010228781832852015-02-02T21:25:00.000-08:002015-02-02T21:35:14.485-08:00Bloodborne's World Will Be Divided, Not Interconnected.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMaIJsPlS545LZYJyT0kDp1F546qXLfMBwvsaiZE0LzEUJK-dOoOqmz8WtatZtag-7AOTa0o3b9RazQHBWQct1wVMEBc56kUenRC3vtGGIDUkaSyj-PJ8J8P6LgHxohUYrZYkt-f7cE0Y/s1600/Bloodborne-Dev-Talks-about-Relationship-and-Similarities-to-Demon-s-Souls-460756-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMaIJsPlS545LZYJyT0kDp1F546qXLfMBwvsaiZE0LzEUJK-dOoOqmz8WtatZtag-7AOTa0o3b9RazQHBWQct1wVMEBc56kUenRC3vtGGIDUkaSyj-PJ8J8P6LgHxohUYrZYkt-f7cE0Y/s1600/Bloodborne-Dev-Talks-about-Relationship-and-Similarities-to-Demon-s-Souls-460756-3.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Watching the recent IGN gameplay <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tvi51MDOZTQ" target="_blank">video,</a> it seems that <i>Bloodborne's</i> approach to world design will follow the template of <i>Demon's Souls </i>fairly closely.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In <i>Demon's Souls</i>, players accessed the game's main zones through a central hub called the Nexus. Within the Nexus were several "Archstones" (one for each zone) that allowed the player to warp to a specific area. The zones, though they could be intricately designed themselves, were not however connected with each other, nor was the hub world attached to any of them. Rather, each zone simply had its own subzones which would be accessed by through its designated Archstone.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">For many, this was a design shortcoming that <i>Demon's Souls</i> spiritual successor, <i>Dark Souls</i>, overcame by replacing the Nexus and its Archstones with a fully interconnected world in which bonfires provided checkpoints.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It seems that <i>Bloodborne</i> is backsliding on this point.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">At around 5:10 in the IGN video linked above, you can see the player use a "headstone of
awakening" to warp from a central hub, called the Dream Refuge, to the zone "Above Ground." Specifically, the player selects the subzone called First Floor Sickroom. Crucially, other, yet-to-be-activated headstones can be seen nearby.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Later in the video, after the player has progressed through the area, another subzone (Central Yharnam) is added to the Above Ground headstone. The player returns to the Dream Refuge hub and uses the headstone to warp back to this more advanced point.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The scheme appears identical to that of <i>Demon's Souls'</i> unlocking subzones. But how does this show that <i>Bloodborne</i> will be subdivided like <i>Demon's Souls</i>? After all, couldn't it be the case the world is still interconnected like <i>Dark Souls</i>, just with a detached hub world grafted on top of it?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">My answer is that it is highly unlikely that <i>Bloodborne's</i> world will be fully interconnected, and that instead, interconnection will be limited to self-contained zones. Here's why:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">If the world were fully interconnected, there would be no need for the multiple headstones of awakening we see in the Dream Refuge hub. The only reason for having multiple headstones would be a divided game world.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Think about it. If the world were completely interconnected like <i>Dark Souls</i>, then any warp point should be able to send you to any other warp point. Having more than one headstone in the hub world would then be a pure redundancy with no purpose. Since it's implausible that the designers of the game would just throw in unnecessary headstones, there must be something that makes them useful. And the only thing that would make multiple headstones useful would be the existence of disconnected zones.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Another point to consider is the fact that when the player in the video touches the second warp point, Central Yharnam, that returns him back to the hub (15:07), the menu that pops up does not give him the option of warping to the First Floor Sickroom warp point. He is only given the option to return to the Dream Refuge--just as in <i>Demon's Souls</i> where warp points could only take you back to the Nexus and not send you to other areas (even areas within the zone you are playing).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Some might wonder why From would do this. Don't they understand that <i>Dark Souls'</i> interconnected world was a major improvement over the hub system of <i>Demon's Souls</i>!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The fact is, there are plenty of reasons why From would decide to do this. One is load times. Having a fully interconnected world presents design challenges concerning where to conduct loading as the player moves through the world. From might have decided to simplify this by putting hard divisions between areas.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Another possible reason is the inherent difficulty of designing a fully interconnected world. From might not have had the time to do this, and decided instead to focus on making each zone itself interconnected without bothering to make all the zones come together as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Of course, without official confirmation or more gameplay, this remains speculation on my part. But I feel confident that what I've said will prove to be true. What we've seen just doesn't make sense otherwise.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But what do you think? Would you welcome a return to the <i>Demon's Souls</i> hub system? Or are you disappointed that From is taking a step backward? Let me know in the comments below.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-47822321847195491642014-11-19T16:15:00.000-08:002014-11-28T19:57:03.784-08:00The Evil Within Review<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbOhQ84mCm77TgrOKtrypwBPEjDlF2ipeGkS2ea_5Tv6E7S6swaoFF-yw0LicP5znjXgt3Y5LyvuqFJazJMfYzYvAwnXf4xmHQZ5vx6kzvmKvMdG-wUwMf0KvISIFiRoDSJIxnpzoH9AI/s1600/evil+within.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbOhQ84mCm77TgrOKtrypwBPEjDlF2ipeGkS2ea_5Tv6E7S6swaoFF-yw0LicP5znjXgt3Y5LyvuqFJazJMfYzYvAwnXf4xmHQZ5vx6kzvmKvMdG-wUwMf0KvISIFiRoDSJIxnpzoH9AI/s1600/evil+within.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The Evil Within is what you call "a flawed gem." Having played through the game on Survivor difficulty and being about to
finish a run on Nightmare, I can say with some authority that the game is seriously bogged down in a lot of frustrating stuff. For example, there's a crate you can hide in one of the game's later chapters. On several occasions (but not consistently), I was "seen" by a patrolling zombie through the crate's wall, resulting in an insta-gameover (you can't be spotted in this section). More generally, the stealth in the game is not implemented well, and the same can be said for context sensitive actions, which are often finicky.<br />
<br />
But despite these flaws, there are just a number of things that The Evil Within does well or interestingly that make it a compelling game for me. It's very challenging and demands a good deal of effort from the player. At the same time, it's a quirky game with an off-kilter sensibility and rhythm that make it stand out from the herd. These parts come together and create a kind of synergy. <br />
<br />
The first thing we can talk about is its story. Its disorienting and fragmentary presentation is unconventional in the world of videogames. I lot of people dislike it for this reason, but I personally find it stimulating and intriguing. Rather than being direct and concrete, the narrative is dreamlike and abstract. Think David Lynch rather than Cormac McCarthy, because enjoying the story requires a certain appreciation for the surrealist tradition and its willingness to defy logical conventions. You'll have to think about the narrative if you want to make connections between events in the game, and some questions have no clear answers, but the invitation to think and speculate is something I find rewarding in and of itself.<br />
<br />
For example, I would contend that the stylistic direction of the game is meaningfully connected to the actual narrative. Both (style and story) communicate the idea that identity and consciousness are fragile constructions of the mind that can be broken and refashioned. TEW's central villain, Ruvik, is a scientist interested in just this, i.e., the constructedness of selfhood and how it can be taken apart and made into something else. Narrative and autobiography play a major role in creating our sense of self, and the fact that TEW is willing to play with this by presenting an incomplete portrait of its events fits into this exploration of the artificiality of the self.<br />
<br />
Unique game mechanics also serve to elevate TEW. For example, enemies get up a lot after being shot, even though they seem to be dead. To be sure they won't harass you any further, you have to burn them with matches, which are a limited resource. Viewed "realistically" it's a silly contrivance. You even have to upgrade your character so he can carry more than five matches at a time. However, in the heat of battle, it adds layers of depth and strategy to the game that are fairly unique. You can burn nearby enemies by setting a fallen undead on fire. This leads to tense situations where you use yourself as bait to lure monsters to a body, only to set both ablaze with a well-timed strike. It's nonsensical and gamey, but it's also a lot of fun and unlike anything else.<br />
<br />
The game's aiming system is another strength I feel that most reviewers have passed over. What's special about it is that aiming your weapon zooms the camera into essentially a first-person perspective. Where most third-person shooters keep the camera just behind and above the avatar's shoulder, in TEW, you zoom right past that position to look through the character's eyes. This really threw me the first time I used a gun, but in time, I came to really appreciate the way it made battle more immersive and heightened in detail, as it is in FPS's.<br />
<br />
As a survival horror game, TEW pulls no punches. The scales almost always feel like they are tipped against you and, for the most part, this is intentional. Opponents are usually faster, stronger, and more resilient. Resources are limited, traps are devious, and checkpoints are erratic. Overall, these design decisions serve to enhance the game. <br />
<br />
For starters, by putting the player at a distinct disadvantage, the game embraces survival horror in ways that recent games seem afraid to. TEW isn't scary per se, but it keeps ever mindful of your situation and vulnerability, pressing you to look nervously around every corner wondering what's coming next. The relative slowness of your avatar is as essential to this feeling as is your limited ammunition. It has its shortcomings, but I find this version of survival horror more satisfying than those conjured up in Dead Space and The Last of Us. Dead Space indulges power fantasies by putting the player in the position of a powerful cyborg with advanced weaponry, and relies on jump scares and monster closets for its horror, which becomes tedious and predictable fairly early on. The Last of Us relies on visuals and narrative to shock the player rather terrifying gameplay. TEW, by contrast, achieves its horror through its core mechanics.<br />
<br />
More significantly, difficulty is how TEW shows its respect for the player as a thinking, curious, problem-solving human being. The game is rough around the edges, but much of that comes from the fact that it isn't holding your hand and telling you what to do. Instead, the game wants the player to figure things out for him or herself. This can and will lead to confusion and frustration, but it is, perhaps unavoidably, a necessary corollary to letting the player discover things in his/her own way. There's a lot of viable paths to tackling a problem in TEW, and most of them require intelligence and foresight. The third chapter of the game, which pits you against a village full of undead and traps, manages this brilliantly. Occasionally, things don't work well, but this is more the exception than the rule and only becomes genuinely bothersome on the highest difficulties.<br />
<br />
I think it's this commitment to serious game design that ultimately sold me on TEW. At every moment, from fighting, to resource management, to upgrading my stats between levels, I felt the game effectively communicated that how things went down depended on me and the choices I made. It respected me to think for myself when confronted with a challenge and to deal with the consequences of my actions. It regularly threw new problems my way and rarely played the same trick twice. As a result, each session felt fresh and exciting.<br />
<br />
I'm surprised at how much I've enjoyed playing The Evil Within the past
four weeks, because it's a game with serious issues. As many critics
have pointed out, the controls and mechanics are opaque and sometimes
inconsistent, and in many ways it is a throwback to a long-gone era of gaming. And yet, despite these problems,
I've played this game more and had more fun with it than its more
polished survival horror stablemates such The Last of Us and Dead
Space. Sometimes I wonder if I like TEW <i>because </i>its flaws and not in spite of them as they give it a certain charm. But ultimately I think that in today's AAA culture of playing to the lowest common denominator, it's a pleasure to play a game that isn't afraid to
treat me as an adult. <br />
<br />
<br />gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-68172031032144652092014-10-01T16:32:00.002-07:002014-11-28T19:54:47.309-08:00Bloodborne Multiplayer Needs More Innovation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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After watching some of the streams of the<i> Bloodborne</i> alpha today, I can't help feel that, at least in terms of the multiplayer, the game comes off as a little stale. <br />
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I was hoping for some real innovation in this department. So far, things seem pretty much the same, with only superficial differences. Messages, bloodstains, and phantoms are still there, only now the messages appear as a scroll, the bloodstains are a tombstone, and phantoms are more wire-frame. Otherwise, they function exactly the same. Wow, what a revolution!<br />
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I haven't seen much of any co-op, but from what I've read, it seems you ring a bell to summon/be summoned. Again, not a huge change.<br />
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It might be premature, but it's starting to look like Miyazaki's secretiveness about the multiplayer system was only hiding the fact that there's nothing to hide at all.<br />
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It's a shame, because just on my lonesome, I've been able to think up much better things to do with the game. For example, why not ditch the cumbersomeness of selecting text messages and instead let the player hit a button that begins recording their play for 30 seconds. Players could teach other players about secrets and strategies by letting that recording float around the server. Helpful phantoms could be thanked by shaking the controller.<br />
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Or how about, for co-op, make it truly seamless by having players enter and exit each other's worlds automatically, without prompting. Determining whether the other player is friend or foe would become a tense, but inevitable, part of gameplay experience. Co-operation would finally have real weight and consequences, as now working together would require an actual bond of trust.<br />
