Game Moments: Dogfighting With Death
As long-time readers (all four of 'em) know, aside from adventure games and RPGs, one of my favorite genres is combat flight sims. Once upon a time I even pursued a career in the Air Force (hey, it helped pay for college!) with hopes of being a fighter pilot. That wasn't to be - but I've been a fan of virtual combat flying ever since.

One of the first 'realistic' air combat sims for personal computers was "Jet," by SubLogic (the guys that did the original Flight Simulator that eventually became Microsoft Flight Simulator). There were a couple others I enjoyed - including a World War I mode in the aforementioned Flight Simulator, and games like F-15 Strike Eagle by Microprose. Jet's air combat mode kept score - and allowed me to compare my score against those of my friends at school. And so competitive air combat began.

Later, I managed to hook up two computers to play Falcon 3.0 with a friend. The game took several minutes to synchronize information between two machines even over a null-modem connection, so we borrowed rules of engagement I'd heard about on USENET (this was still before the World Wide Web had hit mainstream) - the planes pass each other first, wings level, before the fight was on. This was to help insure a fair fight, and to prolong the fights (to help make that ten-minute-long synchronization phase worthwhile).

While I played some combat sims from other eras, but for modern air combat my drug of choice went to the Jane's series (specifically ATF Gold), and then to Falcon 4.0. By the time ATF Gold came out, competing over the Internet had come of age. There were online squadrons. And online tournament ladders. Now was the time to really show what I was made of!

My discovery was that it might have been a good thing I'd never become a fighter pilot in the real world.

Now, I wasn't bad - years of reading, playing sims, and competing against AI opponents definitely helped land me in the middle of the pack. But if the bullets and missiles had been real, I'd have been dead. But when I was competing regularly, I often found myself in the top 20, and I think I cracked the top 10 once or twice. And every once in a while, I got to compete against the guys in the top three positions.

There were about four or five virtual pilots who took turns in these slots, depending on the week. Flying against them taught me that I still had much to learn. I could score the occasional victory against them, but never the requisite two-out-of-three match points to move my own position. It was clear they belonged in a different league from me.

But there was one pilot who never rotated out of the top three positions, and was almost never bumped even to second place, week after week. His callsign was "Death." On the forums, he was soft-spoken, unassuming, supportive, and terse. In the virtual skies, he became his callsign. I never beat him even once. I am not sure I even managed to hit his aircraft with a desperate snapshot ever. He was in a class by himself, as far as I was concerned.

Now, hardcore simmers are a different breed of gamer, probably closer to the hardcore "roleplayers" than either group would like to admit. They derive satisfaction by immersing themselves in the world and in the role of a pilot from whatever era they are simulating. They don't want the details abstracted away - they want to deal with all the factors a real pilot would have had to go through. Even the tedium. They usually want as much realism as can be crammed through the restriction of a 17" monitor, the more merit their recreation holds. It's not about the gaming - it's about the experience, and the mastering of real-world skills - no matter how useless or obsolete said real-world skills might be. And they thrive on details - because the better you get, the more important those details become.

And if, for some bizarre reason, those arcane real-world skills became a matter of survival, Death would have been the last man standing. And I only assume he was a man - I never flew with him with voice chat enabled, but he never contradicted the assumption of his masculinity. So I continue to use that gender when referencing him. He was simply flawless in every move he made. He had the details down. At least, he had them down far better than me.

The old rules adopted by the Internet simmers for Falcon 3.0 still applied, as they led to more exciting dogfights. While BVR (Beyond Visual Range) missile shots may rule the day in real-world combats, virtual combat pilots like their competition to be tests of flying prowess, not the luck of the draw for spoofing missiles at long range. Mind you - the top pilots are also very, very good at dodging missiles, too. But beyond a certain point, too much of the missile fight comes down to luck. For these kinds of competitions, it was all about the knife fight.

Pilots would fly at each other almost head-on, at the same altitude. The rules dictated that you had to have your wings perfectly level until they crossed the "9-3" position (9 o'clock / 3 o'clock). Many of the less skilled pilots would fudge this part of the game. They'd begin their roll just a little bit early, or come in just a little bit more altitude. A tiny bit of this was unavoidable - at a combined closure rate of something like 800 knots, small inconsistencies are unavoidable. Too egregious of a violation, and the competitor might call the fight off, demanding a second pass. For those combatants who tried to get an edge in the combat by cutting their fuel levels (and thus their aircraft weight) down to the bone, this was a dangerous call.

Death (and the other top-scoring pilots) tended to forgive all but the most blatant violations of the fight-entry protocol, and they always made perfect, by-the-book passes themselves. Nobody would be able to taint their claims of victory with suspicion of wrongdoing. And if their competitors felt they had to fudge the rules a little - well, that probably meant the offending pilot's skill was actually below that of their current ranking, because they'd relied heavily on fudging the opening game to win. And those little tricks wouldn't help them one bit.

My few dogfights against Death were eye-openers. There were no tricks to his flying. At least none that I could detect. But high-level play in games like Falcon were rarely about tricks or surprise moves. These guys knew 'em, and they would pull them off if the opportunity presented itself. And they knew to anticipate them in their opponents. No, at this level of play it was all about perfection in flying. Making the perfect turn in the viper in Falcon 4.0 was both art and science. It's about finding the perfect balance between turn radius, turn speed, maintaining altitude, and maintaining airspeed for whatever tactical situation you find yourself in. Its about like patting your head, rubbing your tummy, reciting poetry, and walking a tightrope at the same time.

Beginning pilots who just try to yank-and-bank to turn as hard as they can soon find themselves believing that their opponent is flying a totally different aircraft from heir own - one that isn't bucking, refusing to turn, and trying hard to fall out of the sky. But for the top competitors, it was all about who made the fewest mistakes in their flying. Turn too aggressively, turn too little, apply too much or too little throttle, fail to bring your nose up or down just enough to make the exact trade of altitude for airspeed, and your mistakes would compound. It was a race to see who'd build up the most tiny mistakes the fastest, with the winner earning himself a "silk landing" (meaning a landing with a silk parachute) or worse.

Death didn't make mistakes. Or rather, I'm sure he did - but his mistakes were so tiny as to be imperceptable to me. My measure of success became how long I could keep him away from making a shot. But each pass, each turn, brought him a little closer to my six (6:00 position - right behind me). I'd pull every trick I knew. I once even tried to dive down into the weeds, forcing a different fight from one he was used to - one where loss of altitude was not an option.

It didn't help. Every turn I made, he'd make a fraction better. Although combats really felt like one long, changing, evolving turn. Either way - he did it better. He made fewer mistakes. When I was flying what seemed to me to be perfectly, I'd note it only by seeing him not gain as much on my six.

But inevitably, inexorably, he'd get closer and closer to that six-o'clock position, and I'd eventually hear the metallic ping-clank of bullets ripping through the airframe, accompanied by flashing lights and the warning siren. If the damage wasn't enough to stop me from flying, it didn't matter. Another burst would follow up shortly. Ejecting was optional.

