You may or may not notice that the name of this here blog has changed. Well I guess you'll notice now that I've told you. What was once The Casual Gamer is now My Life in Gaming: A Video Game Blog by JimmyJackJones. It might change again if I can ever think of something more clever than that. Boy I hope I can, but the last couple of hours haven't filled me with hope.
So why the name change? I guess I should explain why I was calling this The Casual Gamer in the first place. I believe it was on a podcast, likely The Hotspot or 1-Up Yours, when I heard someone explain what they believed to be the differences between the casual and the hardcore gamers. They said the hardcore gamers were the ones who devoted hours to mastering games and being the best at those games. I don't think that's how most marketing people would define it, but I could see where they were coming from. I could also see that I didn't fit that definition. Not that I don't play a lot of games. I'd say most of my free time winds up devoted to video games. But I don't usually labor over individual games, not resting until I've conquered each one. Just take a look at my pile of shame if you want proof of that. Instead, I like to experience a broad range of games, and check out what people consider to be the best in the industry. I'm also not the kind to obsess over achievements, which seems to be the new measuring stick for "hardcore". Don't get me wrong. I love getting them. I just can't see devoted the time and energy needed to get some of the crazy ones. I also don't want to label myself as hardcore. That makes me think of skateboarding out on a battlefield while chugging a Mountain Dew. That's not me, though I do love me some Mountain Dew. So I thought, "OK, I guess I'm a casual gamer. I can live with that." And so when I started this blog, that thought came back to my mind. Hence the name.
But the more I've thought about it, the more I don't feel like that name fits. It seems wrong, especially when the content makes me look mad obsessed about video game. And I'm not. I'm only mildly obsessed. I wanted to change the name, but I decided I should think about what this blog is about. You know, besides just being about video games. A lot of what I've done is mostly review games that I've played. Not to score them or anything, but rather discuss my overall impressions and experiences and describe what I thought stood out. But I also like to post some silly humor stuff here, usually about games, and talk about some of my thoughts on the state of gaming. I do want to get back to my "stories in games" series as well. Basically, this blog is a showcase of how video games are kind of a big deal to me. It's a way for me to speak my mind on this pastime, even if only a few people are around to hear it. I wanted a name that would reflect this. I...couldn't really come up with one. So hey! My Life in Gaming. That kind of works, I guess.
So the content and tone of the blog won't be changing. Rather, the name of the blog has changed to better reflect those things. Honestly, a name change doesn't really need a long post to justify it. Rather, I wanted to communicate what this blog is meant to be about. This is a blog that shows how I feel about games, and what makes a game a meaningful experience to me. So until I can come up with a better name to reflect that (and I won't post a huge thing to explain it again, I promise), welcome to My Life in Gaming!
Alan Wake is a game that focuses upon a novelist of the same name. Alan has been suffering from a severe case of writer's block for a couple of years, so he and his wife travel to a small town out in the forests of the Pacific Northwest called Bright Falls. Soon after arriving, though, something bad happens, and Alan wakes up from a car crash out in the woods. He has no idea how he got there or where his wife is, and he has no recollection of any events from the prior week. And to add to all that, Alan finds himself being hunted down by an army of murderous individuals who appear to be taken over by some kind of darkness. All of these elements might make Alan Wake appear to be a horror game. But it's not.
Alan Wake is an action game, pure and simple. Sure, the elements of the game are built like a horror novel, but there's nothing all that scary about the gameplay. At all. I always felt like I could handle whatever was thrown at me. And the story didn't scare me, even when some dark cloud drags a character away into the night. Don't take any of this to mean that I didn't like the game. Alan Wake is a ton of fun to play, and even if the story wasn't scary, it was still incredibly engaging, and it kept me interested in seeing just what was going to happen next. The fact that you're playing as a writer and not some marine or hard boiled cop actually made the game more interesting, in my opinion. This is just some dude out in the woods trying to survive a nightmare and find his wife.
As I said before, this is an action game. Most of the game involves you being attacked by the shadowy enemies, known as the Taken, and you fighting back with whatever you have at your disposal. You'll usually have a revolver handy, along with a shotgun or hunting rifle, but firearms are what you rely on to finish the job. The most important weapon in the game is light. If you're running around the game without a flashlight, well then things actually do start to get scary. You have to use light to burn away the darkness of the enemies in order to let your bullets do any damage. The bigger the flashlight, the better. Flares and flashbangs become precious commodities (the flashbangs are especially awesome), and you'll be thanking the heavens when you come across a street light that actually still works in this town. The flare gun is the most valuable weapon you will come across, and I found myself grinning with glee when I came across ammo for that baby. The combat is usually quick and tight, and rarely becomes too overwhelming. There were a couple of times where I got frustrated, but now that I look back on my time with Alan Wake, it never actually took me very long to get past those moments. For the most part, I felt like I was a bold warrior ready to take on the night.
