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Friday 30 May 2008

The End of Single Player Games?

Phil Harrison, one time boss of Sony Worldwide Studios, now steering Atari towards the light, believes that single player games' time is up:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/single-player-games-on-the-way-out-says-phil-harrison

I have to say that I just don't agree. Yes, people like multiplayer and online aspects, but that doesn't mean they don't also like single player experiences (indeed there is still a majority of next-gen console owners who aren't online).

I for one tend to enjoy single player games on a console much more than most multiplayer experiences, this is really why I bought a console in the first place. To me a console game is lounging on the sofa in front of the TV taking a game at my own pace. I find playing multiplayer games on my PC over the LAN at work much more exciting than facing some unknown on the internet.

I think there is plenty of future left in the single player market. Sure there may be online aspects, one in particular is episodic content.

Wednesday 28 May 2008

Games Design Courses

The quality of game design degrees continues to be under the spotlight, and I've seen and heard first hand about some of the questionable teaching going on. From a design course that only teaches 3D modelling (the candidate I interviewed had not been taught a thing about A.I. or anything else technical for that matter) to another where the teachers were the Masters students that had just finished their postgrad (i.e. zero "real world" experience of development.

Game design degrees are really now the Media Studies degree of the 2000's - pretty much worthless. What's worse is that universities seem to be cynically pursing these courses as they attract a lot of students, and in turn a lot of money.

The result of this is students end up feeling very disgruntled when they complete their course, often blaming the industry itself:

http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/540/oped_from_the_outside_looking_in.php

In truth the answer to this guy's woes is a lack of talent. I won't embarass him by posting a link to his porfolio here, but suffice to say, he hasn't got a hope in hell of getting in with it. The horrible thing is that having done a degree it instills a sense of right in the student that they are now capable of getting into the industry.

There are notable exceptions to these rules. The University of Abertay in Dundee has a great reputation for producing good, knowledgeable candidates, and I have seen similar good things happening at the University of Teeside (I was lucky enough to be invited to do a talk at their regular games / animation festival Animex). By communicating and building relationships with the industry, these courses will strengthen and improve, particularly as ex-professionals cross over into teaching. However, to truly succeed, the universities simply looking for a fast buck need to stop.

Now the solution lies in the students being able to create a good portfolio, but much of this effort will have to be taken on themselves. In truth, the only way to get into the industry is through a lot of hardwork and a lucky break. Only a good portfolio will give a student that chance.

Monday 26 May 2008

My Top 10 Memorable Gaming Moments

We've all had moments in games where we finish them and feel utterly exhilerated, moments where we were "in the zone" or where events occured that had us mesmerised - things we won't forget. I thought I'd try and compile my top 10 most memorable moments:


10. F.E.A.R. - The fat programmer activates the turret

One of the hardest things to achieve in gaming is motivation for the player to feel emotion towards characters. In F.E.A.R. they achieved the need for retribution with aplomb. I have never before wanted to really kick the living shit out of a character as much as I wanted to when the fat programmer turns the security systems against you. Unfortunately I didn't have the same inclanation to actually finish the game. Running around a dull office block environment with a rather hackneyed story for a carrot just didn't do it for me. Shame, as the psychological scares were really well done.

9. Final Fantasy VII - Aeris Dies

It's a daring move by Square to kill of a party member which the player has spent hours nurturing and building up, but it sure does have an impact. I was quite honestly agape when she died - and really quite shocked. It sure does give you impetus to right the wrongs in the world. And having spent 100 hours in completing the game, it sure left an impression on me.

8. Resident Evil - Dogs jump through the window

Games never really tried to be scary. Then along came Resident Evil, and with the exception of the hammiest acting ever, really set a new standard in just how to make a scary game. The epitome of this is the dogs jumping through the window in the corridor, very near the start of the game. I really haven't had a shock like it before or since!

7. Shadow of the Colossus - the Eagle colossus

The game is elegant and beautiful, yet odly desolate and bleak. Killing the colossus truly feels like a crime, particularly when they are as well realised as the eagle. When you first jump up onto it, and the music rises in tempo in a crescendo, it really does make your heart soar. Flying through the air clining to various parts of the beast is a truly magical moment.