Death would type "GG, thanks" at my second defeat."Good Game, thanks." Whether this was literally an acknowledgment that I'd given him something resembling a run for his money, or simply the politeness that combat simmers give each other as a matter of course ( a far cry from the trash-talking of many online games), I'll never know. I'd return the acknowledgment, which usually doubled as a goodbye. We'd log out, he'd no doubt forget the fight he was just in, and I'd spend the rest of the evening trying to figure out what I'd done wrong, and go back into the sim to practice what I'd learned. I never got to the point where I could defeat Death, but I noticed my own scores improving both online and against the AI.

Good Game, indeed!

Labels: Game Moments

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 4:30 AM (Permalink) 8 comments links to this post

 
Why the Quest for Story in Video Games Will Fail
In April 1981, I played my first game of Dungeons and Dragons. My thief got into a fight with a giant spider in a 2-room dungeon, and was losing badly. Another player had to come to my rescue. That wasn't quite an auspicious beginning. But it was magical to me. It was the emotional investment into an imaginary world and story created by three guys, a rulebook, and random chance. The story wasn't Shakespeare. But for me, hanging on every word of description and the results of every die roll, it was made out of awesome.

Later adventures in different systems have stuck with me for years. Just the little vignettes, situations, sub-plots, and characters. These little bits of story were what sucked me in. They have meaning to me, and to the other people I played with. Maybe they'll even pique your interest:

• A luxury cruise liner en route to Bermuda was re-routed by a demonic entity towards Hell.
• A tower full of skulls that begged to be released from their bondage, as the players frantically tried to discover whether obeying their wishes would bring good fortune or ill.
• A species of squirrel that turned acorns into gold. As a result, the government harshly regulated the export of gold to protect its economic power (and, unsurprisingly, de-valuing the price of gold such that the country was on the silver standard). And, of course, the squirrels were a national resource of extreme importance and protection. Woe be unto the unknowing adventurer who stumbled across one and decided to make it into squirrel soup!
  
• A political journalist on a supposed sabbatical in New Orleans, who gets caught up in local politics of the supernatural variety, and discovers his own family heritage of magic and voodoo.
• A week of utter chaos, as an inescapable light fills the world which causes madness and violent changes to creatures and geography. In the midst of this cataclysm, one woman (a player character) to give birth weeks early to a daughter who has been transformed (and blinded) by the magical illumination.

Moments of Great Story In Video Games
While many video games suck me in just through sheer awesome and addictive gameplay, when it comes to some genres (especially RPGs), it comes down to the story and the feeling of being part of the world. I ate and drank Wing Commander for a couple of years. I'd memorized ship stats, created additional back-story in my head, and became a fully participatory fanboy.

I've written about some of my other experiences with "game moments" - times when I got sucked into the game, when the fiction of the game became so involving, so compelling, that it drew me into the world and I became a willing participant. What's interesting to me is that almost all of the ones that I felt worth writing about were emergent stories - events that were not tightly scripted. I mean, sure, I could write about the death of Aeris, laying the ghosts to rest in the violently destroyed Scara Brae, or the confrontation against Malcom McDowell's brilliantly twisted Admiral Tolwyn, or getting slapped around by the Dread Pirate LeChuck, or the face-off with the even more twisted GLaDOS - and I will. Like I just did. But since anybody who really cares already knows the story and has been there, there's not a whole lot to say other than, 'that was pretty cool, huh?'

Your Story, or My Story?
But while I do often get sucked into interesting linear stories trying to figure out (or help decide) "what happens next?" the stories from video games that stick with me for years are a lot like the ones from the pen-and-paper RPGs I mentioned earlier: Emergent stories that invited ME to become a participant.

I remember bits and pieces of Ultima VII's storyline (like the aforementioned Skara Brae subplot), but what made it work for me was the opening sequence - from being taunted by the Guardian to investigating a ritual slaying in a barn. The "hook" pulled me in and invited me to invest myself emotionally and intellectually to the fictional world. Origin's motto of "We Create Worlds" became ever so true for me. As it did again with Ultima Underworld, a game with a laughably lame plot but - for me - an outstanding story. Because I was the guy who filled in the story.

Read the stories people write about that emerged from The Sims or Dwarf Fortress. These games seize players' imaginations, and invite them to fill in the numerous blanks in the game's cold logic with their own warm, human cause-and-effect explanations. They imbue the characters with personalities that don't really exist. In short, they become co-authors, and in their own minds these characters and stories come to life in a spectacular way. Story happens.

You'll Never Find a Game With a Great Story
I believe that this is a key reason that the quest for "better story" in video games is doomed for failure. The very criteria and tools we use to judge story is based on linear storytelling which is at odds with nature of our medium. But this dead-end warning sign seems to be lost on most designers and publishers. On the route the industry seems to be taking, I don't think we'll ever have our "Citizen Kane."

(Which I think is kind of a silly comparison, as I don't believe Citizen Kane was recognized as such a landmark in cinema when it was first released, and it certainly wasn't a commercial success. And I gotta ask... where's the NEXT Citizen Kane going to hit the theaters? Have things been all downhill since 1941?).

In some ways, I think game developers are trying too hard. They are over-applying the rules of linear storytelling to a degree that it distracts from the point of a game - to be interactive. The stories need to be interactive, too. Maybe not on the level that Chris Crawford is trying to achieve, but on the level where it invites the player's imagination to participate as a co-author. Instead, the player is too often forced to disengage their active participation so they can be force-fed a cut-scene. The result is a disjointed feeling where the player has two juxtaposed stories he's trying to reconcile - the one he or she is imagining as they play, and another one thrust upon them that may not jibe with how the game is playing out in their mind.

Changing the Rules
In a lot of ways, the focus on graphics and detail that we insist upon in modern games might actually distract the player from the story. It's like reading a book that insists on detailing a character's action between important events - brushing their teeth, tying their shoe, looking both ways before crossing the street, stopping to look at the newspaper, eating breakfast... If these aren't key to the story, they should be abstracted out. But in a game, well... done any grinding lately in an RPG? Or wandering around looking for an exit? Or, uh, having your Sims take bathe and use the bathroom?

This isn't saying good storytelling techniques aren't critical in making game stories. A killer "hook" at the beginning of the game, compelling characters, an intriguing storyline that keeps you playing, a believable and captivating setting - these are all key to inviting players to invest themselves emotionally and mentally into the fiction. For a good game, the player will get out of it what they put into it.

And that's where a great story in video games come from. Not from trying to compete with movies or books, and not from trying to enforce linear storytelling conventions on games, but by stepping aside and assisting the player in making their own "Citizen Kane."


(Vaguely) related navel-gazing:
* Fixing Interactive Storytelling
* What Makes a Great RPG: The Story
* Why Do RPGs Suck Now?

Labels: Game Design, Game Moments

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:04 AM (Permalink) 20 comments links to this post

 
What Are Your Spookiest Gaming Moments?
Halloween is nearly upon us (for those of us who celebrate it... those who don't, don't know what you are missing...), and so I thought I'd throw out a few of my scariest gaming moments. Games aren't really good yet at evoking emotion, but fear is one that can occasionally be engaged in the right game if you are in the right mood.

So here are some of the moments that have scared the snot out of me. Or at least creeped me out. I've mentioned a few of these before. But hey, it's Halloween! Let's repeat 'em.

