Still have not found what they are looking for.

What do the Star Trek-like future, the Star Wars-like future, Modern military conflict, Medieval Europe, Feudal Japan, and Norse mythology have in common? They are all the small crop of settings used in video games and it seems that few games ever seem to deviate from these places. While it is true that people have a tendency to stick with the familiar, it will not do games any good unless it can use the potential of cultures, stories, and settings that don’t require constant, jingoistic hyper patriotism that gives permission to shoot at anything that moves because it allegedly threatens freedom.

The first two great examples of games that have come out of individual experiences is Papo & Yo. The concept and design by Vander Caballero, he takes the player into a distinctly Brazilian townscape in the dreams of a boy named Quico and a large monster that represents the abusive father Quico dreams to escape from. While certainly not the best puzzle game, it was a deeply personal story that allowed those who wished to understand the mindset of someone in that situation and bring to light how complex familial relationships can be. Everything in the game is drawn from the mind of Caballero and he admits to it being fortunate that Sony gave him the chance to tell his story. It is currently available on PSN, Steam, and OS X.

The skeleton boss from Super Contra would be so proud.

The second example is Guacamelee by Drinkbox Studios. It is a homage to past Metroidvania titles that still carry weight in games today, but they are usually science fiction, or the now sadly discontinued 2-D Castlevania games that seem to want to do nothing else but 3D. It takes the story of a humble farmer as he becomes a mighty Luchador, traveling between the worlds of the Living and the Dead, to save El Presidente’s daughter. The colors are vibrant, the art style is playful, and overall, the game is fun. It is also available on Playstation Vita, Playstation 3 and 4, Steam, OS X, Wii U, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. In addition, it has received a content update and has been upgraded to Gold Edition. Any fan of Metroid would be doing a disservice to not at least give it a chance.

Coming in November, another game that has been making the rounds of gaming media as something to watch is Never Alone. Natives of Alaska live the stories with the environment and pass them down orally from one generation to the next. What makes Never Alone stand out is the fact that the designers worked in tandem with the local Iñuipaq Storytellers over the course of two years to tell a folk legend of an all-consuming blizzard and a young girl’s quest, aided by her ally, the fox, to ensure the safety of her people.

The Monster at 2pm.

Yes, there is the possibility that these games will not sell, nor will they reach the kind of threshold that they would deserve to. Perhaps that may not be the end of the world if it did. While making these games does carry a specific idea to hopefully recoup the costs from sales, these games have an additional purpose. Those that design them want to show their stories to a world that does not get a chance to see it as much as they would like.

For this article, Elizabeth LaPensee was asked to provide some additional insight for how to merge gaming with cultural history and she had this to say:

“Indigenous stories, language, and values can inspire new forms of games and gameplay. For example, I recently worked on a board game about Pacific Northwest Native foods for the Northwest Indian College. The Gift of Food’s gameplay includes collaboration, generosity, gratitude, and stewardship. The art is beautiful and uniquely represents six eco-systems thanks to collaborating with Roger Fernandes, a storyteller of the Lower Elwha Band of the S’Klallam Indians in Washington.”

She also has a game of her own in the works:

“I’m currently prototyping a game that explores stories about spacecanoes and Star People. Since it’s important to protect these stories while passing on the teachings, the game design is based on non-linear storytelling. The art style comes from my own background as both Anishinaabe and Métis, honoring beadwork and acknowledging the role of copper in expressing spirit.” Her video showcases an early prototype of the artstyle she intends to use which brings some of the more important aspects of the culture to life.

Like many storytellers, she wants to make it clear that her vision for the game will not require many of the pitfalls that modern game development currently suffers from.

Better fisherman than Link.

“As an Indigenous indie developer, I don’t need a huge budget and AAA quality graphics. Inspiration is a gift from ancestors and I continue this good work for the next generations in new forms.”

And this is just scratching the surface.

Yes, the possibility of any of the larger publishers trying to push this onto their platforms with their gargantuan budgets, hoping for a blockbuster is next to nil. However, that is not what these games are trying to do. It does seem naive, even foolhardy, that games could lead to some sort of cultural bridgework to learning the stories and histories of other cultures, however, when it is done right, the chances of these reaching more people becomes much more likely.

Real Djinn would kick this guy’s butt.

To close; what must be reiterated to developers that in the creation of these games that feature cultures that are not so widely known in the game industry, is that the communities that represents these cultures in real life must be involved. This is beyond must. This is beyond vital. This is what makes the difference between making a truly compelling gateway into another facet of humanity that was never before explored and a pandering waste of time that has been the standard for too many years. It brings to mind an NES game that is better off forgotten and left to rot in the dust. Gaming can do better, and hopefully, it will.

