Video Games | Periscope Depth

From the Blog

Nov

toward a more perfect build

Posted by Perich at 10:19 am

New post up on Overthinking It: a bit of a rambler about how players use video game builds (statting out your character in an RPG, or, more recently, an FPS) to imprint their personality on the game experience:

Builds ultimately owe their existence to the wargame hobby. You can trace a direct line from the assault class of MW3 to the chit-stacked tables of Advanced Squad Leader. And understanding this ancestry is crucial. As any serious minis hobbyist will tell you, the chief purpose of wargames is to start arguments; the secondary purpose is to paint miniatures; replicating battles is the least of a gamer’s concerns. And the more important a build is to your game of choice, the greater the ratio of time spent defending your build in online fora vs. time spent playing that build.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-check it.

Dec

I fell for you like a child

Posted by Perich at 12:52 am

A few weeks ago, my XBox 360 sprouted three red rings on its power light. A quick Google unearthed some potential fixes that didn’t involve deliberately overheating a three hundred dollar piece of hardware: unplug the power cord from the XBox, then from its transformer, then from the wall, then plug them all back in again. This worked!

For a time. When the copy of Crackdown I bought at GameStop started freezing, I supposed it was karmic justice for defending their business practices. Then I replicated the error with a more reliable game. Sorry to doubt you, Gamestop!

I poked around the XBox website and discovered that my console was still under warranty for a red light failure. All I needed to do was print out a UPS shipping label and send it in. Finding a box big enough to ship the XBox in would be an issue for most consumers. But I remembered that I still had the original packaging. It was sitting next to the shelf of video games, right there on my kitchen floor. And people say stacking used boxes in my kitchen makes me look like a transient heroin addict. What do they know?

Via the service website, I could see when my box was picked up from the UPS drop box in South Station. I’ll also be able to see when it reaches its destination (Amarillo, TX), when the technicians start hammering at it, and when they give up and tell me the damage isn’t under warranty. This level of detail is pretty neat. I’ll bet it saves on customer service calls (“do you have my XBox yet?”) and keeps consumers more engaged in the process, instead of screaming in frustration at a flagship hardware release with a power failure so common that the warranty to repair it extends two years past the standard.

It’s not like I had a lot of time to play video games anyway.

Jul

teach your parents well; their children’s hell will slowly go by

Posted by Perich at 7:00 am

Twenty years ago:

I’m in the basement of the Coldheart family home in Cockeysville, MD. It’s warm and sticky outside, but the furnished basement has an insulated chill to it. I’m trekking through the Tower of Babil in Final Fantasy IV (released in the states as “Final Fantasy 2″). My party’s grinding levels so I can stand up to Dr. Lugae and his monstrous creations.

“Time to go,” my dad calls from upstairs.

Dang it, I think. All right, I can still backtrack to a save point. “I’ll be up in five minutes!”

“We’re leaving,” my dad says. “Turn the game off and get your shoes on.”

Sighing, I power the SNES off. I stomp upstairs with all the petulance a pre-adolescent can muster and follow my family outside to the car. I glare out the window as we drive off.

Someday, I think.

Last weekend:

My dad and I stand in the lobby of our hotel in Pittsburgh. I’ve got a blazer and chinos; he’s wearing a dark gray suit. We’re on our way to see my cousin Phil get married.

My dad’s become an early adopter of gadgets. He got a Kindle before I did, and he uses an iPhone while I still pack a Motorola clamshell. He pulls out his iPhone while we wait.

“Have you got into Angry Birds yet?” he asks.

I peer over his shoulder while he opens up the app. “It’s great. You catapult these birds into obstacles in order to knock out these pigs. The birds have different abilities. It’s the best 99 cents I’ve spent this year.”

“Do you just touch and drag to launch them?” I ask.

He nods. “Here, I’ll show you.” On the menu screen, he selects one of the later stages. “I already beat this one, but you can see … hmm. Hang on.”

He backs out to the menu, reloads the stage, and looks at it for a second. He goes to the menu again.

“I thought I beat this one,” he said. I watch while he checks back through his progress. “I did beat this one! I know I did. Damn it.” He frowns. “I spent hours working on this one.”

“You have to make sure it saves your progress,” I say.