Alone In The Dark - The Dance of the Dead. Okay, this wasn't exactly a scary segment. But pretty much anything with Saint-Saens "Danse Macabre" involved is nice and spooky all by itself. Using the phonograph of this song, you get the ghosts to dance around the room, allowing you passage.

Doom - The Specter. Okay. I dunno about you guys, but the first time I half-saw that little graphics-glitch thing approaching and roaring, I felt the ol' fight-or-flight instinct kick in. I think I just started firing the gun and didn't stop until it was dead and I was out of ammo. Yeah. Now we know how good I'd be in a REAL gunfight. I'd go through my "mad minute" in about five seconds and then throw my gun behind me as I flee through the door.

Aliens Vs. Predator 2 - The first level or two as a marine. Man, these guys NAILED the feel of the movie, "Aliens." Pretty much the entire Marine campaign. That game put you under such intense pressure because you NEVER knew where those aliens were going to come from, and it built on the anticipation. It was almost a relief when the inevitable attacks DID come. This was what Doom aspired to be, in my mind. (And to Doom's credit... the "Aliens Total Conversion" for Doom way back in the when managed to pull off a very similar feel).

Unreal - The Lights Go Out. One by friggin' one. That game gave you a few seconds to contemplate just how screwed you were about to be as it trapped you in a "U" shaped hall and then started shutting out the lights, one by one. The battle itself wasn't much to write home about --- but it was that anticipation building the first time you played, the pants-wetting fear of the unknown, of wondering just WHAT was going to happen when that last light snapped off.

Ultima Underworld - The Pounding On The Door. I'd not yet encountered an imp. I didn't know they were actually little itty bitty monsters that could only pound high on the door because they were flying. No, what I saw and heard was something pounding WAY up on the door as if they were ten feet tall, and making some awful screeching noises behind it. My mind conjured up all kinds of imaginary horrors that were trying to bash in the door to get me. Late at night, that freaked me out, and I ran out of the virtual room like a scared little girl. Then when I finally got up the courage to fight the thing, I was really, really embarrassed at what it turned out to be.

F.E.A.R. - Alma appears at the ladder. Okay, pretty much anywhere Alma appeared was creepy, spooky, or downright risky to one's unsoiled undergarments. Monolith took what they learned with Aliens vs. Predator 2 and improved on it. A lot. They were very smart about keeping the appearance of the supernatural elements rare and unexpected. You caught glimpses of Alma when you least expected her. Or, in at least one moment, I thought I saw her when she actually wasn't there - it was simply a potted plant. But when a game gets you jumpy like that, you know it's doing something right.

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines - the haunted hotel. Oh, man. With the flitting figures around the place that aren't really there, to the whispered voice in your ear as you approach the elevator shaft --- this was perhaps the best "haunted house" sequences I've ever enjoyed in a game. Definitely spooky!

For a quick run-through of the game, if you've never seen it (and if you can handle an out-of-control first-person perspective), you can check out the abbreviated visit to the haunted hotel on YouTube:

VtM Bloodlines Haunted Hotel

Okay - so there are some of my creepiest / spookiest / scariest gaming moments. What about yours? I left the survival-horror genre pretty much untouched except for Alone In the Dark, which was the original.

What are your scariest / creepiest / spookiest moments in video games?


(Vaguely) related spookifying myself:
* Giving Me The Creeps! I want More!
* Game Moment #9 - Ultima Underworld
* Game Moment #13 - Doom
* Game Moment #14 - Wolfenstein 3D

Oh, and Here's a Forum Thread On the Subject, Too!

Labels: Game Moments

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:00 AM (Permalink) 8 comments links to this post

 
I'm a Game Grazer
A Destructoid article recently appeared entitled, "The Endgame Syndrome: Why Do We Abandon Games." It speaks specifically to RPGs that players seem to never complete. This has sparked some commentary at Rock, Paper, Shotgun and Scorpia's Gaming Lair.

Curiously enough, I was pondering this very matter last week, coming face-to-face with a fact of my gaming habits I'd forgotten about since the arcade days.

I am a game grazer.

I tend to play a little bit of a lot of games. In the arcades, you'd find the people who were really good at "their" machine. Maybe it was lack of patience or lack of quarters, or maybe I was just attracted by the pretty of the new cabinets and flashing pixels. But I tended to play the field. There were a few I'd linger longer over than others... Star Wars, Battle Zone, Tempest, Galaga, Ms. Pac Man, Space Duel, and others. But I never really played until the point of "Mastery."

I had a cousin who was a wiz at Ms. Pac Man, and she urged me to "settle down" with one game and play it to mastery. I responded by devoting somewhat more attention (and quarters) to Gorf. Unsurprisingly, Gorf was sort of a five-games-in-one arcade game.

The first time I did, it was Sega's Shinobi. This game had an ending, but I got to the point where I could beat the entire game on one life, one quarter, and about twenty minutes. It was The Exception. I never did get too good at the bonus rounds, however.

The tendency to sample many games sticks with me. I have a ton of games I never really completed. The thing is, I *LIKE* completing them. My favorite RPG, Ultima 7, was almost never completed. If it hadn't been for a kneecap that decided to pop out of its rightful location one night, I might never have been stuck immobile in front of a computer an entire day to finish the last glorious third of the game and fully enjoy one of the most delightful cRPGs of all time.

I have quite a few games to which I've probably not devoted more than five hours. I try them out, get a good taste of them, and put them on the shelf. And play a LOT of games. It's too bad I'm such a PC game fan... if I was more of a console gamer, I'd have saved a bundle just by renting.

But the exceptions are notable. Those games that I've played to completion - or just played a LOT - stand out. It sounds, based on these articles (well, not Scorpia's ... she's hardcore about completing games), that I'm not alone.

It makes me wonder how much I'm missing out on, though. How many more experiences like Ultima 7's are there that I may have missed because I figured I'd had enough five or eight hours in?

Labels: Game Moments, retro

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 10:00 PM (Permalink) 12 comments links to this post

 
Why Games Will Save The World
I was tapped by Juuso over at GameProducer.net for the "Blog Apocalypse" meme. It was started by UrbanMonk, who is donating to charity based upon the participation. Now there's a reason to do participate in the meme!

Anyway, it goes like this: We're gonna pretend the entire Blogosphere is coming to an end! (Undoubtably because of attacking cows). You have the opportunity to make one last post. A chance to summarize your blog, leave people with one last gem, whatever. What do you say?

For me, it's a question of why bother discussing computer games (particularly indie games). Why have I been talking about something that is considered by many to be just a huge waste of time?

I think it's because games may save the world.

Not in pixelized Space Invaders style, singlehandedly defending the world against immediate destruction or anything like that. But I think they have the potential to be a force for positive change - directly, or indirectly.

Games have been with us for as far back as we can speculate. Sometimes they might have been silly. Sometimes they were deadly serious. The footraces or spear-throwing games of ancient tribesmen could very well mean life or death not only for them, but for their entire tribe. Games have brought people together, taught them to work together. Even today, psychologists and educators use very specific kinds of roleplaying games to train and help people explore possibilities.

