Alan Wake

Alan Wake – A Detailed Game Assessment

Background Story

Alan Wake is a psychological thriller/survival horror shooter played from a 3^rd person perspective. The game’s central character, which the player controls, is a writer by the name of Alan Wake who has been suffering from a two year span of writer’s block. He decides to abscond with his wife to the town of Bright Falls located in the Pacific Northwest in order to rest and relax in the hopes of rejuvenating his creative spark. After arriving at the small town and interacting with many of its inhabitants, Alan and his wife drive to a house they believe they will be staying in located on a small island in the middle of Cauldron Lake. At night an argument erupts by the fact that Alice, his wife, had set up a typewriter in the cabin in hopes that Alan will be able to continue work. Frustrated by her persistence, Alan storms out of the cabin. Soon after, he hears Alice being attacked by a mysterious presence in the cabin. When he returns, he sees Alice pulled underneath the water by a mysterious Dark Presence and jumps in after her. He awakens behind the wheel of a wrecked car teetering over the edge of a cliff. As he makes his way back to town, he comes across sheets of paper that appear to be the complete version of the book he was working on before he got writer’s block. The sheets of paper seem to be prophetic as they describe events that will occur before they happen. Also, Alan is attacked by townspeople who have been engulfed by the Dark Presence. It appears that a week had passed between the cabin incident and Alan waking up in the car, in which he supposedly wrote the pages he is now discovering. Alan is swept up in a journey that leaves him questioning the reality of his situation, the possibility of his insanity, and the chance that the nightmare surrounding him might in fact be an actual presence.

“A Problem-Solving activity, approached with a playful attitude”

The most basic and reoccurring problem-solving activity addressed in the game is fighting enemies while navigating the level. Alan is equipped with two essential bad-guy fighting tools: 1) a flashlight and, 2) one of several weapons ranging from pistols to shotguns and the usual gambit. The flashlight is essential to the problem-solving due to the fact that enemies cannot be harmed by gunfire unless they have been weakened by light. Essentially, a shroud of darkness covers the enemies protecting them from harm. Alan must concentrate his flashlight on an enemy to dissipate the dark shroud before he can harm them with conventional weapons. This may seem simple, but enemies only come out at night and they often appear suddenly and in close proximity to the player. Another way of avoiding enemies and restoring health is to enter a spotlight produced by a lamppost or equivalent. Sometimes these devices are powered by generators which the player must crank before they activate. While activation will make the enemies disappear for a while, it is risky to crank the generators as is leaves you wide open to attack. It’s fun and thrilling to be running through the woods at night dodging marauding crazy-men while trying to keep your flashlight on them with the intent of blasting them to kingdom-come.

Incorporates conflict and the possibility (necessity?) of winning and losing

The main conflict in the game revolves around rescuing Alan’s wife from her imprisonment beneath Cauldron Lake and discovering the origin behind the Dark Presence. This conflict leads to the Dark Presence attacking Alan so that he can’t prevent it from escaping into the world. The game is structured in episodes reminiscent of a TV mini-series. The player is driven by the major conflict of rescuing his wife and solving the mystery of the Dark Presence which spawns the smaller conflicts with people possessed by the Dark Presence. As the game’s story has several twists, it can almost be considered winning in the players mind every time they survive long enough to witness a new development in the plot. The player loses when they die but since the game works on a checkpoint system, the player can keep trying until they win at the smaller section of the game. In its most basic sense “winning” is surviving and navigating to the end of a level.

“A closed, formal system”

*Interesting Anecdote: Alan Wake was originally conceived as an open-world environment where the player could wonder around a complete Bright Falls.

This idea was scrapped due to the kind of experience the developers wanted to convey. They decided that a linear, well-scripted series of levels would serve the story and thrilling style they hoped to portray. This is a good example of how a more closed, controlled environment can lend itself to a better experience depending on what that experience is intended to be. The levels have minor branching paths where secret items or more ammo or equipment can be found, but they are much more linear than a game like Grand Theft Auto.

The Lenses

Essential Experience: In Alan Wake, this is to create a psychological action thriller. The developers aimed to create a combination of fear, thrill, and anxiety for the player. This is why they elected to create an extremely scripted experience so they could more effectively craft their intended essential experience. The tension of having to dissipate the darkness around the enemies before damaging them also works to create the thrilling aspect critical to the essential experience.

