Calling your shot – Let players tag their target. Just, let them point, hit a button, and have that target marked in some fashion. From there, the possibilities expand exponentially.

1. Skill: If they hit it, dependent upon size, speed, view, power of shot, maybe even weather and penalty of missing given other nearby targets? Give them some kind of recognition or bonus. Hell, give players skill points for using that skill.

I never really used a bow in Oblivion, instead preferring to cleave enemies with an axe. But there was one time I did… When I saw deer. It was natural. It was primal. When I saw a deer, I pulled out my bow, snuck as close as possible, and shot. Invariably my sucky skill meant the deer lived, which meant I had to chase the deg through the first, completely forgetting whatever I was in the middle of. It was like they were purposely meddling with my fun with their… Fun!

2. Challenge: It was just like taking to a rooftop in GTA, pulling out your sniper rifle, and plugging interesting looking civilians. It was a shooting gallery, and I had tools to shoot with. How could you NOT save your game and occasionally do it?

Of course eventually police would come, increasing in number and strength, and eventually take you out. (Usually.) But man what fun it was, plugging a citizen going about their way, and seeing the chaos that ensued.

3. Self-defined Narrative: The key to emergent gameplay is that the player brings it with them. And that’s never more evident than when done with intent. But if you pick out the target, and tell the player why it needs to be done, then there’s no wiggle room. Instead, Let players mark people/places things, and let them tag them as important for themselves, for whatever reason.

Emergent gameplay gave us “zombie” in Halo 3, when it emerged from Halo 2 players consciously creating the rules from thin air. Oblivion gave extra damage if you shot a target while unseen, making initiative on a target worthwhile. GTA had instant kills with headshots.

These are just a few evident ideas that come with letting the player point at things. That’s all I’m suggesting, really. And anyone, AAA or indie, can do it.

Lines edited out of this post:
-Fact: I would’ve been trying to balance apples on the heads of Cyrodiil’s guards.
-Many games check for regional shots/damage. A game could even go so far as to let players highlight not only targets, but regions of targets.
-Imagine an action game that lets you press select/back, pauses the gameplay, and gives you a freeform camera to zoom around and pick your own target, then you get to try for it.
-Maybe a game with one player as the spotter, and the other as the shooter/sniper. Or a game where both players “mark” the other’s target, and they have to chase it down. (Instead of killing each other.)

Games are their gameplay mechanics, the choices and actions of the player. For all the crap we give them, licensed games actually often have a rare opportunity: unique mechanics. Any other game that mimics webswinging is going to be seen as a knock-off, or at least compared to Spider-Man.

To be fair, Justin notes that they try to do something with his “Spider Sense”, but that’s certainly not what I think of first when I think “Spider-Man”. What he rates a 2.5/5 game sounds like a thoroughly mediocre beat’em-up, which is a disappointment, given my love of older Spider-Man games.

Spider-Man 2 (Xbox, PS2) is actually one of my favorite games. I was one of the people blown away by the webswinging. It was a perfect example of both “appropriate difficulty” (being slightly difficult, but very fulfilling to pull off well) and the “ludic displacement” that occurs when a game makes you feel like you really are doing what’s happening in the game.

Despite Spider-Man 2 being third person, and despite how bad the blur looks in this pixelated video, you really got that feeling you imagined as a kid, of being Spider-Man, dipping from the rooftops into the streets of New York city, swinging back up, flying forward as fast as a normal person would fall. (Ultimate Spider-Man was still great, less so Spider-Man 3… Both the victim of over-refinement, imo, but still.)

Super heroes are typically defined by having unique abilities. In that very nature, they’re begging to be put into games, giving players unique actions and choices. Older Spidey games got him right. The Hulk: Ultimate Destruction game did a decent job of making you feel like you were wrecking shit, though it could’ve been better aside from that. From what I hear both Wolverine and Batman games had great combat, making you feel like the characters were “right”. Marvel Ultimate Alliance was a fun beat’em-up, not because it was particularly deep, but because it rallied together almost 30 loved characters. Why do a game featuring a singular beloved character, or even two, without trying to do well what that character is known for?

Here’s a few free suggestions for Activision’s next Spider-Man game.

