Global Game Jam 2015 - Mahou Shoujo Idol Strike!

It's that time of the year again! This was my fifth GGJ in as many years. Although I have gotten lazier when it comes to other jams organized by our game dev club, I have at least consistently participated in the biggest and baddest. Results may have varied... Anyway. Let's get into this. This is divided into a few sections - the first one is a bit more self-reflective, and it's about game ideas in a jam environment. The rest are about this year's project - which I'm sure you are dying to read about after reading that title.

1. About ideas

Let me just start by reminding that this section is kinda self-reflective and massively opinionated. So keep in mind that the most important thing when it comes to game ideas at jams is to do whatever the fuck you want - you are there to have fun after all. However, I'll be a bit more philosophical. Game jams are learning experiences and to that end, you may have some kind of a learning goal. Maybe it's to become better at your chosen profession, or maybe it's to try something new. I'm a decent programmer, but when I go to jams, I go there to work on something that has a fresh design. Therefore it is incredibly difficult for me to understand why anyone would want to spend their weekend making an underdeveloped version of a game mechanic that has already been developed by actual studios or indie developers. I do realize of course that it may be an interesting technical challenge just to see if you can get it done. Likewise if it's your first jam, simply getting any game done at all can be exhilarating.

It may be a pessimistic to way to look at things, but really, after too many jams, I seriously don't expect a jam game to be good. Like, at all. If your goal is to make a great game in 30 hours, prepare for a lot of failed jams. For me, personally, the measure of success is whether I got to try out something different or not. Probably this is why I have worked on my own idea in every jam so far - it's usually some mechanic that simply intrigues me too much. That, and a lot of the ideas of others have generally failed to inspire me. Again, this doesn't mean they are bad (indeed, the outcomes have often been more fun to play than mine) - I just feel like their owners have different goals for the project than I have. That, or I don't really see the game from the pitch. I think I actually found a way to work on the latter this year. Normally I would just think about some ideas by myself, or even leave the entire site to get some food or whatever.

This year, I was originally supposed to lead an "idea hotspot" - kind of a brainstorming table. We kinda failed at organization tho so we ended up not having them. Instead I just rotated around, asking people to throw their ideas at me and gave them some additional questions to chew on. I found this a nice approach actually. It gave me more insight into what others were thinking, and also may have helped them get a bit better grasp of their concepts. So this year there actually were a few other projects I might have joined. I'll have to admit, I kinda cheated this year. Literally three hours before the jam I was struck by an obnoxiously sticky game idea and I was unable to get rid of it. It prevented me from coming up with any new ideas of my own during the brainstorming time. I guess talking constantly about other people's ideas also kind of hindered my own thought process. So, anyway, after a lot of consideration I did pitch that idea... I felt a little guilty about it, but at least it was an idea I got on the first jamming day. Even if it was before the event started.

There was another reason too. Let me sidetrack a bit to say that the theme this year was absolutely fucking horrible. "What do we do now?" is a non-theme if I ever saw one. Either you come up with some incredibly bonkers artsy crap (not that I mind, I like those), or, well, you can pretty much encompass every single game ever made within this theme with very little mental gymnastics. The games made at our site this year didn't really connect in any way. It was just literally a bunch of random games - not take anything away of course, some of them very really good. Anyway, I wanted to bring this up because - like every single idea in the universe - my sticky idea from a few hours ago actually fit this non-theme. It even included the plural "we" in form of four characters. It still felt a bit stupid to fit an idea into a theme, not the other way around. So yeah, I decided to just throw it out there. And for the record my pitch was effing horrible.

I generally fail to attract workers to my cause because my games are described through their mechanics. I guess that's a bit unattractive, and they don't sound all that wild on paper. It's actually quite hard to see an abstract mechanic if it's being described to you - you can try this by reading a board game rulebook without access to any game components. This time my idea was inspired by two sources that typically get reactions one way or another: Asian pop music girl groups and the "magic girl" manga/anime trope. So even though I did a terrible job with my rambling pitch, I got the interest of one artist and one sound guy (who, curiously enough, hated j/kpop). Coincidentally that was just what I needed, so once again I ended up developing my own idea but this time with a team. So, just a casual takeaway: even though I mostly care about mechanics, I shouldn't rely so much on appealing to everyone else's inner designer. Instead, I should work more on sticking a crazy theme on top of my mechanical idea.

2. The game

I got the idea entirely from listening to kpop. More precisely, I was listening to Kara at the time and my tired mind wandered back to some recollections of their music videos. Suddenly I found myself wanting to make a JRPG battle system where all characters would move as a group, abiding to a dance choreography. In my mind it was more like a tactical RPG, even though the pop music connection might make most people think rhythm game. However, for me the core concept was careful selection of dance move patterns for the group as a whole. I also played around with ideas about having kpop-inspired roles for the characters (leader, lead singer, lead dancer etc.)  and the fact that the singer alternates frequently. Again, as my mind was already racing towards an RPG, I needed some connection between that and kpop. Probably as an indirect result of exposing my mind to too much Persona 4, it went straight towards "witches who use pop performances to fight evil" - there's probably a legion of animes about that already.

Since it was to be made into a game jam concept, some chopping down had to be involved. I kept the essential parts: there would be a group of characters and they would move in unison; each turn the player would choose from a handful of available patterns. The girls would need to move over specific tiles to activate their magical powers - this was intended to form the puzzle element of the game. Ghosts were added to the concept too. In the first iteration, the concept was like this: the girls would try to avoid ghosts while picking up power-ups; after doing so, they can cast magic to banish nearby ghosts. The interactions were quite simple, which made the basic game code very quick to write - a boon if you want to work on complicated mechanics that need a lot of rethinking. Most of the design complexity came from juggling two things: what happens on the board, and what moves the player has available at each moment. A bit of a rematch with problems I had when working on Pulselight Steampunk.

For once I even came up with a relatively straightforward way to make a tutorial: the first set of actions was a preset, and the player would see the key interactions by performing them in the given order. So at least in theory you could just tell players to press 1, 2 and 3 in succession and watch what happens. In practice the game is a bit harder to understand because the player has to follow four different characters at the same time. That in itself is fine, and gives the game a healthy dose of cognitive challenge. It became a bit problematic because for most of the development time the game felt insanely random. Only four actions were available to the player at a time, while there were like 40 actions total. The chances of having only useless (or worse) actions was staggeringly high. It didn't help that everything spawned on the board in random locations. Often, after just a couple of moves, the player was stuck with no way out.

Figuring out solutions for this problem became the essence of my game jam this year. I quickly changed some of the interactions; primarily, the girls were now able to defeat ghosts by running into them in addition to casting spells, and the ghosts could only spawn at the borders. This called for a new lose condition, and I ended up with "defend the center". So the ghosts would try to conquer the center of the board. I also fiddled around with how moves were offered to the player. I divided them into a few different categories and then made the game rotate between categories, basically guaranteeing different kinds of actions regularly. The end result feels mostly like a game where the player can actually control stuff. Still, the feeling of getting screwed over by the game is too frequent. I'll outline some next level ideas to improve the game in the next section. Before that, just a few words about its development.

