Something Smells Gamey: More Rain

If you are here, then that means you've chosen the ending to Mark's rose-tinted preview of Heavy Rain that leads to me overanalyzing its essence.

Don't worry. You stumble upon a scene with no spoilers.

If you still wish to go back, please load your previous save. Remember, however, that a real choice cannot be undone.

Did that last sentence sound pretentious to you? It should have; and in fact, it's that kind of attitude that almost kept me from picking up Heavy Rain for the Playstation 3. The game's director/writer/mastermind David Cage comes off as an arrogant douchebag with no perspective of place within his industry. Then again, he is French. Consider this recent quote of his: "Heavy Rain has the courage to break with most of the video game rules that were established 20 years ago and are still used today by most games." I acknowledge that most products of any medium tread in tried and true techniques, but there is always a faction at work to deliver new experiences. And that is just as true in the video game industry (e.g., Braid, Flower).


Let me step back for a second and refresh Mark's overview of the game, though. Heavy Rain is a self-proclaimed "interactive drama" in which a choose-your-own-adventure style story effectively plays out through your ability to react to onscreen button prompts. It is a glorified and extended quicktime event, and I'll admit that I'm drawn to the possibility. I was super excited to finally find Indigo Prophecy (aka Fahrenheit) on store shelves, which was Cage's previous output. And the first half of that game did feel new and incredible, before it fell off the deep-end into absurdity.

Heavy Rain fixes a lot of its predecessors' flaws, most notably by making the button pressing events match up more naturally to the onscreen action. There's even some motion controls thrown in for you Wii lovers, which bothered me only in so much as it didn't register some of my subtler attempts at not disturbing the cats on my lap. I faced serious repercussions for my failures, but the continued purring on my lap soothed over my fury.

The success of Heavy Rain ultimately depends on its story. And while plot holes riddle any probing look at the conclusion, I have to say I was pretty satisfied in the end. Still, Cage definitely needs to reevaluate some aspects of his storytelling before he (insert your word here)s all over the place.

The essential human relationship of the game introduced at the beginning is that of a father and his sons. This is nice, especially considering how many father/son game relationships feature that son being the spawn of a demonic, trident-wielding netherbeast. Nevertheless, I felt like this game started me back at literary square one with a "perfect" family in which the dad is telling his sons how great they are and the kids giggle and tell their dad how much they love playing with him and how he's the best dad in the world.

There is no subtlety here, and, most importantly, there is no real human interaction. Maybe I believe this because I'm a new age intellectual whose every action is jaded with cynicism, but I do not believe that families anywhere actually act like they do in these contrived situations. I'm fine with a simple scene of familial joy, but throw in a non sequitur here or there to tint the puritanical perfection with a shade of reality. I wanted something bad to happen to these people at the beginning of this game because I was annoyed by the cardboard cutouts presented to me as conceived content. Then again, I already knew bad things would happen, so maybe I was just anxious.

This contrivance is a problem not just with Heavy Rain, but with all melodrama. Because the story is so focused on delivering a serious statement, the characters are pigeonholed into spouting cliches that build little upon their character. In retrospect, this may be my number one reason for disliking Avatar so much (in spite of its resultant fan fiction). Every single aspect of that movie was so built into an archetype that I knew exactly what I was going to see in 20 minutes, 45 minutes, etc. all the way up and through the end; and I wanted to leave at that first interval because of it. Screw technological prowess. I'd rather look at Earth trees than Pandora trees; at least those have real life happening around them.

Now, aside from the main family in Heavy Rain, most other characters are portrayed with enough attitude to make me forgive and forget the tactic. Who doesn't love a weathered private investigator, or a smart and beautiful pair of CGI tits? I know I do. Serious issues can arise when these personalities are stretched into arbitrary romance plots seemingly driven by nothing more than the desire to animate a sex scene (Indigo Prophecy failed hard in this aspect). Yet that shouldn't be a problem with a good set of story editors, right?


Which brings me to my oh-so-brilliant hypothesis: Self-proclaimed prodigies are destined to disappoint. James Cameron thinks he is the second coming because of his ability to retell a tragic shipwreck and a book about a desert planet written in 1965. David Cage thinks he is revolutionizing a medium he outwardly slights as naive and childlike when so much of his vision is just that. I applaud the entertainment I derived from Heavy Rain these past few days. It is a marvelous technological achievement (more groundbreaking than Avatar, I'd argue, in its potential to inspire truly interactive cinema). But it is not a solitary beacon that has spun to light of its own free will in absentia of influence to become the one true image of our future.

In fact, the Mass Effect series is already telling more complex, human stories that make me seriously fret over my in-game decisions and actions. That, however, is a tale for another time...

