I'm not necessarily against the idea of a Bioshock movie. Of all the gaming franchises out there, few showcase the tremendous potential of storytelling in the medium quite like Bioshock. I'm not even too worried that the project is being helmed by Gore Verbinski, director of the ridiculous Pirates of the Caribbean films. I mean, look how much he was able to ring out of a movie inspired by a theme park ride! (and, truly, it good to see the project under the watchful eye of someone who can use CG effects to their fullest potential. Rapture deserves to be one of the most beautiful and sad locals ever created.)
I've just have one problem with the announcement.
The great "revelation" is Bioshock(at the 12 - 15 hour point in the game) dealing with the nature of control in the medium: is that something people feel can be accurately transported to the big screen? Could that same reveal be just as effective in a movie capacity as in a game?
As a player, I felt the full weight of the "revelation": I had been led by the nose this whole time, controlled and cajoled into action without really thinking about "why" I chose to do what I did. From a design perspective, the "revelation" perfectly captured the idea of linearity: all games take you along a predetermined path. There is no real notion of "choice", in a game, because the players every possible effect on the world and the story has been mapped out by teams of designers. Games don't allow for real decisions to be made. It's why the medium does have the capacity to become art. Because games are inherently products you interact with, seeing the game effectively say, "You have no choices. You've been doing exactly what I wanted this whole time", was more deeply felt than virtually any video game story to come before it.
Could that idea- about the nature of control(what we have and what we don't have)-be fully encapsulated by a film?
There are some books out there that ONLY work as books (Wuthering Heights comes to mind as a product that can't cross over to another medium and be effective.) Is Bioshock a game that can have the same impact in a different medium?
I suppose the counter argument is to take that idea about the nature of control and stretch it over every entertainment/artistic medium. Film has you going down the predetermined path of the director. Literature and poetry shows you only what the writer wants to show you.
Those who control Art show us exactly what they intend to show us and nothing more. Artists have complete dominance over their medium, and they use their proficiency in the medium to deliver to viewers their ideas. The alchemical response we feel to a certain painting or piece of music or film or game may be unique to a single person. but that response was ultimately planned by the artist. They want to elicit a specific reaction from people, be it grief or joy, remorse or Rapture.
So, really, there is no control in Art.
What would you like to see from a Bioshock movie? Do you think Verbinski could get away with remaking the original game? If so, do you think that game's "revelation" could translate to the screen? If not, what other angle would you like to see the film approach?
Author's Note: This blog entry has been edited to remove information that may not have been made public when originally written.
Rumor has it that Sega's latest attempt to beat life into rotting corpse of Sonic the Hedgehog takes the classic franchise in an "exciting new direction!"
Rumor also has it that talking about or showing footage/screens of said "exciting new direction!" will result in being SERVED!!!!!!(with a lawsuit).
To avoid litigious actions made against this awesome website, here's a picture of a Bunny.
When I think of the the possibility of ANOTHER Sonic game(especially given the quality of the previous games), I can’t help but be reminded of an old adage my mum used to whisper to me just before I would drift off to sleep.
“Son”, she would say, “You can’t strike lightning twice…especially when it comes to
franchises that haven’t been good since the early 90’s”
(True Story!)
Its hard to believe that the last important release in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise was released more than 10 years ago. All those poor Genesis lovers plugging together their copies of Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles. Did they know, even then, that poor Sonic would never again be associated with “fun”? Oh, the humanity! Oh, the copies of Sonic 3D Blast!
What happened to the poor Bastard? Why has Sega been dragging Sonic’s name through the mud all this time? Why can’t they conjure that magic that made Sega a force to be reckoned with?
Some game players( those who still remember the hay-day of Sonic games and could be bothered to give a care about) think that Sonic:Unleashed might be a return to form for the franchise, putting Sonic in a game that more closely resembles the 2D side-scrollers that made him Nintendo’s worst enemy all those years ago. Fans think that a healthy dose of nostalgia for “th good ol’ days” might be exactly what Sonic needs. Sonic fans, deluded by a gamers greatest weakness (nostalgia),bought copies of Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, Sonic Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog, and the “re-imagined” Sonic the Hedgehog.
If you were to put those titles on a list, then congratulations: you’ve managed to create an in-depth and sophisticated feature about the worst 3-D platformers ever created.
Bad camera, boring level design, anime voice acting, a story: looking at the “features” those games brought to bear, its no surprise that some game players wants Sonic to go back to his roots: old school side scrolling platformer.