• New York City – I’m serious. Forget corridor fighters. Don’t be silly.
• Make swinging a matter of skill – Anyone player should be able to do it, but being good at the mechanics should pay off well.
• Spider-Man has a history – Not saying you shouldn’t do “origin stories” or work them in, but, Spidey has a very deep gallery of well-known, well-defined, fun, friends and enemies. Utilize them.
• Peter Parker exists – Spider-Man has a personal life. Don’t be afraid to use that in more than a reference.
• Peter Parker is a photographer – Some games did it, but then cameras have only become popular in society, as well as other games. Some even do it well. You could, too.
• A random encounter should blow my mind – Sure, Spidey fights generic thugs all the time. That happens. But sometimes? Sometimes? Sometimes that bank robbery you stumble across should be Rhino.
• Subscriptions – Learn from comics. Everyone who owns the game gets a free few missions each week. They culminate each month in an arc. Do this for a month, free. Then charge a fee, $1 a week, $3 for a month, or sell subscriptions $10 for three months.

C’mon. Activision can’t say no to that last one. And face it, you’d buy them. I would, and I don’t even have a job.

Also, hi Activision. So, maybe you need someone to help with your next Spider-Man game? I mean, I don’t know if you heard, but I’m on the market. I’ve even got five years experience in producing. (Another medium…)

Also? Spoilers abounds!

The GTA3 series was about gangsters. The first one had “thugs” and “mafioso.” Vice City was more the latter, with San Andreas more the former. But GTA4 was more daunting. It wasn’t about style, it was about SOMETHING. It was about the pursuit of the American dream, freedom, and Niko’s quest for freedom from his past. But it failed for me. The culprit was the mis-marriage of narrative elements and gameplay. I think Rockstar bungled it by trying to make the narrative highpoint something it shouldn’t have been. To me, it was pretty evident where the emotional highpoint was in terms of gameplay. And that’s what they should’ve went with for the narrative as well.

First, the “point” of GTA4. In one of the earlier missions in the game you’re given the freedom to kill, or to not kill, someone you’ve chased down. The freedom of choice is a recurring theme in GTA4. Niko talks about choosing a new life, after he cleans up a few loose ends. His cousin Roman constantly chooses to get in over his head in attempt to get ahead. In the game you’re given choices in multiple missions. In at least three distinct places during the main narrative you’re given a choice between killing one of two strong supporting characters. (Francis McReary/Derrik McReary, Dwayne Forge/Playboy X, and Pegorino/Dimitri.) And then there’s what is, to me, the biggest choice in the game, foreshadowed from the very beginning of the game.

Note: The player CHOOSES to shoot Darko Brevic here. You don’t have to. Purely optional. But for me, this is undeniably the highpoint of the game emotionally and for gameplay, given that it’s a choice the player makes. That was the moment that you, the player, decides who Niko is going to be from that moment forward. You decide what kind of man he will be. (Sure it’s odd thinking “I let the man who killed my friends live and I’m mowing down dozens of passersby while driving down the street.” but that’s acceptable in GTA, and not indicative of the narrative. Those people are pellets in Pac-Man. This man, is just that. A man.) What I have a problem with is that this is not the end of the game.

The narrative continues, picking back up a completely unconnected plot that was interspersed in a lopsided fashion throughout the game. And then Niko is offered another choice, his final. You have to take a side in a mob dispute.

Wait, what? A mob dispute? I go through some deep emotional issues, dredge up the deaths of my entire fucking village back in Eastern Europe, and my childhood friends who died in a war? And deal with the fact that it was made possible by the only other surviving friend from that time, who is completely unrecognizable to me? And then… A mob dispute? What the fuck? It’s like your mother dies in a car wreck and your boss says “So, uh, the funeral’s Thursday? You’re uh, going to be able to come in this Saturday to fill in for Bob, right?”

After this monumental moment for Niko, which has no bearing on the rest of the game, you choose between helping Pegorino or Dimitri. Depending on which you kill, either your cousin or your girlfriend is killed, and you are forced to kill the remaining mobster. Forced to kill. Even after you just (potentially) let the man who got your entire army squad killed for a thousand dollars, live. The killing of your goddamned annoying cousin, or the girlfriend who was as interesting as a (blank brown) cardboard box, is the straw that broke the camel’s back? And for that you end on the down note of your decision to not have really mattered after all.

