Don’t deny it: you have inevitably consumed a non-video game product that you otherwise never would have gave a second glance at simply because of the perception that it’s what you’re supposed to like as a “gamer”.



There’s no shame in it, but what I want to know is: why on Earth is the marketing directed towards the gamer niche so utterly retarded?

Sometimes I feel outright insulted by blatant corporate whoring designed to lure me into a movie about a dude taking over another dude’s body in a ridiculous real-life “game” or to get me to consumer some otherwise idiotic product. What’s insulting to me isn’t the marketing itself, it’s the simplicity and recycling aspect of it. It’s pretty clear, for example, that gamers like non-utilitarian design, art, etc. (customizing things, different colored controllers, mod cases, RPG armors, etc.) So with this information, look at how The Powers That Be tried (and seemingly failed – thankfully) to capitalize on that: interchangeable Xbox 360 face plates… The grand irony of such a half-baked idea is this: the entire point of customization and art is not simply to differentiate, it’s to create something wholly unique (create being the key word). What The Powers That Be attempted to do was industrialize and institutionalize artistic expression by mass producing “edge-y” plastic covers for the front of your home console!

But enough about my thoughts. What about yours? Tell me, were your career aspirations transformed, and did you picture yourself smoking pot and busting beta test games for $50K a year when you saw this commercial blaring again and again on “youth-y” channels like Comedy Central, G4, or MTV?



I can’t believe I get paid to write this blog!

Oh wait, I don’t. I better enroll at Westwood!

There’s this depressing lack of nuance in RPG’s -- especially American ones I’ve played recently -- that troubles my conscience. It troubles it because I have no toleration for goody-two-shoes boyscouts who always do the right thing and never make mistakes, but at the same time I don’t consider myself particularly evil.

So naturally, when I play RPGs, I am an extremely evil character!


(Youtube video credited to user: DarkGem2)

Mass Effect and Fallout 3 are my primary suspects here (because they’re the only ones I’ve played in the past six months and have fresh perspective on). I feel that these two games rely on “liberal versus conservative” paradigms that can be very frustrating when you (or your character!) would like to break out of that kind of dichotomy. To be fair, there are usually “neutral” conversation items, but it isn’t enough -- all they are is a sort of benign intermediary... It’s kind of like if you went into a store and the clothes were all: XXL, XX Small... and XX Medium. In other words, being neutral in an RPG isn’t really possible anymore than wearing an extra-medium shirt is.

I don’t think the good-evil dichotomy works because that’s not how investigation works. And if you break it down, RPGs in many ways are “investigator simulators” where -- when you have to make a game-effecting decision -- you are called on to use investigatory discretion. Therefore, I think they should design games around choices of discretion!

At a glance, this doesn’t seem really relevant: you can be a good cop or a mean cop, right? Wrong! Choices should be based on realistic factors that lead to discretionary decisions: expediency, order maintenance, and a pressure to reach conclusions and get results as quickly as possible. On the other hand, respecting due process, people’s rights, and an attitude of “the ends don’t justify the means” should be another philosophy. Neither of these things are “good” or “evil”, mind you, just philosophically different.

Here’s just one idea I had to put this kind of thing into practice:

In Mass Effect, let’s say, I always notice that being a renegade instead of a paragon really doesn’t make much of a difference in the game. You have to go through a long-winded dialog tree, the only real difference is that the renegade character is a dick: he pulls out a gun and threatens instead of saying “calm down man, live and let live!” What if more missions were time-based, and getting through dialog can’t be skipped and counts towards the clock winding down, and getting through conversations quickly (by using forceful discretion) would get answers and objectives quicker, but result in negative consequences (bad information or red herrings for example, as happens in real life!)

What do you folks think? Is there room for improvement in the design philosophy of character direction in RPG’s? I guess I’ve just been in school too long and see the “good versus evil” thing to be a bit old fashioned, so maybe I’m just biased!

Spoiler-zone ahead kids; be warned!



One of the nicer touches to Fallout 3 was the very selfless, ambitious, and yet deceivingly simple goal of the "good guys" of the game's story: pure, free, clean water for all. It was a very impressive element of the story, and one which -- I think -- should make us all think about what we really need to improve our lives and what our currently violent, war-torn real world really needs in order to lead it out of these troubled times.

Clean water was the pressing need of Vault 13 in the first major quest of Fallout 1 as well, but it wasn't as much of a literary quest as it turned out to be in Fallout 3. That is to say, "water" in Fallout 3 isn't just water, it's practically one of the main characters of the story.

Remember, the game does not introduce us to water by giving us a cup of it to drink, and our first encounter with water is not when we drink it out of the Potomac River in the wasteland; water is introduced to The Lone Wanderer by his dad (or his mom?) by way of an appropriately used biblical quote:

"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to him that is thirsty of the fountain of the water of life freely..."

In the dark humor-filled story, it was an almost discomforting moment in the game when Liam Neeson read the ancient yet personal passage (especially ancient considering the setting and circumstance of the game!), and it was also an odd moment of contemplation, reflection, and optimistic uncertainty which seemed almost defiant towards Fallout's pessimistic and existential narrator. It's not until the end of the story that we come to realize that the "I" in the quote is in fact the Lone Wanderer himself: he is the alpha and the omega in the sense that he activates the purifier and gives the people of the wasteland either redemption and a new beginning or death and ultimate destruction by way of using the Enclave's contaminant.