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Neither of these things would have been impossible to implement. But instead of pushing themselves, FROM seems to have decided to retread their once revolutionary, but now overly familiar, multiplayer ideas.gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-35191245111030525852014-08-19T18:57:00.003-07:002014-11-28T19:55:29.814-08:00Bloodborne's Gameplay and Difficulty: On the Mainstreamification of the Souls Series<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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With all the recent info that has come out on Bloodborne this past week, I've decided to write-up my own thoughts about the game at the moment. Mainly, I've noticed a couple of things about the game that I think people have generally missed because they require you to read between the lines of all the various press releases, interviews, and demonstrations that have come out over the weeks leading up to and including Gamescon. These points have to do with the nature of Bloodborne's gameplay and its difficulty, as well as with how these things fit into the evolution of Souls series toward what can be called the "mainstream gaming audience."<br />
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First, regarding Bloodborne's<i> </i>gameplay: After reviewing the leaked footage from Gamescon and assessing it in light of From's past statements about the game, I've come to the conclusion that although Bloodborne's dark aesthetic is reminiscent of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, its design is much more influenced by Dark Souls II. In the first place, Bloodborne will return us to Dark Souls II's emphasis on mob combat with renewed force. Watching the Gamescon footage, you will see that players come against many enemies who attack in groups rather than one-on-one. This was a gameplay direction introduced by Dark Souls II and it marked a significant departure from the previous two Souls games which favored single enemy encounters. It's safe to say that the mob combat style will be a staple of Bloodborne as well, as From has
said more than once that the threat of being overwhelmed by multiple
enemies is part of the game's core design philosophy. <br />
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Another point to consider is how Bloodborne constructs player's combat repetoire. Like Dark Souls II, Bloodborne will emphasize the agility of the player. Dark Souls II made this into its own stat within the RPG mechanics of the Souls series. Its function in that game was to increase the character's ability to react swiftly and dodge enemy attacks. In Bloodborne, this stat has been made into an obligatory feature of gameplay, with evasive swiftness now being a necessary part of the player's toolset rather than an optional playstyle. In essence, what was a new, experimental mechanic in Dark Souls II will now be a crucial, required component of Bloodborne.<br />
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There are lots of other little things that suggest that Bloodborne and Dark Souls II are conceptually connected in terms of design. The return of torches and dark spaces in Bloodborne hints that this attempted and seemingly abandoned mechanic in Dark Souls II is being re-attempted in Bloodborne. Also, at least one character revealed in the Gamescon footage appears to be a near copy-and-paste of an enemy from Dark Souls II. I am speaking here of the cloaked monster banging on the gate that appears around 2:45 in this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWId6_Pemck&hd=1" target="_blank">video</a>. The enemy is very similar to the <a href="http://darksouls.wikia.com/wiki/Undead_Jailer" target="_blank">Undead Jailors</a> fought in the Lost Bastille section of Dark Souls II.<br />
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I think these links between Dark Souls II and Bloodborne should be seen as very significant. For starters, it undermines a hard and fast division between the two games that many fans have imagined to exist within From Software's development process. In an interview with Miyazaki (the director of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls), it was reported that Dark Souls II was developed by a separate team of which Miyazaki was not a part. At the time, Miyazaki was actually working on Bloodborne with another team. Some have used this fact as a way of asserting that Bloodborne will be cut from a whole other cloth from that of Dark Souls II. I think these initial comparisons between the games that I have made suggest a different relationship between the two games. Rather than happening in separate isolation chambers, it's clear that there was a good deal of communication and shared design ideas between the two teams. Indeed, it appears that the two games grew out of the same pool of ideas and were guided by same overall plan to re-tool the series into something else. It is this something else that I think fans of the first two games should take time to pause and consider, because it is part and parcel with From's apparent plan for the series since the success of Dark Souls.<br />
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The plan, in brief, is to make the Souls series into a more mainstream affair--a plan that, however beneficial it may be to the game's creators, conflicts with what some, including myself, would call the "purity" of the series. This purity, for better or worse, has to do with the uncompromising sense of difficulty, both in terms of figuring out how the overall game system works and mastering the individual challenges presented moment to moment, that the series reintroduced to the world. This is probably the most touchy subject for the games. In the past, any hint that their "hardcore" aspects would be pared back has been swiftly denounced by the most ardent fans. At the same time, there has been a consistent appeal from the wider gaming community that the game be made less unwelcoming to less dedicated gamers. Like it or not, From has shown itself to be more interested in reaching out to the latter group than in satisfying the hardcore desires of the former, and this is an attitude and approach that is written all over what we've been shown about Bloodborne so far.<br />
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Going back to the game's release at E3, snippets leaking out of a press meeting about Bloodborne being a less difficult game have been making the rounds. At Gamescon, some of these rumors became more concrete through some of From's own statements. According to multiple outlets, its developers are saying that<a href="http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/08/13/gamescom-2014-bloodborne-the-sense-of-punishment-is-much-less" target="_blank"> "the sense of punishment is much less"</a> this time around, explaining that they are aiming for a "wider audience." Some high profile fans, such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_r0YShO4Hs&list=UUe0DNp0mKMqrYVaTundyr9w" target="_blank">VaatiVidya</a>, have been quick to dismiss the concerns rising from this, telling us to "trust in Miyazaki." Well, we've already been around that block before with Dark Souls II and its own<a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/dark-souls-ii-director-explains-accessibility/1100-6410673/" target="_blank"> "accessibility-gate,"</a> and we know where that ended, don't we?<br />
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Dark Souls II isn't a bad or easy game by any stretch of the imagination, but most fans of the first two games agree that a number of key elements that made Dark Souls and Demon's Souls so special, such as the large gaps between save-points and the regeneration of enemies, were significantly watered down in Dark Souls II. Other areas of compromise included the addition of voice-chat and targeted co-op, both of which<a href="http://gamephilosophe.blogspot.com/2014_02_01_archive.html" target="_blank"> I wrote about </a>before the game came out. These were concessions to vocal gamers who weren't happy with the past entries and wanted to see the series remade along more popular conventions. From reps, including a Namco-Bandai Community Manager in response to my article, assured that these changes were not indications of series dilution (see the comments section of my post linked above). Once people finally got their hands on the game, however, it quickly became clear that something had happened to the Souls series over the course of Dark Souls II's development. Its vitality had been lost. Players weren't <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UScsme8didI" target="_blank">as moved by it </a>as they were by the other games. Even diehard fans like EpicNameBro seem to have become apathetic to Dark Souls II at this point, despite having worked on the game's official strategy guide. Following its release, he hasn't done anything with the game in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/EpicNameBro" target="_blank">months</a>.<br />
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Now, on the eve of Bloodborne's announcement, we are faced with the same situation, the same worries and apprehensions. From is once again making sounds about decreasing difficulty to reach a wider audience, and certain individuals are once again out in full force putting down anyone who dares to raise an eyebrow at these statements. My point is that we should learn from history and read these signs for what they are. Since Dark Souls, From has sought to market its series to an increasingly mainstream audience and the consequence of this is that it has become incrementally less compellingly intense and more banally accommodating.<br />
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Watching the demo footage from
Gamescon and reading journalists' reports, it seems that
Bloodborne will continue this trend by being a more forgiving game. Not only is the player
character more agile than ever, making dodging considerably easier, the
game further decreases the difficulty by installing a "regain" mechanic
that lets player's quickly recoup lost health by (wildly, from the footage we've seen) striking back at
enemies. In the demo footage leaked, one can see relatively
inexperienced players gain back large swathes of health in this way simply by
button-mashing. Some will defend this by citing reports that the difficulty of the demo was toned down to let players
experience the full package. I remain skeptical of this. If thought
about, the idea doesn't make much sense. Wouldn't that be tantamount to
deceiving potential customers about the nature of the game, while at the
same time alienating the series' biggest fans? I'm of the opinion
that From's claim about the demo being dumbed-down is
probably just a cover to stop diehard Souls players from finding out the
truth until it's too late. <br />
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Some people say that we should simply trust in From. The same thing was suggested for Dark Souls II. Others try to blame Dark Souls II's failings on the absence of Miyazaki from the project, and using that as proof that Bloodborne will be better. I say such thinking is naive. There is clearly a great deal of overlap in terms of the concepts and design for both games, developed in tandem. If Dark Souls II failed to live up to the undiminished intensity of the prior games, it was not because Miyazaki wasn't involved in it. Rather, the shortcomings of Dark Souls II reflect From Software's new view of the Souls series as a mainstream title. Far from disappearing from Bloodborne, this broad-appeal philosophy clearly continues to be a driving force in its creation.<br />
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I worry that Bloodborne will likely continue From's search for a wider audience by being a less demanding and less punishing game. I doubt it will be an easy game, and I hope there will be some good challenges along the way, but overall, I can't help but wonder if it will be part of the series' incremental slide to the lowest common denominator of video game culture, at which point violence, instant gratification, and accessibility become king.<br />
<br />gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-23155188778831739492014-07-24T19:21:00.000-07:002014-07-24T19:21:15.067-07:00Bloodborne Composer Revealed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMKz1ijJreK4T5b9uDras5SmOjt7xKSdmKgIeLrlsFKQL6Lw5PwwVc2VLJ9R3rOi-23A6VIjzrt-ELSCYWdLDKZXLzSQUsSjAAgAkcbe_NxJ6OOoVsBdJFvXQMayxU-JEbCFg6_nznOPo/s1600/michael-wandmacher_interview.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMKz1ijJreK4T5b9uDras5SmOjt7xKSdmKgIeLrlsFKQL6Lw5PwwVc2VLJ9R3rOi-23A6VIjzrt-ELSCYWdLDKZXLzSQUsSjAAgAkcbe_NxJ6OOoVsBdJFvXQMayxU-JEbCFg6_nznOPo/s1600/michael-wandmacher_interview.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
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Last week it was revealed that <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/bloodborne/comments/2auo4y/news_july_16_jun_yoshino_recording_the_main_theme/" target="_blank">recording </a>for the upcoming From Software title, <i>Bloodborne</i>, was being done at Air Lyndhurst Studios in London. Now, further information about the game's composer has materialized (courtesy of the <i>Bloodborne </i><a href="http://bloodbornenews.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Unofficial Blog</a>). It appears that at least some of the music for <i>Bloodborne </i>will be the work of movie and videogame composer<a href="http://michaelwandmacher.com/" target="_blank"> Michael Wandmacher</a>.<br />
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Here's a little from his work bio:<br />
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<i>Composer Michael Wandmacher is one of most diverse talents working in film music today. His resume of over 50 titles includes composing scores for films and television across multiple genres, videogames, songwriting, remixing, producing, and music design. As a stalwart composer in the horror and thriller genres, he provided scores for Patrick Lussier’s My Bloody Valentine 3D, which grossed over $100M worldwide and director Alex Aja’s Piranha 3D. He also created the high-octane action scores for Marvel’s Punisher: War Zone, Drive Angry, and the now-cult-classic actioner Never Back Down.</i><br />
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Wandmacher has also composed music for videogames, including Activision's <i>Singularity </i>and Sony's <i>Twisted Metal </i>re-launch. A brief scan of Wandmacher's work reveals that he specializes in horror scores. This mostly reinforces early impressions about the tone of <i>Bloodborne</i> being darker than prior <i>Souls </i>titles.<br />
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If you're curious to hear some of his work, you can find an example <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmAaa8FRoAc" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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I'm interested to find out what fans think of this development. Is this a good or bad step for the <i>Souls </i>series? Does the hiring of Wandmacher mean that fan-favorite composer Motoi Sakuraba won't be involved in the game? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.<br />
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gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-76532545223864613942014-07-19T14:42:00.000-07:002014-11-28T19:57:27.770-08:00Destiny Beta Review, Or Why $500 Million Doesn't Necessarily Make a Good Game<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Like many people, given all the hype surrounding Bungie's new game, <i>Destiny</i>, I had high expectations going into the game's beta test that began on Thursday. With the famed creators of the <i>Halo </i>series behind the wheel, $500,000,000 of funding, and Peter Dinklage's voice, how could the game be anything short of stellar? Unfortunately, it seems that <i>Destiny </i>is something less. <i>Destiny </i>is a well-constructed first person shooter with some mmorpg elements and novel mechanics thrown into the mix. But great it is not. In fact, to be perfectly honest, my overall experience of the beta was pretty bland. In what follows, I explain why.<br />
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But first, let's talk about what <i>Destiny </i>gets right, because the game certainly deserves some credit for its achievements. <i> </i><br />