Allow me to offer a different suggestion. Something that should have happened before Darko Brevic was delivered. FIRST you do your requisite mafioso bit. Go ahead, make me choose. Kill one of the people I somewhat remotely feel something that could almost be considered an obligation to. Piss me off. Get me angry. This fucker, this Godfather-wannabe thinks he can kill the woman-I-(am-forced-to)-love/my-cousin-(that-annoys-me-but-fuck-it-he’s-family-you-know-what-I-mean-you-have-a-cousin-like-that-too)?! Fuck that noise, let’s jack a car and go kill some goddamn virtual bad guys!

Bam. Cut to the end. Done. I’ll miss my cousin/girl. They meant a lot to me. Well, to Niko/me. THEN… *ring* “What, what’s that? My phone? Hello? What? You found Darko Brevic? Where is he?”

Because goddamn it, that’s an ending. If you’re going to bother giving me a choice? Let it mean something.

The concept is that most podcasts (particularly gaming podcasts) are very long, site/personality-dependent, and about how the hosts feel about the news and games they’re playing, all in an attempt to entertain. We go in the absolute opposite direction. Short (less than 3 minutes,) factual (no grandstanding, that’s why I have a blog,) and serious, with intent to inform.

Want to be informed and still have an extra hour to spare? Listen to the Game Industry Newscast. Have some GIN.

Imagine a rural community on the border of Tennessee and Kentucky. Wait, rural America? Damn right. Why? TN and KY are second and third in the rate of domestic US marijuana production (according to the latest numbers I found, 2006: http://www.drugscience.org/Archive/bcr2/domstprod.html.) This gives awesome potential for a series whose linking element is that you control a criminal.

See, I don’t want Rockstar to out-do themselves with a sprawling huge city with FOUR major areas instead of three and call that progress. I want them to out-do themselves with the amount of in-game data that they’re able to juggle. I’d gladly take a smaller more persistent world over a larger more sprawling one. More persistent elements in the world would go a great way toward helping create a more dynamic narrative structure, and that’s going to be important if we’re creating a world we’re going to want to expand on. I want them to make the game-story as open as the world, or to at least try.

So we start with a small town, an “across the tracks” neighborhood (where poor blacks live,) a trailer park (where poor whites live,) homes around the city for the more affluent, and a handful of apartment complexes for middle income folk scattered across the town. Straight through the city is one long six-lane Interstate with a four-lane loop around it. The ends of the six lane Interstate have a mountain tunnel on each end that just loops the player around. In the barren area around the city? Plenty of dirt roads, farms, a river with a few creeks, a small private airfield full of Cessnas, forests, maybe a sand dune, and hidden marijuana fields.

I want it filled with different actions like aircraft, bikes, side jobs, police missions, fire dept. missions, minigames, etc. just like San Andreas was. Keep a robust amount of activities with which to play off of later, but don’t use them all in the game’s plot.

I want Frank, the town drunk to start out at McDonald’s, and by the time I drive all the way around the town, he’s only stumbled his way down the road to Pearline’s Fried Chicken. (Whereas in the current GTA games, he’d probably just magically appear at random locations around the city.) I want some redneck named Clevon’s Station-Wagon-meth-labs exploding with a slight irregularity and small town news vans showing up like it’s the most important thing that’s ever happened. I want someone like Sheriff Buford T. Justice harassing a guy named Leroy for being black, but the Sheriff will claim that Leroy is a suspected drug dealer, so Leroy calls out the Sheriff on his racism, and the Sheriff skulking off. And once he’s gone, I want Leroy to actually sell drugs. If you shoot someone, the body should stay there (unless you move it,) and if someone finds it, the police and media show up. The county coroner plots against the sheriff, the city commission plots against him, small town politics get ugly. Cops keep their eyes open for any impropriety. I want cops to keep an eye out for your car, and your clothes, and changing them is how you ditch cops, not going through some magical paint shop. This is the world I want to play my games in.

But why? What kind of story could we get from this?

