I beat Donkey Kong Country Returns this morning. It left me with a unique joyful feeling that I rarely encounter these days. DKCR was such a well-balanced experience, both in challenge and in creativity, that I was supremely satisfied when I saw those credits roll.  I wasn’t annoyed that there wasn’t more time to explore the game mechanic, as in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.  I didn’t feel that the boss battle was anti-climatic, as in Batman: Arkham Asylum. No. I was elated. I sat through the entirety of the credits and was rewarded with a new area! I had already planned on replaying some of the levels to complete the collection challenges but now I had a new goal. Man. That Donkey Kong guy is the gift that keeps on giving.

I have to admit that I haven’t returned to Dragon Age: Origins or Castlevania. I have been completely obsessed with DKCR. I am not disappointed that I didn’t finish Dragon Age. I still think I’ll go back to Castlevania one day but the game on my brain was DKCR. Why was I so enthralled? It has the great schema of nerve-wracking challenges that seem impossible and tight mechanics that ramp to a “flying by the seat of your pants” abandonment. Flat out, it was fun. I missed fun. Yes, I have fun when I play most video games but usually the world that these games operate in are less than happy. I’m fairly hesitant to hang out with Dante, Lara, Kratos or Sam Fisher. (Although, I would get a drink with Ezio or Nathan Drake any time.) DKCR gave me the chance to be child-like, very different than childish, while operating on an adult skill level.

I recently tried out Little Big Planet and Stacked!. Both games are whimsical and beautifully rendered. Both are humorous. LBP seemed to require more skill than Stacked! but I have not been inspired to continue either game. Why? Well, the LBP mechanics are kinda wishy-washy. I’m not exactly sure what type of gravity they have on their planet but it makes leaping an imprecise chore. The humor and energy is there but the game just isn’t as good as it’s concept. LBP possibly has a more interesting concept than DKCR but that doesn’t mean I want to play it.  Stacked! was plain boring. Again, great art and humor but lackluster game mechanic and puzzles. Maybe I should’ve played longer but it did not feel challenging. On the other end of the spectrum, DKCR had me at first chest thump and all I wanted to do was help my simian and ape friends reclaim their bananas. DKCR made me feel awesome for conquering an especially tricky run. I did not feel that way at all after the other two games. All three games made me giggle but I felt the Kong made me want to play.

What LBP or Stacked! does that DKCR does not do is reward the player with “stuff.” All three games have a certain amount of collecting involved. In LBP, you collect a certain amount of items to be used in the creation of levels and stickers. In Stacked! you collect different sets of dolls. In DKCR you collect letters and puzzle pieces that result in personal satisfaction and/or unlockable art. I am more interested in the self-satisfaction model of “I went the extra mile and conquered some crazy craziness” as opposed to “I need these things to fully enjoy the game” (LBP) or  “I have to search endless nooks and crannies for very little payoff” (Stacked!). I, a notorious 100% completer, am satisfied by the notion that I can have as much fun as the next person by choosing to jump the hair-raising lava pit to get the extra hidden puzzle piece or not. It was a freeing concept for me and it only added to my enjoyment.

I know that there are some secret levels left, because of the new area and some unexplored map nodes. I like achievable goals. I like that there are some things that I haven’t found yet but I like knowing that they exist and that I should be looking for special level elements. In fact, I am excited to revisit levels immediately. I would have to say that is a sign of greatness.

Dear Santa,

I know I haven’t been very good this year. Or last year for that matter. But if you could ignore the hours of murderous rampages I executed in space, mystical realms and parallel universes, I would really be in to the idea of getting something special under my tree.  These are the items I am willing to settle for:

1. Fully functioning Tardis and or Time Travel Delorean (not picky here!)

2. Light Cycle that dices up the punks wandering the Brooklyn Streets

3. Giant cyclops robot horse/dog to ride into work. The MTA is waaay too unrealistic.

4. Magically enchanted power ring (good or evil.. but probably evil)

5. Sword of Thundara

6. some sort of rocket launcher/flamethrower/gatling gun combo (do these come in pink?)

7. dominion over animals

8. dominion over machines

9. dominion in general

10. knee socks

Thanks Santa! And remember… I know where you live.

Oh and Uncle Melvin says “Hey there, Bear!”:

TTFN!

OK, so I guess it’s my turn to talk about Metroid.  Unlike Jess and Tommy, I don’t get a whole lot of time to myself with the TV which means I spend a lot of time on my DS and PSP.  The Metroid series has always been one of my favorite Nintendo properties. I consider the sidescrollers like Super Metroid and Fusion to be incredibly expressive and fluid.  I was not a fan of the Prime series, feeling that turning Metroid into a first person shooter was an error.  That said, when I saw the preview of Other M I knew I had to play it. I was excited that Yoshio Sakamoto was returning as creative director and my hope was that it was a return to classic Metroid with a twist. I bought the game soon after release but about 2 hours into gameplay my Wii started making some pretty horrible whirring noises.  It was as if the condition of my little white box declined along with my hopeful optimism.  Despite constant complaining from my wife and my own ears, I’ve gotten about 3/4 through the game but tomorrow I’m sending the old Wii back to nintendo for repairs  I’ll probably finish it when it comes back but I feel I’ve played enough to talk about the game.  The unbearable whirring had left me wanting more Metroid than what I had gotten.  It was time to break out Metroid Fusion on the old trusty GBA.