Aren't my opinions genius?

Something Smells Gamey: Heavy Rain = LucasArts Classic Adventures + Choose Your Own Adventure

DoktorPeace, sorry I'm encroaching on your territory. But, as you might know, I've become a "gamer" of some sort. Getting a PlayStation 3 for Christmas was pretty awesome, and getting games like Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and MLB 09: The Show is pretty great. But, the best part is downloading all kinds of demos, so I can pretend that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to the hottest games on the market.

Which leads me to the demo for the soon-to-be-released new PS3 title Heavy Rain. Now, the basic premise of this game is, you control four different people solving the mystery of a serial killer named the Origami Killer (and if that doesn't just grab you by the cajones, I don't know what will[insert sarc mark], the gameplay looks just like a movie directed by David Fincher, and you walk around picking stuff up, talking to people, and *gasp* if you die in the game, you're dead forever in the game. Also, the choices you make affect how the rest of the game goes. Groundbreaking, right?

Wait...is there something from my childhood that this reminds me of? Actually, two things.

One, is the classic Choose Your Own Adventure series. Video games that remind me of Choose Your Own Adventure get nerd points from me.

Two, are the classic "point-and-click" computer games from the early '90s by LucasArts, such as Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. Thanks to the technology wizards of YouTube, you can now watch the entire game as a single YouTube video, which I will insert right here:

Actually, the game looks pretty fun. I'm sure I'll be wasting my time on it a lot in the near future. See more here:

Best Video Games of '09?

This past year marked a new low in my life's ambition. However, I was able to transform much of this negative energy into hours-long gaming sessions, setting me up as a virtual expert on the year in virtual entertainment. Because I wasn't rolling in the money, much of my time was devoted to games from years past, with Final Fantasy XII (2006) clocking the most hours. Heck, I even wasted a good 150 minutes beating Wrath of the Black Manta for NES (1990). Somebody had to do something: The children were being kidnapped!


Yet somehow, through the generosity of my admittedly over-generous parents, I was able to save enough cash to buy way more new releases than I thought I did before sitting down to write this.

There is a problem, though; that being that I have no idea how to rank my favorites.

Being a game blog/review addict, I pretty much know exactly what type of experience I'm going to get before I sit down. Thus, I'm almost always satisfied with my picks and my time. I can only think of one major disappointment for me this year, which was Scribblenauts for the DS. The game was built around the concept that you could write down any object you could think of and it would appear to help you beat the level. When it worked, it was great, but it didn't work nearly enough. Nevertheless, I scored a sweet sideways rooster hat with my order, so the money was still well spent, from a perverted collector's point of view.

So here's the deal. I'm going to group the games I spent 5 hours or more with into the arbitrary categories of how much I swore while playing them. For those of you who don't know me in real life, I come off as a mild-mannered, well-adjusted adult male. When I'm on my own, however, I transfigure into a raving madman, unable to control either my body or my language. I swear that demon words come out of me, even when I'm not trying to use them to summon beasts onscreen. I am a virtual Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, except not as unplayable as the real virtual Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for the NES.

Hopefully the following will entertain the twelve of you who bother reading it, and bother the one of you who twelve months from now will post an anonymous comment about how I shouldn't be using copyrighted pictures on a not-for-profit opinion blog. Bullshit.


Minimal Profanity (50 swears or less per play session)


Retro Game Challenge
Flower
Left 4 Dead 2
Tales of Monkey Island
Shadow Complex
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Dead Space: Extraction
A Boy and His Blob
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

Many of the above titles soothed me with their ambiance, with Flower particularly setting a landmark in video game serenity - piano music accompanies your use of the wind to collect flower petals and revitalize the earth. Retro Game Challenge made me feel like a ten-year old, in my friend Mike P's basement, reading through game magazines to find new secrets. I could smell his basement whenever I popped this into my DS, and it was glorious.

Other games fortunate enough to fall into this most pleasant of categories pleased me with their difficulty. I'm not saying they were easy (and remember, I'm no slouch myself), but they were predominantly fair. Left 4 Dead 2, for instance, is pretty f'ing hard, but knowing that it's probably me and my friends that are screwing up makes for a enjoyable ride. Plus, I'm on mic during the whole affair, so the cursing has to be curbed.

If I had to choose one creme de la creme from this group to advance to a final round I'm now deciding to hold... I'm going to pick Retro Game Challenge. I loved pretty much all of these, but Retro Game Challenge felt the most new to me, despite the fact that it succeeds by reveling in the old.