Not that the game ever portrays Alan in that way. He definitely reacts in the ways any rational person would react if they found themselves in that situation: confused and terrified. He's a desperate man trying to find some way to make it out of this nightmare. Yet his wife is in danger, so he sticks around and reluctantly faces the darkness that is slowly consuming the town. As you move along in the game, you keep coming across pages of a manuscript that Alan apparently wrote, yet he has no memory of. Each page of the story is about what is happening in Bright Falls, and each one seems to be coming true. What is behind these pages and the darkness within the town is a great mystery, and there are some clever twists and developments that kept me engaged up through the very end.
While the game itself is strictly linear, there are still some diversions along the way. There are some interesting oddball characters in the town of Bright Falls, though you gain most of the sleepy small town atmosphere from the radio show you'll stumble across every so often. I also found myself running off the beaten path every chance I could to look for coffee thermoses and manuscript pages. But probably the best diversion is the television show "Night Springs". This is a Twilight Zone homage that makes you remember, "Oh yeah, Remedy does some awesome in-game TV junk!" That stuff was everywhere in the Max Payne games, so it's nice to see they keep on with the tradition here.
I can't wrap up this review without mentioning Barry. Barry Wheeler is Alan's agent, and when he first wanders into view, I expected to hate this character. You know how there are characters in horror movies that you just can't wait to see get killed? I thought Barry was going to be that guy in Alan Wake. Yet to my surprise, Barry actually grew on me quite a bit. He actually might be one of the best characters in the game. I actually found myself liking the guy and hoping he would make it through to the end. I guess credit goes to the writers for taking the snotty agent and turning him into a likeable sidekick.
Alan Wake is a great game with a pretty original premise that deserves to be checked out. It also has a T rating, which honestly surprised me when I learned about it. This is from the makers of the Max Payne series, after all. And this seemed like it was veering towards the horror genre. Yet I don't think they pulled any punches to get that rating. They still tell a strange and suspenseful story alongside some very satisfying action gameplay. So I have no problem recommending that anyone with an Xbox 360 go give this game a try. I just hope you won't be afraid to turn out the lights when you're done.
I hear the discussion every now and then. Well, OK, I actually hear someone talk about hearing the discussion. That person is usually Jeff Gerstmann, and the discussion is about in-game advertising. When I hear Jeff talk about it (on the Bombcast. I'm not trying to claim he and I are tight buds or anything), he mentions that apparently there are people who are offended whenever they see some form of in-game ad. Since I've never really waded into the debate or looked it up, I can't say I really know all the arguments about why. Maybe that's why I don't really understand why some people think in-game ads are such a big deal.
Two recent games really stick out in my mind regarding this topic: Splinter Cell Conviction and Alan Wake. During a few of the Bombcasts, I've heard the crew laugh about and deride the Dr. Pepper ads in Splinter Cell, which I guess is just a big wall texture or something. Honestly, I've never seen this ad. And I've played Conviction. I've played a lot of Conviction. And yet somehow I missed these ads. I have no idea what the Dr. Pepper ads look like in Splinter Cell Conviction. So I guess the ad failed in my case. Or maybe it worked TOO well. Maybe it just blended into the game world like a normal ad in the real world would. And like one of those ads, I just ignored it. Either way, can you complain about an ad that can somehow go unnoticed?
The ads in Alan Wake are a bit more obvious, at least to me. When Alan first picks up a flashlight, you see Energizer written down the side. And supposedly you keep picking up Energizer batteries during the game. But those battery packs are so small, I honestly couldn't tell if they were branded or not. The only time I ever recall seeing the Energizer brand was in the moment I described above. It's not like Alan runs around proclaiming, "God Bless the Energizer Bunny! I'd be doomed without the ability to harness the power of lithium!" Then there are the Verizon ads. Late in the game, there is a large billboard out by the street that is pretty much just the Verizon logo. You know what? I didn't care. There are billboards out there in the world, and some of them are for Verizon. Seeing something like that in this game didn't ruin the atmosphere for me. It seemed feasible.
OK, so there is apparently an actual TV ad for Verizon in the game as well. I say apparently, because I never found it when I played through the game. I just saw it for the first time today on YouTube. And you get an achievement for watching the ad. That's pretty lame. But as I said before, I never saw this ad when I played the game. You aren't forced to watch it. The game doesn't halt and play the ad, keeping you from moving forward until you acknowledge that you can indeed hear him now. So I can't really complain about this ad. Tycho of Penny Arcade fame discusses this stuff in his newspost for a comic on this topic, and I basically agree with his point of view. The TV ad is annoying, but I don't think it really has an impact on the game.