Our team of three people worked quite well. Which, of course, is quite simple to do when everyone has a clearly specified set of tasks. The game's core was also really fast and easy to implement - it was pretty much done in like four hours. This is something that I highly prefer because it leaves a lot of time for fiddling around with design concepts. I also had time to code all kinds of luxury functions like support for animated visual effects. We were initially going to include a tilted perspective instead of a straight top-down approach, but improving the design took priority in the end. That, and one arcane bug that I managed to include in the code. Despite locating and fixing two different instances it, it's still present somewhere in the code. As usual I only have myself to blame for that. It's just one of those "what could possibly go wrong" things when writing game jam code.

I have found CraftyJS to be an amazing library for jam development - if you have learned it beforehand that is. There are two reasons for this: its component-entity model, and its event model. Crafty keeps track of all created game objects, and allows the developer to query them based on their components. Which means there is never a need to keep track of references, because you can always fetch them from the core object. I hate passing references so much in object-oriented programming. Passing a new reference down a few function calls already requires modifying code all over the place. Using events handlers over method calls has the same advantage. You just register a handler, and then can trigger the event from wherever you want instead of - once again - messing with annoying shit like references. Overall, not giving a damn about references speeds up development and makes it generally more relaxed.

I do think there is a downside to sticking with CraftyJS though. It only does 2D, which is a bit of a hindrance these days. Not that I'm particularly interested in making 3D games, but I should at least be able to do so just in case. Of course another problem with the library is its horrible documentation, which makes it hard to learn - definitely not ideal if you work with other programmers. So yeah, one day I should really learn how to use Unity3D.

3. Idol Strike! Next!

After the jam I thought of some ideas to make the game feel less random. Having too many random things in jam games is one of my personal faults. It's just really tempting to generate stuff randomly because actually designing levels takes a lot of time and it's not exactly as exciting as creating new game mechanics. However, I don't really see a way to make this year's game better without seriously chopping down on the randomness. Furthermore, if it were to find its way into its original role - to become a battle system for an RPG - it needs to incorporate way more customization options for the player. First of all, instead of being an endless score attack, the game needs to have clearly defined levels with specific challenges. Moreover, things like power-ups should be in fixed locations to incorporate any sort of actual planning into playing the game. Probably the same should be done to enemy spawns.

Something definitely needs to be done about randomizing available actions too. I want to stick with the idea of dance routines on this one. Instead of offering random patterns, there would be four different dance routines, each with its own fixed sequence of moves. Each turn, the player would choose one dance routine to follow, and could then choose to follow another on the next turn. The key here is that there would be a way for the player to see ahead at least a few moves or the entire routine (which could actually be just four moves actually, and then loop). To encourage further planning ahead, there could be some bonus for sticking with one dance routine for an extended period. Overall the key to making this game better is to a) provide the player more reasons to try to move to specific parts of the board; b) provide the player better means to get the girls to go where they want them to.

This way would eventually turn it into a puzzle game where the player would try to complete levels. Once the basic mechanics are neatly fixed, the concept can easily be expanded. More types of enemies are a no-brainer. Likewise, there could be more than one spell available in the game. For instance, there could be other banishment patterns than just the present "surrounding tiles" approach. After that, it's not a huge leap to make the girls individual by giving them different advantages. Thinking about extensions too much is generally detrimental though, so we might as well stop here. This section was just a short demonstration how exploring a game mechanic in a game jam game can lead to further discoveries and may, in the end, be a more valuable result than a more complete, more conventional game would have been. Contrast this to my "easiest" jam game Umbrella Dream (simple platformer) - sure it was easy to understand and kinda enjoyable to play, but I gained nothing at all from making that game.

Conclusion

So, there's one more game jam under my belt. Once again I worked on something that deviated from standard genre conventions and as a result had my hands full trying to juggle everything into a game. Success in making an actual game was partial. The jam itself on the other hand was fully successful. We were able to bring a new mechanic into light and see how it worked - which it did. This time the game around the mechanic just fell a bit short - but that is also a success because I was able to pinpoint how it went wrong and at the same time understand better why I've experienced similar failures in the past. That said, the chances of actually continuing development are kinda low based on prior experience. I do consider this particular project to be among the more interesting ones in that regard though. Nevertheless, just thinking about game experiments I have made in a reflective fashion at least keeps me in the right mindset.

Anyway, I think that's enough about this year's GGJ. It's time to get back to the side of games I am more comfortable with: playing them, and writing about them. Thanks once again to Stage for setting up the jam site, and of course to everyone who was there contributing to the atmosphere. This year's jam site had just enough space and people filling that space.

Remember Me

When previews about this game started to appear, I put it on my "looking forward to" list. The Last of Us took priority though and I forgot about this game - mostly because everyone else seemed to do so. I also had my month long summer vacation which I spent chasing geocaches all around. The game popped up again as a PS+ freebie later last year - around the time I was getting a bit tired of FFXIV - and this time I chose not to ignore it. After pressing buttons at a slow pace for three months, I was thirsty for some hand-to-hand action.

1. Tying it all together with a theme

As far as merits go, Remember Me has most of  them in visual design and theme. The setting makes for pretty delicious sci-fi - a corporation has found a way to manipulate memories, allowing people to get rid of bad ones and replace them with custom-made good memories. Naturally this has led to a dystopian society, as things developed by corporations are wont to do. The game being about memory and all, it's no big surprise the protagonist Nilin has lost hers. Fortunately this game here is one of the few cases where this actually doesn't feel cheap. The fact that there's a female protagonist in a dystopian future immediately draws comparisons to Mirror's Edge. The game is also reminiscent of Mirror's Edge because of its distinctive visual style. The aesthetic is very different from ME's exceedingly white visual style but the overall atmosphere is very similar.

Remember Me uses a lot of visual effects and filters to achieve its visual style. Generally overuse of filters and glitchy effects might be frowned upon, but it works in RM. Why? It's thematically appropriate. Overall, the game makes full use of the Sensen technology (that would be the memory manipulation tech). Through Sensen, information can be conveniently projected into the game world - and because everything is perceived through it, all sorts of distortions and visual glitches fit in just perfectly. It also extends its reach into gameplay in few segments of the game. By copying the memories of another, the protagonist is able to follow in their footsteps through memory projection. One example use for this mechanic is navigating through a minefield. Finally some of the protagonist's superpowers work by manipulating enemies' Sensen nodes - enemies without one are therefore immune.

Story also works well with the theme. It's not a nobel worth masterpiece by a long shot but better than most any way. It works better as an overall documentary of consequences of technology than it does as a story about people - much like the Joss Whedon's Dollhouse actually. So the plot in itself is not all that great, but the way it portrays how Sensen technology has affected everyone's lives is pretty solid. The moments when the game explores the darkest sides of Sensen are definitely the strongest. I recommend playing it through just for the atmosphere. It's not a long game either.

