Can you imagine the quantity of really creepy fan-mail Ali Hillis must receive?

As you may have guessed, I have long since lost interest in finishing this post, but it would feel extremely unbecoming of me as a writer to just leave this hanging indefinitely, so here it is: My analysis of Devil's Advocate and conclusion to the topic of "it was all just a dream" twist endings.

As I said before, I hate "it was all just a dream" twists and, as I said before, I love the movie Devil's Advocate. Anyone familiar with the movie would see this as a contradiction. I do not.

Keanu Reeves' character is a small-town attorney who has never lost a single case. The clients he defends are never convicted, no matter how evidently guilty they are or how heinous the crime. This forms the core of the protagonist's character: He helps bad people get away with doing bad things, not because he's a bad person himself, not because he wants to get rich, and not because it's his job; he does it because it's what he was born to do. Throughout the movie he struggles to balance his conscience with his calling, or, more accurately, his destiny.

Word of his accomplishments reaches a law firm in New York city and he gets recruited into their criminal law department to continue to practise his craft at a higher paygrade. Bit by bit, through surreal moments, uncanny dialogue and the protagonist's Bible-thumping mother's rantings, we learn that there are supernatural elements at work. The protagonist's morally dubious decisions made in the pursuit of the perfection of his art start to catch up with him, tearing at his psyche while sinister forces gather around him. Finally, it is revealed that his charismatic, Rennaissance-man boss (Al Pacino) is the devil himself, using the law to further his goals of spreading evil and taking souls. Moreover, he's the protagonist's father, and wants his help to end the world and wage war against god.

It's an offer the protagonist can't refuse, so he refuses the only way he can: By killing himself. The devil, distraught by the loss of his son and determined to see his plan through, one way or another, winds back the clock. The protagonist lives again and finds himself back in his home town. Now able to do things differently, he decides to listen to his conscience in the application of his talents.

The final twist - which is absolutely essential - is that the devil is still watching him, looking for his chance to use him again.

The whole story, from start to finish, is gone. All of it. This is the greatest sin a writer can commit. So why do I love it? Well, it's because the story isn't actually about the protagonist moving to New York and practising law. It's about his internal ethical struggle and the way in which the devil tries to exploit it for his own ends. The protagonist resolves his internal struggle - character arc complete! But that final twist tells us that the devil is still after him, and that means that their conflict isn't over yet.

The real story in this movie is about the protagonist's relationship with his father: Even though everything else was reset, that was not. And even though the story is never actually resolved, we get a sense of resolution from the completion of the protagonist's character arc.

There you have it. Devil's Advocate's story structure may not be technically perfect, but the execution IS technically flawless....If that makes any sense.

That seems like a really weak ending after making you all wait so long, but I guess it will have to do. As always, I welcome comments!

Something has been gnawing at my brain for a little while, and I've only just recently put my finger on it. You see, I've gone on record several times as declaring (to varying degrees) that ending a story with a "it was all just a dream" twist is unforgiveable, agonizing, and makes me want to do incredibly inventive things with the writer's scrotum and a hacksaw. I've repeatedly held up Tom Cruise's "Vanilla Sky" as THE WORST F*CKING MOVIE I'VE EVER SEEN for this very reason. And yet, if I were to make up a list of my all-time favourite movies, "Devil's Advocate", starring Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino, would rank very highly, which is odd because, while it wasn't all just a dream, the near-final twist is functionally identical. (In case anyone is interested, my all-time favourite movie is "Roger Dodger", featuring the much underrated Campbell Scott and Jesse Eissenberg before he got famous with all those lousy teen-sploitation movies.)

For the purposes of achieving more comprehensive comparisons, I will also be looking at Jet Li's "Hero", which irks an acquaintance of mine to no end for committing more-or-less the same sin repeatedly.

Broadly, what we are speaking of in the cases of all three movies is the "undoing of the story" - we discover that all or many of the events we've experienced ultimately have no bearing on reality: Nothing that has happened has mattered. And yet, there must be further distinctions, because while I find this acceptable in both Hero and Devil's Advocate, I find it dispicable in Vanilla Sky.