Put the player in the role of a young troublemaker banned from his similar county back home in Tennessee after being a known drug runner, but him never being caught. Keep alluding to “the shootout,” as the final straw that had the Sheriff of his last home threaten to kill him if he didn’t leave. Have a few references to a bloodbath in his home town, and have people who find out where he’s from be a bit in awe, and ask questions someone who’s been in serious shit wouldn’t ask. I’m convinced that this is golden.

Expansions?

-After the game’s end, the County Coroner arrests the Sheriff for being corrupt (as revealed in the game proper, after which our hero drives off in the sunset.) Of course, he’s even more twisted. In steps a secondary character in the game to save the day.

-Pizza delivery guy gets robbed and goes on an epic mission to get his $12.93 and tip.

-A pilot trying to make an important deadline makes an emergency landing on the town’s small airstrip and finds himself in the middle of thugs loading an airplane with gross amounts of weed. They try to kill him, but as he runs into the forest for safety, he stumbles across a cabin with a good ole boy who saves him. The player must now retrieve his aircraft by spoiling the operation, getting his plane fixed, and escape by a set time in order to make his mysterious delivery. More hijinks ensue.

I could go on all day, none the single most original thing you’ve heard, but all enough to make anyone’s imagination say “hey, yeah.” No, I don’t expect anyone to read this far, but, I had to expand on it. It’s been rumbling around in my head for a while and I meant to post it here a while back. Good to get it out.

In a 1994 interview in the magazine Fami-Tsushin, Shigeru Miyamoto talked about what he felt RPGs should be like.

Miyamoto: Let’s say you tie someone completely up – even their individual fingers – and then wait a while. Then, if you start to untie the ropes one by one, they’ll of course be happy. Anyone would. The method of sticking someone in an incredibly tight situation then untightening it little by little and then saying, “There! Aren’t you happy now?” becomes very boring as soon as it becomes evident. So, instead of that, my personal theme when making RPG-like games is, “What can I do?” I don’t think creating happiness comes from starting from a negative and returning to zero. It’s starting from zero and ending at one hundred, and I try to think of ways to allow that.

Stopping a meteor from crashing into the planet in Final Fantasy 7 is a return to the balance of “world-destroying meteors don’t crash into the planet all the time, and one crazy fuck doesn’t rule the Lifestream.” GTA4 is about a return to the normality of “gangsters aren’t trying to kill you and your friends all the time.” Heavy Rain and Alan Wake are about “putting an end to a fucked up killer/evil-force, and thus making the world safe and normal again.” But then again, that’s almost every game. Just look at Oblivion and it’s dreaded portals to other worlds.

Sure, Oblivion was fun, but it was silly. Those Oblivion Gates stayed open FOREVER on my game, and it had no adverse affect on the world! Some threat they turned out to be. Why? Because I was having far too much fun reuniting long-lost families and journeying into paintings. Sure it’s easy to say that “Well, that’s why the side missions are there, but the Oblivion Gates are the main thrust of the game!” Maybe in YOUR game, but absolutely not in mine.

My game was not the story of a nameless, faceless, world savior. I was a budding thief imprisoned and then turned loose under bizarre circumstances he didn’t give a shit about! What did I do with this new-found freedom? Why, I set out to fulfill my career as a world-class thief, of course! (And let me tell you; I did it. I was no common thief.)

No, my story was not one of a world savior who was a thief, but a thief who eventually got so bored he decided to save the world. Of course, the game never knew this, and that’s the problem with most games today. They’re not REALLY interactive. Not where it counts, anyway. Not the story.

If you want your game to be cinematic in presentation, that’s fine. In fact, it’s commendable. I’m perfectly fine with “making the game experience cinematic,” as obviously the visual cues of video can be grandfathered into games. But be aware that cinematic refers to camera technique, and how it can influence/inform the viewer. Being cinematic does not necessitate that the story be linear, that’s just the inability of developers to do new things. One new thing. The one thing that really matters any more.

Imagine, instead, that Oblivion’s main plot was removed. Imagine it kept count of each of those times I pick-pocketed, picked a lot, or stole. Or the amount of time I spent doing those things. Imagine it compared that count to my time spent on the main quest. Imagine I agree to a mission of stealing some grand jewel for a princess, so that a prince can’t use it for dowry to marry her, but before accomplishing this, I have to save and quit the game.