I guess I just don't really get what's so offensive about in-game ads. Again, it's not like they're TV commercials, where the action is brought to a screeching halt while you watch the Sham-Wow guy hock his wares. Alan Wake's TV ad may come close, but I maintain that since you don't have to watch it, it doesn't count. I think product placement sometimes makes a game feel more grounded in reality. Seeing a Coke machine instead of a "Cola" machine, or seeing someone use a branded phone just makes it seem like the game relates to our world just a little bit more. Sure, if this stuff shows up in a game likeMass Effect, that's kind of reaching. And it would be really offensive if it was in a fantasy world, like in Star Wars or a Mario game. But I haven't come across a situation yet in a game where I come across an ad or product placement, twisted my face, and said, "Oh come on!" What is it about ads and product placement that bothers some people? Is it the belief that corporations are evil, soulless machines that produce nothing but death and decay? Guess what? If you bought a big budget game, you have supported at least one of those corporations with that purchase. If you refuse to buy those kinds of games and only get indie titles? Well why are you complaining?! You've already dealt with the situation. And if you pirated the game? Well, without getting into the debate about the morality of piracy, do you really think you have the right to complain about the content of a game you didn't have to pay any money for? The only thing it cost you was bandwidth. Heck, you're probably stealing that too.
Of course, there are games made by companies that are purely ads within themselves. Remember those Burger Kinggamesthey made for the Xbox? I would say those are offensive not because they were ads in game form, but because they're pretty bad games. Plus, I don't think they really cost anything. Weren't they packed in with a value meal or something as a promotional item? Maybe they were a couple of bucks. I don't remember. Then there was Darkened Skye, the infamous game about Skittles. You know what? I actually kind of liked that game. I never got very far, and yeah, the controls weren't all that great, but I actually found it to be kind of entertaining. Maybe that makes me a bad person. And I have to mention Chex Quest. It was a game about a character who was a piece of Chex who went around fighting aliens, and it was built using the Doom engine. Come on, that sounds kind of awesome, doesn't it? And it was actually fun to play, again because it used the Doom engine. Plus it was free. OK, so you had to buy the cereal, but I'm not going to complain about having a bowl of Chex to eat while I'm playing a Doom clone. Heck, make some Chex Mix with it. My point is that a game built around a product isn't necessarily a horrible thing. It's only bad if the game is bad and you had to pay some extra cash for it. Which most people have the good sense not to do.
So yeah, I'm OK with ads and product placement in video games. I'm not saying I'd be OK with it in any form and any situation. I've already mentioned some scenarios where I think this stuff would be unwelcome. If I saw stuff like that in my games (or like this comic), I'd join those who raise their voices against the advertising machine. But right now, I don't see the problem. Video games are pretty expensive to make. I don't mind letting the game developers cover those costs in the form of the occasional product placement. If I have to use an Energizer flashlight in order to experience a game like Alan Wake , I don't think that's such a bad deal.
We live in a very interesting time. There is no doubt that the widespread access of the internet coupled with high-speed connections has really changed things. Remember when Time magazine declared all of us to be the "Person of the Year"? It was because with the rise in popularity of social networks and user generated content, the face of entertainment and global interactions shifted. It seemed like we all could be a little more connected with others around the globe, even if it was just via a computer screen. I'm using some lofty language here, but I'm not convinced this all was a good thing. Now any yahoo with a webcam can post some nonsense on YouTube and pretend that they're now a celebrity. Anyone with a keyboard can start a blog and act like their opinions matter. Heck, I'm doing that right now! See? Yet those things don't really bug me. You want to write a blog about cucumbers or post your crappy cover of a Green Day song on YouTube? God bless you, you go right on ahead and do it. Someone somewhere might get some enjoyment out of it. No, the real problem comes with user reviews.
I understand and support the concept of user ratings and reviews. It could be useful to gather information on whether or not people enjoyed a product or found it useful. And if something is just plain junk, well you would want to know that too. I admit that once in a while I will turn to the user reviews to try and glean some sort of info on whether or not a product is worth my money. But opinions are so subjective on many things, so that most of these reviews end up being useless. iTunes tends to suffer the most from this, as music is one of the most subjective items out there. How can you know if a review is helpful if you don't know the musical tastes of the reviewer? For example, you have people who hate country music who decide they're going to give a Tim McGraw album one or zero stars. Well of course they're going to rate it low! They hate country! That review is worthless to anyone who wants to gauge if this is a quality country album. If the reviewer straight up says, 'this is crap and all country is crap rap is the only legit art form 2pac lives1!!!!!!!11', well you know you can throw that out the window, but it's still a waste of time for the buyer.
Video games have their own blend of insanity as well. All too often, fanboys will use user reviews as a weapon in the "console wars". 360 or PS3 fanboys will overhype the merits of their console exclusives and wag them in the face of their foes, as if that makes the other system somehow weakened. Or even worse, they will review games that they don't even own just to try and skew the ratings one way or another, and hope that they impact sales in some way. Yeah, these people are childish jerks. But rather than sit here and complain, how about I roll with it. I mean, you can already review the reviews (which is silly enough if you think about it) by saying if they're helpful or not. I'm going to take it one step further an analyze these reviews and see just how unhelpful they can be. It's kind of similar to the Mr. Period strips on Penny Arcade, if you're familiar with those at all. And no, I don't harbor any illusions that this might fix or change anything. I just figure this will be more fun than whining about this stupid stuff.
