Archive for the 'video games' Category

F-Zero X

Published at January 30, 2008 in game design, reviews and video games. 1 Comment

The soundtrack may be abysmal, and the graphics incredibly outdated, but Nintendo’s F-Zero X on the N64 is still, in my mind, one of the greatest single-player racing experiences on any console. The reason? It’s just simple mathematics.

Like a lot of racing games, the Grand Prix mode of F-Zero X determines ranking with a point system. At the end of every race, each racer is awarded with a number of points depending on what place they finished. First place is awarded 100 points, second-place 93, all the way down to thirtieth place, which is awarded a meager 15 points.

Over the six tracks in each Grand Prix cup, the points earned from each race are tallied, and this is how overall ranking is determined. In of itself, the point system is simplistic, but effective. A player doesn’t necessarily have to rank first place in every race to claim first place overall. In fact, a player can have one or two lousy races and still manage to earn a medal, provided the other racers also performed inconsistently.

Of course, relying on computerized racers to mess up isn’t the best way to win, and this is where F-Zero X stands out. Building upon the damage meter from the first F-Zero game on Super NES, F-Zero X introduced a battle system, where players could perform side-swipes or spin attacks mid-race to knock opponents off the track, or total their vehicles entirely.

And the number of points awarded to a racer who is eliminated from a race? Zero.

You see, F-Zero X wasn’t just about racing; it was also about offing the competition. When gunning for first-place overall, sometimes the best strategy is to eliminate the current leader, causing his score to plummet. Second-place racer closing in on your lead? Wipe him out in the next race, and secure your point advantage over your opponents.

F-Zero X didn’t just make this style of gameplay possible; it made it easy. Arrows indicated the vehicle in third, second and first place, as well as marking your “rival,” the racer directly ahead of or behind you in overall ranking. The thirty vehicles populating each course are also each uniquely designed, and easily identifiable. Even while racing through a cork-screw track at break-neck speeds, spotting the Wild Goose or Deep Claw was never difficult. Racing alongside to attack, however, and doing so without pitching yourself off the course, was certainly never easy, either.

The Gamecube sequel to this title, F-Zero GX, should have built upon this offensive form of gameplay. Unfortunately, the track designs were needlessly busy and overcomplicated, making it all too easy for players to fall to their deaths if they weren’t careful. With this subtle change in game design, it became too difficult to target and eliminate opponents, let alone stay alive and still finish in the top three.

It may just be that F-Zero X is one of those once-in-a-lifetime games, with just the right gameplay elements intermingled to produce a near-perfect experience. With the portable versions of the series building upon the SNES-style gameplay, and nary a hint of a Wii version on the horizon, we might never see another F-Zero game as polygonally-perfect as F-Zero X.

Oh well, at least it’s on the Virtual Console for us to replay into oblivion.

Video games should be more like albums.

Published at January 14, 2008 in game design, game industry, music and video games. 3 Comments

At least, that’s how we should perceive them. The comparison to films is tired and no longer relevant. Portal signals a break from long-and-laborious gameplay. Now, the solid gameplay experience should be likened to a well-composed music album.

This isn’t just a new perspective for consumers and critics; developers should reconsider how they approach the process of game design. Games should become, in a word, digestable. Short, succinct, sweet.

Everyday Shooter is perhaps the most literal interpretation of this new perspective. Because it’s based around the game-as-album concept, it’s short, with its length dictated by the music. However, like an album, the game is replayable, and players are able — and willing — to re-live the experience again and again.

Of course, unlike a music album, the experience changes each time, as the game’s intrinsic interactivity — and elementary chaos theory — dictate that no two playthroughs will ever be the same. It’s this guarantee that should draw players in, and justifies short length over epic storytelling.

In short, playing a good game is tantamount to listening to a good album. And good albums don’t last 30 hours. They usually don’t even max out the space on a CD. They don’t have to.

I’ve felt that there’s a strong connection between music and video games for some time, which might be what draws me so strongly to game design. I’ll never be a musician (despite those ever-present yearnings), but creating a game that plays like an album seems like a good compromise. So I’m going to start reviewing my favorite albums on this site. I’m no John Cusack in High Fidelity, but there is something compelling about a well-structured album, and I think games can tap into that. I think they’ve already begun to.

The new Sonic RPG: ridiculous name, ridiculously awesome artwork

Published at January 12, 2008 in video games. 0 Comments

It’s called Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. Yeah, I know, but check out the art style:

Sonic’s never looked hotter. Image via Jeux France. Name via GayGamer.

I play video games on my Mac!