I would like to thank Elizabeth Lapensee for her help in this endeavor and I wish her the best in her projects and that the right people will discover it, along with many more people.

I would also like to express my appreciation to Lusipurr for allowing me to write for the site, despite it being a little over half a year. I learned much about writing and would heartily recommend others who wish to truly improve their skill to apply as a writer for the site, as real life constraints have left me without the time to be able to continue.

Thank you and farewell.

All quotes: [personal communication, September 17, 2014]

How do game?

With gaming still in a relatively young state, there is much it can do and much more growing it can do. However, before hopefully coming to a state of maturity, it will no doubt experience growing pains. One of which is attempting to shed and break some unsavory habits that it picked up while in its rather rebellious teenage years.

Yet, one would think that companies growing larger would be anything but rebellious. The misunderstanding lies in that the companies are rebelling against the consumers, the very force that keeps them alive and gives them profits the likes of which boggle the mind. Back in the old days, if there was ever anything that came with the game and drove the price up, it was often worth the additional money in the first place. Yes, that includes a Ghaleon rock’em, sock’em hand puppet that came with Lunar: The Silver Star Story.

In the earlier days, it was thankfully limited to things that had actual use outside of the game, such as a soundtrack and if the soundtrack of the game was especially good, then all the better. The Killer Kuts disc that came with Killer Instinct for the Super Nintendo was more than worth it, as this was during an era when Rare was coming into its own and had amazing composers for the games it made. The same could be said for the Arc the Lad games that, while mediocre, was enough to warrant a purchase.

MUST! EAT! MORE!

It is all about the perceived value for the customer and the kind of audience that the developer should be striving for. Unfortunately, the larger companies and publishers reached a threshold that has rendered them beholden to shareholders who probably do not even know what video games are in the first place. It turns the companies into a black hole swallowing up smaller studios like a Pac-Man based analogy, only funnier and less depressing, so they can fulfill the need to make more money. While the pursuit of capital for the sake of keeping a company alive and kicking is a laudable one, their methods have started many trends which seem to show that the publishers who pull the strings of the nigh on lifeless corpses of video game studios do not seem to care how they get the monies in the first place.

Remember the infamous Horse Armor from The Elder Scrolls: Oblivionback in 2006? Some could consider that the first sign of developers and publishers beginning to lose their way. Fast forward a few years and the mind eventually comes to the dearth of MMOs trying, and failing, to emulate the seemingly limitless success of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. Then, there is the consistent and repeated whining of publishers blaming used games as a source of lost revenues, which resulted in EA and Ubisoft attempting to combat both Steam and used games, er, piracy as they called it, with their half-baked, half-hearted, and half-completed storefronts whose functions were dubious at best and downright insulting at worst. Add in the online requirement for games to activate paid-DLC and it comes crashing down even more.

Not even Phoenix’s legal expertise can help Capcom out of this one.

Then, Capcom’s feeble attempt at trying to hide all the DLC on disc of their ill-fated Street Fighter vs Tekken, which has been all but forgotten and the companion game made by Namco shelved and swept under the rug in hopes that people will forget they wanted to do such a thing in the first place. Then, there was the Diablo III announcement that in order to play this single player game, a persistent online connection would be required. Add in the now defunct Real Money Auction House, which went over like a lead balloon, the less than satisfying excuses for it, and playing the game with the expansion pack shows just how different, and how far, Blizzard had to backtrack in order to make the game even playable. It is still jarring that they have yet to create a satisfying offline mode.

The general consensus is that among the larger publishers and developers, they seemed to have developed an attitude that short-changing the customers that have been buying their games for years is the way to earn more money than they did in the past. Instead of creating just a single good and complete game, they feel the need to break it apart, piece meal, and sell it as DLC when it should have been in the game proper. See: Mass Effect 3. Instead of keeping to a formula that a game was originally known for, i.e. Horror, they turn it into an action game to appeal to a wider demographic instead of trying to make a better horror game. See: the Dead Space series. Name a single contributor to the AAA Games Industry and it will inevitably lead to some sort of kerfuffle that showed complete disregard, if not outright arrogance, towards the people they wanted to peddle their wares to.