I’m not going to talk about Samus’s chattiness since Jess has thoroughly discussed this aspect of the game.  Suffice it to say I pretty much agree with her.  Avatars should be silent enough to allow players to fill them with their own essence.

What I am going to talk about is expressiveness in gameplay.  While playing both games at the same time, it struck me how much more expressive Fusion was than Other M.  So in thinking about this blog post I thought it might be interesting to explore what it means to be expressive in gameplay.  At its core, expressiveness in action games is about “proprioception”, the ability  to “feel” the edges of our body and also the ability to extend this “feeling” beyond our body.  Without this skill humans wouldn’t be able to learn how to drive cars or even walk without looking at our feet.  What’s the difference between a great sports car – let’s say a Lamborghini Gallardo and my dad’s 1976 Chevy Nova? it’s a collection of design details, superior engineering and craftsmanship that allow the driver to “feel” the boundaries of the car. Because of this, the driver knows how the car will react to every action as if the driver were controlling his or her own body.  The more of this “feel” that a driver has, the more expressive  he or she can be, and the same is true of a game.  So how does Metroid Fusion achieve this while Other M fails?

Controls

Game design is all about understanding the relationships that create systems within a game.  Those relationships exist not only within the ruleset that governs events on the screen but also between the player’s real world environment and the inner world of the game.  The same piece of hardware can either deliver incredibly expressive control or flatfooted clumsiness depending on the relationship between hardware and gameplay.

Both Other M and Fusion use the D-Pad to control Samus’ horizontal movement. Unfortunately, in Other M the D-Pad is also used to control Samus not only in the X direction but also in the Z direction.  This has the unfortunate consequence of confining Samus to a strange trajectory when hitting any of the diagonal directions (NE,SE,SW,NW) which usually results in an awkward stairstepping movement that is both annoying and ambiguous.  Ambiguity is the enemy of proprioception, because it blocks the player from predicting the movement of their avatar by feel alone.  If the player needs to do a little jig to get to where they want to go in the z dimension maybe it’s just not that important.  The other adverse and equally damaging side effect of  using the D-Pad to control Samus in the Z-direction is that you now lose the ability to squat or even aim your gun.  So since you can’t aim, the designers made the only compromise they could make which is auto-aiming.  This is important because it determines not only how levels will be laid out, but how boss battles will be structured and the quality of those interactions.

I’m not always adverse to auto-aiming.  I’m neither a masochist or a catholic so if I have to aim with an analog stick in 3D, I’d much rather the game put me out of my misery and use auto-aim.  An analog stick (like the one on the gamecube controller shown below) is a terrible way to aim.  Is it because analog sticks are a bad piece of hardware? Of course not, it’s simply the wrong relationship or mapping from hardware to gameplay.

The mouse or wiimote wand is much better suited to the task. Unlike the stick, there is a better relationship between the gesture of the player and the action in the gameplay because the resolution of the input device (mouse or wiimote) maps almost directly to the output device (the screen).  It’s the reason why Resident Evil 4 is far superior on Wii than it is on GameCube.

Which leads me to the next problem with Other M, which is the aiming view for shooting missiles.  The transition is jarring, though the developers do alleviate the transition by slowing time when going into this view, allowing the player to adjust to the new view.  Sadly, despite this technique I found my view spinning out of control half the time during the transition leading me to getting shot consistently in the first 10 seconds of every boss battle.  It confuses me because I’ve seen games go effortlessly from a 3rd person view to a first person view without it feeling so weird and jarring.  Whatever “feel” is accomplished in the 2D mode is completely lost when this disorienting transition happens.  Aside from the jarring transition, the actual act of aiming is incredibly disappointing.   As described above, consoles finally have a great way to aim on the screen in the way of wand devices like the wiimote, but why bother if the developers  take control away from the player by using auto-aim? There were actual instances in the game where I was trying to shoot something behind the auto-aim object in the foreground but couldn’t.  This lack of control in aiming both in 2D and 3D mode creates a disconnect between the player and the game, I literally could not “express” my intention of shooting an object that was clearly in my line of sight.  This is something that literally could not happen in Metroid Fusion.

Level Design

Level design can be used to create expressive gameplay or it can work to make the player feel frustrated.  Although the levels in Metroid Other M are quite beautiful, it seems like there are many areas in the game where there is a clear disconnect between what the graphics are communicating to the player and the underlying geometry that controls gameplay.  Note the image below.

