Category Archives: Video Games

A few words on why I can’t be bothered to care about the new Star Trek movie

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Look. I liked the J.J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek just as much as the next sweaty dork at the cineplex. It was great to get a glimpse of Kirk and Bones and Spock kicking ass as young dudes, and learn how they all came to be on the same starship. For as imaginatively interesting as the film was, I still somehow don’t think the story made a whole lot of sense: this is a separate timeline?…and Vulcan has been destroyed by a guy who is pissed off because his wife died?…and wait, does this mean that all the old Star Trek canon is no longer valid…or that we’re in a separate timeline (Edit: I’m so confused I had to ask twice)? I give up.

In any event this new movie, Star Trek: Into Darkness is coming out and it’s got the guy from that BBC show that’s kind of turned into the Game of Thrones for PBS junkies. That’s all great and stuff, but here’s my problem. Retconning.

In the past ten years we’ve seen about a dozen series get “rebooted” in a similar way. James Bond, Iron Man, Batman, Spider Man (twice!), Star Trek, the Alien franchise, and a bunch of lesser franchises that I don’t especially care about have all gone back to their “source material” to find a fresh start. Bungie also successfully reexamined the longstanding series of Halo video games with Halo: Reach. In some instances this has been great. Casino Royale was possibly the best Bond movie I’ve seen, though the two that followed were somewhat mediocre (Edit: actually, Skyfall was awful). Spiderman was relatively successful with both of its reboots (though in some ways they were essentially the same goddamned movie). All three Batman movies were pretty amazing. Iron Man was less successful in its second installment, and I don’t think I need to go into what a disaster I thought Prometheus was.

The issue I have with returning to source material in this way is that, in the case of Star Trek and Prometheus, you get a lot of unnecessary and often unfortunate retconning that jampacks the story with all kinds of narrative complexity it doesn’t need. The other problem is that, in a series where there is a considerable amount of existing canonical material (in particular with Prometheus and Star Trek), you run into the problem of sapping drama from the story: we know what comes after, so in some sense what is about to happen in whatever we’re watching is essentially inconsequential, so it had better damned well be interesting on some other level.

The first Star Trek movie failed to do this. There was a villain, but really his story didn’t add anything to the movie as a whole. Spock’s arc was confusing as all get out, and Kirk was established as the guy who bangs alien women and punches alien dudes.

Of all these returns, Halo: Reach was, to my mind, the most successful, largely because it experimented (in somewhat embryonic form) with tragedy as a subject for the story of a video game. They even telegraphed this in their marketing campaign, stating “From the beginning, you know the end,” which is the essence of the tragic mode. A franchise like Star Trek can’t play into that, because it is the nature of a franchise to endure, and to continue generating more and more entertainment, more Happy Meal toys, more revenue. If that’s the case, why not just keep moving forward, instead? If the story is in a rut, break free in other ways. Don’t look to the past. Seriously, Hollywood, just stop already. I’ve had enough.

So, yeah, this new Star Trek movie, whatever it’s called. I know that Spock and Kirk survive into the future, because (thanks to all the canonical material) it’s a foregone conclusion. So there had better be something else to draw me in, and, alas, the “newness” you’re injecting by re-imagining the command deck of the Enterprise won’t cut it. We’ve already seen that. You’re going to have to do better.

[Bioware and the Mass Effect development team: If you're listening, this applies triply to you. I'm serious. Do not go back to the First Contact War. I will still buy your stupid game, but I will hate it.]

Cool stuff that I actually like

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If you’re anything like me, and I know you are, then you like stuff about spaceships. Spaceships shooting at stuff, and flying around, and sometimes blowing up. A few days ago, I was messing around on concept ships and I came across some artwork by James Francis. You can see it here. Most of the art you’ll find there is for video games, but Francis’ work is part of a webcomic he’s been working on, in his spare time, for the last several years.

The comic, Outsider, was originally meant to be seven chapters long, though it appears it might end up being shorter. The good news is that, especially if you’re new to the series, there’s a ton of material to read and look at, and regarding the question as to whether you will see any spaceships blowing up, the answer is a resounding yes.

Oh, there’s also a story, which I won’t spoil for you here, but there’s plenty of other stuff going on: galactic intrigue and the like. In fact, the worldbuilding is so comprehensive, he’s gone and invented an entire language with its own grammar and the like, to fit part of the backstory. Yeah. It’s pretty amazing.

Check it out by clicking on the banner below:

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You’ll probably zip right through the roughly one hundred pages he’s already created, and find yourself wanting more. Updates come somewhat slowly, and he’s accepting donations. In any event, it’s nice to see someone using their skills in a way that’s so thoroughly satisfying. Good work, Mr. Francis. Here’s hoping you don’t stop after just two chapters!