Moderate Profanity (51 to 250 swears per play session)


Resident Evil 5
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor
Ghostbusters: The Video Game
Wii Sports Resort
Uncharted 2

Looking at this list, these games are all pretty solid affairs, most likely ending up in this middle category because of one or two intolerable sections. Resident Evil 5, for instance, suffers greatly when played with one player instead of two, because you can't trust the AI partner not to wander off and get chainsawed to death. In Ghostbusters, the checkpoint system forced me to repeat some annoying battles, and almost all non-ghost enemies were simply a bore to fight.

But I don't swear when I'm bored. I swear because an enemy, here or there, has an unfair advantage over me - the player - given the skill level I believe I should have by that point in the game. In each of their own, unique ways, these games all achieved in pissing me off. Congratulations.

And the winner here - a champion in spite of my emotional issues - is Uncharted 2. This game only infuriated me at a couple of choice parts near the end of the game. Most of the time it enthralled me with its exceptional polish and incredible action sequences. As I've written in so many words, I felt like I was playing a movie; and whereas I might not enjoy seeing such a formulaic movie in real life *cough* Avatar *cough* , I love playing it.


Intense Profanity (More than 250 swears per play session, damaged merchandise, visible bruises)


MLB '09: The Show
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Punch-Out!!
Rhythm Heaven
New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Demon's Souls

First of all, let me point out that these are all excellent games. Second, f them.

Each of these games, at one point or another, has driven me to the point of insanity and beyond. I broke my original DS Lite smashing in the screen when I couldn't get a beat right in Rhythm Heaven. I have fresh bite marks on my arm tonight from completing a successful 100% run in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. And my beautiful, high-definition television is no longer in use because... well, that actually broke on its own. It needs a new ballast or color wheel or something that's hardly made anymore. I no longer advocate DLP technology.

Seriously, though. I have very interesting relationships with these games. Call of Duty deserves my legitimate scorn because I can't tell whether or not they're throwing infinite enemies at me during some set pieces. I think they are (the series is known for these so-called "monster closets"), which upsets me because it's a design choice counter-intuitive to making me feel like improved strategy effects improved results. Demon's Souls also has some actual control issues, I feel, especially when it comes to the rolling maneuver and its tendency to throw me off cliffs.

My issues with The Show have been documented (in the same post in which I talked about Flower, interestingly enough. Interested? No? Okay...)

And, as usual, the Nintendo products are entirely fair in their difficulty, which is the most infuriating circumstance of all. I know what I need to do to get that elusive star coin in New Mario Bros. Wii; I simply can't execute. As I use up my 10th, my 15th, my 20th life on the same level, I seem to get farther and farther away from the goal flag, the rage boiling up inside of me. In the revitalized Punch-Out!!, just because I know the exact punch pattern that's coming at me doesn't mean I'm not going to duck right into a jab or weave right into an uppercut. Gods dammit I suck and I swear to f that if I have to play this level one more time I'm going to @$#$#%#(%&#@_$_@#$&%&^#@%!_#@$#%^!$&#%#@!_&@*$^%

And the winner from this category... doesn't matter. Because in the end, even though I sincerely meant it when I said I couldn't choose a favorite, the easy answer when push comes to shove is Uncharted 2. And I'm saying that having hardly touched the multiplayer components, which are supposed to be good in their own right.

I made my dad learn how to switch the input to HDMI 3 and turn on the Playstation so that he could play this game. I forced him through the original Uncharted (a decent enough game, if wildly inferior by comparison), in which he must have died at least 500 times before the final boss sequence... which I ended up having to finish for him anyway. And I smiled the cheekiest of smiles when I first booted up this year's sequel for myself and saw that Naughty Dog (the developers) were wise enough to include a "Very Easy" option, just so people like my dear old dad could enjoy the amazing, breathtaking adventure they created.

Something Smells Gamey: Shadow Complex

I don't know if you noticed, but you can download things pretty fast nowadays. That includes games! In fact, I downloaded a game on XBox Live this very week, while you losers probably left the house to purchase some lame physical product. Now I know what it must have felt like to be that one kid with the Sega Channel back in the day (the original downloadable console experience for Genesis). Man, it's awesome. I am going to rule ya'll for the rest of your pathetic little lives.


The game I squeak of (pun sponsored by Alvin and the Chipmunks 2: The Squeakquel) is Shadow Complex. For those in the know, it's a Metroidvania-style platformer. Some next-gen additions (leveling, immersive leaderboards) enhance the experience, but the overall fun still stems from jumping around and shooting things, as it so often does. The map is a well-designed grid that's requires players to take a fairly guided path at the beginning of the game, but opens up with the acquisition of new skills to allow massive shortcuts by the end. Everything gameplay-wise is solid, but you don't need to be told that. Shadow Complex was the fastest-selling XBox Live Arcade game of all time when released in August, and I'm sure you all canceled your end-of-summer barbecues to partake.

