Final Fantasy is a gaming franchise most people are aware of. At one point, it was considered the pinnacle of JRPGs and almost synonymous with the term. Nowadays, the franchise and its creators, Square-Enix, are not held in such high esteem. While the exact point that it began is incredibly debatable, recent Final Fantasy titles have not been as well received by their audience. In particular, Final Fantasy XIII was extremely divisive. Some really enjoyed the new combat system because it added a new strategic element to the game while others felt that the game was being played for them by the AI. Some enjoyed the story because the characters were well-developed and interesting and others hated the characters and how forced the ending appeared to be. However, there is one element that most people agree on and dislike: Final Fantasy XIII felt much more linear than its predecessors. This begs the question: Why does XIII feel so linear when compared to earlier titles? Most Final Fantasy titles are also very linear, as is the nature of JRPGs. What made XIII different? This week, I will try to figure it out.
The first, and most obvious, thing one must take note of is that the topography of Final Fantasy XIII is much more linear than its predecessors. Earlier entries in the series, up until Final Fantasy IX, had huge world maps to explore. While the player was often restricted from going very far off the beaten path until certain plot points were reached, the world maps always looked liked plausible worlds ripe for exploration. Final Fantasy XIII did not have this luxury for most of the game. For the vast majority of the game, XIII has players walk forward in an incredibly constricting, linear corridor. There are many diverse locals throughout the game with varying environments, but the player is only allowed to explore in one of them more than twenty hours into the game. The rest of the game cordons off most of the area, meaning the player only has one way to go. Even Final Fantasy X, which was almost as linear as Final Fantasy XIII, had places where the path branched off somewhat and the player was free to wander around the area to explore and look for items. In a game like Final Fantasy XIII, which thrives on immersion, this is horrible because the player takes notice of it and is immediately reminded that they are playing a very linear game, which added to the sense of linearity.
But this is something games do all the time. Many games, from Call of Duty to Half-Life 2 to the series’s own Final Fantasy X were essentially linear corridors when one goes in and analyzes them. Why is Final Fantasy XIII so different? One thing I found as I was pondering this was that Final Fantasy XIII’s areas are very sparsely populated. In most other games, the places the player explores, now matter how linear, have a population in them. There are people who are there for their own reasons and that have their own backstories. Even in shooters, where the people are usually the enemy, they help make the levels the player goes through feel more like a world instead of a corridor. Final Fantasy XIII only had a few areas with people in them at all. Most of the levels were completely devoid of sentient life (with the possible exception of monsters). It is difficult to be immersed in a world without people to interact with. That is something that people just do not encounter in everyday life. This is another reason why Final Fantasy X felt less linear. As the player traveled, he/she saw other people in cities and on the roads traveling as well. Initiating dialog with a few of these people would even show the player cutscenes that added both to the world and the characters. Before fans of XIII say that there is a good plot reason why the party encounters few people (being that they are fugitives on the run), I will preempt them by saying that while it makes sense from a plotstandpoint, it does not make sense from a designstandpoint. The design of the world and how the player interacts with it is just as important as the plot in any game because that is what is most obvious to the player.
There is one last reason why Final Fantasy XIII feels more linear than other Final Fantasy games. Simply put, there is not much for the player to doin the game. In most RPGs, there is more to do than just the main quest-line of the game. Designers of these games often have side-quests that player has the option of doing throughout the game. These quests allow the player to take a brief respite from the story and even allow his/her character(s) to grow stronger in preparation for battles ahead in the main story. They also allow to player to learn more about the world and begin to sympathize with the local populace by getting to know them and help them out. Final Fantasy XIII does not do that well at all. There is only one area that has any optional objectives whatsoever (which is the same area that allows for exploration). Furthermore, there is exactly one type of optional objective. Where other games have diverse side-quests where the player can find an item, kill a specific enemy, etc., Final Fantasy XIII also has one type of objective where the player finds the fossilized remains of someone who was cursed to have to kill a specific enemy and take up the quest for them. There are 60 of these fights and they are the only optional objective. They do not even add to the world like other side-quests in other games do since they do not give the player any information that they are not already aware of by going through the main storyline. Again, this is something Final Fantasy X did well. Throughout the game, there are a number of times where the party is allowed to just stop for a second and help out the local populace, giving the player the ability to play the game at his/her own pace and/or learn about the world and the people inhabiting it.
As I have said in prior articles, there is nothing inherently wrong with a linear game design philosophy. While it is not my preference, it can work so long as the player is immersed enough in the game that it no longer feels linear and that the game is railroading the player. This is ultimately the problem with Final Fantasy XIII: The game does not do enough to disguise its linear nature. The player feels like they are going through nothing but corridor after corridor completely absent of any form of sentient life. The player is not given enough incentive or context for this to work. Part of me wonders why so many little things went wrong in XIII. Square-Enix was much better at this before, as demonstrated by games created both before and slightly after the merging of Squaresoft and Enix. Hopefully they will be able to turn things around in the future, else I fear they might be another in a long line of corporations that have fallen by the wayside this console generation.

I, very recently, had the pleasure of playing Half-Life 2 and its two episodes (which I will be collectively referring to as “the game”, despite being three different games) for the very first time. While I have a favorable opinion of the game, that is not the subject of this week’s article. Instead, I will be talking about one of the most well-loved characters of Half-Life 2: Alyx Vance. Critics and fans praise Alyx for being one of the best female characters in gaming. While being a contender for that title is not very impressive, given the historyoffemalesingames, Valve did well when writing her. Many people have tried to analyze her to figure out why she works as a character. This week, I will throw my own hat into the ring and attempt to discern why she is lauded as highly as she is. Like many things in this world, I assert that are several reasons behind this.
The biggest reason that Alyx is praised so highly is that she is not just a good female character, but she is a well-written character independent of her gender. Many other female characters in games are very poorly written and/or clearly meant to caterto the lowest possible demographic. One of the more common mistakes made by game writers is that when they try to create a “strong independent woman,” they usually end up going the wrong way about it and write a cold-hearted, frigid bitchinstead. Another mistake when writing a “strong, independent woman” is to make another muscle-bound meat-headwho also happens to be a girl. These are both huge mistakes to make when writing anycharacter, let alone a female character. If we were to give either of these sets of traits to a male, that character would easily become an incredibly annoying and irritating character. Why would this not be true for a female as well? My metric for making a good female character is as follows: The role could conceivably be filled by a male character without being annoying. However, the fact that the character is a woman informs the character and makes them that much better.
This is the reason why Alyx is a good female character. Almost everything about her character could be conceivably given to a man. Throughout the game, Alyx is the character who backs up the protagonist, Gordon Freeman, more often than any other. She uses her technical expertise to hack through enemy systems, open up doors, etc. But this is not her only trait. Alyx is shown to be a fairly capable combatant as well. She saved Gordon’s life on several occasions throughout Half-Life 2and the episodes. This does not mean that she is a battle-hardened soldier. Far from it. Alyx demonstrates a good sense of humorand does her best to lighten the mood whenever she can. She also demonstrates a very fragile side to her personality during certain moments of the game. While a man could easily fulfill this archetype, the fact that Alyx is a girl makes her much more fitting for this role. Since she is a girl, it allows for a much more playful banter between her and Freeman (well, I guess with her atFreeman, since Freeman is a silent protagonist). It also adds to her relationship with her father, Eli. Eli is allowed to be much more nurturing and protective of Alyx since she is a girl (Because of stereotypical gender roles/attributes. You can argue about whether or not they are right, but they still are a part of society.), adding to his character and giving him a degree of depth and making their relationship much more poignant.
Another reason people like Alyx is that she the most proactive character in the game, even more-so than Gordon Freeman. Do not be mistaken: While the player, as Freeman, plays a significant role in the war against the Combine, which is central to the game’s plot, Alyx is much more of a guiding force than he is. She is less of a companion to Gordon Freeman and more of a co-protagonist. She is usually the one plotting the course for the two of them and figuring out what needs to get done. This is particularly noticeable during the episodes. Even in the main game, where she is not always with Gordon, she is either directing Freeman or helping him with his current objective. That is another thing with Alyx, she is almost always doing something in order to either progress the plot or to make Gordon’s (and by extension, the player’s) life easier. During one huge battle against a gunship in Episode 2, Alyx is not able to fight with Gordon. To compensate, she looks around the base for items as the battle goes on. She happens to stumble upon a stash of med-kits that she will drop down to Gordon should the player get close enough. There are also moments throughout the episodes where she also will man sniper rifles to give the player cover fire to complete objectives. This extends to non-combat scenes. When Gordon is not fighting and the game is in the middle of having conversation or giving some kind of exposition, Alyx will either be a part of the exposition, telling the player about past events, the next objective, or why they would want to do something, or she will be busy preparing for the next section or set-piece. Unlike many other partners and companions in video games, it would be entirely possible (though I would not recommend it) to make an entirely new video game just by telling the story from Alyx’s perspective. She is that busy and that vital to the plot, which is another reason people like her so much.