They couldn’t be further for the truth.
Nostalgia is a dangerous weapon: by conjuring up the aforementioned “good ol’ days” in a new product, game makers con the average “Joe Gamer” into thinking their having fun. However, if developers continue to give players nostalgia trips rather than new experiences, the series is bound to fall into a rut. Going back to the “fun years” of 2-D gaming certainly won’t bring Sonic back. Much like the Sonic Rush games (the only halfway decent entries the series has seen in a while) a “new” old Sonic game will only be enjoyable, as Giant Bomb’s Jeff Gerstmann wisely puts it, “in a retro sense”; it might be a neat distraction, but it couldn’t possibly stand toe to toe with faster, more interesting modern games. It wouldn't compete with the faster games, and couldn't be counted toe-to-toe with the better platformers. In a no man's land where the series can't please the modern sensibilities of gamers, the franchise would lose interest even from the most die hard fans, and Sonic would be no more.
THIS IMAGE IS A METAPHOR FOR THE SONIC FRANCHISE, DROWNING IN A SEA OF FASTER GAMES AND BETTER PLATFORMERS!
HE CAN'T BREATHE CAUSE OF THE WATER.
That puts the Sonic franchise in a bit of a quagmire, doesn’t it? Continuing to make the terrible 3-D platformers will surely put a nail in the series’ coffin, while making a “new” 2-D platformer will regulate the franchise to a lifetime of smaller, less important releases.
I truly believe that the Sonic franchise is worth saving. Does the 90’s “EXTREME!!” appeal wear thin in this day and age? Hell yes it does. Has the Sonic franchise continually mocked and spited me since the 90’s? Sure has. And yet I AM nostalgic for those older games. I was shocked by how inventive the Sonic CD game was, with its simple-but-effective time travel mechanic, its excellent level design, and its awesome music. I remember having fun with the Sonic the Hedgehog games.
THIS GAME WAS SERIOUS BUSINESS.
I assert that, at a certain point in the development of the more modern Sonic games(starting with Sonic Adventure), the design team made a decision that was instrumental in destroying everything that was great about Sonic. Most of all, I think I know how to fix it. I think I know what could bring the sound and the fury back to Sega’s premiere franchise. I love Sonic, so I’m gonna change it.
A quick note before I begin: My main focus, in this article is going to be on the mechanical elements of the series(actually playing the game) and less in terms of the obvious stuff(like how every character created after Knuckles is totally and completely horrible, how Shadow the Hedgehog is the worst of anything ever, how the Sonic Adventure games don’t hold up, how anime voice acting is dumb, how Sonic + Final Fantasy inspired graphics = horrible, and so on and so forth)
He's black. So, he has a gun. Of course. Totally not stupid.
Dilemma: Straight is Dumb THIS LINE IS SO BORING.
Its important to start this “If you love it, change it” entry by describing just how the Sonic series strayed down its path of nostalgia/ruin, and it’s impossible to talk about Sonic now(just as it was in the early 90’s) without mentioning the once and future king of the platformer: Mario.
You so crazy, lil' plumber dude.
Sonic, as it is well publicized, was a character specifically designed to “beat” Mario at his own game; Sonic could walk the platformer walk, and it could talk the side-scrolling talk. Sure, Sonic was essentially the same type of game as the Mario platformers, but it was his signature aspect, the one thing Sonic had that Mario didn’t, that pushed the character into the realm of medium’s greatest characters.
That’s right: his mad style.
SWEET MOVES BRO.
NO! It was Sonic’s speed, and the speed of the Genesis’ “blast processing.” The phrase may have been a marketing term to describe the faster speed of the Genesis's processor( in comparison to the SNES) but it was this speed that cemented Sonic as the mascot of the 16-bit era.
Part of his success was that Sonic, and the various abillities he had, could be perfectly emulated within the design limitations of the 16-bit era; all Sonic had to do was move to the right, and move fast. No worries! There was no “bad camera” and no “difficult control” that made Sonic difficult to handle. Essentially, the platformer, as a genre of gaming, was advanced enough at the time to handle the Sonic Boom (Sonic Boom! Sonic Boom!)
All a platformer had to do, at the time, had to do was create a level. Each level was, effectively, a straight line. The camera focused on Sonic as he moved to the right(and on occasion, to the left). Moving in a straight line at high speeds was totally within the capacity of game machines at the time.