Surprise: Surprise in Alan Wake comes from both the gameplay and the story. The surprise in the gameplay comes from the sometimes random appearance of enemies around the player. In a game that aims to generate thrills, this particularly effective. The story is one of the biggest surprise-generators because all of the mystery and plot-twists. Not only does a plot-twist create an initial surprise, but it also creates unique and unexpected set-pieces for the player to play.

Fun: The fun aspect of Alan Wake comes from emerging yourself in the character and the story. The game feels like your living in a movie or a TV series, and the gameplay is solid to complete the package. People who enjoy the game will say it’s simply fun to be scared and enjoy the suspense and mystery of the engaging plot. It’s also fun to be in the shoes of a normal person and not an intergalactic superhuman.

Curiosity: Curiosity in Alan Wake both drives the player to continue playing and to explore side paths. Most of the dangerous gameplay occurs during nighttime sequences. It’s both safer to stick to the beaten path, but curiosity will often drive the player to wonder off into the woods in search of the games secrets. The player is rewarded for curiosity with ammo, batteries for the flashlight, and pages from the mysterious novel. All carry a good endogenous value.

Endogenous Value: The valuable items in Alan Wake are ammo, batteries, flare equipment, and novel pages. Ammo is self-explanatory: without ammo it’s nearly impossible to kill enemies. Also, as a survival horror game, ammo is not in abundant supply and the player must choose their shots carefully. Batteries power the flashlight. These are arguably more important than ammo since without light, enemies are invulnerable. What would not be valuable in other games is valuable here; flare equipment (both flares and flare guns) inflict major damage on enemies and if uses strategically can be extremely useful. Finally, novel pages possess a kind of intellectual value. Not only do they give you glimpses in what is about to happen, but also provide looks into different characters and help the player understand the story as a whole.

Problem-Solving: While there are more complex problems in the game, most go back to the root of what was mentioned above. The combination of flashlight and convention weapons must be used together to outwit and defeat the Dark Presence. 

League of Legends

On October 27^th, 2009, Riot Games released their first, and currently only, game title, League of Legends.

(A pretty old trailer, but also the only one using in-game footage.)

League of Legends, or as its players call it “LoL”, is part of a rather unique and interesting genre of games known as "Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas, whose history can be traced back to the map making community of Blizzard's ever-popular real-time strategy series Starcraft, and whose most well-known member is the Warcraft 3 map Defense of the Ancients. The game consists of two teams of five players and two bases located in opposite corners of a map with three traversable paths, along the sides and middle, which connect them.

Each lane has towers placed along it, large durable structures which inflict heavy damage to nearby enemies, with the ultimate goal being to move up one, or all of the lanes, into the enemy base and destroying it. Every 30 seconds, the two bases spit out a small group of enemies that walk down each lane, meet the opposing enemies, and fight to the death. These enemies are not controlled by the players who instead take on the role of a champion, of which there are nearly 70. When a champion kills an enemy, they earn an amount of gold and experience (considerably more for an enemy champion, than an enemy minion) which is then used to purchase items or level-up your abilities. Players are free to roam around the map as much as the please, but you'll only gain gold from killing enemies and you'll only gain experience from being near enemies when they die (So sitting in the base the whole game likely won't have the best results).

The game's intended experience is a rather simple one: Win. When you win, you get to feel like you're better than whoever lost. People like to win because, well, you win. Winning is at the very core of human nature. From the first time we sharpened a stick to kill a mammoth, we, as creatures, have been trying to “win.” Surviving is winning. Defeating the mammoth is winning. Some games are driven by desire to explore, or learn about the world in which you play, but at the heart of every player who plays LoL is the desire to be part of the winning team.

Elements of surprise are not as numerous as they probably could be, but the very nature of the game and how its laid out gives birth to surprises, even if it wasn't the developers intention for a specific surprise to occur. Most of the map is obscured, as players can only see what they and their allies see. So if you're all alone out in the fog, “surprise” can lurk around every corner. So while the game environment always performs in a predictable manner, having the free-will of opposing players present in that environment will always generate surprise. To me, surprise is pretty closely tied in with curiosity. When the game surprises me, it motivates me to discover the source of the surprise and either replicate or avoid that surprise in the future. In this game's case, I think the two are essentially the same.

Now on to the value. Lots of things in LoL have a lot of value in game, and little value out. The gold you earn from killing minions lets you purchase items. The best items in the game, are exceptionally powerful and getting them before your enemy does can often win the game outright. In addition to that, your score is recorded and displayed at the end of the match, so killing champions, being their for your team mates, or killing the most minions looks impressive and fills players with satisfaction.

http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/8665/retired4good.jpg

(Little bit of shameless bragging here)

Also, the title is supported by a micro-purchase model, where the main game is free-to-play for any and all, but with a limited champion selection. You get influence points (the in-game currency) for playing games (more for winning and less for losing) and you spend these points on additional champions.

