Friday, September 16, 2011

Books and Games: The Fatmakers

I'll admit it, I resent reading a little bit. Now, I do read constantly, but not as many actual books as I should, I suppose.

While shooting interviews for my upcoming libraries and gaming segment, something got me a little annoyed. Nobody complains about books making you fat. If you just sat down and read books all day and did nothing else, how is that any different (physically) from playing games all day? Unfortunately, your imagination doesn't burn calories. Even if you imagine that you are.

But come on! Reading is such a sacred cow. You can't say anything bad about it otherwise you look like an ignoramus. Clearly, reading is awesome. But the fact that I even need to qualify everything with that statement shows what I mean. I'm so nervous about saying anything bad about reading that I have to spell it out like that.

I suppose reading had to fight this battle at some point. It was one of the points of conversation with the people I talked to at the library. Even writing had to deal with the same kind of condescension that gaming is dealing with right now. I just hope that one day, gaming will be treated with the same respect reading has. But then, watching movies doesn't really. But I can dream.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Episode 7 Promo!



Episode 7 airs September 6th on LCC-TV! Tell your friends!

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Accidentally Iconic Images

I was having a conversation with my friend Luke Kane today, and we realized how iconic the first, or near-first images of old games are. This is especially true of games back "in the day" (that's what people who are as old as me refer to games around in the late 80's and early 90's). Since there wasn't a save system on most games back then, you ended up playing the first level dozens or maybe even hundreds of times.

I started thinking about this because of the emotional reaction I have whenever I see images from the first levels of some important, older games. These images have been seared into my memory and are instantly recognizable. You could probably remove everything but just a few aspects of each image, and people would still recognize it immediately. For example:


I bet if I were to leave a silhouette of just the bricks and blocks, most gamers would recognize it.

Let's look at some others.



Now, this doesn't really happen as often in newer games. Older games had such a limited perspective, what you saw in the first few seconds is about all there is to that vista. Entering the world of 3D games doesn't quite offer the same specificity. But there are some exceptions:


But for the most part, this doesn't happen quite so strongly anymore because of the ability to save your game and the flexibility in your perspective in 3D games. But it is something that is interesting to think about.

Anybody have their own examples?

Monday, August 1, 2011

3DS Price Chop


The 3DS wasn't cheap. $250 was the same price the PSP launched, and people thought that was pretty crazy for a handheld system. Then Nintendo launches a system and nobody really seemed to complain about the "Golden Child" of the console manufacturer. Admit it, they are. Nobody complains about Nintendo the same way they do about Sony or Microsoft. But that is beside the point.

A $70 price cut? That's not even a cut, that's a chop. That is massive, and so soon! It's nothing short of alarming. What does it mean? And why did Iwata, the CEO of Nintendo, take a 50% pay cut? What is happening to my beloved Nintendo?! Bringer of so much joy to my childhood!

Well, I think, as Penny Arcade already pointed out, it's all about smartphones. As I already mentioned, I find it difficult to find a truly compelling use case for a handheld console in the face of my iPhone. I don't want to carry a whole separate device around just for playing games.

But more important than that, smartphones, in particular the App Store, has completely transformed what we expect from mobile games. Not only in terms of price ($1 vs $40), but in terms of gameplay style. It never made that much sense, in most cases, to have a full, immersive experience on the go. I think a lot of it comes from the legacy of games development. Handheld systems' primary goals seemed to be to replicate, as closely as possible, the home console experience. Early on, with the Gameboy, that meant simple games like Mario. But because that philosophy still persists, it now means games like Uncharted 2.

This is totally wrong for a multitude of reasons, and that's why iPhone gaming has become the new way we play mobile games. Bite-sized games at bite-sized prices. You usually only have a few minutes at a time, so when games only last that long, you're much more likely to play them. This is mobile gaming now.

People's expectations have changed, and Nintendo and Sony still haven't quite caught on to that.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

A Big Step


The Supreme Court has affirmed something I've been trying to tell them for years. Videogames are just as legitimate as movies or TV! Granted, calling each justice up in the middle of the night and yelling that at the top of my lungs probably wasn't as effective as my tipsy self thought it was. It's nice to see some sort of official stance on this.

This was a big step, though. It's encouraging to see this kind of recognition from such a high institution. Along with their production, the experience of games has become much more complex through the years. They are no longer just a piece of software. So it makes sense to treat them like other forms of art when it comes to censorship.