It certainly does not help when developers of some of these companies agitate the situation when they do not learn that what is said on the internet stays there forever. Adam Orth learned the hard way when he showed complete lack of tact when questioned about people that do not live in metropolitan cities with easily accessible broadband. Maxis learned the hard way when they tried, and failed, to spin the repeated and aggravating outages on their servers for their latest Simcity game, claiming that it was the enthusiasm of the playerbase that brought the game to a standstill, not their atrocious and short-sighted design goals. The list goes on and will, sadly, continue to go on.

EA thought they had caught Nintendo unaware. How wrong they were.

It is times like this where some grumble and groan for another game industry crash to take place. The largest companies, gargantuan sloths, crushed under the weight of their own hubris and overblown expectations to break even, would be almost akin to a fresh start. It would have allowed the survivors of the catastrophe to band together and start anew. As nice as that sounds to some, it would not be possible in this day and age. In addition, the resulting fallout from other industries connected to it would no doubt suffer as well.

What can be done?

The Furious Fists of Furious Fury!

There is beauty in simplicity. Of course, there is room for flourish and embellishment, however with the AAA publishers tripping over themselves and spending an absurd amount of capital to out shine, out bloom, and out render each other to show they can make pretty games with all the color schemes of gun metal grey and dog turd brown, it is possible to go too far.

One Finger Death Punch is a product that Silver Dollar Games created in the space of a game jam, which often last for as long as 48 hours. Considering that the control scheme of the game consists of the left and right mouse buttons, and only the left and right mouse buttons, it is not that hard to believe that the game was able to make it from concept to reality in so short a time. Yet, the simplicity of One Finger Death Punch’s design allows for greater complexity, without miring the player in seemingly pointless fluff that many more games suffer from these days.

Unarmed in the fact that his arms cannot be seen!

There is no story to speak of. And that is a good thing. After all, how much can one say with stick figures beating the life out of each other unless it is a webcomic with only a few panels and poignant statements told with as few words as possible? Not a lot. However, an attempt at story would not be possible for a game so small, and it would almost be entirely outside of the point. So, the game has no story and we need not worry about it at all.

As previously stated, One Finger Death Punch has only the two mouse buttons for its combat. The left button attacks incoming enemies on the left and the right button attacks incoming enemies on the right. The player cannot move the stick figure character on their own and only moves when there is something within the attack range of the player. It does seem simple on the surface; enemies charge and the player attacks with a mouse click. This enables the developers to develop depth with this simple control scheme as a stable foundation.

Punched through the heart, but who is to blame?

The enemies, also shaped like stick figures with minor aesthetic differences between them, rely on numbers and, naturally, stronger versions of enemies to overwhelm the player. Underneath each enemy, there is a number which tells how many hits it will require to defeat the enemy. Later in the game, the player will encounter the first of other types of harder enemies, called brawlers, to dispatch. These enemies require anywhere between five and fifteen different key commands to overcome. Thankfully, should the player already be fighting multiple enemies, the rest of the mob will back off and allow the dramatic duel to continue. The middle ground between the one hit mooks and the brawlers are enemies with much more distinct colors that can take hits from one side or another. Attention will be required with these, as they can switch sides after the player’s attack to continue the combo and there is no reprieve from the other oncoming attackers. Strategy must be employed if the player is to survive.

There are also one on one boss fight stages that pit the player against an enemy that drives home the idea that spamming one of the two mouse buttons will, without fail, lead to defeat. Beside the boss stages, there are multi-section stages, endurance, performance, and a variety of weapon stages. Weapons are also prevalent in many stages, ranging from staff weapons, daggers, bows, nunchaku, balls, and swords. They all have limited use and can easily turn the tide against a seemingly hopeless situation. For example, the Death Ball can be flung against an enemy and struck again to strike another, regardless of what kind of enemy it is, which can help clear the brawlers and multi-hit enemies that will inevitably swarm in the higher difficulties.

Excalibur? Probably not.

Speaking of difficulty, the better the player does, the faster the enemies can gain charge. Do poorly and the speed goes down to something more manageable until the player can achieve a better medal. It gives a wonderfully simple desire to achieve the high score on the leaderboard. In fact, one could say this is the kind of game that could have been in the arcades of decades past. It would have fit in perfectly.

Despite the many, many good things about this game, the one glaring fault is that once the game starts to speed up, it can be very difficult to keep track of the direction the player has to attack in order to survive and not miss as missing can break the streak and make the player vulnerable. Another slight problem is the soundtrack. There seems to be only a small number of songs and it will not take long to hear the same song over and over and over.

Death Death Revolution!

