61 Frames Per Second : peter molyneux

John’s Games of 2008: Year of the Character

John Constantine — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:45:00 GMT

Next time you start telling somebody about a game you were playing — not a puzzle game or anything equally abstract — pay attention to how you refer to what you were doing in the game. Are you saying, “Then I jumped on the goomba!” or are you saying, “Then my guy jumped on the goomba!” Is it you finding the boomerang or is it Link? Are you driving the car, making the basket, managing the farm? Or is it your proxy, that little character walking about when you push a button to the right, that window meant to be a human being’s field of vision? As much as I thought about open worlds in 2008, I spent just as much time wondering what role character plays in great game design. A great game character doesn’t need to be one specific thing. It can be you, a literal representation of how you see yourself physically and even spiritually. It can also be a suit for you to put on, a fiction that you can inhabit, a doorway into story that isn’t just different from your daily life, but quite literally impossible. There was no shortage of astounding games in 2008, but there were a handful that, for me, were wholly defined by how they let you inhabit their characters, and characters made both for and by the player.

In my first look back at ’08, I mentioned how it was character that ultimately kept me from getting the most out of Grand Theft Auto IV. There was just too much dissonance in how Niko Bellic was represented. There were three Nikos. There was the Niko you see speaking in cutscenes, a haunted, practical man of honor, making a new life for himself in a new country by hunting down the demons of his past. There was the Niko you guided through the game’s structured missions, a ruthless, opportunistic murderer who would destroy anything and anyone for a buck. And, finally, the Niko that you played, the blank slate who could do anything in Liberty City, whether it was enjoying a nice walk on the beach or assaulting an international airport with nothing more than a motorcycle and a baseball bat. At no point in GTAIV did these three Nikos meld into a single character, and the constant contradictions between them made it impossible for me to enjoy the game after a certain point.

Metal Gear Solid 4 and Yakuza 2 (my absolute favorite game of 2008) were two of last year’s greatest achievements precisely because they didn’t fall prey to GTAIV’s representational failures. Both games are concerned with narrative — unchangeable, locked, and passively engaged narrative in both cases — but when you, as the player, take control of Old Snake and Kazuma Kiriyu, the actual play is designed to reinforce and serve those characters. The game is literally about them and thusly, depending on what type of player you are, they are about you. It impressed me to no end that, in both games, this was sufficient incentive to keep playing; I always wanted to know what was going to happen to Kiriyu and Snake. It’s convenient, then, that the play in both games was every bit as good as their mutual cutscenes were long. MGS4’s stealth and action finally felt organic after a decade of refinement and, of the hundreds of things you can do in Yakuza 2, even the most mundane were entertaining. (Selecting booze from an in-game menu and then reading about how it tastes? Awesome.)

The World Ends With You (my second favorite game of the year) utilized character just as effectively as Yakuza and Metal Gear, but in a much different way. TWEWY is an expertly designed game, flush with color and mechanical delights. No other game released in 2008, not Fallout 3, not anything, gave you as many options for customization as TWEWY did. You can, at any point, fundamentally change the flow of the game by altering its settings and your characters' attacks/apparel. What impresses me most about TWEWY, and what’s made the most lasting impression, is that the game doesn’t hook you into its story or battles through a single lead character or even an ever expanding cast of usable characters, as is the norm for role-playing games. TWEWY grabs you by framing every action in the game and story around a principal character’s relationship with their second. Not only does Neku grow as a person through his relationships with his partners, but the game layers complexity and nuance into its actual activities as a result of personal growth. Your role in the game isn’t Neku, his friends, or even a sort narrator (another RPG commonality.) You play the bond between characters. There’s nothing else like it.

Had I played and finished Fallout 3 before 2008 ended, it would most likely be included here at the end alongside Fable II and Soulcalibur IV, games that put the burden of character directly on you. But I didn’t, so more kudos to Fable and Soulcalibur. These two couldn’t be more different, but they share one distinct strength: they both allow you to mold character to an absurd degree. Soulcalibur IV is the best version of one of the best fighting games made, and its core character design, as is the case with fighting games in general, is half of its appeal. Its character creation mode, however, is the star of the show. Point me to a single other game that’s as versatile and accessible in letting you make a body to inhabit a game and have fun with. I’ll wait. Some people called Soulcalibur IV a let down. They are wrong. Fable II, on the other hand, doesn’t give you a whole lot to play with when it comes to making your character look how you want them to. There are far fewer costumes, hair styles, and other variables than there were in its predecessor. But Peter Molyneux finally delivered a game that allowed you to be a person of complex morality. Fable isn’t an unmitigated success. Its illusion of simulated society is often crippled by familiar boundaries (you can’t bring x person to x locale, etc.) and it’s far too easy to manipulate the NPC masses through simple actions. Despite its imperfections, the game does break the dualism that has dominated moral-choice-as-mechanic in games previously. You can be good but corrupt, bad but pure. The game fails because your character’s nature isn’t always reflected in the world around them, but it’s a monumentally important step forward and deserving of both praise and canonization.