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<i>Destiny </i>has one of the slickest interfaces I have every had the pleasure of navigating. Everything about it, from the way you move a cursor across the screen to the satisfying manner in which buttons highlight when you hover over them, makes the user feel like he or she is playing on a computer rather than a console. More significantly, the way the interface gently guides you through its various menus for upgrading, messaging, and equipment management is remarkably graceful. The interface lets you know what can be upgraded, what new equipment is available, and how much progress until your next level at a glance, without ever being burdensome. It's obvious that significant thought went into this part of the game and it should be a lesson other developers.<br />
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The shooting mechanics also deserve praise. <i>Destiny's </i>guns have real heft to them when being fired. Shots crackle and whiz through the air more impressively than in perhaps any other game today. Control is tight and refined, with the enemy A.I. helping to bring this into relief. Badies duck, cover, and jump around the arena, taking potshots and lobbing grenades at you from multiple angles. Whenever you take out one these foes with a well timed shot to the head, you really appreciate Bungie's expertise in this area.<br />
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As the sheen of these achievements fades away, however, <i>Destiny</i>'s lack of ingenuity begins to show. As good at being an fps as <i>Destiny </i>is, it doesn't offer anything cohesive that transcends the limitations of the genre that have set in over the past twenty or so years.<br />
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Most disappointing are the role-playing mechanics. In <i>Destiny</i>, you level up by accruing XP gained in combat which in turn unlocks new abilities and power ups that make your character ever deadlier. This was something that really appealed to me going into the beta. What I found out, however, was that there wasn't much "role-playing" to this rpg mechanic. In most rpg's, the player makes decisions about allocating points into different stats, creating a unique character-build over time suited to his or her playstyle. <i>Destiny </i>doesn't go this route. Rather, character development in the game is largely automatic, with abilities and power-ups simply unlocking for your use. There's no real thought or design that goes into developing your character. And it's hard to become invested in this process as a result. <br />
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A similar point about a lack of immersion can be made regarding <i>Destiny</i>'s mission design. What I had hoped for was a big, open world in which I could adventure, explore, meet other players, and quest, i.e., many gameplay loops intersecting each other at multiple points. Instead, <i>Destiny's</i> gameplay loop is much more singular. You choose a chapter to play and you are then transported to the map where it takes place. You then follow the waypoints set by your computer, called a "ghost," and fight enemies along the way until you reach your goal.<br />
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There's really nothing to distract you along the way during <i>Destiny's </i>missions, no intriguing ruins or towers in the distance to investigate, no strange creatures prowling about, or npc's asking for assistance. The process is instead highly linear, with you generally following the obvious path carved out for you by the designers. The one exception is the random events that take place on occasion, which are essentially timed challenges where you fight a shipment of enemies being dropped somewhere on the map. But it's so contrived (a big message flashes on the screen telling when it's happening) that I hesitate to call it anything more than a minor diversion.<br />
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The beta does have a "mission" option, titled "Explore," that invites the player to roam about the map. But here enters another problem: the world design is so bland and uninteresting that it doesn't provide any intrinsic motivation to venture out into it. <i>Destiny</i> doesn't really feel like a world as such, but a large multiplayer map with some loot scattered about. Some people will be fine with this and will be happy just to run around with other players shooting up various mobs as they spawn and respawn, but I myself like my game worlds to have a little more depth and range.<br />
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I think a better version of <i>Destiny </i>would have instead focused on crafting one, huge open-world that encouraged players to venture out and find things to do, people to meet, and mysteries to uncover. There would be towns scattered about where players would trade, re-equip, form parties, and plan adventures. It would be a less designer-centered experience, and more of a player-driven one, all lovingly-wrapped in the flawless fps mechanics and gameplay that Bungie has come to stand for.<br />
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I suppose I can't say I'm terribly surprised that <i>Destiny </i>has turned out the way it has. Given the immense financial investment that went into it, you might say it was almost inevitable that it would be a more straight-forward, linear action affair. "Accessibility" is the word here. Bungie and their publisher Activision need to sell a lot of copies of this game to recoup what they've spent on it. Sadly, for most game companies, this means appealing to the lowest common denominator. If a game is too intricate or too difficult to get into at the beginning, it risks alienating players and potential customers. For this reason, Bungie has made the game's level cap extremely unambitious (rumored to be at level 20). As their investiment lead, Tyson Greens said (as reported by Eurogamer): "We wanted levelling up and reaching a cap something you don't look at
and say, 'well, that will take me weeks so therefore I can't play with
my friends who are already at the level cap.'" No doubt Bungie came to a similar conclusion about making a more layered and intricate game.<br />
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It's a shame that game design today is ruled by such narrow thinking and that developers have so little faith in their audience's desire to be challenged in ways that go beyond traditional areas of effective combat. <i>Destiny </i>could have been something truly special. As it stands, at least from what the beta shows us, it is a solid first person shooter with pretensions that it doesn't live up to.<br />
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<br />gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-61740206721452076982014-06-26T21:38:00.000-07:002014-11-28T19:56:18.376-08:00Why Are The Newest Next-Gen Games 30 FPS?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The next-generation of gaming has promised consumers a new level of technical fidelity for the games they play. In the early days of PS4 and Xbox One, this meant not only beautiful textures and dynamic lighting presented in 1080p, but rock-steady 60fps (frames per second) gameplay as well, the current holy grail of framerate enthusiasts. <br />
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Things looked auspicious in the beginning. Games like <i>MGSV: Ground Zeroes</i> and <i>Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag</i> hit these benchmarks admirably (at least on PS4). But if you've been paying attention to the latest gaming news, you might have noticed that several of the big upcoming releases, including <i>The Order: 1886</i> and <i>Bloodborne, </i>while holding firm to 1080p, are targeting a not so impressive 30fps. Other games, such as Ubisoft's <i>Assassin's Creed Unity</i>, while still reportedly "aiming" for 60fps, are showing signs through early testing that this might be wishful thinking.<br />
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So why is this happening? Why would developers slide back on their promise to deliver us butter smooth framerates for our games? Is it because the new consoles simply can't handle 60fps? No, they obviously can and have. So what is the reason?<br />
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The simple truth is that the handful of 60fps games that came out at the beginning of the PS4/Xbox One console generation belong to a brief framerate golden age that was destined to pass away quickly. It's not that developers couldn't keep making games that run at 60fps, because they certainly could. It's that while developers are convinced that great graphics help sell their products, they don't believe high framerates have the same positive effect.<br />
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Mike Acton of Insomiac Games sums up the mentality succinctly in his company's report on the importance of framerate for sales:<br />
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<div data-textannotation-id="e37e46577e609a661beaf46425b818d2">
[...]<i>during development, there are hard choices to be made between higher
quality graphics and framerate. And we want to make the <b>right </b>choices
that reflect our commitment to providing you with the best looking
games out there. To that end, our community team did some research into
the question of framerate. The results perhaps confirmed what I've known
for a long time, but found it difficult to accept without evidence.
They found that:<span class="annotation-footnote-wrapper clearfix"></span></i></div>
<ul>
<li data-textannotation-id="dc688b1d35d9620d3aae89f99d652ff0"><i>A higher framerate does <b>not </b>significantly affect sales of a game.<span class="annotation-footnote-wrapper clearfix"></span></i></li>
<li data-textannotation-id="df8fbf6a5f425c9da47a020b3b665f87"><i>A higher framerate does <b>not </b>significantly affect the reviews of a game.</i><span class="annotation-footnote-wrapper clearfix"></span></li>
</ul>
Most significantly, they found that "there was a clear correlation between
graphics scores in reviews (where they are provided) and the final
scores." In other words, the better looking the game, the better the final score it received. Conversely, they found "no such correlation between framerate and the
graphics scores nor the final scores." <br />
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What this means is that developers have a clear incentive to push the graphics of their games to the upper limit of what their hardware can handle, because better graphics means better sales. Developers do not, on the other hand, have any clear incentive to deliver higher framerates, as higher framerates do not tangibly influence sales. Thus, when it comes time for marking hard decisions, developers will almost always give preference to graphics over framerates.<br />
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It's important to realize that it will always come down to making these hard choices. Console hardware is inherently limited in ways that PC's are not. Developers can tweak and streamline software to better take advantage of a console's resources, but they can't add more RAM, for example, should they decide they needed it. A consoles's material resources are, for all intents and purposes, finite and fixed. Every developer has to choose how they are going to allocate those resources. They can choose to give priority to higher framerate or graphics, but choose they must. And the fact is, the choice will always be to prioritize the graphics of a game.<br />
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Some might wonder why game developers can't have their cake and eat it too. The key here is to understand that increasing the graphical fidelity of a game exponentially increases the processing power needed for a high framerate. With cross-gen games like <i>Ground Zeroes </i>and <i>Assassin's Creed IV</i>, the graphics could only be pushed so much because the games had to be feasible on the older consoles. That left plenty of room for higher framerates. The newer, next-gen only games, however, don't have that limitation imposed on them. Instead, developers are free to push the graphics to the system's limits. Will developers hold back on the graphics in this situation to ensure they have resources for running the game at 60fps? Absolutely not. And as the graphics arms race continues over the next several years, the chance of anyone getting a game to run at 60fps will be approximately nil.<br />
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Just take a look at what Dana Jan, game director for <i>The Order</i>, has to say on the issue:<br />
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<i>I don't know of any other games that are gonna look like our game[...]with all the stuff that's going
on lighting-wise, and run at 60. I think that's probably the thing that
most people underestimate is [that] to make a game look like this—the
way that they're lit, the number of directional lights that we have… We
don't have a game where you're just outside in sunlight, so there's one
light. We have candles flickering, fires, then characters have lights on
them. So [to make] all those lights [work] with this fidelity means, I
think, until the end of this system most people won't have any clue how
to make that run 60 and look like this</i><br />
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Not until the end of this console generation's life does Jan think we will have games looking as good as <i>The Order </i>running at 60fps. This doesn't bode well for the future of 60fps console gameplay. Because you can bet your life that developers looking at <i>The Order </i>today aren't thinking to themselves, "How can I get a game that looks as good as <i>The Order </i>to run at 60fps?" No, they're thinking, "How can I make a game that looks even better than <i>The Order </i>run at a passable framerate?"<br />
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<br />gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-64135445407732596372014-04-28T07:50:00.002-07:002014-12-02T07:38:42.982-08:00Titanite or Tediumite? An Argument for a Purely Stat Based Equipment System in the Souls Series<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6nJHVZjxJvLbmMwgVOFubgbGlZy-6l-NXWolEINS_oGFdEhUjPmkhmo3jVvr6Vr6x8thRHw6Mx7o_83gx_IUwMVPHNbU6qu1ml96yEdjz259xPeQJrALxz39XBfXD56dhJ6ac5UIgQ_4/s1600/Dark+Souls+Inventory.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6nJHVZjxJvLbmMwgVOFubgbGlZy-6l-NXWolEINS_oGFdEhUjPmkhmo3jVvr6Vr6x8thRHw6Mx7o_83gx_IUwMVPHNbU6qu1ml96yEdjz259xPeQJrALxz39XBfXD56dhJ6ac5UIgQ_4/s1600/Dark+Souls+Inventory.jpg" height="250" width="400" /></a></div>
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Going back to the Dark Souls PvP scene, I've found the decision to include a weapon/armor upgrade system perplexing. From my perspective, it only achieves three things. 1) It limits one's weapon options by adding tedium to the PvP process, 2) it creates an artificial gap between players who have time/desire to grind out gear and players who don't, and 3) it results in unfair inequities between player builds. What is truly frustrating about these things is that they are totally unnecessary. They could all be fixed by a simple adjustment: make equipment upgrades a purely stat based process.<br />
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First, let me explain the problems as I see them. As things stand in Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2, fully upgraded equipment is a requirement for competitive PvP. If your weapons and armor are not leveled to the highest degree, you will be at a distinct disadvantage against the majority of opponents you come up against. This means that to have a chance, you will have to collect a large number of items (called titanite) to bring your equipment up to par, a tedious process that will mainly involve grinding enemies in certain areas of the game.<br />
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This is especially infuriating given the large number of weapons potentially available to the player. In Dark Souls 2, for example, in theory the player has many weapon types to chose from and experiment with. But in practice, the player will have to focus on only one or two of these in order to consolidate upgrade materials. The other weapons are left collecting dust as a result because without upgrading they remain vastly inferior.<br />