The last reason people like Alyx so much is that she is one of the most competent friendly AIs in video games when she fights with Freeman in the episodes. Valve spent tons of time tuning her AI to avoid many of the pitfalls that plague friendly AIs. In one level of Episode 1 where the player is thrust into a dark area filled with zombies. Unlike other AIs that would just shoot at the enemies regardless of how well they should be able to see them, Alyx was programmed to be more like a human being. She only fires at the zombies when the player shines Gordon’s flashlight onto them. This means that the player is able to aim Alyx’s shots as well as his/her own. Other tweaks to her programming include keeping her combat taunts to an absolute minimum so that she still feels like a human being and making sure to move out of Gordon’s line-of-fire during a fight so that the player is able to aim at his/her target. This is not the most important point, but it definitely helped to keep Alyx’s positive reputation amongst the gaming audience.
I have to applaud Valve for what they did with the Alyx Vance character. They could have easily made her another stupid, big-boobed female stereotype to pander to the male demographic. Instead, they spent the time and the effort to make a truly memorable character that players would grow to care for. It speaks to the dedication the people at Valve have to their craft. Game designers and publishers should look to Valve when trying to figure out how to do well in the industry while crafting excellent games.

As prior articles I have written may have led you to believe, I tend to take story in games seriously. I am heavily critical of plot-lines in games and I expect narratives to be sensible. However, there are some people who are as critical as I am that I take issue with. When discussing the plot lines in video games, some people like to make the argument that “If this was a book/movie, then it would be so stupid!” More often than not, I would agree. However, that statement demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding. The stories of video game should not be compared to the stories of books and/or movies, just as movies should not be compared to books.
One of the big reasons for this is that script-writing in a game works differently than in a book or a movie. This difference is a very crucial and fundamental one. With a book or a movie, one of the primary concerns is the overall storyline. Plot, character development, continuity, conflict: In a book or movie, these are the focus of creative energy. In a game, this is a secondary concern. The primary concern (as it should be) is in the gameplay. Developers are focused on making sure that the level design and game mechanics are top-notch. They test and test to make sure that players are challenged to avoid the game getting boring, but not so much that it gets frustrating. Now, you can argue that some companies do not do this as well as others, but most of them make this the biggest thing on their checklist. The writing takes much more of a backseat. What happens more often than not is that the levels are completed and the writing team has only a rough idea of who the characters are and what the plot is supposed to be. They take these levels and the plot and form a loose story that tells the tale they want while justifying going through the all of the levels that the design team created or are currently creating. Some scenes may often require entire rewrites because of a problem on the designer end of things.
The best examples this style both working and failing can be found in the Unchartedseries. The first two games had very well-written and gripping narratives with character the audience would come to love and grow attached to. The third game, while still very good, had a noticeably less-stable plot. Many of the new characters went underdeveloped, certain plot lines went nowhere, and there was an entire section of the game could have easily been cut with no effect on the narrative. The developer commentariesincluded on the disk gave a very good indication of why. To be fair, Amy Hennig and the Naughty Dog writing team are very talented and the story is still quite good despite its flaws. It still serves as a good example of why narratives in games are not the same as in books or movies. The argument can be made that this process may or may not work and may need to be experimented with, but, for now, it is a fact of life in the industry.
Which brings me to the next point: That gaming as a storytelling medium is still in his infancy. Unlike book, which have had hundreds of years to perfect their craft, and movies, which have also had a long time, though not nearly as long as books, games have only been in the entertainment market since 1972 with the Magnavox Odyssey. Games as a storytelling medium have been around for even less time, since the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) era, when games like the original Final Fantasywere released for the first time. Before then, they were nothing more than small experiences devoid of any real story. While people have written tons of material regarding how best to write a book or make a movie, but games have little in the way of that. The visionaries of the medium are only just now really starting to experiment with how to tell really compelling stories using it to its fullest.
Which again serves as an adequate transition into may last point. Games, by there nature, are interactive. This is the biggest separator between them and other mediums. The audience is an active participant in what is going on. This lends itself to new approaches in telling a good story unheard of in other mediums. Now, I have already discussed how stories in games can benefit from this interactivity severaltimesbefore, but I nonetheless find this fact is something I need to repeat again and again. The strengths of interactivity are that you are able to use the environment and the situations the player has to deal with to tell the story in much more effective ways than movies or books can with descriptions or dialog, something which Bethesda, despite all of its flaws, is known for doing very well. Also, a game can be used to explore philosophies and concepts by letting the player immerse themselves in a world and discover for themselves the implications behind them, allowing them to learn and make choices in an environment free of any real-life consequences, demonstrated in games like Fallout: New Vegasand Deus Ex. Lastly, since the player is going through the game as the main character, he/she is automatically sympathetic towards the protagonist and/or is allowed a glimpse into the protagonist’s beliefs and idiosyncrasies through the mechanics of the game, something that movies and books are completely unable to do. These are storytelling technique completely unique to games. Books and movies cannot utilize this tool-set. Because interactivity makes the story in a video game so completely different than movies and books, it is unfair to compare these mediums.
Games have their own set of strengths and weaknesses when it comes to storytelling, as do books and mediums. However, they are in no way similar enough to these other mediums to warrant comparison. We have evidence of this. Whenever the make games based off movies, they are very rarely any good. If they are, the game either takes place in a different time period than the movie or the player is playing as a new character who has previously never been mentioned in the plot. The same can be said of games that are made into movies. That is what makes this particular comparison so egregious. It is possible to argue that video game plots are bad. I do all the time. However, we should not be comparing apples to oranges. Nothing will come out of it. While I am sure many of you already know this, it is such a common misconception that it needed to be addressed.

As of right now, major gaming has been a competition between the Nintendo Wii, the Sony PlayStation 3, the Microsoft Xbox 360, and the good-old gaming PC. Each of these options have their own pros and cons, and each were vying for supremacy. This is nothing new. It has been this way for a number of years now. This console generation has, for the most part, already been decided. The three consoles and the PC have all gathered their respective audiences (with a high degree of overlap) and most gamers have already passed judgment.
However, what if something major happens? What if, another major corporation decided to throw their hat into the ring and join the competition? It has rumored for quite sometime that Apple, technological innovators they are (despite my personal opinion of them), may be tempted to join the gaming market after a source said that Apple was in talks with Valve Software to make a new console compatible with Steam. While this rumor has since been debunked, this does raise a perfectly valid question: If either Apple or Valve (or both) decided to enter the console market, how would that affect the industry? This week will be dedicated to my own personal musings surrounding that.
First off, what would happen if this theoretical new console should be released and sell well? Perhaps the most obvious outcome of this would be a growth in indie/low-budget game development. Apple and Valve are well-known for their support of indies, Valve in particular is known for hiring indie developers who demonstrate potential. (This is how Portal became as well-known and loved as it is.) The Steam library and Apple App Store have tons of games developed by people in their basements/garages and available for very low prices. Should they make it into console space, this would expand beyond the PC and iPod markets and into the console space as well. Other console manufacturers would be forced in turn to expand their own efforts in the indie field. The focus would be on unique and interesting gameplay experiences, broadening the creativity of the industry. Like the Kickstarter campaigns, this would have the potential to bring back games that require a bigger budget than most indies do, but not the super-high budgets that AAA gaming has forced upon us. These side-effects would be generally positive for the gaming industry. The types of innovation that are only possible when games do not cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make would be commonplace once again. There would be no reason to constantly make safe games and sequels galore.
