There was a game I had heard about for a while. It was an old PC adventure game, known in some territories as Another World, in others as Out of This World. It was a legendary, forward thinking game, inspiring current respected game designers, Fumito Ueda (whose games, Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, are among my favorites) among them. It was admired for its intuitive controls and well-crafted atmosphere.

I tracked down a demo of a recently re-released high definition version of the game, and gave it a shot. The demo was very short, but it intrigued me. And after getting recommendations from a few others, I chose to give the 17-year-old title a shot. And having completed it, I have to say that it's pretty dated. But its best qualities still shine through.

It's very much an old PC adventure game, and some of the design logic is pretty inscruitable. There are a number of tasks that you have to do, without any clear idea on why they're necessary until later in your adventure. Sometimes, the solution to a problem requires the player to guess an aspect of the logic of the game design, with no clear hints as to what they're supposed to do. Perhaps I've grown weak in my preference for recent games that tend to spell things out, but there are plenty of times where the way things work simply isn't very clear.

A simple example is the game's doors. Closed doors in the game are indicated by thin black strips. Yet an identical-looking door can be either locked or unlocked. There's no way to tell which one it is without walking through. There have been multiple times where I assumed a door was locked when it was unlocked because I couldn't tell the difference. And there's a time early on in the game where you have to do something to blast through a door (something that you're required to do many times later). The first time you come across it, there's no way to tell what you're supposed to do. Things like that happen in many different places. Figuring out the solution to problems like that feels more frustrating to me than not if I can't guess it quickly.

But its basic good qualities hold true today. Cutscenes are very sparse, and dialogue is non-existent. But your character's arrival, and his attempt to escape from the alien world he arrives on, is narrated expertly through the scripted events around you, and the stark environments you travel through. The controls, while a bit clunky by today's standards, work very well, and instantly adapt themselves to whatever new situations you wind up in. There's rarely a situation that can't be handled by the arrow keys or the action buttons. And the ability of the simple controls to handle the game actions lead to certain semi-scripted sequences that play out very naturally, and keep player control. A large, flashing button doesn't need to pop up onscreen to tell you what to do. That sort of quality tends to be declining in more recent games, but it was something I really liked about this title.

The game's negative qualities are the sort that exist in many games of its era, so I can't really fault it for being as old as it is. But its spartan, efficient presentation and intuitive, adaptable controls are still strong points, and as old as it is, it still has lessons that other games can learn from going forward.

In the last few years, I've always enjoyed seeing movies with my dad. Not just because they were great movies (they were), but because of the time afterwards. I'd take the subway downtown to meet my dad after he got out of work, we'd see a movie, and then we'd take a cab home. On that cab ride, we could discuss the movie we just saw. I'd always love getting another opinion about what I'd seen, because then, I could bounce ideas and thoughts I had off of someone else, and hear things that I wouldn't have thought of myself. If I really liked a movie, I might even look for reviews of it online, just to hear more views.

I recently listened to a GFW Radio podcast (the most recent one from the date I'm writing this) where they were discussing the difference between a review and a critique. A review is written for someone who has never played the game, and is meant to guide their spending or playing habits. Because that person hasn't played the game, such a thing has to shy away from spoilers and specific game scenarios and such. A critique, on the other hand, is meant for people who have completed the game, to discuss not just aspects of the gameplay and how they work in the context of the entire product, but to talk about specific parts of the story, searching for meaning. Kind of like your average English paper on a book you've read, for example.

A few days ago, I completed No More Heroes, and wanted to see more views on its 'eccentric' story and ending. I went into the game with the assumption that game designer SUDA51 had something to say with this title, and I wondered what people thought about it. I didn't know where to turn, though. Nobody in my group of friends had touched such a niche title, and most of the people I knew from the boards hadn't played it. And where can I go here? If I look at Gamespot's review, it only talks about the story in the vaguest of terms. I can't take anything from that at all.