That being said, One Finger Death Punch is worth the time and money. Given that it is only five dollars, it is highly encouraged to purchase the game directly from the developer. It is a simple and beautiful game that goes to the core of what makes a game entertaining with the fewest possible controls.

So, it is highly recommended that once this article has been read, everyone who reads this should go and purchase it directly from the developers. Silver Dollar Games. Really. Go buy it. Support smaller devs. Save the industry. NOW!

I before E, except after C? The hell does that mean?

With the hiring drive in full swing, I felt it expedient to show the reading public just how it goes from becoming a reader of this website to becoming a writer. As a baseline, it is always good to know that those who enjoy writing, can actually read in the first place. It would not do at all for someone that cannot read to be hired to write. Come to think of it, they would not even know this hiring drive existed in the first place.

That being said, becoming a writer for Lusipurr.com is not all that difficult a proposition. In fact, for those inclined to writing, and especially those who wish to improve their writing, Lusipurr is more than a capable proofreader, with years, if not decades of experience under his belt. Perhaps, if you bother him enough, he may share the Final Fantasy 6 fanscript he wrote when he was but a young lad back in the olden days. As one who was also writing horrible anime fanfiction back in the early days when America Online was the only means of internet connection, posting them upon the rec.arts.anime.creative boards showed just why some people should never put pen on paper until the mountains crumble into the sea. Despite this harsh criticism, I persevered and learned that any criticism levied at my stories were not malicious in nature, as I hounded those most unfortunate to be in contact with my work.

Cricket. But no Jiminey to be found.

So, earlier this year, when I made the decision on a lark to apply for Lusipurr.com, I felt I had the writing acumen to share my perspectives with the gaming public at large and perhaps acquire some games in the process. Everybody wins! As noted by others, the application itself, located at the bottom of the website or on any article, is a simple one. Though, perhaps it could do with a bit of updating. Like, what is the equation that makes Homestarrunner so memorable? Or why should the viewing public be aware of the works of Coleman Francis? These are the questions that need to be asked!

So, upon receiving a favorable response from Lusipurr himself, I was elated to discover that I was in the running. However, as there was someone else already considered, I had barely missed the mark and was second choice behind another individual whose temperament was more compatible with the other writers of the site. In fact, I found it both flattering, and somewhat confounding, that I simply did not exhibit the less than favorable tendencies that Lusipurr wanted in his writers that could harbor them in any internet squabble.

Accurate depiction of the office space inside Castle Lusipurr.

But, as good fortune would have it, and unfortunately for the previous applicant, real life circumstances made writing for the website impossible and I was inducted into the website staff via disqualification. Hooray for Queensberry Rules! From there, it was almost like a regular interview, except done over Skype with the boss man himself. It involved the usual requests for: a picture ID, a non-compete contract, 401k sheet, your immortal soul. Well, the joke is on Lusipurr for I did not have a soul to trade, as I had misplaced it somewhere, someplace that I cannot recall. Instead, he how has the soul of a used car salesman from Walawala, Washington. But, eh, it works just as well and it was worth about the same.

So, with the agreements signed and mailed, I began my illustrious rise to the top of the corporate ladder at Lusipurr.com. I foresee great things during my time here and much enjoyment from the readings on the podcast. Though, against my better judgment, I listen to the podcast and wince whenever I find myself stuttering profusely whenever I hear myself. Ugh.

That aside, it is highly recommended that the reading public apply for writer’s position en masse and as soon as possible. Seriously. Please apply. We need more argumentative types here to keep Lusipurr happy or else the beatings will continue!

They are quite determined to make it to the end of this DLC.

Forward: This review contains spoilers for Bioshock: Infinite, Bioshock: Infinite: Burial at Sea, Episodes One and Two. Proceed with this in mind.

Bioshock: Infinite was a great game. Perhaps not the perfect game, but a truly excellent one. The story was gripping until it, figuratively, went off the rails somewhat. The pacing was good and the conclusion left it just at the right time. So, the story of Burial at Sea begs the question: Why did it have to go back to Rapture?

The answer should be that it did not need to. Bioshock: Infinite’s story, as convoluted as it could be at times, was more or less complete and required no further exploration. Bringing the story back to Rapture only added completely unnecessary filler to explain some of the stranger decisions that felt more akin to forcing square pegs into round holes that seemed to appear in greater numbers in the second episode.

Ace in the… something or other.