The other positive of another company entering the console market is the competition that would inspire. Although Apple and Valve are big corporations themselves, the sheer notion of another force going up against the behemoths of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo would provoke other firms into trying their hand at it as well. Having several companies compete against each other in this space is good news for consumers. We would benefit from the technologies and ideas in introduced during such times. Furthermore, the competition would drive down prices, as each company would need to compete even more with all of its rivals for the consumers’ collective interest. This would be similar to the time when Sony entered the market previously dominated by Nintendo and Sega. As many gamers are aware of already, this is often considered to be a “Golden Age” in gaming as each company was aiming to get all the game developers on their side. Competition and innovation were both at a high, with the consumers coming out on top. Many of the games from this era are still lauded as classics. This, combined with what Apple and Valve bring with them from the indie space, could do much good for gaming. I am not saying that they would control the industry as well as Sony did, but it would certainly be a much needed kick-in-the-pants for the big three.
But this would not come without a price, of course. Game publishers are notorious for refusing to change until they have no other choice but to do so. They believe that the business practices they use will always work no matter what. Because of this, some of them will be unable to adjust. This means that in this hypothetical console war, there would be casualties. Many publishers, and the studios that they own by proxy, would have to shut down, leaving many employees in the industry jobless. This is not necessarily all bad. In the competitive spirit bred by this console war, those who demonstrate great talent in this industry would most likely be rehired by the studios that can survive and thrive in this environment, allowing the true innovators to continue bringing us great gaming experiences.
The flip-side is that in the unlikely event that Valve or Apple decide to release a game console, it could just as easily fail. Something like that would also have its own list of consequences. At the foremost would be the message it would send to other companies looking to expand into gaming. Having Apple or Valve fail at such a major undertaking, despite their resources and expertise, would show that it is impossible, or at least incredibly difficult, for other companies to compete with the big three companies. Nobody else would want to compete in this area, at least not for the short-term. Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft would continue their current lines of thinking and strengthen their holds on the industry, emboldened by the fall of the new guy. Major publishers also would probably continue their current paths as well. Budgets will remain high until they are no longer capable of sustaining the industry, at which point they will be forced to change or fail anyway. Games will keep on as they will.
Valve and/or Apple could radically change the gaming landscape. If one of them were to release a new console, it would mean big things for the industry. I remain unconvinced that it will happen, nonetheless it is an interesting subject. Because there is not much information to go on, a lot of this is speculative, without much in the way of fact supporting it. Honestly, I am much more interested in discussing this with my viewers than having them read my opinion. Let me know in the comments below what you think would happen if Valve or Apple were to become a force in the console war. I want to see what other people have to say on this one.

(Warning: Mass Effect SeriesSpoilers, especially Mass Effect 3. You have been warned.)
When I proofread the column from last week, I had realized something. While I did much to outline the problems in the Mass Effectseries and its choices, specifically how they did not significantly influence events in Mass Effect 3, I only outlined the problem. I did not spend time demonstrating possible solutions. This week’s article will be dedicated to that. I am going to assume that you read the previous article, or at least have familiarity with the three Mass Effect games and the outcomes depicted in the second and third game of the player’s decisions. As such, I will not be explaining the decisions, the backstory, or the consequences (or lack thereof) of any of them in any significant detail. Fixing this problem might seem like a grand undertaking, but the reality is that Bioware already laid down a great framework to work with. Truthfully, the problem with choices having no influence on the plot only needs a series of small, minor fixes in order to work. While this does not do much since the game is already released, it will serve as a good lesson to those who are writing their own tales in the gaming industry.
First off, let us talk about the decision to save or kill the Rachni Queen is the first game. Here is how I would have written the outcomes to those decisions: I would keep the consequences for sparing the Rachni Queen the exact same. The side-quest is already pretty well-written for this choice. However, once the player has made the decision of whether or not to save the Rachni Queen a second time, there should be an aftermath to that decision reflected in the gameplay. Choosing to save her a second time should result in not only a slight drop in Ravager enemies (indoctrinated Rachni), but there should be some places (only one or two) where the player has the option of having Rachni soldiers fight with them, beyond the increase in war assets. This would make sense as the Reapers would have access to the Rachni still under their command and would still have the capability to indoctrinate Rachni, albeit to a significantly lower degree. Also, since the player saved the Queen twice now, she should be grateful enough to lend a hand in as many ways as she is able. She is no fool and knows that the galaxy is at stake.
Choosing to leave her to die if you spared her before should have an even more dramatic drop in Ravager enemies than if you choose to save her again. The reasoning behind this is that the Reapers would still have access to the Ravagers they already possess. However, with the death of the Queen, they are unable to make more Rachni to add to their forces. Not doing this quest would leave the game as, because the Reapers will still have control of the Rachni Queen and her hoards.
If the player chose to kill the Rachni Queen in the original game, then that should have dramatic effects on the world. Since the Rachni would have been unable to make any more of themselves, the race would have died out or come very close to it by the beginning of the third game. This means that there would be no Ravagers in Mass Effect 3. However, it would also mean that there would be no chance of adding the Rachni to the player’s war assets. This way, the player’s choice takes effect and it feels like they changed the world. Furthermore, it means that neither choice was “incorrect” as both have their pros and cons. Players who replay the game continue to agonize over which choice they will make, determining whether an easier time playing through the levels is worth having a harder time in getting a strong enough fleet.
Building on this theme of choice and consequences, the decision to save or abandon the Council in the original Mass Effect needed to have more weigh in the overall plot. If the player saved the Council in the first game, then they should be much more receptive to him/her. While they dismiss Sheppard’s claim that the Reapers are coming in Mass Effect 2, the fact that Sheppard believes this should cast doubt in their minds. (Anderson even implies that they are scared and unsure in the second game if he becomes Councilor.) Anxious, they begin to order their respective peoples to prepare defenses, expand research on weapons/defense systems, boost military recruitment and training, etc.. When the Reapers invade, these advances should not be enough to repel the Reapers, but the races will be able to hold there against the Reaper forces long enough to evacuate non-combatants and world leaders to safer nebulae of space because of them. When Sheppard approaches the Council for aid, they would be more receptive to Sheppard’s call for assistance. They would send preliminary forces to aid Earth, but still need Sheppard to assist them with the problems on their worlds before they could mobilize their entire armadas against the Reaper forces. When doing missions on the council race’s home-worlds, there should be slightly fewer enemies because they would have been better prepared to thwart attacks from both the Reapers and Cerberus. However, abandoning the council should have the same ramifications that it does already. The new council should not trust Sheppard since he/she left the previous council to die, making it more difficult to sway them. Doing it this way allows the player to once again give meaning to his/her choice without making that choice wipe out hours of gameplay.
The next re-write that I would do would be to the effects of the choice of who gets to be the human Councilor: Anderson or Udina. The biggest problem with this choice is that the game negates it and makes Udina councilor regardless, but that is not the only flaw. Still, the groundwork here is solid, and only requires a few tweaks to have meaningful consequences. First off, I do not think that the scenes in Mass Effect 2need changing. They are pretty well written and diversified depending on who is Councilor and whether or not the Council was saved. However, they should have more effects in the game. For example, if Anderson is Councilor, then it should be possible to abandon Cerberus altogether and join up with the Alliance in Mass Effect 2. The missions do not change, except the player receives Alliance funding and the mission briefings/dossiers can be given to Sheppard through Admiral Hackett or Anderson. (We can explain this away by saying that there are Alliance spies in Cerberus.) In the third game, Anderson (like the other Councilors) divides his attention between politics and saving Earth. He will slowly spend more time focusing on Earth and begin to leave the political bureaucracy to Udina. Udina can still betray everyone for Cerberus, but with Anderson as councilor, he will have significantly less influence and as such, Cerberus will not be as strong of a force as it is in the current game. Furthermore, once Sheppard arrives on the scene and reveals that Udina is a traitor, Anderson will be there to either make Udina answer to these accusations or order Kaiden/Ashley to stand down. Anderson will then move to Earth to help lead the fight against the Reapers in the end game. Making Udina councilor should leave all the events in Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 the same, since the sheer scale of Udina’s betrayal would be highly dependent on his position. I would try to write a way to make the choice of Udina as Councilor be equivalent in terms of pros and cons, but Udina is clearly shown to be the “wrong” choice to make. Seriously, no onewould choose Udina for any reason besides that they wanted to see what would happen. This guy is a complete jerk and in no way was he ever to be trusted. I am trying to be impartial, but it is harder than you would think.