Also, game developers, if you’re paying attention at all, his story would probably make a pretty good game. Just a suggestion, now that Mass Effect is over.

 

Mass Effect returns to Omega

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(Image: Mass Effect Wiki)

Obligatory spoiler warning.

Back at the end of August when it came time to describe the most recent downloadable episode for Mass Effect 3, Steven Totilo wrote that he found it both, “short [and] well-made,” while at the same time pointing out that this newest adventure (playable at any point in the story, before Shepard launches her attack on Cerberus headquarters), ”may exhaust your interest in Commander Shepard even as it suggests a variety of fun possible futures for games in the Mass Effect universe.”[1] I stepped into Leviathan wondering how this could possibly be true, and yet having played through the episode, I can certainly see what Totilo means. Mass Effect, or better said, Commander Shepard’s story within that universe, had ended for me several months earlier, when I played through the revised ending that has apparently delayed all other DLC by several months. It was hard to feel as though the story, which held several interesting revelations about the ME universe, still wasn’t something extra. Not unwanted, but certainly not necessary for my understanding or enjoyment of the story. (I feel differently about the From Ashes[2] storyline, but that’s a different discussion.) Having played through Omega, I imagine that many players will feel the same way about this new story DLC as Totilo did about Leviathan.

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Skyrim: Domestication of the Dragonborn

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A few days ago, when I was in the middle of doing a bit of B&E to steal the finer possessions of the law-abiding citizens of Solitude, I paused to tell Lydia, my partner in crime to wait in the basement kitchen. She sucks at sneaking around. What’s odd is that before I could even ask her, she said, “Hey, you’re wearing an Amulet of Mara. I’m surprised someone as hot as you isn’t already taken.” Or something like that.

Lydia and I had been taking on the countryside, from Riften to Solitude for the better part of six weeks, all the way from the middle of Last Seed, all the way through the beginning of Frostfall. Now she wants to get married? What did I say? I said yes.

Down to Riften we went. On our wedding day, Lydia said, “I feel as though all of Skyrim is watching us.” Well maybe not. Hardly anyone showed up for the ceremony. It didn’t matter. We went back home, to our drafty little Breezehome, and started our life together. Only what’s this? Lydia doesn’t want to go out adventuring any more? She wants to open a shop? For a hundred gold every day, I’ll make do, and find another follower. Meanwhile, you keep farmin’ that gold, babe.

As for followers, I only had one choice. A long while back, we’d encountered a woman named Eola, whom I’d ultimately helped fulfill her weird cannibalistic ritual, by clearing out a dungeon and then bringing her some gullible dude. I’d even munched on the flesh of said dude. Which is all pretty messed up, but you know, freedom of religion and all that. I went and found her. She was still hiding out where I’d left her, and I told her to grab her gear because we were heading out on an adventure.

Lots of adventures, it turned out. In Skyrim everyone’s got problems, and so talking to people involves doing stuff like delivering messages from one town to the next, killing bandits who are shaking down travelers, and listening to every bartender’s demo tape. Just to test things out we went out into the countryside for a while, and roughed up a few wolves, tried to take down a giant (and failed), and had to run for our lives. Later we set out on a few more difficult errands, like locating the Nettlebane, and getting a few drops of healing sap from the Eldergleam tree.

Which is where we first started encountering problems. Eola liked to fight by summoning otherworldly creatures. I accidentally hit one during a fight, and she started attacking me. After a minute I figured out how to calm her down, but that was startling. A few days later, we were doing a hard climb up the side of a mountain in a snowstorm. We’d been looking for a way up to the Eldersblood Peak for two days, and had (I thought) finally found it. In another minute we were on an open slope, and the next thing I knew, the dragon we’d been looking for found us first. It was a tough fight, but we’d whittled it down to the point where it had only a little health left. I took a step back and fired off a double ice spike.

I thought we’d won, because as I let the ice fly, I got one of those cool animations, which—in particular at night—are often hard to decipher. Which is to say, I was a bit surprised after the animation ran, that the dragon kept coming. I hadn’t killed it. I’d killed Eola.

So I finished off the dragon myself, there being not much left to do. I searched for a while for Eola’s body, but she was entirely gone. I climbed the rest of the mountain myself. Dawn was breaking as I climbed up through the worst of the storm, and emerged into a gray dawn fog, through which I could, when looking off to the east, I could almost make out my hometown of Whiterun.