2. Finishing off with gameplay

While I'd mostly recommend this game for its atmosphere, gameplay in Remember Me ain't half bad either. It's not very original though. The game can roughly be divided into three types of segments: the aforementioned memory projection segments, climbing segments and of course combat. Climbing is heavily railroaded: usually there's exactly one option for moving forward - pretty much what is typical in heavily scripted games already. There's nothing difficult about it either because controls are accurate enough so mostly it's just mindless execution of a predetermined obstacle course. The saving grace is scenery. Although immersion is way weaker than in Mirror's Edge, at least the views are great. There's not really much else to say about climbing in this game.

Nilin cannot use weapons so she has to rely on her fists and feet to do the dirty work for her. The game uses a combo system that sounds interesting on paper: The player is granted two chains to start off with, and can assign Pressens to each attack in a combo. These affect what the attack does. Unfortunately the options are rather limited. The choice is basically between damage, healing and cooldown reduction. The fourth Pressen type is a more powerful version of whatever Pressen preceded it. Regardless of Pressens, attack animations for combos don't change. With more varied Pressens this system might have been much cooler, but as it stands it's very simplistic. As soon as I opened a third combo, I simply had one combo for each purpose: dishing out the hurt, healing and reducing cooldowns. Normal attacks aside, Nilin gains access to a total of five superpowers.

Although the mechanic is simple, it does grant some tactical depth. Much of this is due to clever encounter and enemy design. Nilin's superpowers are not just to make fights go faster - each and every one of  them is truly required. Especially towards the endgame battles become dances around tougher enemies while the player tries to build up meter for Nilin's superpowers and at the same time use cooldown reduction combos to make them available in decent time (default cooldowns are *long*). Finally, because healing is also only possible through attacking, the player really needs to stay on the offensive. Delightfully the game heavily punishes mashing - each attack in a combo needs to be timed correctly. It is also worth learning which combos include area of effect damage. Controls are not perfect, but overall encounters are fun to play precisely because they feel different from each other.

The game also has a few memory remixing scenes, which are kind of interesting. They involve manipulating a memory like a recording, skimming back and forward and changing small things like the position of a table in hopes of altering the outcome. It's mostly a more elaborate version of "try everything" puzzles in some adventure games, but thematically they're cool.  There's not that many things to try in each memory either. Fine additions to the game, but not much else really.

Conclusion

Remember Me is a solid action adventure game that is strong in atmosphere but otherwise not all that special. Although combat and climbing mechanics are not very original or interesting on their own, both are enhanced by auxiliary means: battle encounters are designed surprisingly well, and scenery in the game is amazing. Nilin's story is not that great either, but the way the game handles its sci-fi makes it worth playing. If you choose to pick it up, do yourself a favor and play on the highest difficulty.

Sleeping Dogs

Sleeping Dogs was initially one of those games that I just picked up because I had finished one game and the next titles were still on their way in the mail. Ultimately it turned out to be quite a bit more than just a snack. For those not in the know, Sleeping Dogs is a GTA-like that was initially supposed to be a part of the True Crime series. For some unknown reason the original publisher rejected the game, thus the name change and another publisher. Because I have not written about any GTA yet, I am going to include some wider points from the genre's conventions.

1. Backstory matters in gameplay - to an extent!

Sleeping Dogs features one important backstory difference to GTA games: the protagonist is not a criminal. He is an undercover cop who has been tasked with infiltrating a triad in Hong Kong. This sets a different tone to the entire game. Although the mechanical punishments for driving over civilians are quite small, they bear much larger emotional impact on the player if they identify with the protagonist's dual identity. Although I am not particularly happy about killing bystanders in any of these games, Sleeping Dogs puts a lot more emphasis on the ethics of the player's actions. In GTA I hijack cars for leisure with no second thoughts but in Sleeping Dogs I found myself wanting a really pressing need before I could even think about hijacking a car.

There is no in-game punishment for breaking the law, unless the player is on a mission (and then it just lowers their cop score a bit). The mechanic, and also the reaction of the car's original owner are exactly the same in both GTA and Sleeping Dogs. The only difference is the protagonist's identity. Protagonist identity has its limits though, as is also evidenced by Sleeping Dogs: when asked (by a criminal contact) to hijack a specific car, hijacking the car actually feels less bad. This may be because the player can push the responsibility for their actions onto the game. After all, the game gave them the goal to hijack a car - even though they were responsible for taking the mission in the first place (hijack missions are optional)!

This is actually a fairly common ethical conflict in games: the conflict between in-game rewards and the ethical concerns of an action. Game characters do indeed do all sorts of nasty things under the player's control. This picture highlights this particular issue (in a rather parodical way - but it does get a point across). Typically gameplay incentives override any ethical concerns the player might have about the action - especially if the game does not confront the player about their actions. Therefore, although they are supposed to be the ideal hero, players controlling Link in various Zelda games will happily hack away at civilian property. This happens in part because no one cares in the game world. Thus the game is not actively confronting the player.

In Sleeping Dogs repercussions for actions are situational (score is only counted during missions). Even then they still somewhat reinforce the protagonist's identity's ability to control player actions. Furthermore, the rewards for hijacking cars at random are also quite low: garages where the protagonist can summon their own car are quite common. Later in the game they even get the ability to have a valet deliver a to them. Therefore it is not that necessary to hijack cars in order to get some wheels. This design decision is sound; if the game had actually forced the player to hijack cars just to get around, it would have a much harder time to get anything out of the protagonist's dual identity. Of course we can argue that the ridiculous bodycount also conflicts with this identity. However, this is once again a case where the game is forcing the player's hand. It also has its limits; just like I did in L.A. Noire, regardless of crashing into traffic and other property I usually did not choose to control my speeding.

The dual role of the protagonist is also present in the game's structure. The storyline consists of both triad and police missions, all of which need to be completed to advance in the story. All in all this play on identities does distinguish the game's story from a bunch of competitors to its advantage. It also makes it "easier" for the writers to create a more complex and conflicted protagonist. Easier in the sense that certain amount of complexity is already present in the character concept and game structure.

2. The Hong Kong experience

I love GTA titles - Vice City in particular - but there is one major and commonly accepted defect in the entire series: action is typically effing lame, and further destroyed by bad controls. This is commonly forgiven because Rockstar has a tendency to do a marvelous job on every other front. GTA V might not get away so easily though, because Sleeping Dogs has shown how things can be with proper effort. The game takes its inspiration from Hong Kong action movies - a genre of action movies famous for their insane stunts. The illusion would really break with GTA style static combat. Fortunately action sequences in the game are far more diverse. The game puts less emphasis on gunfights for starters. It includes close quarters combat all the way until the end of the game.

Adding more variety is just icing on the cake though. Both types of combat have been made simply a lot better than in any competitors I have played. Hand-to-hand takes its influences from games like Arkham Asylum and Yakuza, and the system is actually very functional. Winning fights against multiple opponents doesn't come down to just one strategy and most combos and other moves have their uses. Some have  been thrown in just for flair of course, but they succeed in creating more diversity. Shortly put, combat stays interesting throughout the game. Gunfights are also more dynamic than usual. The addition of bullet time while vaulting over obstacles gives the player a lot of incentive to stay on the move. It is also easy to switch to close combat at any time - the player can even disarm opponents through grappling.