It’s the advent of 3-D graphics that present Sonic, and(at the time) the platforming genre with its biggest challenge. Now games, so used to only dealing with the X and Y axis, have to come to grips with a mischievous little axis known only as..... Z. With the ability of modern machines to create full virtual worlds, game designers now had to account for a character’s(and a players’s) ability to deal with 3-D environments.
Enter Super Mario 64.
Fly on, lil' plumber dude. Fly on.
The original 3-D platformer(for all intents and purposes), Mario 64 can be credited for all number of important innovations, ranging from it pioneered “camera” system that allowed players to change the angle being displayed around the character, to its impressive 3-D graphics. For the purposes of this entry(and for poor Sonic) the key element I’d like to focus on is Mario 64’s approach to level design. Essentially, Mario 64 took the standard straight line levels that characterized 8 and 16-bit gaming and turned them into 3D: a level that was once a straight line was now a box. The result of this design choice was environments larger than any that had been seen in previous games. Mario had multiple objectives( the Stars he was supposed to collect) in every level, and by widening the straight line levels into boxes, Mario had plenty of unique, different places to explorer.
THIS is the blueprint for the modern 3-D platformer (and really, for 3-D games in general). Designers turned their straight line levels and made them 3-D boxes. With the camera situated above the box looking down at the character( or inside the box looking at the character), 3-D games could now be created and navigated. They could still have the tight controls and the excellent level designs of the older 2-D platformers.
FUTURE!
Somehow, the folks at Sonic Team didn’t get the message.
Sonic introduction into 3-D gaming( not counting the atrocious Sonic 3-D Blast which viewed the Sonic action from an isometric perspective that made the action incredibly slow, crippling any chance of Sonic displaying his trademark speed) comes in the form of Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast. It is here that we to enter the shady, almost insidious world known as “That place where we insult the Dreamcast”
The original "machine with white plastic." Screw you, Apple!
And we must friends. Because Sonic Adventure is not a good game. It is a bad game in every way Super Mario 64 is a good game.
IT'S A TRAP!
The designers at Sonic Team understood that, just as he did on the Genesis, Sonic was going to have to bring the ridiculous speed that made his games so successful. This time, however, that speed was going to have to translate into 3-D.
The focus of the game became to showcase the Sonic’s ludicrous speed, and, to show off that speed, Sonic Team decided, apparently, not to follow the status quo set by every other successful 3-D game ever created. Sonic Adventure did not feature Mario’s expansive levels, but, instead, featured the straight-line level designs that had made the older Sonic games so popular.
Levels in the 3-D Sonic games are long corridors. You can run really fast down them. Sometimes you turn. Occasionally you fight some enemies. These areas are, essentially, 3-D rectangles for Sonic to maneuver. Sonic had some small degree of movement inside the corridors themselves, but there was none of Mario’s explanation. The camera in these Sonic games insisted of staying behind Sonic, and the player watched mostly from behind as Sonic did his running.
So now, the level design for the 3-D sonic games consists of a long, mostly straight series of rectanglular hallways. The straight line level design of the old games hasn’t been expanded as it was in Mario 64, but rather, it was rotated: players (and Sonic) down into these rectangles. And then Sonic ran.
I AM VERY FRUSTRATED.
This is the downfall of every 3-D Sonic game.
You see, by opting to stay away from, you know, the modern advances of the platformer genre, Sonic Adventure features these long hallways. Forget the fact that the controls were far too touchy in the game, or that the camera never framed the action correctly, or that the story and extra characters were lame. Beyond all that periphery, the core of Sonic Adventure was a game that was so squarely designed to frame the speed and make Sonic seem fast that it neglected to create interesting level design. The few moments of interesting level design that would appear in the games couldn’t even be properly navigated, as the “looking into the rectangle” perspective made judging the distance of some jumps far more difficult than it should have been. Compared to the interesting tricks and traps of Mario 64, Sonic 3-D rectangles, while graphically impressive at the time, do nothing to hide now the fact that the game is about as interesting as a Saltine( and far less practical)
STRAIGHT!
Sonic Adventure’s approach to 3-D game play made the entire game boring.
STILL STRAIGHT
Perhaps what’s worse about all this is that game players should have known, going in, that this was boring.
Because this game had been made and played before.
Years before Sonic Adventure and the 3-D Sonic platformers,Game players have already taken a mascot through straight 3-D rectangles with a minimum of interesting things to see or do.
STRAIGHT? NO! IT CAN'T BE!