It's a tale as old as time. Some new medium develops and people start to worry about its affects on people. It's a legitimate concern to have, I think. But the response is very important. You don't want to just label something new and potentially frightening as obscene. That argument is always the one popping back up. What is obscenity?

The whole argument of obscenity is that it offers only vulgarity and nothing else of value. But it's hard to see the value of something when you know very little about it. That's what I always seem to notice about the obscenity argument. When you don't know much about something, it's hard to see any value in it. Value is subjective anyway. Someone might see Postal 2 as nothing but a violence and murder simulator. Maybe I look at it as satire.

I just don't know why people always seem to think "Well this time it's different". It never is, no matter how much you try to ignore march of history. It's just the same, and The Supreme Court said so.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Red Dead Redemption's Missed Opportunity

Red Dead Redemption is pretty slow to start, but once it gets going, it is fun as hell. That's why I've had the game for months, but am just now starting to get into it.

So now I'm going to quasi-complain about it. It doesn't really count as criticism because I can't hold against the developers things they haven't done that I would really like.

Red Dead Redemption (herein referred to as RDD) plays into just about everything I already thought about the old west. This is stuff I learned from movies and TV, so its accuracy is dubious at best. In terms of its portrayal of history, RDD has yet to subvert any of my expectations. Rather, it seems to cater to pretty much all of them. Now, I do understand the purpose of it. By doing so, it makes for one hell of an exciting game. What with all the gun fighting, robberies, prostitution and so on.

But if gaming is exploration and play, then we're missing out on a really cool opportunity to show a side of the Old West that we didn't really know or expect. Imagine playing an open world game about what it was REALLY like, rather than what you just hope it was like. Gaming is more exciting when it defies your expectations, rather than just playing into them.

Like I said, I understand why they designed the game the way they did. I also understand how difficult it would be to make it super fun if you removed a lot of the action. But I loved the missions where I was helping out with the ranch, wrangling cattle, or breaking horses. I don't think it would be too difficult if you just made the characters and story interesting enough.

It just makes me a little sad that I feel this way about an otherwise fantastic experience. It isn't really fair to be sad about what could have been, especially when it relates to my own hangups about gaming in general.


One last thing while we are on the subject of Old West stereotyping: They seriously have a drunken, skeevy Irishman? They didn't even draw attention to this obvious and somewhat offensive stereotype. They could have at least been winking at the player about it. Sheesh.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

E3 2011 or: Why I Hate The Kinect Now

I'm going to reference Mitch Hedberg on this one: Watching E3 conferences is like eating pancakes. All exciting at first, but by the end you're F#@$%& sick of 'em.

That's the way I felt when I started watching Microsoft's Presser, the first of three that I would ultimately view. What follows are my impressions---

MICROSOFT:

I officially hate the Kinect. When it was first revealed two E3's ago, I was skeptical but optimistic. It was a strange and exciting new technology, but one I worried would result mostly in gimmicky experiences. The tech demos they displayed were very much "concept" videos, and I took them as such. But it looked really fun anyway, if this stuff was actually possible. The live demonstrations obviously real, because they were loaded with technical glitches.

If we leap ahead one year to E3 2010, the demos were oddly perfect. So they were most likely all staged. I can forgive that, though, for the sake of presentation, assuming that is all stuff the Kinect can actually do. But it doesn't speak much to the confidence of its performance. At any rate, it had been a year since the Kinect was revealed, so developers had at least a year to play with the new technology. The demos were, in my mind, awful. They were nothing but gimmicky new ways of controlling the same old games. The games themselves were all incredibly limited, on-rails experiences. I felt sad this was all they had to show.

Let's leap ahead an additional year to E3 2011. Surely after at least 2 years with the Kinect, we were to be bombarded with fascinating demonstrations and new games using the Kinect in ways we never anticipated...right?

NO!

It was the exact same bullshit we saw last year! I felt sad. Then I felt angry. Then I felt sad again. Then SUPER ANGRY! Then I completely gave up on trying to like the Kinect. If nothing interesting has happened after 2 years, what will?

Then Microsoft revealed Kinect Fun Labs! Oh my! An app store dedicated to small, experimental Kinect experiences? This sounds promising! It kind of is, if you bought a $150 camera just to screw around with little meaningless apps. It was almost like Microsoft was admitting this was about it. No meaningful experiences here. Just some insubstantial little tech demos, kind of like their E3 pressers.

For shame. But I will remain optimistic. Maybe Fun Labs will provide inspiration for some really cool experiences in games. Maybe.

SONY:

This year's E3 was a lot like last year's in that Microsoft's event made me angry, while Sony's just kind of underwhelmed me.