Coupled now with the most powerful communications medium since the invention of the printing press, for use in a tool that marries several traditional media together into a massive whole, and you have something far more powerful, insidious, and revolutionary than anything J. D. Salinger could ever devise. And with the indie game revolution, the power to create these experiences is once again shifting from the oversized design committees down to the home offices of individuals and small teams, with their own agendas, personalities and desires to express themselves.

Do games have a transformative power? A power for good? A power to change the world? Here are some experiences (mostly my own) where I think they already have shown this, albeit in very small ways:

I Guess We Shouldn't Have Called It the Star Wars Program
It wasn't a computer game, but in college I got pulled into a boardgame called Supremacy. It was a very slow game of international superpowers, a relic of the cold-war era that was in its last days when we played it. I was the country that broke the treaty against nuclear weapons, and I found that most of the players were only too happy to violate the agreement as well once I'd run the initial risk. They helped make my country - the Confederacy of South America - very rich as they bought my weapons as quickly as I could manufacture them (until they gained the ability to manufacture nukes themselves). I found myself - with no desire to enter a conflict whatsoever - sucked into a costly build-up of of forces along the border against the United States of America - a situation that could not be remedied without a very carefully staged agreement with the U.S. player. And I remember feeling the dread and certain knowledge that the end-game was nigh when one player started developing an incredibly unstabling technology - a purely defensive weapon, anti-missile satellites. How quickly we all ganged up on this player!

I learned more about international politics that one afternoon than I think an entire semester's course would have taught me.

Beware the Brit In The Sun...
I remember - in the early 90's - reading about combat flight sim fans in the U.K. and Germany who had used a program to fake their systems into believing the Internet was their own private LAN. As few games were Internet-playable back then, but a handful supported LAN play. In this case, these players were fans of a World War II era flight simulator. This international community decided to take advantage of these tools to host a major online reenactment of the Battle of Britain. But there was a trick to it. This time, the German players were defending the British Isles, and the UK players were coming in with bombers and Bf-109's to prepare for Operation Sealion.

Thou Hast Lost An Eighth!
I didn't finish Ultima IV until long after its initial release. I was in college at this point (I'd just barely finished Ultima VII, and wanted MORE ULTIMA, and went back to this classic). At one point, I found myself confronted with two options - to be honest, or to be humble. Either choice would help one virtue but ding another. While I was of course thinking about which one I needed the most points in when I answered the question - pure power-gaming - I remember wondering to myself just for a moment. Which IS more important? Humility or honesty? What are my personal values? And am I living them as well as I could?

This Is What It Sounds Like When Zombies Cry
After a particularly bad day at school one afternoon, I came home and booted up The Game everyone was talking about at the time: Doom. I picked a favorite level, entered in the command for invulnerable "god mode," and outfitted myself with the chainsaw. I went to work on the zombies. By the time the level was cleared, I was feeling immensely better, and while the cares of school weren't forgotten, the emotional edge had been purged in a comicly grisley manner.

Everybody Gets To Be A Hero
Meeting with some good folks at the Drolvarg camp outside Firiona Vie in EverQuest, I learned a lesson in teamwork I didn't expect possible in the primitive rule system of the game. Astonishingly, a party filled with self-sacrificing folks who looked out for the good of the team above their own gain actually gained more - as individuals - than those who were looking out for number one. Time after time we beat the odds, and watched the experience points and platinum roll in at a rate I'd never before seen.

I Didn't Recognize You Without Your Epic Weapon
Many months after that experience in the Drolvarg camp - after joining this group's then-fledgling guild, we decided to celebrate. Considering the fact that so many of us were from Utah we figured we'd hold a guild barbecue one afternoon to meet each other. Several people from out-of-town didn't want to be left out, and also came to participate. Since we didn't want to turn our out-of-town guests away after only three or four hours, we ended up turning the afternoon barbecue into a full weekend event.

For our part, the guildmistress and her husband asked if they could stay at our house during the weekend. We agreed. It was only the night before they were to arrive that we felt misgivings. Who are these people? We'd only known them from their in-game avatars. The next day, two strangers appeared on our doorstep, introducing themselves by their character names. We nervously let them inside our home, and showed them around. After about 20 minutes of conversation, we suddenly realized that these strangers were truly friends that we'd met within the virtual world of the game.

The weekend went off fabulously, the barbecue couldn't be beat, and a good time was had by all these strangers who soon found out they had been friends all along.

Identified By Use Of Lame Jokes...
I had only been at a new job for a couple of weeks when a coworker, unbeknownst to me, bought my newly-released game Void War and started playing it. A couple of days later he came to my desk and asked me for tips. A couple of other coworkers (and my boss) wandered by to listen. He commented to everyone how the game had my personality and sense of humor written all over it. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

But having played several indie games and having some (mostly email-exchanged) conversations with the creators, I believe that's often the case. From what I can tell from communicating with their creators, Kid Mystic, Aveyond, and Cute Knight all stand out as being imprinted with the personality and beliefs of their creators. While most games may not have deep messages, agendas, or heavy themes, they are still a little bit of an expression of a piece of the creator's soul... maybe a fun, whimsical, public-facing piece, but a piece nonetheless.
With small or "lone wolf" development teams, this personality doesn't get buried under a legion of contributors.

I feel like I know these people a little bit better because I've played their game.

It's All About Geek Bragging Rights
We used to joke at the Singletrac days about how we spent more time talking about our lunchtime games than we actually spent playing them. After a mission or three of Falcon, ATF Gold, Rainbow Six, or Quake, several of us would stand around talking about the game we'd just played. We'd hear about it from other people's perspective. Even single-player games played individually at home provided ripe fodder for conversation around the water-cooler the next day.

The games brought us together, gave us stories to tell each other, and provided a multifaceted shared experience that made us enjoy each other's company more.

Hit "X" To Feed The World?
No, maybe making or playing games isn't as critical as researching cures for cancer, or teaching young children to read and write. But cancer researchers and schoolteachers have to knock it off and get some rest & relaxation in there at some point, too. The ER workers may need to get their World of Warcraft fix in eventually...

But my point is that there's something going on here - something that's been going on for a while. The medium is capable of doing good. Of educating, asking questions, communicating ideas, and bringing people together. Maybe it comes from a "serious" game, like Darfur Is Dying, or Peacemaker, Or maybe its a game that just happens to educate as it entertains, like Dave Gilbert's "The Shivah," or Sid Meier's Civil War games. Maybe it invites you to think about parallels in the real world, like Ultima IV or Cliff Harris's Democracy. Maybe it's just gamers coming together to contribute to charity, like Penny Arcade's Child's Play. Or maybe it is a purely entertaining "fluff" game that just makes people laugh, gives them something in common to talk about, or gets them together for a LAN game after hours at the office. Connecting people together to play, or to talk.

I think it's all important, in a small way, and can be for the good.

As always, have fun!


Okay, at this point I'm supposed to tag some people to pass this meme along. Just remember that most people are doing short responses with only a paragraph or two. So I am just not a good enough writer to limit myself to only 100 or so famous last words. Well, that, and I wrote this too far past 1:00 in the morning... as I do with too many of my blog posts! I'm surprised they make what little sense they do!

