XCOM: Enemy Unknown–Episode 1

The Aliens Have Invaded!

After finishing my playthrough of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, I had to decide what to record next. It was tempting to just go right into the next title in the series (there are three on the same disc after all), but ultimately I wanted to go with a different type of game. You know, get a different flavor going. I am very excited, but also a bit nervous about what I selected…

 
I love a strategy or RPG game with a good turn-based combat mechanic. I enjoy being able to examine the situation and theorize about what might come next as a result of each decision. As I’ve mentioned before turn-base and real-time systems each have their own place in my heart, but if I had to pick one over the other outside of any context I would go turn-based. Maybe it’s because Dragon Warrior was my first video game love, or because of how it imitates that flow of the paper/dice founding father so many games have drawn inspiration from. Maybe it’s simply that I don’t like to be rushed when there are more than a few different moving parts to take into consideration.

The Setup

The aliens are invading and must be stopped! The mysterious council of nations has put into effect the “XCOM Project” in an effort to combat the otherworldly threat. You, the player, are cast into the role of Commander of this initiative. Right off the bat I like that even though you aren’t supposed imagine yourself as any of the on screen characters, you are given an identified role.

Throughout the game you must decide which specific soldiers will deploy for each mission and how each of them will level up within their respective classes. In between missions you will choose how the budget is to be spent between better troop equipment, global satellite coverage, base upgrades, etc..

Your Army

Each event in the game can carry with it permanent consequences, and the effects on the individuals in your military force are no exception. Each member of your squad can be injured, or even killed during enemy engagements. Should they die, they won’t return. For this reason I’ve often heard it recommended that you name each member of your force after people you know. When the soldiers at risk on the ground are named after friends, family members, or co-workers, it adds a bit more impact to their battlefield demise and subsequent listing on the memorial wall. It can also add a bit of humor when you are tired of yelling at your real-life cubicle neighbor to quit missing all of his shots and start pulling his weight!

For this playthrough I won’t be doing that because it can be pretty time consuming to redesign each person in the barracks, at least it is for me because I’m not just content to change their name but also their face and hair as well as pick out a specific armor color. Additionally, there may be people in my life who wouldn’t appreciate their name and likeness being shared in this manner for all the internet to have access to. Asking everyone I know how they feel about me including them in the “dumb video game internet thing I’m doing” is not something I’ll be pursuing.

However, if you stumble upon this blog or the video itself on my YouTube page and would like to see an XCOM soldier named after you, feel free to let me know and I’d be happy to try to keep that unfortunate digital soul alive.

The War Begins

How many nations of the world will lose confidence and pull their support from the project as I struggle to keep them safe? How many brave men and women will ultimately give their lives in defense of their home world before the inevitable conclusion? Only time will tell…

Play nice, everyone!

The Sands of Time–Episode 10

And the World Is Saved!

the final battle

time circles back to the start

a journey concludes

Play nice, everyone!

I Can’t See You!

As I write this, it is currently the middle of the night here in Tokyo. I was fortunate enough to take this trip and see some amazing things unlike anything I’ve seen before. Because my job is one that often requires me to always be available it’s also been a bit tiring. I had to join a conference call to answer some questions and address some concerns about a project that is starting up back in the states, which meant waking up in the middle of the night. While I was up I decided to catch up on some of the other gaming blogs I follow, engage in some discussion, and felt the desire to write a little for myself.

I will be posting all about my time here in Japan shortly after I get back home. Check back later for that!

First Person vs Third Person

Do you have a preference? I know I do. I will give any game a chance if it seems like the setting, story, and gameplay will be interesting and fun to me, regardless of play style. I do however prefer third person over first.

This also means that first person shooters are not my favored genre, and I end up passing on a lot of potentially great experiences as a result. I do play some, but it’s always something else about the game that draws me in.