The game's fun lies in three main phenomenon; simply winning is usually pretty fun, becoming stronger than your enemies because you have a lot more gold and items is pretty fun, and the third (which applies to most who play, but certainly not all) is team work. Playing with four of your closest friends is often fun enough, winning or losing aside.

The problem-solving aspect of the game quickly becomes clear when keeping a few things in mind: First, you want to earn money and experience as quickly as possible, but if you play as aggressively as you can, you'll often end up on the wrong side of the map, where extra enemies are much closer to you than reinforcements. Secondly, not playing aggressively enough will often result in the destruction of a tower, which grants gold and experience to every member of the enemy team and eliminates a possible safe zone for your own team. This affair becomes extraordinarily complex as players learn more about the system, but the obvious goal is to simply beat the enemy team. The last figures I read had a figure of about one-million active accounts, which results in the games being incredibly dynamic as one-million players playing one of seventy champions in any combination of five against another combination of fives leaves a massive potential for variety and new challenges.

Overall, League of Legends isn't for everyone. If you aren't a competitive person by nature, or if you look for in-game motivation or meaning to the action, then you’ll probably be a little bit disappointed. The core gameplay is pretty catered to a specific audience, and, unfortunately, it doesn’t have much to offer beyond that. However, Riot is aiming to change that somewhat with their promises of additional maps, still more champions that differ mechanically from the others (since most follow a pretty similar format), and even different game modes entirely, but I feel that’s probably pretty far out at this point.

Mirror's Edge

Mirror's Edge was one of the first of hopefully many more games to be based on the French art of parkour for its primary gameplay as well as inspiring much of the game's aesthetics and design decisions. Parkour is the discipline of artfully and swiftly moving through one's environment as efficiently as possible, often in an urban setting. Parkour has grown more and more popular in recent years due to the rise of Youtube and film treatments such as the French film District 13, which clearly illustrates the high-energy excitement sought to be emulated by DICE.

This is a very interesting idea to me, parkour is perfectly suited for a game environment, the major elements of a game are already firmly in place. The problems you must solve are all similar, evade danger by getting from one point to another as quickly as possible, but the ways in which they can be achieved are nearly limitless, showing the playful quality Schell talks about. As you can see in the video, there are many objects to interact with in this closed formal system. Each rail, pipe and ledge would have a function within this system, and depending on how useful they are, a specific endogenous value in addition.

There are other exciting, even groundbreaking elements that a parkour game would have that the vast majority of its competition would not. A great sense of speed and empowerment using only the human body. No race cars here. Exhilarating conflict and danger without a direct connection to violence on the part of the player. With this genre, DICE would be tapping into the most fundamental core of our nature as, not even humans, but as animals. You've heard of “fight or flight”? While almost all games focus on the “fight” side of that dichotomy, there's no reason the “flight” side couldn't be just as visceral and engaging.

I have just described what was to be the essential experience of Mirror's Edge. Unfortunately, I think in the process of innovating so heavily DICE fell short of this goal in a couple significant ways. However, before I talk about the bad, I would like to get the good out of the way first.

First of all, if we look at Mirror's Edge through the elemental tetrad, it's clear that this game was designed with the aesthetics and technology elements foremost in mind. Not only does the game have an incredibly unique, amazing-looking visual style, but it uses this style to complement the gameplay immensely. Throughout levels there is a predominant “color theme” present, an unrealistic but-not-unwelcome smattering of orange or blue or yellow depending on the level's mood. In addition this color will often change when the level's path changes dramatically. For example when you burst through a door into an office hallway you might be greeted by a burst of bright green, emphasizing how your environment has changed and adding a visual rush to your experience. Because of the high-speed nature of this game, the lens of surprise is utilized quite well, often with moments like this but just as often with the arrival of environmental set-pieces or enemies.

The technology of Mirror's Edge is also quite impressive, the whole game gleaming from top to bottom. The player-character is shown from a first person point-of-view, but rather than utilize the older “hovering camera” method of first-person, DICE created an entire body to go along with your crosshairs, giving Faith arms, legs, and most especially, feet. Because of this the player is able to accurately judge where on the platform her or she currently is, making timing jumps properly quite painless, something not as doable in tradition first-person games.