After a bit of solitary adventuring I picked up another follower, Mjoll the Lioness, another sword flailing badass, though altogether too talkative. It made me miss Eola, and her one freaky white eye, and her quiet demeanor.

So a few days ago, all of a sudden, I was exploring Windhelm for the first time, when a little kid comes up to me, offering to sell a few items. People don’t usually come up to the Dragonborn in Skyrim, because, well, the Dragonborn does only two things: chew gum, and cut people’s heads off. And gum doesn’t exist in Skyrim. But this kid needs to sell her trinkets so she can buy food. After letting out her little orphan cough, she tells me that her parents are dead, and all of a sudden, I get the option to adopt her. Only I can’t do it, because my house doesn’t have a second bedroom for a kid to live in.

Next thing I know, I’m running back home to set up a room. I don’t even bother to listen to Lydia, who’s trying to hand me my share of the gold she’s earned. Next morning I’m back in Windhelm, looking for the kid. It’s early in the morning, and there aren’t many people out. After a little searching, I find the kid, curled up against the city wall, sleeping out in the open. When I come near, she sits up and says, “I’m so cold.”

Next thing you know, I’m in Whiterun, hanging out at home, and playing tag with my adoptive kid, and frantically wondering where I might find a doll, or a wooden sword to give them to play with. All of a sudden that’s become more important than finding Alduin’s wall.

Skyrim. In some ways it’s just like real life.

 

Mass Effect Trilogy

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Well, well! I don’t know if I’ll actually buy this (probably not), but damn this looks kind of cool. Get all three games, in one package.

As happy as I am to see this, and as happy as I am to learn that ME 3 is probably going to get another single-player episode, probably before Thanksgiving, I think I feel pretty good about where things ended up for Commander Shepard. I tried all the endings offered at the end of the extended cut, I played through a second time on Insanity. I mean, I’ll probably play the new DLC, which is rumored to take us to Omega, but I doubt I’ll be up at five in the morning, downloading it so I can play for a minute or two before going to work, the way I did with “Lair of the Shadow Broker.” I’m not done with Mass Effect. I’m not done with the universe, but the trilogy that Bioware made has, finally, told the story I needed it to. That’s all I ever asked from it.

Reenactment

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Plimouth Plantation is one of those reenactor colonies where people dress the part and talk in an old timey fashion. The day I went, the weather was perfect, kind of gray, kind of spooky. Their version of the English colony sits on top of a hill, amid a bunch of woods, and when I got there, the more it felt like I was entering a familiar place.

I couldn’t help but feel reminded of a visit to Whiterun in Skyrim. And also Riverwood, I suppose. I half expected one of the reenactors to come up to me and say, “I used to be a camp counselor like you, until I took an arrow in the knee.”

Sometimes I wonder if there’s a kind of similar draw, between a game like Skyrim and a place like Plimouth Plantation, to see life going on as always, as though nothing ever changes whether you’re there or not.

Run fast, run fancy

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A few years ago, I spent a good amount of time messing around with Brad Borne’s Fancy Pants games, Worlds I and II. They’re great little games, little self-contained gems that have a very distinctive, whimsical kind of art style, as well as great music, and game physics that veer between Newtonian and quantum. Both games took the standard side-scrolling plaformer and twisted them, giving them a huge map, a good bit of humor, an amusing story, and a game world, so thoroughly imagined, that I often fell to my death while looking at the scenery.

The maps were designed to be explored. What’s more, is this exploration paid off. Often in the levels, you would find a hidden doorway, which, when opened led you into another, new, and strange world. These excursions in turn unlocked access to the various websites of artists and Flash animators who have had an influence on Borne’s work, and many of these were the sort of beautiful, amazing things, hidden in plain view on the internet, and which I would never have found on my own.

Several years have passed between now and then, and in the meantime, Borne worked with DICE on a two-dimensional version of Mirror’s Edge, which was also a real hoot to play, if somewhat more grounded in the real world. A few days ago, I was very happy to learn that there’s now a Fancy Pants Adventures available for iOS, and at the whopping price of less than a dollar, it seemed worth exploring.

I’m rather pleased I decided to check this game out. The first thing you’ll notice is that Borne’s style has evolved. He now includes interiors. You’ll run up to a doorway, and all of a sudden the front of the building will fade away, as you run in side, revealing more layers, more animations, and more stuff to explore. The game, too, has added new baddies, so in addition to spiders and the evil, handgun wielding mice, you’ll find different kinds of frogs, bats, pirates, and maybe even more (I’ve only made it to the fourth level). These are all clever additions. Alongside the new baddies, this adventure introduces water and swimming. It’s here that you’ll find new animations that show the designer really has thought of almost everything (for instance, swim backwards and Fancy Pants Man will start doing the backstroke; if you’re moving quickly along the surface, and then stop, your character will skate along the surface, as though he’s water skiing).