So let's start with the world of movies. Specifically with the highest grossing film of all time: Avatar. This is a film that some people are very opinionated about. One such person is Nick "THE CHAMP". Let's see what he had to say on Amazon.com:
I'll keep this short and sweet. Dont buy this movie. It is incredibly overhyped. I rushed out and bought it on the release date influenced by reviews and word of mouth. Lets just say i didnt even finish the movie. I suffered through about 2 hours of horrible acting and corny storytelling. Sigorney Weaver chain smoking in every scene and acting like an old hag?! I mean common, please! Pathetic I was extremely disappointed and its clear to me that Jim Cameron has some very powerful influential friends. Most of the reviews ive watched raved about how great this movie is. It just goes to show ya that money talks as Cameron clearly hired marketing agencys to provide positive reviews in order to increase sales. If your going to suffer through the 3 hours of uninteresting plot and horrible acting at least dont fork out 20+ to buy this garbage. Rent it and see for yourself
OK, "THE CHAMP", you start out well enough there. "Don't buy this movie" is definitely a strong start, so continue on and tell us why this is a bad deal for the money. And you start to do so! You thought the acting was horrible and the story was corny. Fair enough. Please go on and give some examples of why. "Sigorney Weaver chain smoking in every scene and acting like an old hag?! I mean common, please!" Wait, what? "I mean common, please"? What does that mean? Do you mean "come on"? Maybe he was reviewing this on his iPhone or something? Or are you saying that it is too common to be smoking, and therefore is an uninspired method? Nah, that's giving this guy too much credit. From having seen the movie three time now, I can say his complaints about miss Weaver strike me as odd. Yeah, she smokes a lot. That's bad acting? How? Do you watch Casablanca and just go off when Bogart lights up? "God, he's smoking again! What a hack!!" And you must hang around some interesting old hags if her performance evoked that reaction, Nick. So all the old hags you know are scientists who are bitter at their corporate overlords who overlook their research in favor of rocks in the ground.
Ah, but his true colors come out next, as he abandons any pretence of a review and instead delves into conspiracy theories. Pathetic I was extremely disappointed and its clear to me that Jim Cameron has some very powerful influential friends. Ooh, burn! He called him Jim instead of James! Take that Mr. Hollywood! It just goes to show ya that money talks as Cameron clearly hired marketing agencys to provide positive reviews in order to increase sales. Yes, this is a classic tactic by bitter people. They claim that money must have changed hands, cause that's the only way someone could have an opinion other than their own. This is an easy indicator of whether or not you can disregard a review. In this case, you can throw The Champ's opinion right out the door.
Well, that's a negative view. How about we look at someone who loved it? Like Amazon user Dan Dezio "drummer21290":
This storyline is much like what the government is really doing, also I wouldn't doubt technology like this actually exist because they have similar things. Being someone who meditates and has Outer body experiences I can tell that much of this movie is actually possible. Consciousness has a major roll in everything. This place the Avatars live in could have been where we are now if we took our gifts and used them to there potential. This truly is an amazing movie. And I don't even watch tv anymore at all because everything is totally irrelevant. But I'd spend countless dollars on the best sound system and tv just to watch this one movie. AMAZING!!!
...Do I even need to say anything? Really? I'd say this one speaks for itself.
Well let's leap over to the world of video games. God of War III has been one of the highest profile console exclusives for the PS3 this year, so we're bound to get some real gems out of this one. First on the positive side, here's Adventure Fan:
BEST GOD OF WAR GAME / BEST PS3 GAME
SONY, we who are about to play, Salute You. For taking a legendary amount of badassedness, and cramming it all in one game. No one else in the market is giving us naked 1080p nipples, just because it's sexy funny. Another game maker would have taken the Greek Mythology idea and given us a PG-13 experience with casual puzzles and no blood. But GOD OF WAR became HARDCORE. You could have dumbed it down like Halo to get super mass market sales... But you stayed true to your Ambition. Because you made this game with your balls, I'm buying it NEW, at LAUNCH, with MONEY. Please accept my cold hard cash, and my thanks. GOD3 is another reason why I'm a Playstation fan-for-life.
HARDCORE FANTASTIC ONE-OF-A-KIND EXPERIENCE!
OK, aside from the overall ridiculous tone of this one, there are a couple of key things we can draw from this to reach a pretty clear conclusion about Adventure Fan. The biggest clue is of course: GOD3 is another reason why I'm a Playstation fan-for-life. And then of course there's this great sentence: You could have dumbed it down like Halo to get super mass market sales. Get it yet? Yup, PS3 fanboy. Another great lead is: No one else in the market is giving us naked 1080p nipples. Yes, it is high def nipples that will win your precious console war. And he's going to buy it with MONEY! Finally, we can move away from the barter system! Yes, I know he's referring to the fact that video game developers hate the used game market (and piracy of course), but he still sounds like an idiot. So based on this review, Adventure Fan, you apparently love this game because it has nipples and is HARDCORE. Sold! Seriously, at least explain why you think it is a HARDCORE FANTASTIC ONE-OF-A-KIND EXPERIENCE! Oh, and good point about game developers backing away from Mature rated games. Yeah, nobodyis makingthose today. And those who are aren't making any money...