This video demonstrates the PhysX technology included with Mirror's Edge, but also shows off a good variety of the types of levels present in the game.

Ok, now on to what I think really holds Mirror's Edge back from being the genre-pioneering gem DICE deserved to make. While the characters and plotline are mediocre, it would be a forgivable offense if the gameplay were better.

While the controls and gameplay are often acceptable, there are certainly times when incredibly frustrating moments happen, as in any game. Some of the “function elements” in our system, as mentioned earlier, don't at all support the idea of moving quickly and efficiently. Pipes, of which there are many, always force you to slowly clamber up the with nothing but a view of 'pipe.' One move, the knee-slide, is incredibly fun to execute, making you feel both cool and agile when using it. However, it slows down your character immensely. Why eliminate this fun variety of traversing the level? Solely for the sake of realism? Unfortunately I would say that most aspects of realism abandoned at this point have been for less important reasons than 'fun.'

While many small mechanical issues could be resolved, the biggest problem with Mirror's Edge is that it tries to be too many different TYPES of parkour games at once, becoming a bit of a jack of all trades, master of none. The levels are not open world, although they may at first appear to be, so a free-form, wild running approach such as that in Assassin's Creed will not work, as there are many areas that cannot be accessed and many ledges that spell certain doom. That's fine, then. Surely with Mirror's Edge, we would want a fast-paced, goal-oriented game? Give us a clear, linear path, some enemies to chase us, and a prize at the end and we'll have fun running as fast as we can towards it, enjoying the adrenaline rush a long the way. This is mostly what Mirror's Edge tries to do, but still includes some of the visual freedom of the open-world levels, and neglects to give the player a clear path towards his or her goal. Runner Vision tries to highlight points along the way, but often this can be confusing or even misleading. DICE wants players to use their creativity and curiosity to find the fastest route, but they highlight a path for them. Similarly, while there is usually only one 'main' route to choose from, the knowledge of what rooftop you're on and which one you are going to is often not provided. There is a VAST difference between one's first and second playthroughs of a level, because navigating a level for the first time is often an experiment with trial and error. Needless to say, this is not very fast. One such run is illustrated here (with metal for emphasis).

I would suggest a more flowing, linear style to the gameplay, not unlike the drastically-simple Canabalt, So as to offer the player a more essential experience, and perhaps include the thoughtful, almost puzzle-like route finding in a slower, separate game mode.

With all of its problems I would recommend Mirror's Edge to anyone who is interested in games enough to understand the massive potential it has. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that perhaps more than any other game, Mirror's Edge deserves a sequel. There are so many great ideas here, and so many of them excellently executed, that it would be a shame not to give DICE that second chance to refine their vision.

