The importance of death...

Peril is a crucial part of most story telling.  Even though we all know that there is very little chance that the protagonist of our favourite stories can fail in their journey, it's very important to believe that they might.  Whether it's Harry Potter at the end of JK Rowling's books or Frodo at the end of the Lord of the Rings, we need to believe they could die..

What's got me thinking about this is the distinct lack of peril in games.  For example, I love Skyrim and have spent around a hundred hours in the remarkable world created by Bethesda.  As my level 50 warrior strolls around clad in Dragon Bone armour with swords and shields suitably enchanted, the chances of me meeting anything that should even begin to bother me is minimal.  However, even early in the game the thought of backing away from a confrontation is virtually zero. Why?  Well, if I should die when charging brainlessly in to battle then I simply reload from a few minutes before and avoid the battle entirely or approach it in a different way.

Anyone who has played a Call of Duty game online is well aware that people charge around like they're Superman, shooting anything that moves for 10 minutes or so and likely get killed by nearly as many people as they kill (everyone would of course tell you their Kill Death Ratio is much better than 1:1 though).


Imagine if you will though, walking across one of Skyrim's beautiful vistas and seeing a dragon circling on the horizon but instead of charging in fearlessly, ducking behind a tree and hoping the majestic beast hasn't seen you.  Why?  Because dying in the game has real consequences.  Perhaps even the permanent death of a character that has seen you through 50-100 hours of gaming.

The joy inherent in this tension has struck me following hours spent playing XCom: Enemy Unknown and indie hit FTL (Faster Than Light).  In both games death can be a genuine consequence of making poor choices.  In XCom my 15 hour, 70 kill, top level Heavy Colonel could be brought to an untimely death through one simple and poor move on my behalf leaving a genuinely somber tone as you imagine poor Colonel Wang's little children.  Recognising this emotion Firaxis have taken a step further with their global Facebook Memorial Wall found here.  The level of feeling attached to what should be virtual cookie-cutter soldiers wouldn't have felt nearly as touching had Firaxis made it easy to keep these characters alive or reload an earlier save.

Now, I'm not stupid of course and realise that most gamers would be put off in an instant by perma-death of a 70 hour RPG character or if death in Call of Duty multiplayer meant a 24 hour lockout of the multiplayer component but perhaps there should be an option or rewards for selecting this most hardcore of hardcore gameplay styles.  I worry that without it games and gaming lack an edge of excitement that they could have.  

The Walking Dead by Telltale games managed to make you fear death throughout its first season and never left you resting on your laurels.  Perhaps this is why the game has garnered such positive reviews and the delight in not knowing who would make it to the next episode kept many playing (and voting it as their game of the year).

I know that this is a post that will mean nothing to most and in fact, death is becoming less and less of an issue in gaming.  From near constant autosaving forcing the loss of a few minutes of game time in most games through to the actually impossible to die 2008 Prince of Persia game (which was excellent), the aim to gather more casual gamers will likely make death more and more unlikely.  I just state for the record, I would like more peril in gaming as it's what makes story-telling exciting.

As always, love to get your comments and thoughts.

E3, can't wait to see

I have to be honest and admit that I've wondered whether I enjoy the world around gaming almost as much as I enjoy the playing. I eat up previews, new releases and anticipation of new things. As many gamers do, I await E3 with a keen excitement each year to find out what's coming. Here are my hotly anticipated games this year (everyone else writes one, why not me?).

The Last of Us (Naughty Dog)

Following up Naughty Dog's Uncharted trilogy is a task for a brave set of men but like pioneers embarking on a trip to uncharted territories the California based company look like they might pull it off. What little I know of the game so far can be gleaned from a few short videos although they show a well crafted game world and solid believable characters. Joel looks like the sort of character that I want to spend some time with. He's a brutal killer who has been surviving for a long time in a world that seems set to try to kill you.