The first episode can be summed up basically that Booker DeWitt is a horrible, horrible man. Whether it is his complete divorce from his native american heritage to become more white as he burned a tent full of squaws at Wounded Knee or his gambling and drinking addictions which lead to crippling debt to sell his only daughter to amoral scientists; any sort of ill fortune is purely of his own making and any subsequent punishment is duly deserved. Yet, this is not the same Booker DeWitt that players were in the original.

Apparently, after Elizabeth drowned her father at the metaphorical fork in the road which would have led him to become Zachary Hale Comstock, all the realities of Columbia simply ceased to exist. Except for one last remaining Comstock that had, after a failed attempt to pilfer another Elizabeth from another Booker, escaped to Rapture to start over, yet again, as he was before his time as Comstock.

It does make a bit of sense to see this Booker not know whom Elizabeth is until it is too late, and by then he is ultimately the metaphorical sinner in the hands of an angry goddess. It could have ended right then and there. Booker DeWitt could have easily spent his last seconds with a hole in his chest, courtesy of a Big Daddy, blood spilling out in droves as Elizabeth gives him a smirk as she carries Sally, the subject of the first episode, off into who knows where.

Be thankful there is no option to give this guy a chance to sing.

Sadly, this is not the case. Despite all the logic Infinite attempted to establish, Irrational breaks it in order to push the last bit of this hateful finale past the finish line. All the jargon the Luteces spout to explain Elizabeth’s vulnerability is akin to hearing excuses a child gives when a parent asks why their room has not been cleaned, despite repeated orders to do so. And it only gets worse from there.

While there were suspicions that Rapture and Columbia were connected back in the base game, Burial at Sea forces the connection with all the subtlety of a crashing train and, ultimately, makes the story of Infinite subservient to the original. Daisy Fitzroy, antagonist with a justifiable cause against the Founders of Columbia, willingly sacrifices herself so that Elizabeth can become a killer in a questionable change of character. Frank Fontaine’s two-faced revolution against Andrew Ryan was facilitated by the same elements that allowed Columbia to float in the clouds. It is all so forced to the point where facepalming would not be sufficient to describe how out of place it all has become.

Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who is the most messed up of all?

The greatest shame of all is Elizabeth’s digression from the character players grew to love in the base game to this shadow of a person. Not even a shadow. Elizabeth, the playable character, became a plot device. Even more so than in the base game. And for what? So Jack, the voiceless, nameless mook from the first Bioshock game, who did not even have a name until recently, can swoop in and save the day, as Ken Levine now decreed that the good ending of the original Bioshock is canon. It is especially jarring on account that Jack has no real qualities to speak of and is best described by Benjamin Croshaw in his ‘Yahtzee goes to GDC’ video from Zero Punctuation.

And so, Burial at Sea ends, Ken Levine dissolves Irrational, and players are left with a disgusting taste in their mouths almost akin to the ending of Mass Effect 3. Thankfully, Ken Levine had the good sense not to try and fail to ape Stanley Kubrick in a hilariously botched attempt at recreating the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey that will always be remembered as a moist fart.

As far as the gameplay goes, it is a drastic change from the original and the previous episode. Resources are scarce, Elizabeth is fragile and dies easily, and the enemies grow increasingly numerous and resistant to any sort of frontal attack. It would be especially prudent to avoid Big Daddies at all costs, as Elizabeth is simply not equipped nor capable of surviving a fight with one.

On the plus side, it does keep the tension high and for the more cautious players, there are ways to avoid detection, means to provide distraction, and the tools the players have are effective at what they do. It just seems slightly disappointing that all the amazing abilities players were given in previous games have been stripped away for but a few that work.

The best way to describe this DLC package is a rephrasing of Andrew Ryan’s tired platitude that he repeated nonstop to make some sort of point:

Bioshock Chooses.

Infinite Obeys.

Should a fan of Bioshock: Infinite purchase this DLC? Perhaps. It depends upon whether the individual preferred the original over Infinite. If one is so determined and in love with Andrew Ryan’s pseudo-utopia, based off the writings of a hack, then by all means. Those who preferred Infinite to the original would do better to simply watch a playthrough and be done with it. Or, perhaps, pretend that Burial at Sea never happened and allow Elizabeth the happy ending in Paris that she not only deserved, but earned.

SOMETHING! IN! SPAAAAAACE!