Katamari Damacy

Katamari Damacy, where the very premises of the game is merely to roll, roll, roll. You can roll up erasers, candy, chairs, dogs, fences, cars, people, houses, islands, giant squid, and even clouds. You play as the Little Prince, whose task is to roll up lots of stuff on Earth so your dad, the King of All Cosmos, can blast it into the sky to make a star. Why a star you ask? Well somehow your loving father managed to wipe out all the stars after drinking too much and is making you clean up his mess. Each level you're are provided with a set diameter that your katamari must reach at the end of a time-limit. When first rolling your katamari you must start with small things such as candy and erasers. As soon as you've obtained enough, you can start rolling up bigger things and so on. While trying to reach your objective you are also presented with a jazzy little soundtrack, that soon becomes embedded into your memory. If you reach the goal measurement, you father is pleased when he releases your ball into a star in the sky. However, if you fail to meet the requirements, he becomes angry, but still releases your dingy little ball of stuff. There isn't really a matter of losing but trying to go above and beyond the challenges given you. is possible to go above and beyond in your rolling process. Katamari is a third-person puzzle game that focuses toward the four points of humor, novelty, easy comprehension, and enjoyment. The game's creator Keita Takahashi, was tired of seeing so many games that looked the same and decided to do something different. His inspiration simply came from the concept of the enjoyment a child feeling from rolling around a ball. He also talks about how since video games aren't essential to our everyday lives, they need to be more meaningful and unconventional. Namco, from Namco Bandai Games, even told Takahashi that his game was too simple, but was ignored. So the simplicity of the game itself, which constitutes rolling lots of things of with your katamari, is intended to be the most enthralling part of the game. The humor is derived from all the random and different things that can be rolled up during the game. Whenever you roll up people they scream (which I always obtain great enjoyment from) or when you are in the process of rolling after someone in order to stick them to your katamari, they try to run away. When you choose to start a new game in the start-up menu, you are started off with a rolling tutorial. In order to move around, you use the two analog stick on the Dual Shock controller to choose the direction the katamari rolls. Depending on the way you flip the analog sticks you can also gain bursts of speed, flip the angle of the Prince rolling the katamari, and so on. There is also a multiplayer option, where you and a friend can battle each other with your katamaris. First person to roll up the most stuff wins! If you meet your goal before the time limit is up, you can continue rolling and make your katamari even BIGGER and if you manage to make your katamari twice the size of the goal measurement, you can even unlock the eternal mode. In eternal mode you roll around the level with no time limit. This is not explained in the game, so therefor its something you have to find out by merely trying to overachieve the goals set in the game. Before you begin each level, the King of All Cosmos gives you a little pep talk. Sometimes he mentions that he got you a give but lost it on Earth. So it's up to you to roll up the gift during your time down there. However, he doesn't tell you where the gift was dropped exactly. The more you are able to roll up during the time-limit, the better chances you have of accidentally rolling up the gift in the process. The little gifts amount up to things the Prince can where while he's rolling such as a guitar he wears on his back or a scarf. In The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell in the Chapter 3: The Lens of Fun, Bernard Mergen explains "Games, competitive games, which have a winner or a loser, are not, in my definition, play." According to that definition, games of that nature are not something you can play. However, in Katamari Damacy, it is not necessarily a matter of winning or losing as it is "doing well." If you fail to reach your goal within a set time-limit, you are merely scolded for it and there are no limitations to how many times you can re-roll a level. Also in The Art of Game Design, spontaneity is deemed an important part of 'play'. How more spontaneous can you get when rolling up an entire world with a katamari that started out the size of a pencil eraser? Also the fact that you can't really always plan out what you are going to roll up. Constantly trying to roll up a set diameter might seem like work after awhile, but if you set your own personal goals, such as achieving thirty meters over the set goal, you create a new kind of play. What motivates a player to roll in this game? People are all for discovering the surprises in games and finding new places they haven't seen yet. So a person thinks "I need to collect all the surprises" or "I need to achieve the set goal in every level". Finding all the items is part of the fun, all of them varying in rarity, and it's always interesting to see what they are since most of them are of Japanese nature. So what is it about the game that makes it so interesting? It could be the bright, blocky colors and Japanese influence. In one aspect, this game is a form of looting. Throughout the game you are constantly collecting items with your Katamari. People love gaining things, so this is the perfect game to do just that.
The only items available in the game are the items you roll up in the levels. You have to make sure though that you keep the items attached to your katamari, for it is possible to get them to become un-stuck. So it's important that you try to keep all the stuff you've collected.
So in conclusion, roll up cheese, books, and people. Discover hidden surprises and create THEM STARS.

Fallout 3

Fallout 3 is a RPG set in the Capitol Wasteland - better known to us as Washington D.C. The name change is derived from the effects of The Great War, which both started and ended on Saturday, October 23, 2077. It was a complete nuclear holocaust. The world of Fallout is a cratered, radiated ruin.

The conflict of Fallout 3, if one chooses to acknowledge it, lies in the ‘vault dwellers’ separation from his father. The main quest is largely spent catching up with dad, helping dad, rescuing dad, and so on. But you don’t have to do any of that if you don’t want to. I repeat- the main quest of this game is completely optional. Once a player discovers just how free the game play is, it creates this great lightness that anything can be done. This is the root of the playful attitude found in the game.

The problem-solving lies mostly in where you want to allocate your time, what you want to explore, and who you want to help. One of the more immediate problems discovered in the game is the existence of a live nuclear bomb in the bottom of the aptly named city of Megaton. There are two competing wills that shape your experience with said thermonuclear device. A sketchy businessman offers great rewards for rigging the device for detonation (and later detonating), but a genuine sheriff offers a meager reward for its disarming. The third option is to do nothing. The scenario is much more complicated that I just let on, and in that complication – if approached with the proper playful attitude – awaits great fun.

Megaton scenario

Conflict abounds in the Capital Wasteland. Starting from the most macro of conflicts, you have ‘interracial conflict’ between Ghouls, Humans, and Super Mutants. Next you have factions of humans, primarily the Enclave and The Brotherhood of Steel, with separate dogmas and objectives. Then towards the mico end of the scale, you have mercenary companies that launch sorties to kill the player. All of this occurs while the natural environment is also trying to kill you with radiation and mutated animal life.