It will be interesting to see how Naughty Dog balances the question of which is more brutal, the monsters that roam the world, your fellow humans or your own character and his loss of humanity. Whilst Joel is a brutal survivor, his fellow young survivor, Ellie, might be the heart in the story. I don't expect Joel to have Nathan Drake's wisecracking demeanour but hopefully Ellie can give us something worth fighting for in this desolate world.

Looking like it's one part Uncharted, one part I Am Legend and one part The Road, The Last of Us looks like one to eagerly look forward to. Whilst we're about it though, if Naughty Dog want to announce Uncharted 4 then that would be pretty good too.

Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar)

Sadly we're currently working on even less with GTA 5 than we are with The Last of Us. Just one video that has been doing the rounds for 6 months and a bucket load of, 'What we want from GTA V' pieces on websites. After the hours I put in to GTA IV and its expansion DLCs, how could I not wait expectantly for this.

Hopefully this keeps the more serious and realistic tone of the previous game but it looks like having a pinch of humour and in game jokes with the glimpse of a tired and drunk Niko Belic-alike. I can't wait to find out a little more at E3 and hopefully, with a rumoured release before the end of the 2012/13 financial year then now is the time for Rockstar to stop hiding the goods.

The Last Guardian (Team Ico)

Sure, this may not be at E3. In fact, it may not even exist anymore. It has been a long time since this game was first seen (E3 2009 for those that are counting) but how could this story of a boy and his massive bird, dog, cat creature not be near the top of everyone's most anticipated list? Rather upsettingly for a gamer with the commitment I have, I only played Shadow of the Colossus and Ico when they were re-released on PS3. However I found both to be remarkable games. Fumito Ueda is a designer who tells stories written very specifically for games. Unlike many other designers he doesn't appear to be a frustrated film director but understands the medium he works in. With open-ended and interesting tales to be told Team Ico's next game could well be a classic; should it ever appear.

On that note Sony recently stated that progress was slowly continuing and that Ueda worked on the game on a daily basis. This is from a team that assured us in February of 2011 that it would release during that calendar year though. When it comes, will it be worth the wait? After playing earlier Team Ico games, I sure hope so and in the mean time bring on the Colossi... again.

Day of Reckoning

The sad collapse of Kingdom's of Amalur developer 38 studios this week made me think about the incredible short-sightedness and immaturity of games developers.  The movie industry seemed to realise a long time ago that there was a limit to the number of films in any particular genre that people could watch.  Studios seem to work together to ensure that big movies stay well out of each other's way and a movie costs around ten pound to go and see and lasts two hours.  Games cost around £40 new and, in the case of many RPGs, can take long over 50 hours to complete.

Sadly Kingdom's of Amalur: Reckoning released a few months after the behemoth that is Skyrim and a few weeks before another RPG beast, Mass Effect 3.  Now I have to admit to not having played Kingdom's of Amalur and understand from its reviews that it isn't that similar to Skyrim but it surely suffers from seeming similar and releasing in the wake of such an enormous RPG.  If RPG fans were ready to dive in to another expansive world I imagine most would, as I did, wait for Mass Effect 3. 

Now, I understand the difficulty of releasing a new IP at any time but how can games companies continually get it so wrong.  We wait through a bigger drought than has hit the south of England in June, July and August.  Suddenly in September the games start coming thick and fast.  We're expecting the likes of Halo 4, COD Black Ops 2, Assassin's Creed 3, Medal of Honour: Warfighter, Resident Evil 6, Far Cry 3, Hitman: Absolution to name but a few of the big name, big number sequels.  How many perfectly good games, and more sadly perfectly good games companies, are going to get lost by trying to go up against these hugely succesful franchises.

Until game companies start to think more sensibly about the way games are released then I worry that we are going to continue to see losses like this.  People don't have the resources and time to play through games as quickly as they can watch a movie.  There is a limited amount of time to play big AAA titles and new IPs need to be releasing under a different model to the big outlay games.  Whether it's episodal content, cheaper pricing or subsidising pricing through advertising something needs to be done to get companies thinking more professionally about the business they are in and stop the sad loss to people's livelihoods and futures.