Let's get away from that nonsense and look at the people who hated the game. I actually loved it, so I'm interested in seeing what people would find to gripe about. Well here's gerald "bird" to help me out:
I was among the first to pick up this game, went @ it with Titan difficulty, but there's a guitar hero puzzle that pple like us feel decieved by. i mean there's no work around. santa monica release an update to remove this stupid puzzle that belongs in another game, otherwise its one star from me.
...Really? That one puzzle? That lasts for like, maybe three minutes? That ruined it for you, huh? Wow. Well, if you despise rythym games that much, then old gerald's review might just help you out. No work around. Good Lord. B. Knight "kanighit" please tell me you've got some better criticism than that. Hook a brother up!
This game would be great if it were playable. When pressing R1 to open chests it acts like it isn't being held. The double jump doesn't work. I initially thought it was my controller, tried another. Same result and looked online, a plethora of people are having this issue. Playstation had no answers. When I called they said that the number to contact God of War III, was their number but it wasn't anything they had a solution to. Ridiculous and disapointing. I recommend against buying this until that is fixed.
Latest patch has fixed my glitch, I still drop a star due to this initial problem combined with it being not as good as Uncharted 2 in my opinion
Man...OK, not being able to play the game properly sucks. I would be mad too. But look at that last sentence. Latest patch has fixed my glitch, I still drop a star due to this initial problem combined with it being not as good as Uncharted 2 in my opinion. He gave it one star. Did he mean to change the score when he updated to review and not tell us? Cause if not being as good as Uncharted 2 is worthy of a one star rating, then the entirety of the video game market must be just god awful for "kanighit". I mean, Uncharted 2 is pretty good, you know? And they are completely different types of games! You cannot compare a brawling action game to a thrid person shooter/platformer. It doesn't work like that. Not for review purposes, at least.
Man, these people are nuts. Yet I feel like this exercise has been cathartic. I may have to do more of these. After all, we are in the age of user ratings and reviews, so why not review the reviewers? It just means I'm being progressive. Maybe Time magazine will even declare me Man of the Year. Again. You know, cause technically I already won it back when we all did. Boy, that still seems like a cop out...
Pollen, desert bloom, and other nasty things are in the air.
They fly around, looking for places to rest.
They seek a place, to grow and mature, and bring beauty to the world.
They seem to think this place is in my nasal cavities.
Why do they rest within my nostrils?
Maybe it’s the dark and damp atmosphere.
Maybe my nose hairs are just right for that allergen that’s looking to settle down.
Maybe little allergy travel agents are booking vacations there.
They promise to show the sights and sounds and thrills of one man’s sinuses.
Whatever the reasons, the result remains the same:
My nose, it runs like a river.
Who knows which way it will attack?
Sometimes the warnings are there, brazen and aggressive.
The tell-tale itching near the back of the nostril,
The staggered breathing leading up to the explosive end.
Damned if I sneeze and damned if I don’t.
Either one will open the gates.
And sometimes it comes like a thief,
Sneaking in without a sound and not giving a sign of its presence.
Only when it’s ready to rush out do you know that it’s there,
And then you realize that its singular purpose has been fulfilled:
My nose, it runs like a river.
How much slime can a human produce?
The amount is staggering.
More and more, ever increasing, it rushes forth.
Shall there be no end to its disgusting parade?
And in my darkest moment, I glance down and a horrifying sight meets my eyes:
All the Kleenex is gone.
My head snaps to the right! My head snaps to the left!
There is none to be found!
Panic begins to set in as I feel a creeping feeling start to come forth.
Clouds form within my brain
And obscure all normal thinking.
Release and relief from this urgent matter are all I can concentrate on now.
Oh, if only there was a tissue around to save me from my doom!
Oh, how I took those soft and pillowy blessings for granted!
If I only knew how valuable they were back then!
If only I had cherished them and saved them for moments like these!
If only I hadn’t wasted them on worthless things like the killing of bugs and the mopping of spills!
With no other options, I turn to the only tool left to my disposal.
And so my arm becomes one more casualty of the curse of this season.
And I curse my nose, for it runs like a river.
Many share in my suffering.
Spring brings flowers and warmth and cheer
And sneezing and itching eyes and misery all wrapped up in a big bundle
The people cry out for salvation!
They seek relief from allergists and specialists and the Nasonex bee.
Yet even the soothing voice of an anthropomorphic Latin lover
Cannot bring comfort when in the throes of a fit of sneezing.
Every year the dance resumes, and all the dancers take up their posts.