Thankfully the complex politics of the Capital Wasteland don’t confuse what it means to win or lose. To win is to play the game without losing, and to lose is to die. By frequent saving, the impact of losing can be made completely negligible.

The formalities of Fallout 3 lie in a lot of metrics. One of the more lauded aspects of the game is its use of a karma system that affects how people perceive and react to your character. While you never actually know your definite karma score (say -26, for example), you are able to know if you are very evil, evil, neutral, good, or very good.

A player’s skills and perks are also make up a very formal system. After every level up, a player allocates a number of skill points towards activities such as breaking locks, hacking computers, use of energy weapons, ect. A player will not have the capacity to be a master of all skills in Fallout.

Having such formality with the player’s character is interesting in contrast to the sheer amount of unknown found elsewhere in the game. It creates the effect of ‘knowing thyself’ and trusting in your abilities. I often took solace in knowing my character’s limitations in the presence of certain challenges.

The experience one earns out of Fallout 3 is largely up to the player. Decisions abound from the game’s start - decisions that often have very serious consequences. The breadth of choices available really serves the game’s intended realism greatly. What game factor does more to increase realism than consequence?

Fallout 3’s sandbox style of play is much more than having three different dialog choices that lead to the same ending sequence. If somebody says something that doesn’t quite jive with the ‘lone wanderer’ that you’ve created, you have a wide array of options to erase that character from the game. If somebody dies, they die for good. Not to worry though, any valuables carried by the person can be looted off their corpse, no questions asked.

Trolling a character (Mr. Lopez)

The one thing that truly enables the experience Fallout 3 generated (at least for me) is the setting. If you were to take Fallout 3, and create a complete fabrication for its setting, it would lose an incredible amount of substance and weight. The first steps out of the vault will be forever engrained in my mind as one of the most genuine gaming experiences I’ve had.

Leaving the vault

To me, the surprise of Fallout 3 lies in exploring the unknown. Simply put, you never know what you will find. The starkest example is that of Andale, a seemingly odd relic of America’s suburban heritage. The citizens brag about Andale being the best town in all of Virginia. Truth is the town is full of cannibals with two full blown (human) meat lockers. Such dark humor becomes expected, but you just never know where it will come from.

Andale, Creepiest Town in Capital Wasteland

Fallout 3 can be so immersive you don’t really realize you are having fun until you power down. Much of the game can border on becoming a chore due to the size and 'I have to survive' aspects of the game. I distinctly remember refusing to do a quest because at the time I had no desire to go back into a subway system.

You can also become addicted to an impressive array of vices. If that isn’t fun, I don’t know what is!

Curiosity is a vital component to the Fallout experience because of the importance placed on ‘scaving’. Scaving is essentially digging through ruble and ruins looking for food/health/ammo/caps. Whenever you see a desk, you think there could be caps in it! Whenever you see a locker, ammo! Whenever you kill a hostile, weapons! See a fridge? Beer!

Value in Fallout 3 is all determined by the player rather than the game. For instance, an energy weapon specialist would place little value in lugging around every hunting rifle he found, but a small guns specialist would be giddy to have a high condition rifle. Same goes for explosives and medicine.

You can become addicted to drugs or alcohol, obviously in those situations you’ll do just about anything to get your hands on some jet or buffout.

Almost every location you find has some story to it that will result in at least one problem that can be resolved, and off the top of my head there are somewhere near 150 named locations. While the game requires very few to be solved, most are rewarding enough to generate some excitement.

Team Fortress 2

                Team Fortress 2 (TF2) is a game released in 2007 by Valve. It was released on the Xbox 360, Windows, PlayStation 3, and Mac OS X as both a standalone product as well as a part of the Orange Box which was a collection of five Valve created games in one package. TF2 is a team-based first-person-shooter that incorporates many different classes of characters that have wildly different play-styles. It is the sequel to the widely successful game Team Fortress Classic which was a mod of the game, Half-Life. Half-Life was Valve’s first game and is considered to be one of the most influential games ever developed.