Most current game journalism is focused on games that aren't released. Previews are written about hot upcoming titles, and when those titles near their release dates, a review is written. After that point, a game drops off the radar. But a description of a title meant for people who have never played it (perhaps have never even heard of it) can only talk so much about what's good, bad, or memorable about that game. Any serious discussion from that point on is left to the wilds of game-specific message boards.

There was actually a recent Soapbox post about No More Heroes, but even that was forced to dance around a lot of the plot points that validate the views given there. Why isn't there space in the current enthusiast press for post-release, spoiler-filled discussion of a game and its scenarios and plot, especially now that, on the internet, filtering content out is easier than ever? In this way, we could help recognize the games that have the audacity to attempt to reach us with their storytelling, however they choose to do it. We could inspire actual critical discussion of meaning in games, and how it is communicated. Instead, we drop these titles and that potential for discussion, instead choosing to relentlessly pursue the same old press cycle of previews and reviews.

The medium is finally beginning to stretch its storytelling muscle, and its time that game journalism adapted to that.

A lot has changed since my last blog. I'm now settled down in college, cut off from my consoles due to a parental mandate for the time being. Because of this, my gaming has been confined to the PC. I won't be able to get Halo 3 when it comes out, sadly.

But that's not what this blog is about. In order to fill the 360-shaped hole in my gaming, I went and pre-purchased Orange Box over Steam. Doing this not only guaranteed me Half-Life 2 Episode 2 and Portal when they come out, but it got me Episode 1 along with the Team Fortress 2 beta. It's a great package.

So upon getting the game, and completing my downloads, I started playing Episode 1. It was a great experience while it lasted. There's no filler whatsoever. It's just packed with unique gunfights and fun environmental puzzles. It's about an hour too short, though, if you ask me.

Still, coming off such a great game, I didn't feel done, so I went back through it a second time with the commentary. It's a really great feature. The way it works is that there are commentary nodes peppered through the game. To use a node, just point your crosshair at it and press the use key. Then, you can hear interesting insight from a member of Valve about a particular aspect of the game or that area in particular. You're invincible while listening to the node, which kinda unbalances things, but since it's meant for the second time through, it doesn't really matter.

Commentary adds a lot to the game for me, as someone who is very interested in videogames, because it illuminates the development process, something which generally is shrouded in mystery. I learned a lot about how Valve makes a game, how they try to introduce new elements to the player, the challenges associated with their particular style of storytelling, and how they playtest and iterate on the game itself, among many other things. It was really informative, as well as entertaining. The fact that the game is really fun, and definitely playable a second time, didn't hurt things.

After completing the game, I asked myself why other games don't include a feature like this, and I'm not really sure why. Besides Valve-developed titles (Lost Coast, Episode 1, Team Fortress 2), the only other game I know of with commentary is the PC version of Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. I understand it wouldn't work in all games (RPGs have a bit too much in them to really be worth it, for example), but it's a great way to bring the developers closer to the player, and shine a nice bright light on the game design process which is so distant from most gamers.

A lot happened for me today.

My brand-new laptop that I got for college arrived today, and I excitedly set it up. It's pretty nice, though it isn't the best of the best. It should serve me well for quite a while, I hope. It's a definite improvement over my 4-5 year old desktop that's now incredibly slow.

The other thing that happened is that my 360 officially contracted the "Red Ring of Death". Microsoft is sending me a box now, and I'll have to send it in and get a new one. It's definitely a nuisance (Dead Rising is sweet, and I'd love to keep playing it), but I don't mind too much. If there are preventative measures in the new consoles to prevent them from breaking down, it'll probably be better, in the long run. I love my 360 too much to get pissed at Microsoft for something like this, anyways. Besides, I'll be going on vacation in a week and a half anyways.

Right now, I'm getting Half-Life 2 mods on my PC and stuff. It should be an exciting time.

So I was at this videogame tournament type deal today, and one of the people there had 'acquired' some Wii games that had only been released overseas, playable due to some 'special hardware' in his console. The one I was interested in the most was Mario Strikers Charged, and I came away pretty impressed.