There is a school of thought on the construction of narrative that says that the development of the protagonist is the most important thing, and that the actual story is just there as so much scaffolding to support it - built up, taken down and moved around as needed. This is, obviously, a very antiquated view. It dates from the time when theatrical plays were typically ended with a god giving the protagonist a chance to go back and fix his/her mistakes (from whence the term "deus ex machina" comes). While I happily acknowledge that the development of the protagonist can indeed be more important than that of the story, I will fight tooth and nail against the notion that the story is entirely unimportant. ...After sitting here for some time trying to decide how best to argue my point, I have decided to quote an earlier post of mine: "...seeing [the protagonist] attain his enlightenment consequence-free obliterates the story arc. It doesn't matter how good your protagonist is; if you undo the story - the only context in which your protagonist actually matters - you have undone your protagonist as well..."

So, what is Vanilla Sky about? Admittedly, is has been quite a few years since I saw it, and I believe I've only seen it twice (the second time presumably against my will), but I will tell you what a remember: Tom Cruise's character becomes romatically involved with Penelope Cruz's character. Soon afterwards, an obsessive ex tries to kill him, leaving him horribly disfigured, and the disfigurement brings an abrupt end to the tryst. From that point, events quickly spiral uncontrollably into the absurd and surreal. After being led around by the nose for more than an hour, we find out that he took being dumped awfully hard, bought into some sci-fi-ish afterlife simulation program, and promptly offed himself, but he doesn't remember that because he chose the night was dumped to be the "splice" where his real memories ended and the simulation began. Everything that happened since that night was just a nightmare his mind cooked up while his dead body was being preserved in the real world. Dumb, dumb, dumb. All of it. How can he dream if he's dead? Why wouldn't he choose the splice to be before his disfigurement? And in the end, none of it matters because he chooses to return to reality. And there aren't even any consequences to his return; they just roll the credits. He learns nothing; he achieves nothing. This is the worst kind of story.

What of Hero? Well, the movie starts with Nameless having killed the three legendary assassins of the land, and approaching the king's palace to receive his reward. The king receives Nameless, allowing him to move closer to the throne for each assassin he had killed. The king asks Nameless to recount how he was able to kill them, and so we are presented with the first version of events in which the assassins are vengeful, jealous, and disloyal; Nameless creates further division among them and conquers. The king, having survived a run-in with the assassins, detects that the story is flawed. He deduces that Nameless is also an assassin, and puts forth the second version of events in which the assassins virtuously give their lives so that Nameless may get near enough to the king to kill him. Finally, Nameless reveals the true version, in which the assassins are neither scoundrels nor paragons; neither unified nor treacherous. They simply are as they are, and make the best of whatever comes. Apart from the fact that it's fun to spot the similarites between the different versions (Mistress Flying Snow stabs Broken Sword in all three, but for widely different reasons) they serve to show us that villainy and heroism are just matters of perspective, and that people are, for the most part, just people. It's a thought-provoking declaration that works very well the the film's overall aesthetic. Contrary to my acquaintance's perception, the additional versions do serve a purpose.

And I shall continue with my analysis of Devil's Advocate once I've had some sleep. To be continued....

"For us, RPGs are about exploration, not levels and loot" -- Bioware Representative.

"Dear Bioware Representative, f*ck you" -- Bioware fan.

That was a scary moment, not long ago, when it looked like we were going to get a sh*tty action game from a developer that exclusively makes amazing RPGs. It wasn't their fault, of course. Between Electronic *ssholes (EA) forcing a successful developer to imitate a developer that is successful in a completely different genre (proving once and for all that these people are actually TRYING to be morons, and aren't just incidentally daft) and Microhard's hard-on for hardware that really, really, just isn't that good, it's amazing to see Bioware pull through as much as they have.

But I've got a lot to say here, no particular order to say it in, and one last post to get it out. So let's, as always, take it from the top.

Putting it bluntly, I played the sh*t out of Mass Effect 1. One time, I played it for so long that I literally had to put my xbox on ice to keep it from melting. But that says more about my obsessiveness than it does about the quality of the game. Mass Effect 1 had Depth, with the capital D. The environments were massive, and there was something to do EVERYWHERE you looked. I don't think I'm alone in thinking that that's what galactic exploration should feel like. But with with that came interesting characters, a compelling story, and a final twist that still gives me goosebumps. And to top it all off, there was a complex (but not inaccessible) levelling system that made sure every character you made was unique; every playthrough unpredictable. And there was always the promise that every decision you made would be reflected in the sequel.

Along came Mass Effect 2. While the sheer scale was toned down, the loving attention to detail was all the greater. Omega's Afterlife nightclub left me breathless the first time I walked in. Aria T'Loak dropped the series' first F-bomb. Moral choices carried more weight than they did before. Whereas playing a Renegade in ME1 made you feel like a d*ck, in ME2 it was just a practical response to being surrounded by the scum of the galaxy; whereas playing a Paragon in ME1 just made you feel like a wuss, in ME2 it was totally badass because you effectively made yourself sheriff of the lawless frontier. The whole experience felt much more mature. But there were problems.

