I must first establish my credentials.
I have none.
My First Superhero Book
30 Days: Favorite Gameplay Mechanic
This is one of a series called “30 Days of Video Games“, an exercise on daily writing.
Follow the link for the full list.
Hrm this is a pretty confusing topic to write about. What is a gameplay mechanic? Are we talking systemic concepts like “first-person shooting” or “resource building & management”, or more detailed components of a gameplay, like “rules of physics” (think platformers like Sonic or Mario) and “talent trees”?
I guess I’ll aim for somewhere in between then and talk about building. In video games, building can take on many different forms – in simulation games, building is rather literal, such is the case of SimCity or Roller Coaster Tycoon. You start with a limited resource (usually money), build small but that small thing you’ve started becomes the means for faster resource income, and you can begin to build bigger things – eventually reaching this critical mass when you’ve unlocked “the sandbox” when your resource quantities become meaningless and your only constraints are time, limits of the platform and your own imagination. In other games, such as RPGs, building usually refers to a character, or characters, but the concept is similar. Start small, with a few hit points and limited damage, and through time, experience, gameplay and maybe some repetition, your character begins to be able to take on exponentially harder challenges with even better rewards. Not so different than strategy games where you may start off with a small number of units, or a single city, and grow your empire to be more productive.
All these three broad genres often include the concept of balancing long-term planning vs. short term need. Your city might need power now and only have the money to place a stinky coal plant right down the street from your first industrial zones, but you have a vision of incredibly wealthy waterfront property. Toughness might be best feat to keep you alive for the next four levels, but taking Spell Focus: Evocation allows you to stay competitive later on matching your enemies’ increasing saving throws, and allows for better, more powerful feats later on. Saving skill points now might hurt as your character is less powerful than others at its level, but allows you to have more points handy for what will be your character’s signature ability 10 levels down the road, saving you from having wasted points in a superseded ability.
This concept lends itself towards opportunity costs and the economics of building with finite resources, as much as it introduces the concept of ‘mistakes’ that can limit long-term growth. Most games, especially now, have some sort of (possibly costly) means of undoing previous decisions, whether via the bulldozer tool, respec potions or going through periods of anarchy. To me, the implementation of those measures is what makes or breaks the game. Diablo II did not allow for respecs making early choices (and the early levels) a daunting task. I’ve always liked the simulation method of being able to bulldoze some of your mistakes.
30 Days: Favorite Sound Effect
This is one of a series called “30 Days of Video Games“, an exercise on daily writing.
Follow the link for the full list.
(Note: I changed this topic from favorite hand-held game, a topic which I do not have much write on as I haven’t played a lot of hand-held games.)
The level up sound for World Of Warcraft. The ding of collecting coins in Mario Bros – the ding of collecting a ring in Sonic the Hedgehog. The “DING” from Everquest. Iconic sounds and sound effects have a massive effect in video games, they are our reward and notification of success, as much as they are the indication of failure, danger or mistakes. It’s hard to pick just one – sound effects have become so integrated within video game culture. Log into almost any MMO guild chat and you’ll see people clammering out, “DING!” when they level up, regardless of what game (and what sound it makes.) That comes from this;
Perhaps no game did sound effects better than Starcraft. The real-time (and sometimes more-than-often hyperactive) strategy game required those audio cues as you juggled several armies scattered across a map. The setting for the game allowed for imaginative and flavorful warnings such as this one. And while the unit selection easter eggs of Blizzard games weren’t vital to gameplay, they certainly were fun. I still find myself wanting to find ways to slip “En taro Tassadar” into my everyday speech.
Some sounds were sounds of dread – the “horns of war” coming between turns in Civilization 4 followed by Shaka’s screaming face declaring war on you and everything you stand for is always an unpleasant experience.
It’s too hard, I can’t pick a favorite! Wait… is that Johnny Cage’s music?
MOOOOOOORRRRRRTAAAAAAALLLLL KOOOOOMMMMMMBAAAAAATT!!
30 Days: Best Soundtrack
This is one of a series called “30 Days of Video Games“, an exercise on daily writing.
Follow the link for the full list.
Da, comrade. There is only one logical choice. Tetris for the Nintendo GameBoy.
