On Mass Effect, Part 2: Collaborative storytelling and the end. (SPOILERS)

Yes, this post contains spoilers for the Mass Effect series. All titles are fair game. You have been warned.

In part one of this reflection on the Mass Effect series, I retold the games’ plot as I saw it: an epic love story set against a galaxy’s struggle for survival. It’s not a prerequisite for reading part 2, but it does serve as the basis for much of my argument presented here.

Let’s cut to the chase: there is no possible ending BioWare could have devised for Mass Effect 3 that would have pleased everyone. The beauty of that series — something that has been reaffirmed by the outrage surrounding the finale — is the unique narrative each player builds throughout their 90-hour experience. It’s all thanks to collaborative storytelling, with both the player and developer working to build each Shepard’s story.

But that’s only true to a degree. The greatest trick BioWare ever played was making you think you were somehow writing this story. While there are near infinite combinations of story beats and outcomes across the entirety of the series, each momentary decision is just as trivially presented as the final one: you stand at a crossroad with two, three or maybe, if your lucky, four possible paths. Take your pick.

On Mass Effect, Part 1: A hopeless romantic (SPOILERS)

Yes, this post contains spoilers for the Mass Effect series. All titles are fair game. You have been warned.

I’ve been thinking about Mass Effect a lot; about what the series means to me, why its ending has been so controversial and what separates it from similar games. I’ve come to a couple of conclusions and this is my attempt to lay them out.

I’m starting with a reflection on my Mass Effect experience. This is the story of Commander Shepard as I saw it. All of that surface level stuff — the battles with Saren and the Reapers, Cerberus’ constant meddling, the siege of Earth — is ultimately unimportant. This series is great because it allows the player to inject their own humanity into Shepard. You determine which losses are the most painful. You choose Shepard’s motivations. The choices you make within the game aren’t nearly as interesting or important to crafting your Commander Shepard as those you make outside it.

On Uncharted and characterization through play.

Uncharted 2 and 3 are special games.

While Naughty Dog’s latest pulp adventure might pull a few too many of the same tricks as its predecessor, they are damn fine tricks and no one else in the video game industry has even attempted to replicate them.

Sure, I’m talking about the massive set pieces — running through burning buildings; hanging onto a piece of free falling cargo hundreds of feet above an endless desert – but what really sets Uncharted apart is its characters.

Naughty Dog has done a great job of bringing Nathan Drake and the series’ supporting cast to life. The characters may be simple adventure flick stereotypes, (hey, it’s pulp, not Tolstoy) their relationships feel real and my attachment to them is staggering.

But what is it that makes Uncharted better at this than most other games? There’s the care and attention given to the writing, of course, but I think it’s something simpler; something only a video game could do.

Minor Uncharted 3 spoilers ahead!

Reports of Nintendo’s Death are Greatly Exaggerated

Nintendo held a press conference in Japan earlier this week to show off a number of new 3DS titles and announce Monster Hunter 4. Apparently the reception to this news was so negative that it spawned such non-gaming press articles as “Nntendo is Killing Itself” and “Nintendo Faces End of Era After 3DS Flop.”

Oh boy.

Diablo 3 is Probably Coming to Consoles, but why is Blizzard so Quiet About it?

There was a bit of a Twitter kerfuffle yesterday after Diablo 3 lead designer Josh Mosqueira all but confirmed the development of a console version of the anticipated title at a Gamescom press conference.

According to a Eurogamer report, Mosqueira said Blizzard “is very, very serious about bringing the Diablo 3 experience to the console” and is “trying to build the best console team.”

This falls in line with job listings for a Diablo-related console project posted late last year, as well as the more direct “senior software engineer, console — Playstation 3 Specialist” within the Diablo 3 team posted in June.

It seems pretty safe to assume that some sort of consolized Diablo is in development, but why make it so obvious without issuing some sort of official statement? And why does it seem to be gearing up so late in the game?

The Valve Model — Is it Good for the Industry?

Pretty much everyone loves Valve.

How could you not? Its brought us some of the greatest games ever made, created the standard platform for PC digital distribution and community and is one of the few large development houses exploring the intricacies of the video game medium and business.

Yet, something bothers me about Valve. When looking at its release history (and counting DOTA 2), we see that although Valve has developed close to eight franchises in the 13 years since the release of Half-Life, its debut. The number of properties that were fully conceived in-house is only…well one: the Half-Life series. Oh oh and Ricochet. Don’t forget Ricochet.