Perhaps most interesting about this game was the criticism it attracted for being affiliated with author Orson Scott Card. The man is a staunch opponent of all things gay, and a small petition against Shadow Complex developed online. I don't know how successful this opposition ultimately was, although I assume these boycotters stuck to their non-downloaded guns more vehemently than Modern Warfare 2 boycotters. Being a bit of a modern pop literature ignoramus, I wonder whether Card has enough of a following that attaching his name to the project actually resulted in net positive buys.

From what I experienced, it shouldn't have.

Let's be honest: I hate gay people, because I bought this game. Now let's be honest again: There is virtually no plot to Shadow Complex. The protagonist stumbles upon a criminal organization planning to take over the United States, blah blah blah. There's a witty line here or there, sure, but these were written by novelist Peter David. Card ostensibly provided the universe surrounding the game, which seems a lot like every other universe Tom Clancy wannabes have created over the last few decades, which seems a lot like the real world plus conspiracy theories and explosions.


I'm not one to ho-hum a fun, mindless adventure, and I put forward my belief that Jurassic Park is a legitimately good movie as evidence. But let's be honest one more time, people. This is not a genre brimming with invaluable ideas. Your local schoolkids could probably come up with ideas as enjoyable as the ones entertainment execs cough up big bucks for; those freckled youngsters just can't use big enough words to describe their imagination.

I'm no patron of young adult fiction, but I'd be willing to bet that the books rudely sharing Twilight's shelf space more often contribute contemplative content than whatever it is Card offers. Homophobe or not, if you're going to bog your story down with pseudo-future tech and insignificant espionage, you're in danger of offering less than a simple conversation between a high school girl and her wolf boyfriend.

All that said, Card's backdrop is perfectly fine for a game that plays so well it needs no plot. I especially liked the woodland setting for Shadow Complex's underground evil base. It's purty. I just don't know if you need to contract with a famous name in order to arrive at such a scene. Case in point: At the very start of the game, the vice president gets assassinated somewhere offscreen. Yawn. I don't see how this is a conflict. VP is a virtually powerless position in the real world, and I've learned that the hard way in my role as Vice President of the Brookfield "Men Against Boys" (M.A.B.) chapter.

Still, I have faith in our cause. Men Against Boys fights to prevent area children from commandeering the immaturity and wide-eyed splendor at all things pyrrhic which rightfully belongs to we adults. Our motto: "You don't have to grow up, unless you're a kid. If that's the case, then get the f*** out."

Something Smells Gamey: Fallout 3

This is gonna be a bit rushed, mostly because you (and I) should be spending our time voting for Chris's movie of the generation. He put a lot of work into that impossible-to-decipher contest, and he deserves participation. Heck, I heard he even infected his entire class with swine flu just so that he could have more time to review the movie selections and properly encapsulate their essence. If that's not something for your local news to talk about, then I don't know what is. The contest, I mean.

The real reason I'm rushing this, of course, is because I've been wasting my life away in video games. This is especially true with my recent obsession, Fallout 3 - a post-apocalyptic RPG/adventure taking place in the Capital Wasteland of Washington, DC. As I spent many of my formative years in the real-life version of this metropolis, as well as attended college in the city (those latter days being formative only insomuch as they eviscerated my identity and didn't offer threesomes), the setting pulls me in like a mother. What others may see as stale locales - rubble-laden subway tunnels, snoozy government complexes, etc. - pique my interest, if only because the places are already so real in my memories. I just started exploring the ruins of Georgetown before writing this post, and I'm excited to see what awaits in my burned-out alma mater. The student body is guaranteed to be wasted out of its mind (literally, because they've been exploded), so I'm sure the game will at least provide an accurate reflection of the school's party atmosphere. Because the parties there suck, I mean.

But enough with my windy expositions and clarifications. Allow me to instead breeze through a selection of my experiences so far, as described by my in-game achievements. For those who don't know, XBox achievements are the single-most important factor in determining how hardcore you are. I'm probably in the emocore range at the moment, which I place above crabcore but below scene.
Fallout 3's achievements are extra special because they're accompanied by some endearing and clever art featuring the game's mascot, Pip-Boy. Although the game ostensibly takes place hundreds of years from now, the fictional America thrust into nuclear winter is very much the America of the 1950s, and Pip-Boy looks as if he's stepped straight out of an ad from those saccharine days.

Stealing Independence: Pip-Boy's reading the Declaration of Independence here because I actually had to go all Nicholas Cage and steal the document from a mutant-infested National Archives. Yes, this is the second-straight post in which I've referenced National Treasure.