That’s right, the game that Sonic Adventure(and all 3-D Sonic games) most closely resemble is not the masterpiece Mario 64.
It's Crash Bandicoot.
NOOOOOO!
Yes, the bizarre “mascot” of the Playstation featured almost the exact same design philosophy as Sonic adventure. Members of the design team have admitted that Crash’s straight line levels in 3-D rectangles was designed to be, effectively, a cop-out: a way to make the Crash series seem like a 3-D platformer in a world where game designers did not yet understand how to make a 3-D platformer.
If Super Mario 64 was the genuine article, and Crash Bandicoot was the cop out, Sonic Adventure is the rip-off of the cop out. In fact, Crash Bandicoot's better controls and less fussy camera make his outing a better game than Sonic Adventure
YOU HEARD IT HEAR FIRST: CRASH BANDICOOT IS BETTER THAN SONIC. FACT.
And that( finally) is the inherent design problem with the 3-D Sonic games. They’ve been ripping off the design concepts of outmoded platformers. Rather than fix the concept, Sega continued making the games worse and worse over time, until the release of Sonic the Hedgehog in the 360 and PS3, the most boring entry of the series to date. Without interesting level design(the lifeblood of a platformer) the modern Sonic games have been disasterbacles( a disaster and a debacle....duh.)
So now that we have outlined the actual problem with the 3-D entry’s in the Sonic franchise. You may have also guessed how I would change the games to make them better!
As you have no doubt surmised I have an incredible love and respect for Mario 64. I think (and, given how many 3-D platformers are similar to it, the industry agrees), that the way Mario 64 turns the straight line 2-D levels of older consoles and turns them into large, open 3-D boxes with plenty to explore represents the best way to move a 2-D concept into 3-D.
And that’s what needs to be done to Sonic the Hedgehog. The franchise doesn’t need to stay in 2-D. Rather, it finally needs to make the jump to a fully realized 3-D world
How to change Sonic the Hedgehog
1. Create an Open World environment for Sonic
Certianly the use of the term “open world” conjures up images of the free-roaming nature of Rockstar’s sublime GTA series. However, to make the most out of Sonic’s unique abilities, don’t think about GTA.
Think Crackdown. (or Burnout Paradise, in a pinch)
THAT A CITY.
Put Sonic in a large, alive open world. Give him the ability to run though it at blazing speeds, to run directly up buildings, sideways across buildings. Give him a powerful jump to leap from the tops of buildings. Fill the environment with tons of various tasks for Sonic( he could be helping people in a city, or helping someone fight Robotnik, as an example.) Give Sonic plenty of objectives in the environment, as well as plenty of rewards for exploring around the environment. Don’t limit exploration to a city environment: create a whole world, with open world desert levels and open world ice worlds, exc. Give Sonic easy ways to redirect momentum and to regain speed after hard turns. There are so many directions you can go by putting Sonic in an open world game(more so than by keeping him in a 2-D platformer or a terrible 3-D platformer)
A large open world would offer Sonic an excelent enviornement to showcase his blazing speed, while also giving him enough unique/ridiculous enviormental design to keep the actual expierience of moving in the world fast and fun.
Every other good idea you could add to the Sonic franchise is essentially an extension of this first change. For example
2. Give Sonic moving baddies to fight
While its always fun to see the weird machines the Robotnik creates at the end of the levels in the 2-D Sonic games, most of the boss fights in the game aren’t very interesting; you would just jump on their weakspot until they’d explode. The BIG difference cam from Boss fights against any kind of fast moving enemies (think the race against Metal Sonic in Sonic CD, or Knuckles fight with the first boss in Sonic and Knuckles). In a new game, provide Sonic plenty of baddies for him to chase or be chased by, as these provide the most interesting encounters. Put them in a Open World environment with interesting level designs, and set up enemy encounters that interact or lead players to the awesome level design, anf you have a terrific fight encounter.
3. It’s not necessary to keep Sonic linear
At this point, Sonic doesn’t necessarily need to move linearly from level to level as in previous Sonic games, nor does he need to take one single path to the end of the level. Give the player a huge number of ways to “complete” an area(hopefully by completing tons of tasks) and offer the player different rewards/treats for exploring these different paths.
