Friday, May 27, 2005

Does pee cause spores to grow?

Despite the fact they run one of my favorite sites on the internet, I do not like to actually talk about Penny Arcade too often in this space. For one, they are far larger than the humble site you are currently reading. Though I stayed as far away as possible from the much too loud and somewhat depressing South Hall during my voyage to LA, Nick has confirmed that the line to see the fine folks at Penny Arcade extended for more than two hours. Considering my solitary table quietly advertising the chance to meet "The Guy Who Hates EA" and "The Lone Soul Who Never Lost Faith in Rare" didn't draw one visitor (not even Nick who was looking for that girl gamer Kat Hunter again), one could say I have a tiny bit of envy towards the creators of the tri-weekly gaming comic. However hesitantly, I am going to draw attention to their post today because it speaks to me in a way their daily updates on Guild Wars simply do not. Also, it is a large enough topic that one could place a label on gamers as a whole and divide them in two unique camps: Those who enjoy the Will Wright experience and those who do not.

For those who are unaware of the portfolio this video game visionary has created during his run let me just give you a quick run-through - Sim City, The Sims, and the upcoming evolution sim (notice a trend here?) Spore. As Tycho mentioned on PA today, these programs can only be considered games in the loosest sense of the word. There is no linear progression to speak of. There is no ending goal. There is nothing guiding you through the rigors of the game. If you have little imagination or knowledge you will probably only see a tiny fraction of what the game has to offer. With a game like Super Mario Bros, if you hold right long enough and hit A enough times you will eventually see every inch of that magnificent title. With a completely open ended game like Sim City, in which you not only are asked to build an entire city but have the power to deploy the fire department to take out that nasty space spider while trying to decide how much power to devote to the football stadium and whether the slums really deserve clean water, there is a good chance that the average gamer will never even scratch the surface of what they have to offer.

In his post, Tycho hypothesizes that Gabe may be alone in not appreciating the greatness that is Mr. Wright. I guess it's time I went on record and state that I, too, suffer from the same short sightedness. I cannot play games without a definable goal. I generally get so bogged down in the potential that I lose my focus completely and move on to a more immediately rewarding experience. Essentially, I love playing games but I hate having to make my own fun through them. I want the developers to hold my hand, walk me to a certain section, tell me the best and most fun way to interact with that environment, and let me go to town. That's my kind of game. You can see how this strays from Will Wright's formula of fun.

In a broader context, this is the main reason why I have grown away from the Grand Theft Auto series. While there is a real goal and concrete objectives in every title, much of the fun in the GTA experience is from causing your own chaos. It's from simply stealing a car and doing a drive by of your own, or trying to drive your motorcycle up a fire escape, or meticulously creating a huge pileup at an intersection. The people who love these games are able to immerse themselves in the fictitious world so they can laugh with glee when they beat down a random passerby on the street. I never developed empathy for these 25 polygon human looking models so I never found any joy in beating them about the neck and face with a dildo.

Of course, my need for a strict gaming experience will not hold me back from buying Nintendogs in August. I mean, have you seen how cute the dogs are? Who needs a goal to build to when you can play tug-o-war with an imaginary German Sheppard puppy named Jules Dinosaur?

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

E3 - After the Laughter

E3 is a fairly bizarre experience. On the one hand, it tries it's hardest to be taken seriously, with media relations booths and press kits everywhere. On the other, everyone who has ever seen a video game is allowed into the show, and the most knowledgeable person within earshot of a game is the accompanying booth babe. The 'appointments' that we had at the show were great though, and getting a demonstration of a game by someone who is actually working on it is an entirely different experience. Even the folks at EA were nice as can be, putting all of their black little hearts into convincing us that Godfather will be a good game. Oh, and we met Those Damned Machines. Good guys.

Another highlight for me were the conferences I attended; the first was "Think different and (still) succeed: Finding success with games that fall outside the familiar", with Ted Price (CEO of Insomniac - Ratchet & Clank) moderating and Jack Emmert (Cryptic Studios - City of Heroes), Tom Fulp (The Behemoth - Alien Hominid), Atsushi Inaba (Clover Studios - Viewtiful Joe, Okami), and Peter Molyneux (Lionhead Studios - Black & White, Fable) on the panel. Just seeing these guys in person was cool enough, but they were really informative and hilarious as well. The conference started out with Jack (wearing a cape) saying to Peter: "So, there wasn't really anything original in Fable, was there?". Hilarious, and Peter took it really well. I also enjoyed when Tom told us that a publisher had refused Alien Hominid because of it's "irresponsible" art style.

The second one was "Genre blending: Careening beyond the status quo toward new levels of innovation", moderated by Richard Rouse III (Surreal Software - The Suffering), with Lorne Lanning (Oddworld - Oddworld games), Yoot Saito (Vivarium - Seaman, Odama), Alex Ward (Criterion - Burnout), and Greg Zeschuk (Bioware - KOTOR, Jade Empire) on the panel. Alex was obviously really passionate about the games that Criterion makes, and spent a good ten minutes explaining why they're basing the new Burnout on golf, whereas the last one was based on bowling. He's also about as charming as Brits get, which kept the crowd (or at least Tom and I) quite entertained. When Richard asked the audience who knew what Odama was before asking Yoot a question, literally only Tom and I raised out hands, having played it earlier that day and the day before. Turns out said military pinball game is based on something that happened in Japan decades ago: a bunch of criminals holed themselves up in a mountain and barricaded the door, so the police ended up having to borrow a wrecking ball from the nearest construction yard to bash it in. The conference was more entertaining then educational, but it was definitely a nice break from the exhaustive floor, and seeing gaming celebrities is always fun.

Before I forget, the best moment of the entire show:

(I'm near the Insomniac booth, talking to Ted Price, CEO of the company that has created some of my favorite platformers ever, and is big shit)

Me: "So, did the Ratchet & Clank series influence the development of I-8 (PS3 exclusive) at all?"

Ted: "No, but.." (interrupted by Tom walking up)

Tom (to Me); "So guess who won the Jak X tournament?" (looks at Ted, deadpan) "Hey." (looks back at me smiling)

Ted: *starts walking away*

Suffice it to say, Tom doesn't know most gaming folk by what they look like, and apparently didn't question why the man I was talking to was wearing a suit. Hilarious.

Tune in tomorrow for my impressions of every game I played at the show. For now, the completed Katamari:


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