I’ll be wrapping up 2008 once and for all in a couple of days. In the meantime, if you haven’t played any of these, what the hell are you waiting for?

Games of 2008: Yakuza 2, Metal Gear Solid 4, The World Ends With You, Fable II, Soulcalibur IV

Related links:

John’s Games of 2008: Year of the Open World
10 Games Nadia Played in 2008 Instead of Working
Joe’s Top Ten Games of 2008
My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order
Derrick's Top 13 Games of 2008

Whatcha Playing: Persona, Fallout, and the Trans-Pacific RPG Ideal

John Constantine — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Somewhere, probably not too far from Hawaii, the perfect role-playing game is waiting to be discovered. A volatile, volcanic outcropping boiling over with an expert blend of relatable, colorful characters, deep, directed narrative, and open, exploration-rich adventuring, alongside intimidatingly deep avatar customization. Its game world is both fantastic and hyper-real, vast yet structured enough to inexplicitly guide the player along scaling challenges.

Alright, I’m kidding. I know this game isn’t real. Of course it isn’t. But after the past couple of weeks, I sincerely wish it was.

It’s been a very long time since I last took a two week vacation, and even longer since I took one where I played so few games. It was strange that I spent so few hours with a controller in hand, especially considering what I was playing when I fired up one of the boxes. Coupling Persona 4 and Fallout 3 as your outlets for digital shenanigans might seem like a recipe for life-threatening anti-social tendencies, but I managed to keep things in check, a couple of hours here and there for each game. But now that my vacation’s over and I’ve barely dented either, I almost wish they could be a single game. I wish they could be that mythical mid-Pacific island I just described.

This is the first time I’ve ever played a Japanese RPG and a Western, D&D-style RPG simultaneously. Detailing the differences between the two styles of game is a like pointing at the moon. They’re flat-out different genres. Heather Campbell of Play said it best: JRPGs are a story that’s told to you, whereas WRPGs are a world that you investigate. But why is it that, with East and West borrowing and imitating one another so frequently in the past decade of game design, no game has successfully made an RPG that marries the best bits of both into a single game? Why can’t I have the freedom of Fallout 3 but also the cast of characters with rich personalities and stories of their own that I get in Persona?

There are great games that have come very close to pulling this off. Bioware RPGs, particularly Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect, effectively marry the directed narrative of JRPGs with the customizability and freedom of your average Elder Scrolls adventure, but even those suffer from extreme linearity. You can choose whatever you want to do next, but eventually you have to go to the one planet/town to go any further, and there’s no masking the inevitability of that choice. (The same can be said of Peter Molynuex’s Fable and its sequel, but those games are concerned with their own sort of freedom and narrative.)

Strangely enough, I think the makings of a model blend of Eastern-aesthetic and Western-mechanic can be found in Quest for Glory II and III. Those games are less classic adventure than they are role-playing games, asking you to constantly solve moral quandaries that will affect a plethora of very well-defined characters in unreal yet familiar landscapes. Maybe some development team will look at those games again and see an opportunity to offer RPG fans something altogether new. In the meantime, I’m off for some more post-apocalyptic roaming and high school classes. See y’all in a couple of months when I re-emerge.

Related links:

Whatcha Not Playing: Persona 4
Persona 4: Harrowing, True Pre-Order Tales! With Prizes, Prizes, Priz-izes!
Too Soon? No Nukes for Japanese Fallout 3
For Love of the Game: Quest for Glory II
Screen Test: Fallout 3

My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Fable 2

Bob Mackey — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:00:00 GMT

It's the end of another year, and that can only mean one thing: it's list season. Inevitably, you're going to see top ten lists by the thousands; and, as an official member of the enthusiast press, I'm afraid I can't violate my directive. But, to make things a little more interesting, I've decided to assemble my 10 favorite games of this year in non-hierarchical form because--let's face facts--it's hard to pick a favorite. And unlike other top 10 lists, this one will be doled out to you in piecemeal over the next several excruciating days! Please enjoy.