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Some will object here and say, "Don't expect the game to cater to casual players." The thing is, the equipment upgrade process isn't about skill, but the willingness to sink large amounts of time into a repetitive process of killing the same enemies over and over again.<br />
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This brings me to my second point. The upgrade system creates a gap between players who have fully upgraded equipment and those that don't, and what that gap essentially represents is not a difference in skill but a difference in time devoted to repetitive play. The division here is not between hardcore players and casual ones, but between players willing to engage in hours of mind-numbing gameplay and those who demand that gameplay always be engaging. The former is not something that should ever be encouraged in game design.<br />
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Finally, the current weapon upgrading system enables all sorts of loop holes through the checks and balances built into the game. Soul level, and now soul memory in Dark Souls 2, is used to match players evenly with each other. Weapon upgrading can evade this kind of check, especially when you get people "muling," i.e., gifting low level players powerfully upgraded items. It also brings imbalance to the game by allowing magic based characters to wield extremely powerful melee weapons that in theory should only be available to players who have invested in melee stats.<br />
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A switch to a purely stat based equipment system would fix all of these issues in one fell swoop. In this system, the strength of a weapon would be determined entirely by the stats it scales with. For example, a greatsword's damage output would depend entirely on a player's strength stat, or some combination of strength and dexterity. The particulars aren't important. What is key is that there is no upgrading of one's equipment independently of upgrading one's character stats.<br />
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Consider the impact this would have on the issues I raise above. The tedium of weapon upgrading would be eliminated. By simply leveling the appropriate stats, your equipment will grow with you, becoming stronger as you become stronger. The process is far more elegant, as leveling up is a natural part of the game, while titanite collecting is more an artificial graft/side-quest.<br />
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All the weapons you collected would now be viable so long as you invest in the stats that they scale with. Thus, the available range of weapon options would be dramatically widened for players, introducing more variety and more strategy to more players.<br />
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Players would no longer be divided into those willing to grind and those who don't. Instead, skill along with effective stat management would become the deciding factor of PvP encounters. It's the players' builds that should be pitted against each other, not their equipment upgrades.<br />
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Finally, muling would be rendered a moot point. It won't matter if some experienced player gives a low level player a powerful weapon, because the weapon won't be effective unless its user invests in the stats that it scales with, thus increasing their soul level and soul memory appropriately.<br />
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Indeed, this solution is so simple and so effective, it truly perplexes me that From has not already implemented it. The only reasons I can think of for them not doing it are 1) it hasn't occurred to them, or, and more likely, 2) they are worried that certain elements of the fan base would react negatively to it.<br />
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Why? From might be concerned that certain "hardcore" gamers thrive on the idea that by investing hundreds of hours into a game they will get a <i>guaranteed </i>competitive advantage over other players. I emphasize guaranteed because this advantage is not about accruing skill but about accruing goods. The difference is this: gaining skill cannot be guaranteed. One can simply remain bad at a game, no matter how long one plays it, if he/she doen't grasp certain fundamentals. Goods, however, will be gained no matter how smart or talented the player is. So what we're really talking about here is a desire for a structural advantage over other players, i.e., one built into the system itself rather than being dependent upon the talent of the player.<br />
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I'm very interested to hear others' thoughts on this. What do you think about this stat based system? Am I missing something? Let me know in the comments below.<br />
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<br />gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-38484204839640706982014-04-22T11:22:00.000-07:002014-04-22T11:23:53.477-07:00Is Dark Souls Better than Dark Souls II? A Critique of Nostalgia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihYP8PrupWSdcyzux4AaLCuYOfZPPaLR7C_YJONx8jd7r0_m0vIzC0o68ffcQOpd0AzaaxVLTwxRLLxJ-19kruFrMcEPyIm9N5CJKttjB36gHUxbL1knxJqPdHHx91wqBqvdOdOqsEMpA/s1600/Dark-Souls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihYP8PrupWSdcyzux4AaLCuYOfZPPaLR7C_YJONx8jd7r0_m0vIzC0o68ffcQOpd0AzaaxVLTwxRLLxJ-19kruFrMcEPyIm9N5CJKttjB36gHUxbL1knxJqPdHHx91wqBqvdOdOqsEMpA/s1600/Dark-Souls.jpg" height="223" width="400" /></a></div>
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Now that we are a month or so past the release of the latest entry into the Souls series, people are beginning to make comparisons between it and the previous game. Unfortunately, many of those comparisons have veered towards the negative. People have been quick to point out Dark Souls II's faults and shortcomings vis-a-vis Dark Souls. And while I agree that there are grounds for criticism, I think in many cases people are letting feelings of nostalgia get in the way of objective assessment.<br />
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More often than not, when people compare Dark Souls II to its predecessor, they are viewing the latter through rose-tinted glasses. They aren't thinking about the entire experience of Dark Souls I, but isolated moments remembered fondly, such as the run through Sen's Fortress and Anor Londo. Who could forget those swinging guillotines or those archers guarding the palace? The icing on the cake was, of course, Ornstein and Smough, perhaps the single greatest boss fight in video game history. People bring such examples up, and feel convinced that the first game was pure and simply better. And no wonder, in such unbalanced comparison (the highlights of Dark Souls versus the whole of Dark Souls II) there really is no question about which appears better. But the truth is, Sen's Fortress-Anor Londo was a mere sliver of Dark Souls, a piece of a long game with high points and low points.<br />
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The lead-up to AL is quite good, so long as you ignore the tedious nature of most of the enemies you come up against and the overall linear nature of the journey. You start in the Burg and things are pretty interesting. But then you go down and spend hours fighting rats, dogs, and frogs, baiting them to strike your shield so you can hit them back safely. If the enemy was bigger than this, you circled him and stabbed him in the back.This is pretty much the first 35 hours of Dark Souls. Block with your shield and strike, circle around your opponent and strike. Now get to a bonfire and level up and then continue down the corridor filled with more dogs, rats, and frogs. <br />
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The fact is, there is very little adventuring in Dark Souls, especially in the first half. You can briefly visit a few areas early, if you're feeling suicidal, but the reality is, these areas are designed to seriously deter you from going very far into them. Instead, you are pressured to take the "correct" path, and this is how you'll spend much of the game leading up to and including Anor Londo.<br />
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Contrast this with Dark Souls II. Once you get to Majula, there are two paths immediately obvious to you. One is clearly harder than the other, but not impossibly so. You could realistically take it on first and there are good reasons to do so, including opening another path. There's also a big, empty well in the town with platforms for you to drop down on. A simple to acquire ring will open this area to you very early as well. So near the beginning of things, you have four different paths to take, each with its own challenges and rewards. Moreover, you aren't stuck with any one of them once you start it, because you can always warp back to Majula and take another route.<br />
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This is real adventuring. Carving out one's own path through a game according to one's own inclinations and luck. There's a lot of variety in player experience in DSII compared to DSI consequently. I didn't realize there was another way to get to the Lost Bastille outside of the hawk that transports you after the Pursuer battle until way later in the game. Others found it but never fought or beat the Pursuer. Some went down into the well early. Others waited and ventured into Huntsman's Copse. All were legitimate pathways that made for unique journeys. Locked doors and sealed passageways also gave you fresh reasons to return to earlier areas--something Dark Souls really lacked.<br />
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There are challenges that come with this more open design, mainly dealing with enemy difficulty. It was easier for the creators of Dark Souls to consistently match difficulty of levels with the progression of the player, as they always had a fairly good idea of what level a player would be at a given segment of the game. DSII made this calculation much harder because it gave the player real choices. But despite this, they managed to have challenging scenarios and bosses along each path, no matter when you took it.<br />
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Speaking of bosses, Dark Souls II has some great ones. The whole line running from the Pursuer to the Ruin Sentinels to the Lost Sinner was fantastic, particularly if you do it early and don't summon. Each boss meaningfully ramped up the difficulty and provided new challenges to overcome. Other notable battles include the Charioteer, Iron King, and the Ancient Dragon. All of these were well-designed bosses that presented unique scenarios for the player to take on.<br />
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Dark Souls II has its share of less impressive bosses, but so does Dark Souls. Don't get me wrong, the Gargoyles were intense, and the Iron Golem fight had great atmosphere. But these are the exceptions, not the rule. Most of the bosses in DSI are just giant damage sponges that hit hard and move little. More often than not, the mechanics of the battle are wonky, making the confrontation feel more like a clusterfuck than the elegant dance that is achieved in many DSII encounters.<br />
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This elegance, by the way, has a lot to do with the refined combat system of DSII. The mechanics of battle are just flat out better in DSII than Dark Souls or Demon's Souls. Animations are smoother and more realistic. Sword swings are weightier and more visually discernible when incoming. The timing and mechanics of rolling are better implemented too. All around, the battle system is more precise.<br />
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Dark Souls II also manages to give us a much better second half than the first game.<br />
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And if Dark Souls II doesn't have anything to quite match Ornstein and Smough, it makes up for this with a superior second half. After O&S, you are sent back down to the deep, dark depths of the world. People forget how anti-climatic this is. Narratively, this just doesn't work. You can't repeat the rising
structure after it has happened once and get the same results. Going
back down is a drag. As a result, the second half of the game becomes a
chore. It doesn't help that the bosses and levels in this half aren't
very inspired. The main thing motivating you to continue on at this
point is the sheer investment of time and energy already sunk into the
game and the desire to see it through to the end. <br />
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It's a strange fact, but the quality of Dark Souls directly corresponds with the relative elevation of your character on the world map. The higher up you are, the better the game. <br />
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Dark Souls II does better. In its second half, there are once again choices to made about which path you will take. They lead to some exciting and devious places, and previews of the game let you know that there are some real treats yet to be seen which keeps you motivated. I was still wondering when I would find the Mirror Knight. I also knew that dragons would come into the picture sometime. Finally, I wanted to find the King. This kept the latter half of DSII a lot fresher and more engaging than the second half of Dark Souls. <br />
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Some people have taken issue with the lack of world interconnectedness in Dark Souls II. The incongruous transition from Earthen Peak and Iron Keep is the chief example brought up in this context. This is a good point, and I don't want to come off as simply dismissing it, but people really exaggerate the quality of interconnectedness in the first game. The way some people laud it, you'd think the game is very open and that you can get to all areas of the map from tons of different directions. But this isn't the case. You can see The Demon Ruins from the Tomb of the Giants, but it's not like you can get down there from that vantage. You're still bound to the preset path determined by the game's designers. So the interconnectedness exists visually, not materially. It gives the illusion of depth where there really isn't any, like a matte painting in a film.<br />
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This doesn't excuse Dark Souls II for lacking the interconnected of its predecessor, even if it is largely cosmetic, because it did clearly show the care and thought the first game's creators put into it. For me, however, the contrast highlights the need for a marriage of the two in a future game: a deeply interconnected world that also facilitates truly open exploration. <br />
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I haven't mentioned the online components of the games. Suffice it to say, the online component of Dark Souls was a real step back from Demon's Souls. The switch to P2P meant far fewer messages and phantoms appeared while playing. The balance between human and hollowed was totally under-thought in the game as well. The effect of which was to severely diminish the quality of certain PvP elements, namely invasions. DSII, by returning to a server based system and by allowing invasions regardless of the host's status rectified both these serious flaws of the predecessor to some degree. <br />
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None of this is to say that DSII doesn't have its faults. It does, certainly. But most of them are faults that are common to the series as a whole rather than unique to DSII. Both games have anti-climatic final boss fights which is something FROM has yet to getting a handle on. The series still relies too often on bosses that essentially require circling and dodging. FROM need to press themselves to come up with more innovative encounters or reduce the number of bosses and focus on making a few great ones.The same goes for level designs. They need to stop re-using the Valley of Defilement/Blighttown template and come up with something new. Also, they need to give the multiple gargoyles boss a rest, because it's no longer exciting.<br />