Combat had always been the weak point of the franchise, but in ME1, it hadn't been such an issue. With somewhere around fifteen, hair-trigger, physics-defying methods for inflicting mass pain in your arsenal, a dodgy cover system was more a problem for your enemies that it was for you. Steep difficulty and poor controls were offset by the torrential streams of hostile-inundating magic and fireworks that you and your squad spewed ceaselessy. Yeah, some might say that made the game too easy, but that was your reward for diligent grinding. Grind = Awesome. This is the backbone of any RPG.

And then there was Mass Effect 2. Five powers, max. Using any one of them put all of them into cooldown. Standing out in the open letting loose was no longer an applicable tactic on any level. The minor improvements made to the cover system were nowhere near sufficient to accommodate the urgent demand that was now suddenly placed on it. With the new limitations on the weaponry that a given class could carry and the unreasonable universal power cooldown, playing as any class other than a soldier felt like a punishment...until you ran out of your terminally austere munitions reserves, when playing as ANY class felt like a punishment. In addition, your squadmates' new-found inability to deter enemies with unrestrained barrages of excessive violence exposed their unfortunate latent lack of self-preservation instincts. On top of all of these problems, we now had to drag a couple of corpses around because our squadmates - like us - were having problems with taking cover. ...The combat in ME2 was not fun, is what I'm getting at. It took the worst of all worlds, and the game suffered for it.

Observing the trend from ME1 to ME2, many Mass Effect fans were justified in fearing for ME3. ...Well, I've played the hell out of the demo, and I'm feeling pretty relieved.

Let me report that the cover system works. It feels clunky, it's hard to get out of cover quickly, the obstinacy of the camera in shifting to the other shoulder is inconvenient in certain angles, and enemies can shoot you around your cover with distressing frequency, but at least when you see instant death coming at you and you need to get you head down, Shepard will reliably get his friggin' head down. A dive roll has even been added for those moments when there isn't any cover handy.

But the really exciting news is that Bioware have brought the RPG back! You get more powers, more levels for them and more branches to really customize your character.

What the hell am I saying? If you care at all about Mass Effect you already know all this. Why don't I just get to the bloody point?

All right, here's my bloody point: Councilor Anderson is now Admiral Anderson. ... I know you're thinking it's not a big deal, and maybe your right. But...well...I've gone through all of this believing that my decisions change the galaxy, and, even in ME2, I found that any decisions I'd made in ME1 that weren't convenient for the story were tactlessly omitted.

I can already hear my critics: "You're being too demanding! You can't expect Bioware to make a game that reflects every little decision you made! That's unreasonable for too many reasons to fit on a concise list!" Of course, you're right: Time, money, availability of voice actors, etc. There are many reasons why such an undertaking could not realistically be faithfully done, and, as an artist myself, I am sensitive to the issue of unreasonable expectations. Let me be clear: I never expected to have all of my decisions from ME1 through ME2 reflected in ME3.

The thing is...when you look objectively at what ME3 IS, you see that it's a sub-par cover-based shooter with RPG elements, and the only reason that I'll be playing it is because I have an emotional investment in the character I've nurtured through the two previous games. ...But if the character I'm playing in ME3 is not tangibly the same character I've grown to care about, then what the f*ck am I doing here? If all the sh*t I've done that seemed so important in the last two games suddenly doesn't matter in this one, why the f*ck did I bother? And why should I play what amounts to another Gears of War knock-off?

And the cracks in the writing are starting to show through. The fiendishly ambiguous moral pseudo-dichotomy created in ME2 when you're forced to work with a terrorist group to stop something far more sinister (Is my enemy's enemy really my friend? Is it really advisable to choose the lesser of two evils knowing full well that it is evil?) falls completely flat in ME3 as the developers strike out desperately for a diverse set of enemies to fight, and end up re-envisioning Cerberus, the misunderstood, highly motivated, somewhat legally aberrant, underground organisation with noble, pro-human objectives as a full-scale insurrection force, hell-bent on smashing any possibility of salvation for humanity (and Cerberus required quite a bit of re-imagining before THAT to reach its portrayal in ME2). Why do beings that can happily sleep for 50,000 years and traverse a tenth of the galaxy in less than ONE really need a giant mass relay, operated by unreliable drones, in order to drop in and f*ck up our sh*t?