Lastly, I would probably make some major changes to the Geth-Quarian conflict depending on the choices the player makes in the second game regarding advising the Quarians and the Geth decision. This is further compounded by the fact that it is possible for the player to completely skip these decisions. To facilitate this, I will make the current scene with the war being fought as the default scene for skipping these choices, leaving room for variation with the death of Tali or Legion. If the player advocated peace with the Geth, then I would dramatically change the scene. I would have the Quarians and the Geth be in the middle of peace negotiations when the Reaper invasion begins. When the Reapers attack, then the two sides agree to at least a temporary truce. However, the Reapers have set up a barricade at the Mass Relay to prevent their fleets from leaving the cluster. (The Normandy would be able to escape using its stealth drive.) The fight would then be about defeating the Reaper forces in the area so that the two forces can escape and provide support on the fight for Earth. The missions do not change, except that the player will now be going up against Reaper hoards instead of the Geth. However, if the player did not take part in Legion’s side-quest, then Heretic Geth would also be mixed in with the hoard. If the player blew up the Heretic Base, then there would be fewer Heretic Geth because not all the Heretics would be blown up at the base. If the player re-wrote the Heretics, then the Geth who are on the players side will be strong enough to aid the player (at his/her behest) and will contribute more to the fight to reclaim Earth.
The player choosing to encourage the Quarians to fight the Geth should also result in a similar scenario to the one that is already in the main game. The only exception I would throw is that Legion and the Geth will be more hesitant to trust Sheppard, since Sheppard helped incite this war. The player would need to do additional tasks in order to re-gain Legion’s trust. Until they do so, it would be impossible to side with the Geth or arrange peace with the two races. Furthermore, it will also lock the player out of the Geth Consensus side-quest until he/she achieves a good reputation with the Geth. Re-writing the Heretics should add to the Geth forces fought during missions and destroying the Base should result in a reduced number of enemies to kill. It should not be impossible to side with the Geth after advocating war, but it should be much more difficult than it would be if the player either advocated peace or did not do anything.
I am not saying that these solutions are perfect. Far from it. Admittedly, these re-writes approach bad fan fiction at times. This is more to prove a point. The point is that it is entirely possible to take player choices into account when making the game beyond simply referencing previous events in dialogue. Those choices could have been used to alter the experience in a series of small ways that, when combined, add to the total replay value of the game and make the player feel like they truly had an influence on the world and its inhabitants. Implementing systems like this would, no doubt, require much effort on the part of Bioware. However, if they were unwilling or unable to put this effort into the game, then they should have though about that before marketing the game based on choice and consequence. But again, I am being too harsh on the game. There is much to be lauded about the Mass Effect franchise. The characters, world, and lore are all very detailed, deep, and well-written. Bioware has nearly perfected the gameplay of the franchise as the series went on. Lastly, they did what many developers fail to do and made the players feel attached to world and truly care about the people in it. That is no small accomplishment by any means. That why writing things like this hurts. It saddens me to think about all of the wasted potential of the franchise. I love so many things about it, but it is at its core, deeply flawed.

(Warning: Mass Effect SeriesSpoilers, especially Mass Effect 3. You have been warned.)
The other day, I had a conversation with a friend of mine about the Mass Effectseries. In it, the following point came up: Where exactly does the series fall on the Sliding Scale of Linearity vs. Choice? It is a good question to ask because the very nature of the series. Mass Effecthas billed itself as a game about choice, making key decisions and seeing how they would play out as the series progressed. It was definitely an ambitious undertaking and one that must not be taken lightly. This week, I theorize that despite the marketing, Mass Effectis not about choice and I will show you the evidence supporting my claim. However, before I begin, I have to make one thing perfectly clear: This is not a post complaining about Mass Effect 3or its ending. I have already said my piece about that in an earlier post. This is a critique of one the series’s central mechanics. Now that we have gotten that out of the way…
 
Mass Effectis a Science-Fiction RPG created by Bioware. The game has the player take the role of Commander Sheppard, a highly trained elite soldier in the human military. The series focuses on Commander Sheppard’s adventures across space to defeat a race of organic machines called the Reaperswho come into the galaxy every fifty-thousand years to cull all space-faring species and turn them into Reapers. Throughout the series, the player, as Commander Sheppard, is asked to make significant choices that impact the lives of those around him/her. These choices are fairly diverse and encompass many situations, like whether or not to give an old race that once terrorized the galaxy a second chance by saving its last queen, saving the galactic council at the risk of human lives or focusing human fleets towards killing the main villain, choosing who will represent humanity going forward, advising a whole race on whether or not to go to war to reclaim their home-world, deciding whether to re-write a hostile AI collective to accept organics or just kill them off outright, etc.. All of these choices are major, critical choices for the world at large, or at least they appear to be. Let us go through these choices to see how they play out.
In the original Mass Effect, the player encounters a race called the Rachni. Before humans became a space-faring species, the other races once opened a gatewayto Rachni space. This resulted in the Rachni Warsthat had lasting repercussions amongst many of the races in the game. When the player, as Commander Sheppard, arrives on the scene, (s)he sees that the Rachni are being controlled by Saren, the main villain of the game who is later revealed to be controlled by the Reapers. The player encounters the last Rachni Queen, who promises to never again terrorize the galaxy if Sheppard lets her go. The player is then forced to make a choice. Does (s)he just release the Rachni Queen and hope that she is true to her word or does (s)he turn on the acid bath and kill off the Rachni Queen and avoid risking another galactic conflict? I think the best way to illustrate my point is to explain what happens with each branching path:
  • If the player saves the Rachni Queen, they have a pleasant chat (via proxy) in Mass Effect 2. In the third game, they become mind-controlled once again by the Reapers. In an optional side-quest, the player has the choice to either save them again at the expense of the krogan soldiers there or leave them to die. Saving them adds to the player’s war assets in the fight against the Reapers.
  • If the player kills the Rachni Queen, she does not appear in Mass Effect 2 (obviously). In the third game, the Reapers have found a way to clone the Rachni Queen and mind-control the race once again. In an optional side-quest, the player has the choice to either save them again at the expense of the krogan soldiers there or kill them off once and for all. Saving them leads to them removing war assets in the fight against the Reapers.
Okay. These two branching paths look suspiciously similar. Perhaps that is just one isolated incident. Maybe analyzing other choices will yield different outcomes.
Towards the very end of the original Mass Effect, the player is fighting to stop a Reaper, Sovereign, with the aid of Saren and his indoctrinatedforces, from taking the galactic capital, the Citadel, and summoning the rest of the Reaper forces to the galaxy. During the invasion, the Council, the highest authority in the galaxy, is evacuated to their flagship, the Destiny Ascension. After besting Saren (either through a boss fight or one of the best speech checks in the series), Sheppard reaches the heart of the Citadel and is forced to make a choice. The Destiny Ascension, Council aboard, is under attack, but Sovereign is still fighting as well. Sheppard can immediately summon the human forces to the battle or keep them at bay, leaving the other races to suffer high loses. Furthermore, if Sheppard summons the human military, (s)he can advise them to either focus exclusively on Sovereign and abandon the Council, or save the Council before joining the fight against Sovereign. The net impact is that either the Council lives or dies, with Sovereign stopped regardless. Let us analyze the repercussions of both options.
  • If the player decides to abandon the Council, the new Council refuses to even speak with him/her in Mass Effect 2. They ignore the warnings of Reaper attacks until the war with the Reapers actually begins in Mass Effect 3. In the third game, they initially refuse to help the human forces because each of the three council races are also being attacked by the Reapers. After doing his/her best to deal with their problems, Sheppard begins to gain sway with the council.
  • If the player decides to save the Council, they will agree to meet with Sheppard and listen to his viewpoint in Mass Effect 2. However, they ignore the warnings of Reaper attacks until the war with the Reapers actually begins in Mass Effect 3 and actively taunt Sheppard, referring to the Reapers in finger-quotes. In the third game, they initially refuse to help the human forces because each of the three council races are also being attacked by the Reapers. After doing his/her best to deal with their problems, Sheppard begins to gain sway with the council. The Destiny Ascension is added to the player’s war assets and is shown in the final battle.
These two outcomes also seem too similar. Are you starting to see the pattern? Let us keep going with this and see if this pattern holds up.