Charged, like its predecessor on the Gamecube, is an arcadey soccer game. Like other Mario Sports titles, you play as the cast of the Mario games in a very different take on a game of sports. Charged is very fast-paced, has a lot of hitting and stealing, and contains the requisite supers and items and such that have become a staple of the Mario Sports line.

It controls very well. The Nunchuck's control stick moves the character. A passes, and B shoots. Shots can be charged to do super-powered shots that are key to scoring goals. Z lobs a pass that can be juggled in the air. The C button uses items that are earned in play. Waggling the remote hits the nearest opponent, pressing the d-pad does an evasive move when you have the ball, and waggling the nunchuck switches between the two possible items you're holding.

There are no fouls in Charged, so there's a lot of back and forth. Knocking opponents around is vital in order to hold onto the ball, and to clear out room to shoot. The game is a kind of back and forth as each team hopes to get the chance to release their super-powered shot. The team captains, major players in the Mario cast such as Mario or Bowser or Waluigi (sigh), can charge up 'megastrikes' that release multiple balls at the goal. These bring the opponent into a minigame where they have to block the shots by pointing at the balls with the remote and hitting A to knock them down. The game moves at a hectic pace, even without the items, which are hard enough to keep track of as it is.

I didn't get a chance to play it alone, but it's very fun to play with others. The need to keep hitting people encourages teamwork and cooperation in order to pass into open areas and to make open areas by knocking around the opponents. And the quick play and relatively accessible gameplay (everyone knows soccer) make it very easy to get into, even if its nuances aren't the easiest things to grasp.

I can't wait until this game comes out here, so I can get it for myself. It's very chaotic, but it's also very fun.

As I mentioned earlier, I've been playing more games from earlier eras than I have before. One of the games that I got to enjoy was Super Mario World. My experience with this title had been extremely limited beforehand, but playing it with others who were very experienced with the game, I saw the amount of depth that lay within. There's a lot you can do in Super Mario World, and if you're skilled, you can practically fly and bounce your way through all the levels, an impenetrable whirlwind of death. But the game isn't easy, and I found myself dying fairly frequently. It's a very well-designed game.

Super Mario World is old news, generally. However, when I was playing it, I thought about it relative to Nintendo's most recent 2D Mario title, New Super Mario Bros. While that game has sold very well and is an entertaining game to play, it isn't anywhere near as good as Super Mario World. The level design is very straightforward, and the secrets don't feel as interesting as SMW. The game is also much easier than its predecessor. Most of the effort spent on Mario titles is spent on his 3D adventures, and his 2D games, as rare as they are, still suffer.

I really started gaming in the 3D era, so I don't have a lot of nostalgia for the bygone days of 2D. Yet recently I've been seeing how important it is, and how much is missing when it is forsaken. I also recently tried Street Fighter Alpha 3 for the first time (at least, for any length of time), and as I got used to it, I really began to enjoy it. It's a different kind of experience from a 3D fighter like Soul Calibur or Tekken, but it isn't worse by any standard. I've had fun messing around with a few demos of Xbox Live Arcade games like Geometry Wars and Castlevania, and they've been quite good. But a decent 2D title is very difficult to find now, as developers have passed them over for 3D games.

I understand why this has happened, but there's still a lot of potential in 2D game design that's left untapped, and there are kinds of games that can be engaging and enjoyable that can't be replicated in 3D. I wish that some of the larger development houses like Capcom or Nintendo dedicated a lot of their resources to a 2D title, but I can't see it happening.

Perhaps this summer I'll actually start getting some mileage out of my Virtual Console, and try a lot of the games that I would have liked to have played, but never got the chance. But it seems that, with the exception of Odin Sphere, major 2D games are dead.

As a senior in high school, I'm lucky enough to have a 'senior lounge' in my school. We've outfitted it with a TV and a bunch of different Nintendo game consoles. As a result, whenever I have free time, I can go there to play games with my friends. It's really nice. At this point, we have a Super Nintendo, a Nintendo 64, and two Gamecubes. We usually play Super Smash Bros. Melee, but recently, we've been using the N64 and SNES more, playing some Tetris Attack and Pokemon Stadium 2. Those games may be old, but they're still very fun. Tetris Attack is especially polished to this day, even though I suck at it. Great mechanics there.