It is really obvious, at this point, that the writers are just making it up as they go along. A MAJOR plot point for the trilogy happens in a piece of downloadable content! And we have to pay for it! And it's sh*t! "The Arrival" is sh*t! Alien cultists, endless space station corridors, telekinetic powers - add some mutants and a helmet like a glowing sewer grate and you've got Dead Space if Dead Space decided to suck! And - I have no hesitation in repeating this grievance - they expect us to pay for it! Bioware, if you left something out of your game that you later realise needs to be in there, suck it up, own up to your mistake, and just hand it over for free. Asking us to pay for something that is not only a critical piece of the story, but also complete garbage gameplay-wise is reprehensible!

The writing with which I fell in love is gone. The levelling and customization with which I fell in love are gone. The new co-op multiplayer mode just makes me depressed because playing with real people just throws into drastic relief the incompetence of your AI-controlled, single-player teammates.

Please believe me when I say that I'm not one of those people who thinks that nothing can ever be as good as the original of whatever thing I happen to like. I'm not saying that ME1 was better than ME2 or ME3. What I'm saying is: This is not what I wanted. I didn't seriously expect the formula to stay the same from game to game, but I never imagined that Bioware would let writing take a backseat to action.

I could blame EA for enforcing mediocrity in their myopic pursuit of moolah without even considering the possibility that Bioware became successful precisely because they didn't rush off to do the same thing that everyone else does. I could blame Microsoft for wanting to show off their toy's processing power and attachments. I could blame Bioware's background in MMOs for a really retarded random loot generation system in the ME3 co-op mode. I could blame myself for convincing myself that Bioware's dedication to making games right would somehow override the greed and stupidity of the rest of the videogames industry, resulting in something of such soul-scouring purity as is unheard of outside of myth, and that we would be forever transformed by its transcendental vision, seeking perfection in all we undertake, and creating beauty of an ugly world.

That's it. I'm done. I welcome your comments, but please read MORE than three paragraphs if you decide to leave one. It happens too often that someone will remark on my introduction, which is usually only tangentally related to what I actually discuss.

You wouldn't expect a game that contains gratuitous chainsaw dismemberment to contain any serious social commentary, which is why I am concerned that the majority of people who have played Gears of War 3 may have missed a toure de force on the part of Epic Games' writers.

I'm sure that everyone who has been paying the slightest bit of attention to the Gears of War lore has realized that the COG are the bad guys. Playing as Marcus Fenix and Delta Squad, we are assuming the role of the villains of Sera, but we find it easy to square this (perhaps half-perceived) fact with our consciences as the troublesome question of morality has necessarily taken a backseat to the more universally sympathetic matter of survival. Good or bad, we all just want to live to see tomorrow.

But the issue goes deeper than you may realize. Yes, the COG sacrificed civilians in attempts to stop the Locust after E-Day, but what about before that? What was the COG's political attitude before the Locust threw everything into upheaval? Well, you may have picked up on the fact that the COG were fighting everyone else on Sera to gain control of the super-valuable wonder-fuel, Imulsion. But that doesn't make them any worse than anyone else at the time, does it?

It's at this point you should consider the fact that the COG soldiers are called Gears. It's a none-too-subtle metaphor that most of my readers have probably already picked up on, but most people probably haven't given it much thought beyond: "COG, cogs, gears, yeah, got it." (I certainly didn't give it much thought until Gears 3.) ...An army has soldiers, a resistance has 'freedom fighters', but a machine has gears. A cold, imperialist war-machine, built to conquer and subjugate everything in its path has gears. In fact, it has 'Gears'. We see that before E-Day, the COG was a fascist, resource-devouring construct, and the Gears were its dehumanized machinery, grinding the way to total supremacy of Sera. And while humans were waging a war to gain more Imulsion, the Locust were preparing a war to escape it.

It's too easy to write a fiction that is critical of modern-day, international politics, which is why I find it so remarkable that Epic Games' writers haven't done so. Only the most clueless of the self-proclaimed gaming intelligentsia would declare that Imulsion and the power-plays made around it are representative of real-world politics regarding oil. Rather, Imulsion represents something more basic; more simple; more primal. It gleams more vibrantly than the purest gold; flows through the planet's every crevice like life-giving water; makes all of science's trespasses into the realm of the magical possible. It symbolizes everything we desire, require and admire, yet it corrupts, perverts and ultimately destroys everything it touches. It is everything we want, but can't - or shouldn't - have.