Hong Kong action wouldn't be Hong Kong action without more dynamic movement. Parkouring is quite easy in Sleeping Dogs but it gives the player better movement range. In particular it makes chase scenes on foor a lot more interesting. If there is one weaker category in terms of game controls it is cars. They behave somewhat weirdly in Sleeping Dogs, and car controls are a bit shaky. However, the driving experience is also enhanced with some Hong Kong flair. The player can ram cars on either side more effectively. The coolest trick in car driving is action hijack, where the protagonist jumps from one car on another to hijack it while it's moving. While this feature is not very commonly used, it adds an important bit of flavor to the game.

In addition to enriching the game's action quite a bit, Hong Kong also acts as a superb setting to the game. Although the game is technically (very) poor on PS3, the city looks impressive and - more importantly - very different from American cities often seen in games. It made me actually wish that there would have been even longer distances to drive just looking at the scenery and listening to the radio. The radio has some weird asian stuff on some channels which is a plus.

3. Travel experience and dialogue

In my last post about Journey, I talked about how simply traveling can be a powerful gaming experience. Journey had a very silent and elegant way of creating that experience. Sleeping Dogs also achieves good traveling experiences but through different means. This is something that I noticed quite a while ago when playing GTA IV (or maybe Vice City even) but haven't written about it yet. The experience of driving changes drastically as soon as the player gets a passenger in their car - not because a companion is present but because they are actually talking. I swear I could play a game of this genre where the only thing the player ever did was drive interesting companions around the place while dialogue is going on. Then again, this is coming from a guy who drove around in circles in Vice City when a good song was playing instead of going straight for the objective.

In a way using dialog in this way during transition draws the player's attention from the fact that they are just doing a transition from point A to point B. In GTA-like games the transition is typically more fun than some other games (such as RPGs where you just walk) but the player still speeds through as fast as possible - unless their avatar is having a conversation with another person. The feeling of there being another person in the car changes the way I drive in these games. Although there's no punishment (other than the occasional shriek of terror) for reckless driving, the presence of a virtual person somehow makes me drive way more carefully. In games where transition is boring by nature, having virtual company makes the experience feel more like a journey. I liked this in Nier for instance where NPCs commented on side quests while I was making my way towards quest objectives.

The reason I think this is important is that it goes to show how story content can change the gameplay experience. Thus it reinforces my stance that prewritten story content should not be treated simply as content that can be separated from gameplay. Disruptive ways of including story content such as cutscenes are kind of so-so, but injection story elements into gameplay parts - like conversations while driving - does affect the perceived gameplay experience. It does nothing to the mechanics but it changes the environment in which gameplay takes place. I think this is something that is not easily achievable without voice acting because text tends to be too disruptive.

Conclusion

At its core, Sleeping Dogs is yet another GTA clone. However, through clever decisions in both story concept and gameplay design, it in many ways surpasses the original. The biggest issues in the game are quite minor. The biggest problem the game had was its framerate on the PS3. It was simply abyssal during cutscenes. Fortunately it stayed quite good during actual gameplay. The game also had some hilarious bugs. My favorite has to be the bus trap: I got into a bus by accident and, opting to cancel instead of choosing my destination, was trapped inside with no way out! I actually left the game running for quite some time and when I came back, I was still in the bus. There were also some (quite common) oversights. It is cool and all that the protagonist's clothes get soaked and bloody. It is however quite less credible when no one reacts to it. Case in point: putting on good clothes to get onto a casino boat - I just couldn't get into a boat to get there without taking a little dip. Of course no one questioned my entirely soaked expensive suit. This oversight is very common in games but somehow I found it much more hilarious in Sleeping Dogs than usual.

Anyway. If you like the genre, play this game.

Journey

My ability to put off playing certain games is sometimes amazing. Considering how much I liked Flower and Flow, it is pretty much a miracle that I took this long to play Journey. I actually intended to play it as soon as it was published but ultimately I just didn't. There is this thing with me and artistic experiences - including games, movies and music - that I really do very often enjoy them a lot, but still never seem to find "the right time" to do so. We didn't come here for my self-reflection though - we had enough of that a few posts back - so let's talk about Journey.

I spend a lot of time talking about game mechanics and different systems in games. It might feel that there is not much space for such discussion in Journey. However, Journey is a spectacular example of one particular design principle: consistency. In part, its unwavering consistency is what allows the rest of the experience to exist. This consistency is created by theming every action in the game world similarly: pieces of cloth that are clearly distinct from anything else. Their significance to the player is clearly shown by including one such piece on the player character model. They do a variety of things in the game but because of their consistent design the player does not need any tutorials to figure them out. The familiar design theme of these gameplay elements is an invitation to interact and see what happens. As a journey, the game is ultimately about moving forward. The reason this sensation is so marvelously achieved is precisely this: the player does not need to scratch their head searching for interactive elements.

Journey is entirely about movement through enchanting landscapes. Although visual design is also a large part of its appeal, the sensation of different forms of movement is at least equally important. The player gets to frequently fly though the air and slide down sand dunes; they also get to drift in a stream of sand and to fight against a chilling wind. The atmosphere in the game shifts through both visual cues and gameplay. The biting chill of a snowstorm towards the end of the game is possibly the most powerful experience of weather in any game I have played. Although the player is simply moving through spaces, the continuous discovery of new landscapes and new forms of movement keeps the game fresh. By creating powerful emotion through gameplay mechanics, Journey is a central game in the "games as art" debate - to be truly recognized as an art form, games need to be artistic through what they have that other art forms do not: gameplay.

A post about Journey would feel rather inadequate without mentioning its multiplayer component. The mechanic bears some similarities with Demon's/Dark Souls because the player has no control over meeting other players. They will simply occasionally bump into others during their journey. What makes these encounters spectacular is that they serve no actual purpose in the game - it can be finished entirely without any help. Other players are there simply as traveling companions - and they are silent. Meeting others is just another piece of the Journey experience, sharing some of the digital miles with a stranger. It is a mere chance encounter of two travelers headed for the same destination. Although entirely meaningles and even void of communication, these encounters invoke similar experiences as chance encounters do in real life. The entire encounter is defined by its unpredictable nature.

Journey is a magical journey through mysterious landscapes but at the same time it is very much like a real journey. The game does not get in the way of the journey because of its transparent nature. Instead, the various gameplay elements enhance the game's artistic impression. In some ways it is the equivalent of The Straight Story - a surprisingly ordinary film about one man's journey - only Journey is about the player's journey. Instead of creating atmosphere through words, Journey creates it through actions. The person traveling through landscapes and meeting strangers is you. Games that truly create the experience of being on a journey are few and far between. A lot of times the experience drowns in a mound of side quests and endless action/puzzles - all of which distract the player from feeling the journey.

