Anjin Unleashed

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Immersion has been a hot topic in the game blogging community of late, especially since Wolfshead's post about his lack of immersion in World of Warcraft. Tipa from West Karana made an excellent point that echoes my feelings as well. It has all been talked to death. However the topic rose from the grave again in an interesting way recently on The Idle Thumbs Podcast.

In episode four, they was a long discussion about sandbox games inspired by the recently released Just Cause 2. Chris Remo said that he liked sandboxes more when the game narrative supports all of the chaos they all players to make. Since the story of Just Cause 2 revolves around destabilizing a government, you can go completely nuts and the story doesn't dissolve.

On the other side, Steve Gaynor brought up Grand Theft Auto IV (which is why I'm talking about this at all). He said that he prefers actively avoided gratuitous random violence specifically because he did not want to break the narrative arc of the game. He knew that, so long as he played the game within those constraints that he would have a better overall experience. That summed up my experience with the game in a nutshell.

For people like Chris, GTA IV failed as a sandbox because the narrative didn't support what they specifically wanted to do in the game. But for Steve and myself, our willingness to play within the guidelines set my the story allowed us to avoid such dissonance with the narrative. We were immersed in the game because we were playing along with the designers' intentions, not subverting them.

Immersion is contingent on a willing suspension of disbelief. The game can only do so much of the job for you. It's perfectly valid if you decide not to participate. But you should not blame the game because you are not willing or no longer able to meet the game halfway.

Every once in a while, I have the urge to play a game that not very many people liked just to see for myself. My masochistic side coming out, I suppose. Nonetheless, sometimes I just have to make the decision for myself. After finishing Prince Of Persia, I discovered that I didn't have any other Xbox 360 games that I wanted to played. (No, I haven't tried Fable II. No, I'm not sure I care.) My wife very patiently went with me to the local GameStop where I found a copy of Brutal Legend for only eighteen dollars.

The best thing about the game is that it really can be funny. I enjoyed the humor quite a bit. Double Fine went out of their way to put a lot of fun in the game and I enjoyed roaming all of the world in search of it. The story line was pretty good too. It did a good job of making me want to push through to the ending in spite of the game's shortcomings.

The main (and only shortcoming, I say) is the stage battles. It is certainly an interesting idea, giving you control of an RTS battle while staying in your action game point of view. The problem is that it is all too chaotic for it to be satisfying. You have to pay attention to the RTS stuff or you will lose. But at the same time you don't have the control necessary to make it feel like you're really doing anything. That said, I never lost a stage battle until the very last one. And that one I lost because I didn't figure out the gimmick and how to pull it off right until a few tries in.

I think part of draw of the game for me was how much that heavy metal culture was drilled into me as a child. Even without buying the albums, I could not escape the imagery or the music. It all made such an impression on me that the game world made me smile constantly. That sensibility gives it a unique quality that made me want to explore it fully.

I dove into Brutal Legend on a Friday night and finished the campaign the following Sunday. Even with that, it did not feel too short. I just could not stop myself from wanting to see what happens next. If you haven't tried it yet, you owe it to yourself see at least the good parts of the game. Like myself, you might find yourself pleasantly surprised.

In a completely non-ironic way, I have to recommend that you check out Robot Unicorn Attack. It's a very simple affair. You hit the Z key to jump or double jump or the X key to dash. It plays much like Canabalt with the same breakneck pace, but with slightly more control over metallic fantasy beast. And behind it all plays the perfectly chosen theme, Always by Erasure. It is completely insane and completely awesome. I'm not kidding.

By way of Blue Kae's blog, we get news that Scarybooster is having a Developer Appreciation Week. But instead of making him do all the work, we all need to pitch in and participate. Developers take a lot of pain and poison throughout the year, so spending one day to thank them is the least I can do.

This is going to be a group award because I don't feel qualified to single out one person from the many people responsible for this game. My appreciation today goes to the team at ArenaNet, both past and present.

Guild Wars was the first online game that I ever played. Prior to that, I read all about games like Ultima Online and Everquest with growing degrees of excitement. These new virtual fantasy worlds sounded amazing to me. I wanted to be a part of that. At the same time, though, subscribing to a game still freaked me out. Nowadays, I think nothing of dropping fifteen a month to access Azeroth or Middle-Earth or New Eden. But it was a huge barrier to me trying those games. When ArenaNet told us that once you bought the box, you could play as long as the servers were up, that was enough get me to try it out. And they have stuck to their guns ever since

Okay, so the cost wasn't the only factor. The other side of the coin was the art ArenaNet was putting out about the game. I think it was the Mesmer image that sold me. I jsut had to try out a game with such great looking characters. Guild Wars is a beautiful game even now, and it has the most amazing and varied world to adventure in.

Many thanks to the men and women of ArenaNet. You opened my eyes to the wider world of online gaming, dominated my imagination for a couple years, showed us all that you don't have to fall in lockstep with the competition just to make a quick buck.

The day many (Several? Some?) people have been waiting for has finally arrived. The Revelation expansion has launched for Champions Online. Free for all subscribers, all you have to do is log in, download the patch, and you're ready for Vibora Bay. Assuming you're reached level 37, of course. (How's that coming, Blue Kae?)

I already patched the game this morning before work so I'd be ready to play tonight. I guess I'll have to take some time off from the old Xbox 360 to investigate the new zone. I hope to see a few familiar face back in the game soon.

As an aside, we know (or can safely assume) the Cryptic would love to start charging for these expansion size patches. While they backed down on Revelation, they can't live on subscription fees and C-Store transactions if they want to grow the game. Since the coming Adventure Packs are supposed to be free, will that grease the communities wheels enough to let Cryptic charge for the next expansion?

EDIT: If you didn't catch it live (like me), check out the latest Cryptic Dev Chat. Lost of good info popping up.