Blood Ties: Here he is dressed as a vampire, not because it's Halloween, but rather because I brokered a truce between a small villa on a collapsed overpass and a strange cult of human rovers accustomed to blood-sucking. This quest could've used more Kristen Stewart, I admit, but I'm sure I got an erection anyway.

The G.O.A.T. Whisperer: Pip-Boy is hanging with a goat here because I took some kind of test acronymed as G.O.A.T. to determine my character tendencies. Questions included whether or not I would kill a man if my grandman asked me to do so. I think I said no, but that's only because it's a video game. Of course I'd do it in real life.

Protector: A superhero is protecting Pip-Boy here because I've completed a certain amount of the game with good karma. This means that, even though I like to steal money from safes, hack into computers to read people's diaries, and kill baristas I don't like, I at least do the right thing most of the time; which is all you can ask for in the barren afterearth.

I have no segues or conclusions to proffer, as I'd just as well like to get back into it, if you don't mind. That is, unless you want to dissuade me from going back by offering up a threesome with Hilary Duff? No? Just thought I'd ask, seeing as how it's the end of the world and all.

Played Out: Uncharted

Have you noticed that my "Played Out" and "Something Smells Gamey" series have pretty much overlapped as they've dwindled in frequency? "Played Out" was originally supposed to be my reviews; however, since a majority of my internet time is spent reading others' impressions of games, I constantly feel devoid of fresh input. I can hate or love, or tread the middle, or try to sound smart with my interpretation of a certain game mechanic's manipulation of my interactive psyche; yet in the end, I will simply be another post in the forum, which is the modern way of saying "another fish in the sea"... especially now that the ocean is dying and filling with mercury.

"Something Smells Gamey" on the other hand was intended to deal with video game news, relationships, whatever. Ultimately, though, it's just a really incredible pun, so I think I'm going to use it and it alone for all my game-related columns from now on. Except this one. And maybe some others.

I could have discussed this behind the scenes, sure, and no one would have known or cared. I figured I'd give ya'll a little insight into the blogging industry, though. It's a tough one to get into, and to rise the top you have to have a computer, the internet, and something to say. I have some of those things. For instance:

Uncharted. Ever heard of it? No, I'm not talking about the incredible spice-trading sim Uncharted Waters for the SNES. I speak of the Playstation 3's Uncharted, a series now featuring two games and a possible movie upcoming. It's pretty easy to summarize. Take the adventure of Indiana Jones, make it into a video game, change the name from Tomb Raider to Uncharted, et voila! Oh, and improve upon almost everything Tomb Raider has struggled with the past few years, especially through the addition of gunplay a la Gears of War. And make the big-breasted girl an everyday dude (who's a treasure hunter) who wears his shirt half-tucked.

Nothing too fancy here. In fact, almost every review of Uncharted and its recently-released sequel emphasize how little the series actually does that's new to video games. Yet still the games are praised, and still they deserve it. The storytelling is notably well done; again, not because it's original (I feel like I'm enjoying a less cagey National Treasure-esque popcorn flick), but because it features great voicework atop witty dialogue, smooth cutscenes, and pleasing pacing.

Yeah, National Treasure is being used to compliment here. Deal with it.

Knowing my dad's love of National Treasure (deal), I just started him on the first game. I'd have liked for him to start with the second, which is a much more polished product and importantly includes not only an "easy" mode but an "easiest" mode; however, there were some plot points in the first that I didn't think he'd want to miss out on if he actually ended up enjoying the series. Admittedly, it's been a battle adapting him to the modern game environment. He played a surprising number of shooters in the past, including Perfect Dark and Goldeneye for N64, and every other Bond game for Gamecube. But it's taken me days just to teach him how to turn on a modern console, much less log into his own profile to use his own save slots.

Once he makes it past the start screen, my dad has been liking the game so far. And why shouldn't he? Uncharted features alongside its protagonist a leading lady with spunk and sass, a wizened old partner in crime, an upper class nemesis... all the ingredients to a great summer blockbuster. Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, some producers plan to make the game into a real summer blockbuster. Rumors bounced around just today that Hugh Jackman is being targeted for the main role...

Why? I ask. Uncharted is great because it's a video game emulating everything that we've seen in the Indiana Jones movies. Everything we've seen.... Maybe there are some slightly different story arcs here and there, but this is largely the same stuff Hollywood's been feeding us for years. The reason it's awesome now is because this game is possibly the strongest interactive bridge yet to what has previously been a passive pastime. Transform the active game back into a theater experience and much of its essence is lost.