I have a certain fondness for the character Baird. He's come a long way from the whining wet-blanket he was in Gears 1 to the aloof, razor-tongued wit of Gears 3. He is, without a doubt, the only character with a sense of the larger scope of events - without him, Gears of War might just be what it superficially appears to be: Some dumb gore-fest. Baird is the one who points out the fact that it was humanity's constant, wasteful warring that prevented us from being able to present a cohesive and effective military response to the sudden onslaught of the Locust horde. Baird is the one who remarks that the Locust's tenacity and methods for self-preservation are not dissimilar to our own. Baird is the one who, little by little, chips away at our 'matter-of-course' notion that humanity's struggle for survival in an unpredictably savage world is somehow nobler than that of the Locust.

And now the whole house of cards flies apart in a sudden gale: We had assumed that our previous inhumanity was balanced out by the appearance of an enemy who is definitively inhuman; we had believed that next to rampaging monsters even the most monstrous of rampaging humans would be the de facto righteous party. We can handle the fact that we are the footsoldiers of a fascist state; that we killed innocents to slow our enemies; that we short-sightedly slaughtered would-be allies for what is effectively poison; that our leaders sacrificed people to preserve culture while our enemies sacrificed culture to preserve people. All of these unsavoury facts that have been plainly put to us we somehow find palatable, yet the logical conclusion of their confluence is entirely unbearable: The Locust are better than us. The monsters deserve to live; the real monsters deserve to die.

And what does humanity invariably do when we encounter an irreconcilable ideological dilemma? We kill everyone who disagrees with us - because violence is easier than thought. "[He] thought he had all the answers, but all he had was clever ways to kill."

At the end of Gears 3, the remnants of the COG unite with their former (human) enemies to mount a joint assault against, well, everything. What at first appears to be a clumsy attempt at an explanation for the sudden appearance of reinforcements, or a sickeningly trite, "if we all work together, we can accomplish anything,"-type lesson, congeals into a chilling reminder of the fact that, even after all the adversity humanity has suffered, there is still an 'us', and there is still a 'them'

Have we learned anything from our confrontation with the Locust? Of course not. We couldn't. The only way to ensure our own survival was to exterminate them, and the only way to exterminate them with clean consciences is to believe, against all available evidence, that they are inferior to us in every way. They were nothing but monsters who deserved to be wiped out. Now it'll only be a matter of time before we can fabricate a pretext for going to war against our fellow man once again. After all, power is the greatest virtue of all, and if anyone disagrees, we'll f*cking kill them.

[tags: gears of war, writing, story, significance, meaning, commentary, human nature]

I am making the assumption based on the intelligent feedback that I frequently receive that my readership are educated and, more importantly, literate. I am also making the assumption based on that assumption that you have all heard the term "Deus Ex Machina". However, I am ALSO making the assumption that most of you have eventful lives that prevent you from obsessing over the precise meaning of obtuse, "artsy" terms, so allow me to fill you in on a bit of history here.

For the majority of early, recorded history, the goal of all culture was to praise the local gods in order to currey favour with them or avert their wrath - whichever the case may have been. Theatre was no different. The way in which a play would normally end would be that the protagonist realizes he's screwed up his whole life because he didn't worship god 'x' enough, and then the god in question would descend from the heavens and offer him a chance to go back and fix everything in exchange for more piety. (I believe the ancient Greeks were the first on record to do this, but somehow we ended up with the Latin name. Probably because the Romans did it more...and conquered most of Europe.) This acted-out celestial intervention was typically achieved by lowering the "god" (Latin: "deus") from ("ex") some kind of scaffolding by winch and pulley ("machina").

By modern standards, ending a story by hitting a reset button is just about the most unforgiveable thing a story-teller can do. Sure, the protagonist learns from his mistakes, resulting in a satisfying character arc, but seeing him attain his enlightenment consequence-free obliterates the story arc. It doesn't matter how good your protagonist is; if you undo the story - the only context in which your protagonist actually matters - you have undone your protagonist as well, and you end up with...what?...a massive waste of time, I guess.

Nowadays, even though we no longer generally get gods coming down from on-high to f*ck up our stories, the term "deus ex machina" continues to find use, loosely adapted as a lable or any kind of ending that fails to resolve sh*t and thoroughly disappoints us (see: Tom Cruise's "Vanilla Sky", my all-time most hated movie).