One of the major reasons Fable II surprised me with its greatness is that Lionhead's medieval sequel was completely off of my radar until I needed something to play in October. Before that, the last time I had flirted with any of Peter Molyneux's creations was 1999's Dungeon Keeper II--and many would've agreed that was the perfect place to leave the ambitious developer behind. But Fable II was a redemption for Molyneux, and one he desperately needed, at that; after nearly an entire decade of disappointments, gamers were getting less and less interested in the shit he'd been shoveling. Thankfully, Fable II is remarkably less fecal than his 00 output--it's actually damned good.

Looking back at all of the time I spent with GTAIV makes me wish that Fable II had been released in the early summer. The two games are completely opposed in design, yet they each offer their own massive areas to explore; Fable II, however, remembers that it's a video game, so it actually gives you things to do in its world. What little story exists in Fable II sits quietly in the background as you take advantage of all the little systems the game has to offer. Sure, it's glitchy, and just a little too easy--I don't even remember dying once--but Fable II basically lets you play God (a Molyneux standby) to the people of Albion, instead of permitting you to be impressed with a large, sterile world you can ice skate around in.

And hell, Fable II is the first time a game made me turn completely evil. I plan on taking it on another spin at some point in the future, if only to see what it's like to live a life where I don't kick chickens and marry multiple whores. If only real life offered such options.

Related Links:

My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Audiosurf
My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Braid
My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Grand Theft Auto IV

Populous: Text Based Tutorials Need to Die In A Fire

John Constantine — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Like every other Peter Molyneux game outside of Fable and its sequel, Populous escaped my attention the first time around. I remember sitting in my buddy Mike McBride’s house in the early ‘90s watching his brother play the game for hours and thinking, “I have absolutely no freaking idea what is going on! Why is nothing jumping or shooting?” XSEED, being the swell cats they are, sent us a copy of the new DS version of Molyneux’s classic, so I’m finally spending some time with the man’s much loved debut.

I have absolutely no freaking idea what is going on.

This is because Populous DS is frontloaded with that most dreaded of barriers between player and actual play: the text-based tutorial. Over the course of thirty minutes, you are given a text passage explaining the game’s basic rules and then asked to perform them individually, pretty much guaranteeing that you will retain none of the information you were just force-fed incrementally. Would it be so hard to have text pop-ups explaining the mechanics while you actually play the game instead of separating them? Is that really too much to ask in this magical day and age of narrative-integrated, in-play, and skippable tutorials?

You make it hard to love you, Populous DS. Dag nab it.

Editor’s Note: Text adventures are allowed to have text tutorials. I guess.

Related links:

Molyneux's Redemption?
Impressions: Fable 2
Screen Test: Fable 2
This Week in Shrieking Annoyances

Molyneux's Redemption?

Bob Mackey — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 02:00:00 GMT

If you asked me a few years ago, I never would've believed Fable 2 would be so highly-reviewed--or that I'd be having so much fun playing it. Even the ruthless gang over at 1UP Yours likes Fable 2; in their latest podcast, they go so far as to recommend that you play it before the highly-anticipated Fallout 3--and that's saying something. So, after a series of disappointments this decade, is Molyneux finally back in our good graces?

Maybe; it's possible that he never left them. Games like the original Black and White may be mocked and derided in the Disappointment Hall of Fame, but, if you do a simple Metacritic search, you'll notice that nearly all of Molyneux's 21st century games were highly regarded upon their release. Hell, as of this writing, Fable 2 is pulling in the same Metacritic score as Black and White. Metacritic isn't the best tool for judging the quality of a game, but something fishy's going on here.

Will there eventually be a Fable 2 backlash? I think it's inevitable. While I'll agree it's a quality product, Molyneux's game is one that's made to be broken--even though in this case, "breaking" the game means having a blast exploiting the social interactions and economy of Fable 2's world. It's a messy sandbox, but a fun one nonetheless--and Fable 2's land of Albion is much more immersive than the over-hyped and sterile Grand Theft Auto 4. Still, I believe disappointment is a Molyneux meme that isn't going to disappear soon; and, by early next year, I'm sure we'll hear rumblings about how much Fable 2 sucked. But bookmark this post, friends--as of October 27, 2008, Fable 2 is officially awesome.

I promise to not eat my words on this one.

Related Links:

Impressions: Fable 2
Screen Test: Fable 2
Non-Gamers Reviewing Games: Wait, What?