Yesterday, however, someone brought in Perfect Dark for us to play. We only had 2 N64 controllers, and no expansion pack, so we did some basic multiplayer against bots, and I was really unimpressed. I didn't have Perfect Dark back when it was released, but I definitely had a few fun games with it. However, playing it now, it seemed really terrible. Part of it was the graphics which, at least without the expansion pack, looked very pixelated and blurry (the sims, shaded for their teams, basically looked like blobs of whatever color team they were on). But the other part was the gameplay, which, thanks to the control scheme, which is pretty poor by today's standards (Aiming with the c-buttons?!? What kind of barbarians were we in that age?), seemed to boil down to hunting for guns and being able to point yourself in someone's general direction. It just wasn't that enjoyable relative to other stuff that we had there, so we went back to playing Pokemon Stadium. 

I know many people here absolutely love Perfect Dark, but I feel like it is a great example of a game that hasn't aged very well. The graphics, impressive for their day, are now bad to the point of disorientation and distraction, and the gameplay, which was incredibly advanced for consoles, is now antiquated compared to current console FPS fare. Meanwhile, games like Tetris Attack, Pokemon Stadium, or even the original Super Smash Bros (which is horribly unbalanced by Melee's standards) remain enjoyable to this day, because they play just as well relative to their peers as they did when they were released, and they don't look completely terrible. 

I wonder what games of last generation will age as poorly as Perfect Dark has?  

Only a month and a half between posts! I'm improving!

There's plenty of stuff that I could mention, but the most pressing thing on my mind right now is the recently released Halo 3 beta.  Considering the number of hours I spent playing Halo 2, I've been eagerly anticipating this. I enjoyed Halo 2, and from what I heard from Bungie's website, it sounded like Halo 3 would be a large improvement over Halo 2, though not necessarily a large innovation over it. This expectation turned out to be fairly accurate, but in a way that may be even better than I hoped.

There are a number of little things I like about the Beta (besides the "Loading... Halo 3 Beta... Love, Bungie) message that greets you as it boots up. I like how it lists how many people are online, and how many people are on each playlist, when you're looking through matchmaking. I also like how, as you're going into matchmaking, it shows what types of games your system is looking to match you with. These are really small things, but they're nice to know. It's also very easy to get stats on any players you're up against before, during, and after the game. The postgame carnage report is much more comprehensive, in that there are more stats tracked, and it's easier to look at a single player's performance specifically. It's also very easy to save a film for the Saved Films feature. On top of that, the Party Up feature makes it really simple to get into parties with people you enjoyed playing with after a game. However, all this stuff is relatively inconsequential when compared to the gameplay, though it's great to see Bungie improving on what is still the best online multiplayer system out there. 

The first thing you notice upon getting into a game is the new starting weapon, the Assault Rifle. The Assault Rifle returns from Halo 1, but in that game, it was pretty useless when compared to the incredibly powerful scoped Pistol, your other starting weapon. In Halo 3, it's the only gun you start with in every normal gametype, and it's much better. Unlike Halo 2's SMG, this gun is very useful in many combat situations. You never feel totally helpless in it, and it's pretty easy to rely on it to get most of your kills. It's far from overpowered, but it's great at close to medium range. 

That kind of sentiment holds true for many of the weapons. None of them are really overpowered (the most powerful guns are pretty tough to use right), but all of them have some use. Even the much-maligned Needler is a viable alternative (though I tend to shun it, perhaps on instinct). Many of the one-handed guns are very useful when dual-wielded. The Plasma Pistol, once a powerhouse, has had its charge shot toned down so it isn't the beast that it once was. And any single-handed weapon has a role to play in battle. As a result, you find yourself making decisions on the fly about how you want to approach combat, switching between weapons as you change areas and opposition. 