In addition to new gameplay, there’s a new game mode called Fancy Pants Arcade, which I haven’t tried out yet. There are other side challenges that involve collecting certain objects, time trials, and a few other “quests” hidden behind doors. All of these are imbued with the game’s characteristic humor. (Look for the mad squirrel in the third level.)

The gameplay hasn’t changed that much. You’ll still find the same kinds of jumps, platforms, curved surfaces, and springs that launch you to different areas of the map. None of these games would have worked, if the gameplay hadn’t been so effective. I’ve played other platformers in the past, but what’s always been arresting about Fancy Pants, is the way the physics, a good part of which is based on preservation of angular momentum, often gave me that same falling sensation you get during the first moments of a roller-coaster ride. In particular, the way the game uses space–you can’t see the entire map all at once–leaves you feeling exposed, the way you would, standing on the ledge of a building, or walking a tightrope.

I’m still figuring out the controls, and I’d have to say, the iOs control scheme will probably never work as well as a keyboard for something like this. It’s a small quibble, for something that is as beautifully designed as this. This one is safe for kids, but it’s good for the kid in all of us. Bravo.

A weird observation from Mass Effect 3

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(Source: Gamezone)

So anyone who reads this page, all one of you, knows that I’m a huge nut for the Mass Effect series. For those who don’t remember, see my earlier pieces on Indoctrination Theory below. I still don’t quite know quite where my thinking is on certain aspects of the ending. I like it a good deal. I like the whole game a good deal. But I also don’t quite agree with Steven Totilo, who thinks that Mass Effect 3 is a thirty-five hour ending to the game. I’ll get to that later.

Right now, I wanted to mention something about the little boy we see in the opening sequence of the game. Earlier I’d stated that when Shepard finds him in the ventilation duct, it’s hard to tell whether it’s plausible for the two to meet up, given that we don’t really know what direction Shepard is coming from, or where the rooftop the boy was playing is in relation to the window Shepard was looking out at first. I’m actually inclined to say that Shepard’s window faces west, in part because her room has a view of the left side of a well known Vancouver landmark (the cruise ship terminal shaped like tipis). The windows of the tribunal chamber face the same direction, as we can tell, from where Shepard ends up when she and Anderson drop onto the ledge, when cutscenes finally give way to gameplay. So the boy is likely on the same side of the building.

Here’s where things get weird, though. Shepard and Anderson pick their way along the ledge, mounting the roof, and coming back down. As they do this, the player, if they were to look to the right, and down a little, can see the terrace where you end up after engaging your first group of enemies. Careful examination of the terrace shows that it’s pretty inaccessible. There isn’t much of a ledge leading onto it, and parts of the building are destroyed and on fire. As Shepard progresses toward the terrace, I made a point of watching it for signs of movement. (Earlier I’d observed the shapes of people running across a parking lot, on the street down below, and I guess I was looking for further details like that.) I hadn’t noticed this on my first playthrough, but this time I saw the boy race across the area, open the door, and vanish inside. It happens very quickly and is easy to miss. So much so, that I had to reload my game several times and replay the segment to be sure of what I was seeing. Here I noticed something else interesting: the boy spawns in a weird spot: right at the railing, which is to say, at the place where it’s least likely he could have climbed up (even your enemies, who seem to be able to climb vertical surfaces, came from a different spot).

Entering the room, I made sure to look into the ventilation duct, which is somewhat difficult because Shepard can’t crouch unless she needs to. In any case, I couldn’t see the boy hiding there.

So again, this raises some questions for me. Why not just spawn the boy inside the duct to begin with? Causing him to spawn on the terrace seems to indicate we were meant to see him running for cover.  But does that also mean that we were meant to see him appear out of thin air as well? It’s very odd, and frankly, seeing the boy appear on the balcony gave me both a thrill of discovery and a little shudder, the kind you get when you experience an example of the uncanny.

Show me your Shepard

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These are my four favorites.

EDIT: I didn’t notice this at first, but while BroShep is pretty multiracial looking, all three of the women look pretty similar, except for the hair. Also, I have no idea why the third Shep is so cross-eyed. She looked really weird when I finally imported her (after being totally awesome for two games), so I had to mod her a good deal. I think ME 3 has a different head model.

Also, the last one is the one you shouldn’t mess with. She will ruin your day if you do.