I appreciated the visual style and sense of humor of Borderlands, but what really got me into it was the prospect of enjoying those things cooperatively with a couple of friends. This also explains why I haven’t made much progress in Borderlands 2 at the time of this writing, our group hasn’t been able to consistently meet up to tackle the sequel. As a result, while Borderlands 2 is touted as an improvement over what made the first game so great, I don’t like it as much. What it is on it’s own is not as good as what it is, plus friends (Borderlands 2 + Friends > Borderlands 2). I’m also suspecting that the whole “golden key” system is dragging the experience down for me, but that’s a topic for another day.

I got into Mirror’s Edge for what it brought to the table that was unique to most first person games, and that was the parkour world navigation. For me, that style was made more fun by the novelty of free running through Faith’s perspective. My experience with shooters is usually not enhanced in this way just by putting the camera directly behind the gun.

I Want to See

I feel like I have much better awareness of my surroundings in third person, but mostly I just want to see my character. I like to notice how changing equipment also changes the look. I like to see how the character moves, makes use of cover, and negotiates obstacles. Most of all I like to remember who my character is. I know the goal of the first person viewpoint is to better immerse the player in the shoes of the protagonist, but it’s easy for me to forget who the protagonist is when I can’t see them, especially if that character also has no in-game voice. I’m not trying to play the game as me, I’m trying to play as the character.

My wife once commented on how often she notices that I will create a female character in games. Initially I didn’t have a response to that, but after thinking about it for a while it made sense that it’s because for so many years of gaming there wasn’t an option. The default character was usually male. As a result I will, more often than not, create a female character when given the option. Now I’m not going to sit here and say that every game should have a female version of the protagonist to select. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with creating a story-centric game with one specifically designed character. These games serve their story better. I would like to see more of these games that feature a much wider variety of main character design (gender, ethnicity, etc.), and I think that’s the future we’re headed for. Anyway, that’s another topic for another post.

In a previous post I used my current Oblivion character as an example and she’ll serve here as well. Because I’m looking through her eyes and because she has no in-game voice I forget the character I’m playing. It can be jarring when I talk to a shopkeeper, quest-giver, or other NPC and that character includes “miss” or “ma'am” in their dialogue (I’m not actually sure if any character in Oblivion says “ma’am”, but you get the idea). I’ve forgotten the gender of my character because I can’t see her.

I’ve said it before, the thing I like the most about my games is story. And central to a good story are well-defined characters. There are some of us who enjoy bringing themselves into the game. I prefer to bring myself into the character, and that’s easier and more fun for me when I can see them.

Cover Me!

The second biggest reason I prefer third person games to first person is the way they typically handle cover. In most first person games I’ve played you take advantage of cover by standing behind a wall or ducking while in front of a low object, which just gives you a close up view of the object you are hiding behind (I hope your textures are good!). This is certainly more realistic in that your view would definitely be obstructed if you were hiding behind something in real life, but that’s not for me. I only want so much realism in my escapism.

In movies or TV shows where action scenes depict the characters behind cover, we see them with their backs against the object offering protection. And they usually turn in a cool, hero-type way to peek out or over the cover and squeeze off a few shots in defense. It looks better for us, the viewers, because we see them from a different viewpoint. I find that the same holds true for me with games.

Simply put, I prefer third person games because I can see my character and how they interact with the world around them. That is, as long as the camera system is well designed…

How you do like to view your game worlds? Like me, do you also have a clear preference?

 

Play nice, everyone!

The Sands of Time–Episode 9

Fumbling in the Dark

elevator trap

why is there a bathtub here

my companion falls

Play nice, everyone!

That Napoleon Dynamite Moment

A Cool Thing to Witness

If you’ve seen the movie, you may already know the sequence I’m referring to. I’m talking about the talent show scene. That clichéd moment when the nobody that everybody expects nothing from does something wonderful or unexpected. And after a brief, awkward silence when you’re thinking to yourself, “Uh oh, which way is this gonna go?” the room erupts into applause. It’s that feel-good cheese that the entertainment industry loves to feed us at regular intervals.