I recommend playing Journey and preferably doing so in one sitting as to not distract yourself from the experience. It is a short game - about the length of a movie - so this is entirely doable.

inFamous 2

This game has been sitting in my collection for some time. Mostly because there were more urgent games to play. I did like many aspects of the first inFamous. Most importantly the game was very enjoyable to play. I realized that I haven't actually written about inFamous yet (I played it way before starting this blog) so I will touch it a bit as I go.What I remember of it anyway. In short, inFamous 2 is a direct sequel which in video game terms often means "improved version of the first" and I have to say that this is mostly true - again.

1. Being an electric man

Much of the strength of inFamous comes from factors that are very similar to Assassin's Creed. It allows the player to feel how it is like to be a superhero. This is achieved through efficient controls and design of powers that are simple to use yet highly impressive. Curiously the greatest feeling of power in inFamous is not how easily the player can defeat enemies but the various methods that allow them to travel across the city rapidly. It is a game where movement has been made highly enjoyable. Indeed out of somewhat similar games, only Mirror's Edge clearly surpasses inFamous whereas games like Assassin's Creed fall behind. Of course the comparison is a bit unfair - the protagonist Cole McGrath has a handful of movement-related superpowers after all. The biggest mistake in the original game was to give out these powers quite slowly. In inFamous 2, Cole starts with all movement powers from the first game.

He does get even more powerful movement abilities towards the end of the game though. In addition to being able to float in the air and "grind" (move very quickly, like on rails) on electric wires, by the end Cole can launch himself high into the air and use a lightning-themed grappling hook. I actually have no idea how one would do this stuff with electricty (the launch is ice-based though) but it doesn't really matter. What matters is how effectively the player can guide Cole through the city. In a sense it is these feats of movement that truly make Cole feel like a superhero. This is partly due to the surprisingly unimaginative design of combat powers. My biggest issue with the first game was that most of Cole's combat powers worked exactly like firearms. You have your pistol-like basic projectiles, electric grenades and electric rockets (with or without guidance).

inFamous 2 is not much better in this respect. New combat powers are mostly variations of old ones and while they are satisfying to use (especially the redirect rockets) they don't convey the feeling of electricity as well as they could. Sure, electricity courses through steel fences and instantly kills enemies standing in water but that is more or less all there is to it. Although combat powers themselves are perhaps the weakest link in this "electric man simulation", fueling them again enhances the experience; Cole gains his energy and health back by draining it out of nearby electric devices and power sources. This means that the game has an abundance of recovery available. More on this in the next section.I really don't know how electricty-based powers should work, but I'd imagine they would be quite a bit less controllable than firearms.

2. Combat pacing and healing

One interesting topic about game design is how healing affects the overall experience of combat in the game. In the past most games were exercises of sparing limited healing resources and this created a certain suspense but also caused some frustrating save/load sessions. The modern approach on the other hand is to allow players to regain health by simply resting for a while. This approach makes damage less permanent. Neither approach is very realistic, but that is the way of getting damage in combat. The tabletop RPG Hunter: The Reckoning makes a valid point: if a character actually gets injured from a weapon, they often spend weeks or months in the hospital bed. In a tabletop roleplaying game this can be made to work, but obviously it is not very desirable in action packed video games.

This means that once again we can disregard realism. Realism is overrated anyway. Both approaches have their uses, and indeed both are still present in modern games - the resting approach is just much more common. The issue with that approach is that it leaves out the suspense element entirely. It is simply not possible to use limited access to healing as a game design element because healing is ubiquitously available to the player. In inFamous, healing is abundant but not ubiquitous. The city is usually full of sources of electricity - often healing is just around the corner or even already in sight. Indeed, if the player has upgraded Cole's drain speed, he can become almost invulnerable if connected to an infinite power source. Infinite power sources are only available in a few specific missions. However this does mean that Cole can actually heal under gunfire.

Searching for power sources is usually not a desperate effort but rather like pit-stopping during a fight. Just a quick drain and off again. To counterbalance the abundance of healing, Cole actually takes quite a bit of damage from enemies. Staying in open space for too long is quite deadly. This means that the player's health changes very rapidly; taking damage is fast and so is healing. This also translates into how combat flows in the game. When combined with all the movement-related powers, the combat experience is one where the player changes position constantly - hiding to quickly recharge, and popping up from an unexpected direction to unleash a burst of electricity. Cole can easily take out a bunch of enemies quickly if they haven't spread out - but if they have, the player has to switch positions rapidly.

The system works fairly well because no one has a lot of health. At least not in the beginning. The game drops the ball a bit towards the end when it introduces rank-and-file enemies that can take way too much punishment before they drop. The game doesn't really need this either - the increase in difficulty could have been achieved by increasing numbers, or using nastier enemy positioning.

Conclusion

At its base, inFamous 2 is a fairly typical modern game. It uses a lot of the same tropes that are becoming ubiquitous and adds its own twists. Where the game succeeds is in creating the superhero experience for the player. Superpowers in the game are enjoyable to use, although some of them are rather unimaginative re-themings of familiar concepts. As a sequel it is a pretty straightforward iteration in the sense that it has more refined game mechanics. While better as a game, I felt that storywise it was rather lacking. The first game had an interesting story - the sequel really can't keep up to any expectations. I also found the npc role reversal in the final mission of the game a bit cheap. A very minor spoiler here: the bad npc is your ally in the good final mission while the good npc is your ally in the evil version. It felt a bit like they wanted to do a twist so badly, but they really couldn't come up with anything even remotely credible.

Dishonored

Dishonored was a rare exception for me: a game I did not particularly intend to play until I read its review. Actually I did not even read the entire review in fear of spoilers. I simply looked at the score, some of the closing words and knew I would have to get this game. It was in fact my very first impulse purchase of a game on its release date for a very long time. I should not be so surprised of course; the game has a setting that is hugely inspired by Victorian England, and it has a superpowered assassin. The fact that it was a stealth game (which I am often quite suspicious towards) did have an astonishingly small impact on my decision. My liking of Human Revolution likely played a major role in setting my expectations right for Dishonored. The game was indeed very charming; not only was it artistically rather unique, it turned out to be excellent on the gameplay department too.

1. Easy does not equal bad

Let's get this immediately out of the way: Dishonored is by no means a hard game. This is largely evidenced by the simple fact that I - with my rather low patience for stealth in general - was able to complete almost every missions without raising a single alarm or killing anyone. This gets me to a point I have discussed previously: not all games need to be hard. Dishonored is more about creativity than execution. The tools the player has at his disposal are simply so damn powerful that he is more or less a god of stealth (or murder should he so choose!). It is exactly this effortless creativity that makes the game feel so open. I rarely felt I was being guided to use a certain path, or even that I was given a limited number of paths to choose from. I just felt like I was doing exactly what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. Although the game is very different from Assassin's Creed, in this one particular aspect they are very similar.