4. Make Sonic’s environment seem natural
Sonic world often features bizarre loop-di-loops , random underground tunnels, and a whole host of other bizarre physical obstacles. The challenge of a new game in this style would be to incorporate all of those bizarre landscapes into an environment. When an environment in a game seems to be natural –that is, it doesn’t feel like it was “created” by a “level designer” but has always existed- the player becomes more attached to the world, and can allow the player to have more fun than if placed in an extremely obvious an artificial environment. Games like Assassins Creed and the Naruto game on the 360 both featured extremely “natural” environments that enhanced the believability of these ridiculous games. Making that work for a Sonic game is certainly a tricky proposition, but a successful one will be remembered as one of the greatest areas ever designed for the franchise.
AU' NATURAL, BABY.
5. Nostalgia should be subtle.
Yes, I know I spent the beginning of this blog post( God, that must have been 4 hours ago at this point) that nostalgia can ruin games and bamboozle players into thinking that they are having fun. However, a few clever references to older games/characters can provide players with the sensation that the game makers do, in fact, love the previous game in the franchise. When a game beats you over the head with nostalgia(Super Smash Bros. Melee) it ceases to feel genuine, especially when it doesn’t hide problems with the gameplay. Just a few references to Sonic’s past efforts or other adventures can remind players that this game was developed by people who LOVE games.
TOO MUCH, MAN!
6. Fix the controls
Here we’re getting into the obvious stuff, but this new open world Sonic game would not be able to function with the old 3-D platformers control scheme. Put in a camera that actually works. Give Sonic more responsive controls especially for movement. Let Sonic navigate areas without forcing the player to destroy a game controller in rage and disgust.
YOU ARE SO HATE!
7. Give Sonic some more subtle abilities
This is an idea I've been toying with in my mind since I remembered how good Starbreeze's
"The Chronicles of Riddick" game was. One of that game's most notable achievements was creating a very subtle way to let the player know that he was sufficiently hidden in the dark: the screen would be tinted purple. It was an extremely minimalistic choice that worked beautifully.
The one celebrity who makes quality games.....and it's VIN.
So why not apply it to an open world Sonic game? As Sonic is coming up to a 90 degree turn, slowly tint the screen a color(blue for example!). When the screen is tinted as much as the developers intended, offer the player some sequence of buttons to make the sharp turn.
When Sonic is coming up to a jump, slowly tint the screen a different color(let's say green!).Increase the tint's color untill, when it reaches the developers logical limit, the player is at the point where they need to jump. this saves the player from spending too much time spinning the camera to look for upcomming turns and jumps, while also keeping Sonic moving. This could be applied to any aspect of the game!
7. Get rid of anime voice acting
Hell, keep the characters from speaking all together. That’d be just fine too.
8. Ditch the ludicrous, extraneous characters
Sonic, Tales, Robotnik, Knuckles,Metal Sonic. Amy if you must. That’s it. That all you could possibly need.
No one likes Big the Cat.
WAR CRIMINAL.
If you like Shadow the Hedgehog, as a character or game, you are everything that’s wrong with video games.
CHECK OUT THAT BADITUDE.
There are certainly other little design choices and changes I could make to the Sonic franchise, and some of the design changes are pretty obvious but the most important change I wanted to illustrate was the shift from the fake 3-D of the new Sonic platformers to actual 3-D. this is the most radical change that could be made to the franchise, but it would ultimately provide so many opportunities for the design team to get creative, and to finally put out a Sonic game worthy, not just of its legacy, but of this ridiculous blog entry.
Back in March of 2007, Rockstar released the very first trailer for Grand Theft Auto Iv. Before the release, people were wondering just what Rockstar would be announcing in the trailer. Would we be going back to Liberty City, or one of the other fictional cities from the GTA 3 Trilogy? Or would we explore a brand new location? Or, perhaps, would Rockstar announce that the latest GTA took place in a real world city? What time period would be featured in the game? Would the game be moved to the future? Or Would Rockstar go even further into the past then they did with Vice City?
Indeed, more than a few smart-asses wondered if the trailer would feature the cliché elements that were somehow a part of every single GTA trailer. Would there be a shot of a Police officer firing at something just off-camera? Would a classic, time-defining pop song play throughout the trailer? Would the main character, large guns in hand, walk straight towards a low angle camera while, high in the sky, a helicopter bursts into flames and careens towards the earth?
Would the trailer, they joked, show GTA IV to be exactly the same as the previous games in the series? The same ridiculous action, the same over the top humor – the same gameplay?
“Nay”, spoke Rockstar, from Scottish mores. This time “things would be different.”