Featuring perhaps one of the most famous and iconic video game scores, the GameBoy version of Tetris’ 8-bit arrangement of “Korobeiniki” is known the world over simply as the “Tetris Song”;
Much lesser known but just as awesome, the game came with two more arrangements;
With Tetris becoming such a sensation during the glasnost period of the USSR, the game was a natural fit to highlight the indomitable cultural legacy of Russia. Versions of the game often include images of Russian & Soviet culture, images such as St. Basil’s Cathedral, Yuri Gagarin, and scenes from the Nutcracker ballet, just to name a few. Music was also a way that the various Tetris games presented and shared Russian culture, and in the GameBoy version, they nailed it.
Plus, it was a very pleasant surprise to go a Timbers game for the first time and see the Timbers Army serenading our beloved club on with this;
With all this being said about Tetris, I have to give two honorable mentions, Diablo & Civilization 4.
Let me know your favorites!
30 Days: Favorite Couple
This is one of a series called “30 Days of Video Games“, an exercise on daily writing.
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Here’s where I diverge from the script.
You’ll no doubt be expecting Link & Zelda here. I would be expecting Link & Zelda here. There’s hardly a more timeless, classic video game couple than Link & Zelda. While the two non-Power facets of the Triforce started as a rote, damsel-in-distress story with Link playing the part of the Knight-Errant, the Zelda series has done a wonderful job highlighting Zelda as an appropriate and equally capable adventurer as her long-time legendary beau. Zelda has been a master of disguise, a sage, a pirate (and a ninja!) and most importantly, the personification & holder of the Triforce of Wisdom.
In short, the girl’s moved up in the world.
I love the evolution of Princess Zelda, and what that’s meant to the series named after her. Zelda was such a minor character in the first several entries in the series, which always was odd to me considering that she’s the title character.
But they’re not a couple. They’re a threesome. Link & Zelda would simply not be Link & Zelda without Ganon.
I know, it’s trite. Every tired old adventure story is a triangle – the knight-errant, the damsel and the villain. But the concept of triangles are so prevalent within the Legend of Zelda, it’s impossible to ignore – the Triforce needs all three parts, not just Courage & Wisdom. In fact, you could argue that Link & Ganon are more of a couple than Link & Zelda, but if you really want to get into it, the real couple is Ganon & Zelda, who represent the two extremes of the power of Triforce. Anyway, the point being is that Ganon has the Triforce of Power, Zelda Wisdom, and Link eventually gets his tiny little hands on Courage, and the three of them are trapped together forever.
No, my favorite couple comes from Bioware’s excellent Mass Effect series – Commander Sheppard & Garrus Vakarian. Renegade buddy cops, bounty hunter bros, soldiers of virtue and honor, or just bumping uglies (or incredibly supple wrists), Shep & Garrus are my favorite couple. Male or Femshep, it doesn’t really matter, though I prefer to bring the scruffy battleworn Turian into Jenna Sheppard’s renegade bed. To me, Garrus fits the renegade FemShep the best – two incredibly tough badasses that have hearts of gold buried under three feet of steel plating, ready to save the universe, no matter what it takes.
Just… beware of chafing.
30 Days: Most Annoying Character
This is one of a series called “30 Days of Video Games“, an exercise on daily writing.
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THE FUCKING DOG FROM DUCK HUNT.
Hey, I love dogs. I really do. I am most decidedly a “dog person.” Nothing is better than the companionship of a good dog, a solid buddy that is truly your best friend. My dog, Mini, a terrier mix of some sort, her attention is the best pick-me-up ever. If I’ve had a crappy day at work, it melts away as soon as I get home and see a 30 pound bundle of fur and wagging tail holding her ball in her mouth begging for fetch. If the Blazers are on TV, she’s always snuggled up with me on the couch, content with a few scratches behind her ears after Lillard drains another 3.
But that… thing in Duck Hunt is not a dog. It’s an asshole. A brazen, vile shit-hole of a canine, more content to be an obnoxious, self-righteous little fucker every time you miss a duck. The worst thing is, when you first turn on the game, you’re excited for the fun loving smile your dog has when it sniffs out ducks. The carefree joy the dog has as it jumps into the bushes to go flush out the poor ducks that are soon to become dinner, the joy it has when it retrieves a duck… and then… you miss.