The amazing thing about the dream of Project Purity is that it touched everyone in the Capital Wasteland (for better and for worse). Even the Enclave did not intervene at the Jefferson Memorial merely for pragmatic reasons, they did so because the very idea of the waters of life threatened their entire ideology of absolute authority. Listen to President John Henry Eden on his radio broadcasts. Even without having Enclave troops present in the Capital Wasteland, he confidently declares "I am the heart, the soul of the Enclave; the heart, the soul of America [...] One Enclave. One America." The Enclave WANTS power and authority over people, and feels confident that they have it at the game's beginning, but until that power and authority is threatened, they never feel a need to actually exercise power or authority or do much else besides sit around in their base and throw masturbatory radio robots into the wastes. They view reality in a way that is meant to be antagonistic to the player's view of reality. The player, by the game's goals and design, interacts freely throughout the land acquiring companions and allies by merits of his actions and interactions and who resolves his quests by risking all and leaving behind everything comfortable in his life in order to rush headlong into the unknown corners of the wasteland. The Lone Wander and his father have real power -- real freedom, and they get it by changing the world. The Enclave, on the other hand, is blinded by an ancient ideology which defines power and authority as something that is inherited; to Eden, the fact that he is the "successor" to the presidency of a country that died the day that the bombs fell over 200 years in the past is enough for him to feel legitimate in his actions.



That clean, pure, free water is what changes the world (for good or for bad) and the fight to first finish and then to control the purifier is the player's source of delight in Fallout 3 because it simulates one playing a key role in saving the world, connecting with countless millions of lives (the wastelanders and the generations of wastelanders to follow them) in one bright moment before death.

Fallout 3 demonstrates the very best and worst of humanity, and it shouldn't shock or surprise anyone to learn that the violence, slavery, drug abuse, and debauchery of the real-world matches or even exceeds that of the fictional Capital Wasteland. I wrote this post while reflecting on a recent random, senseless murder of a University at Albany student this past semester -- the barbarity of that incident, but the fitting celebration of his life which took place when he was posthumously awarded his diploma at the university's graduation ceremony.

Where are our waters of life? Could it be the internet? Open-source software? Healthcare? Globalization? How do we "fight the good fight"?

I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on this, but would just leave you with what I ultimately take away on this, which is the final moment of the game, when after we hear that "War. War never ends..." we see one last vision of The Lone Wander and his dad's dwelling in Vault 101. There, we see not the "I am the Alpha and the Omega..." quote in center-frame, but instead see the photograph Jonas took of father and son standing together with the bee-bee gun after the 10th birthday party. Both of them unconcerned with the fate of the world and living for the moment the best they could...

Update: I reposted this today because I stupidly posted this last night in the middle of "hugfest" :-) Thanks a lot to Niero and CTZ for letting me repost and too the commentators on the last post who told me I should repost it!

For those stuck workin' for the man from 9-to-5 everyday, flash games are the quintessential
time-waster! But personally, physics puzzles and physics-related flash games hold a special
place in my heart among flash games. Here are my 5 favorites:

5. Gravity Pods 2



Gravity Pods is a great deal of fun. You use your mouse to adjust the aim of your cannon,
shoot it, and use aptly named gravity pods, bouncy balls, and black holes in order to dodge
obstacles and collide with a purple target. The game builds up in difficulty and a comfortable
pace and provides some real jaw-dropping near-misses and close-calls. Nothing is cooler
than -- on the first try -- managing to get a projectile to just barely slingshot around a corner
and gloriously obliterate that stupid purple target!!!

http://wickedpissahgames.com/?page_id=26

4. Red



Red has a really cool style to it. The game essentially involves the tower-defence-like
goal of keeping your little outpost safe, and you do this by firing orbs at incoming super-orbs
(asteroids maybe?) which are repelled using force. So in other words, you don't blow up the
incoming objects, you deflect them away! I would have to say the highlight of this game is the
occasional "boss" orb which literally engulfs half the screen. Things get really intense as you
slow the giant monstrosity to a halt with your cannon and then gradually begin to push it away
(with your ammunition dwindling all the while...)

http://www.unoriginal.co.uk/red.html

3. N3wton



N3wton uses Sir Isaac's 3rd law (equal & opposite reactions) in an interesting way. Unlike
other flash games, your cannon has recoil, and you have to fight enemy cannons in a sort
of sumo-ring. If you're not careful and if you concentrate too much on trying to shoot the
baddies, your gun might just recoil off the game board!

http://www.kongregate.com/games/Zyzic/n3wton

2. Spaced Penguin



This is a more stylish and entertaining version of Gravity Pods. Basically, you project a course
in space for your little astronaut penguin so that he can return to his space ship. The space
ship is stationary throughout most of the game but it starts moving in the harder levels. Planets
with gravity wells are your main obstacle, and the slingshot dynamics with the gravity are
really cool and sometimes give you hilarious results -- like getting poor penguin astronaut
stuck in an infinity-shaped orbit around two planets!

http://www.bigideafun.com/penguins/arcade/spaced_penguin/default.htm

1. Bridge Thing



In the same vein as the AWESOME game Bridge Builder, Pontifex, Bridge Construction Set,
etc., Bridge Thing is a physics stress test. You use your mouse to plot the various
i-beams that make up a bridge, then test the bridge by pressing 'T'. Little gnome guys
walk over the bridge and -- if your design was well done -- they safely reach the other
side. If your design was not well done however... Well, you know how that'll turn out!
Also check out the sequel "Bridge Thing 2" when you're done!

http://haptronix.com/games/view/bridge-thing

Any other flash physics games that you feel got overlooked? Disagree with my ranking?
Let me know!