Have you ever seen such a moment in person? Well, I have and it was pretty cool to say the least! When I saw the movie I couldn’t help but think back to this particular event. That internal association I have between the two is why I will always think of that type of scene as a “Napoleon Dynamite Moment”. It’s an event I often think back on when I need a smile, when life is such that I could really use a reminder that incredible, completely unexpected things do in fact happen all around us. I think it’s a great story and I’ll share it here. It’s actually very similar to the one in the movie and happened about 7 or 8 years before the film’s release, when I was in high school.

A Dark Time…

Ugh, high school… I hated high school. What a miserable time, and junior high wasn’t much better. I certainly could have made better choices during that period of my life that would likely have improved my experience, but would have had zero effect on one overriding aspect of adolescence; teenagers can be terrible human beings! Of course it wasn’t all bad, there were some good times and some good people. And as I said, I am not entirely blameless for the crappy time I had. But why is it so necessary for a group of “individuals” to place so much importance on an identity based solely on what “group” they belong to, even to the exclusion and harassment of others?

I have always loved video games, which only recently has achieved a tentative measure of broad acceptance. And as an adolescent I also played the cello in the school orchestra, joined the chess club, and could often be seen playing Magic: The Gathering in the hallways at lunch time. These things are much cooler now than they used to be, trust me. Along with other, more personal challenges I faced at the time (which I won’t be getting into here) I was also not very outgoing. I had my fair share of bullies and ridicule, and eventually dropped out.

Again I stress, my decisions are completely my responsibility. While there was much unpleasantness visited upon me by others that did not help matters, I’m not here to claim that my choices were somehow not my fault. I only bring this up to convey that I can, to a certain extent, relate to the protagonist of this real-life, actual “Napoleon Dynamite Moment”.

A Day I’ll Remember… Mostly…

Just like in the movie, this takes place at a high school talent show. There was a wide range of spectacle to behold, from the student who performed “stand-up” by regurgitating a recent Mad TV monologue word for word (the one where Craig Anton hates Hootie but loves the Blowfish, thanks Google!) to the one who performed an impressive flaming baton routine that comes from whichever island his family originated from (some of the details may be fuzzy, but you get the idea).

I still shake my head over the 3 or 4 garage bands that took the stage nearly back to back to play the exact same U2 songs that the bulk of the student body was currently obsessed with. Really, people?! At no point during registration or rehearsal did it occur to anyone involved to make some changes to the program in an attempt to avoid such repetition?! Apparently not, since I seemed to be the only one in the audience reluctant to get to my feet for the fourth rendition of “Where the Streets Have No Name” performed by yet another group of kids less than an hour from the time that the first group did it…

Then It Happened…

I had seen him in the halls on many occasions, and always alone. Not once did I observe him exchanging words with another person. And shame on me for also not offering a handshake and a smile to someone who might have welcomed it! I always remembered seeing him in overalls, as if his entire wardrobe was made up of hand-me-downs from his dad’s mechanic job or something similar. And he wore those thick, yellow-tinted glasses I will forever associate with shop teachers. I try not to judge and I know jumping to conclusions is ill-advised, but he certainly seemed to not have a friend in the world. I honestly hope that wasn’t the case.

I can’t remember if it was the final act or the second to last, older memories can be hazy. It was certainly the highlight for me so I choose to remember it as the finale. This young man whose name I didn’t recognize took the stage holding only an acoustic guitar and a folding chair. If I was a betting man I’d wager that no one else recognized his name either, but like me, all recognized him on sight. I actually still can’t remember his name, which is sad given that I’ll never forget what he did that afternoon…

He sat down and began to play and sing “Early Morning Rain” by Gordon Lightfoot. While already a fan of some of Mr. Lightfoot’s work, I had never heard this song before. And I’d wager it was not a popular tune with this crowd, mostly because it was not a U2 song titled, “Where the Streets Have No Name” (based on my observations of the previous portion of the show). His guitar play was flawless and he sang better than the man who wrote it (but not by much, I mean he is Gordon Lightfoot after all). And when he was done, silence hung over the auditorium. Just as in countless movies there was that moment of quiet, just long enough to allow you to wonder what might happen, before the entire student body exploded into one of the best standing ovations I have ever witnessed with my own eyes and ears. This young man whom I had never seen even converse with another human being was the clear hero of the day.