Dual wielding is de-emphasized in this game relative to what it was in Halo 2. Not only does starting with a two-handed weapon make it a bit less appetizing to look for two guns, but melee and grenade damage has increased. Making those aspects better helps the game's pacing, as it makes players focus less on circle-strafing and more on positioning and grenades. As a result, I like the feel of the combat much more in Halo 3 than Halo 2, at least at this point. Fights feel more dynamic. 

There are other aspects to combat that I haven't really explored yet personally. The 'support weapons', the turret and missle pod, that move you to a third-person view, aren't things I've tried out yet, though I usually find people using them to be pretty easy targets. And the equipment isn't something I've really used much of, mostly because I'm not used to having it. It definitely spices battles up and makes things interesting, but I don't tend to realize I'm holding something until it's too late for it to matter.

The map design is very solid of the ones in the beta. High Ground is very interesting, and is a great map in any team-based objective game thanks to its asymmetrical base design. There are a number of ways to get into the base, and the multileveled play there keeps things exciting, if a bit confusing. The only issue I have with it, I guess, is that it's less interesting in straight deathmatch games, because so much of the front of the level, outside the base, tends to go basically unused.  

Snowbound is a very good map. The basic design is pretty straightforward, with two bases in the snow connected by the field above as well as tunnels underneath. The cool feature of Snowbound are shield doors. These shields allow players through, but block all gunfire and grenades. This creates unique situations, as players on opposite sides of the doors are caught in a kind of standoff. It is also great in Oddball, where the team can hole up in one of those rooms, and the other players can't act until they get inside. I like this map a lot.

Valhalla is a map that I don't have a ton of experience in. It's a relatively open map compared to the others, but the area between the two bases is broken up by a lot of rocks and stuff, so a single sniper can't totally dominate all lanes of the map. There's a lot of transport around, including the exalted 'man-cannons', so it doesn't take too long to get where you're going, but you can get very exposed. A skilled team can really lock down this map well, and it's difficult to fight back if they can control the map's center. Still, I'm interested to see how it develops, and I like it a lot more than Coagulation and Blood Gulch, which it is so clearly inspired by, since Valhalla is much more dynamic.  

Saved Films is an interesting feature, but not one that you can do too much with in this beta. Right now, it seems that all you can do is follow the game from your perspective. That's alright, but it can only take you so far. Sharing games could be interesting though. What will really make this mode shine is when players get more control over the camera and the pace of the films. That will happen in the final game, and that will be cool, but at this point, there isn't much there.  

I've said just about everything I can think of saying. All in all, my impressions are very positive so far. It feels like Bungie has really nailed the basic gameplay of Halo at this point. There's a lot that they haven't shown us (either obvious or not), but if those surprises are as interesting and well-implemented as what we see here, this will be the greatest Halo multiplayer experience yet, which is saying a lot. I'm looking forward to September 25.  

After I made that first post, I sort of ignored the blog function, and never touched it again. But now I'm gonna take another crack at it.

The problem was that I just got all this new stuff, and I wanted to express my views online, but I didn't want to waste people's time with forum posts. And then I realized: that's what a blog is for, right? So here I am.

I'll pace myself by not going through all the stuff I want to talk about at once, so that this actually updates on a more timely basis than "once every two years". And I guess I'm gonna start with the Xbox 360, because that has been the furthest away. 

I got the 360 for my birthday with pretty high expectations. I liked the game selection a lot, but I hadn't given much thought to what the console has on its own. That's what has really impressed me, though the games are more important.

Just having the ability to easily download whatever demos you want, and play a game at the same time, is something really refreshing for a console gamer. And it's pretty easy to watch videos and stuff on the console. Streaming things from a computer is more complicated than I would necessarily like, but I still like that I can do it. I'm somewhat disappointed by how difficult it is to put things on the console from outside, but you can't have everything.

I really like the achievement system, which was a pleasant surprise. It's very satisfying to do something and have 'achievement unlocked' pop up on the bottom of your screen, even if the gamerscore is fairly meaningless. Having friends notifications pop up is good too. The way Xbox Live is integrated into the machine puts just about every other console online system to shame. And the games I have are great, so I'm pretty happy.