So --- entirely optional, but let's tag some folks and see if they would like to participate. Some of my favorites:

* Brian Green of Psychochild's Blog
* Ron Gilbert of the Grumpy Gamer
* JenaRey of Eeps, Meeps, and Ipes
* Shamus Young of Twenty Sided Tale
* Raph Koster of Raph's Website


Read or Post Comment on the Forums

Labels: Game Moments, Indie Evangelism

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:00 AM (Permalink) links to this post

 
My Term as President of the United States
Based upon my popular views concerning the investigation of bobblehead doll scandal (nicknamed "Bobblegate" by the press), and my outspoken support of the war against the Cylons, I have been elected President of the United States. It's time to give every chicken a pot or something like that. And most importantly, I get to decide who lives and who dies! I can hardly wait to start some scandals of my own!

All it took was booting up the game Democracy, the best-selling indie game from Cliff Harris of Positech Games. I mean, how hard could it be? I should at least be able to do better than my... ahem... recent predecessors.

Inauguration
I start out with my party (the ... hmmm... we'll call it the Frat Party) in charge of both the House and the Senate. Score! That, and I'm on my "honeymoon period" as the new electee. Time to kick some butt and take some names.

Cool.

The ol' state of the union isn't looking too hot right now. Pollution is rampant, and kids are suffering an asthma epidemic on account of it. The national debt is over 10 TRILLION dollars. The roads are clogged with congested traffic pretty much everywhere. Equality and air quality are extremely low, car usage is at extreme levels (I guess that's bad), and the people are complaining about how cheap imports are ruining the economy. Oh, and tax evasion is high.

On the plus side, unemployment is a low 6%, and the economy is doing pretty well overall.

The commuters and environmentalists despise me - but they represent a small portion of the population, right? Should I worry? The Socialists aren't too fond of me... but I'm not a socialist. Apparently they are 24% of the population, so I should worry. More importantly, the liberals (representing 27% of the population) are furiously opposed to me. Trade Unionists don't like me, either. And good ol' Middle Class America? 41% of the United States are Very Unhappy with me. Strangely, both the wealthy and the poor love me.

Okay. So this will be interesting. In theory, I just have to solve most of the problems in the country without causing more than I solve, and I should win the next election, right?

I guess one way to solve air quality is to get more motorists off the road and into public transportation. The problem with that is that public transportation sucks. I mean, I hate the busses here in Utah. I took the Provo - Salt Lake City "express" bus when I started my career at SingleTrac. "Express" meant they meandered through every little stop between Provo and Salt Lake, turning a 45 minute commute into an over 2 hour commute EACH WAY. At least I got some extra sleep that way, with a newborn at home and everything.

So --- how about I increase the investment in Bus Lanes on roads? That should encourage the use of busses, and make those nasty long commutes shorter, and therefore more acceptable to people who'd otherwise drive. And I'll pay for this with... hmm.... ah! An increase in gas taxes! Which should also make public transportation a more palatable option!

Since the increase in gas tax increased revenue more than the cost in bus lanes, I end up making a tidy profit and reduce the budget deficit. And it will reduce gridlock, reduce pollution, which will also deal with the asthma epidemic, all at once! Hey, am I a friggin' genius or what? This is easy!

Second Quarter
Unfortunately, it takes several months for the new policies to take effect. And the U.S. government is still hemoraging money, in spite of the fact that income grew about $160 billion / month more than costs. To top it all off, there was a sweatshop scandal that rocked my administration, only three months in. I increased the tobacco tax to try and reduce smoking and improve government income. The smokers won't be too fond of me... but I'm early into my campaign, so they'll just have to live with it for four years. I also implement trade tariffs.

Third Quarter
Government income drops, and spending increased. Commuters hate me, and motorists aren't too happy with me either. Car usage has dropped 13%, and my overall popularity has dropped 18%. The fax machine next to the Oval Office has been busy sending out resumes.

Yeah, this is going well.

I implement a new national monorail system. Sure, it'll take nearly a decade for it to complete, but I'm sending a message that I AM HERE TO STAY. I also implement a national minimum wage. Strangely, I guess the U.S. didn't have them until my administration. I correct that and implement the law, to the chagrin of business owners everywhere.

I also implement car emission limits at a national level. Maybe that will put a dent in pollution, huh?

Fourth Quarter
My first year as President is almost done! Things have finally changed with the budget - it is now in "good shape," but it'll take some time to get the debt down to more manageable levels. Still, it is the sweet taste of success, as income skyrockets.

The bus lanes have finally started to pay off, and the commuters are starting to warm up to me. This drivers are even happier, in spite of their more expensive vehicle ownership, because I've finally ended the gridlock situation across the nation.

Unfortunately I'm still dealing with an asthma epidemic, pollution, cheap imports, and tax evasion (which is probably because of the two primary means of taxes - income and corporate tax - are hard to enforce). Don't people realize I inherited all these problems? These things take TIME to fix, durn it!

Year Two
Going into my second year, I'm seeing a decrease in the government debt, but it's still slow. Security is warning of "green" terrorist attacks by the unhappy environmentalists. Didn't they hear about my national monorail system? Grrr.... My approval rate is dissapointing.

I chose a weak welfare "minister" (Should be cabinet member in the U.S., shouldn't it?) My approval rating amongst the poor is great, and the socialists seem to really be warming up to me, too. So I think this move will help appease the capitalists and wealthy. And that also offsets the fact that I've dropped their beloved tax shelters down to more moderate levels.

The pollution level is beginning to drop (as is the Asthma epidemic), though both are still at critical levels. The GDP has all the capitalists and self-employed folk dancing in the streets and singing my praise in spite of my reduction of their tax shelters. I make it up to them by dropping the corporate tax. Things might be bad, but they are improving.

I also lower the national sales tax (since when did the U.S. have a national sales tax, anyway?)

I get a strong budget surplus, the debt begins to fall rapidly, and the concern about cheap imports goes away.

Right before the end of year two, I decide to let a convicted terrorist starve to death rather than give into his hunger strike. I also do a headcount reduction on the CIA. This might appease the liberals a little bit, and it also saves me about $10 billion per month in savings. Why do we need those spies, anyway? We're not in the cold war anymore, right guys?

Year Three
Unfortunately, my dissapointing ratings resulted in my loss of the U.S. House of Representatives, but the Frat Party retained the Senate. This means the House will delay the implementation of all of my policies. Fortunately, my most important policies were already put in place, and many of those are just now starting to get results.

Parents and middle-income Americans have nothing good to say about me. I decide to add a child credit to taxes, to see if that'll get Moms and Dads off my back for letting their children having to use inhalers because they can't breathe outside. Besides, I can't afford a true cut to income tax yet, as I'm still getting the national debt down.

It's not quite enough, but my ratings overall have improved. I'm now having "confident" quarters. The economy is going like gangbusters. Pollution levels continue to drop. Environmentalists are no longer burning me in effigy, but they aren't exactly putting me on their Christmas Card lists, either. Speaking of which, my friends amongst the religious voters seem to be dropping a little bit, too. Since they represent about 44% of the voting public, this is a concern.