Musings: A Japanese June; or Mini-Review Rundown: Child of Eden and Shadows of the Damned

Many in the games press bemoan the increasing irrelevance of Eastern game developers. Outside of Nintendo’s titles I would be hardpressed to name the last Japanese game that made a major financial splash here in the west. Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is probably my best bet, but even that is bolstered by its inclusion characters familiar and dear to Western audiences.

Critically things aren’t much better. Japanese stalwarts like Final Fantasy have taken a beating by the press as of late and taking a look at the titles that make up the wave of post-E3 hype, I haven’t found nary an Eastern game (Another Capcom fighter, Street Fighter x Tekken, comes to mind. Dark Souls as well.).

Analysis/Op-Ed: Brown v EMA

Monday morning, the United States Supreme Court decided, in a 7-2 verdict, to strike down the California game law which would have criminalized the sale of “ultra-violent video games” to minors.

The original bill, signed into law by Arnold Schwarzenegger, would have imposed a fine of up to $1,000 for anyone selling these “ultra-violent video games” without proper labeling or to anyone under 18.

Randy Pitchford Compares Duke Nukem Forever to Junk Food and Ke$ha, Sort of Misses the Point

Michael McWhertor wrote up a post over at Kotaku pointing out a few of Gearbox Software head Randy Pitchford’s tweets in which he likens the recently released Duke Nukem Forever to junk food. He also relayed a comment comparing a deeper reading of the game to a music critic analyzing Kesha.

“With sales data, It seems like *customers* love Duke,” Pitchford said on Twitter. “I guess sometimes we want greasy hamburgers instead of caviar.”

I’m not sure of the source of this second message (it seems to be a comment tweeted to him): “looking at DNF for narrative depth: ‘It’s like Rolling Stone magazine trying to find a deep meaningful message in a Ke$ha song.’”

The implication here is that critics, who have universally panned the game, are looking at Duke the wrong way. It’s not a serious game and doesn’t deserve to be poured over with serious attention and criticism.

If that’s the case, than it also doesn’t deserve a $60 price tag.

Caviar and greasy hamburgers do not cost the same amount of money. Sure, I enjoy the simple pleasure of a mechanically flawed or low-budget production like Earth Defense Force or Deadly Premonition on occasion, but their price is only a third of the caviar.

Also, to say that the near-apocalyptic critical response to the game is over a lack of narrative depth is ridiculous and troubling.

No one is dinging the game for a lack of narrative depth and I’m sure no one expected it to deliver such a thing. The critical vitriol that is coming Duke’s way is based mostly on its lack of modern or interesting design and its abhorrent sense of humor. It’s not a greasy hamburger. It’s more like a festering pile of chopped meat served on two pieces of moldy bread and being called “gourmet.”

It seems to me that Gearbox knew they had a real dudon their hands. They knew, but there was nothing they could do but attempt to polish it up and accomplish the unthinkable task of shipping this game to stores. At the least couldn’t they have taken out some of the  rape, abortion, gay and generally unfunny jokes?

The real sin is selling it for $60 along side modern games. Games that don’t feel and look like they should have been released a decade ago. But Take Two dumped 14 years worth of funding into this thing and they’ve got to try and recoup some sort of investment, right?

Musings: On the State of the RPG

Bioware co-founder Dr. Greg Zeschuk and his opinion on haters

One of the biggest trends in the video game industry for the last several years has been the melding of traditional role-playing mechanics — experience points, leveling up, skills/perks, classes — into other genres. I think we really have Call of Duty 4 to thank for this, as it spawned (pun not intended…but if I caught it and left it in is it now intended?) the modern multiplayer-shooter framework of persistent character progression. On the single-player side it’s a little harder to say wear the launching point was, but it certainly exists in the modern era — Borderlands is a good example.

Similarly we’ve seen mechanics from other genres creeping their way into RPGs. The easiest example to point to (and the one I’ll deal with most in this post) is the Mass Effect series. Bioware’s sprawling space opera has at this point become a cover-based third-person shooter (a la Gears of War) glazed with a fine coating of traditional RPG systems. There are a lot of people out there who will argue that because of this Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 in particular, is not a role-playing game.

This is a preposterous conclusion.