“I did save it,” he says. “It’s just …”

My mom enters the lobby from the outside. “The valet’s brought the car round,” she tells my dad. “We have to go now.” My dad nods. He puts his phone away.

I look out the window as we drive east on Rt 30 toward the ceremony. It’s a lovely day out, so I’m smiling.

# # #

(Of note, Angry Birds is a really great game)

Jun

I got watches I ain’t seen in months; apartment at the Trump I only slept in once

Posted by Perich at 7:00 am

This past Sunday was one of those days that vendors pray for: bright, temperate and 24 hours before a federal holiday. Everyone in Boston was out on the Common. Folks got outdoors even if they didn’t have a reason. Getting out after a long winter and feeling the sun on your face is reason enough. And any day that brings the tourists brings the hustlers.

“I got them ice cold drinks right here,” the kid behind the hot dog wagon called out. “Anything you want!”

“How much for a dog?”

“Three.” He was wrapping up a transaction with an earlier customer while answering me.

I handed him some bills. “And a bottle of water.”

“Go ahead and take it out of the cooler. Ice cold drinks! I got ‘em!”

A father and his seven-year-old daughter were studying the drinks on display while the counterman served up my dog. “What flavor is this?” He fingered a bottle of Gatorade’s newest offering – G2, blue like the afternoon – with suspicion. The kid picked it up and examined the front label. “Ten and five is your change,” he told me. To the father: ” ‘Frost’. Hot dogs! Water, soda, sports drinks, ice cold!”

They tried to hustle me at the Gamestop, too. I picked up used copies of Dead Rising and Soul Caliber IV. “Are you familiar with our discount card?” the counterman asked. “It gives you 10% off all used games. Not only that, but you accrue points with every purchase that you can trade in for rewards. Normally it’s $15 for a one-year membership, but today only I can sign you up for $11.88. And that 10% would be applied to today’s purchase. Is this something you’d be interested in?”

I shook my head.

“Don’t buy a lot of used games?” he asked, like he were making conversation with a stranger. Not $118 worth. But, as I’ve said before, I never mind when someone tries the hustle on me.

Feb

but thou must

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 10:55 am

New article up on Overthinking It today about video games and the categorical imperative. Excerpt:

You don’t need to question if killing everyone you see, stockpiling on shuriken and climbing cliff faces while birds fling themselves at you like meteorites (these damn BIRDS) is getting you closer to your end. You never stop and wonder, “Is any of this bringing me closure on my father’s death?” You just keep going. So long as you kill everything you see and keep your life bar full, you’re doing the right thing.

You’re on the path. And so long as you stay on the path all the time, you’ll get to the end. You’re following the categorical imperative.

Enjoy!

Jan

this is not the greatest song in the world

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 11:22 am

Dragon Age: Remember when I said of Mass Effect that I’d almost rather read a novel set in that universe than play a game in it? With Dragon Age, I feel as if I’ve already read that novel.

Follow along: in a world where magic is heavily regulated by a religious order (Wheel of Time), a secretive order of knights defends against irregular incursions of demonic creatures (A Song of Ice and Fire). Our young hero sets off from the home he once knew into the unknown world (everything, really; it’s Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces monomyth, but just to keep to the trope I’ll pin it to Edding’s Belgariad) and meets exotic strangers along the way (The Lord of the Rings). And so on.

Dragon Age turns a genre convention from previous Bioware games into an outright, obvious flaw. I’ll explain by way of example: one of the lands you can explore is Redcliffe Village, a hamlet under siege from hordes of undead that pour out of its castle every night. Here’s how a talented production team with an eye for direction might have introduced you to this dilemma.

How It Might Have Gone

(The party approaches the village at night, fog wafting up from the canyon on which Redcliffe sits. Suddenly, a shambling figure bolts from the mist – a miller from the village, bleeding from many wounds!)

Miller: The … hordes … (dies)

(Suddenly, a bunch of skeletons show up. AWESOME FIGHT SCENE!)

(As the skeletons are dispatched, the village mayor, Murdock, runs up, his blade black with the ooze of the undead)

Murdock: Thank the Maker! Whoever you are, we’re in dire need of help. Walking corpses are assaulting our town!