And then this:
turns into… this:
Seriously, fuck that stupid fucking smug piece of shit dog.
30 Days: Game Character You’re Like (Or Wish You Were)
This is one of a series called “30 Days of Video Games“, an exercise on daily writing.
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Can I say Samus Aran? I’m going with Samus from the first Metroid. Here you have a dauntless warrior, a person with a job and the will (and the toys) to get the job done. Take out the pirates. Bring down their bosses. Destroy the Mother Brain and the stolen Metroid organisms. Nothing else matters – get the tools to solve the next step in Planet Zebes’ labyrinth of challenges, upgrade the hardware needed to take down Kraid & Ridley, set the charges, get out of town. Samus’ first adventure is a straight-up smash-in-the-door adventure and she is clearly the right person for the job.
Metroid’s ending was both amazing and problematic. The reveal of Samus’ gender as the toughest woman this side of Ellen Ripley blew the minds of geeks everywhere, and the game outside of the ending is a wonderful gender-neutral puzzle/action game with the stoic and silent Samus silently taking her licks without moans, groans or feminine whimpers, just a sour and muted ‘whoomp’ sound. Samus’ actions were without hesitation, just a smooth and relentless progress towards her goals. It was problematic to me that the ending reveal showing just who Samus was featured her trading in the battlesuit for a bikini (in space, none the less.) That seems fairly gratuitous to me – but seeing at how jaw-dropping it was to have a female action hero (this was way before Lara Craft and Chun-Li), I suppose that’s what was needed to get the point across.
Samus’ other adventures have largely held up the characterization of her as a stoic, silent, ass-kicking bounty hunter, an Eliot Spencer of space, if you will. I’ve heard about the very problematic interaction between her and her male boss in Other M, but I haven’t played the game (not preferring the first-person aspect of the newer games) so I can’t really comment on that.
30 Days: Your Guilty Pleasure Game
This is one of a series called “30 Days of Video Games“, an exercise on daily writing.
Follow the link for the full list.
My guilty pleasure game involves lots of destruction. It involves very little challenge, just the patience needed to get to the point where I am gleefully annihilating enemies left and right. It requires no thought, no grand strategy other than the basics; overwhelming force. It has many different names, though;
At first it was Total Annihilation – I would find some defensible terrain, set up some automated turrets while building up tech and the resources needed to unleash the “Buzzsaw” – a repeating siege weapon that would literally pepper my enemies with cannon fire as I chortled towards building bigger weapons of mass destruction.
It became Starcraft, as I would set up choke points with siege tanks just to watch endless waves of Zerg and Protoss AI melt against bunkers, towers and tanks.
It was Gauntlet, and Diablo II, it was Civilization IV on the Earth 18 map.
Hrm, maybe I should search for a new guilty pleasure game.
30 Days: Favorite Genre
This is one of a series called “30 Days of Video Games“, an exercise on daily writing.
Follow the link for the full list.
Okay kids, let’s jump into it, Dr. Jack style, and sort this one out.
There are two obvious contenders here for me, both involve many of the same aspects of entertainment and video games, so we’re going to break this down and see which genre comes out on top. Our two contenders? Role-Playing Games and Strategy/Simulation Games. Both involve long-term strategy in terms of building up to a final state which you are going to see through to the end with, both (when done right) have a high-replay value, and both are slower and involve countless hours planning out ridiculous builds.
Yeah, dead in the water there. Let’s jump in, shall we?
Builder Mentality
One of the major hallmarks of role-playing and strategy/simulation games is that for most of those games you need to have a more long term vision of your gameplay when you start. Role-playing games mechanically revolve around the concept of building your character up from your humble beginnings as a farmboy/peasant/novice/pissant/whatever to ultimate badass – part of being the ultimate badass usually involves building your effectiveness at some aspect of combat, stacking force multipliers and attempting to minimize any weaknesses in your style. This was never better exemplified (and vilified) within World of Warcraft’s original talent system – each character had three avenues of specialization, some were more subtle differences within the same basic playstyle (see: dual-wielding melee DPS, Rogue), others were massive role changes (see: hybrid, Druid.)
Usually in most RPGs, you have a basic idea of the type of character you want to play when you start a new character, though for persistent world MMORPGs, there are often options to have multiple builds allowing you tailor your build to the situation or just take a night off from healing raids to blow shit up.