Now, as dust begins to settle from its release, it’s become clear that most compelling aspects of GTA IV have almost nothing to do with the various gameplay changes that have been made to the franchise(cell phone communication, improved shooting and targeting). Nor does it have to do with the streamlining of the more obtuse gameplay idiosyncrasies that had plagues the franchise since 2001(the terrible mission structure which forced you, effectively, to reload your save game every time you had to redo a mission, the overly wonky car physics, the stiff control, an auto save function that activates after any mission completion).
No, the best parts of GTA IV are entirely related to the liturgical aspects of the game: the dialog, the satire, the story, and (most importantly) the characterization. GTA IV may have terrific technical elements (the size of the city, the detail packed into every inch of the city) but it’s the writing and the voice acting that make GTA Iv one of the greatest games of all time.
In effect, the very gameplay of the latest GTA game is almost an auxiliary element; the most sophisticated aspects of GTA wasn’t crafted by programmers and designers, but by writers and actors.
(That’s probably a little extreme, but this IS the Internet.)
This is downright stupefying.
How could Rockstar, the developers of the single biggest franchise in the HISTORY of gaming, release a GTA game that prioritizes story and character development over the game design aspects that made GTA a hit? You know, violence! And more Violence! And civilian murder! Big guns and bigger vehicles! Boob physics! The very things the “mainstream gameplayer” eats up! Shooting pigs! Simulation football! Bad minigame collections! Licensed crap!
…..Those last few might not be GTA.
But it certainly has to be asked: why did Rockstar choose to change the focus of their game so dramatically? Certainly, Rockstar doesn’t NEED to be creative, or to provide compelling new content: they could have slapped the name GTA IV on 50 Cent Bulletproof, and it would have sold bajillions(the next one, probably not so much, they could have gotten away with it once). The team at Rockstar clearly felt that an even greater focus on story and writing, rather than amping up the ridiculous gameplay of San Andreas, was the key to making things “different”.
Violence!
Action!
Throughout the release of the GTA trilogy, Rockstar’s open world design philosophy made the series a big whale in a small puddle: there simply wasn’t another franchise that was able to match GTA’s quality. Not that other studios didn’t try: it’s a war crime in some continents to even mention Activision’s True Crime franchise. Players who bought copies of Scarface(on any of the 200 platforms the game was released on (from original Xbox to ZX Spectrum, Apple II to N-Gage) would soon be slapping the sides of their head, lamenting how totally screwed over they were by the Al Pacino on the box(and not the game!).
The only two games that came even remotely close to meeting GTA’s level of quality were Pandemic’s Mercenaries(an action focused romp in an open world North Korea with a T rating) and The Simpson’s Hit and Run(one of the few good licensed Simpson’s games with plenty of jokes for hardcore fans). Even those games never managed to strike the same fire in gamer hearts that made GTA a phenomenon. And yet, with the release of the Xbox 360 and the PS3, GTA finally saw completion in some legitimately great open world games.
(Sorry Wii owners! Content yourself with No More Heroes, a masterful satire of ALL American game design, including open world games).
Volition’s Saint’s Row, before its release, seemed UNBELIVABLY derivative of GTA 3 and GTA San Andreas before its release. Players who grabbed the demo on Xbox Live were stunned by its artificial “street tongue”, which seemed so far removed from actual human dialog that it could only have been written by Whitey. It seemed that, going in, Saints Row was going to be a mediocre, albeit ridiculous, open world game.
Ridiculous!
How foolhardy of gamers(myself included) to doubt Volition(the developers of Freespace 2, the finest spaceflight Sim ever created), as Saint’s Row managed to be the first legitimate GTA clone. Volition managed to add an excellent GPS system to all cars in the game, making driving from point A to B a breeze, and an excellent 3rd person combat system, removing GTA’s terrible targeting system that always had you pointing your gun at the wrong people. Add to that a surprisingly thorough customization system(clearly building off of the mild physique-building elements of San Andreas) and a neat progression system that had the player completing all of the extraneous content(the races and carjacking and rampage missions in the periphery of the past GTA games) to proceed in the story, giving the player a decent amount of mission variety between the story missions.
Even the ridiculous dialog managed to grow on players: Saint’s Row fans are apt to describe the moment when they stopped thinking of the writing as serious, and started thinking of it as ironic. Once players hit that point, every bizarre interaction manages to seem even more hilarious , and the true genius of Volition’s script comes out: the game is damn funny. Maybe not as funny as the GTA games, but just enough so that, combined with the various upgrades , Saint’s Row stood out as a great, modern substitute to the aging GTA games.