6. Grand Theft Auto IV - The heat style gun battle

This is probably only in my top ten right now as it's so fresh, but the heat style gun battle after robbing a bank in GTA IV really hit a chord with me. The battle in Heat is one of my favourite moments of cinema, so to be able to actually play through it was truly satisfying. When I died playing through it the first time, I was actually pleased, as I got to have another pop.

5. Half-Life 2: Episode 2 - The Strider Attack

The final part of episode 2 is a real heart attack moment. I don't think I've ever felt such an adrenaline rush, or being quite as on the edge of my seat as this section of gameplay. I almost had to stop playing because I was finding it almost too stressful. I died a few times, and was beginning to feel a vein of frustration. But then I finally completed it just as the final strider was charging up a shot to destroy the rocket. Talk about nick of time - virtually perfect balancing to get that feeling of overwhelming danger, but still make it possible, but then Valve really are the masters of fine tuning.

4. Half-Life 2: Episode 2 - the ant lion attack in the tunnels

Yes - the Half-Life series is my favorite, so it is appearing several times. Episode two had one really defining moment for me that made me go "wow", and that was the fight in the tunnels where the ant lions begin to attack. The setup and characterisation is brilliantly executed, making the moment where the attack begins feel truly tense and nerve-wracking.

3. Call of Duty 4 - The Sniper Mission

COD 4 is a superb set piece extravaganza, but it really shines in the sniper mission, which is both fast paced and tense. The real heart pounding moment occurs when running through the field and a group of soldiers approaches. Ducking down in the grass you really start to sweat as you have to second guess where the enemy soldiers will walk and move out of the way.

2. Half-Life - the introduction

Considering what FPS meant before Half-Life, the introduction was truly daring - 20 minutes of nothing but scene setting. We are placed in the shoes of Gordon Freeman's everyday life, giving us a sense of normality before it is all turned on its head. For me this left a real impression of how games can be fascinating and interactive without relying on conflict. It was something that was mirrored in the beginning of Half-Life 2 to great success.

1. Half-Life 2 - the fight under the bridge

I find it hard not to put the entirety of Half-Life 2 as the most memorable moment, for me a perfectly crafted game. It is in reality a constant procession of memorable moments sewn together - a real rollercoaster ride. But the moment that sticks in my mind the most must be the fight against the helicopter underneath the bridge. The feeling of danger is overwhelming with little room to move and a dangerous drop directly beneath. The satisfaction of taking down the chopper is really unparalled. A truly great moment.

The Use of Metacritic

Metacritic is becoming more and more the barometer of determining game quality. Is it a great scale to use?

Yes and No.

Using an average does give you a statistically better score than relying on one particular source. However, the review process metacritic does have issues:

* It is suspected by many that review scores are subject to many factors including advertising dollars spent with the publication by the publisher, or even how many free lunches the journalist got. Of course many journos can also get caught up in the hype machine and be swayed simply by that.
* Some reviewers like to be purposely harsh to get noticed, throwing in a contradictary opinion.
* Small scores like out of 5 skew results so 3/5 which is a fairly decent score when considered in that sense become 60% as a score out of 100, which is considered to be bad.
* Reviews without a score are attributed a score by metacritic themselves based on the content of the review, which is extremely subjective.
* Review scores are weighted according to the publication by metacritic themselves. This process is not transparent, and has no feedback to the public lending the sense that this is somewhat arbitrary.

So - is it reliable? Again - I think it does actually produce fairly decent results. The main problem is not from metacritic themselves, but the whole reviewing process. However, for all the corruption and one-up manship it generally does reflect the quality of a game.

Some publishers are now tying developer bonuses to metacritic scores. In a way I like this. It is a way of preserving the chances of a developer being paid that bonus - old style dirty tricks in this case (like purposely reducing the metacritic score) would simply be shooting themselves in the foot.

It's interesting to see that people have been analysing metacritic scores by publisher to show their quality bar:

http://kotaku.com/393104/the-big-publishers-metacritic-averages

MGS 4: 90 minute cutscenes

No thanks.