                 

At the game’s core is the idea of team-based combat. In some modern games such as Call of Duty there is more importance placed on self rather than team. In TF2 there are nine different classes broken up into three different combat types: Offensive which is made up of the Scout, Soldier, and Pyro; Defensive which is made up of the Demoman, Heavy, and Engineer; and Support which is made up of the Medic, Sniper, and Spy. Most matches of TF2 require a combination of all three combat types in order to be successful. The classes are all different and each have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Also since most classes depend on one another to cancel out their weaknesses (for instance a medic may not be able to get past a sentry gun and needs the assistance of a demoman) the communication between teammates is important and is a definitive aspect of the game. To play this game to its full potential a player should use a microphone and headphones in order to communicate with their team. There is even the built-in voice commands and text chat that can be used instead of a microphone, but these take a bit of time to select whereas talking can be heard instantaneous if you are on fire or something similar.

                There are two teams in each game that are each trying to accomplish a goal. Sometimes the goal is the same such as holding a particular point for a given period of time. Other times there is a team that must attack a series of control points while the other team tries to defend them. The gameplay is similar to most first-person-shooters and has many different types of ranged and melee weapons. There is less emphasis on “kill everything that moves” and more of a direction to play intelligently since the goal of the game is not to have the most kills, but to accomplish the give objective. This leads to teamwork because each team is directed towards a specific goal.

                The game has no single-player mode and instead consists entirely of human players that are online. This leads to a variety of gameplay and strategies that change each time you play. Because there is not an artificial intelligence in charge of your opponents or teammates actions you can face a group that could vary from someone’s first time with the game to a seasoned professional. The game also has frequent updates that add new maps and weapons to the game. These allow the same classes to have a completely different loadout and can give the player access to different strategies. For instance there is an unlockable gun for the heavy that is slower and does less damage than the standard gun, but it slows down an enemy player on a hit. This tradeoff is more of a lateral shift rather than a clear upgrade or downgrade.

Two other important aspects of TF2 are the achievements and hats. The game has over 300 different achievements. Some can be earned only by certain classes and others can be earned by all classes. Each achievement requires the player to do a set task that may be simple or incredibly challenging. Some achievements can only be unlocked after an incredibly long time of play. There are random “drops” in the game that occur sporadically while playing. These drops could be a new weapon, a weapon you already have, paint (to color hats), or the most elusive and prized drop which is a hat. Hats are seen as a status symbol in the game because of how long they take to acquire since it is unlikely to randomly get one unless you play for several hundred hours. Some hats are so rare that they can be sold for upwards of $600 to other players.

TF2 gained a lot of attention for its interesting art style that is reminiscent of the advertisements made in the early 20^th century. Norman Rockwell has been cited as a strong inspiration to the motif. The characters are artistically exaggerated and funny. A large focus of the game is the humor and personality that each class has. Rather than just having static skinned characters, each character feels unique such as the black Scottish demoman, the Australian sniper, the New Jersey scout, etc. Throughout the game after a death, kill, or random event, the characters will spout one of their lines of dialogue. Valve released machinima trailers that give an in-depth look at each character’s personality. 

Team Fortress 2 is considered by many to be the most balanced first-person-shooter of all time and I completely agree. Every class is unique and beneficial with their own specific tasks and uses. Each match is exciting and intense in a way that few others can compare. As you play you can develop a sense of camaraderie amongst your teammates and this leads to an enjoyable gaming experience.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

       Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (MM) once again finds our protagonist Link in an unfamiliar world, Termina, burdened with the task of saving it from a collision with the moon. MM is the only Zelda title which is centered on a Link from a previous title, namely the Link from Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (OOT). MM is unique in that it deals with two unusual game mechanics: the various powers granted through masks and the ability to manipulate time inside of the game's three day time span.  That is wearing different masks allows Link to take on different forms, interact with different characters or gain entry to a variety of areas. Temporally the game takes place over three in-game days, wherein the moon gradually grows closer with each day until finally colliding with Termina at midnight on the third day, thus resetting a player's entire progression with all third parties.

MM is rife with incredibly intricate personality based situations, as well as time sensitive problems as created through the game's three day game mechanic. Originally Link ventured into Termina (an alternate reality of Hyrule found in OOT) as his horse Epona and the Ocarina of Time was stolen by Skull Kid.  Before entering Termina, however, Link is transformed into a Deku (plant being) by Skull Kid. Now in Termina Link meets The Happy Mask Salesman, who offers to assist Link if he retrieves the Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask from Skull Kid. Skull Kid it seems is possessed by Majora's Mask and is responsible for the moon's current trajectory.