The next choice we will go through is also from the original game. After the battle against Sovereign is over and the Reapers have been driven back, humanity is given a seat on the Council. The player, as Sheppard, is given the authority to make the choice of who becomes the Councilor. (S)He can choose between Captain David Anderson, the humble, career soldier who never compromise his values and is a good friend to Sheppard, or Ambassador Donnel Udina, a career politician who knows how best to navigate political minefields and who is willing to use dirty tactics to advance the cause of humanity. And now, the outcomes of both choices.
  • Should the player make Udina the human Councilor, then Udina will refuse to help Sheppard in Mass Effect 2 and will not allow him to meet the Council (assuming the Council does not already hate Sheppard). In the third game, Anderson becomes an Admiral and a key figure in the fight against the Reapers. He gives Sheppard the mission to get help for humanity while he holds off the Reapers. Udina will advise the player to help the Councilors and get the other races to assist. Later on, he betrays Sheppard and decides to work with the human-centric terrorist organization, Cerberus, desperate to get aid for humanity’s fight against the Reapers. The player can, and probably will, choose to kill him for this.
  • Should the player make Anderson the human Councilor, then Anderson will agree to meet with Sheppard in Mass Effect 2 (the Council will spur his offer if Sheppard killed the old one, but Anderson will still talk with the player). Anderson offers to make Sheppard a Spectre, an elite council agent who is above the law out of respect of their friendship, which the player can refuse. (This decision makes no impact in Mass Effect 2 and Sheppard becomes a Specter in the third game anyway.) In between the second and third games, Anderson gets fed up with the Council and quits, giving the position to Udina. In the third game, Anderson becomes an Admiral and a key figure in the fight against the Reapers. He gives Sheppard the mission to get help for humanity while he holds off the Reapers. Udina will advise the player to help the Councilors and get the other races to assist. Later on, he betrays Sheppard and decides to work with the human-centric terrorist organization, Cerberus, desperate to get aid for humanity’s fight against the Reapers. The player can, and probably will, choose to kill him for this.
Another decision from the first game rendered completely meaningless in later installments. Maybe it is just the first game. Perhaps decisions in Mass Effect 2had an impact on the third game. Let us find out.
So now we come to two, very related, key decisions in Mass Effect 2. But first, the usual backstory. Throughout the original game, Sheppard is pit up against the Geth, an race of sentient AIs that support Saren and Sovereign. We know that they were created by the Quarians, a race known for having to live in bio-suits due to their weak immune systems, and rebelled against their creators, forcing the Quarians to abandon their home-world and travel as the galaxy’s closest equivalent to Gypsies. In Mass Effect 2,we learn through a Geth companion, Legion, (Spoiler Alert: You get a Geth companion, named Legion.) that these Geth that are fighting Sheppard are actually a splinter factionwho worship the Reapers. Furthermore, we learn that the Quarians were the actual aggressors in the conflict between both groups and that the Geth are isolationists who just want to live and let live. The player, through optional, yet story-critical, side-quests, can make two choices. In Legion’s side-quest, the player can choose between re-writing the Geth splinter faction, forcing them to accept the other Geth’s logic, or just outright destroy them. Furthermore, after resolving a problem revolving around the player’s Quarian companion, Tali, Sheppard can chose to either advise the Quarian race to avoid fighting the Geth to retake their homeland, or incite them into continuing their planned course of action and fighting the Geth in a war to reclaim their home. And now, the consequences of these choices.
  • If Sheppard sent the Quarians after the Geth, the Quarians, emboldened by the inciting words of Commander Sheppard, being their attack on the Geth. The Geth, losing programs rapidly and scared out of their collective mind, broker a deal with the Reapers to gain upgrades and safety in exchange for servitude. Sheppard must now find a way to break the Reaper influence on the Geth. Afterward, (s)he must choose to side with one of the conflict’s two factions (but with a sufficient Reputation, he can arrange for peace between them). The war assets that both factions can give are determined by the decision to re-write/kill the evil Geth. (Re-writing will cause the Quarians to lose forces and the Geth to gain forces.)
  • If Sheppard advocated a stop to the war, the Quarians, refusing the advice and council of the galaxy’s biggest hero, begin war with the Geth. The Geth, losing programs rapidly and scared out of their collective mind, broker a deal with the Reapers to gain upgrades and safety in exchange for servitude. Sheppard must now find a way to break the Reaper influence on the Geth. Afterward, (s)he must choose to side with one of the conflict’s two factions (but with a sufficient Reputation, he can arrange for peace between them). The war assets that both factions can give are determined by the decision to re-write/kill the evil Geth. (Re-writing will cause the Quarians to lose forces and the Geth to gain forces.)
I really wish I was kidding with this. This is exactly how each choice plays out. This really does grow old after awhile.
We have gone through several major choices and it seems like none of them had any real consequence on the narrative. While there is one glowing, beautiful exception to the rule, (The Krogan/Genophagequest-line of Mass Effect 3radically changes depending on choices the player has made in the first two games and is perhaps the best sequence in the entire series.) for the most part, the series seems to be trying its very hardest to disregard the choices the player makes. This is not an argument regarding how realistic it is. This is not an argument about whether or not it makes sense for one man to have tons of influence (even if it does not, Sheppard unites a galaxy almost single-handedly anyway, so that is a moot point). This is an observation that the game advocates choice and then does nothing with it. This is either a complete disregard for choice and free-will as a central theme, a silent affirmation that the game was never about choice and that marketing was wrong, or just plain lazywriting on Bioware’s part. No matter which way this is analyzed, it is an issue that needs to be addressed. This is not to say that Mass Effect 3is a bad game. It is not. While it is much more linear than I desire, it is a game I could easily recommend to RPG fans. But just because something is good does not mean that we, as consumers, cannot demand better. If games are to shape up as a medium, we need to make sure that everything is up to snuff, especially the story.

Warning: Fallout: New Vegas and DLC spoilers

A few weeks back, I discussed characterization in Fallout: New Vegas. I said that the “villain” faction (because the player will almost always be directly opposed to it), Caesar’s Legion, was one of the most poorly written groups out of the games factions. Though I did not explicitly say it then, I lamented the fact that the villain was so poorly written. In my opinion, the villain has to be one of the most well-written characters in a game. Fortunately, it seemed Obsidian preempted me and learned from its mistake. While I was busy complaining about the Legion, they released the Lonesome RoadDLC and introducing one of, in my opinion, the most interesting and well-written characters in New Vegas. The villain of Lonesome Road, Ulysses, will be the subject of my first (and hopefully notthe last) character analysis.
Before I get into his character, I need to explain his history, and it is a long and interesting one. Ulysses was originally a member of a tribe called the Twisted Hairs. The Twisted Hairs were a tribe known for their dreadlocks that symbolized every significant event in the lives of those who wore them. This tribe was eventually conquered by Caesar’s Legion and conscripted into the Legion’s military. In time, Ulysses began to stand out amongst his peers and became one of Caesar’s elite, while the rest of his tribe slowly died out. He became a courier working for Caesar and made a promise to him that he would not kill anyone of the same profession. (I can only assume this is because either there are a lot of Legion couriers or that Caesar thinks he can use the couriers of an area after he takes over.) It was Ulysses who discovered Hoover Damand the New California Republic, symbols of Old World values from before the Great War, for the Legion, sparking Caesar’s obsession with the Dam and the war between the two factions over it.
Soon afterward, Ulysses was sent to explore NCR territory on the Legion’s behalf and report back to them. It was while exploring that he discovered “The Divide,” a community shaped by Old Worldsymbols and technology, which inspired him to wear the Old World Flagand carry an eagle staffas symbols. Ulysses saw the Divide as a place he could settle down, a place he could rebuild and begin again. Then, the Courier(the player character) came to the divide with a package to deliver. (Remember, this was before the events of the game.) The package contained Old World technology that, once activated, detonated many of the nuclear warheads and turned the Divide into yet another nuclear wasteland. Ulysses would have died if it had not been for more Old World technologyspringing to life to heal him. This event had two drastic effects on him. First, he developed a hatred for the Courierbecause it was his delivery that caused the destruction of his home for the second time. On the flip side, this event inspired him. It showed that one small, seemingly insignificant action from a single person could have a dramatic effect on the world at large.