My only real concern is my disk drive. Every now and then, it just stops spinning, which leads to game freezes that can only be fixed with a restart. Sometimes, if I wait long enough, I'll get an error message talking about a dirty disk, even though this has happened with all my games, sometimes when they were fresh out the box. It has happened at least once in each of my games, but it has been more frequent in Dead or Alive 4. It's not a big deal for now, but I just hope it isn't a precursor to future catastrophe.  

This is my first entry here. Perhaps they'll become more frequent as time passes. However, right now, I'm compelled to write stuff. What I've decided is that video games will only really come into their own and will only be respected once they begin to focus more on the emotional experience, and a bit less on fun factor.

Right now, games really have one primary focus: to be fun. This is a perfectly noble aim. As entertainment, they are obligated to provide an experience that keeps you playing for however many hours are required to complete the game. There are a number of great games where their sole purpose is fun factor. For instance, any PC online shooter only exists to test skills and provide fun. It doesn't make them worse, as they are extremely good at what they do. There will always be a place for entertainment that solely does the job of entertaining. However, I see the potential for more from video games. Video games, when properly executed, can be the perfect vehicle for emotion.

Every form of popular media besides video games isn't solely focused on entertainment. They focus on stories that convey emotion. Even music can be more centered on telling stories and getting across emotions than simply entertaining. This is especially apparent with movies and books. Though there are a number of both that are solely focused on delivering excitement and fun, there are just as many that are about more complex emotional themes, not all of which are enjoyable. Does this make them fun? Not necessarily. Does this make them bad? Not at all.

In fact, when a game properly incorporates emotion, it enhances the experience greatly. A very good example of this is the original Half-Life. Though it had fairly good shooter action, and had some advanced AI for its time, what truly set the game apart was its storytelling. The game doesn't start out with action. It starts out with you, as the scientist Gordon Freeman, going about your job like any other day. You progress forward on a linear tram, and simply head about doing your business. There are various other scientists and security guards standing around, going about their business. This part connects you with the environment, and sets the stage for the events to follow. And through the use of scripted scenes that occur without taking you out of the action, it is as if you are living the story. You are part of what is occurring, not separate from it. You aren't just someone blasting hellspawn for almost no reason. You have a purpose. What is happening to you is affecting others. There is a story playing out, and you are a part of it.

It is in this sense that video games have their potential as emotional vehicles. Unlike movies or music, you are not a passive observer, you are an active player. You aren't watching someone do things. You do things yourself. Because of your direct control over the actions, video games have the greatest ability to bring the participant into what is occurring, and to deliver emotions to them. However, that ability is rarely taken advantage of. Usually, video games are solely centered around fun and excitement. When I am playing Grand Theft Auto, or even Halo, I am enjoying myself, but that is all. There is nothing more to it than that. Yet when playing something like Half-Life, there is something more occurring than just enjoyment.

For instance, in the later levels of Katamari Damacy, you have more time, and larger goals. I would start a level off at 1 meter, and end it at 500 meters. Though this was an enjoyable activity, it wasn't the only thing going on. As time passed, and my katamari ball grew, I would come back to the area where I began. What used to seem large to me at 1 meter was minuscule. I could pick up the entire environment that had seemed so large before. That change really reinforced the change in scale that was occurring in a way that I hadn't realized before. It showed me the differences in scale in the most effective manner possible: by living all the way up from small to enormous.

That may seem like a somewhat trite example, but I see the potential for so much more. Even though storytelling while the game is playing out was demonstrated in Half-Life 7 years ago, few games have attempted to do that in a similar way. Most games still do most of their storytelling via non-interactive cutscenes. The ability to live through stories, instead of passively watching them, is the most powerful tool video games have going for them.

I want to see games made based around stories, instead of based around gameplay. It could even be done in an open-ended fashion, but the power of living an experience should not be underestimated. Once that is done, videogames can be legitimated as an art form. Until then, games will still be viewed more as toys than as something serious.