Thursday 22 May 2008

Stunning Graffiti Animation

Jaw. Hitting. Floor.

Simply gobsmackingly good animation:

http://www.vimeo.com/993998

How long must this have took to do?

Tuesday 20 May 2008

Time for a Rant - "Biting Off More Than You Can Chew"

I like to rant, anyone who knows me knows that. In fact there is a type of ranting named after me known as the Markument. But I haven't ranted up on this blog yet, so now it's about time...

Now the subject of this particular rant is budding game developers biting off more than they can chew. Having seen a few game design students' potential projects and having read this:

http://sol.gfxile.net/mmorpg.html

it has solidified my opinion that people are almost universally over ambitious when they try to make their first game. Seriously - I've witnessed a group of 3 students announce they will build a third person action adventure from scratch in less than a year. Then they announce that the story will be much better than several mainstream titles. Firstly you don't stand much hope of finishing what is probably the most complex type of game to produce (aside from RPGs for pure depth and girdth) and secondly you're expecting to make it better than a game that had 60+ professionals working on it for 3 or more years. You need to sniff the reality salts guys. I don't mind the ambition so much as the arrogance!

It just reminds me of Marc Echo - urban clothing designer - and his determined pitch to the games industry that he would show us how it is done. Yeah? That worked didn't it...

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps2/marceckosgettingup?q=getting%20up

Then there was the doorman that decided an MMO was his future and he pumped his (and his family's) life savings into it. Forget trying to get experienced people to help, he'll manage with a few friends and loyal companions!

Unfortunately even those who've been on the perimeter of game development don't always get it right:

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/pennyarcadeadventuresepisode1?q=penny%20arcade

I love the cartoon strips (even the lampooning of Heavenly Sword), but there is a slight bit of smug satisfaction when the critics don't get it right themselves.

Just remember - if you're going to start in game development, start small. Build a mod for an existing game. Build a small arcade game. Whatever you do don't start bragging about how you are going to revolutionise the industry - we've heard all that bullshit before.

Haze Gets a Kicking

Well, a while ago I was quite interested by Haze, but the demo served to kick my interest in the face. Now it seems that the game itself isn't setting the world on fire:

http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/875/875229p1.html

If IGN give you a kick to the chops, then I can only imagine when the harsh scores take their turn to put the boot in. Place your EDGE score predictions now...

Monday 19 May 2008

Friday 16 May 2008

Videogame Tropes

Tropes are to be found in all entertainment forms - some to the point of cliche, but they can be useful as a starting point for ideas.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VideogameTropes

This site contains a number of tropes that will either be useful for a design idea, or at the very least a source of amusement.

Thursday 15 May 2008

Beyond Good and Evil 2?

Rumours of a sequel to beyond good and evil 2 seem to have surfaced:

http://www.kotaku.com/390720/there-is-a-beyond-good--evil-2-sort-of

Let's hope it does enter into full production, as BGE was a really superb game that unfortunately didn't sell all that well.

The 400 Project

Can you set out a set of rules for game design?

http://www.theinspiracy.com/400_project.htm

The 400 project aims to do just that, so far it doesn't seem to have got much backing, and whilst there are some sensible rules in there, can we really boil down the process of game design to following instructions?

Game design is part art, part science in my opinion. There are definate concepts and theories that can define the science part of design, but the real craft lies in the creativity. Rules and regulations tend to stifle the creative mind, indeed a lot of good art has been about throwing out the rulebook.

So while it may be a worthwhile exercise in defining these rules, as a designer, it is unlikely that these will pervade my everyday design life.

Friday 9 May 2008

"The 7 Commandments"

Someone posted a link to this on the Chaos Engine (private message board for games industry bods for those who don't know what that is):

http://www.cracked.com/article_16196_7-commandments-all-video-games-should-obey.html

I've got a few issues with them:

#7 Thou shalt let us play games with real-life friends.

Yes, playing against people in the same room is a great experience and is really suited to certain types of game - the games that they highlight such as Guitar Hero. However, other types of games that incurr high rendering costs when trying to do split screen, or require shoe horning of elements to provide such features - is it really such a great loss?