There are a myriad of reasons that video game movies haven't worked so far. Sometimes the base material is simply adolescent fantasy (Doom). Oftentimes the projects are handed to idiot directors (Uwe Boll, the husband/wife team who directed Super Mario Bros). And sometimes the campy fun of the game canon just shouldn't be repackaged into a consumable good for the mass public to chomp down in 90 minutes (Resident Evil).

I do believe the Prince of Persia future blockbuster will satiate critics and fans alike, courtesy of Jerry Bruckheimer and everyone's fave Iranian actor, Jake Gyllenhaal. The connection will be moot, however, because the film will be indecipherable as a video game movie. It will play up the action and the setting and take the "cool" aspects of a dashing yet rebellious Middle Eastern Indiana Jones, but those pieces aren't what make The Sands of Time so memorable. That game, and its story especially, are great because its focus on time is echoed in its key play gimmick, allowing players to rewind the action when they screw up and die. That device is non-transferable to the screen, so no matter how good or bad the movie is, all it will have to owe its source are malleable story elements non-specific to the gaming medium.


The best game-to-screen translation yet? Television's Super Mario Brothers Super Show, because it provided the perfect character supplement to 8-bit heroes who previously had nothing more than bleeps and bloops. Uncharted already has full-fledged cinematics and talking avatars to accompany the play experience. There is no need to expand.

Is there money to be made in a screen adaptation of Uncharted? Probably, but that's not the point. Everybody's seen Indiana Jones. Not everyone's played it.

Something Smells Gamey: Dreamcast

As few of you who read this blog know, the Sega Dreamcast turned 10 this week. The system was awesomely released on 9/9/99 here in the United States, going on to live a wonderful 1.5 years before production was stopped in March 2001. I never personally owned one, as I was the Nintendo man of the house (my brother picked one up on the cheap years later, with ownership ostensibly passing onto me now that he's into stupid things like girls and education). Yet I was still blown away at the time, especially by the 2K sports games, despite getting beaten by Alberswerth every afternoon on every down on that same stupid pass over the middle to Mark Chmura. God.

On 09/09/09 - the anniversary upon which Sega fans everywhere prayed the Dreamcast 2 would be birthed from the ashes - I chose to reflect in my own way. I booted up Crazy Taxi 2 (which I believe is the original?) and studied every intricacy of its being. What I found was an origins story just begging to be re-envisioned, a la Battlestar: Galactica. For instance, the game takes place in interpretations of New York City called Around Apple and Small Apple. That is so Dreamcast era. The modern gamer is an Assassin's Creed fan who wants more cosmopolitan fare, which is why my version is set in Europe. I've also improved upon the graphics and coated the game in that gritty sepia tone popularized by Gears of War.

Anyway, here's a short video sort of pitching my idea, while at the same time encompassing the entirety of the idea. Many have argued over whether or not games are art. That ends today.

This is my tribute to Crazy Taxi 2, my memorial for the Dreamcast, and my call to arms for jilted cabbies everywhere. Enjoy. And, more importantly, think.

Something Smells Gamey: Puzzle Games

Everybody loves puzzles, right? Nothing better than a brain bender to fill the time, right? I'm not so sure about that.

I mean, I feel RIGHT NOW like life is a big puzzle. It's been almost a week since I first heard of the Leighton Meester sex tape, and I've seen naught but a few screens. How desperately puzzling!


This feeling of loss, coupled with inadequacy at the thought of my body next to hers, well reflects how I feel playing most puzzle games - of which I am herein defining as Tetris, Dr. Mario, Puzzle League, etc. You know, the blocky stuff. I've been stocking up on these types of games ever since I discovered the Goodwill electronics section, as well as another revamped local store I will not name for fear that others will sneak in and purchase goods that are rightfully mine. I've never been that into puzzle games, but how can one rationalize not spending a couple of dollars on a classic like Dr. Mario? It's worth it just for the admiration of your friends, and you can always eat another day.

My problem, summarized, is that these games always end up making me feel dumb. This is because, in terms of puzzle games, I am. I never think ahead to future turns, leaving me architecture riddled with flaws and dissimilarly-colored neighbors. Maybe I'm just a good person and my moral compass dissuades me from ghettoizing individuals based on their shape and hue. Or maybe I just live in the moment too damn much.

Sure, I have fun for a few minutes despite my incompetence, but usually I need a more tangible goal than these games offer. Getting a high score could be that achievement, and modern games like Hexic incorporate the competitiveness of this element excellently online. But few and far between are battery saves on these old carts. Writing down your score on a piece of paper and taping it to the basement wall was the closest you could get...

Hold on. I actually love that. Nothing overwhelms me with nostalgia more than my basement on a musty summer day, when I can smell the house of my most game-inclined childhood friend. I miss the simplicity of that world where new news only existed once a month, with the arrival of Nintendo Power, and outside of that it was just me and my friends competing against the computer and each other. In that world, sometimes, I really could be the best. Now the internet reveals to me immediately how much I suck at everything.