The next time I started the game, the game could recognize that I’m a sly thief, not a quick-tempered barbarian, and we could see cut-scenes of my previous exploits with, “The notorious thief again returns to the prowl, preparing for his biggest score yet, the (grand jewel name here)! Can he outsmart Prince X? Will he save Princess Y by stopping her wedding? Will he get caught, and be banned from the city Z?” (Whereas someone who’s spent more time killing, a warrior, may instead approach the problem with a sword, prompting the game to ask “Will he kill Prince X?”)

And it shouldn’t just be a bunch of linear missions for the player to complete, but a gameworld with interesting characters that conflict. A gameworld where the death of a prince matters to everyone. A gameworld where, if I marry that princess, I become King, and people plot against me. Or if I let the Prince marry her, they plot against him. Most games narrowly define the player, as framed by the story. I imagine a game that narrowly frames the story as defined by the player’s actions. That’s the game I want to play.

And the rest of the games? The ones that set up a rat maze for me to run through, that have a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end? One that promises variance, but really just has a few branching plot elements and a little flavor text? I’m tired of you. Really, I am. I’m tired of it, and if you’re not careful, I’m just going to stop playing. Please, I’m begging you. This is getting old. And you pussy-footing around and dipping your toes in it won’t get the job done here. I need a sign that you get it.

Related thoughts that didn’t fit coherently into my final post:
-Rockstar, let Tarn “ToadyOne” Adams give tips on your next sandbox game. In fact, give him final say. You can create the content, and just let him give you lessons on worthwhile world building. You don’t get it. He does. I’m sorry you had to find out this way. It’ll be okay; I still love you and am interested in LA Noire.

-I’m tired of fighting Bad Guy X. If I’m to be Don Quixote in this pointless exercise, at least let me pick which windmills are important to me. Mass Effect 2, I don’t care about disappearing human colonies so much as I do my friends, despite the fact that I play a “good guy.”

-Bethesda, I’m all for your upcoming Elder Scrolls MMO… Just don’t make it about time spent grinding. Levels shouldn’t factor that heavily into things, nor should weaponry. I know that’s very counter-intuitive, but, you know I’m right. Good/creative players should win out, not the one who’s been around longer.

-Fuck Citizen Kane, give me Seinfeld. Wait. Let me back up. I loved Citizen Kane. I think it still stands tall today, unburdened by all the merit lauded onto it. And for the record, I’ve seen less than five episodes of Seinfeld. I’m sure it’s awesome, but it just never grabbed me like it did so many others. That said, I think at this point games could probably learn more from serialized TV than film. That “previously, on Lost,” sets up EVERYTHING. (Actually, this thought will probably be recycled… But I’m keeping the title, as “a game about nothing, necessarily,” is pretty much what I want.)

The Karma system makes the game a tease from hell for players like me. I was absolutely a good guy in Oblivion, but I stole everything that wasn’t nailed down. Everything. I’m not even joking. Every god damn thing. But in this game, you lose karma. Stealing makes me a bad guy, so, I can’t steal! It’s horrible! See, normally I treat Bethesda games like they’re _my_ world. For me, they’re God games, in a sense. I decide what’s right, and what belongs to me (everything,) but when it comes to others livelihood, I do my best to make everything great for all involved. If you could Speechcraft the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion to being good guys, I might’ve done those quests instead of killing them all. But, in Fallout’s Wasteland, Bethesda reclaimed the role of judge, and I’m in their world, I cannot be the kind and just God I was in Tamriel. Of course, I think the world is worse off, but regardless, I must abide by the rules of man. No theft.

And the action? The FPS can be difficult, but I imagine frantic shooting _would_ be difficult given that a ten foot tall green hulk looking guy is running at you. That’s why God gave you VATS. VATS is far better than bullet-time or any such device. Instead of slowing everyone else down, it completely stops them while you spend ‘action points’ to shoot your weapon at certain limbs, and it gives you a rough estimate of what a successful hit would take off. And if you damage a certain limb enough, the enemy will drop their weapon (if an arm,) start to hobble (if a leg,) or become dazed and confused (if the head.) Of course, continue to damage that limb, and it will gib, and they will die.