After returning to the Legion, he learned that Caesar lost in the First Battle of Hoover Damto the NCR. He was sent to Utahto arrange for tribalsto attack the settlement of New Canaan. (Caesar had personal reasonsto ask for this.) He felt sorrow for manipulating the tribals in a similar way to how his own tribe was manipulated way back when. This was exacerbated by the fact that the tribals began to wear their hair as he does. While they believed they were honoring him, Ulysses saw that as nothing more than an empty mockery of his tribe’s tradition because they did not know the “history” behind it. This inspired him to leave his duties as a Legionnaire and try to change the course of history, believing that both the NCR and the Legion are both to flawed and do not know the best way to positively impact humanity’s future.
He traveled to an Old World installation, Big Mountain, by tracking the weather patterns, noting that storms like the ones he was tracking are similar to the storms caused by the events of the Divide. There, he made contact with twomembersof the Brotherhood of Steel, an organization devoted to preserving Old World technology, directing one to the Sierra Madre Casinoand having an intense philosophical debate with the other. Ulysses was hoping that the Brotherhood would know how to best lead humanity into the future, but eventually decided that they did not after having this debate. He continued to explore Big MT and met with the Think Tank, a group of scientists (well, tat least the brains of a group of scientists) who experiment and innovate in the safety of the area. Ulysses began to grow frustrated with the erratic nature of the Think Tank and finally yelled at them, “Who are you, who do not know your own history!?” At that moment, the Think Tank’s collective memory came back and they recalled the America of before the Great War: Not just the nation, but the ideal. They told him about the last bastion of the Old World. Deep down in the Divide, there was an old missile silo still waiting for the launch command. Ulysses left Big MT determined to change history as the Courier had in the Divide.
As a last gesture to the Mojave before heading once more into the Divide, Ulysses was about to accept a commission to deliver a Platinum Chipto New Vegas. He was suspicious of the job, but felt that he could handle it. Then, at the last minute, he saw the name of the first person on the waiting list for the job. It was the Courier, who Ulysses assumed dead after the events of the Divide. Out of respect of his old promise to Caesar, and out of a desire for revenge, Ulysses dropped the job, knowing that the Courier would be the one to take it up, thus initiating the events of Fallout: New Vegas.
All of this history is central to understanding Ulysses as a character. He has several interesting and realistic motives for what he does during the events of the Lonesome Road. Firstly, he wants to do his best to improve humanity’s future by destroying the NCR, who he sees as unable to help humanity in the long run. He does not bother with the Legion partly because he believes that Caesar will eventually tire himself out and wear down to the point where he might as be dead and partly because (and this is speculation on my part) that he still sees the Legion forces as family. With these two factions out of the way, the people of the wasteland will be able to advance on the correct path, guided by the values of the Old World.
This leads to another one of his internal conflicts. On one level, he despises Caesar for betraying his tribe, the Twisted Hairs, and killing them off. On the other hand, he does partially sympathize with Caesar and the Legion and thinks that while they cannot sustain themselves and that they do not know how to last in the wasteland, they still have noble goals. This is an interesting internal conflict. He has seen the good that Caesar’s Legion is capable of, but has also experienced the worst of what the Legion can do. He has also witnessed how the Legion operates and knows that the current model is only sustainable so long as the Legion has an enemy to fight. This provides a level of depth and intrigueto his character that is quite refreshing to see.
The fate of the Twisted Hairs and of the Divide are what inspired another key aspect to Ulysses’s character: His obsession and attention to detail with regards to history. After witnessing the destruction of two settlements, the people, and the knowledge of them, Ulysses understands the tragedy of lost history. This is what inspired him to learn more about the Old World, the symbols and the events of the past. He eventually took the name of a key general who defended his home in war time, Ulysses S. Grant. His reverence for the Old World is a key-aspect of the character. It is the reason he tried to settle at the Divide, the reason he traveled to Big MT, and the reason he found his motivations and the method to achieve his goals.
The last conflict with his character is the one that is the most obvious, his relationship with the player character. Because of his promise with Caesar and his desire to honor it, Ulysses is forbidden from attacking the Courier directly. This means that he needs to find indirect ways to get revenge for what happened in the Divide. He tried once by giving the player the Platinum Chip job that led to him/her being shot twice in the head and left in a shallow grave at the beginning of the game. By the time the player begins the Lonesome Road, he/she has most likely begun asserting his influence on New Vegas and shaping it the way he/she desires. This provides further motivation for Ulysses. He wants to not only shape the world his way, but to prevent the Courier from leaving his/her mark on history. This provides an interesting dynamic between the player and the primary antagonist that is furthered by the conversations the player can have with him throughout the Lonesome Road. However, just because Ulysses hates the Courier does not mean that he will not lend his ear to him/her. This is perhaps the best part of his character. Despite what has happened to him, despite his personal feelings, despite the player acting contrary to his goals, Ulysses is willing to listen and try to understand the player. The player, with either a high enough Speech skill or knowledge divined through Ulysses’s personal recordings scattered throughout the Divide, can even talk him down and convince Ulysses to join his side. This speak volumes about Ulysses, more than his backstory or actions do, and makes him more than just another enemy. It makes him a good antagonist and character.
Ulysses is an example of what writing in video games should be like. He has a deep and involving backstory that ties into many of the events of both New Vegasand its DLC. His backstory gives him a unique personality that is both believable and relate-able. This is what happens when a talented writing staff makes takes it upon themselves to write detailed lore, fascinating characters, and believable interactions for the player to have with both of them. Game developers and writers should look to Obsidian and take this lesson to heart when developing the world of their games. This is arguable even more important for games because players are active participants in the world and the story.

The games of today have come a long way from the games of old. Graphical fidelity has greatly advanced and allows for more rich and detailed environments. The streamlining of many often-used systems in games has made gaming more accessible to the masses. Different genres and new indie titles ensure that for every individual, there is a game to cater to his/her specific tastes. Gaming has played host to a myriad of innovations. However, despite this, there are many ways in which gaming has been degressing. This week, I will be looking at the potential causes of these worsening trends in gaming.
One the main reasons that major gaming corporations cite to explain downward trends in gaming is used games. According to game developers, used games are eating too much into profits, meaning they have to produce other ways to make money (through micro-transactions, DLC, etc.). There is some truth to used games affecting profits of game developers. Gamestop is particularly well-known for this. Gamestop’s used game programs are responsible for a very decent chunk of their profits. They actively try to get customers to buy used and trade in their games through sales, money-back guarantees, and special one-time offers.
While this does result in an overall loss for game developers, there is one critical detail being missed: Used games are nothing new to the game industry. For years, people have been buying and selling used games and companies have not had a problem with them in the past. Furthermore, I could argue that used games are not as commonplace as they were before. Because of recent developments in gaming, used game sales for the PC are effectively dead. There are game trading systems on services like Steam, but used games have long been absent, at least from PC gaming, for awhile now. With the advent of online pass systems, console gaming has also begun to deter used game sales. Also, the economy has been taking its toll on people’s budgets, gamers being no exception. For many people, trading in and barter games is the only way to buy new games and support the developers they care about. This means that there is a possibility that used games are necessary for the industry to remain profitable in this economy. With all of this, I find it hard to believe that used games the cause of the problems in modern gaming.
So then, if used games are not the trouble, then what could be. Many people have made the argument that the problems are caused by the new level of inter-connectivity present in modern gaming. I can see where this argument is coming from. With the exception of the PC and the original X-Box, gaming never really had any sort of online service until now, and certainly not to this degree. Developers never really had the capacity to change and impact the game post-release. For the most part, the product that was released was the same product ten years down the line. Any glitches that were there on day one would still be there. Any overpowered/weak equipment in games would stay that way. This gave developers tons of incentive to test and test and test everything that got released. If they did not, then their reputation would be ruined and people would no longer buy their games. Nowadays, day 1 patches, downloadable content, and updates for games are the norm. It is entirely possible, and this does happen, for games to be horribly, awfully, disgustingly broken at release, almost to the point of unplayability, only to be patched within the first few weeks. (Isn’t that right, Fallout: New Vegas?)Furthermore, it is true that content can be withheld from the game and released later as DLC. Capcom and the Street Fight X Tekkendebacle have proven this to be true.
As much as I dislike this (and I reallydislike this), I do not think this is the cause of all the problems. While inter-connectivity has never been prevalent in gaming, it has certainly always been present. On the PC and the original X-Box, patches and expansion packs were used. Back then, developers had this functionality. However, the problems we are facing now were not around back then. Developers never (or at least not enough to be noticed) abused the use of patches and DLC to adjust games and hide away features in the name of profit. They might have hid away buggy parts of games or worked around them, but they never fixed it and released it later. No, something had to change to start this system of overuse and abuse.