(The party follows Murdock into the village, where skeletons assail panicked knots of spear-carrying villagers. ANOTHER AWESOME FIGHT SCENE!)

(Once the last corpse is put down, Murdock approaches)

Murdock: Thank you again for your aid. This was the closest battle yet. If any more of those creatures had come out of the castle, we’d've been done for.
You: Out of the castle?
Murdock: I’ll explain. For the last three nights, (EXPOSITION DUMP)

Fun, right? It puts you right in the heart of the crisis and starts the action at a good pitch.

How Bioware Actually Did It

(Heroes amble up to village in broad daylight)
Alistair (who’s in your party): By the way, when we get to the castle, there might be some awkwardness. Regarding me. You see, (EXPOSITION DUMP).
You: Ah. Well, thanks.

(Heroes walk another five feet)

Town Guard: Thank the Maker you’re here! Our town is under assault by the undead.
You: What, now?
Town Guard: No, at night. Every night. You see, (EXPOSITION DUMP).
You: Ah.
Town Guard: You should go speak to our Mayor.
You: Right.
Town Guard: And to Bann Teagan, who’s in the Chantry.
You: Right.
Town Guard: And to Ser Perth, who’s leading the defense.
You: Okay, got it.

And so on. There’s a minimum of twenty minutes of conversation – dialogue trees, running up and down hills, fetching and delivering items for NPCs – before you slay your first walking corpse. I don’t know why this didn’t bother me more in prior Bioware games, but it’s exasperating now.

Though the plot may be cliched, Dragon Age tries to innovate a little in combining MMORPG gameplay with console controls. But the result confused me more than it helped. Take crafting, for instance. As you level your characters up, they can learn how to combine herbs and make useful potions. So let’s say you’ve gathered a mess of herbs and want to start brewing healing salves. Do you click on an herb? No. Do you go to the Character Record screen and click on your Herbalism talent? No. Do you click on an empty flask? No. You open up the radial menu using the left trigger, select Potions, then select the Herbalism talent – oh, you’re already on a character who knows Herbalism, right? if not, back out and start again – and then pick the potion you want to brew. It makes a certain kind of sense, but why the designers felt the need to get creative was beyond me.

What bugs me the most is my lack of investment in the story. You start with one of six origins, depending on the race and class you pick. I was a Human Noble, schooled in the arts of war. I played through a little vignette where my noble father sent off a detachment of retainers to fight against some darkspawn. A Gray Warden, one of the knights traditionally charged with defending against darkspawn incursions, shows up at the house. When a treacherous relative betrays my family, the Gray Warden helps me escape, on the condition that I join his order. My father, with his dying breath, agrees. (You have enough control to decide whether to join reluctantly or willingly, but you have to follow this guy out of the house)

This backstory complete, I’m now thrust into the middle of a demonic invasion. I have almost no investment in how this turns out: the war sounds nasty, sure, but a traitor sits in my ancestral keep! And shortly thereafter, I’m given the quest to travel to various points around the country and draw more recruits for the Gray Wardens. But I’ve seen nothing yet to suggest they’re more capable of defeating darkspawn than anyone else.

All I know is that I have to go to these three cities because the game won’t progress until I do. Contrast this to Mass Effect, where I was getting evidence to bring in a rogue Spectre, or Jade Empire, where I was rescuing my kidnapped master, or Knights of the Old Republic, where I at least saw evidence of what the main villain was capable of in the destruction of Taris.

I’m only eight hours or so into the game, maybe 20% of the way through, so I’m not passing final judgment yet. But Bioware’s starting to remind me of Kevin Smith. We all got excited by Clerks: what a bold voice! what a creative talent! Then each succeeding movie grinds the shine off his reputation, until he’s producing unremarkable stuff like Dogma and Jersey Girl. Dragon Age isn’t quite Dogma-bad, yet. And, again, I haven’t finished the game entirely. But Dragon Age reminds me a lot of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back: a whirlwind tour of cliches and genre elements, a series of entertaining moments with a threadbare plot to wrap them together.

Aug

that's where I caught her eye

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 7:26 am

Hey all.

If you’re into console RPGs, like the Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest series, then you should check out my Overthinking It post on what makes a console RPG an RPG. It’s pretty great.