Of course, having played it on Xbox 360, I can’t help but think “God I wish I had a PC worth playing PC games on!” The mods for that game will be amazing. Period.

B) Left 4 Dead. I’ve only played it offline, and even then just a few levels, but I was blown away. I’m a hardcore ‘slow zombie only’-junkie, but damn does this game deliver. I swear to you, the farmhouse standoff literally had my blood pumping. After a brief juant through a corn field infested with zack (zombies,) you come up to a two-story farmhouse where you have to fend off attacking hordes of zombies while waiting for help in the form of a military transportation vehicle.

After much trying, I finally corralled the three AI bots to where I was hiding out; outside of a second story window on top of the porch ceiling. Sure the zack still come, but there’s far fewer choke points for them to access you, so, it worked. Then an AI partner shouted “There’s the truck! I can see it!” I turned around and saw the headlights cutting through the fog as the truck approached from a side of the building where I couldn’t see it. They grew brighter and brighter until the truck stopped just in view. We seemed to be at a slack point in zack, so we jumped off of the roof and ran for the truck… And then a HUGE zombie ‘tank’ (a Hulk looking zombie,) came out of nowhere and instantly creamed me and one of the teammates. Out of commission, our only hope is to lie there and shoot while we wait for our teammates to come and heal us. There I am, lying on the ground bleeding out, shooting like a madman, hoping my two teammates are able to take the Hulk… And then another horde of zack pour out of nowhere and ravage me and my other downed teammate. We never had a chance.

And then I realized my heart was thumping out of my chest. I need to get the internet again. And I need to get these amazing games. Man, I need a secondary job.

Both of these firmly earn my approval. (I think I’m going to have to create a logo; Jeffool’s Maharoof.)

Game of the year? I honestly don’t care to pick.

Players choose their class and wage war! The VIP (King) starts on each players ‘fortress’, marked here:

Each player attempts to capture their opponents Fortress with their VIP. If your VIP takes an enemy’s Fortress for three turns, you win.

If your VIP is checkmated, then he is placed back on your fortress (or the nearest open square of the taken VIP’s choice.)

If a VIP is checkmated by a VIP while on his Fortress, he loses.

Choose any of the classes to begin, and set up your side appropriately!
Demoman

Engineer

Medic

Pyro

Sniper

Soldier

Scout

Spy

And that’s not all! The Scout and Spy have some ‘special abilities’!

Scout
The Scout can move any two pawns forward one space (or diagonally to attack) in the same turn by audibly shouting “Bonk!” If the players are not playing in real time, Vent, Skype, or some other method of audibly getting the point across is required. If the opposing player doesn’t have speakers or headphones, the Scout is screwed.

Spy
The Spy starts with the exact same setup as the Soldier, but has a very special ability. At any time the Spy can reveal that any of his pawns is in actuality the ‘VIP’! If this is done when the VIP is attacked, the attacking piece is killed! When the VIP is revealed, the VIP and pawn must switch places to reveal their true nature.

More special abilities to come in future expansions! :D

Hrm. Wonder if I could find an online chess engine that lets players define rules…

Everyone scratched their heads when the game Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe was announced. Everyone thought it was pretty dumb. The question I’m asking, and hopefully answering, is ‘why’? Why did we all, myself included, look at this idea, and just turn away? When you think to ask the question, I think it’s pretty obvious, and I don’t mean “the notion of these properties crossing over is dumb,” we’ve all overlooked far stupider things in games and loved them beyond belief.

What I’m talking about is two places where the Mortal Kombat series fell apart for me. Fighting(MK5) and story(MK4.) “Worried about the story in a fighting game?! That’s insane!” Yeah, I know. I’m not trying to say that it was Dostoevsky or anything, I’m just saying that it ‘worked’. But let me tackle the fighting first.

MK5 (Deadly Alliance) was the first to give each fighter a completely different movelist. Prior to this, everyone’s punches was the same, everyone’s kicks were the same, and everyone’s movement speeds and jumping were exactly. the. same. This was wonderful.