And every year it carries on along to the same tune
And every year their voices rise up to ask for an end to their woes!
They seek mercy from gods and solace from science!
They curse the earth and curse the animals and curse the fragrances that their co-workers emit!
And every year there is one constant that we can all hold to be true:
My nose, it will run like a river.
If I’m going to talk about storytelling in video games, I can’t pretend that I can give a detailed and authoritative history of how stories have progressed through time. While I have played a ton of games in my life, I still can’t call myself an expert in their history. What I can do, though, is relate my experiences through my own playing history, and detail what I’ve seen and how the medium has evolved in my lifetime. And I can’t think of any better place to begin than with the genre that has defined the storytelling experience in games: the adventure games.
My experience with stories in games goes back to the earliest games of my childhood. I remember when I was around 5 years old (so around the late eighties), my parents brought home an IBM PC. It would be considered an antique relic by today’s standards, but it was awesome back then. I had no idea what most of the functionality of the machine was. It didn’t know how it would improve word processing, or financial tracking and planning, or any other facet of our daily lives. All I knew was that it could play games. Well, really it was one game. That game was called Freddy’s Rescue Roundup. It was a platformer where you controlled some dude who ran around and collected what I believe were roadrunners. I should point out that this was not my first real experience with stories in games. That game was still awesome, though. One day, I saw my Dad playing a different game. One I hadn’t seen before. This was King’s Quest II, and it was the start to a long love affair with adventure games.
King’s Quest II and Space Quest were the two adventure games I remember most from those days. Those franchises were the staples of the Sierra adventure games, and my brothers and I must have played them a couple dozen times each. King's Quest was your fantasy affair, with King Graham avoiding sorcerers and witches while looking for keys that would unlock magical doors that would lead him to his future wife. Space Quest followed the adventures of Roger Wilco, a janitor who somehow avoids being massacred with the rest of his crew, and ends up chasing after the evil aliens in an attempt to save his homeworld. While the stories in these games weren't exactly superb pieces of writing, they worked well enough for what the games were in those days. The franchises would grow, and the storytelling grew with them, leading to my two favorites in the two series: King's Quest 6 and Space Quest 5. While neither of these contained completely original stories, they were still two great examples of storytelling in games. King's Quest 6 took many familiar themes and characters from classic stories like Alice and Wonderland and put its own twist on how to deal with them, leading to an exciting finale that made the game stand on its own. Space Quest always took a more humorous approach to its stories, choosing to parody and lampoon the most famous science fiction franchises. Space Quest 5 saw you become captain of your own ship (even if it was a garbage scow) with your own crew, and had you face off against your rival, Captain Raemes T. Quirk. The jokes may have been pretty corny sometimes, but it still holds a special place in my heart.
These were adventure games. They told a story, and had the player interact with the world to solve puzzles that would allow the story to progress. As the genre grew in popularity, the expectations of the stories grew with them. If the story was no good, why would the player invest the time into seeing the payoff? And if the ending was terrible, then that would color the perception of the whole game that preceded it. This is exemplified well in the mid-90s FMV adventure "Ripper". This was a game that got some big name actors to play in it's cast, including Christopher Walken, Karen Allen, John Rhys Davies, and even Burgess Meredith! How the heck these guys ever got Burgess Meredith to be in their ridiculous game about a cyber-Jack the Ripper will forever boggle my mind. The story in this one is just plain silly (unintentionally, but silly all the same), but when you've got Walken in the cast, you're at least due for some good entertainment. The ending was utterly unsatisfying, though, as it didn't provide any real resolution. You had to make a choice as your final act, and the ending will play a short movie referring to the choice you made. But if you go back and make a different choice, you'll see that there is no wrong choice, meaning there's no "right" ending to the game. In some games, this is not a problem and is actually smiled upon. But when your game is a murder mystery where any kind of resolution hinges on figuring out who the murderer is, ending your game the way the Ripper does is just kind of a slap in the face. It's like, "Eh, we couldn't decide on who dunnit, so we just let the player decide and then say, 'Hey, you're right!'" Heck, maybe they even could've found a way to make that interesting, but the path they took was just boring and made the game seem really lame in the end.