While Saint’s Row proved that other companies could successfully duplicate Rockstar’s masterpieces (and improve on them) Real Time Worlds proved, with their surprisingly fun Crackdown, that other companies could successfully CHANGE the old formula. David Jones, founder of Real Time Worlds and the original creator of Grand Theft Auto (in its 2-D origins) certainly knew a thing or two about creating a large open world, and Crackdown is the most OPEN open world game available on consoles: the game sets you loose after 3 main dudes. Take out their generals if you want, but all you have to do to complete the game was off the 3 gang leaders making.
Crackdown also proved that your open world game didn’t have to place you in the role of a criminal to provide enough game play options in the world: Crackdown, the GOP’s number one game of 2007, placed you in the role of a super-powered cop, with the authority to take down gang members by any means necessary to serve the public and uphold the peace. With a ton of firepower at your disposal, and droves of gang members littering the streets, there was literally no reason to beat up civilians.
Crooks get shot in the face!
Crackdown also provided a pretty sophisticated RPG system(an upgrade to the light RPG building elements in San Andreas) where the main character would slowly become more powerful and adroit as he performed tasks over and over: firing guns would slowly make you more accurate and able to target opponents from farther distances, while using your melee skills would eventually give you superhuman strength, letting you throw cars and enemies.
So, what do Saint’s Row and Crackdown have to do with GTA IV’s increased focus on story rather than gameplay?
Think about the key features of both Saint’s Row and Crackdown: the best parts of both games are how they improve on aspects of the past GTA games. There’s nothing particularly original about either game(though Crackdown does have a very nice pseudo-cell shaded look). These are products that sought to beat GTA at its own game. Unlike legions of imitators to come before, Saint’s Row and Crackdown were the first games to be truly successful knock offs.
If Rockstar had kept a focus solely on the elements that made the series a wild success- the technical prowess(in building a HUGE city), and the wild action (that made the predecessor’s so crazy)- GTA IV could very well have come across as a knock-off of the knock offs. Both Saint’s Row and Crackdown(combined) do (basically) everything that the older GTA games did, and well. Had Rockstar contented itself to simply build on the progress of the knock-offs, the series might have descended into the realm of the has-beens: the classic game series, once synonymous with a certain style of gaming, that have been far outclassed by more proficient entries in their genre. Series like Doom/Quake and Final Fantasy have been overshadowed by newcomers because of their tired insistence of simply tweaking the formula rather than truly innovating.
By putting the focus of the game on characters and dialog over textures and physics, GTA IV manages to feel nothing like Saint’s Row and Crackdown. The overwhelming feelings of empathy you have towards the games characters, the genuine concern for their well being, the tremendous sadness for the endless cycles of violence- these are the emotions that stand out once you complete Rockstar’s latest magnum opus. It’s unlikely the player would care as much about the story and dialog had Rockstar put the majority of the game’s effort into ridiculous game play scenario’s and game play improvements. GTA deftly stands as a bridge between the past of gaming – the razor’s edge competition of top of the line graphics and gameplay- to the future- where narrative development will drive a game’s focus. It’s the focus on the latter that makes the latest entry so spectacular, and unlike any
It's that newfound focus on story that I hope defines gaming from this point henceforth. I dream that the proficiency of the writing in GTA extends to all other works in the medium.
In a wild moment of Destructoid-posting madness, I must have posted 8 or 9 questions to the Failcast(which EVERYONE knows is Destructoid's best unofficial community podcast. It wasn't even that I neccesarily "needed" to know the answer to questions; I just wanted to provide plenty of question fodder material to fill the show!
I know how hard it can be to find material for a audio program: I coHost a movie-review show at my college, and it can be a nightmare finding enough material to fill an hour of show! And, of course, I wanted to show my support for the awesome Destructoid community!
What's really crazy( and what I really didn't expect) was that the fine folks at the Failcast read EVERY SINGLE QUESTION! And, in a super flattering move, they discussed my blog entry GTA IV as Art: The Choices you Make! It was just awesome to hear the blog entry beaing dscussed by the best and sexiest community podcast on Destructoid.
So, thanks to Yashoki,king3vbo,Necros,Charlie, and DJ Duffy! It's awesome to hear stuff I wrote being discussed by the community!
I sent an Email to the podcast, asking if I could fill the community guest spot at some point, so hopefully I'll get on the only podcast rated 10 out of 10 by both The New York Times and Gengis Khan!