There are certain types of game that are designed for single players. There is nothing wrong with this. I personally really enjoy playing single player games - like reading a good book. Not every game suits multiplayer in the same room.

Squeezing four people together in one room to stare at a tiny corner of a TV to play Halo 3 isn't the same as sitting your fat ass in your lazyboy with plenty of space around you, a big HDTV with all the screen real estate to yourself, and a bluetooth headset to communicate with your pals. Horses for courses.

#6 Thou shalt not pad the length of your game.

Well I kinda agree with this and their quote "See, here's the thing. We don't mind short games." Ah I wish the gaming population at large shared this sentiment, as Heavenly Sword's main reason for getting a bit of a kicking in certain press circles was "it's too short".

Simple fact is that generating content for the next generation is a herculean task. So you get as much quality as you can into the game. Now to make it longer you either sacrafice a little quality or you put in padding. When you don't do this people seem to go for the juggular (they didn't with portal, but that was part of a much larger package - standalone would it have had a different reaction?).

#5 Thou shalt not force repetition on the player.

A good and valid point. Except with certain game mechanics. If that repetition is fun and balanced perfectly it can be the whole game itself. What is Tetris? The same mechanic repeated ad infinitum.

But yes, their points on limited save points, watching cutscenes and instant death QTEs are perfectly valid.

#4 Thou shalt make killing fun.

Well first of all this got my back up by trying to take on my favorite game Half-Life 2, but seriously - there needs to be progression. A "bullshit" weapon can actually be a lot of fun when the scenario is designed to suit. I personally dont hate handguns if they are implemented with thought. Having limited ammo also increases the tension.

But then they do have good points - particularly little rodent enemies - I'm pretty sick of these myself.

As for killing identikit enemies, well creating randomised enemies is not as easy as it sounds. There is quite an investment required in specific technology to be able to do this well. Is it really that much of an issue?

#3 Thou shalt admit when enough is enough

Escort missions. Hmmm. No one has ever liked them? I can think of one or two - I quite liked the Resident Evil 4 ones, even if they didn't. Admittedly it's very easy to do them badly, but that's not a reason for not trying.

CPU squad mates again falls under the above. But I've seen quite a few games with well controlled squad mates - Beyond Good and Evil and Half-Life2 Ep1 & 2. Think this point is moot as AI improves - again it's just one of those things that is easy to do badly.

First person jumping - someone had better tell DICE that, otherwise Mirror's Edge is going to be a disaster...

World War II games - yes they are running out of source material on that one...

The grizzled space marine - yes... can't really argue against that one!

#2 Thou shalt make sure your game actually works.

I could say how complex games are these days, but really they are right - there is no excuse for this - and the problem is likely to get worse now that patches are acceptable on consoles...

#1 Better graphics do not equal innovation and / or creativity.

Yup - again I can't argue against this one. Only I will say that great graphics can make brilliant mechanics even better. They increase the level of verisimillitude - believability in the world.

Thursday 8 May 2008

Great Design Reference

The internet is a wonderful thing, but so hard to find what you want. So there's a few websites that really are great additions to the designer's toolkit.

Firstly there's the obvious:

www.gamasutra.com

But to be honest, I haven't read anything really interesting on there for quite a while.

Then there's great sites for locations:

www.trekearth.com

For general reference there is of course:

www.wikipedia.org

But there's also a great many other sites that are really good for sparking ideas. I really love:

www.darkroastedblend.com

I'll post up more weird and interesting websites as and when I find them.

Sunday 4 May 2008

The true story of GTA?

Saw this fairly interesting piece on a developer that claims that GTA was stolen from them:

http://www.geeteed.com/

Well - it's hard to totally believe it. If it were true, it sure is unfortunate, but as I have heard many times - ideas are cheap - it's the implementation that really counts.

Even if their game had come out, they probably wouldn't have hit the sweet spot - they probably would have sunk without trace. The original GTAs weren't explosively popular - popular enough, but it was GTA III that really launched the series anyway.