You see, the story is crucial to the adventure game experience. The gameplay itself in these games usually boils down to picking up items and using them or combining them in order to progress. You just have to figure out which item to use at the appropriate time. Occasionally, you'll have to talk with someone, but this usually just unlocks the next item or puzzle. When you throw the story in there, though, suddenly it makes sense that you're putting a ladder in your pants and talking to some drunken clown in an alleyway. The story helped to put this stuff in context, even if the context was ridiculous. The games created by Lucasarts thrived on ridiculous puzzles. Some of their most beloved games used original humor and characters, and are still remembered fondly to this day. Creators like Ron Gilbert and Tim Schafer figured out what you needed to do in order to tell a funny and engaging story within a video game. And if I'm going to bring up Lucasarts, I have to talk about The Secret of Monkey Island. Monkey Island revolved around the young Guybrush Threepwood, who dreamed of becoming a pirate. Guybrush was a generally naive character who had a strange knack for talking his way out of problems and using bizarre items in ways they were never inteded to be used. The quest to be a pirate turned into a love story which turned into a rescue mission as Guybrush would clash with the dread ghost pirate LeChuck. This was a silly and humourous game that instead of going the pardoy route (like the Space Quest series), developed its own humor and gags, such as the infamous rubber chicken with a pully in the middle. Sure, parodies would find their way in at times, but most of the humor could be claimed as the game's own. Five sequels have been made, with many of the characters returning in one way or another, and each game building on the story of the previous game, so that there is now a Monkey Island continuity of all things (Well, except for the fourth game, which the new game seems to ignore). The fifth sequel was a modern revival of the series that came out last year, and when you find yourself geeking out over the appearance of Murray, the talking skull, you know that the original games had something special in them. The stories of the Monkey Island, while goofy, are still some of gamings best examples of how to tell your story right.
But sometimes you don't need a long and detailed narrative. Maybe your story doesn't need lengthy dialogue sequences or a large cast of characters. One game in particular changed the way people looked at adventure games, and had a large impact on the direction the genre would take, for better or for worse. I'm talking about Myst. Even if you don't care about video games, chances are you've heard about Myst. This game was a huge hit, and for good reason. Even if if you're someone who hates the series, you have to admit the game was groundbreaking. This game threw aside most of the adventure game conventions and simplified things to a great extent. Not that this was a simple game. Not by any means. But instead of item collection and character interaction, Myst isolated you to an extreme extent. You play the game from a first-person perspective, with the intent of making you feel like you're the main character. You explore these strange locations which are entirely devoid of any other person. This leads to an eerie and often creepy atmosphere, which was enhanced by the game's soundtrack. Something just feels wrong throughout most of the game. The only other people you interact with for most of the game are two brothers who are trapped within books in the main island's library. When you first find the books, you can barely understand either of the brothers. You have to travese the lonely realms of the game to find pages to the books to make each book clearer. As you do this, though, you get the impression that neither of the brothers are all that...wholesome, to say the least. Each brother accuses the other of being evil and demand that you set them free to set things right, and you have to decide if you can trust either of them. With a very minimal story, the game remains incredibly memorable for how "immersed" you felt while playing it, if I can use the cliched expression.
Yet, if I can be honest, there is one adventure game for me that, in terms of story, stands above any other. While I can't say that it's the best game I ever played, even though it is pretty darn good, the story was so well crafted and told that I have to consider it one of the best gaming stories I've ever come across. This was Jordan Mechner's masterpiece called The Last Express. I don't blame you if you've never heard of it. I hadn't until Gametap put it on their service a couple years back. I admit that I had to cheat by looking up walkthroughs more often than I would have liked, but I really wanted to see what happened next and was just frustrated by the puzzles that were keeping me from doing so. The game places you on the Orient Express in 1914, just days prior to the assasination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and puts you through a murder mystery dripping with political intrigue on the train's last trip before the outbreak of WWI. Your character, the American Robert Cath, sneaks on board the train, which has already departed by the way, and goes to meet with his friend who has reserved their room. Only when you get there, the friend is dead. And since you're the only one who's not supposed to be on the train, you will likely be the prime suspect if you get caught. So you hide the body and pose as the murdered man as you set out to find out who killed him. Along the way, you interact with characters who represent the major European nations of the era, and their interactions reflect the the tensions of those days. Everyone has a complex backstory, especially Robert, and the whole story is well executed with smart twists and plot developments. Heck, the story ends up revolving around the Russian folk tale of The Firebird of all things! That's not your typical source material for a video game, guys!
The Last Express takes place in "real-time", which means that conversations and events will occur at set times in the game whether you're around to witness them or not. Many of these things are not crucial to finishing the game, but some of them are. If you happen to miss them, the game has a rewind feature that allows you to go back in time within the game and try to do things differently. However, this also leads to some moments late in the game where you might not have something you needed from earlier in the game, which meant rewinding a long ways back and replaying a significant portion of the game all over. Hence my reliance on walkthroughs. That's a minor complaint for such a great game. It's really the narrative that I love about this game, and that's why I regard it so highly. I think even Agatha Christie would be proud of the story constructed here. My only real complaint is that it didn't sell very well, so some teases about Robert's past that would have been ripe for exploration in a sequel will likely never be revealed. Dang it, someone make a movie based on this game so I can finally learn what this dude's deal is!