"Modern games are too easy" as an argument for why they (modern games) suck is something I'm rather tired of hearing. Difficulty simply is not the only possible way for games to create a powerful experience. Even player taxonomies clearly state that challenge is the primary reason for playing only for a certain part of the gaming audience. The actual problem that often gets attributed to lack of difficulty (which I also do, and often, when RPGs are concerned) is that the player is not provided with any incentive to use their wide variety of abilities. However difficulty is not the only way to create this incentive as is shown by games that depend more on player creativity. Games like Dishonored. Admittedly, the game's primary superpower, Blink, is so damn good that there was little use for the other powers. However the game's perceived degree of freedom is so immense, that it is absolutely possible for a roleplay oriented player to go through it in a very different manner.

Interestingly, if the game was more difficult, there is no guarantee that the degree of perceived freedom could be maintained. In a way difficulty always comes with a tradeoff: dominant strategies. In a way difficulty in itself controls player choice in a way that is harmful to a game's roleplaying appeal. If a game is hard enough, certain choices tend to be emphasized because they have higher utility in beating the game or can even be practically mandatory. Although we can argue that such games should be designed in such a way that are choices are equal, they rarely are. I will be the first to say that there is absolutely nothing wrong here in a more broader sense, but if a game wants to appeal to a roleplaying audience then it must be acknowledged that too much difficulty will be hurtful to it. You might argue that the most hardcore player will always find a way to do exactly as he likes. However, the roleplaying audience is not guaranteed to have the patience for training so much! (for the sake of clarity, by roleplaying I now mean playing a role, not the act of playing a computer RPGs)

All that being said, I think in general the stealth game genre benefits more from letting the player make it through in their own style. Increase of difficulty in these games more or less simply increases the number of retries it takes to get through a given segment and can end up being more about memorizing enemy routes than anything else. By providing the player with superpowers that let's them mess with the natural order of things, Dishonored makes stealth easier in a welcome fashion.

2. Speaking of controlling the player...

One thing that I do not like about a lot of stealth games is that although they advertise freedom of choice, the game has built-in values that ineherently make certain choices more encouraged than others. Often the player is encouraged to not kill anyone and stay out of sight. The more the game emphasizes this, the less there is perceived freedom. Dishonored is by far one of the least offenders. The game does not give any in-game rewards for being a sneaky pacifist. In fact it only does one thing (in-game) to encourage the player to find peaceful solutions: the game's ending is affected by how many people the player kills. Not being detected is just gravy and makes it easier to not kill anyone. So it indeed does feel more like I actually could be killing people off should I so choose.

Although Dishonored fares quite well, this is often messed up in similar games. A lot of games offer greater in-game rewards for being stealthy which is practically saying that the player should do so. This is typically explained by the fact that stealthiness indeed is harder to do in these games, and therefore should be rewarded better. There is nothing wrong with this approach, mind you. Rewarding harder accomplishments is mostly a sound design policy. However it should then be recognized that this endorses certain ways to play and therefore effectively reduces the amount of perceived freedom in the game. For instance, a lot of people have complained about higher rewards for non-lethal methods in Human Revolution (even though there is practically no difference between a lethal and a non-lethal takedown; you just push a different button!)

It would actually make Dishonored even easier if the player chooses to kill everyone instead of passing by them, largely because of one ability which makes corpses vanish into thin air (cool). Still the game's difficulty is not drastically affected by the choice of approach. Yet one nasty controlling scheme does exist in the game: achievement system. A certain playing style (killing no one, never being seen) nets you most of the achievements in the game on one playthrough. I cannot underline how distressingly common this is for achievement systems in general: they endorse a single playing style. This hints the player that there actually does exist a "correct" way to play the game. How hard it would be to include achievements for other playing styles?

Sure, not everyone cares about achievements. But for those who do, it is important to be aware of the fact that achievements do control playing styles. For this reason I usually do not look at the list of achievements before completing the game. Although they do not contain spoilers, I know that they will definitely affect my playing style.

3. First or third?

One interesting innovation for a first person stealth game in Human Revolution was its "cover camera". When the player entered cover, the camera backed up to show the player hiding in third person. I still think this is absolutely brilliant because it removes any sort of guessing from hiding. Dishonored on the other hand stays in the first person. The character does crouch appropriately and so on and can lean out of cover (which can sometimes feel rather hilarious; it's like the upper half of your body is sticking out by no one sees you). The game does a fair job of convincing me that I am actually hidden so I do not take issue with this. I still think the system seen in Human Revolution is better though. Dishonored does have better stealth controls though.

Another thing - especially on consoles - is the first person tunnel vision. Stealth games in partciular are hurt by the lack of peripheral vision in games. It is very hard to take a quick glimpse of your surroundings with game pad controls, and even with mouse this does feel a bit wonky. Third person might feel less "realistic" (because you see your own back) but it does provide a much better feeling of peripheral vision. In Human Revolution you often want to get in cover just so you can see better. Which is a bit weird again but hey, these are games we're talking about. Still it might be true that first person does create greater immersion. I'm still not convinced that it should be preferred over third person in stealth games because peripheral vision is absolutely vital for survival.

First person stealth is still mostly okay. First person melee combat is another issue though. Every game that features excellent melee combat uses a third person camera. The problem with first person is the lack of body awareness. Not being able to exactly see your character's body makes it much harder to get a good read of the combat situation. In real life fencing, precise position awareness is key to successful offense, defense and counter attacks. Certain third person games like Dark Souls simulate this quite well precisely because the player can see the exact position of their character. It is easy to see which attacks will connect and which do not. In first person this is strictly harder because the player cannot know for certain where the character's body is physically located. It often tends to make things more boring too.

Another thing that often lacks from first person games regarding sword attacks is movement. It is very rare to attack without simultaenous forward movement but in first person games the player avatar rarely moves when attacks are made. It can be argued again that the player can of course choose to do so but moving and hitting is an entirely different matter than an actual sword attack with forward movement built into it. It's a small detail and of little consequence in Dishonored because combat is generally avoided. For a game like this, Assassin's Creed should be a suitable role model for combat mechanics. Of course, it would involve switching to third person.

4. But what makes it good

So far I have been largely using Dishonored as a vehicle to get into more general topics. There is not much in the above paragraphs to explain why this game is worth more than a few game of the year awards. One definite key strength of the game is that it succeeds in hiding the fact that it is a game. For instance, most of the time I did not feel like I was playing levels that threw challenges at me - I was merely navigating an environment. Situations did not feel like pre-arranged puzzles with several solutions. Instead they felt honestly open. There are some sections where the illusion breaks, but these are surprisingly few and nowhere the magnitude of, say, Human Revolution boss fights. Instead of levels, the developers have created a world that feels like it could actually exist.

There is a certain continuous logic throughout the game regarding how guards, civilians and plague victims are placed in the levels. Patrol routes make sense (at least to the extent that they still loop without variation). Places are never heavily guarded just to throw an obstacle to the player's way. Instead if they are heavily guarded, there is always something that is important in respect to the game world, not the game. All this supports the perception of freedom in the game because most approaches to a specific place for example are actually feasible. The player is allowed to use their eyes to see possibilities instead of being forced to search for hidden routes or discussing with NPCs to reveal new approaches. Whenever I traversed a route to my target I felt it was truly my own route. This is a powerful feeling.