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing games seem to have been in a rut as of late. If there has not been a plethora of pointless World of Warcraft clones, there are those that try to evolve the formula to limited success, because they are ultimately trying to emulate Warcraft’s success. Challengers who tried to kill it came in the form of Age of Conan Online, Warhammer Online, and Dungeons and Dragons Online, and failed miserably. Most notably was Star Wars: The Old Republic, however, the writers could only do so much since Kreia, the only interesting character that was from the Obsidian developed Knights of the Old Republic 2, was mysteriously forgotten in the lexicon of Star Wars card board cut outs.

Wildstar’s story began in 2007, when Carbine Studios, a Frankenstein amalgamation of developers from Blizzard, Retro Studios, Bethesda, and Valve and attached to noted publisher NCSoft, began to work on a project that wanted to give more flexibility to the individual player in 2011. Which was a noble ideal, considering most MMOs allow a player to start as a class, give a starting quest to procure ten bear butts, and then leave off with no concrete path on where to go.

The skyscape can even be changed for each individual plot of land.

Through the development process, Carbine was able to come to the conclusion that MMO goers were comprised of four particular types of players: Explorers, Lore Junkies, PvPers, and the Socials. Using this, Carbine was able to create Paths; questlines tailored to the specific things that those players enjoyed. The Explorers could jump their way to places to get the best view and, subsequently, go to places that the developers would rather them not go, especially with the double jump feature. Those who loved stories could watch it unfold as Scientists, who are also given a hovering, mechanical companion to give additional context to the world around them. PvPers, also known as Soldiers, could stick to doing what they loved, fighting others and mercilessly killing lower level players with impunity. Finally, the Settlers, for those who prefer a more social experience, go through the game building structures that can provide assistance to other types of players throughout the zone.

As interesting as the prospect of differing playstyles is, it does not mean much unless the world around the player would offer a compelling story to go with it. Wildstar is science fiction to its core. However, great care was taken to ensure that the story has the kind of pull needed to guide the players. It leads to a slight detriment here, as the playerbase is divided between two factions: the Dominion and the Exiles. However, there have been checks and balances made during the story so that one side is not seen as more domineering over the other when it comes to story content.

The Dominion is best described as a mixture of the Imperium from Warhammer 40k and the Horde of World of Warcraft. They are allegedly noble, violent, and with a misplaced sense of manifest destiny. The difference being that the Dominion are aware that they have committed acts of wholesale murder, racism, and attempted genocide. They do not care how their actions are perceived. They revel in it as they attempt to maintain their stranglehold on the galaxy, despite being stopped cold by the golem-like Granok. The races of the Dominion fit the theme well and include the humans of the aristocracy from the planet Cassus, the obvious vanilla choice; the unfeeling Mechari, creations of the god-like Elden; the Chua, monogendered rodents with a penchant for creating things that destroy things; and the Draken, bestial warriors who just want to kill for the sake of killing.

The selection of items to decorate the player’s house is wide and varied.

In contrast are the Exiles, so called because all the races have been exiled from their homeworlds for one reason or another. The Exiles include the humans, these from the group known as outcasts, who wage class warfare against of the Dominion’s aristocracy; the aforementioned Granok, who make up the muscle of the Exiles and work as mercenaries; the animal-like Aurin, who saw their planet obliterated for aiding the Exiles in the first place, and the race the anime fans will adore, due to their animal ears, inexplicably prehensile tails, and love of nature; Finally, the Mordesh, a race of tall, mad scientist-like, cyborg zombies on the brink of extinction who, strangely enough, get along better with the Aurin than anyone else.

The story of the game itself begins when an Exile explorer finds an unknown planet named Nexus, which some believe to be the homeworld of the now vanished Elden. The Exiles go there in hopes of starting over and building anew, yet The Dominion also arrive to uncover Elden secrets.

Put simply, Nexus is a big place.

The art style and the world ooze personality. The landscapes are varied and colorful, even more so than most games. And the questing is always within context of the path the players take, which somehow makes collection quests not as boring as it would be in other games. For example, every zone has a series of quests that have a time limit on it, whether it is a mob elimination or gathering items. These quests offer bronze, silver, and gold level rewards if the player can achieve the required number of kills/collections. The rewards can vary between crafting materials, gold, and equipment. This also leads to the fact that the player can salvage unneeded equipment into materials to assist in building more equipment or have it go into the player’s house.

Yes, player housing plays a large role in this game. Carbine made sure that the player has all the tools they need in order to create a place that is not only tailored to their likes, but can also serve practical functions from giving Rested XP bonuses, to creating farms for specific materials, and even entrances into dungeons that can only be accessed by the entrance at the player’s plot of land. In addition, friends of the player can visit when the player is not around and farm the materials and will be sent to the home owner, with the visitor gaining a bit of the materials for their troubles.