I can see what Ion Storm were thinking when they named their iconic franchise:

IO Employee #1: "The protagonist is a guy who becomes uber-powerful - god-like, even - through the use of mechanical implants. Hmm. Becoming a god from machinery, huh? If only we could find a title that is obvious enough to be ironic, but also sounds really smart. That way we'll get the fat-headed, intellectual nerds coming and going!"

IO Employee #2: "Hey, wait a minute! There's a Latin saying that's tangentally related to a remote interpretation of what you're talking about! 'Deus ex machina'!"

IO Employee #1: "Huh? They had cyborgs in ancient Rome?"

IO Employee #2: "I guess. I can't imagine what else it could mean."

IO Employee #1: "All right. Let's use that. But uh, let's drop the 'machina' part. That's a little TOO obvious."

The title, "Deus Ex", literally translates as, "God from".... GOD FROM WHAT!?

I realize that most of you don't sympathize with my anguish on this point. And I'm sure some of you are thinking, "well, the 'machina' part of the term is implied by the game being mostly about machines. Gosh, I feel really badly for this 'Indiscrimi' guy: He must be pretty stupid to miss an obvious connection like that."

My response to all of you is thus: Imagine if Epic Games' groundbreaking trilogy (which will shortly draw to a close); the very games that brought cover-based, third person shooting into vogue; the often immitated, never surpassed saga of Marcus Fenix and Delta Squad...were titled "Gears of".... Would you seriously be trying to tell me that that title is acceptable because the "War" is implied by the gameplay?

Let's go down the list: God of (War), Need for (Speed), Left 4 (Dead), Army of (Two), Call of (Duty), Prince of (Persia) Resident (Evil), Dead (Space), Super (Mario), Modern (Warfare) - the list is truly endless. If you can explain to me how any of these titles would pass on today's market, I will formally withdraw my campaign against the hanging statement that is Deus Ex's title. If not, welcome to the obsessives' club!

*sigh* Okay, it's about bloody time I weighed in on this. You see, a while ago, when the Duke Nukem IP was torn away from those idiots at 3D Realms and given to Gearbox Software (a competent developer), a bunch of people were geeking out about it on a bunch of forums....And I foolishly tried to give them a reality check.

In all fairness to my critics, I did go into the situation with the intent to troll the fanboys, and it wasn't until my flaming was well underway that I actually made a reasonable point in favour of pessimism. Said point was, "even if it does come out, it has a different developer now: It won't be the game you've been waiting for; it'll just have the same name." (I think I mentioned this in another post....) One guy replied, "obvious troll is obvious." I replied, "bound to be disappointed guy is bound to be disappointed."

Well, it's long past time we tallied the scores: I was wrong about Gearbox Software remaking Duke in their own image; they pretty much just polished up what 3D Realms had done and released it...and it was sh*t. Big frickin' surprise. I imagine that fanboy was pretty disappoint after all. Final score: Fanboy 1; Troll 1.

But I'm not here to gloat about how I was half right. I'm much more concerned about what's going to happen next. You see, Duke Nukem JUST...WON'T...DIE. A decade+ of utter stupidity on the part of all parties involved failed to kill this icon of what is considered to be the "golden age of videogames" (in much the same way cockroaches are considered to be the "pinnacle of evolution"), and one discriptor-defyingly awful game isn't going to convince anyone to pack it in now. So here's what's going to happen:

Gearbox Software are going to make another Duke Nukem game from scratch ($10 says it's called "Duke Nukem: Redemption"). It is going to be totally bland, totally unoriginal, and totally identical to any bargain-bin, Sci-Fi FPS you can think of. The only, ONLY, ONLY!!! distinguishing feature will be that the protagonist makes sexist remarks and is called "Duke" by all of the supporting characters. And lo, how the fanboys shall hark! "Hoorah! Hoorah! Come hither and pay homage, for the Lord of ludo lives, and shall reign forevermore in His palace made of t*ts."

What I'm saying is that the next Duke Nukem game (and mark my words, there will be a next Duke Nukem game), WILL SUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!! And what really p*sses me off is that, in spite of all the evidence, no one will believe me anymore then than they did before.

I hate puzzle games. There, I said it. I hate putting in a large amount of effort for a reward that disappears at the start of a new level. This is actually the same issue I have with strategy games, but more on that another time (maybe).