No need to cry.

Quanitc Dream's David Cage said this week that we didn't need a new generation of consoles yet and set an ambitious 2017 date on the requirement of 'the next gen'.  Anyone who saw Kara, the remarkable video from the studio, will certainly agree that Cage is doing something that many don't.  However, is he correct that the current generation of consoles is too tilted towards violence and RPGs and that we don't need a new generation of consoles for another five years?

Firstly, are we oversupplied with violence?  To get an idea of this I took a look at the top selling games on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.  Thirteen of the top fifteen 360 games could be construed as violent or RPGs and eleven of the top fifteen PS3 games fit in to to the same category.  This certainly does seem to back-up the idea that we are perhaps oversupplied with these games but is Cage taking too simplistic a view on things.  Perhaps the games being made are there because they sell.  Hardcore gamers complain about the likes of Call of Duty and its identikit clones but perhaps that is because we, the gamer, continue to buy them.  Quantic Dream's own Heavy Rain sold well at around 2 million copies (as of GDC 2011) but this doesn't begin to touch COD MW3's 6.5 million day one sales in the UK and US or MW2's 18 to 20 million total sales.  Perhaps game designers aren't lacking imagination as Cage said, perhaps they are simply caught by the unavoidable fact that our hobby is many people's business.

On the second suggestion of no new consoles until 2017, I'm torn.  The most interesting games I have played in the last few months have not needed more polygons or better hardware.  To The Moon, Journey or Lone Survivor have all been interesting, quirky, different and thrilling in their own ways.  The industry is full of people and teams pushing boundaries and finding new and exciting way to use the hardware they are given.  I believe that David Cage and his team are capable of doing remarkable things with the current generation of hardware and I can't say I'm too ready for more.  After seeing the Wii U and it's difficult to comprehend tablet controller, I worry that one day we will pine after this generation of controller based gaming.  Without some brave souls I worry the ever increasing expense of console manufacture and game design will drive developers to need to appeal to the chattering masses.

What do you think?  Do you want more David Cage and something from Kara or are you happy to see more COD and it's itterative sequels?  Do we need a new console generation or are those wanting it setting us up for an incremental decline to casual gaming?

And here is that video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-pF56-ZYkY

The Walking Dead - The adventure game I always wanted.

I write this first post whilst keenly awaiting the second episode of Telltale Games 'The Walking Dead'.  I have wanted to love adventure games all my life, having attempted to play a huge number over the years.  The only one I can remember completing from start to finish is Grim Fandango and, despite starting Sam and Max, several Monkey Islands, Full Throttle, Leisure Suit Larry (to my shame, but I was of an age) and the more recent Back To The Future and Puzzle Agent, they were never the game I wanted.

Where The Walking Dead gets it right and so many others failed is character.  From the stark opening dialogue with a cynical US cop through to the shocking finalé of this opening chapter I was living Lee Everett's life.  I didn't have to labour through obscure puzzles, linking up strange objects and jumping through far-fetched logical links.  I didn't have to spend a long time in the same three room setting.  I did get to make genuinely troubling moral decisions.  I did connect with an array of well written and scripted characters in a mature and well-paced storyline.

Of course, this is a zombie game and there is the chance to smash undead skull but I'm not coming back for the action.  I'm coming back to find out what happens to Lee, Clementine, Carley and company and to find out if Lenny is going to get his just desserts.

Sadly I've only been able to play through the short few hours once because I want my snap decisions and reactions to be the ones that I must live with without being tempted by other (possibly more attractive) outcomes.  I'm looking forward to coming back though when all five episodes are released and playing through the whole story with some different outcomes. 

Hopefully Telltale can manage to keep the pace, variety, tough choices and great cast entertaining me throughout the remaining four episodes.  I trust that they will.