They didn't focus too heavily on the PlayStation Move, which was nice of them. They did go into more detail about their Next Generation Portable, now known as the PlayStation Vita.

What I like about the Vita is that it's an all-purpose mobile gaming device. It has pretty much everything a current generation smartphone has (tilt-controls, multi-touch screen, etc) in addition to real physical controls, which is something that keeps smartphones from being able to easily play games like Megaman. In that regard, it's pretty cool. I can play pretty much any type of mobile game on this thing.

What I don't like about it has to do with its entire approach. They keep hammering home the point that this thing can play near-PS3 quality games on the go. I don't want that! Granted, the visuals on this thing are impressive, but I don't want to play Uncharted on a dinky screen. If I'm going to be playing a game as stunning and immersive as that, I want to be doing it at home, on my nice TV, nice sound system, and from the comfort of my recliner.

Now, there's nothing that says the Vita HAS to do that, but it's something Sony keeps talking about ad nauseum. I am glad, however, it has a bungle of mobile tech to make for other types of experiences. It could be a good device to play iPhone-style, quick mobile games. But then the issue becomes whether or not I want to carry around a completely separate device for that.

The Vita is a promising hardware platform, but like the PSP, it remains to be seen of the software will support that promise.

NINTENDO:

Where to even begin? This was kind of a crazy one. That controller is bonkers! Wii U? I guess we'll eventually also get over the silly name like we did with the Wii.

Nintendo was really channeling the first reveal of the Wii with this press conference. The difference is that the Wii's use case was a lot clearer than the Wii U. They showed the Wii U controller doing some wild stuff, but all of it was still kind of fuzzy.

So it's a controller with a screen, and the screen can be a extension of the TV, or replace the TV? It has motion controls? How does a screen utilize motion controls? This all seems kind of cool, but only vaguely cool.

It was immediately obvious what the original Wii was going to do, even as misleading as the first concept videos actually were. The Wii U? Not so much. I'm still kind of excited, though. It's all up to developers.

Wait a minute... the developers didn't really do much interesting stuff with the Wii's motion controls, or even Wii Motion Plus. Most of the best, recent Wii games haven't really been using motion controls.

BLARGHHHHH!!!

Monday, June 6, 2011

Double Jump Episode 6!



If I were going to describe this next episode of Double Jump using only culinary terms, "saucy" would probably be the first thing that came to mind.

Imagine you went into a McDonalds and you ordered a Big Mac. What you didn't notice, however, is that Wolgang Puck was back there grinding the beef, baking the bun, and blending together the special sauce himself. With the utmost care, he places the bun on the table, plants the first juicy patty, some diced onions that he grew himself, the next fresh bun, the final medium-cooked patty, romaine lettuce, and the special sauce with ingredients imported from Tasmania.

And here you were expecting just a normal Big Mac, but instead you got this incredible "core sample" of a burger from Wolgang Amadeus Puck himself.

Yeah, that's kind of what the next episode of Double Jump is like.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

The Space of Games

When playing Portal 2 (which is incredible by the way, play it ASAP), I noticed something about the world that videogames create.

When looking at a TV while playing games, I noticed that I was always imagining the space outside of the view of my monitor. This obviously rarely happens with film or TV, if at all. It's because the environment of film and TV isn't as important as it is in games. The space your game character inhabits is essential to the experience, and because of the flexibility you have in exploring and viewing it, your perception of the screen in front of you changes.
You look at the TV as a window, rather than a canvas.
To me, this is incredibly important in how you perceive the game emotionally. During the end of Portal 2, I felt like I was INSIDE the environment, especially because it's a first-person game. When you feel like you're inside of the space, you feel more like it's actually happening in real life.
It's obvious why you feel a more tangible connection to the events in a game, when you have control over your experience, it creates the illusion that it's really happening to you. I'm more interested right now in how the perception of space affects that.
Maybe I don't have anything interesting to say about it. Maybe I'm just noticing it.
Why do I have to be so smart all the time? HUH?!
Why can't I just say that I noticed something and then be done with it?! Does the order of the question mark and exclamation point matter!? Does it change the balance of the statement? Is this more of an exclamation than a question!? Is this more of a question than an exclamation?!
I DON'T KNOW!
I'm really freaking out here! Am I going to have a breakdown in front of my lovely audience someday? Probably. Is this it? Probably not!