What I have come to believe is that the animosity towards used games and the abuse of inter-connectivity are not problems of the industry. Rather, they are symptoms of bigger issues. The question remains: What are the problems? I believe that these issues are caused by two connected problems: Overinflated budgets in gaming and overall bad business sense in the game industry. These two problems are born from one central problem: The gaming industry is trying really hard to emulate the movie industry, when that is a grave mistake. Games have become more graphics-intensive these last few years. The more advanced graphics become, the more people need to be hired in order to make these graphics and (more importantly) the more programs and graphics engines cost to lease. This results in budgets for modern games skyrocketing. They want cinema-quality productions no matter the cost. The problem is that while the companies do this in order to stay on the cutting edge and keep their consumer base interested, this is not necessary. The truth is that graphics are only a small, minor consideration to gamers when deciding what games to buy. We gamers only take graphics into consideration when they begin to affect whether or not they can play the game (as in, when the game is incredibly ugly and hard to look at or when they lead to high load times). I have never once heard somebody refuse to buy a game specifically because the graphics were not as good as every other game. Nonetheless, this over-inflation of the budget causes the money-grubbing the modern gaming is becoming. It pushes deadlines up and “inspires” many of the DLC schemes gamers hate.
But this is not the only problem. Gaming has become more like the movie industry when that is not conducive to business. Like movies, game sales are usually tracked in the first week, and that is what many people use to determine the overall success of the game. Also, games tend to hype up their initial release and then let the hype fizzle out after a few weeks. This is detrimental to the industry. It works for movies for several reasons. One, theater ticket sales are only a smallportionof initial profits. Odds are that released movies have tie-in products as well like toys, novelizations, even the inevitable movie tie-in game (Ugh). Furthermore, after movies are released, they have alternative methods to make money. Film producers can continue to profit off of DVD and Blu-Ray sales as well as the syndication of their works on TV channels like HBO. As a result, even a movie that was a complete flop at the box office can profit in the long run.
Similar to movies, games are trying to get tons of money through initial sales. Unlike films, games generally do not have the added safety nets that films do. As a result, with the current business model, game companies have to recoup all of their losses within the first week. Combined with the high graphics budgets, this is suicide. It means that any AAA game that is not of a well known brand is almost guaranteed to fail. A normal product normally would be able to fix the situation and still make some sort of profit by changing the price or something, but games have become increasingly inflexible as of late. Most modern games are released at a flat rate of $60. Like any other product, these prices are subject to change with the market. Unlike any other product, these prices can take months or, as it often the case, yearsto drop there prices. Instead of adjusting to supply and demand, prices for games are nearly unchanging. Used games are not subject to this and will often fluctuate with the demands of the market. This is why Gamestop is able to profit from used games. In fact, I have heard tales of times where Gamestop intentionallyopens up unopened games to pawn them off as “used” at a loss in order to clear up shelf space. This mimicry of the movie industry combined with the inability to use basic business sense when selling the finished product (nota service, to the person who actually said that) is damaging the industry.
So how do we fix these two problems. There are two ways we can do this. First, we can vote with our wallets. We can support companies with good business models and deny companies who use poor business models or unethical practices. This is not done nearly enough in modern gaming. Gamers have demonstrated an inability to live without. We do not realize the power we hold over these corporations. So, this strategy seems unlikely. The second option is to do what gamers are best at: Bitch and Moan. Bitching and moaning are not bad. It is okay to criticize game companies. They need feedback, now more than ever. As one of my favorite game commentators, Shamus Young, once said, “If games aren’t improving, than you haven’t been complaining hardenough.” Input from the consumers is vital to improving the state of the industry. The last alternative is to do nothing. This is the worst possible option. At the rate games are going, if we do not do anything, than game companies will eventually begin to collapse. Budgets will grow unsustainable, given time. Nobody wants this. I certainly do not want this. If I complain about the state of the industry, than it is a because I love the industry. I hate these practices because I love gaming. I write this blog post because I love gaming. I love what these companies are able to do and I want them to continue to thrive. Hell, I want to be able to take-part in the creation of games. Everyday I hear about development studios closing shop, I feel terrible for all of the talent set loose in the process. We need to change this industry. We need to make it sustainable, else we will be seeing a repeat of the Atari E.T. Incident.

Any game enthusiast who goes onto the internet is familiar with this particular topic. Everyday, someone, somewhere in the world argues that “games are not realistic enough.” Although this assertion is made often, it is a somewhat disingenuous one. When game players say that they want games to be more realistic, that is not exactly what they mean. They are referring to a similar, yet together different topic. This week, I am going to discuss realism in games: Why realism is an unrealistic goal and what gamers are actually asking for.
First off, I am going to start with a statement that will sound like common sense when I say it: A truly realistic game is never going to exist.Furthermore, nobody truly wants realism in games.A truly realistic game would be a game where the protagonist would die after taking a few bullets, health regeneration would take weeks, the player would have to maintain some source of income and pay bills/rent as they go through the story, etc. This would not be an extremely compelling game. This would be real life. This would be a chore. Also, programming and rendering this would be a complete nightmare. It would take many years before we got close to completely realistic and commercially available simulation programs. Players do not want to play through real life, they want to play through interesting and dramatic, yet believablestories.
That is the key. The audience does not want a realistic story. They want a believable story. That is a subtle, yet distinct difference. A believe story is one that might not be in line with the rules of the real world (and indeed, often will not be depending on the genre), but it does have its own internal logic, or continuity, that is rarely, if ever, broken. Even if it is broken, it is only in small, minor ways that do not have a significant impact on the world. This applies not only to the world itself, (as in, how its technology/magic works, political alliences/treaties, national pollicies, etc.) but also to the characters how populate the world and take part in the events of the story.
For example, in Fallout: New Vegas, the NCR, who is equipped with guns and hi-tech combat armor, is in a battle against Caesar’s Legion, who is equipped with machetes, chainsaws, and football equipment (as armor). In real life, the NCR would dominate against Caesar’s Legion. There would be no question: A bunch of semi-trained marksman would destroy a group of the best-trained melee specialists in football pads in a straight fight. However, by the systems in the game, this makes sense. Using melee weapons and/or unarmed are perfectly legitimate playstyles in New Vegasand many players use them (myself included). So when the Legion is shown to be in a stalemate with the NCR, players will not question it. While unrealistic in the real world, this still makes sense by the game’s internal logic. We might question the motives and rationale behind the two factions, but we do not question that such a stalemate is possible.
This continuity extends to the factions for the most part. Going back to New Vegas, this is mostly done very well. The NCR has a believable motivation because they wish to annex New Vegas to both spread their democratic ideology and to gain the resources of the area, notably Hoover Dam and the electricity generated by it. However, they have a streak of over-expanding and spreading themselves too thin. Meanwhile, Mr. House wants to keep control of New Vegas in order to keep making profits from the NCR and use that profit to advance humanity technologically and possibly space-ward. The trade-off is that he will not tolerate any faction who openly opposes him and will instruct the player to eliminate most of the minor factions in the game. These are both interesting motivations, goals, and drawbacks that the player can wrap their head around, understand and possibly support.
However, the Legion does not have a similar consistency. Caesar’s Legion is a faction that subjugates tribals and adds their men and women to the army and the slave workforce respectively. They are also known for rejecting advanced technology in favor of primitive weapons like machetes and chainsaws and basic firearms like repeaters and SMGs. The tradeoff being that while the concept of individual liberty and freedom does not exist, the people are generally safe because bandits wouldn’t dare to cross the legion. With regards to behavior, members of the legion are taught the ills of the society of the NCR and of New Vegas. They shun anything to do with these things in favor of a less advanced, and more demanding lifestyle, hoping to destroy the NCR and Vegas. With regards to their soldiers and general populace, this is fairly consistent. However, when you get into the upper echelons of Legion society, it begins to falter. Firstly, something that the player is able to discover as the game goes on is that the Legion utilizes systems of spies in both Vegas and the NCR. Far from shunning these places and demonizing them, the higher ups place people in places where they can influence the people there and possible steal some of the intel/technology in the area for themselves. As if that was not enough, with a high enough Medicine skill, the player and diagnose Caesar with a brain tumor. His response to this would naturally be to avoid modern medicine and try to heal himself through more primitive means or even to prepare a successor. Nope! Instead, we asks you to fix his Auto-Doc (Its a robot doctor.) so that he can use advanced technology to heal himself, going against his core anti-technology principals.