Where’s Our Moment?

Where is my talent show stage? Where do I stand, a nobody, in front of a crowd that has no real reason to expect anything impressive from me? The crowd part I have figured out. While I have always had loved ones who believed in me, I am (or at least was) the crowd that expected nothing from this “nobody”.

If I could go back and sit down with younger me, would he be impressed? Or would he at least be hopeful? Would I tell him that I know it sucks, this dark time he’s in? Would I tell him that I understand that he feels so lost, like he’ll never find his way? Would I tell him that it was about to get much, much worse? Would I tell him that he would make decisions that hurt others, that he would later cringe about upon reflection? Would I tell him that he would suffer such a great loss that he would feel like he may never laugh again? Would I tell him that he would be betrayed by someone that he was only trying to help, and would spend years repaying the debt incurred and repairing his credit?

Would I tell him that, as a high school dropout with only a GED, he would be hired to a salary position typically only offered to those with a civil engineering degree? Would I tell him that not only would he do well, but that he would be the one to train others in that position who did have that degree? Would I tell him that he would be well on his way to be a project manager by his mid-30s, and travel across the country and even overseas for work? Would I tell him that he would be surrounded by people who trust his judgment and value his opinion? Would I tell him that he would be respected, despite his fondness of the same nerdy things that had previously made him such an easy target?

Would I tell him that he would one day have a nice home that was his to do with as he pleased, even though he was often not there? Would I tell him that he would be loved? Would I tell him that the most wonderful, beautiful woman he would ever meet would actually choose to share her life with him, to be his wife? Would I tell him that he would one day be able to look in the mirror and like what he saw, that he would be genuinely happy with who he had become? Would I tell him that, while it would never be easy and there would always be challenges, he would enjoy his life?

Would I tell him it will get better…?

”I’m not gonna to lie to you, it’ll get weird and it’ll get rough, real rough. Keep your head down and don’t give up. Just wait for the next act, you’re gonna love it! You won’t believe where this thing is going!”

Maybe It’s Already Happened

Maybe it’s still happening. Wasn’t it William Shakespeare who wrote, “All the world’s a stage…”? If that’s so, then I’ve also been in the audience this whole time. I’ve been dejected, witness to the train wreck that my “talent show” has been. And I’ve watched in fascination as it turned around and did indeed get better, much better. If it is truly one’s own approval that is the most important, over that of others, then I will gladly and proudly receive the standing ovation from my audience of one. And though it’s not sudden or flashy, I will enjoy my own personal “Napoleon Dynamite Moment”.

Thanks for reading! I never really know where these things are going to go. I start with a thought, an idea I’d like to share, and it usually takes off in a direction I hadn’t planned. I promise to return to the more nerd-focused content that usually appears here soon enough.

Play nice, everyone!

The Sands of Time–Episode 8

Don’t Get Distracted Now, Prince!

swinging a new sword

prison and torture chamber

now he is shirtless

Play nice, everyone!

Side-Questing Into Ambiguity

Who Am I, Really?

This is a topic that I’ve been kicking around in my head for a while now as a direct result of two main catalysts.

The first is from an Afterwords interview of Far Cry 4’s creative director, Alex Hutchinson, by Game Informer’s Matt Bertz in the February 2015 issue. One of the questions Matt asks Alex is about what he feels is the “schizophrenic nature” of the main character because of the stark moral contrast in the missions undertaken throughout the game. Alex’s response to this was what turned on the light bulb for me as he answers that, “… he wasn’t doing any of those things – you were.” He then goes on to point out that much of that content was optional.

The second was a post I recently read from a blog I started following (written by Rebekah Lang), and am enjoying quite a bit. Specifically, it was this post. In it she discusses her enjoyment of side quests and the satisfaction felt by completing them all. I really wanted to comment on the post itself, but couldn’t do so without a lot of words. Having no good way to convey my point without taking up way too much space in her comment section, I decided to just write this post and offer inspirational credit and a recommendation to her excellent blog. 