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If Dark Souls II has an individual fault, I would say it is a lack of commitment to some of its best and novel ideas. The torch mechanic ended up being implemented half-heartedly and consequently has no real purpose in the game. The gradual hollowing of the character upon each death (with corresponding reductions to the health bar) was a bold move that FROM significantly undercut by including the Ring of Binding early in the game. Finally, the frightening prospect of always being vulnerable to invasions never fully materialized because of the scarcity of red orbs and lack of incentives for invasions.<br />
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On the whole, however, I would argue Dark Souls II represents a substantive step-forward for the Souls series. It loses ground in some areas, such as interconnectedness and having a truly breathtaking, stand-out boss fight, but gains in more important areas such as combat depth, exploration, and online play. So let's take stock of this and try not to let our nostalgia for what never was prevent us from appreciating what now is.<br />
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<br />gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-42236122938551856042014-03-10T21:23:00.000-07:002014-03-10T21:24:54.967-07:00Some Advice on the Eve of Dark Souls II<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipNGyyPniicuhIQOqwbWTFDw9yjwcMnFy4BNtAAyfpYgEfShg3I8jBzQMhkeSI4709dAz_6YOJfsgcnCa5nNI1RP7LcdK68QQREDPhiqlbc6F0JMegiI7r5NIln9Gwa_kohmIMlNFHb-c/s1600/Dark-Souls-2-Bonfire-prayer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipNGyyPniicuhIQOqwbWTFDw9yjwcMnFy4BNtAAyfpYgEfShg3I8jBzQMhkeSI4709dAz_6YOJfsgcnCa5nNI1RP7LcdK68QQREDPhiqlbc6F0JMegiI7r5NIln9Gwa_kohmIMlNFHb-c/s1600/Dark-Souls-2-Bonfire-prayer.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
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Before you tear into your midnight release copy of Dark Souls II, consider this:<br />
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You will only be able to play this game for the first time once, and that no matter what, a certain magic will be lost for all the subsequent playthroughs.<br />
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No doubt the game will have much to reward players with in their second, third, and fourth runs. But, as the cliche goes, there's nothing quite like the first time.<br />
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For this reason, I encourage you to take it slow. Test unusual pathways, search for hidden depths, attempt unorthodox strategies. Do not try to rush to the finish line.<br />
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I've been noticing the large number of people with advanced copies posting about finishing the game. The fact that they couldn't have had it for more than a week shows me that, in their frenzy to brag about beating the final boss, they squandered the chance of losing themselves in the mysteries of a strange world. <br />
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Don't let this happen to you.<br />
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Like fine meals, great games are meant to be savored over time. Try to keep this mind when you put that game disc in the system later today.<br />
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<br />gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-31560893855321420182014-03-09T00:07:00.000-08:002014-03-09T00:16:48.849-08:00Kojima's Finest Moment: The Snake-Raiden Affair<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In my mind, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, represents the high-water mark of the series. Not only did it constitute a tremendous technical leap over its predecessor, Metal Gear Solid, it engaged in a level of narrative and ludic experimentation yet to be truly rivaled by any other game. Kojima wanted to make a statement with MGS2, and he pulled it off with panache. <br />
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Perhaps no moment in MGS2 captures its ambitions more effectively than its most infamous one. After completing an opening prologue in which the player once again takes control of the super soldier, Solid Snake, he or she finds out that for the rest of the main game, he/she will actually be playing as a slightly effeminate and utterly unknown rookie, codenamed Raiden. The move was a total bait and switch. Kojima had carefully concealed the new character from all promotional materials and previews of the game. Many fans of the first installment were outraged, others were simply baffled. It was the memorable character of Solid Snake that had made so many of them fall in love with the first game, and they fully, and reasonably, expected to reprise that role in the sequel. <br />
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I don't think it's at all a stretch to say that Kojima castrates the
gamer by making him play as Raiden. His notable femininity (long, flowing
hair, wide hips and narrow waist, soft voice and smooth skin)
all point to an essential unmanning of the player. The same can be said
for the introduction of Raiden's girlfriend, Rose, as part of the mission
team. She calls Raiden on the codec
to discuss relationship issues as often as she calls for mission
support. The emotional talk, like Raiden's body and demeanor, has the effect of making the player feel like he is losing control over the situation.<br />
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The strong reaction of so many (mostly male) players to the switch supports this reading. The guys did not like having their "Solid Snakes" taken away from them, only to be replaced by what they perceived to be an inferior and androgynous "sissy-boy." They were angered and frustrated because their power trip was stolen from them before it even got started.<br />
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The sudden introduction of Raiden in this way, however, wasn't about trolling players, nor was it merely a plot device to make Solid Snake an even more larger than life figure, as a recent Edge retrospective <a href="http://www.edge-online.com/features/retrospective-metal-gear-solid-2-sons-of-liberty/" target="_blank">claims</a>. The point was to disrupt the identificatory link between the gamer and the game, to create a critical distance between the player and the "information machine."<br />
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The discovery of Raiden was immersion breaking in the extreme. As an act of castration, it severed the player from his connection to the game. Suddenly, he is pulled out of the immediacy of action and pressed to contemplate the meaning of the moment. Amidst that spell, the player is presented with a host of themes and problems to begin to consider.<br />
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For instance, riding that elevator up to the top of the Big Shell, each and every player had ask him or herself, on some level, who is this new character?<br />
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As it turns out, Raiden represents the player's self as a gamer.<br />
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Raiden has no real combat experience. All of his training comes from VR simulation. Like the player, he is the mere image or reflection of what Solid Snake is in actuality.<br />
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Although we learn these details over the course of the game, during that elevator sequence, we actually experience their impact for ourselves in real time. We too are mere simulations of heroes, dreamers who forgot momentarily that they were in a dream, and the revelation of Raiden was like a bucket of cold water thrown in our faces.<br />
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We don't have to imagine how Raiden feels in relation to Snake because we have already undergone the same realization in relation to the game itself. And so right from the get-go, by cutting us off from the self we invested our egos in, the game involves us in the search for identity that is the center of MGS2's narrative.<br />
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The conversations about the dawn of the internet, VR, meme theory, and genetics that will follow all attempt to approach this concern from different angles. But the switch to Raiden is perhaps the moment in which the issue most powerfully impresses itself upon the player, even if for some it remains latent or unconscious.<br />
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This moment of having the rug pulled out from under player was clearly something Kojima felt passionately about. MGS2 was, without exaggeration,<i> the event</i> of the PS2 era. It was the mega-blockbuster console exclusive to end all mega-blockbuster console exclusives. Thus, the financial stakes of the game were immense. Such scenarios are not ones in which game makers and producers are wont to take chances. It would have been easy enough not to rock the boat and just give players more of the Solid Snake they were looking for. But Kojima defied them, and consequently risked alienating them as well as severely undermining the series' future, for the sake of creating a powerful moment to frame a narrative journey that would continue to the game's end.<br />
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Kojima did this at a time when hardly anyone was taking video games seriously as aesthetic objects. Consequently, through MGS2, he contributed greatly to the currently developing appreciation of the medium as more than mere entertainment. For this reason, it marks one of Kojima's and the series' finest moments.gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-32676660671397445272014-03-01T08:24:00.000-08:002014-03-01T08:24:39.549-08:00VaatiVidya's Corporate Partnership <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFFd-W69lfzWGRAOwIM25CwGCAFIrMQmJ4D-l2ooox9gKiUL589vx1t9R4YoWBicqinTBJJxkOT5Rw-e03NuWZVBGHdISe39NRX3Nmy5XmJ_1N4EjK37E0K4wQ1Chler5qaUddqQTOzgU/s1600/VaatiVidya.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFFd-W69lfzWGRAOwIM25CwGCAFIrMQmJ4D-l2ooox9gKiUL589vx1t9R4YoWBicqinTBJJxkOT5Rw-e03NuWZVBGHdISe39NRX3Nmy5XmJ_1N4EjK37E0K4wQ1Chler5qaUddqQTOzgU/s1600/VaatiVidya.jpg" height="200" width="172" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcNu_ySuwLp6B2zpQBNDx7I6oTyOel2ESCVbKLFkmXES_YnucDlDj-jhAi8MEmy5_CjJ4Z79rh59-nWJChRcCeRSGH3ERf_0IaHsvMPBOyZ_WivWsYfKY2UWyESQ5c28b9SqmOfnpoZ7g/s1600/GameStop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcNu_ySuwLp6B2zpQBNDx7I6oTyOel2ESCVbKLFkmXES_YnucDlDj-jhAi8MEmy5_CjJ4Z79rh59-nWJChRcCeRSGH3ERf_0IaHsvMPBOyZ_WivWsYfKY2UWyESQ5c28b9SqmOfnpoZ7g/s1600/GameStop.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></div>
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A great deal of controversy concerning the revelation of a partnership between the well-known Dark Souls commentator/youtuber, VaatiVidya, and videogame retailer, Gamestop, has flared up in recent weeks. The partnership was leaked through the appearance of a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p52hLLQsV8A&feature=youtu.be">video</a>, authored by VaatiVidya and "powered" by Gamestop, on the company's website. Suffice it to say, the surfacing of the video surprised a lot of people in the Souls community, including VaatiVidya himself, who apparently did not know that Gamestop was going to release it in this manner. More significantly, the video sparked a substantial backlash within the community, enough that VaatiVidya felt compelled to clarify his <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSouls2/comments/1xviz6/5_reasons_why_dark_souls_ii_is_for_everyone_dark/cff2z99">position </a>both on the reddit forums and on youtube, assuring followers that he was not paid for it and that he had not "sold out."<br />
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Let me be perfectly clear and say that I am not persuaded by VaatiVidya's explanations and re-assurances. His claim that he is not being "paid" is disingenuous and misleading. More importantly, his account overlooks the more glaring problems with his corporate partnership. He seems to think that he can go on making Souls videos in an unbiased manner, despite being joined to entities representing the financial interests of the game. This is just wrong and the signs of it are starting to show.<br />
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First, it is important to note that VaatiVidya didn't actually come clean about his relationship with GameStop until he was outed by accident. His explanation was more like damage control than genuine transparency, and if we look backwards, we can see that this was something he was doing before the revelation too. Running up to GameStop-gate, people had noticed VaatiVidya's videos beginning to take on an unusually promotional tone, including links to GameStop pre-orders in the "relevant links" section. Many, understandably, were a bit taken aback by this. It became a topic of discussion in the community. Some even posted comments about it on VaatiVidya's youtube channel.<br />
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VaatiVidya's response to these criticisms was simply to delete them from his website.<br />
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You might say he was just annoyed and decided he wasn't going to let such comments stand. But the fact is, VaatiVidya gets hundreds of comments everyday, some kind, some not so kind, and this hasn't seemed to bother him in the past. The suggestion that he was being less than 100% genuine apparently touched a nerve. Prior to the GameStop incident, one could interpret VaatiVidya's actions in a number of ways. But after the revelation of his partnership, it becomes extremely difficult not to see what did as a kind of covering up <br />
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VaatiVidya's apologia posted to youtube and reddit might be said to be equally dubious. On reddit, he made the following statement: <br />
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<i>these videos were allowed to be hosted on GameStop's channel and
webpage. I don't think it's completely fair to even say they were made
FOR GameStop, because i'm not getting paid for them and these are videos
I plan on making anyway. I was the one who pitched the concept for each
one.</i><br />
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Saying that he is "not getting paid" for these videos is a misleading equivocation on his part. It may be true that neither Namco-Bandai nor GameStop is paying him <i>money </i>for these videos. But they are paying him with <i>content</i>,<i> </i>which VaatiVidya subsequently monetizes. Through his partnership, VaatiVidya receives footage of Dark Souls II that no one else has access to. This access has value, financial value, and the proof of this is in the sky-high number of views he is getting (two to three times more than his videos usually get).<br />
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There's nothing wrong with someone getting paid for his or her creative work. It's a labor like any other. But VaatiVidya's partnering with GameStop and Namco-Bandai constitutes a different case. In legal speak, we have a "conflict of interest."<br />
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By partnering with the distributors of the game, VaatiVidya has tied his work to its corporate interests.These interests have the profitability of the game as their and first and foremost concern. All other considerations are secondary. Through his partnership, this set of values becomes his as well. It works like this: Whatever content VaatiVidya creates will inevitably be framed by his own knowledge that his special relationship with Namco-Bandai and
GameStop, and the exclusive content it gains him, depends upon his work aligning with the priorities of the corporations. If, for example, he were to decide that he didn't think
DSII was as good as the first game, or had serious complaints about
major design decisions, and posted a video about it, Namco-Bandai
certainly wouldn't provide him with any early access in the future.
VaatiVidya knows this and the knowing of it can't help but affect his
assessment of the game, even in ways that he might not be conscious of.