After nearly 40 hours of gun-blazing, lady-dating- comedy-watching,decison making action, I closed the book on GTA IV. While I wait for more inspiration another Monthly Musing on the subject "If you love it, change it!", I'm going to to discuss the various aspects of GTAIV, specfically, I'm going to try and explain(mostly to myself!) step by step why GTAIV is the most important game released since The Legend Of Zelda:Ocerina Of Time(my personal vote for the greatest game ever made). I'll try to articulate how GTAIV flaws and blemishes in all, is the first real mainstream illustration of Game as Art.
But I'm getting a tad ahead of myself. I want to start with just one thing I love about GTA IV, and go from there.
GTAIV is, (finally), the game that actually understands the best way to offer players a Choice.
Legions of Western RPG's have tried to offer the player "choices" in games, offering the player a greater oppertunity to further interact with their game of choice. However, these games almost always force players to make choices in the realm of morality, and, as such offer such black and white notions of good and evil that the very option of a choice feels disingenuous. Bioware's RPG's in paticuler, are guilty of offering a player such obvious choices: it's a punch to the face to anyone who beleives that(maybe! just maybe!) issues may have some shades of gray. Even last years Bioshock basically ofered you the choice of being a cold- hearted survivor or the salvation of the children. At the time, it was easy to be bambozzled by the frightening effect of the Little Sister's, but after 10-15 hours of making the same choices over and over again, the Little Sister's ceased feeling like a frightening genetic monstrosisty, and started feeling like a mechanic. Choice CANNOT be so black and white, and(most importantly of all) choice cannot let on excatly where the game story is going to end(prime example: if you save the Little Sister's,you get the Good ending. Big Surpise. Wee.)
This is not choice. This is insulting.
GTA presents the player with choices that have NO clear outcomes. Every choice offered to Nico(and, by proxy, to the player) seem to offer no "best choice". Each decision offers a real dilemma, where you cannot even choose "the lesser of two evils": both choices seem so downright ambiguous that you could potentially make the choice with a coin flip. The player has no knowledge of where these choices will lead them, or what these choices mean about the player: they are real choices, offing the player simply a fork in the road, two paths, and no directions. By not offering the player a helping hand as to which choice is "the good one" or "the evil one" players are finally forced to make choices based on their own damn principles....and they may find out which principles are most important to them.
I will provide one such "choice" that paticulerly resonated with me. Keep in mind that if you still intend on going into GTA fresh, this would be considured A MINOR SPOILER. BE WARNED WITH YA BAD SELF.
One of the missions close to the middle to the game has you track down a Russian cadre responsible for funding terrorism. Once Nico has dealt with the man's guards, you have option to kill the man at the end of the mission or not. Doing one or the other will end the mission and earn Nico is payout.
This terrorism funder was unarmed.
He was begging for his life.
He was a terrorist. My mission was to kill him.
For Krishna knows what reason, I didn't execute the man.
He was unarmed, I thought to myself. I had done enough damage in this mission. I "got my point across". But for all of my rationalization, I had revealed to myself my true colors: I would not shoot an opponent who surrendered, and, as a result, I let a man who funded terrorism go on living. Just because he was unarmed.
Did I really do the right thing? Could this character potentially recover from my attack and still fund an assault on civilians? Did I do innocents of the world injustice by not ending a man who could destroy the country?
I had murdered so many others, I told myself. I could let this one live. I wasn't about to kill an unarmed man. I didn't have to.
I justified my decision.
I think Dan Houser(who co-wrote the game) must have, at some point between the development of San Andreas and GTAIV, must have picked up some of the works of quintessential American poet Robert Frost; many of the choices that Nico Bellic makes throughout the course of the game draw perfect parralels to Frost's classic poem The Road Not Taken.
In that poem, the speaker comes across a fork in the road and is forced to make a decision. One of the two paths:
"TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;"
The speaker of the poem makes a choice, almost arbitrarily. Most importantly, however, he spends the rest of his days justifying his choice, and all the events that resulted from that choice, calling it "The Road Not Taken". It doesn't matter what choice he makes; all that matters is how he justifies it:
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference"
GTAIV presents Nico with ambiguous choices and lets the player make the final call. It doesn't matter what call the player makes, so long as he or she can, or tries, to truly justify it for themselves.
That is the essence of real choice. GTAIV nails it in a way that no other game can compare.
And that has made all the difference.