Hold on again, though. In my rambling, I've forgotten that I never actually built these great memories with puzzle games, so I can still legitimately decry their transient scoring systems and prefer a more driven alternative.

Hold on one more time. Maybe memories I've never built are the ones I should most cherish? Perhaps true appreciation can only come from those experiences I have not had? Is this true, Leighton? Are your most intimate memories soon to be mine to take? Or must I continue to rotate the blocks of my own life, until something appropriately phallic takes form?


Leighton...

Something Smells Gamey: Zombies?

Dear friends,

I come to you with grave concern. I do not want our depression to deepen, but I feel it is mine - and every one of our's - responsibility to ask the question: Have we, as a nation, killed too many zombies?

Yes. I do play Left 4 Dead twice a week, assisting in the death of over 1,000 zombies each campaign. (No, I may not kill as many zombies as my friends, but that's because I provide valuable support on an emotional, physical, virtual, and allegorical level.)

Yes. My most anticipated purchase in the next few months is Resident Evil 5, the next entry in the premier zombie gaming franchise. (No, I have not however pre-ordered the $90 collector's edition.)

Yes. I was as involved as any man in the rise of zombie nation, posting a quote from Max Brooks' Zombie Survival Guide on my facebook wall as early as 2005. (No, I don't necessarily recommend it as anything other than a coffee table book.)

So what, then, is the problem?

Just as Death Cab music flooded the radio when they signed with that one label, so have zombies flooded our social conscience. I would estimate that more citizens now have zombie apocalypse plans laid out than they do retirement plans, and this is as annoying as it is cute.

Yes. Zombies are fun, and still as relevant as they ever were to whatever (Bridging the gap of life and death? Allowing us to shoot humans?). No, they are not immune to oversaturation.

We need to back off, people, before they truly bite into our national neck, transforming us into the meandering automatons their creation purportedly refutes.

A zombie joke here and there may be fun, but I propose that we make a collected attempt not to reference zombies in daily, or even weekly conversation. Heck, menstruation is monthly, and we all know that's a bit too frequent.

Of course, when partaking in activities that directly include zombies (such as abovesaid games), this rule is flexible.

Besides, I fear the zombie allure is already dead. Or undead, as it were.

See my point?

Something Smells Gamey: Stories at Their End

Education - especially in this era of standardized testing - relishes in formula. Math and science by nature do exist within these rigid boundaries, but even liberal arts programs persuade kids that all essays should be written the same way – an introduction, 3 body supports, and a conclusion. All narratives should see their protagonists overcome obstacles. And all settings should be described in detail, leaving the mind closed to interpretation. Any time these standards are questioned, the realm of art takes over – with the purposeful rejection of standards offering the most simple canvas for our past, present, and modern rebellion.

Surely with this groundwork pounded into our being, every tangible tale of human interest been portrayed to success in some medium, so why do fans of the new games medium become so wrapped up in stories that are admittedly amateur? The Resident Evil series tells of an “Umbrella Corporation” that is experimenting on humans with zombie viruses, with each installment introducing its players to characters caught in an unnecessarily-compliated plot that really just boils down to “being in scary situations is scary.” Society has struggled with death forever, so why are these stories now more relevant than history's more robust looks at mortality (e.g., The House of the Dead that is not a game or game-based movie)? The easy answer is that they are new, and each generation wants to believe its own culture is unique. The more complex - but equally easy to arrive at – conclusion is that by giving the consumer a level of interaction, the experience takes on an entirely different quality.

Individuals who enjoy video games are able to gain some sense of achievement from them. Although in-game deaths have minimal real world consequences (despite arguments from the many things my frustration has broken), they threaten to limit narrative progression. Even Tetris allows simple story of progress to build in a player’s mind, and that story is quantified – just like teacher wanted – in the score box in the corner. There is an end; that end is success; if you win, you have absorbed some level of meaning. If you fail, your life is pitiful. Good/bad job!

I started thinking about all this abstractness while playing the latest Prince of Persia, and not in the good way. While I do like the game and love the atmosphere offered by painted desert castles, I can’t help but think its story – pitting an evil god versus a good one – is trying too hard. Yes, that premise seems about as fundamental as they come, but the problem is that the game threatens to build up mythology where it isn’t necessary. I can appreciate “good versus evil” just fine, but when I know that there is a Prince of Persia movie coming and that the producers may be looking to establish a platform for the launching of expanded, Lord of the Rings-esque complexity, the simpler charms are overshadowed.