And despite my dislike for puzzle games, I enjoyed Portal 1. At some deep, subconscious level, I've always felt that it wasn't really a puzzle game. But if you try to tell someone that Portal 1 wasn't a puzzle game, they'll laugh at you. So why did I like it? Well, having now played Portal 2 and thoroughly detested most of it, I think I can finally explain how I feel about Portal 1.

It comes down to conflict. Portal 1 set up a key antagonist from the get go. The whole time, you were working against GLaDOS, trying to get out of the labs, and eventually taking the fight to her and blasting her out the ceiling. Completing a test was satisfying in the same way that gunning down a Nazi in any generic WWII game is satisfying: No noticeable progress has been made, but there is officially one less obstacle between you and victory. The effort you put into solving the test was not wasted.

Now, by contrast, consider Portal 2. In Act 1, you're just killing time until Wheatley breaks you out of GLaDOS's test chambers. In Act 2, you're scrambling around sewers with no real goal while getting filled in on tonnes of backstory that NOBODY ASKED FOR. Seriously, the existence of Aperture Laboratories was more believable BEFORE they tried to make its existence believable. In Act 3, you're back to killing time in test chambers until you get broken out again (kinda). (I'm aware that this is not how a three act structure works, but this is what I have to work with here.)

You see what I mean? The "tests" in Portal 2 are just filler between the interesting things happening. Exercises in wasting time. In Portal 1 you were taking GLaDOS down piece by piece using only your ingenuity. In Portal 2, you're a friggin' damsel in distress, forced to play games while waiting for someone to save you! It's f*cking unbearable!

It is not my intention to do a full review here. The are a few issues I have with the gameplay, but what I really wanted to get at was the narrative. Never underestimate the importance of conflict in making a story interesting, and the conflict was much more competently handled in Portal 1. Sometimes less is more.

[tags: portal, portal 2, conflict, narrative, story]

I recently played the new Traitor's Keep DLC for Fable III, and discovered that the best part by far happens in the first ten minutes. You are going about your ruling duties after saving Albion from the...whatever it was, and an assassin breaks into the throne room to kill you. Amidst the sounds of you repeatedly stabbing him as your royal guards catch him in a vicious cross-fire, he shouts some of the most sensible things I've ever heard from character in these games, mostly along the lines of "your blood does not entitle you to be a ruler; it just entitles you to throw fireballs. Now I will kill you to free Albion."

It got me thinking: He has a point. Being King/Queen of Albion is what we've been building up to for three games now. We're finally there. We're at the top. There is nowhere left to go but down. And that is why Fable must die.

Before I get really stuck into this, I must cover my ass: I have consistently enjoyed the Fable games, and harbour no negative feelings for Peter Molyneaux. The main criticism of the Fable games (apart from bugs) is that they're loaded down with pointless crap. That is true. But it is also true that the real world is loaded down with pointless crap (videogames, for instance). The Fable games are escapes to other worlds where you can be whoever you want to be. They just wouldn't be the same without the extra stuff; they wouldn't feel real enough. And I think that the reason people consistently vent against Peter Molyneaux for the games' shortcomings is because his reckless enthusiasm makes him the most salient member of Lionhead Studios. Basically, people hate him because he loves his job. That is not a legitimate reason to dislike someone. Not when there are so many people in the videogame industry whom I despise for being *ssholes who just want to grab my money and don't give a sh*t about making a decent game (I'm looking at you, Activision!). It takes more than one man to make a videogame; if there's something in a game that you don't like, there were about a hundred people making the game who did like it. Take it up with the whole studio, not just the director.

Right. Where do I start? Well, why don't I start at the beginning? Fable I. (Have you noticed that fantasy games all use Roman numerals in their sequels? Fable III, Dragon Age II, Elder Scrolls IV, Divinity II, Overlord II...I'm getting sidetracked.)

So, what made Fable 1 (eat it!) the "must-have" game when it came out? Well, I don't know about you, but I can tell you that what sold it to me was the morality system (I'm gonna be saying "morality system" a lot, so, "MS" for short). Having your character change to reflect your actions was something never done before on a console, and I suspect it was fairly new to PC users too. We all learned a few things from that game, like how much fun it is to be a bastard, and that the only hairstyle that looks good with horns is a ponytail. (Laughs? No? Not that funny? Scr*w you, then. Moving on.)

Anyway, the defining characteristic of the Fable games has been the MS. They can't escape it. It's haunting them. In fact, the MS is what's killing them.