In simulation games, it’s a bit more nuanced, since that builder mentality is at the heart of the game. Again, the name of the game is usually start small and build up to something worthy of winning of the game, but the act of building is more of the focus in many games in the genre. While there are exceptions (Paradox’s line of historical simulations come to mind, starting as France, England or Spain in Europa Universalis is not ‘starting small’), the game play is usually similar (see: SimCity, Civilization, Roller Coaster Tycoon.) In these games, you’re usually tasked with a problem and your opening moves are to establish a baseline strategy to build towards a solution. The challenge comes in with random elements which will test or force you to change your strategy. The advantage to a well-thought out strategy is that you can of course weather those challenges without having to change your “build”, allowing for your city/empire/theme park/whatever to continue to grow while overcoming challenges.
That being said, it’s far easier to play with the WOW talent builder during work.
Advantage: Strategy/Simulation
Replay Value
This is a tough one for RPGs – replay for many role playing games simply means redoing the same content with a different character. MMOs have a tougher challenge as their business model is one of repetition to keep subscribers coming back (or, now with the Free-to-Play model, to entice users to spend real currency on additions/additional modes.) However, this works as the experience can be incredibly different with another archetype of character or, in the cases of games like Mass Effect, that have aspects of the “choose-your-own-adventure” style of storytelling, where your choices can unlock or lock certain gameplay elements. This is a constant challenge for the genre, and one that’s been addressed often, which is always a good thing.
Strategy/simulation games have an easier go here, the random nature of the challenges lends itself naturally to a high replay value, but the reverse is true, there’s not often a lot of incentive for a game designer to spend time considering replay value. And, an unfavorable set of circumstances can be a very frustrating experience (see: Shaka, as your walls fall under unrelenting waves of impi.)
Advantage: Role Playing Games, for chasing innovation.
Gameplay/Fun
So uh, that’s the whole point, isn’t it? While none of what I’ve said is hard science, this last category is no doubt the most subjective. Fun is absolutely relative to the person playing the game so it’s hard to break this down without just stating my preference. Which, is, uh, well, the whole thrust of this post.
So which is it? There’s not a clear answer. Sometimes you want to build Rome in a day, sometimes you just want to want to kill rats over and over and over and over and over and… you get the point. However, I think choosing requires me to say RPG solely again to the genre’s intersection with action & adventure games and a looser convention that allows for differing playstyles – one only needs to look at games like Skyrim, or the intersection of action in games like Guild Wars 2 or Wildstar.
So, final advantage: Role Playing Games.
30 Days: Favorite Game Franchise
This is one of a series called “30 Days of Video Games“, an exercise on daily writing.
Follow the link for the full list.
ZELDA!
Yeah there’s really not a lot of doubt here, is there? I have professed my love for the Zelda series time and time again on this site so we don’t really need to go too in depth here, do we? Instead, with that out of the way, I can spend a bit of time on other franchises that I’ve loved throughout the years.
The first that comes to mind, and really, has made a strong running to displace Zelda is Civilization in all its glorious incarnations. Civ games always have a high replay value and some of my best memories in gaming are finally pulling off that grind of domination game, or the abject terror of a Zulu army hell bent on my destruction. It’s hardly surprising that given my love of history and geography that Civ would rank so high, and the latest few releases’ habit of hiring great voice actors to deliver the quotes attached to each technology (and, in Brave New World, to read the Great Works of Writing) have really brought an incredible touch to the series, a real connection to the history that the series is built upon.
There are many other franchises that have come and gone over the years, Mass Effect was an amazing drop into world building, Dragon Age to a lesser degree as well. Mario of course is perhaps the best loved and longest tenured franchise out there, but its appeal has waned for me for a while now. Prince of Persia was a series that drew me in early but lost me with the more recent releases. Knights of the Old Republic and its various spin offs were enjoyable, but nothing ever grabbed me as much as the first did. Warcraft was almost the opposite path – it took me a while to get into the series but by Warcraft III, and of course, World of Warcraft, I was hooked for a long time.
It does dawn on me, that while the Zelda series will always hold that special place in my heart, that maybe, just maybe, Sid Meier stole it out from under me.