Published at October 25, 2007 in analog games, general, joystiq and video games. 0 Comments

Well… kinda. I use my Powerbook as a display for video game consoles. It’s the easiest way for us to continue playing new releases on our North American systems while living in France (we’re damn sure not gonna miss Super Mario Galaxy or Smash Bros. Brawl). How it works exactly is the topic of this week’s Off the Grid, although the picture below is kind of a giveaway.

This piece actually marks the hopeful end to a bit of a dry period for Off the Grid. The move to France disrupted my normal flow of reviews, and I’ve spent the last week or so attempting to arrange for more review copies of games to be sent to my new address.

It’s going to be harder to review games here, in part because fewer companies are willing to ship review copies abroad. The larger problem, however, is the lack of players. It’s just me, Bonnie, and at the moment nobody else in this country that I’d feel comfortable subjecting to board games they’ve never heard of. At the moment, that limits me to games for two players. I guess I’ll have to start making French friends if I want to play anything more substantial than that.

Us expat gamers have it hard.

Published at October 18, 2007 in joystiq, travel and video games. 0 Comments

I’m surprised and delighted by the number of comments to my latest Off the Grid post, which talks about the difficulties of continuing a video game obsession hobby while living abroad. The column is part one of a two-part series, in which I explain how I managed to get our American-born Wii and PS2 working perfectly in France. It’s no Not Without my Daughter, but it still makes for a good story, I feel.

I was concerned that the content of the piece would be lost on a lot of non-traveling gamers, but it seems a surprising number of people have been in my exact same situation. The comments I’ve received on the piece are extremely helpful, and I’ll definitely be taking their input into consideration while I write next week’s thrilling conclusion. I look forward to sharing my crazy, ass-backward solution with the world.

In travel news, we’re headed to Italy tomorrow. By train. We can take a train to Italy. How cool is that?

Portal is short and sweet, or so I'm told.

Published at October 15, 2007 in game design and video games. 1 Comment

As much is it hurts me to say, I have yet to play Valve’s Portal, that puzzle FPS that everybody is talking about. In fact, I probably won’t play it for at least six months, possibly longer, though I won’t let that get in the way of my talking about it.

So the popular word is that Portal‘s a fantastic game, but it’s short. The discussion of it reminds me a lot of Rez, another short but sweet game, and makes me wonder if compacted, succinct experiences might be a worthwhile direction for the industry to work toward.

You see, games like Rez and Portal are in opposition to the intentional bloating of modern RPGs, which is often done as a justification of value. A lot of games these days seem to be judged by their length, which is problematic because a 60-hour story isn’t necessarily a good story, and the only thing worse than a bad story is a bad story that’s incredibly long.

Indeed, the main criticism of Portal seems to be that it’s too short, but I wonder if maybe that’s because we as critics and gamers aren’t used to intentionally short experiences. The desire to want more isn’t a bad feeling to leave players with. What’s worse is leaving players feeling tired, and ready to move on. The best films end too soon; the best songs are too short — so why, in games, if the experience ends and leaves us wanting more, do we mark that as a negative?

I say that Playstation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, and Wii Ware are terrific opportunities for “short and sweet” games to thrive. Give me 4 hours of great game over 30 hours of “alright.” Give me something I want to re-play over something I’d rather not bother with (I don’t think I’ll ever feel the need to replay Twilight Princess; it just wasn’t enjoyable enough from end to end — and don’t get me started on Okami).

Hey, virtually nonexistent readership! Any other “short and sweet” games I should be aware of?

On Diamond, Pearl, and the theoretical PokéMMO.

Published at June 5, 2007 in game design, ul and video games. 2 Comments

Pokémon Diamond and Pearl take everything I adored about the original Game Boy games… and keep it exactly the same. Same simple visual aesthetic; same synthesized battle cries; same basic battle system; same super-cute creatures and the motivation to “catch them all.”

Nothing’s changed in the latest franchise titles. Instead, more has been added on top of the already-perfect formula. Your pokemans can do more than just battle; they breed, dance, and compete in beauty competitions. The trading is made easier by local wireless connection, and the super-amazing Craigslist-esque Global Trading Station. You’re still out to catch all of them, but now there are more to catch. What’s most amazing, is that all these additions to the formula actually work. I love these games.