Going on the anti-technology front again, this continues to be illogical when the player asks why Caesar does what he does. He wants to use the ancient Roman Empire as a model to form his own. Thus, we reverts to using old technology. However, this does not make sense to those who have even a surface level understanding of history. The ancient Roman were not anti-technology.In fact, they were about as pro-technology as you can get. The shamelessly ripped off any good/useful technique/technology from their neighbors if it meant that they could do better. So by abandoning technology, Caesar is spitting in the face of the very system he is trying to emulate. Everything he does seams to contradict something else he is doing. The net result is that he breaks his own internal logic and becomes a caricature that no sane person would get behind. For a world as beautifully crafted as the one in New Vegas, this is tragic.
Realism as the dictionary describes it will never be a part of video games and for good reason. However, this does not mean that gamers are wrong to keep asking for games to be realistic. In fact, it is important for the audience of game developers to keep them honest and make them abide by their own internal logic. It is still very important to maintain a level of consistency and believability with the world and the characters. This is just another part of storytelling. Game developers would be wise to remember this.

Downloadable Content(DLC) has become increasingly commonplace in the modern gaming industry. Most of the biggest gaming releases utilize it to some extent. Done well, DLC can bring new life to a game, extending its shelf life and keeping players engaged for longer than they normally would be. Done poorly, DLC can anger consumers and make them feel ripped off. Today, I am going to analyze some of the current trends of DLC and detail the pros and cons of each.
One type of DLC that has been brought to the spotlight recent is Day 1 DLC. As the name suggests, Day 1 DLC is content released for a game either on the day it is released or extremely close to it. There are several reasons why developers do this. For one, the time a developer finishes a game is not the same time that it gets released. When a game is finished, it “goes gold.” During this phase which lasts for a month or two, the game is sent to all the major parties involved (the game publisher, Sony if the game is a PS3 release, Microsoft if the game is an Xbox 360 release, etc.) to be tested. Before the advent of DLC, the developers would often begin production of the next project or cash in on all the vacation days they no doubt saved up. Nowadays, these developers are allowed to work on small DLC projects. Often times these projects were started earlier and intended to be part of the main game, but had to be scrapped for various logistical reasons. The other main reason this type of DLC is so prevalent is simply due to the consumer base. It has been shown that DLC for a game sells less and less well the farther away it is released from the game’s initial release, so it makes sense to release it early. While this sounds good in theory, this has the potential for abuse. Companies can, and sometimes will, release content that feels like it should have been a part of the main game. Consumers can tell the difference between content that is a extra and is not necessary in the grand scheme of things compared to content that is ripped from the game and sold later as paid DLC. This generates a lot of bad PR and negative publicity for a company. As I have stated before, PR is very important. People will be more open to giving companies money if they do not feel like they are continuously being screwed over.
On the other hand, that is nothing compared on On-Disk DLC. Again as the name suggests, On-Disc DLC is content that is already on the game disc, but cannot be accessed normally. Instead, the developer releases a code to unlock it later as “DLC”. I am going to be completely honest here, I hate this form of DLC with a passion. There is no reason for this kind of content except for corporate greed. This is not so much of a business concern as much as it is a consumer rights issue. The consumer bought the disc, which contains the game. They own, and are entitled to, every piece of content on that disc. At this point, the developer/publisher no longer has any legal say in what they do with this content. (Within fair rights laws. As in, they are allowed to let people borrow/rent that content, but they cannot copy it. That would be piracy, which is a whole separate topic.) On-Disc DLC is the antithesis to this because this allows developers to wall off content that the consumer rightfully owns. Admittedly, this becomes more hazy once digital distribution gets involved, but the point is no less valid.
A very good, and very recent, example of both these trends is the “From Ashes” DLC in Mass Effect 3. For the unaware, “From Ashes” was accidentally leaked to the world a few weeks before the release of Mass Effect 3via the Xbox Live Marketplace. The content is an extra mission and an extra character for the cost of $10 and was going to be released the same day the game would be. This was met with outcry because of the nature of the character. It can be argued that this particular character, a Prothean named Javik, is important to the lore of Mass Effect, considering that he was part of a race that wasa believed to be extinct in game and was responsible for many of the major plot points in the series. The outrage continued even moreso after it was revealed that Javik and all of his voice clips were already in the main game and a simple numbers tweak in the game code (PC only) would allow players to use him. This was particularly egrigious after statements from Project Lead Casey Hudson said that they would never take something from the game and release it later as DLC. Bioware did everything wrong with Javik. He was already on the disc, he was released day one, and he was overpriced at $10 for one character. This was a perfect storm that many Bioware fans saw as a betrayal. Things only got worse later, but that is a whole different conversation.
While On-Disc and Day 1 DLC are definitely some of the worst current trends in DLC, there are companies out there that do DLC in such an excellent way that I just need to bring attention to them. The first example of DLC done right is from Valve. Valve released DLC for Portal 2 in an extremely intelligent way. The first DLC they released for the game came out only a few weeks after the game came out, but it was not anything major. Valve released different types of hats that can be used in the cooperative campaign to add uniqueness and personality to the two robot characters. Furthermore, these hats were reasonably price at around $0.50 per hat. (Final Fantasy XIII-2, I was looking at you and your $3 costumes as I wrote that last sentence.) I can support this kind of content because it is not vital to the game and it is very reasonably priced. People who do not want it have no reason to buy it (like me) but those who wanted it bought more than enough to compensate for that. The other DLC released for Portal 2was called “Peer Review.” This content was released well after the game came out and added tons of new puzzles for the cooperative campaign. It was sold for the low, low price of free. It was just to add longevity to the game. This was amazing because companies very rarely do this. It was basically an act of kindness to the consumer base. I do not expect other companies to do things like this, but I feel compelled to point out examples like this in an article about DLC.
The other kind of DLC I can support is the kind of DLC that Bethesda and Obsidian released for the Elder Scrolls and Fallout games. After the legendarily infamous disaster of the Horse Armor DLC (from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion) Bethesda learned their lesson. One of the most well-received DLCs to ever be released was The Shivering Islesfrom Oblivion. It had a hefty price of $25, but it was well worth it. It added a completely new (and amazing) world to Oblivion that was about one-forth of the size of the original game. It came complete with new side-quests, an interesting main story, tons new spells for mages (There was even a spell to revive dead bodies.), tons of new ingredients for alchemists, tons of new equipment for everybody (including one of my personal favorite weapons in the Elder Scrolls series) and was overall a massive piece of critical and commercially acclaimed content. Bethesda took the reception of The Shivering Islesto heart and made most of the DLC of all future games similarly. This is most evident in the Fallout 3 DLCs. There were five of them, each released at around $10, that all added radically new and different locals to the base game. One of them (Broken Steel) even extended the main story and raised the level cap by 10 levels. Obsidian did something similar in Fallout: New Vegasand its DLC. One of them added tons of new weapons and weapon mods that have a very noticeable impact on the game. The other DLCs each had new worlds. The difference being that while each DLC had its own, self-contained story (like the DLC from Fallout 3), they all referenced characters and locals from other DLCs and tied together in a way I do not think I have seen before. Again, with the exception of the first one (which was cheaper), the other DLCs were about $10. I have to stress why these DLCs were all good. They added something new and refreshing to the game, they are fairly well-priced, and most importantly, none of it was even close to feeling necessary in order to make the most out of the game. It is entirely possible to play through both of the recent Fallout games without even thinking about DLC. It is all side-stuff that is completely unrelated to any of the plots in the main game. There is nothing wrong with adding new and interesting stuff later on. In my opinion, that is the spirit of good DLC. It is supposed to breath new life into games by adding new and interesting stuff.
DLC is a double-edged sword that has become an integral part of modern gaming. Companies have demonstrated both the good and the bad of adapting this new way of extending a game. It is the responsibility of the consumer to keep the corporations honest by seeing through the bad and rewarding those who get DLC right. If you disagree with the way somebody is handling their DLC, then do not buy it. You are only supporting them if you do. This is the essence of capitalism. The consumer rewards companies who do things they like by doing business with them.
Page 134 of 136...131132133134135136