The liberals are fanatically opposed to me. The smokers are a little more neutral towards me... but they are diminishing. Smoking is on the decline - I guess it's too expensive of a habit. I figure this is a good thing. Either that, or my ignoring of health care is resulting in all of them dying off with lung cancer. I'm not sure which.

I compromise my principles once more, blocking the merger of two major retail chains into a major mega-store (Hmmm... I wonder if it would have been called "WAL*MART"). This earns me some more allies amongst the self-employed, as they weren't looking forward to the competition. But it really is an artificial restriction to free trade. I wouldn't have done it if the economy wasn't already rocking.

I oppose a book-banning, which drops me off a few more Christmas lists amongst religious America, and it's probably too late to win a popularity contest with the liberals. Ah, well, I'm sticking to my idealist guns for a change, I guess.

Year Four
Unemployment has reached historically low levels. The poor love me. The wealthy are indifferent. The patriots and conservatives celebrate me as the hero of the nation. I increase spending on prisons, which helps everyone. The conservatives and patriots would love me even more if they could go above 100%. Even the liberals are grudgingly giving me a little bit of credit for what I've done with the economy. I drop military spending a little bit, just to keep things going. I want to give everyone a big bonus this year of reduced income tax.

My ratings have climbed to nearly 60% in the polls. With the November election rapidly approaching, I'm already preparing my acceptance speech for my second term.

And Then, Disaster Strikes.
More specifically, terrorists stike. A car bomb goes off in the middle of Washington DC, killing three and wounding a dozen. Apparently my cuts to the CIA a while ago had something other than just political effect.

The patriots and the conservatives, who thought I could walk on water the previous quarter, have almost completely deserted me. My approval rating quickly sinks down into the low teens.

I hope it'll blow over quickly, as the GDP is amazing, pollution is almost down to non-crisis levels, air quality and life expectancy are up, and the country is - by almost all measurable levels - much better now than when I inherited it.

I drop income tax. By a tremendous amount. It'll cost me hundreds of billions, but I've been running at nearly an $800 billion surplus for several months now. Hopefully people will start feeling the additional weight in their wallets just as the elections begin.

The following quarter, some of the antagonism over the terrorist attack does blow over. The patriots and conservatives grudgingly give me back some of my approval, but it's nowhere close to my near 100% level they were giving me before. More like around 25%.

The reduction in income tax hits JUST before the elections. The Middle Class perks up, increasing my approval by 15% just in time for the elections. Is it enough?

Nope. Apparently not. Still blaming me for the terrorist attack, America decides its time for a new President.

I get one more quarter to sit through and see the final results of what I'd built over the last four years. I see parents, liberals, and socialists all increase their approval rating. Just as they boot me out the door.

Hmmm.... I wonder if Germany needs a new President. I've got experience...

--- Former President Rampant Coyote




Think you can do better? Check out the free demo of Democracy at Rampant Games! (And yes, I have done better on subsequent games... assuming I can avoid a terrorist attack in an election year).

Download DEMOCRACY

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Labels: Game Moments, Politics

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 2:49 PM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
Who Are The Best Game Villains?
After a discussion at work about how cool a villain Bestor was in the Babylon 5 series, and why, I got to thinking: Who are the best villains in video / computer games? I've written about what I feel makes a "good" villain... not necessarily a recipe for making one, but a few elements that seem common in the "best" villains in movies and literature.

Too often in games the villain is just a vaguely-referred-to "Foozle" (was it Scorpia who came up with that term?) who appears as an uber-powerful level boss at the end of the game. How many games actually give the "big bad" a real presence and character? How many game villains really help define who the hero is? Do any actually come close? I'm talking original IP here... sure, Darth Vader, The Joker, and Doc Oc may be cool in videogames, but their coolness may just be reflected light.

Here are the ones that come to mind from games I've played:

The Guardian (Ultima Series, particularly Ultima 7)
You come back to Britannia to discover a new religion sweeping the world: The Fellowship, a somewhat humanist religion that has somehow "improved" upon the virtues of Avatarhood. At the highest levels, however, they claim the presence of a "guardian" who will come and directly guide and influence them. This is actually one being, The Guardian, an extradimensional being who has used his minions to form this church to assist him in entering and enslaving the world. Aside from dominating worlds, his second greatest goal seems to be to taunt, demean, and prove himself superior to the hero, the Avatar.

Some of his nastiest machinations include manipulating the hero to get at his own enemies and threats. Well before the first game featuring the Guardian was complete, I was really hating this guy.

Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII)
He was the main antagonist of what was (I believe) the best-selling RPG of all time, so it's not surprising he'd make the list. A mysterious silver-haired pretty-boy driven insane by his discovery of the alien genes fused into his own before his birth, he has the power to destroy the world. More importantly, he has the power to mind-control the hero (Cloud) to make him do his bidding, and of course, stabbed romantic-interest and last-hope-for-the-world Aeris (Aerith) through the heart with his sword while she was meditating / praying. What's not to love and hate?

And he had really dang cool theme music.

More importantly, though, the game was nearly as much about Sephiroth as it was about the heroes and their story. Throughout Final Fantasy 7, you find yourself learning Sephiroth's history and goals as your pursue him. You encounter him several times, including a lengthy playable flashback sequence. You confront him directly several times, and even manage to defeat him at least once prior to the final battle. But, like the heroes, he keeps leveling up and becoming more powerful. And - at least at the beginning of the game - he represents the hero's own personal ideal for himself. As much as he hates Sephiroth, he also wants to be (and, until the truth is laid bare, pretends to be) just as cool, competent, confident, and in-control as his soon-to-be nemesis.

Admiral Tolwyn (Wing Commander IV)
Played by Malcom McDowell in Wing Commander III and IV, Admiral Tolwyn was many times a thorn in the hero's side. But in previous games, he had been only a foil, not really an enemy. A superior officer with a distrust of the brash young fighter pilot (later named "Christopher Blair", after the codename "Blue Hair" in the first two Wing Commander games, and played by Mark "Luke Skywalker" Hamill). Though his personal pride sometimes cripples his own efforts, he's a staunch defender of the human race.

In Wing Commander IV, however, he finds himself lost without a war to fight. He sees the human race sink into the chaos of transition following a decades-long war, and believes that it is becoming incapable of defending itself should another alien enemy present itself. He takes matters into his own hands by launching a two-pronged secret agenda to whip the human race into shape.

First, he provokes a civil war while pretending to be a diplomat attempting to secure the peace. Secondly, he has developed a genetically-engineered bioweapon designed to give evolution a hand - the plague which kills only those deemed "genetically deficient", culling the weak from humanity's herd.

The game starts with the hero working with the Admiral to "defend" the Confederation from attacking Border World forces, unwittingly (in some cases) helping provoke a full-fledged war. As bits of the truth begin coming to light, members of the Confederacy forces begin defecting to the Border Worlds, and the hero has two chances to join them. The game ends with Christopher Blair, now branded an Outlaw at home, must sneak into an assembly meeting and expose the Admiral by providing appropriate evidence in a courtoom-drama-like scene.