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Double Jump: The Podcast

Ok, so since I do most of my work on Double Jump: The TV Show at home, and I've been consumed by the Capital City Film Festival, work on the next Double Jump: The TV Show episode has been moving VERY slowly. Don't worry, though, it'll be done in a couple weeks, once the fest is over.

But all this made me realize that making a TV show is a lot of work. It takes a long, long time sometimes. Podcasts, on the other hand, are EASY. So I've decided, as a sort of supplement to Double Jump: The TV Show, Andrew Dennis and I will produce Double Jump: The Podcast!

We live in an exciting time, people. Mostly because of Double Jump: The Podcast. We already recorded the first episode. A kind of "beta" test, if you will. We will be recording the second episode this week, and you soon you'll be able to feast on our amazing voices and intellects.

STAY TUNED!

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Games as a Machine

My greatest concern with games as art is their need to function properly as a piece of software. In this way, games are kind of like a machine. There are many parts, and all the parts need to coalesce into a working whole. I think about this a lot, actually. How easily can games be art, when they have to accomplish so much objective functionality before anything else?

I guess we can compare it to other forms of art. I think film is the closest because it is the least abstract. Film, for the most part, needs to tell a story. There is a language to film that has been established for decades. In order to operate as a piece of storytelling, certain rules need to be followed. In this way, film is like gaming. There is a certain layer of procedure before you can dig into making it a piece of art.

Clearly, the more abstract you want to be, the less important this becomes. Experimental film can break as many rules as it wants in an attempt to draw your attention to the rules themselves. Games might be able to do the same thing. Maybe a game could have really awful controls on purpose in order to make some sort of statement.

I'm always worried about the how the needs of games as a piece of software limit the art. But I think that as we learn more and more about how to make games, and the "language of games" is established, this will become less and less of an issue. Games aren't the only medium limited by this idea, either. Perhaps this very limitation is what will make them into great works of art.

Maybe I should just talk to some developers about this. New segment for Double Jump, maybe?

Friday, January 28, 2011

Why should I get a PSP2 or 3DS?

Sony's announcement of the PSP2, or NGP, or whatever they're calling it brings up a good question about the future place of portable gaming systems. Where is their place in the world of smart phones?

That's not to say it isn't a capable gaming machine. Looking at it purely as a gaming device, it's better than the iPhone or any other smartphone. It has the hardware for a much wider gamut of game types. Real buttons and real thumbsticks, a capacitive multi-touch screen, gyroscopes and motion sensors, it's got everything. You can play iPhone-style multi-touch games, you can play Uncharted, you can play Mega Man. It's a pretty serious gaming machine. I'm also very interested in how the backside multi-touch panel gets used. But this is all beside the point.

Why do I need all of this with me at all times, or even just on the go?

Why do I need PS3-caliber games outside of my apartment? When I'm out and about, do I have the time or attention needed for a deep and immersive experience? Not really. When I play an iPhone game, it's because I have a few minutes to spare and I like the intellectual stimulation. I'm not looking to play Heavy Rain when I'm sitting on the toilet or waiting for my tires to be changed.

I have an iPhone, and I have a PS3/Xbox/Wii. They are incredibly well suited for these two different situations. I own a PSP and a DS, but never play them outside my apartment. I simply don't want to be carrying an extra device around with me. This is why I think the future of "extra" mobile gaming devices is limited. It's a pain to carry around another plastic brick just so I can play Uncharted at work. The use case for portable gaming systems seems to be getting smaller and smaller. Air travel or vacationing seem like good opportunities to bring a handheld PS3 along, but are these situations happening enough to justify a new gadget? They don't for me, but I'm just one dude.



It seems like portable gaming changed with the technology. Before, you had systems like the GameBoy. Gameplay was very simple and easy to pick up and play, just think about the success of Tetris. But as the technology got more advanced, so did the ambition of the developers. Now it's possible to create experiences very similar to home consoles. I think that's moving down the wrong path, and smartphones are taking mobile gaming in a direction that makes more sense.

Maybe the solution is to build an Android phone into the new device. It's already so similar to a phone. It has a touch screen, a microphone, speakers, a front and rear camera, GPS. All it needs is a cellular chipset and to be comfortable held against your ear.

Gaming is diverging into different groups, and different devices are handling each group. I think that trying to bridge those two groups, make the "best of both worlds", will end up being ignored by those worlds. At least, I don't think it will ever be as successful again as the Nintendo DS is.

Things change.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Extended/Deleted Meaningful Play Interviews

Here are the interviews that I promised from Episode 5 of Double Jump



Monday, January 10, 2011

Ecco the Dolphin reviews non-dolphin games.