These two sources provide a good frame for the conflicting feelings I’m having about side quests in video games lately, which we’ll get to in short order. First,  please allow me to set the stage for an example of this bittersweet relationship.

Open-World Games

Nothing extends a video game backlog like open-world games, and I have many on my shelf. The worst offender, and perhaps my most embarrassing, is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Despite the many hours I’ve spent with the game I’ve never finished it. I’ve never even made much headway in the main quest. On top of that, I’m currently playing through the third copy I’ve owned! My wife purchased the initial release on PS3 for me as a gift, which I later traded in for the Game of the Year Edition (an act she is still not too pleased about), which was in turn given to a friend when I purchased the 5th Anniversary Edition.

My failure to finish the game is due mainly to distraction and my inability to play it correctly. I don’t like talking about games being played “correctly” because I’m a firm believer that if you are enjoying your time with a game you are doing it right, regardless of your progress. It is a game after all and games are supposed to be fun (I think that’s a quote from something…?). When a game gives me the opportunity to do what I want, I tend to try to do it all. Rather than creating a specialized character, I would tend to try a bit of everything. It’s a real “jack of all trades, master of none” scenario. In Oblivion the game world levels alongside you, so I would repeatedly reach a point where I was technically at a high enough level but wasn’t proficient enough in any skills to survive. I would always hit a wall when the trolls began to appear. I hate trolls… (now that I remember from Willow).

When dealing with a meaty RPG like Oblivion I really have to stick with it at the near exclusion of all others until I’m done so I don’t forget what’s going on in the story or at least what the controls are. Second only to the pity that is the number of games on my shelf I haven’t played, is the number of games I have started but haven’t returned to because of other gaming distractions. But I haven’t given up on Oblivion just yet, I’ve created one last character with whom I am bound and determined to see as much of the game as possible before finally putting it behind me.

Meet Sylvir Blackhart!
 
She is amazing! As a master of archery and stealth, she can operate undetected in most situations and strike from the dark like no other. At level 29, her Speed and Agility (the attributes most vital for her deadly skills) are completely maxed out. Unlike my previous characters she is focused on a specific toolset, and as a result is enjoying quite a bit of success. However, while I do love playing the sneaky, ranged, lock-picking assassin, I don’t much like her.

Sylvir doesn’t stand for anything, has no discernable alignment or motive. The only thing anybody can ever really know about who she is, is that she seems to be addicted to favors. She has an insatiable need to do things for people, which is how she got to level 29 without even really beginning the main “save the world” quest. No task is too noble, despicable, simple, or complex. She doesn’t at all care who is helped or hurt by her reckless, mercenary ways.

Of course, just as Mr. Hutchinson told Matt about Far Cry 4, she didn’t do any of those things, I did. In the course of trying to see as much of the game as I could I’ve created a character that behaves like a crazy person. In chasing the satisfaction that comes from crossing items off of a quest log, I’ve created a less satisfying story.

What Does It Mean to You?

I love a good story, and I will forgive a lot of bland gameplay, questionable design choices, and even a host of glitches for a great one. For me, central to a great story are strong, well-defined characters. By fulfilling any and all requests she come across, Sylvir is anything but well-defined.

Now, I’m not here to pass judgment on people for how they like to play their games. However you find your fun with a game is exactly how you should be playing it (aside from those that derive enjoyment from harassing, excluding, or threatening other people through games). If you genuinely like spending countless hours running down each and every side quest in a game, more power to you. I’ve done it myself and had fun while doing it.

I won’t deny how great it is to open the map in an Assassin’s Creed game and see all those little icons cleaned off. The difference with Assassin’s Creed games is that none of the optional side activities break who the characters is. The point is to play through that character’s story, re-live their experiences. You can be punished or at least warned for doing something like accidentally killing an innocent bystander because it is out of character for the protagonist (…sometimes I get sloppy with the targeting…), but the included missions are all in line with who you are playing as.