Saying something that might negatively impact the game's profitability
could cost VaatiVidya real financial gain, and there's simply no way
that this situation wouldn't have some bearing on his work, even if on
an unconscious level. Thus the corporate interests in the game, the interests that place profit above all else, become VaatiVidya's interest, whether he wants them to or not.<br />
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As a gamer and fan of the Souls series, I of course have a different set
of interests (as am sure you do too). While I certainly wish From and
Namco-Bandai well financially, I do not place their bottom line above my
own appreciation of the game as an aesthetic object. Accordingly, I feel free
to critique the game (positively or negatively) as I see fit, with no
ulterior motives about profit influencing those judgments. By partnering with Namco-Bandai and GameStop, however, VaatiVidya has lost that ability by making profit one of the deciding factors for his critical appreciation of the game. Consequently, he will have to judge the game according to a metric that is alien to the pure enjoyment of the game as an aesthetic object. For him, it becomes a commodity to be sold, and when he speaks about it, he does so with this condition in mind.<br />
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The upshot is that VaatiVidya has severely compromised his own capacity to evaluate the next and future Souls games in an unbiased manner. <br />
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Believing that VaatiVidya could just go on making the videos 'he wants' after partnering with Namco-Bandai and GameStop is just wishful thinking. His own assertions to the contrary are naive at best. The fact of the matter is, he has bound his work to the outlook held by the money-making side of Souls series and as a result, his work will have to incorporate that outlook into his own.<br />
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There's a reason why we don't want a judge to decide a case involving members of his family. It's the same reason you don't want a journalist reporting on a company in which he is financially invested. Bias is unavoidable in such situations, and bias unavoidably taints people's perspectives.VaatiVidya has tainted his relation to the Souls series by partnering with forces that value its profit above all else. His opinions will be informed by theirs. And as a result, he can no longer speak to the community simply as a fellow gamer. Instead, he now represents the corporate arm of the Souls series, and all the values that come with it. Take that as you will.<br />
<br />gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-44187566865729344532014-02-12T16:09:00.000-08:002014-02-12T21:24:51.818-08:00Dark Souls II: The Death of a Dream<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0QKPq2mWfisFT5qK7tmP7viLFO4bBmq5GNZqPS87-ru1UORqeBOo7FWSt9jAoRWTuqUlDJKNQaZLAXe8gkP-y49Gqivtcg3zB4fI3EQrR-6G9Hoaa_MMrHk9OcNf8vARVk8VL_4QKhC8/s1600/Soulless.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0QKPq2mWfisFT5qK7tmP7viLFO4bBmq5GNZqPS87-ru1UORqeBOo7FWSt9jAoRWTuqUlDJKNQaZLAXe8gkP-y49Gqivtcg3zB4fI3EQrR-6G9Hoaa_MMrHk9OcNf8vARVk8VL_4QKhC8/s1600/Soulless.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
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The recent announcement of preorder bonus items for Dark Souls II disturbs me on multiple levels. Superficially, I'm concerned that certain players will gain an unfair advantage (which they essentially bought) by wielding these weapons, undermining the "achievement through perseverance" ethic that defines the Souls series. But more deeply, I'm troubled by what the bonus says is happening to the series.<br />
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I won't beat around the bush, but state straight-out what I mean. The Souls series seems to be being stripped of it's grassroots character. Instead, it is being transformed into a market-driven commodity that is more concerned with profit than it is with the integrity of its game world.<br />
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This shift from fan-base to corporate-base has been presaged by several announcements leading up to the preorder bonus. First, the maker's (From Software) partnership with the conglomerate Namco-Bandai for the sequel was ominous. Then, the director's mention of increased "accessibility" set off bells warning of corporate meddling. Many were later assuaged when journalists started reporting that the game was still difficult. But shortly after this, a bombshell hit when From revealed that Dark Souls II would feature <a href="http://gamephilosophe.blogspot.com/2014/01/will-voice-chat-ruin-dark-souls-ii.html">voice-chat</a> and mechanisms for facilitating co-op with friends, both changes in design which seemed to go against the core aesthetic of isolation that defined the earlier games.<br />
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The preorder bonus is thus just the most recent indication of the series losing its soul. More specifically, it is one of many signs pointing to the intrusion of for-profit ideologies into the very core of the game where once they did not exist.<br />
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In Dark Souls, for example, there was the Drake Sword. Though it could be acquired early in the game and would give players a distinct advantage, it was an in-game item only. It could only be acquired through gameplay, either
discovering oneself or learning about it through others. The pre-order items are of another class. They are purchased by the player before the game even begins, not played for. The fact that you can also find the items in game (as From has stated) doesn't change this.<br />
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The difference is this: the Drake Sword was not
COMMODIFIED. The preorder bonus items are commodified. The Drake Sword was a special item whose acquisition was completely
bounded and contained within the artistic unity of the game and the
free community of players that grew up around it. The preorder bonus comes from a system of values external to the game world and its community, a space governed by capital, i.e., private ownership, profit, and marketing, which the game community has little to no direct control over.<br />
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The contrast here between pure in-game items and pre-release DLC is of course one that has been the subject of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUrbMDt5t4A">much debate</a>. For the Souls series in particular, however, it poses a special threat to one of its defining attributes: its community-led distribution. The Souls series has one of the most active communities in gaming history. Its success has largely been driven by a fan base motivated by personal passions rather than profit. The preorder bonus betokens a turning point in which that collective, community-based ownership of the series' past is being subordinated to the private aims of its corporate future.<br />
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The signs of this sea change are written all over the wall. Many of the game's most prolific and established community members have already been co-opted. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/EpicNameBro">Epic Name Bro</a>, one the biggest voices in the community, has been officially silenced due to his paid work on a forthcoming strategy guide. Another major contributor known for his lore videos, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86Hp4Tt0V4A">VaatiVidya</a>, after being invited by Namco-Bandai to try out a preview demo of the game, is now effectively doing PR videos for the company in which he dismisses legitimate concerns about the questionable changes to the series and tells fans to go preorder the game now! Other prominent community members have been invited to special preview events that subtly pressure them to talk up the game afterwards. Whereas once these people were free to express themselves as individuals within the community, they are now in part owned by and serve the corporate interests taking charge of the game.<br />
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It's sad that this is happening. Some might say it was inevitable. The Souls series could be said to be victim of its own success. The pure, genuine love of fans that propelled Demons' Souls and Dark Souls to Game of the Year status has come to the attention of capital and it is working hard to convert that affection into cash. We all know how it will end. The people that see Dark Souls II as a way to make money will never understand what made the game such a hit without their big advertising budgets and market research. They'll simply cannibalize the good-will of the fans until nothing is left but a hollow husk.<br />
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So begins the death of a dream in which art triumphs over greed. It was certainly nice while it lasted.<br />
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<br />gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-40790272476296009282014-02-02T18:29:00.000-08:002014-02-02T20:42:08.389-08:00Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker Makes No Sense!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEili5C7-wYLPTKgq3EiNIap0qk0PR-DBAOUVk828fhkTmKJE28iAinkL7WqKyC-jkKLHFE_RJOvdHKHoOnyiQRPFw7Ok9veT9iwwRvYb0v0YyLu-SPh_MvfrrmatFXoWRnQ_XtF2nbZn1s/s1600/Peace+Walker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEili5C7-wYLPTKgq3EiNIap0qk0PR-DBAOUVk828fhkTmKJE28iAinkL7WqKyC-jkKLHFE_RJOvdHKHoOnyiQRPFw7Ok9veT9iwwRvYb0v0YyLu-SPh_MvfrrmatFXoWRnQ_XtF2nbZn1s/s1600/Peace+Walker.jpg" height="226" width="400" /></a></div>
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I just finished Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker on PS3 and I have to say that the game has left me completely baffled (and frankly concerned) about the narrative future of the series.<br />
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The premise and motives behind the game's story simply make no sense. I say this fully aware of the fact that Metal Gear games always border on the absurd and wacky. But no matter how crazy the other games were, at the very least, they were intelligible, even if they required a great suspension of disbelief. Peace Walker is something different. It defies comprehension. <br />
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OK, on the most basic level, the story of Peace Walker goes something like this: Big Boss, after completing a mission that forced him to kill his former mentor, has become disillusioned with Cold War politics and the nation-state system. Out of this disillusionment, he founds an organization called MSF (Militaires San Frontieres) and its headquarters, an offshore facility dubbed Mother Base. The latter operates as a kind of haven for disaffected soldiers and mercenaries searching (I guess) for like-minded amoralists to hang out with. <br />
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In the game, Big Boss gets involved in a series of operations in Central American (in the mid 70s). The KGB and a new secret organization, Cipher, are involved in the development of a fully automated nuclear deterrence robot that is supposed to be necessary for detente because mere humans don't have the courage/evilness within them to annihilate the planet. Thus they need a machine to do it for them. Classic Metal Gear hijinks ensue, people are double and triple crossed. By the end, Big Boss has stopped at least three nuclear strikes against the United States from happening and acquired his very own Metal Gear prototype, Metal Gear Zeke.<br />
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Now none of this is that difficult to follow, at least when it's laid out. It's when you probe deeper into the matter that things become much less clear.<br />
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For instance, what exactly is MSF? According to Big Boss and others, it's an organization without nationality, without a philosophy, without ideology. This is confusing on a number of levels. First off, it is a contradiction in terms. An organization, to quote Merriam-Webster, is "a company, business, club, etc., that is formed for a particular purpose." MSF, following Big Boss's definition, lacks such a purpose (this is what an ideology or philosophy would be). So MSF is an organization with no organizing principle.<br />
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Some might object that MSF does have a purpose. Big Boss says (more than once) that they fight for themselves now. OK, fine, but that's not a organizational principle. That's not a code that an organization can function by. That's willy-nilly saying do whatever the hell you want. Good luck running an organization with that notion!<br />
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There are a lot of other issues that hang on this lack of direction. Why are the mercenaries willing to serve MSF? What's in it for them? Big Boss talks a lot about the "freedom" that MSF provides, but never defines concretely what that freedom actually entails. The freedom to do what? Follow Big Boss's orders? Are these guys getting paid? I'm not even going to get into the absurd manner in which you recruit these people.<br />
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How does MSF fund itself? Does it take contracts? If so, doesn't that compromise its free-wheeling philosophy of no philosophies. Wouldn't that make MSF nothing more than a tax shelter for hired killers? If not, if they do discriminate between clients for moral reasons, how would they do that? Wouldn't that require a philosophy of some sort, i.e., a belief system or, yes, an i-d-e-o-l-o-g-y.<br />
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The biggest problems, however, involve Big Boss's motivations. What is he after exactly in this game? Why does he get entangled in the plots taking place in Central America? Again, there is a lot of talk of freedom (always in the abstract, never concrete), distrust of nation-state politics, and peace. But I don't see how a rogue military organization is supposed to help this situation. Are they supposed to act as a counter-force to the super-powers? Are they going to police the world and impose a new global order? But wouldn't such things simply replicate the authoritarian structures of power that Big Boss opposes? I don't see what Big Boss could be thinking here. What's more, Big Boss doesn't seem to know either. He just repeats the same platitudes again and again.<br />
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I suspect Big Boss's lack of clarity stems form the inherent lack of sense in the concept of MSF. This really does trouble me, mainly for what it bodes for the future. The next Metal Gear game (Ground Zeroes) follows shortly after the events of Peace Walker. As a result, I don't see how it will avoid getting bogged down in the same nonsensical premise that undermines the narrative of its immediate predecessor. That would be bad. Peace Walker was originally a PSP game. As such, I can see being a little forgiving about its production values in terms of scripting. But it is canon and its ideas and events can't simply be pushed aside in the next game. My worry is that Ground Zeroes (and the Phantom Pain after it), won't be able to put the pieces back together, so to speak, and Peace Walker's nonsense will infect the future games and make them stupid at best, nigh incomprehensible at worst.<br />
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But what do you think? Were you able to make more sense of MSF and Big Boss's motivations? Do you see ways that they could be made more intelligible in Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain? Post your thoughts in the comments section below.<br />
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<br />gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-65717806735373386452014-01-31T13:10:00.002-08:002014-01-31T13:15:27.208-08:00Will Voice-Chat Ruin Dark Souls II?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSETWNBg8YQiYlkfJ98sdsRxD5LWBjjDb86QjhoMuamFFPAQPR9xNWjlhY04zEPBPTxLP9Sa1z7HpjUefghaineHFe85ethgUKfHFJZOYvCKHvXoSpNq7PoQ6M_eYJGpEHeVT33-7cRj0/s1600/dark-souls-2+Arrowed+Knight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSETWNBg8YQiYlkfJ98sdsRxD5LWBjjDb86QjhoMuamFFPAQPR9xNWjlhY04zEPBPTxLP9Sa1z7HpjUefghaineHFe85ethgUKfHFJZOYvCKHvXoSpNq7PoQ6M_eYJGpEHeVT33-7cRj0/s1600/dark-souls-2+Arrowed+Knight.jpg" height="195" width="400" /></a></div>
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The recent demonstrations of Dark Souls II to select members of the press and Souls community members has produced a shocking revelation: Dark Souls II will feature online voice-chat between players. I think this is horrible development. In a moment, I'll explain why. But first, some context:<br />