The Undead Pirate LeChuck (Monkey Island)
Before there was the "Pirates of the Carribean" movies, there was Monkey Island. And the undead pirate, LeChuck, who's thirst for pillage and violence was matched only by his love (lust) for the beautiful Elaine Morley --- uncoincidentally, also the Guybrush Threepwood's (the hero, of course) romantic interest. After being hosed down and destroyed once with magical root beer in the first game, LeChuck's greatest goal becomes revenge on Threepwood.

LeChuck appears regularly throughout all of the games (at least the ones I played), regularly ruining Guybrush's day. The second game, in fact, ends with his victory over Guybrush, as he casts a spell on Guybrush making him believe that they are both children and that LeChuck is actually Guybrush's long-lost brother, Chucky. LeChuck is evil and destructive, but also a funny character who is enjoyable to watch in his antics. He's Guybrush's opposite in most ways - he's evil and supremely competent, whereas Guybrush is bumbling but occasionally clever and often very lucky. LeChuck is constantly fuming over how he, the scourge of the seas, can keep getting defeated by such a loser.

Oh, yeah. And he also had really cool theme music.

* * *

So there are my picks for the best "bad guys" in gaming. How about some more? What are YOUR picks for best bad guys in videogames?


(Vaguely) Related Legible Mumblings:
* Game Moments #4: Daggerfall
* Game Moments #6: Ultima 7
* Building the Perfect Villain
* Superhero Movies
* Bad Game Endings

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Labels: Game Design, Game Moments, retro

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:03 AM (Permalink) 14 comments links to this post

 
Enjoy an Oldie But Goodie

Labels: Free Games, Game Moments, retro

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 12:02 AM (Permalink) 9 comments links to this post

 
Game Moment #16 - Mechwarrior II

DEATH FROM ABOVE!

That was an somewhat obscure rule from the the tabletop version of the game "BattleTech." I'd only played it a couple of times. I was familiar with the rules, but the guys who played the game invested small fortunes into miniatures of giant robots. (Yes, that sounds like an oxymoron.) It seemed like an expensive hobby. Maybe not in comparison to, say, computer gaming... but I still didn't feel a strong desire to invest in the game beyond the basic rules system. Oh, and the adaptation of the wargame rules into an RPG, called "Mechwarrior."

BattleTech was a game inspired by anime, where warriors of the future drove gigantic, walking, metal war machines. The very concept defies all logic - why pilot a bipedal war machine when a tank would be far more efficient? No reason at all. Except a three-story-tall bipedal robot feels more like an extension of self, rather than piloting a vehicle. It's the supersoldier fantasy taken to excess - a lone warrior who can be an obscenely well-armed and armored walking GIANT on the battlefield.

The rule mentioned above was an attack by mechs with "jump jets," in which they could leap and come down directly on an enemy mech's "head" (which always housed the cockpit and vulnerable pilot, for some reason). It was a difficult and dangerous maneuver, with a less-than-stellar chance of success, but well worth it if you got lucky.

Early Mechwarrior Simulators
The wargame wasn't enough for me. I wanted to actually pilot one of those giant mecha (or "Mechs" in the Battletech universe). Or the closest thing to it. Around 1990 or so, I got my chance, with a delightful little game called "Mechwarrior," a title by Dynamix, published by Activision. This game was a little old when I played it, restricted to 16 colors at 320 x 200 resolution. Still, it was a lot of fun, and I played it into the ground.

An even better opportunity presented itself when I went to Walnut Creek, California, with my wife to visit her relatives. We paid a visit to the "Battletech Center" there, which had been redubbed "Virtual World" centers. For seven bucks, you'd be treated to an orientation movie (included here), then duke it out with seven other players in big "pods" - cockpits housed around a proprietary networked computer game. You'd also be given a printout of how you did, with your final score and ranking compared to the other players. The controls for the mechs at the BattleTech centers were impossibly complicated, but there were hardcore geeks who lived and breathed it. My first time visiting there, I met an experienced player in the cafe area. He was in-between sessions, and gave me some pointers before my first battle.

And for some good laughs, here's the orientation video, courtesy of YouTube:



Mechwarrior II
Fortunately for my starving-student bank account, the Virtual World centers were not local. The next best thing was the long-awaited (and long-delayed) sequel to Mechwarrior, produced by Activision. The final result was a classic. I played through the two campaigns (plus the expansion, Ghost Bear's Legacy), perhaps four times each. I thought I was pretty good.

The manual for the computer game mentioned the "Death From Above" attack from the old wargame. While it was theoretically supposed to be possible, I couldn't ever get it to work.

Mechwarrior II eventually supported LAN play. Very few games natively supported Internet play at the time, but with a program called Kali you could turn convince your computer that the Internet was your own private LAN, and play any network games with other Kali users. After wasting a couple of friends in actual LAN-based play (strangely, they didn't want to play with me after that), I tried my hand against an experienced player online.

Getting My Butt Kicked
I used my favorite Mech loadout from the single-player game. I'd honed the design to perfection. Twin Particle Projector Cannons (PPCs), plenty of heat sinks to handle the spike of firing two PPCs at once, plus an array of medium-range lasers. I had a small number of missiles, but I was so accurate with my other weapons I hated to use anything with limited ammunition.

So I faced my opponent, hoping I could handle him as I handled the AI. The instant he came within range, I fired my PPCs at him, and began backing up, trying to maintain my long-range advantage.

He stopped. I watched my slow PPC shots (which, I discovered later, were referred to by the online MW2 community as "Blue Pillows of Death") approach my foe. At the last second, he hit his jump-jets and easily dodged out of the way. He came closer. I fired at him a couple more times, and each time he expertly dodged.

I thought I was lucky when he shot out my mech's leg. I didn't realize he was deliberately trying to incapacitate me without killing me. After that, he just sat there for a little while, at long range. I kept firing my "death pillows at him," and he kept dodging. It dawned on me that he'd been toying with me this whole time. After exchanging some chat messages with him, he put me out of my misery.

You see, the guys who played Mechwarrior II online got hourly practice dodging guided missiles. Being fired upon with the slowest-moving, unguided projectiles in the game was almost an insult, and the use of PPCs was a clear mark of a newbie.

I was hooked.

Death From Above
I didn't stay a newbie for long. After a while, I became pretty good at the game. I was leading my targets almost precisely based on their ping. I was firing guided missiles AROUND obstacles, hitting targets on the other side that didn't have line-of-sight with me. I'd learned to master jump jets, and I was routinely dodging guided missiles myself. I had optimized mech designs for every weight category, taking advantage of not only things like heat and damage distribution but lag-tolerance in the online environment, collision detection limitations, and variations of different rules for online play (friendly versus tournament-rules adopted by the online community).

My online guild put me a leadership position, as I was active, supportive of new players, and while nowhere near "the best," I was probably in the top 25%. I went back and played the single-player game, at one point, and was amazed by how incredibly trivial it was. I'd take on overwhelming odds just to keep it interesting.

Then, one day, I was leading a team in a "friendly" (non-scoring") match against another online guild. I was holding my own with the team, and it was eventually down to just myself and one opponent. I had smashed his Mech up pretty bad, and he was "hiding" on top of a mesa above me. I'd expended my missile load taking "indirect fire" shots at his mech. I wasn't about to expose myself to attack trying to get up to his level, so I was hanging out below the mesa waiting for him to expose himself so I could get some shots in at him with my alsers. He didn't seem too willing to come down to my level, either.