In a typical fighting game some characters are drastically overpowered, some are inherently flawed when used against other certain characters, and some are perfectly balanced. Imagine a chess game where each player has a completely random set-up, some have rooks on the front row, some have their king there, sometimes your king is directly across from an opponent’s rook/queen and it’s almost impossible for you to win, and sometimes? Sometimes you start with three queens. It all depends on both who you choose, and wh you’re fighting. That’s a normal fighting game.

Mortal Kombat 1-4 took a far different approach that was much closer to traditional chess. All of the characters had a first row of pawns, for one. That’s to say that all of the non-special moves were exactly the same. On the back row, however, you start with (roughly) similar layouts, but with changes in location. Sure, the ocassional character is a little stronger or weaker than the rest, but it’s not so insanely disproportionate as the previous system, and it’s usually far more obvious due to lack of complexity.

So, yeah, it was limited, but it was, to me, far more fun.

The story? Well, it just seemed to grow more and more disparate and whimsical.

Typically in fighting games ‘stories’ are only a combination of context and character biographies/endings. (I’m not saying that they can’t be better, but this is all gamers require to consider a fighter to ‘have a story,’ is all I mean.) Imagine a series of threads, a few overlapping in places, but conjoining into a common weave for the game’s duration, and then fraying out again with each thread being each character’s ending. That’s how the minimum writing in fighting games usually works.

For sequels the developer traditionally picks one of the ending threads, decides it’s the ‘correct’ one and fashions a new story. This means they have to bridge the initial threads of returning characters (often including elements of those characters ending threads, chosen one or not,) AND tie in new threads introduced in new characters. Then of course they also have to create new ending threads for all of the characters. The fact that each character has his own thread that weaves throughout the game series opens the possibility for mind-numbing over-complexity, and bet your ass that Midway took this chance to wreak havoc with the MK world.

I’m used to reading comics, so when a character that’s existed for forty years says that he got his powers ten years ago, despite the fact that I’ve read his book for ten years, it doesn’t bother me a bit. I ‘get it’. But why the fuck is Noob Saibot really Sub-Zero I? Why bother killing him off and creating Sub-Zero II at all if he’s going to effectively be the same guy? Why go from a kumite in MK1 to an inter-dimensional war in MK3 if all the gods that held the kumite were in on it to begin with? Just declare war from the get-go.

I understand that the large array of characters was, hell, IS a draw, but seriously, wtf. It’s not like DC comics started out with the intent to become so convoluted as to require Infinite Crisis (much less Final Crises.) But MK seems hellbent on taking minimal requirements for storytelling and making me shake my head and just walk away in disgust. In ending, they really just need to reboot the series.

*In Brett’s Footnotes fashion let me note that I fully plan to give more thought to a class-based chess game now. Also, sorry, I lied, this wasn’t about MMOs, but I do have a notion swirling around in el cabesa, it’s just not coming out yet.

I love that insane game with all of my ACII-art lovin’ heart, but I’ll be damned if the tiny window it uses doesn’t make my eyes well screaming for relief from deciphering one tiny mark from the next. The creator has said in an interview in which he talks about ‘losing’ his own project, saying: “I’m leery about third party interfaces. If a third party interface becomes popular, I think I might lose control of the project. I don’t want to be in a position where I have to accommodate and work with other people.” That’s a pretty scary notion, and one worth worrying about.

But at the same time, when my eyes hurt trying to play the game, it’s pretty hard to say that everything’s okay. I mean, I’m not saying I want 3d, or even a tileset, I just want it larger, so that I can see the stuff, y’know? Ahhh well.

But DF has something special. That thing; that “special something.” It does exactly what I want to see games do, tackle data complexity over graphical complexity. I want to be able to chop a bed up into its components, and breed war dogs, and when enemies (be they goblins or attacking wildlife,) enter your fortress, close the gates and flood the entrance with water through a system of levers that leaves your foe lying dead on the soggy ground.

Like Crysis goes to graphical extremes, and Grand Theft Auto goes to physics-interactive world exploration extremes, Dwarf Fortress juggles data like no other game out there, and it’s a shame that no one’s decided to back this guy, and hire him an additional coder to work with him (or some type of help that he’d have, anyway.) I mean, I could only imagine if a few other programmers were put under him and he was still given creative control.