Impressions: Fable 2

Bob Mackey — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:15:00 GMT

So far, I've managed to avoid riding Peter Molyneux's 21st century disappointment train, as popular opinion alone has kept me away from his post-Bullfrog work. I was a big fan of his PC games throughout the 90s--and I'm still hoping for some sort of Dungeon Keeper revival--but his self-aggrandizing nature and the vicarious pain of others didn't exactly motivate me to check out anything from Lionhead Studios. But I'm a weak man, and the years of hype for Fable 2 eventually got to me; would it be a good game? Would Molyneux actually be able to live up to his promises?

Color me surprised, because Fable 2 actually held my attention for nearly four hours last night--and my busy life makes it hard to fit in long periods of prolonged motionlessness. Fable 2 may not be quite as stellar as Peter Molyneux would have you think, but it is a surprising mix of Zelda and The Sims. You heard right.

Of course, the beginning of the game might lead you to believe otherwise; initially, Fable 2 makes you play a portion of your character's childhood, which eventually sets up the story for the rest of the game. It's meant to be a tutorial, but it honestly doesn't teach you about much, aside from the morality system--and like the shmuck I always am, I made all of the "good" choices based on my lousy moral reflex. These choices eventually affect the development of your neighborhood some ten years later (3-4 hours into the game); on returning to my town as an adult, I saw that cooperating with the introductory fetch quests made everything much more pleasant, and even gave me a significant discount in some of the shops. Note: karma only exists in the world of video games.

It isn't until you become an adult that the game actually becomes fun, and sadly, Fable 2 waits just a little too long to throw you into combat--which is one of the best parts of the game. Three of the face buttons on the 360 controller represent strength, skill, and will--Fable 2's main set of traits--which allows the relatively simple combat to expand as you put more experience points into developing these three areas. The X button starts out as only being used for simple sword strikes, but upon building up your character's "strength" skill, it can also be held in to block attacks. So far, it's an interesting and intuitive system that I'm looking forward to exploring--which won't be a chore, because I love the combat so much.

Of course, the most exciting thing about Fable 2 are the Sims-ish interactions you can have with your fellow CPU citizens. I've heard some amazing stories from various message borads, but I'm a little too early in the game to fully explore the limits of character interaction--which has mainly consisted of me dancing and farting in large groups to become the dancingest, fartingest adventurer in all of Fable. Oh, and flirting with barmaids, then having no idea where to take them for some sweet lovin'. Rest assured that I am responsible and have purchased numerous virtual condoms, just to be safe. I doubt the downstairs hygiene is up to snuff in Albion.

So far, the game has my attention, and the minor annoyances, like the lack of any useful maps, are somewhat easy to ignore after seeing only a little of what the game has to offer. I'm also pretty enchanted by Fable 2's world; European high-fantasy is one of my least-favorite settings, but Fable 2 actually has a sense of humor, along with some authentic whimsy. Any game where you can shit your pants on purpose is one I'm going to stick around for.

Related Links:

Non-Gamers Reviewing Games: Wait, What?
Screen Test: Fable 2
Gears of LittleBig Fable Music: Considering the First-Party Blitz

Non-Gamers Reviewing Games: Wait, What?

Nadia Oxford — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 22:37:00 GMT

I don't know if it's intentional or not, but hallowed gamer webcomic Penny Arcade sometimes manages to deliver a perfect set-up and punchline in its first panel. Take, for example, this recent strip about Fable II and the reviewing thereof:

Gabe: "Peter Molyneux is telling reviewers they should get people who don't play games to play his game."

Tycho: "They don't play games, though."

Gabe: "He never said it would be easy."

Since the birth of the Wii, there's been an influx of "non-gamers" who are suddenly very interested in throwing around remotes. That's fine. In my opinion, that's great. I'm hoping that when established gamers are finished their pissing contests over "casual" versus "hardcore," we'll all realise the benefits of our elders having fun with consoles instead of cringing away from them like they're rabid animals. Then we'll be a big huggy family.

At the same time, I'm not naive. My father hadn't touched a video game since Duck Hunt (for which he had his own pronunciation, with special emphasis on the second syllable: "ducKHUNT") when he asked to come over and, um, play with our Wii. He's a golfer, so he went straight into Wii Sports' Golf game. No surprise: golf is relevant to his interests, and the Wii remote puts non-gamers at ease because it's primarily motion-based. He took to it with no problem at all.

On the other hand, when I tried to get him into Guitar Hero (he's also a guitarist), he didn't know what to make of the Fisher-Price guitar, the buttons, the menus, etc. It's standard for us, but for someone who hasn't touched a game in a long time, it's easier to point and click than to remember that "A" makes a selection and "X" goes back to the main menu.