There was a span of time recently when adventure games were pretty much dead. They weren't making the money they used to, and consumer focus was (and still is) on more action-oriented titles leading most developers to abandon the genre. There were developers that still made adventure games, but the vast majority of them were Myst clones that couldn't really capture what was great about the first game. Things have been looking up recently though, with some pretty good Sherlock Holmes games from Frogwares and some great products from Telltale Games. Telltale has been especially good at recapturing the nostalgic spirit of the past in bite size chunks, keeping the experience seeming fresh and not too frustrating at any one point. They were the ones responsible for the latest Monkey Island game, and have scored big with their Sam and Max series (another one of Lucasarts' old gems). But on the whole, it seems the adventure genre has evolved into other genres. In the past, the type of narrative structure in adventure games could only be fit into that kind of game. But with the state of technology today, developers have found a way to work that kind of character interaction and story progression into more action focused titles, bring you the best of both worlds. This is especially evident in Mass Effect 2, which crosses a ton of genres and at times seems to conquer them all. Horror games have taken a lot of inspiration from the adventure genre, with a lot of emphasis on exploration and mystery solving (I've already talked at length on horror games, though, so go check it out if you're interested). And games like Silent Hill: Shattered Memoriesand Heavy Rain are new forms of adventure games, that allow you the player to direct the story with your actions and try to get you emotionally invested in how things play out. I'll talk more about these games later on when I dive into the modern state of storytelling in games, but I'll just say that in a lot of ways, the state of stories is pretty good right now. And a big cause is due to the heritage of the adventure game. I didn't even touch on classics like Zork, or even some of my other personal favorites like Maniac Mansion 2: Day of the Tentacle. Needless to say, adventure games have been setting the storytelling trend for games for a couple of decades, and they're still a joy to explore today.
An excerpt from the blog of Kratos, Ghost of Sparta, renowned god-killer, and former God of War:
ZEUS! FATHER! YOU COWARD!! YOU SHALL DENY ME NO LONGER!! I SHALL HAVE MY REVENGE!!
Guys, you have no idea how much that old man has been riding me. He’s all, “You’re such a disappointment! I should have killed you when you crawled out of that harlot’s womb,” and I’m all, “Yeah, ya think?! Well too late, Dad! Coulda woulda shoulda. Ya snooze, ya lose.” God, he makes me so mad! I ripped the heads off of at least twenty skeleton warriors in the span of thirty seconds, but that didn’t help make me any less mad! So I fought this centaur warrior, stabbed him a bunch and then split open his belly so his intestines spilled out. But that smelled really bad and only made me even angrier!
He just doesn’t understand! Yeah, so his Dad was a 100 foot Titan who ate all his siblings in an attempt to change his fate and not be murdered. So what?! Did Zeus murder his wife and child?! Did he suffer for years due to a cruel trick, and be forced to go do the bidding of the gods for a decade?! NO!! HE HAS MORE CHILDREN THAN HE CAN COUNT! WELL THIS ONE WILL KILL HIM!! HE WILL DIE AND BURN IN THE FIRES OF HADES FOR ALL ETERNITY WHILE I LAUGH AT HIM AND SHOW HIM WHAT MY VENGEANCE TRULY LOOKS LIKE! THEY ALL WILL BURN!!
…OK, I know you can’t tell cause you’re reading this after the fact, but I’ve just been away from this post for like ten minutes watching my kitty (The Glory of Olym-puss! That’s his name! Get it? Puss! Awesome, I know. Props to my BFF Hermes for coming up with that one…who’s now dead cause I killed him. That kind of sucks now that I think about it) freaking out over a piece of string. It was seriously the funniest thing ever. I should have snapped some pics and posted them on lolcats cause that would be the greatest post ever posted for reals.
So anyways, Zeus is a real toolbox. Someone responded to one of my last posts where I was raging against Zeus and wondered why I was so mad at him. They were all, “He’s your dad, right? Can’t you forgive him and just move past all of it? Family first, bro.” Oh really? Well did your dad ever trick you into giving up your god-powers and then stab you with a sword so you’d go to Hades and be tormented forever?! Huh?! I didn’t think so. And it’s not just me! He’s being a jerk to everyone. Ask Hephaestus, or Daedalus, or Pandora! He’s been a real jerkwad to those three, believe me! And there are so many others! Sure, I may have dropped a ship’s captain down the throat of a dead Hydra just so I could get his key, but that was justified! This was just Zeus being a paranoid freak! I HATE HIM! HE DOESN’T DESERVE THE BREATH IN HIS LUNGS!!
Man, you guys, I recently popped back in Linkin Park’s first album. I forgot just how good that one was. I don’t think anyone has ever topped that album. Those guys just get it, man, like in a way that no one else gets it. “CRAWLLLLLL-ING INNNN MY SKIIIIIIN!!! THESE WOUUUUUUNDS THEY WILLLLL NOT HEALLLLLLL!” You said it guys. You said it. Anyways, some real hot chick just walked by, so I’m gonna go try to get her digits and show her the true “Rage of the Spartans”, if you know what I mean. Till next time, Peace out for real.
(This post really has nothing to do with my feelings about God of War III, which is an awesome game. Or it’s story, which is pretty awesome too. I just thought it would be funny to have Kratos blogging. I hope you agree.)