Let's jump ahead now to Fable 3 (eat it again!). In Fable 1, the MS was fun because the consequences of your decisions were trivial, and they really only served to make you look more badass. In Fable 2, same story. But in Fable 3, we get into politcs. Suddenly, your decisions actually make a difference, and here the whole distinction between good and evil breaks down. You see, no MS allows for the existence of a "grey area" (although the people who make the show 'Extra Creditz' would tell you some interesting things about the tacit MS in 'Missile Command') where politics function. Indeed, a theoretical world of universal morals would have no need for politics, because all conceivable conflicts would be easilly resolved by every individual. Trying to fit a system of such complex decision making into a "black and white" moral paradigm is silly, to the point of absurdity. You end up with the situation that cutting down a forest is MORE morally reprehensible than taking to the streets to personally slaughter all of your subjects.

I appreciate that Lionhead Studios want to make games with more depth, and I applaud them for it. I say, "go for it, guys." But why am I also saying that Fable has to die? The answer is simple: Without the MS, it isn't a Fable game; with the MS, it can't improve. There is only one way forward: Leave Fable behind. Lionhead Studios cannot cross the desert of creativity, pursued by the monster of obscurity, while dragging their mentor behind them. ...Yes, I am deliberately making a reference to a moment from Fable 3. It was an extremely moving moment; I felt more connection to Walter than I have felt to a videogame character in a long time. I was truly saddened to leave him behind. I understand how Lionhead Studios feel, but based on that powerful experience, I can safely say that they are ready to move on and explore new territory. If they can pull that off again, they will be just fine.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you disagree with me. You say, "hey! They can keep making Fable games! Just drop the morality system!" ...Actually, this is pretty much the same issue I have with people who are getting excited about Duke Nukem Forever finally coming out. It's taken over a decade, and it's being made by a different developer: It's called "Duke Nukem Forever", but it is NOT the game they've been waiting for. You can call a game Fable 4, but without the MS, it simply isn't Fable.

Even if Fable 4 (IV) could be made, where would the story go? We've gone from the middle ages (with magic) to the industrial revolution (with magic). What's next? "Fable 4: Modern Warfare"? ...Actually...that sounds kinda awesome.... No, I find it far more likely that we'll finally leave Albion. Actually, we've already done that, haven't we? We went to Aurora. But then they joined the dominion of Albion, so it doesn't count.

That's another issue I have with the games recently. I feel like I'm playing through the English, wish-fulfillment version of history. I mean, no country has ever, ever, EVER requested the honour of becoming part of the British Empire. Historically, everyone's been trying to get out. (Oh Canada, motherf*ckers!) As a colonial, I feel a bit dirty bringing the Aurorans under my dominion. But I digress.

What I actually had in mind when I said "leave Albion" was a full-blown war with Samarkand. You know Samarkand? It's the country (fictional) to the east of Albion (arguably also fictional) from whence all the coolest sh*t in the Fable games comes. I've been wanting to crush Samarkand 'neath my conquering heel ever since I read the blurb on the Katana in Fable 1. I mean, Katanas! They've got Katanas! How cool is that?

But wait. You're the ruler of Albion - or, the United Kingdom, as it surely must now be called - and you're invading countries to the east. Would that still be a Fable game? Wouldn't that be...Europa Universalis? [ominous crash of thunder] Or worse. What if you take to the field of battle yourself? What if you charge into the fray at the head of your army? What if it's...Dynasty Warriors? (I like the Dynasty Warriors games, so this eventuality would be awesome for me, but for the rest of you, not so much.)

You see what I'm getting at here? The only way for the Fable games to move forward is to change so radically that they wouldn't be Fable games any more. Besides, it's pretty obvious that Lionhead want to move on to different projects. And you know what? We might get some great games out of them if they do. That would be no tragedy.

[tags: fable, fable 2, fable ii, fable 3, fable iii, fable 4, fable iv, lionhead, lionhead studios, molyneaux, peter molyneaux, duke nukem forever, europa universalis, dynasty warriors]

Due to developments in my personal life, I have less time nowadays to dedicate to gaming. The time that I do have, I prefer to spend playing games rather than discussing them. And this means that I have been neglecting my blog.

But the absence of posts isn't the problem. The problem is that I end up ignoring the comments that my readers make.

Not only is it unfair for me to ignore you, but I feel like I'm suffering as a writer because of it. All art requires feedback from its community to become great, and a writer who ignores his audience will never improve.

So I offer a sincere apology to my readers/commentors, and I encourage you to continue sharing your thoughts with me because I know from experience that you all say things worth hearing (or reading).

We now return to our regular programming.