Not big into video games? Check out some of our recent guest posts, like this article linking Batman and Dostoevsky in The Dark Knight. I didn’t write it, but I edited it, so that counts for something.

If you don’t like video games or Batman, I’m not sure why you read this weblog. Go home now.

Jul

the love is the liveliest, the life the loveliest

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 7:36 am

Three pieces of Overthink:

(1) I have a post up on the Fallout 3 soundtrack and its existentialist implications. It’s long but should be accessible even to people who haven’t played the game. Have fun.

(2) I’m sure you’ve all listened to this week’s Overthinking It podcast. If not, you can hear me stand my ground on the insipidity of the “celebrity death trifecta” against all comers. We also talk about Emmy nominations and the passing of Frank McCourt.

(3) So every now and then someone lands on our site (apparently) without reading the URL. Their comments on our posts invariably entertain. “hur hur u guys r so retarded its just a [movie / song / video game / comic book featuring Barack Obama] just hav fun wit it.” There’s no engaging these people, of course; explaining the schtick never makes it funnier.

I got one yesterday on my very first post for the site – in which I accuse Rick Springfield of advancing the mind/body dichotomy in “Jessie’s Girl”. Our dilettante wrote:

Actually I think I will say something as I am a loyal long term fan of Mr. Springfield’s and don’t appreciate his work or him being slammed like this. I think some of you need to listen to some of his later works rather than judge him harshly on only one song.

He has evolved considerably in his lyrics since 1981. On his latest CD, Venus In Overdrive, there is a song called “What’s Victoria’s Secret?” and no it’s not about the underwear. It’s basically the flip side of Jesses Girl and tells us men should look for what’s inside of a woman and not objectify their bodies.

There is another song on that CD, “Mr. PC” that has lyrics that sum up perfectly what I think of this specific article some of the negative opinions given:

On and on and on and on you go tell me Mister PC
Round and round and round and round you go preach it PC
You got a brilliant way of saying nothing at all

Given this anonymous poster’s instant lyrical recall of Rick Springfield songs that nobody knew existed, I can only draw one conclusion: Rick Springfield just trolled our blog. High-five, guys.

Jun

accidents mean no one's guilty; ignorance means someone's killed

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 7:00 am

This media blow might get political, but that’s no fault of mine:

The Lives of Others: Oscar-winning German film from 2007. Set in East Berlin in 1984, it follows a Stasi captain ordered to surveill a popular playwright and his actor girlfriend. The passion in their lives draws him in, until he finds himself bending the rules to keep them safe. Like The Conversation, but heartwarming and taking place outside of Gene Hackman’s head. Phenomenal – moving, funny and rich in historic detail.

(Note: National Review called it the best conservative movie of the last twenty-five years – which, coming from a magazine that’s spent hundreds of pages defending warrantless wiretaps and detention without trial in the last decade, ranks as one of the sicker ironies I’ve read in some time)

Half-Life 2: Acquired it with the Orange Box; finished it last week. I see what all the fuss is about! The grossout horror aspects don’t do it for me (zombies! ceiling barnacles!), but the shooting felt more intuitive and intense than any other FPS I’ve played in recent memory. The house-to-house urban levels (Anticitizen One and “Follow Freeman”) justify the sticker price – which isn’t much in 2009, so go get a copy.

And the in-game dialogue does not disappoint (as it shouldn’t, coming from the makers of Portal). Dr. Breen’s tired lectures to the troops at Nova Prospekt beat the writing in any given Michael Bay movie, hands-down. “This brings me to the one note of disappointment I must echo from our Benefactors …”

I started in on HL2:Ep1 but logged off pretty early. Given the cataclysmic ending of HL2, I figured that Ep1 would put you in control of Alyx Vance as she fled City 17. Now that would have been cool. But no, once again it’s Gordon Freeman, forced to invade the same Citadel he just spent several hours blowing up. I’ll pick it up again once time has cooled its memory, I’m sure.

Slan: Typical ’40s pulp – lots of action, lots of breakneck pacing, lots of pseudo-scientific talk. In the distant future, the human race has united into a single global police state, fanatically devoted to one end: killing the super-mutants called slans. Slans look exactly like humans, except for the golden tendrils emerging from their skulls that give them telepathic capabilities. That, plus their superhuman speed and reaction time, make them a threat to the human race.

