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Warning, below are the half-assed angry ramblings of someone who’s annoyed with all the hubbub on Games Journalism.

Twisted Metal and God of War designer David Jaffe complains that Games journalists aren’t doing their jobs but merely becoming cheerleaders for games, sometimes regardless of the quality of the game. The argument being “Games are something developers make. Journalism is what journalists make.” He argued that if Games Journalism would hold Games’ proverbial feet to the fire, then maybe games would be better. Yes, an assistant producer to the game “3 Ninjas Kick Back” wants to be held to a higher standard of gaming greatness. Masochist? No. He wants to do better, and to do so he needs better feedback and critique. That’s admirable.

EGM editor Shoe comments on how sad it is that ‘cover story’ journalistic coverage is up for sale. (Here.) And to put this in perspective, let me remind you that this coming from a man who, literally, sells the cover of his magazine. So that’s saying something. (Apparently that ads-for-covers should be an option, just not an open bidding process.) And he caught a little heat for not revealing who did this. Should Shoe have named names? Naaah. It’s like he said on his blog, “that’s for some news organization to take care of, not EGM.” In dereliction of duty? Quite the opposite. His magazine’s intentions have never been ‘hard journalism of the underside of gaming’, of which there is apparently much. He just knows where his strengths lie (in actually covering the games,) and is saddened that his peers don’t take their jobs as serious as he does. That’s unfortunate.

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Now the two articles that were the straws that made me think more about this.

Just the other day Slashdot linked to 1UP editor Sam Kennedy’s blog where he laments that developers rarely help his job. (Here.) This after he says that “publications like 1UP are still a business — we’re all here to grow. And we’re going to deliver (within reason, of course) what our audience wants in order to accomplish that. “

(Speaking to Games Journalism in general here, mind you…) Well, why should developers scratch your back? You’re going to scratch theirs regardless of what they do to you. Your aching for their acceptance to ‘Gaming’ and their input to your magazine has you trying so hard to make it all seem so ‘cool’ that John Carmack could beat you like an abusive spouse and you’ll not only completely gloss over that if got an exclusive review of id’s next game, you’d possibly go out of your way to make a Romero joke in the article.

I’m not suggesting take their insulting behavior out on the game critique, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t express disappointment or anger at a developer.

But Sam Kennedy linked to what I think is possibly the best article of this entire thing. (Here.) And so far as I know, it’s just by “some guy,” much like myself. Shivam Bhatt says:

How intellectual can you really be when talking about something like final fantasy or metal gear? The medium is barely into its teens when it comes to depth in story telling, and the stories we’re being given are as deep as a teenager’s high school journal. There’s very little subtlty and hidden meaning in games, as producers browbeat us with their points over and over across a span of 50 hours or so. Yes, square, i get it. Catholics are bad. Organised religion is control. etc. Kojima and his obsession with nukes comes to mind as well.

And that’s what it’s all about. Even David Jaffe’s original article. Games aren’t even a teen in my eyes, but a toddler. Games are just now developing their own language. After decades they’ve began to form words to describe the world around us.

Games Journalism, do you remember highschool and/or college? Remember the kid that constantly takes shit from the popular kids just because they let him hang out with them occasionally? Don’t be “that guy,” Games Journalism. No one likes “that guy.” Games are finally beginning to grow a little, and it’s time for you to do the same. So the next game that comes out and beats you over the head with “organized religion is bad” for fifty hours by having, gasp, a religious leader using the religion for his own evil deeds? Print “I don’t like being repeatedly browbeaten with obvious points. The developers treat the player like a simpleton.” And if you call them on it, even half the time, then hopefully people will begin to catch on and demand more. Better to be known as demanding prick than an oblivious suck-up, Games Journalism. And besides, the developers asked for it.

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That’s the end for now. Just had to get that off of my chest. For the record, this started off as three paragraphs, but then I got angry and made it two pages of raving lunacy. Then I tried to cut most of the anger out. (Though, I loved that domestic abuse bit too much to cut.) I mean no offense to anyone mentioned, for the record. Nothing but love for you all. Tomorrow’s post? Angry and silly outtakes!

The Carnival of Gamers is up at Kill Ten Rats (here), I suggest you check it out as there are some cool entries.