Hi there, my name is Ecco. You might remember me from the classic Sega Genesis game Ecco the Dolphin. Those were some pretty wild times, but when I'm not starring in my own games, I like to provide reviews for current games. I hope to become an important critic in the gaming industry. So far, Dolphins' only real contribution to gaming has been in cheesy New Age-y games like my own.


Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
This game is about as Metal Gear Solid as it comes. Metal Gear Solid has always been a flawed, but ambitious series. People say it's always managed to evolve alongside the rest of the game industry to keep itself relevant. But I don't know what relevant means because I'm a dolphin.
Mario Galaxy 2
Mario Galaxy 1 was a masterpiece of 3D platformers, and Galaxy 2 is even better than that, or so I'm told. I can't really play any videogames because controllers aren't designed for fins.
Mass Effect 2
Continuing the epic sci-fi saga and improving the mechanics in just about every way imaginable, Mass Effect 2 is very nearly a masterpiece of sci-fi gaming. This is only what I can assume. I only heard of this game, I haven't played it. Videogame consoles don't work underwater, unfortunately.
Kirby's Epic Yarn
Since this game isn't a bucket of fish, I'm not all that interested in it. I'm a dolphin, after all.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this very different perspective on games. Until next time, landwalkers.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Meaningful Play or: Why Games Are the Most Exciting Medium Right Now


I'm not going to bother even arguing with Roger Ebert because he's so wrong about games that I would be just wasting my time explaining why. Also, he probably wouldn't pay attention to me. It would be more worthwhile arguing with someone who claims that gravity doesn't exist.

Games are the most exciting art form right now. Film, music, and even elevision are very well established. As forms of art, they are pretty well understood. Games aren't at all. Their mystery is what makes them so exciting!


The Meaningful Play conference was one of the best experiences of my life. I was surrounded by tons of creative and talented people who all looked at games like I do. Leaving the conference I was overflowing with excitement for the future of games. There is still so much that we don't know about games, and this is why I was so excited.

Talk after talk, and conversation after conversation, there were so many different ideas as to what games can be and just how to achieve that. There are many different theories about what makes games compelling. Seeing so many different approaches, even ones that don't quite work, was thrilling.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, maybe), a lot of it depends so heavily on technology. This has always been gaming's biggest limitation. Not too long after the development of cinema, the technology for its production had more or less been established. The technology would continue to develop, but mostly for the purpose of making production easier and more cost effective, or making visual effects more convincing. In the end, though, the impact was more or less the same.


Games haven't had this luxury. The technology limited everything about what could be expressed in a game. These limitations forced game designers to be as creative as possible, trying to create as many different types of experiences out of the meager means. But it would only go so far.

More important than brute power and technological progress are the tools used to develop games. This is very important, actually. The possibility for beautiful graphics is already here, much of which is only possible with huge teams of designers and software engineers. As time goes on, the ability for small teams to create simliar experiences is expanding. Like the digital video revolution currently happening, gaming is undergoing a similar revolution. A team of two or three people can create a visually beautiful experience that rivals what big studios can produce because of development tools that make production easier and more intuitive. This is even more important that just simple technological power. It makes projects less of a risk and designers more likely to innovate and push some envelopes. Big, scary envelopes. It shifts the development away from software engineers and more into the hands of artists.

Technology isn't the only reason to be so excited. As time goes on, games are drawing a much more diverse type of talent. Games have always had a difficult time being taken seriously. They are always portrayed as juvenile. Even in some recent movies, if you want a character to seem emotionally stunted or childish, show them playing videogames. I have always found this notion pretty offensive, but I'll save that for another post. At any rate, because of this stigma, gaming hasn't always been drawing the best from the artistic talent pool. That's really starting to change. Newer generations of artists grew up with videogames, and aren't looking at them with the same derision as older generations. At Meaningful Play, this was very obvious, as a lot of the designers called themselves "artists" just like a filmmaker would. This new generation of artists are looking at games as just another medium. I can't tell you how encouraging this simple fact was. I wasn't talking to "just" game designers, I was talking to artists who are making games.


All of this relates to the tremendous transition games are undergoing. There is still so much that we have to learn about the way games work and affect people. At Meaningful Play, there were researchers and designers who were working toward a greater understanding of this. Robin Hunicke's talk about ThatGameCompany's upcoming game was a great example. It was about how the concept of their game shifted based on play testing. The players weren't playing the game in the way they were expecting, and that type of feedback really influenced the game. This process of mystery and discovery is why this age of gaming is so exhilarating.