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According to what's being reported by people who attended demonstrations in San Francisco and London held in the last two days, players will have the option to enable (or disable) voice communications. Apparently this feature applies only to co-op, not invasions, but the matter isn't entirely clear at the moment. At any rate, instead of host and summons working together mutely to overcome a boss, they will be able to speak to each other in the game, coordinating moves, making plans, or telling jokes.<br />
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So what's wrong with that? Where do I begin? For starters, it undoes one of the most appealing aesthetic dimensions of Dark Souls - it's sense of isolation - and replaces it with mundane chatter. Whereas in Dark Souls it was entirely up to my imagination to flesh out the character of someone playing with me, From has decided to alleviate me of this burden by letting that player's voice come through my TV's speakers. Whoever ends up speaking will never live up to what I would produce myself simply by dwelling on the subject.<br />
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Someone might object that you can turn voice-chat off and thus solve the problem. My response is that such a solution is naive and does not think through this shift adequately. Allowing voice-chat will create a new norm and a new set of expectations that come with it. Summoned players/hosts will likely come to expect you to speak to them through the tool. If you have it off, they will probably ask you to turn it on. Going through this rigamarole every time you join with someone will simply become tedious and eventually, you will likely be worn down by it.<br />
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Furthermore, turning voice-chat off is essentially imposing a handicap on yourself vis-a-vis other players. No one can think that being able to speak to other players in co-op wouldn't help them take on enemies, bosses, and invaders. So turning it off is deciding to give all the players who use it a distinct advantage over you.<br />
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My point here is that those who think that voice-chat is just an individual decision without further repercussions are mistaken. Dark Souls is determined just as much by the choices of the community that plays it as it is by what the individual player does in his or her own game. If something changes in that community, it affects the individual player too.<br />
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But what I list above isn't what is worst of all for me. More troubling than anything else, in my view, is what the introduction of voice-chat does to the artistic integrity of the Souls series.<br />
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From has opposed the incorporation of direct vocal communication between players since Demon's Souls. This opposition hasn't been easy for them as it has been criticized by numerous players and journalists for just as long.<br />
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So what happened? I think it's fairly obvious. From caved to the pressure. And as a consequence, they've lost sight of what set the Souls games apart from so many other products.<br />
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You see, unlike practically ever other game designer out there today, with Demon's Souls (and Dark Souls after it) From created <i>works of art</i>. What I mean by this that the Souls games were not designed around what From thought gamers liked or wanted, but what they believed <i>gamers needed</i>. They had a message, a meaning, that they were striving to communicate to us. They wanted the Souls games to reveal something within ourselves that we weren't aware of presently. You can't do this without frustrating the desire of the gamer in some way, because that is the only way to show someone something that he or she didn't already know about him or herself. Many who still complain today that it was all so excessive haven't grasped this point. True art requires bravery and conviction because it challenges the status quo and accepted wisdom. Design by popular decree can never achieve this because it moves in just the opposite direction. Just think what would have happened if Leonardo had used a survey to determine what features should be given to the Mona Lisa.<br />
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The lack of voice-chat was an integral part of the artistic expression of the Souls games. It served as a beautiful metaphor for the ghost-like relationships that characterize the digital age in general. So long as From stayed true to that message, it rang clearly through the silence of our collective isolation. Now, it seems that message is about be drowned out by the hubbub of the common rabble.<br />
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What do you think?<br />
<br />gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-59949039610845870902014-01-20T19:32:00.002-08:002014-01-20T20:16:42.931-08:00Darks Souls 2 Covenants Speculation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The achievements list for Dark Souls 2 has leaked and what it reveals is certainly intriguing. In this post, I will discuss and speculate about what the list tells us about the covenants we will find in the game.<br />
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Firstly, nine covenants are listed: Brilliant, Protector, Sanguinary, Meek, Gnawing, Clangerous, Ancients, Fittest, and Abysmal. These are not necessarily the proper names of the covenants but the achievement titles associated with them.<br />
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From the brief descriptions and images attached to the achievements, it is clear that the Brilliant covenant is the new Warriors of Sunlight covenant, Protector is the Blue Sentinels (defenders who come to the rescue of invaded players), Sanguinary is the new Darkwraith covenant (invaders), and the Meek is the covenant that receives aid from the Protectors.These covenants have largely been confirmed since the beta.<br />
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The Clangerous covenant, though not in the beta, is very likely the bell guardian covenant revealed in past interviews (the achievement icon for it depicts a bell). Members of this covenant are said to be summoned to defend a bell against players needing to ring it.<br />
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What about the rest? We know of two more covenants that have been described. One is the Mirror Knight covenant, the members of which can be summoned to assist the Mirror Knight boss. The other, reported on in the January issue of Edge Magazine, is a covenant that targets players who have successfully invaded and killed several hosts consecutively.<br />
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So which is which? My guess is that the covenant of the Ancients is the Mirror Knight covenant. My reasoning here is that the Mirror Knight is a giant and the giants are known to be an ancient race in Dark Souls. I think the covenant of the Fittest is the avenger covenant. Why? Because they must be the fittest warriors if they are to take on the game's most talented invaders.<br />
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I think the Gnawing covenant is a likely successor to the Gravelord covenant for Dark Souls 1. In literature and film, rats are associated with entering graves and feeding on the dead, so gnawing is a fitting description for a covenant of necrophiliacs.<br />
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This leaves the Abysmal covenant. Here, your guess is as good as mine. I don't know what this could be.<br />
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What do you think? Post your own theories below in the comments.<br />
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<br />gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-5928692849167536702014-01-13T12:14:00.000-08:002014-01-13T15:06:08.273-08:00Dark Souls 2 Will Be Harder Than the Beta<br />
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If you thought the closed Beta for Dark Souls II was too easy, you're in for a treat. The actually game will be harder. According to Darks Souls II producer, Takeshi Miyazoe, in a recent article from Edge Magazine, player data from the beta proved the game's initial set-up was not challenging enough. The final product's difficulty will thus be increased. But how much harder will they make it? This is something that From is still debating, but the generally sense is that the final game's difficulty will be closer to the "Hard Difficulty" mode initialized towards the end of the second NA beta test.<br />
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I for one am excited by this news. I played both sessions of the NA beta, and I definitely thought the Hard mode made the game more thrilling.<br />
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What do you think? Should From make the beta harder or was it hard enough before the difficulty was raised?<br />
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<br />gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-11667737644645183082013-11-27T22:58:00.006-08:002013-11-27T22:59:54.566-08:00Why Dark Souls Is So Hard<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Before playing the Souls games, if someone would
have told me that they wanted to design a game that was not only difficult, but
also would force players to repeat lengthy sections of game already played
through after dying, I would have said it was a bad idea. That sort of
game-design, I thought, was an inferior relic of the past. That's how NES games
were made. And that was an unfortunate consequence of the technology of the
time, not a virtue. Forcing players to repeat challenging sections of a game
today is just unnecessarily punishing and would result in nothing more than
pain and frustration.<br />
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All that is actually true. But what I forgot (until I played Demon's Souls) was
that those old NES games, with all their faults, achieved something that modern
games have lost sight of. Along with the pain and frustration comes powerful
feelings, including fear, anxiety, excitement, and elation. These emotions are
not produced by narrative (storytelling, cinematic, etc.), but by the game
design itself in which difficulty and punishment play an integral part.<br />
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The Souls series is infamous for their killer difficulty, and plenty of people
have claimed this as part of its charm and what makes it so unique and fun. The
thing is, I think people tend to get this slightly wrong when they describe the
design principle at play. People like to say that it's all about the joy of
overcoming a challenge. Actually, I think it's more like the relief that comes
from conquering a fear. In other words, Souls games are more about the things
that take place within, rather than without.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">You see, when you make it to the Tower Knight, the effect of his massive frame
depends a great deal on the fact that you've just survived a gauntlet of
crossbowmen, armored knights, snarling dogs, and a fire-breathing dragon. That
battle was tough enough, and no doubt, you've probably died more than once on
your way. Passing through that last fog-gate, all this struggle fleshes out and
frames the impending confrontation, giving it special meaning. Essentially, it
invests the Tower Knight with the power to punish you, i.e., the power to send
you back all the way to the beginning of the level. The consequence of this is
real tension. You know that the Tower Knight can do more that just bash your
character with his giant spear. Much more significantly, he can demolish<i> </i>what
you've accomplished up to this point. And that is far more intimidating.<br />
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It's interesting to think about how much bigger-budget games try to evoke
feelings from the players through dynamic set-pieces, compelling narratives,
and professional voice actors. The aim of these devices is to draw the player
in, and in certain cases, they prove effective. But Dark Souls and Demon's
Souls achieve a deep immersion by simply giving the player a real stake in the
outcome of in-game events. The difference here is that narrative conventions
can only invest players in illusory goals (save the world, for example, that
exist outside the player), while Souls games invest the player in goals that
pertain to his/her actual self (master your fear and defeat the boss or be
banished to the beginning and lose your progress).<br />
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I think this is a principle of game-design that reveals itself in many parts of
the Souls games. It makes sense, for example, that narrative is largely absent
from the games. Bits and pieces can be discovered through item descriptions and
NPC dialogues. But nothing resembling a story with a plot is presented at any
point. As a result, players invent their own stories for what is taking place,
which makes them own what takes place in the game in a way that a
narrative-driven game cannot. The same logic applies to the lack of explanation
regarding game-mechanics. You have to discover these things on your own, and as
a result, these discoveries become part of your self, and thus further immerse
you into the game world.<br />
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Of course, none of this would work if the game were not fundamentally
well-made. Crushing difficulty turns into apathy or despair if the world it
takes place in doesn't have an underlying consistency. The Souls games have
this, and so they succeed where other difficult games fail. The tools for
survival must be present to you from the beginning, and the basic rules of the
game must never change. Dark Souls and Demon's Souls maintain this contract
with the player at virtually all times, and as a result, the player has faith
in his ability to persevere to the end.<br />
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So to all those interested individuals wondering if they should try one of
these games (but feeling a little intimidated by all the talk of difficulty),
understand that such feelings are the point. You're supposed to feel
intimidated, when you play these games. This is also the reward, because these
negative emotions tie in directly to the positive ones you will experience
after you overcome your fear.<br />
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The only downside to this structure is that Souls games are never so good as
the first time you play them. No matter how many NG+'s you play to, the Tower
Knight will never be quite be so terrifying as he was on NG. The same goes for
Ornstein and Smough and the Four Kings. Sure, they get "harder," in
the sense that they hit harder and have more health. But the "hardness"
of the Souls games is really only in service to the feelings that they evoke,
and those feelings also depend on the dread that comes from knowing what's
behind you and NOT knowing what's coming next. <br />
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I'm looking forward to Dark Souls II, but am also wondering if it will provide
the same highs that the other Souls games did. I played the beta, and it was
certainly challenging. But, though I like the open-world design of Dark Souls,
I feel the bonfire system sometimes undermines the tension of boss fights by
making it too easy to return to them after dying. In some ways, Demon's Souls
did this better. What do you think? Can Dark Souls II bring back those feelings
of terror and triumph elicited by its predecessors? </span>gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-69558261926682463742013-11-23T22:04:00.000-08:002013-11-23T22:08:52.903-08:00Dark Souls and The Legacy of The Legend of Zelda II<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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People often ask about the relationship between Dark Souls and The Legend of Zelda series. Are they similar? Is Dark Souls a modern day equivalent of Zelda? In what ways are they different? And so on. Experienced players are typically dismissive of the comparison. They are quick to point out how much easier The Legend of Zelda games are compared to the crushing difficulty of Dark Souls. They stress how Dark Souls' combat is precise and tactical while Zelda's is loose and imprecise, or how Dark Souls is dark and Zelda is not, or how Dark Souls is cryptic and mysterious and Zelda is not. The overall message being that Dark Souls has little to do with Zelda.<br />