Going back to Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2003), the difference in story execution is obvious. In that game, the story unfolds as if you are being told it by the prince himself. He narrates as you wander the environment, asks if you’d like him to leave when you pause or exit the game, and stutters, “No, no. That’s not how the story goes,” when you fall to your spike-impaled death. You're never taken out of the experience, so even though it is again a very basic tale of greed, love, self-reconciliation, and all those themes that just keep disrupting hedonism century after century, it actually feels as if you are driving the story to its ultimate, expected conclusion. Of course good will win if you win. Bad is only victorious when the writer wants to be different, or in real life… you know, non-entertaining stuff.

I suppose I overstepped my bounds by blaming the dearth of narrative originality on schools. First of all, they’re underfunded. Second of all, letting stupid kids and their mushy brains work without form would most often result in unrecognizable explanations of The Scarlet Letter. And third of all, they’re just making sure we understand the role society has set apart for culture. Like anything else, culture is a comfort that has already developed in substance about as far as it can. Future advancements are simply variations on the theme.

Something Smells Gamey: Home

Thesis: Humans do not partner up and have babies in order to continue their own lineage. They do so out of their own selfish desire to create a home.

Research Methodology: Meet a female; court said female; ask if she would like to ride bareback.

Conclusion: Impossible to determine, given disinterest in leaving basement.

******************

The outside world - or at least its cities and suburbs - represents a landscape almost unscaleable in video games unless you're packing more heat than physically possible or you're driving a car that instantly reconstructs itself after being wrecked in a killer street race. This is how most of today's visionaries portray society's ostensibly exciting locales, and, whether they know it or not, they're right. Fear drives us to the cities - fear of loneliness, fear of missing out on youth's indiscretions, fear of settling for a comfortable shepherding career instead of fighting with other douchebags to get that client... In the end, we must fight the world nurturing this fear the only way we legally can - by virtually blowing it up and outracing the cops.

Lately, though, I've found my most cathartic gaming experiences dwell closer to the shepherding side of the fence. Fable II - a high fantasy single player experience set in the idyllic medieval era that probably never existed - does indeed feature guns and swords and all that good video game stuff. However, it also allows you the opportunity to have a family, and awards you the greatest friend of all in a treasure-finding dog.


Transitioning to the first person, I felt most heroic when traversing the countryside with my faithful companion Cocoa, clearing evil from forests that - while as full of evil as any city (if not more so, given the shadows lent to thieves by trees and caves) - represented a natural obstacle. The problems in cities have largely been created by humanity's own shortcomings, and even working to restore these problems rarely grants the clarity captured in even a single summer's day. Forests are supposed to be filled with plants that can poison us and animals that can kill us. That's one reason we accept the call of community to begin with. But that doesn't detract from the pure joy of living a hero's tale strapped in the singular might of nature. When an enchanted door in Fable II asked me to exhibit true love, and upon my doing so it opened to present to me a country cottage completely protected from danger, where the sky moved above my head at a dream-inspired pace... I sighed comfortably. That is the kind of reward I want.

This story takes a sad turn, unfortunately, because I gave into my completionist desires and started doing everything the game rules allowed. I slaughtered a village. I changed my sex. I completely lost touch with who I was. Disgusted with myself, I no longer felt as if I even deserved the cottage. My virtual wife felt the same, divorcing me and taking our two sons with her. Was she upset with my loss of morality? Or was the loss of my genitalia the greater problem? Only the forest truly knows...

And so I've returned to Super Mario Galaxy, where another home awaits me. This one is completely fabricated - a Disney-fied overworld where nymphy little stars coo at my very passing. But I love it, because it hearkens to a place my mind and many others have grown comfortable calling some kind of home - the Mushroom Kingdom. In actuality, very little of the game takes place in that benevolent dictatorship; but the aura is comparative. Galaxy takes you to the celestial hub inhabited by Rosalina, a beauty who longs for nothing more than her own mother. The rooms on her starstation are the rooms all we Westerners expect to have in our child-strewn futures - a kitchen, a bedroom, a garden. Rosalina's children, meanwhile, are the stars themselves, and isn't that exactly what we want our own children to be? Surely this is why we encourage them to head out to the city until they realize for themselves how meaningless the outside world is without somewhere to call... you know.


Only once it's gone, or is in the process of going, will children realize what they have left and become desperate enough to create their own. Fable II and Super Mario Galaxy successfully emote the feelings that go into such creation, and who's to say these feelings are any more virtual or real than those we claim outside the console? Not I, says the man who reads way too far into video games for the purpose of writing something interesting and legitimizing his obsession.

Oh, I'm also currently playing Resident Evil: Code Veronica, where I just visited an Antarctican lab facility filled with zombies. It's fun.