So we stayed in a stalemate position for a couple of minutes, when finally he jumped. I took some free shots on him as he fell. The battle was almost won.

Then my mech exploded. The cockpit was shattered. He'd come down... directly on top of my mech. I stared at the little "death cam" mode in disbelief.

Death From Above!

What do you know, it really COULD be done! I'd just been on the receiving end of a "Death From Above" attack.


(Vaguely) related expressions of n00bieness...
* Why Cooperative Multiplayer Is Best
* Guest Game Moment #1: Falcon 4.0
* Game Moment #12: Rainbow Six

Labels: Game Moments, Mainstream Games, retro

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:00 AM (Permalink) 5 comments links to this post

 
Game Moment #15 - Neuromancer
Neuromancer, the novel by William Gibson, blew my mind when I read it in the late 1980's. I think it blew the minds of a lot of people. It created the (short-lived) Cyberpunk genre. It was heady stuff when it was published, theorizing virtual reality mingled with a world-wide computer network before the "Internet" was in anyone's vocabulary. It combined a uniquely 1980's era dystopia with a vision of computers and communications melding seamlessly with everyday life - and even within the human body itself. The line between computer programs and the human mind was blurred, and the result was both tantalizing and nightmarish.

Very cool stuff. And more plausible every day. Well, except for the idea of the Soviet Union still being a major player.

Around 1988, the computer game based on the book was created. Published by Interplay, it was a graphic adventure / RPG hybrid by Troy Miles. It even included part of a song (horribly rendered in MIDI glory on the PC) by Devo (How's that for 1980's?). The graphics on the PC version were standard 320 x 200 16-color EGA, and not nearly as attractive as other EGA adventure games of the era.

I didn't get around to playing it until 1991, shortly before I became hooked on Wing Commander. I hadn't even heard of the game before, but I found it discounted for $20 at a little computer shop in northern California early that summer. I wasn't yet plugged back into the gaming scene, so like most uninformed gamers I was as likely swayed by the license as anything else. Although I was saving money for my upcoming wedding and the next two semesters of college (yeah, it was quite the summer), I figured $20 wasn't a very big risk. I bought the game and tried it out that night.

Instead of playing the hero of the novel, you instead played another hacker of a user-supplied name on a somewhat parallel journey. For an adventure game, Neuromancer had a surprisingly small number of physical locations. Most of the game took place along three streets in Chiba City, with a trip near the end-game into orbital space stations. The game borrowed descriptions and characters from the novel, but also included some of its own own humor to the setting. Like the "Church of Pong."

The segment of the game taking place in "meat-space" was almost pure graphic adventure game, with the exception of the flow of cash. There was no combat - saying the wrong thing, going somewhere unprepared, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time could get you killed, or arrested and fined. Like most games of its kind, you learned to save early and often to avoid re-tracing your steps after a disasterous experiment.

The other side of the game was "Cyberspace," where you upgraded your "cyberdeck" and your software to hack into computers. The combat was in real-time, but it didn't exactly require fast arcade reflexes. It involved analyzing the opposing computer's strengths and weaknesses, and using the right combination of intrusion software to force your way in.

Success netted you access to bank accounts to raid, clues to your next move in cyberspace or in meat-space, upgraded intrusion software, passwords to be used in systems that were too hard to hack through brute force, access to security systems or other controls which affected the meat-space world, background information on the world itself, and some amusing little side-stories. It was perhaps more interesting "treasure" than any +2 sword of ogre decapitation.

In spite of its second-rate graphics (even for the time), the game had something to make it powerfully compelling. It drew me into the world and left me thinking about it when I wasn't playing --- planning my next move, musing over puzzles I hadn't yet solved. As this was still prior to the era of the World Wide Web, the solutions were not to be found in a quick Google search.

No, I had to figure this one out on my own. As any old-school adventure gamer is aware, this led to trying out sometimes irrational behavior in-game to either stumble across a solution, or maybe gain some other clue as to what really should be done, or reveal some previously overlooked option that could break apart several roadblocks at once. As always, I saved the game, experimented, and often found myself having to re-load after experiencing a minor setback or disaster.

My brain was so engaged in this tiny, fictional, 16-color universe that this game "moment" occured in the real-real-world. After playing the game for a couple of hours earlier in the evening, I found myself in a conversation with my in-laws-to-be. I don't remember what it was about, but they asked me a question, and I found myself trying to "save game" prior to answering them. Just in case my answer wasn't a good one.

When I realized what I'd been thinking, I figured I'd probably had enough Neuromancer for the day. I figured my brain had been at it too long, anyway. And that was another thing about old-school adventure games: the solutions often revealed themselves only after you took a break from the game and let your subconscious wrestle with it for a bit.

Incidentally, whatever answer I gave to my wife's folks was evidently the correct dialog tree option. I didn't find myself needing to re-load the game afterwards.

Labels: Adventure Games, Game Moments, retro, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:46 PM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
Game Moment #14- Wolfenstein 3D
The first videogame, that I can ever recall, that ever made me jump.

It wasn't Doom. Doom had jumps a-plenty, and I loved every minute of it. Well, almost every minute of it. At least a solid majority. But before Doom made the "First Person Shooter" a genre and introduced mainstream audiences to the concept, the geeky cognizati were loving another game of first-person carnage.

Wolfenstein 3D.

If you are old enough to remember playing it, you KNOW where that jump occured, and you know exactly what I'm talking about.

It takes place at the end of the shareware episode. A quiet level. You open a door and....


"GUTEN TAG!"
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

I know of one girl who literally fell out of her chair from that one. It's now overdone and almost trite, but at the time it was quite the shocker. It was the interactive equivalent of the final scene of The Great Train Robbery, which horrified and thrilled audience with a segment of the bandit shooting RIGHT AT the audience.

Unfortunately, it's a moment frozen in time. You can't go back and experience it today. Just like you can't be thrilled by the clip of the bandit shooting his gun anymore. It was the the combination of two fairly novel technologies (first-person perspective, and voice recording) in that first-time-ever situation.

I'm sorry if you missed out on that one. It was a riot.

(Vaguely) related drivel:
* Game Moments Index
* Rules of Combat According to FPS Games
* Game Moment #13 - DOOM!

Labels: Game Moments, retro

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 1:57 AM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
Game Moment #13 - Doom
I haven't done one of these for a while. Another Game Moment is long overdue. So for lucky number thirteen, what better game than... DOOM?



Doom was released while I was finishing up college. The Internet was still in its polonged infancy, mainly TELNET and FTP, +finger, IRC, USENET, and a few more obscure utilities. Lucky for me, I didn't have to download Doom on a crappy 9600 baud modem connection like much of the world on the eve of Doom's release. As a computer science student, I could simply go to the computer labs, and join the zillions of other students downloading the game on our high-speed university connection.

Actually, I didn't have to even do that - about every computer in the lab already had the Doom installer downloaded and residing on the hard drive. We just had to copy it onto a floppy and take it home The lab assistants even encouraged us to see if Doom was already on the machin