Speaking of powerful feelings... superpowers! The thing about mystic superpowers is that you don't need to explain how they work, and they can do anything without feeling out of place. Sounds like a cheap shortcut and it kind of is but it works. Dishonored does not have many powers, but they all serve a purpose (admittedly, some more than others). The signature ability, Blink, is a short range teleport that has quite limitless potential. Moving around the open environments using Blink is one huge reason why the game feels so open-ended. The simple mechanism of getting from point A to B without being in any of the intermediary points is quite amazing. It opens up so many unpredictable routes that it is almost ridiculously overpowered. However the act of using it is just so delightful that the imbalance between powers did not even bother me.

There are other powerful tools. Seeing through walls has been done quite well. It is not overpowered, but highly useful. I did use it quite a bit, although of course not as much as Blink.Of the remaining powers, I did not even level up all of them, and used the animal / human possession once or twice during the entire playthrough. If you are into stuff like that, you can find a lot of use for this ability though. The remaining abilities seemed too combat-oriented for my playing style so I found no use for them. I might consider playing the game or at least some missions in a more violent manner just to see how the other side of the game system works.

Conclusion

Dishonored plays most of its cards really well. It is a stealth game that is actually not at all frustrating to play yet manages to stay interesting throughout its duration. It bears no significant design flaws really. Overall it is a game I believe anyone considering a stealth game should play. Overall anyone even remotely interested in the genre, or even just the game's theme, should play it. There is so much quality design to be enjoyed. Of all the games I have played recently (sandboxes don't count!), Dishonored has the highest amount of perceived freedom of choice by far. This is achieved in an almost counter-intuitive way by giving the player so powerful tools that they can effectively break the game. Another strong aspect that supports this perception is the way the game stays true to its internal logic. The game world quite simply feels like a world instead of a series of levels.

Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy

I briefly mentioned Dissidia in my previous post on Crisis Core. I realized that I haven't actually written about it, even though there's some stuff there that does deserve mention. In case you haven't guessed yet, Dissidia is yet another Final Fantasy spinoff. In a sense it's the ultimate fan service game for the franchise. It brings together heroes and villains from all games in the main series to fight epic duels in an endless conflict between good and evil (such an original plot there!) Although it's about Final Fantasy characters facing off, it's not really a fighting game in either 2D or 3D tradition.

1. Full 3D Combat, Anime Style


Dissidia is truly three dimensional fighting. It is more reminiscent of third person action games than fighting games in this sense. All in all, it's a strange fighting-action-rpg hybrid. By saying that Dissidia is truly three dimensional, I mean that every dimension is used in almost equal fashion. On average characters tend to spend as much time in air as they do on the ground. Considering all the insane crap these characters do in their respective main series games, I think this is highly appropriate. Most importantly, it portrays the characters as truly powerful individuals who literally defy the laws of physics. For a game controlled with just six action buttons the range of movement is pretty amazing.

The characters run quickly across the ground, they jump high and can do fast evasive maneuvers. They cannot exactly fly, but evasive maneuvers can be done in the air and they work a lot like air jumps. On top of this, some characters' aerial attacks help them stay afloat. Terra for instance can pretty much stay in the air for the entire match, using her long range spells to harass her opponent. While characters cannot fly freely, they can use dashes to cross distances along the ground, across air, from ground to air or air to ground. It's a simple mechanic: as long as the players holds the dash combination, the character charges towards his locked-on target. This allows melee characters to quickly close in on spellcasters. The dash can be modified by certain skills to charge away from the target or even to allow dashing into chosen direction (I'm not sure how this works though).

A lot of attacks also knock the opponent all around the battlefield. Ground attacks can send the opponent flying forward or into air. Aerial attacks can also send them crashing down. Smashing opponents against walls, roofs or floors opens options for more damage. Finally there's the chase mechanic. Some attacks that launch opponents into the air allow chasing. A chase is always a 50-50 guessing game. Guessing wrong can lead to more chasing (or crashing into something). Guessing correctly opens the option to counter with a similar guessing game. All in all, these mechanics combined make sure that combat really moves across battlefields.

2. Brave New Damage


Instead of going with the traditional way of trading blows for direct damage, designers of Dissidia have chosen a different approach. Yes, characters still have hit points and eventually these will be reduced to zero. However the way there is a bit different. The game features two kinds of attacks: HP attacks that deal the actual hurt, and bravery attacks that are used to power up HP attacks. Characters have a bravery gauge. This is a number that indicates how much the damage next HP attack that connects will inflict. Unless nothing special happens, bravery is a zero-sum game. Each bravery attack that hits gives the attacker bravery and takes as much away from the defender. It's an interesting concept - no matter how much you connect with bravery attacks, damage only realizes when you connect with an HP attack. If you guessed that HP attacks are slower and therefore hard to connect with, you are right.

The system is not just a simple zero-sum game though. Connecting with an HP attack uses up all accumulated bravery. Although it raises back to the initial level fairly quickly, there is a serious risk in spamming HP attacks: getting hit while at zero bravery inflicts a 'break'. Whenever an attack breaks the opponent, the attacker immediately gains a huge bonus to their bravery. The bonus comes from stage bravery which is also reset when it's collected. When stage bravery is high it is especially important to avoid breaks. Gauge resets and breaks cause the total amount of bravery in the game to fluctuate. Finally, a lot of summons affect bravery in some way. Summons are once per battle effects that are equipped and can do a wide variety of things (multiply, freeze, reset etc.)

Overall, the system allows for two types of builds. Characters that have high initial bravery can try to connect with HP attacks often, taking advantage of the fact their bravery resets into high number soon after connecting. Alternatively characters can build for bravery damage and aim to score a few charged up HP attacks. The choice between these two strategies depends a lot on what kinds of attacks a character has. Some characters have HP attacks that are really hard to avoid and/or safe to use while others rely on solid bravery attacks. While HP attacks don't differ in damage, there's still a lot of reason to have more than one - they differ in speed, hit area and other stranger factors, all of which dictate what kinds of situations it can connect in.

Conclusion


Although the game has other aspects - what with being an RPG and all - they are not particularly interesting. Character development is pretty standard. Abilities are gained in a linear fashion. Learned abilities are equipped using a point cost system. Each character has a limited number of attack slots. Characters can also wear equipment and choose an assisting character who can be summoned into the battle. But yeah, all that's pretty standard, we've seen it before. Overall, the game is really good at portraying battles in hyperpowered anime style - a style highly suitable for Final Fantasy characters. The combat system is something that should be looked at when thinking about real-time RPG systems, especially when trying to make it really flashy. Dissidia is fast and has insane attacks but at all times it remains easily controllable. For a fighting game I am pretty sure that it is not balanced enough to be really taken seriously.

Deus Ex Human Revolution

Around the time this game was released I decided to play, for the first time, the original Deus Ex so that I could eventually play the Human Revolution and look at it from the proper perspective. Playing both of these games for the first time within half a year of each other provided an interesting viewpoint. Games, even really good ones, have come a long way in ten years. Human Revolution is yet another game that does a lot of things right. As did the original at its time no doubt.