That's why, as cool as Fable II looks, I have to sigh a little at Peter Molyneux's review manifesto. Every sane company wants to capitalise on Nintendo's success, but they're all looking at the sky instead of at the reason why the Wii is printing money. I haven't played Fable II yet, but I can imagine my father's reaction if I were to hand it to him: "Oh my God, there are twenty million buttons on this damn controller. What the hell do I do?" He'd do the most natural thing: toss the controller aside like it's a viper. To be fair, that'd be his reaction if I handed him certain Wii games--say, for example, Super Mario Galaxy--but RPGs in particular are not really accessible to non-gamers.

You know what, though? That's okay. It's okay that non-gamers are going to continue to be stumped by some titles. Even Nintendo's record at capturing non-gamers is fifty-fifty at best: Hotel Dusk and Elite Beat Agents didn't draw in grandpa like they were supposed to.

I understand why Molyneux wants to appeal to non-gamers. It's not just a money thing; it's very special to watch the faces of the digitally impaired light up when they grasp a game's mechanics. He's also very correct in his assumption that someone who doesn't play games on a regular basis will see an adventure from a different perspective. You can't really force these things, though. Breathe. Relax. Let the Universe flow where it will.

Related Links:

By Any Other Name
Personal Firsts: My Gaming Scrapbook From A to Wii
Along Came a Gamer: James Patterson and Authors in Games

Screen Test: Fable 2

John Constantine — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:00:00 GMT

For all of the hate the original Fable got for not living up to Peter Molyneux’s wild claims about how the game’s role-playing would provide a nigh on life changing level of depth and complexity, I adored it. It was a perfectly paced little nugget of fun, about fifteen hours of content, satisfying combat, and some neat (for its time) character customization. Even if it didn’t quite let you live the full hero’s life it originally promised to, it still offered some impressive opportunity for moral choice in a game world, choices whose consequences are far more interesting than the ones found in similar games five years later. I’m still not too sure what to expect from Fable 2. I feel as though its been flying under the press radar since it was announced. Even though its all but done right now, no preview or interview has given a sense of what the full game experience is going to be like. Right now, it just sounds like Fable but bigger. These screens certainly bear that out. As always, Lionhead bangs out some pleasantly exaggerated human caricatures, homey looking fantasy villages and forests, and some nice and spooky enemies. Maybe that’s why Fable 2 is still flying under the radar. Instead of being billed as a paradigm-altering juggernaut, it’s being sold as what it looks like: videogame comfort food.

(Link: Xboxygen via NeoGAF)

Previous Screen Tests:

Final Fantasy Dissidia
Fragile
Final Fantasy Versus XIII
Silent Hill Homecoming
Fallout 3
Alone in the Dark
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Turning Japanese: Microsoft’s Latest Ditch Effort to Win the East

John Constantine — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Microsoft held a press conference yesterday in Tokyo to show off their upcoming slate of six Xbox 360 role-playing games. Aside from the Japanese edition of 2007’s Mass Effect and a look at Peter Molyneux’s Fable 2, Microsoft showed off four Japanese developed RPGs. Two of which are the latest in entries in Namco and Square-Enix’s long-running Tales and Star Ocean franchises. Microsoft’s also pulled a slight coup with the announcement that Square-Enix’s new IP Last Remnant, developed to appeal to both eastern and western audiences, will now release on Xbox 360 before Playstation 3.

Since the Xbox 360’s release in 2005, Microsoft has been trying to woo Japanese audiences with high-profile role-playing games. Namco’s Trusty Bell: Chopin’s Dream and From Software’s Enchant Arms were the first J-RPGS to see release this console cycle. Microsoft also secured the exclusive rights to Mistwalker’s Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, Final Fantasy-creator Hironobu Sakaguchi’s first post-Square-Enix work. But in the past thirty months, both Trusty Bell and Enchant Arms failed to find a significant audience in Japan and have since been ported to the Playstation 3. Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, despite being heavily promoted under Sakaguchi’s name, have also done poorly despite strong debuts. Microsoft’s RPG Premiere Event shows a commitment to a failed tactic. Having the support of both Namco and Square-Enix might have been a winning strategy ten years ago but the fact of the matter is that Japanese gamers have never, and most likely will never, be interested in purchasing an American made game system. While western fashion, film, and food brands have significant cultural currency in Japan, the culture’s taste for consumer products has always been exclusive. Japanese gamers want Japanese systems and Japanese games. Additionally, the pool of Japanese gamers who play home consoles has been on the decline for half a decade as tastes have shifted to quicker, portable experiences.

All of these new RPGs look fantastic. But they won’t make a lick of difference for Microsoft.