The logical next step for the series seems to be a massively multiplayer experience. A lot of people agree on this point. But how would a PokéMMO work? Here’s what I’m seeing:

  • The Lo-Fi MMO aesthetic. We don’t need high-poly-counts! Eschew complicated graphics for quick-loading, low-bandwidth, stylized simplicity, similar to the graphics already present in Pokémon games.
  • Turn-based battles. In an MMO? Well, yeah. Pokémon’s never been about who can click faster, so why change that now? We’ve limited ourselves to the standards set by WoW and those that preceded it for far too long. But how would turn-based battle work in a Massive game? Well, for starters…
  • Battles occur outside of normal game-space. Anytime a player enters a battle, that player is taken to a separate screen, outside of the overworld of the game. The player’s avatar remains in the game-space, but indicates that the player is in battle.
  • The first random-encounter MMO. Players walking in particular areas can randomly encounter wild Pokemon, and enter battles. Sensing a pattern here? A lot of these details keep PokéMMO in much the same realm as its single-player ancestors. If it isn’t broke, why fix it? And why go out of our way to make PokéMMO like every other Massive out there?
  • Entirely PVP. Every player in the PokéMMO world is a trainer. Players can talk to other trainers, and request battles in 1v1, or 2v2 flavor. Battles are necessary for leveling up pokemans, but players must all consent before fighting. Trainer battles, like all battles, occur outside of the game-space. The avatars of the trainers in battle indicate that those trainers are battling each other.
  • Players can watch other players battle. If two or more trainers are battling, other players can see their avatars in the overworld, and have the option to enter a spectator mode to watch the battle in progress. Spectating players can cheer for particular trainers in battles, and this encouragement can have an effect on the match.

Like the Pokémon games, the PokeMMO should practice a clear-cut delineation between the simple world of the characters, and the fantastic battles of the Pokémon. This has always been a conscious separation in the design of the Pokémon games. The simple, squat sprites give way to more stylized representations of both pocket monsters and trainers when a battle commences. This same division should be practiced in the MMO. It encourages players to use their imaginations, and Pokémon has always been about imagination.

The final element of a successful PokéMMO should be an open-endedness in the world and narrative design. “Make your own Pokémon adventure!” the box would say. Allow players to tell their own stories, develop their own teams of devoted Pokémon, and take on the world at their own pace.

Well, it’s a start, anyway. Any other ideas? Am I wrong about this being the first turn-based MMO? The first with random encounters? Am I wrong about everything?

No birthday parties on the Wii, apparently.

Published at February 28, 2007 in game design, general, interface and video games. 1 Comment

So my birthday’s today, and I decided to boot up our Wii to see if there was any mention of the occasion. On the Nintendo DS, the system information includes the birth-date of the owner, so when he/she enters Pictochat on that day, the system presents a special message. Since each Mii can be personalized with a birth-date, I figured the same sort of attention would be given.

But apparently not. :( No mention of my little Scott’s special day anywhere.

It’s a missed opportunity on Nintendo’s part. They’ve got this super-adorable Mii Channel, and yet no Mii birthday parties? At the very least, I expected my Mii to be wearing a party hat. In my most grandiose expectations, however, I imagined that when the player entered the Mii Channel, the birthday Mii would be front-and-center, and all the other Mii’s would be throwing confetti, jumping up and down, and singing “Happy Birthday.” How cute would that be?

(P.S: I’m 22 now. Twenty-two. That’s a lot of numbers.)

On Settlers of Catan and Xbox Live Arcade.

Published at February 22, 2007 in game design, game industry, joystiq and video games. 0 Comments

Klaus Teuber’s Settlers of Catan is hitting Xbox Live Arcade in mid-March. There’s been a lot of buzz recently about the title, specifically surrounding the news that Big Huge Games, developers of the Rise of Nations RTS series, are the ones bringing Settlers to the console.

I had a chance to interview Brian Reynolds, current chairman of the IGDA, as well as CEO and creative director of Big Huge Games. In the interview, Brian talks about the upcoming adaptation of Settlers of Catan for Xbox Live Arcade, and goes in-depth on some of the finer points of porting an analog idea to a digital platform. I have yet to play the game, but from everything I’ve heard and seen Catan Live will make a smooth transition from tabletop classic to online addiction. If only I had a 360 to play it on.

» Off the Grid interviews Brian Reynolds of Big Huge Games.

Why casual games are addictive: an unordered list.

Published at February 19, 2007 in game design, interface, ul and video games. 0 Comments
  • No instruction necessary: learn as you play; the game won’t eat you alive if you don’t know what you’re doing.
  • You only need one hand: most actions are often mapped to the mouse; easier to relax while playing; simple controls also make it less intimidating to newcomers.

  • You’re not gonna die if the phone rings: a lot of the action is dependent upon the player, so if you need to walk away for a minute you’re not jeopardizing hours of gameplay.
  • If you lose, it’s not the end of the world: little to no chastising for making a mistake; innumerable opportunities to retry a level; no ominous ‘game over’ screens.
  • The simplest actions become significant: Match two diamonds and fireworks go off; spell a word and it makes a fireball; nothing keeps a player going like the satisfaction of accomplishment; they’re playing for the bells and whistles.
  • You can play for five minutes: …but you never do; “Just one more round…”