1. Stealth action, finally done right


I have never been a big fan of stealth games. In some contexts I'm down with it, but extended periods of avoiding gazes is too often an experiment in frustration. While Deus Ex and also Human Revolution have gained praise for offering the player choices, the emphasis is on stealth action. Human Revolution in particular rewards being undetected with both experience points and game achievements. The firefights can get pretty brutal too.

Gameplay that emphasizes stealth has certain unique challenges related to uncertainty. For instance, it is highly important for the player to be able to see which way enemies are facing. While it might be realistic not to show any aids in this, going entirely without aids is really frustrating. Human Revolution uses a radar which shows all enemies as long triangles, making it trivial to figure out which way they are looking. Augmentations can be bought to let the player see the enemies' cones of vision in the field, which can provide extra help for moving around undetected. However, I felt the radar was sufficient enough. It's worth noting that without it I would have just shot my way though the game. Which is exactly what I did in the original Deus Ex.

Other source of uncertainty, resident in first person games, is the question "is my character hidden?". This is not always clear because the character's dimensions are not visible to the player. Human Revolution provides a graceful solution to the problem: when the character enters cover, the camera backs away and shows a third person view of the situation. Furthermore, the game only allows the player to take cover behind objects that are in fact large enough to hide the protagonist. It even has smooth mechanics for moving from cover to cover in such a way that the main character is guaranteed to stay in cover at all times and move silently. The third person view also allows the player an unrealistic but much needed ability to see what's going on on the other side of the cover.

Much like Assassin's Creed which uses automation to portray the protagonist's superior abilities and allow the player to focus on planning, the availability of information in Human Revolution does the same. They can even get away with this lack of realism. After all, the game is about human augmentation and all abilities are explained through them. Most importantly, sneaking past enemies and taking them down unseen is highly satisfying.

Admittedly Human Revolution might not be the first game to all this right, but it is in my experience. I admit that I haven't played Metal Gear Solid games much because of the abysmal controls and camera view in MGS2.



2. Inventory, ammo and what is this


The core gameplay of Human Revolution is rock solid. That doesn't mean the game would be entirely without flaws. Let's start with the antique inventory. It is true that slot-based inventory has been a staple in games since - I don't know, forever? - but I'm inclined to think that it's not a very modern solution. There has to be a better way than playing tetris with different sized rectangles on a grid. I have never liked playing around with the inventory in games, and often these limitations of carrying capacity feel really artificial. It cannot be a question of realism because these systems never are realistic. Game balance is the more likely reason to limit what the player can have with them. But why the grid? It makes no sense. A list is much nicer. You can still have a limit on how many virtual slots the character can carry, and have a number for each item to tell the player how many slots it takes. If you really want that grid then please at least give me a good automatic sorting system.

The weirdest thing in both Deus Ex and Human Revolution is the clip size of weapons. Clips in this world are ridiculously small. Semiautomatic pistol with 6 bullet clips? Combat rifle that can hold 20 at a time? You got to be kidding me. I don't even find a game balance justification for this one. The game does its best to support multiple playing styles, but constant reloading really limits options in combat. It also just feels wrong. This is supposed to be the future, so how come they cannot build decent weapons? There was also a bit of a power imbalance between lethal and non-lethal weapons. A single hit from any non-lethal weapon is guaranteed to incapacitate the target, but against some enemies a headshot from a sniper rifle is not.

Conclusion


Human Revolution is a really successful game and a clear improvement over its legendary ancestor from a modern player's point of view. The game had a solid pacing with enough dialogue between action scenes. Levels in the game were not too huge and didn't start to drag at any point. The persuasion system was good, even though I didn't mention it in detail. I did find a it a bit disappointing that just like in the original, the player simply decided the game's ending in the final moments.

There was also the issue of boss fights which were not really suitable for the game. They've gotten a lot of fan rage for a reason. Forcing the player to fight rather deadly enemies in a game where it is possible to put everything into stealth abilities is not a good idea. However I actually didn't find these fights very hard. I just applied a lot of explosives to the problem and it went away. Still, the boss fights really don't fit into the game's general feel. The original allowed players to circumvent at least some boss fights (it didn't have many anyway) and that was a much better solution.

But yeah, I liked Human Revolution. Enough to get its pricey DLC Missing Link and I have to say that it was also very enjoyable.

Mirror's Edge

This game is one of my current generation favorites. It's too bad we're not likely to see a sequel. It's sad because with some polishing (read: reducing enemy encounters) this concept could easily be one of the best games ever. There are a lot of things done right in Mirror's Edge. My thoughts.

1. Eliminating the HUD

I don't remember if the HUD of Mirror's Edge was really gone, or was it just optional. Nevertheless, my experience with the game happened entirely without it. The game is designed in such a way that it plays perfectly without one. Again, I think this works very well for immersion. Not to say that games with a HUD cannot be immersive. All attention is paid to the game world itself when there is no additional information on the screen, and this can have a huge effect on the playing experience.

One important HUD element in many games is the minimap or similar navigational device. Mirror's Edge has a different way for offering guidance: objects in the game world that lead Faith towards her goal are shown red in the otherwise white game world. Although I first considered playing without the visual aids, I pretty soon turned them back on. The gameplay experience is so much better when the player can run with some decent knowledge of where to go.

2. Tricks to increase physicality

I like to describe Mirror's Edge as the most physical video game I've played. Of course it's not physical in the same way as dancing games. It's physical in the sense that the player is given a vivid feeling of being Faith. The developers have used several neat tricks to achieve this feeling. First of all, Mirror's Edge is in true first person: the developers had done their best to put the camera into Faith's eyes. Looking down, her legs are actually visible, and of course we can see her hands actually perform all the climbing, vaulting and whatnot. They've also made the camera move in pace with Faith's step.

They've done the same with the game's soundscape. Players hear not just Faith's footsteps but also her breathing. Oh and the grunts and all the other noises. The crash of Faith hitting the pavement is one of my favorite dying sounds and made me feel really bad about screwing up. It usually goes without saying that soundscape is much more important for immersion than graphics, and the developers of ME have nailed that.

3. Simple yet powerful controls

The final piece of the puzzle are the games controls. Most of the game is played using only two analog sticks and two buttons. One button means jump, the other means crouch. These are contextualized in a natural way. Crouching while running means slide. Crouching while falling means roll. There is a high sense of mastery in playing Mirror's Edge because while things are relatively easy to do (thanks to the controls), the game never feels like it's doing things for you. Even the toughest tricks still have to be fully performed by the player.

Conclusion

The real genius in Mirror's Edge's design is how everything comes together to support player immersion. The designers have carefully removed everything game-y from the game in favor of a strong experience, and they have been successful. The flow of movement in Mirror's Edge feels really good, thanks to the combined effect of all the things mentioned here. I've yet to play a game that would get close to what ME does in terms of pure joy of movement. Of course, when movement is the game, it better be good.