See the red stuff? The red stuff is bad!

Next, comes the combat system. Unlike the combat system of most other MMOs, where the player has to acquire a target to find out the enemy’s health and status, Wildstar emplys a more interactive system they call Free-Form Targeting. It brings to mind Area of Effect attacks from World of Warcraft, as it shows a line of fire where the attack will hit, but unlike the aforementioned, this affects all attacks and are not limited to just a few special abilities. The end result is a skill-based combat system that gives more responsibility to the player. Or it will just show how awful those DPS players are when they refuse to move, completely ignoring the fact that a large red circle on the ground is growing larger by the second. In addition, dashing and dodging are also employed, so as to give PvPers more chances to dodge attacks, escape, or adjust their position to maximize the advantage.

While Wildstar does so many things right, it is not perfect. The controls can seem slightly sluggish at times, especially in PvP battlegrounds where many combat effects are on display. Being released only a few months ago, it can be a demanding game on older systems. This is offset, however, by the fact that the amount of choice the player is given allows them to play at their own pace and still progress.

Another major ding against it is its instance to use a subscription model, when most others have eschewed that for Free-to-Play monetization. However, those with business savvy can learn how to buy and sell items on the in game auction house and use the money to purchase a special currency called C.R.E.D.D. and use that to purchase game time, much like ISK in Eve Online. An in-game entrepreneur would be able to not pay a thing toward the subscription cost or sell it to other players if they were so inclined. Also, players of the game are given keys to give to those interested in giving the game a try.

Overall, Wildstar is a game that does many, many things right. And save for the few flaws in the control and subscription, it is well worth a look for anyone wanting a change of pace from the standard MMO fare.

Expect a lawsuit from skull and crossbones pirates any day now.

Vlambeer’s Luftrausers has not had an easy time of it. Partially due to Vlambeer’s unfortunate luck of having their games cloned, or ripped-off, wholesale by unethical clods and sold by thieves. As evidenced by both Ridiculous Fishing and Luftrausers being copied and sold by game companies that do not deserve to be mentioned, neither the results of their larceny.

Thankfully, Vlambeer was able to trudge onward and finally release the fruits of their labor back in March and it seems that they are finally receiving the credit they deserve.

It should be noted, upfront, that Luftrausers has no real story to speak of. As well it should not for reasons that become fairly evident later on. If anything, it is best described as a monochrome Asteroids in an atmosphere. Except the asteroids shoot back. In fact, everything shoots at the player. There is no reinforcements, no back up, no nothing. Just the sole Rauser* against endless waves of other rausers, jets, gun boats, and more.

Mad Scientists on Parade!

Do not despair. The player has a large variety of tools at their disposal. This can be claimed to be a misnomer, as the options that the player has depends on what kind of weapon, what kind of body the Rauser has, and what kind of engine that the player can use. There is a possible 125 possible combinations of these to create a specific Rauser the players can use, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. For example; the heavy body has more health, but is heavier, resulting in lower speed. A prudent choice to use in conjunction with a Heavy Body, should one wish to use it, would be to use the Hover Engine, which renders the player’s rauser nearly immune to gravity.

It should be noted that even with all the possible options to use, it will always come down to the player being able to weave in, out, and around the almost bullet hell amounts of shots the enemy flings at the player. The instructions emphasize that the player has to know when to and when to not use the boost, or stall, in order to throw off the barrage of bullets.

That is not a bird, nor a plane!

Here is where the game falters slightly. The controls can and will work against the player at the seemingly most inopportune of times. Especially if it is in the middle of attempting to complete missions that are dependent upon which items are used. This makes it pointlessly difficult when attempting to complete all the missions. Granted, there is a reward for completing all of them, however, getting shot down during an attempt to shoot boats using weapons with a low rate of fire at Max combo scoring can be most irritating.

Despite this, there is a large amount of reply value to be found here. Whether it is with the aforementioned combinations of planes, each with their own individual name and variation of the theme song, or the extra hard SFMT mode which turns Luftrausers into a game that would make even the most ardent bullet hell shooter fan weep in defeat.

Which leads to another point that some combinations of aircraft are more effective at maintaining the combo meter than others. The missile launcher, mentioned earlier, can only fire four missiles at any given time. Which means that the player has to be more judicial about how and when they use them. And while they are seeking missiles, they often race to targets that are not intended and it can lead into a situation where there are no additional shots that can be taken while trying to keep the combo
meter.