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It seems to me that this attitude reflects a lack of perspective concerning the Zelda series. Perhaps others are thinking of games such as Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, or Skyward Sword. No doubt, these games are a far cry from Dark Souls. But are the naysayers thinking of or remembering Zelda II: The Adventure of Link when pooh-poohing the comparison? I don't think they are. Because if they were, they would not be so dismissive.<br />
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Here's why. Zelda II is hard, really hard, and unforgiving as hell. The game regularly throws enemies at you that are both aggressive and devastating. These foes are tricky and each requires unique tactics to overcome. Zelda II has no qualms about forcing you to pass through gauntlet after gauntlet of such opponents with no respite along the way. And Zelda II will tear all your experience points away from you when you die in these battles--which you will, a lot.<br />
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Let me give you an example. Death Mountain: you may have encountered this location in other Zelda games, but you have no idea what it means in Zelda II unless you've played it. You go up against it pretty early in. Essentially, it's a maze of caves filled with bats, fire-breathing dragon skulls, and axe tossing beasts, among other fiends, that will murder you in a heartbeat. There are no clues about what direction you should be taking and no checkpoints to save your progress along the way. The design, moreover, is simply sadistic. You'll attack a slow moving creature on the ground only to be suddenly knocked back by a flying bat which then opens you to the attack of the slow moving bugger you were about to complacently kill. In another segment of the mountains, the game puts you in a narrow corridor guarded by a psychotic dino-soldier who charges you down. Each encounter is tense and requires thinking on your feet as well as strategic planning upon return visits. Because you will die, many times, in those caves.<br />
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Dying hurts in Zelda II. Not only do all the enemies you killed re-spawn, you also lose all your experience points that you gained by defeating baddies. Those points are gone, forever. And it's a major blow. The experience points are your only means for leveling up your abilities (strength, defense, and magic). Without them, you face a much steeper challenge with later-stage enemies.<br />
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Sound familiar? Indeed, it should. Zelda II, like Dark Souls, is a constant struggle against the system, an endurance match against the toughest of adversaries in a game world where death has real consequences. You die and you lose what you've accumulated. What souls are to Dark Souls, points are to Zelda II. The main difference between them being that Dark Souls is more forgiving because it at least gives you a chance to retrieve your souls by returning to the site of your execution.<br />
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Combat in Zelda II is likewise deep and meaningful. It doesn't feature equipment loads or scaling damage. It's more basic than that. You start with sword and shield. You have a standing thrust, a kneeling thrust, and a jump attack. Later you add a down-stab and an up-stab as well as a number of spells. Despite the simplicity of this arrangement, the depth of combat is surprisingly good. You really have to think and strategize your approach to each enemy. The complexity of enemy attacks isn't cheap or unfair because the controls are so tight. Precision timing is both possible and essential. When you die, it's never because the game is poorly designed. It's because you made a mistake which you need to learn from and try again.<br />
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Other similarities exist between Zelda II and Dark Souls on the aesthetic level. Defeating a boss in Zelda II brings the same profound sense of satisfaction that it does in Dark Souls. Getting to the boss always involves a grueling battle through his palace and its many guardians. So once you finally make it to the big-bad, your heart is pounding with the thought of having to pass through that meat-grinder all over again if you fail (which you probably will). Each boss itself is unique and requires special tactics to defeat. Figuring out an effective approach is half the battle. But the challenge adds to the emotional impact of the fight, so that when you finally overcome it, you feel like you've really accomplished something through your determination and skill.<br />
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Zelda II is also quite dark. From the opening title screen to the game over message filled with Gannon's laughing voice, everything oozes foreboding. The overworld is creepy. The towns are eerie. The people are like lifeless zombies. There's no place in Zelda II where you feel relaxed or at peace. The menace of the game fills every moment with a haunting dread. And yet, much like Dark Souls, you feel compelled to dwell in this space despite how unwelcoming it feels.<br />
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I have to mention the NPC's as well. Their cryptic hints such as, "If all else fails, use fire," or "I am Error," are equal to Dark Souls must obscure moments.<br />
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Without a doubt, there are many important differences between the two titles. But these two games share a deep kinship at their cores that involves complex, demanding, and serious gameplay defined by uncompromising difficulty, tight sword and sorcery combat controls, unguided exploration, and foreboding atmosphere. You end up walking away with the same feeling by playing either game because of this shared ethos. In a way, Zelda II is an ancestor to Dark Souls that represents the newer game in incipient form.<br />
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<br />gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-89398822264408189932013-11-12T21:31:00.002-08:002013-11-12T21:43:53.922-08:00Dark Souls 2 Beta Impressions<br />
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After two rounds of the North American online beta test for Dark Souls 2, a number of details (some factual, others suggestive) have revealed themselves to players. Many of the established changes in the game (progressive health bar reductions, invasions whether one is human or hollow, dual-wielding) have been discussed extensively by others (cf. the Dark Souls 2 thread on Reddit). In this post, I want to focus on some more speculative insights I've gleaned from the beta experience.<br />
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One thing that stands out to me in the beta is that From seems to have rethought the mechanics of PvP. A new (or revisited, depending on how you see it--more in a second) emphasis on stunning/breaking your opponents guard seems to be in effect. Using a longsword, I found that a successful hit with that weapon would momentarily stun the target, providing an opening to land several more hits. The same thing would happen to my character when an opponent successfully landed a hit from his weapon.<br />
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Some people are (pejoratively) referring to this dynamic as the return of "stun-locking" from Demon's Souls, in which players were able to hold an opponent captive with repeated strikes from which the only escape was a glitch called "toggle-escape." I, however, really liked the new mechanic and thought it really sharpened the relative advantages of wielding larger or smaller weapons. Each battle felt more like a deadly dance, waiting for the right time to land a blow. Because a successful strike prevents the target from immediately retaliating, greater significance is given to precise and calculated timing, and the new, slowed-down pace of attacks in the beta heightens this. It's also not a cheap and easy victory for whoever gets the first lucky strike. A revised stamina meter (which depletes quite rapidly) prevents you from getting more than a few hits on your opponent before you run out of steam. In other words, no indefinite "stun-locking" here is possible.<br />
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Another development I noticed in my playthroughs concerns boss design. Many players are complaining that the bosses in the beta were too easy. While I agree that they weren't the most challenging bosses every thrown in the player's path in the Souls series, I think this complaint misses what is most significant about these bosses. If the bosses in the beta weren't Ornstein and Smough part 2, they both set themselves apart from the bosses of Dark Souls by involving the player in unique gameplay mechanics that were largely absent from that game (but were more evident in Demon's Souls).<br />
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Whereas many of the Dark Souls bosses seemed to be cut from the same cloth (and by this I mean they all involved essentially the same gameplay mechanic of timed dodging and striking. See my post on <a href="http://gamephilosophe.blogspot.com/2013/11/demons-souls-better-than-dark-souls.html">Demon's Souls vs. Dark Souls </a>for more), the bosses in the beta were each uniquely designed and pressed for unique responses from the player. In the case of of the skeleton lord, it was important for the player to utilize his/her environment to both provide cover from attacks as well as space and break-up the assault of the enemy horde. In the fight against the charioteer boss environment and enemy design once again meshed, but this time to create a different experience. The circular corridor with alcoves led to a more patient style of play involving observing and waiting. The pauses in movement caused by the passing of the charioteer brilliantly created a moment in which players were inspired to leave clues for others. Eventually, you found the "trick" to stop the charioteer, after which a tense battle between you and an undead stallion commenced.<br />
<br />
Now, I'm not saying these are the best bosses battles ever conceived in a Souls game. My point is that they point to a new emphasis on making the boss battles unique encounters that stand out from regular play. Personally, I like this direction and am excited to see more.<br />
<br />
The last thing I would like to discuss is the matter of difficulty modes. In the last hour of the beta test on Nov. 10, a bulletin was streamed at the top of the screen stating the beta was now entering "high difficulty mode." Some have wondered, anxiously, if this is some indication that Dark Souls 2 will feature optional difficulty settings. We were assured by the game's developers that Dark Souls 2 would feature no easy mode. But they never said it wouldn't have a hard mode!<br />
<br />
In my opinion, I don't think the higher difficulty "mode" indicates a difficulty setting will be present in the next Dark Souls game. First, the exact message streamed was this:<br />
<br />
<i>The "High Difficulty Mode" will be performed from now. This is to test
the difficulty balance. This test will be used for the difficulty
setting verification later. Thank you for your cooperation.</i><br />
<br />
Notice that the term High Difficulty Mode is in scare quotes. The function of scare quotes is the distance the author from the usual meaning of a word or phrase. It's like saying, "I don't really mean this." Second, incorporating a high difficulty setting (rather than an easy mode) might not go against what From has promised if we take that promise in the utmost literal way, but doing so would be so blatantly manipulative and abusive that I don't think From would go there.<br />
<br />
Then again, the square quotes argument depends upon whoever sent the message knowing its correct usage. More and more native English speakers seem to lack an understanding of it and I've seen them misused on many occasions as markers of emphasis (as if they were italics), and to quite hilarious effects. For example, I once drove by a billboard for a restaurant that advertised its "good coffee." Whoever did it, clearly thought they were highlighting the term. But technically they were communicating that they didn't actually think their coffee was good (or that it was a euphemism for something else). Judging by the bulletin's odd grammar ("will be performed from now"), it's hard to put too much faith in the meaning of the scare quotes.<br />
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<br />gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1236681404534146068.post-75478019452255625952013-11-05T20:11:00.003-08:002013-11-05T20:16:17.927-08:00Demon's Souls Better than Dark Souls: A Unique Perspective<div class="usertext-body">
<div class="md">
I've recently returned to
playing Demon's Souls after being enamored of Dark Souls for months,
and I have to say (though I didn't think it while playing Dark Souls)
that in important ways, Demon's Souls is the better game.<br />
<br />
Now I know this topic has been discussed endlessly, and I've been
reading various threads on it, and though I've read lots comparing the
games in terms of graphics, atmosphere, and nexus vs bonfires, I haven't
found anyone articulating what I perceive to be major differences in
enemy design.<br />
<br />
In brief, Demon's Souls has superior enemy design. The superiority
comes from the fact that there are so many enemies in the game that
require very unique and thoughtful responses on the part of the player.
By contrast, Dark Souls tends to throw enemies at the player that all
require the same basic responses that are more twitch based than
cerebral.<br />
<br />
Case in point, the Mind Flayers in Demon's Souls. Successfully
combating them requires using the environment to your advantage and
monitoring their patrol patterns and than finding the right moment to
leap out from the shadows and strike them down. When you get to 3-1, you
haven't encountered anything like this yet, and as result, most players
are quickly shown that the direct confrontation they used with other
enemies doesn't work in this case. You have to stop and think and
deliberately plan your moves well in advance.<br />
<br />
When you consider the bosses of Demon's Souls, this intellectual
component of the game comes through even stronger. Many of the bosses in
Demon's require you to find a weakness in your opponent and use it to
your advantage.<br />
<br />
The Tower Knight is monstrously big, but his size is
also his liability. You realize it and run between his legs and attack
from behind. Remember that oh-so satisfying sound when his heel
decompresses? That was the satisfying confirmation that you've solved
part of the enigma that his hulking frame represents. Other bosses, such
as Fool's Idol, Flamelurker, the Maneaters, Phalanx, Penetrator, and
Old Hero, continue this idea of boss as complex problem by throwing the
player into unique situations that call for unique, thoughtful
responses.<br />
<br />
When does this happen in Dark Souls? The archers at Anor Londo could
be an example. Ornstein and Smough and the Bell Gargoyles are definitely
brilliantly designed boss battles that stand up to anything in Demon's.
But beyond these examples, I feel there isn't much more to find. Too
many of the boss battles (and regular enemies as well) in the game
devolve into the same set of tactics of rolling and attacking, attacking
and rolling. They almost never make you really pause and consider your
situation thoughtfully. Instead, you are encouraged memorize and attune
your unconscious twitch reactions until you are good enough to dodge the
bosses attacks and hit him during his opening. This is an inherently
weaker and less creative approach to boss design, and it makes the
bosses less rewarding to engage with.<br />
<br />
I think the Knight Artorias exemplifies this problem well. He's tough
as nails and can kill you in a heartbeat. You have to learn his attack
patterns and master the timing for dodging them and find the moments
when you can strike back at him. It's fun, it's intense, but at the end
of the day, when you triumph over Artorias, you don't feel like you've
outsmarted him, you've just out-practiced him. You've ingrained his
moveset so deeply into your psyche through repetition that you respond
to his attacks without thought. Too many bosses in Dark Souls fall into
this mold of mindless reaction. And it's never as fun as, for example,
the pure joy that comes from the moody and methodical encounter with the
Fool's Idol, with its tricks and traps and the multiple solutions to
them that only mindful play can uncover.</div>
</div>
gamephilosophehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811707403932400856noreply@blogger.com1