Side quests can be a great way for developers to extend the experience for gamers who want more value for their dollar, and an enjoyable game can be fun for a much longer period of time by including a well thought out suite of optional content. At this point many of us have been conditioned to try to get the most “juice for the squeeze”, whether it’s in an attempt to get more bang for your buck or to collect all the trophies/achievements.

Open-world games that promote the idea of playing it however you want will undoubtedly be loaded with side quests and other non-critical activities, but perhaps with a  downside for gamers such as myself. Like with Matt Bertz’s experience in Far Cry 4, many large games offer some side quests that can be quite morally contradicting to others. In trying to see and do everything, maybe we’re not so much playing the way we want as we are simply playing all we can.

What I’m beginning to understand about myself is that I might enjoy these experiences more by asking myself what my character would do rather than just trying to do everything. We already have a powerful opportunity to shape our distinct path through many of the impressive digital creations at our fingertips, why not try to use it? What’s the point of having this incredible player choice, only to use it to just do all the things, all the time? Why not play as a character who will readily assist those in need for little to no gain, but finds a more nefarious request distasteful? Why not create a character who just wants to watch it all burn down? Why not immerse yourself in a persona that’s much less picky but will only perform tasks in return for an appropriate financial reward? And if you really want to see all a game has to offer, why not replay it as a different character with different standards?

I often think back to my time with Heavy Rain. To date, I’ve only played it through once and enjoyed it immensely. Perhaps the best part was talking about it with a new friend who had played it at around the same time that I did. Our stories were completely different! I still find it fascinating how unique our experiences could be while still playing the same game. Heavy Rain is obviously not an open-world game and isn’t loaded with side quests but it serves to remind me how vital a good story can be to my enjoyment of a game. When the credits rolled I had a clear-cut, well-defined path through that was uniquely mine.

How Could It Be Better?

The games in the Infamous series receive a lot of criticism for promising player choice, but really only delivering two main options. I’ve only played the first one at this point, but I understand the following titles are pretty similar in this regard. At critical junctions throughout the game you have to make a choice which affects not only the story, but the protagonist’s morality. Most of the criticism leveled at the game pertains to the fact that the choices are all pretty clearly “good” or “bad”, as well as the fact that you have to commit to one or the other to obtain and maximize the top-tier abilities. To walk a morally “gray” line, you have to make a combination of “white” and “black” choices and will likely never reach your full potential as a super-powered dude.

While I understand where the complaints come from, I don’t really share them. I had a great time playing Infamous and felt it was a very solid product. Because I wanted to see both sides (and get that Platinum!) I played it through twice, becoming the bad Cole first, followed by the good.

One thing I appreciated was how it handled side quests. They weren’t nearly as pervasive as in most large open world titles, but what they did with them mattered, at least to me. Many of the side quests were basically two sides of the same coin. When you chose to tackle an optional mission that was aligned with one moral side, the other one was taken off the table. There was no way to do all of the “good” side missions and all of the “bad”, which made sense to me. I would like to see a similar system put in place in future open-world games on a much larger scale.

Imagine an Elder Scrolls-sized epic adventure just loaded with side quests, but when you agree to take on one task, many of the others that could be seen as morally contradicting became no longer available. Sure, you couldn’t do each and every little non-critical activity in one playthrough, but your story would be personalized by your choices. Your character would be better defined, not only by what he/she did, but also by what he/she declined to do.

I know, it’s kind of a silly thing to hope for, especially since I can already do this myself by being a bit more discerning as I play. I’d still love to see someone try, if it hasn’t already been done before in a game I just haven’t played yet (the backlog is deep!). That way, the gamer in me who wants an individualized story doesn’t have do battle with the one who wants to do everything (he’s already too good at getting his way!). Perhaps, with a system such as that I would like Sylvir a lot more. I would at least know who she is.

Thanks for reading!

Play nice, everyone!