Samus is in metaball state and just gone through a tunnel which leads here.  My eyes are telling me that Samus should be able to transform and stand up, but the hidden geometry of the level is a closed tunnel.  There are many situations of graphical ambiguity like this in the game, where the lack of consistency between visuals and gameplay serve to confuse the player.  Compare this to Metroid Fusion,where meaning is derived from the tiles that make up the graphics and there’s not a pixel out of place.

In conclusion, I did enjoy Other M, it’s a fun little title.  Unfortunately, it’s not a great game, but it could have been with two simple modifications .  First, by taking more care in mapping the controls more accurately to the gameplay  the player can be more expressive through the controls.  Second, by including more consistent if more minimalist graphics in the level design, the world would feel more “solid”.  The player would feel more free to express themselves in a less haphazard model of the world.  BTW, my Wii came back from Nintendo today.

If you are interested in learning more about game controls check out Steve Swink’s excellent book.

LEGO was one of those toys that I loved as a child but never had my own pieces.  I’d go across the street to Gregory Rosenthal’s house because his parents were caring and loving individuals that bought various space and dinosaur sets, as opposed to my evil parents who forbade any toys that precluded an indoor presence.  Also, my brother has a real problem with swallowing random debris and my parents thought they could keep him alive a little longer, even if that meant no LEGO for yours truly.  Bummer.  But now that I am in the nerd industry I have a job that demands I play with LEGO.  What a life!  Today I built a Star Wars Star Destroyer.  I am completely exhausted but equally satisfied.

I have to say I’ve been rather nonplussed about my recent game history.  Last week, I replayed God of War II and even though it was awesome, I missed the thrill of completely losing my mind over a game.  This week I have found my reprieve and it’s name is Dragon Age: Origins.  Now before you point out the fact that last week I was saving money by replaying a game and this week it is fine to purchase a new game, Dragon Age was a gift. Promise.

At first, I was hesitant to get started.  I’ve been wronged by fantasy rpg’s before and I didn’t want to get my hopes up.  But this was Bioware, maker of my beloved Mass Effect.  They wouldn’t let me down. Well, I can say this about that, Dragon Age is freakin’ awesome!  I have been playing non-stop at the peril of my eyesight and personal relationships. (Why exactly does Bioware make their text in migraine font?)  In fact, I now have dreams with multiple-choice dialogs.

While I completely love Mass Effect, I get the feeling that the Dragon Age universe is deeper and more involved then what I experienced with Shepherd at the helm.  I suppose with 6 story lines to follow and 120 hours of gameplay, Dragon Age: Origins would have to feel huge.  My first dose of universe magnitude came after I restarted the game about 5 hours in.  I don’t know about you but I am one of those players that constantly battles the urge to restart using the knowledge of some outcomes to make what might be “better” choices.  I then do some quick calculations of how OCD I am verses how much time I’ve already spent playing.

Sometimes I win this battle.  This time I lost.  I basically remade the same character I had been playing but changed some of the stats.  On the second time through, most of my options were the same but not all.  The guard I had previously been able to persuade to release his prisoner was less open this time around and I had to bribe him.  While not exactly the outcome I was hoping to gain by restarting, it did point to the fact that the amount of gameplay I could see was disproportionate to the gameplay I was not seeing.  It’s the ole tip of the iceberg trick.  In other words, there is potential for an awesome amount of  replay value in Dragon Age: Origins. Maybe this game will actually help me save money by distracting me for weeks instead of hours.  I am already looking forward to checking out the other races and classes.  I know I should not expect wildly different experiences but I still look forward to comparing story tracks.  I feel that if the story is written well enough, then there should be a desire to see that story from every angle.  As opposed to Mass Effect, I get the feeling that my character’s background actually will effect the NPC’s.  I did not get that impression with Shepherd.  It didn’t matter if she was an orphan or a military brat.  In Dragon Age: Origins the racism against elves is palpable and nobody really wants to be seen with a Grey Warden.  This piques my interest into how the other characters experience will compare to my current elf lady mage.

My theory is that Mass Effect could have been Dragon Age: Origins but Bioware was courting different audiences.  Mass Effect might be a somewhat lighter experience so those intimidated or uninterested in the complexities of a full-blown rpg can have a product that also offers a richness to the experience through great writing, heroic themes and highly customizable characters.  Dragon Age: Origins is definitely intended for the WoW players and middle-earthians.  At this point in my life, I am sometimes turned off by the medieval fantasy setting.  This is due to the amount of hokiness I’ve had to put up with as a fan of the genre.  I am a grown woman who wants mature (get your minds out of the gutter) story-lines.  There is a small amount of damsels-in-distress that I can actually get behind and unicorns should be cruel and violent not virgin transportation (why else have the crazy, stabby horn?).  I am not ashamed that I am all sorts of “Huzzah!” for this game.  And now that I mention it, I have missed the pleasures of spell casting and flaming broadswords.

Man. I can’t wait to get out of work so I can go play me some game!