Throughout the unraveling of this plot Link must travel this world venturing to Woodfall, Snowhead, the Great Bay and Ikana Canyon all of which contain dungeons which in turn must be unlocked through various progressions through time and challenges. Amongst the main plot and four dungeons exist hundreds of in game characters and side-quests which are time sensitive and often require a player to replay all three days in a perfectly timed dance while taking on the personalities of their current mask collection.  If this all sounds overwhelming, it often is and MM has gone so far to include an in game day-planner in order to keep track of all the events the player has so far experienced.

In terms of maintaining a playful attitude MM offers a rich environment filled with a variety of terrain, time elements, climates and races that greatly encourage exploration and curiosity. MM is also rife with comedic relief as well as playful distractions such as fishing, racing, target shooting and a variety of side-games unlocked by Link's current species or affiliation.

Winning and losing in MM are evident in that a player can easily die, sometimes being forced to repeat their entire progression in a dungeon or side quest. Yet through time travel as granted by songs played on the Ocarina of Time, Link is able to avoid impending doom by returning the game's  first day. Losing does provide the ability to rethink one steps as the game doesn't come to a smashing end like many like many games of that time period did. Instead a player it sent back to a previous point in time (such as the beginning of a dungeon) to retrace their steps and make a further attempt.

MM definitely constitutes a closed formal system. One is limited to the world of Termina which itself contains a variety of rules, cultures and limitations. In fact as MM contains time sensitive elements it is arguably a more formal system than many video games (especially at its time of release in 2000). However, the presence of masks allow the player to bend or even break those rules from time to time (i.e. the ability to move much faster through time or become invisible to all NPCs).

MM's essential experience is acting on empathy.  As soon as the game begins Link is forced to empathize with the citizens of the now doomed Termina. He must learn the intricacies of their lives and cultures in order to defeat Skull Kid and save this alternate reality. Furthermore Link gains the ability to transform into three other species native to Termina (Deku, Goron and Zora). Each of these particular masks is earned by learning the culture of the native species and the challenges it faces as told by a fallen hero of each respective community. In the end Link must even empathize Skull Kid's condition (possession from Majora's mask and his isolation) in order to defeat Majora itself.

MM's mask allows for surprise in numerous ways, however a surprise unique to MM are the abilities unlocked through masks. Whether per chance or through a detailed execution of sporadic time travel, a player may earn a mask. Some masks initially seem to serve little to no purpose, a mask that is a bomb or a mask that causes Link to not fall asleep, while others are incredibly powerful such as the stone mask which allows Link to move amongst enemies undetected.

The game remains fun because it constantly remains fresh. Link is always being granted permission or the ability to travel to new and very unique locals. Throughout your journeys your powers become more complex and your mask collection more diverse. The ability to shape-shift between species to handle specific elements is also incredibly rewarding. Even as a player uncovers all the sections of the map only then can they begin to piece together the most complicated of MM's side stories.

Curiosity plays a large role in MM's outside of simple exploration. One must be absurdly curious to unlock all of MM's secrets. What might happen if I play the Song of Storms in this circle of rocks? What is this isolated pedestal in the middle of the ocean? What happens if I drink superior cow milk on the third day then visit the graveyard while wearing the Keaton mask? Can I tame these dogs? Can I tame these frogs? Can I steal this chicken and use it as a makeshift parachute? All these scenarios and more are only discovered if the player not only exercises their curiosity, but really exerts it onto the game itself.

MM's primary currency is that of time. Time is constantly diminishing, yet is some ways an ever present resource. A player must understand how to best manipulate time within a given repetition of the three days. Are your tasks complex and require you to slow down time altogether? Should one skip to the moments just before the moon collides in order to complete a quest dealing with the chaos before the collision? Once time is spent it will not return unless the player decides to restart the entire three day passage. Depending on a player's strategy the current time may be tight and botched actions may prove to be very costly. However, if a player is set on lighter tasks three days may prove to be too much and time's value becomes grossly inflated.

MM's mask like very few other games asks the player not only to think mechanically but also temporally. By understanding the events all over Termina and when they occur a player is able to unravel the intricate web of storylines. At times there may be many ways around a problem, while at others the answer is exceedingly and even frustratingly difficult. All can be for nothing due to a few miscalculations or lost steps. 

How AI in Games Works

Testing out how to effectively utilize this newfangled technology.

Here's a introductory article to how AI is utilized in many AAA games. This is a guest post from the Wolfire Games blog, a small indie dev that tracks the progress and shows almost every aspect of their development process through their blog posts.

Many of the concepts are far out of our reach, but others are more conceptual than technological.

http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/01/An-Introduction-to-AI-in-Games-from-Phil-Carlisle