But I’d also like to take this post to say, wow, I was chosen of them all to be quoted on Slashdot? (here) Sure it was Games.Slashdot, but it’s still classically cool. Especially considering that I didn’t know it was there and happened across it. As a bit of a follow-up to my Shadow of the Colossus post, the day I posted that entry was a bad day. It ended that night in my writing that post, extraneous words and all, and then going to kill the final colossus. And I instantly regretted it. (I’m going to catch shit for that, I’m sure.) Without beating it, I figured I hadn’t ‘won’, but I also knew that I didn’t lose. Thanks to the excellent design, you obviously figure out something’s amiss just by playing. And because of that I resigned myself to living without Mono (the girl) and quitting before I look that final plunge into damning myself, and maybe her, by enacting whatever horrible thing that no doubt awaited my killing of the final colossus.

And that was the, badly relayed, point of the post. Games don’t end at the end of the narrative that supports them; games end whenever gameplay stops. That’s why I think that so many gamers easily stop playing games before their narrative end. It’s easy to do and makes enough sense. (It was all inspired by thought I had while posting on Jamie Fristrom’s blog long ago, here. The pertinent data being that only 55% of a focus group finished Spider-Man 2.) If the entire premise behind the medium is the interactivity, then if a game does nothing on any level to the player, it’s logical for the player to do nothing in return. There has to be some catalyst that urges players to be inspired and want to continue, and you have to harvest that. Otherwise the player sits the controller down, and that’s it. The game’s over. And if only 55% of the people that played Spider-Man 2 finished it, that’s still no reason to worry. So what if they didn’t finish the narrative? The narrative is second to the gameplay anyway. And swinging along New York City was fucking great. I didn’t stop playing when I beat Doc Ock. I stopped after I finished swinging.

One last note, sorry that my last post wasn’t spellchecked. Seems to be a running gag in my life that things people actually read are horribly written. :D

No, actually, Raph Koster’s wondering why we don’t have more platformer in our MMOs. While playing some other games Raph has gotten curious if people paid attention to more than leveling in MMOs. One example being:

Our environments could learn a lot from games like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones — at one point my daughter shouted out, “Now that’s a Jackie Chan moment!” when I ran off a wall, jumped off a springy shutter, caught onto a overhanging plank, clambered on, then dove into the gap between two buildings, lodged myself within, flipped around, and dropped down onto an unsuspecting soldier.

He’s got the right idea, but it’s not environments that we need to learn from this, but the gameplay itself.

Just adding the relatively simple action set [grab, hang, climb, push, pull] to typical small set of MMO actions [run/walk, jump, attack, evoke via spell, use/equip item] would, I think, introduce such a larger variety on the already existing styles of missions/instances that I don’t get why it hasn’t been done. And that’s not to mention entirely new quest/skill options. Sure most MMO gameplay happens on a 2d grid, but I’d say it’s true that few games use the vertical dimension to really add to gameplay. (Some examples would be FPS’ that use high sniper spots, low trenches to dig in, and let you hide behind objects by ducking or climbing, and some action games like Prince of Persia and Spidey.) But I think creating an interesting world may possibly be easier to do with an MMO than a game like Prince of Persia.

You don’t really have to design every nook and cranny of a world by hand. With the simple action set I mentioned above players and NPCs could do a lot of the work in shaping their world for you. I think it’s easy to see different types of fun emerging here on it’s own for people to get a good grasp of their abilities. (Ever play Halo with friends or online? You’ll eventually run into fifteen other people who just want to pile on top of each other and move level objects around to try new feats and gain access to new heights. It’s in our nature to be inquisitive.) At most a player just needs a few easy training missions like climbing up a tree and out on a limb to rescue a cat, or swinging across a small stream. So let players/NPCs worry about placement of tables, chairs, fruit carts with springing awnings, barrels, planks/boards, ropes, and all the derivatives they could create with those tools.

By letting players actually place objects that can be physically interacted with (even if players still can’t collide, like in WoW), you can free your designers up to worry about larger and more spectacular mission-related interactive environment items like strategic ledge placement, vines, columns, and chandeliers to swing from.

Sure you’ll get someone who’ll try to make a hundred-barrel pyramid, or fill a tree with chairs, but that’s all in good fun and if one wanted could be curbed with NPC ‘street sweepers’.

Of course, the problem as always is latency. Though, anyone want to do a broadband-only MMO on the premise of new gameplay that will lampooned as “you can move your own crates!”? Nah, didn’t think so.