The story moves along at an engaging clip, pausing only on occasion for lengthy lectures on the history of the current situation. In these lectures we get a definite sense of the time in which van Vogt wrote this novel: 1940, when the world hadn’t quite lost its fascination with fascism yet. Because fascism isn’t just jackboots and insignia (though those are essential). It’s any political system which treats culture, genetics and politics as different facets of the same machine, a machine that, if it were only tempered just so, could launch the human species at a lightning pace.

Still, it’s pretty understated. Get past that and you have a classic piece of sci-fi history.

Buffy: I haven’t forgotten you. A couple more episodes, then I’ll have my next batch of 5.

Black Summer: Superhero comics stem from adolescent power fantasies, and the passing decades have not matured that appeal much. Sure, comic books sometimes touch on political issues of the day, but almost always within their own limited language – “hey, wouldn’t it be cool if a super-soldier punched Hitler in the face? and he had a sidekick who was my age?” At the end of the day, it’s still wish-fulfillment. And that’s fine. Indulging in wish-fulfillment gets the human race out of bed in the morning. But let’s call it what it is.

Black Summer is an independent comic series written by Warren “&%$#” Ellis and illustrated, sometimes too ornately, by Juan Jose Ryp. It tells the story that brings the Seven Guns, America’s only cybernetically enhanced vigilante team, out of retirement. Each of the Guns combines cutting-edge information processing nanotech with handguns of unequalled power – some can run faster than light, some can throw tanks at helicopters, some can see through every satellite or computer in the world. Four of them can hold off an Army battalion.

The series begins with the most trusted member of the Seven Guns, John Horus, killing the President and Vice-President with his bare hands moments before they’re scheduled for a press conference. He appears before the White House press corps and charges the (unnamed) President with a number of crimes, including but not limited to prosecuting an illegal war in Iraq and ordering the torture of enemy combatants. He demands a new election take place as soon as possible, and then flies off.

To Ellis’ credit, John Horus is insane. No one – not even his teammates – thinks that murdering the President will solve what’s wrong with America. As one of his allies puts it, John Kennedy was so unliked that he barely got elected, and now look what people think of him. So is Ellis saying violence won’t fix the system? That violence is an ugly but necessary first step? That the system can’t be fixed?

I don’t know that he’s saying any of those. I think Ellis took a dark idea that writers have been batting around since Watchmen (“what if someone truly invincible, and maybe a little bit crazy, were as mad at the President as I am?”) and ran with it. The result is an interesting, and brutally violent, little story. I don’t think it’ll change anyone’s mind on anything important. But, again, it’s a comic book.

May

'cause I'm as ill as the convict who kills for phone time

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 8:21 am

If you’re not already subscribing, you should check out this week’s Overthinking It podcast, in which four white guys and an Asian argue about rap music. We also sling terms like “racially normative” around and, at one point, call Mozart “soulless and technical.” It’s the most controversial podcast I’ve ever been on; don’t miss it.

# # #

Media blows monitor your movements:

Brazil: Tasha Robinson over at the AVClub gave Terry Gilliam a lifetime pass for directing Brazil, and I have to agree with her. With a savage look at the demoralizing effects of bureaucracy and the numbing balm of consumer culture, Gilliam depicts a world too plausible to be real. It’s 1984 with punch and savage wit. The puppeteering and other effects, dated though they are, work wonderfully: Jonathan Pryce as an airborne angel, the legions of hunchbacked baby-faced ghouls, etc.

Half-Life 2: Started playing this about a week ago. I can go at it for maybe forty-five minutes at a time before I get revulsed or frustrated. Either something disgusting leaps out of a corner and attacks me (oh fuck, it’s on the ceiling, it’s pulling me up into its mouth, oh FUCK) or I hit a repetitive stretch of gameplay and tap out. However, I can definitely see what the fuss was about: the controls feel smoother and the enemy A.I. smarter than any other shooter I’ve played in a while. And there’s such an obsessive level of verite in every aspect of the world – from the scraps of paper and graffiti to the periodic radio announcements from City 17 – that I almost don’t want to leave.