Here we have Johan, modeling the latest in facist fashion.

The World War II fighter aesthetic also came with a few problems of its own. There were concerns raised about the player being a Nazi pilot, given the designs of the characters, it is a bit unusual to see. Even an antagonist, whom is briefly seen, bears a resemblance to Winston Churchill. Thankfully, Rami Ismail, one of the two people that comprise Vlambeer, was able to address the concerns and even speak about the nature of creativity and the need for real critical thought in its inspirations and criticism.

That being said, Luftrausers’ faults are not as numerous as its many things it does right. There are only four buttons to use; fire, boost, left turn, and right turn. This results in the controls being tight. It gives the same feeling of playing the arcade games of the 1980s, where a Saturday would be spent with a pocket full of saved quarters to get that ever so elusive high score. The sheer brutality of the AI is a reminder that it is a good thing certain companies do not charge for individual plays for games like they did in the arcades with their arbitrary increased difficulty to acquire more quarters from the playerbase. Yet.

Overall, Luftrausers is worth the price it is asking for. It is not a perfect game and, to the game’s detriment, the difficulty can be an obstacle to some. However, this can be overcome and with enough practice to acquire the final secret which would make all the failed missions beforehand all the more worth it.

*Rauser, despite sounding German, is not a real German word.

Blinded by the light!

One of the key elements of a good story is the world in which it is told. It could include the setting of a story, be it post-apocalyptic, futuristic, classical, and so on, however, in this case, there is going to be a greater emphasis on the presentation and how it is, and is not, done well in video games.

Atmosphere can either help or hinder the story the developers want to tell. Such was the case in the first three Silent Hill games, which are considered to be the best in the franchise, which also leads to those same fans to sigh in disappointment at the plummeting quality of the later games.

While the how and why of how the protagonists of the Silent Hill games are always different, the consistent idea is that all of these characters are forced to enter the foreboding town against their will and attempt to escape. It is always dark. There is a thick fog that prevents the player from seeing further than they would like. The atmosphere is always oppressive. And that is before the player begins to wonder whether they are truly alone.

While the players do learn about the story through cut scenes and text, the general layout of the game is intentionally stifling to tell the player, without saying anything, that they are vulnerable. The player is vulnerable. There is nothing, they have other than the clothes on their back, their legs to carry them from the danger, and whatever they can carry. Even then, there is no guarantee that even with a weapon, their survival is dubious if they do not keep their wits about them.

And his hair still looks great!

Contrast this with the Metal Gear Solid saga. While certainly an interesting series in its own right, it suffers from director Hideo Kojima’s overpowering vision as to what it should be. That works both for and against it. As stated by many others, the sheer volume of text, both spoken and non-spoken is so intent on explaining every minute detail of the story that it can, and will, drive some to madness, boredom, or both.

Each Metal Gear game has its own little tirade that Kojima is happily willing to explain to someone like a conspiracy theorist in their attempts to validate their paranoia. The first Metal Gear Solid warns about the evils of nuclear proliferation. The second drones on about Information Control. The third is about loyalties. The fourth is about Private Military Corporations and their incessant need to keep everything under control.

On paper and on their own, those subjects can be tackled and given the serious consideration that they deserve, especially given the political situation people face these days. However, when it is in the form of a game, concessions have to be made in order to maintain the attention of the player. As such, it becomes disproportionate to the amount of gameplay to the massive amount of talky cut scenes the player has to go through in order to progress.

Today’s forecast calls for intense bullet rain showers in the area.

As hokey and pedantic as it was, Bioshock was able to handle using the world around it to tell the kind of story Ken Levine wanted to tell effectively. Libertarian utopias are doomed to fail due to human nature, human nature leads to decay without rule of law, and Ayn Rand was a hack. The dying husk of Rapture told so much of the story that the player could find on their own without being pontificated at by Andrew Ryan or Frank Fontaine. That and the hostile splicers or potentially hostile Big Daddys protecting the Little Sisters and the ADAM they covet.

What talking that was being done as the player progressed was done via radio or recordings scattered throughout the world that could be found at the player’s leisure. Overall, there were few cutscenes to disrupt the flow of play, which is perhaps why it is regarded so well. If only they did away with the binary morality system, but that is another subject for another time.

Again, contrast that to what happens in many JRPGs. Yes, trying to compare an action game an RPG is a stretch, however, the story can still flow relatively smoothly enough. One of the problems that comes along with it is expectations. When action players play their games, they would rather the action be paramount and the story not interfere with the action as it is. In an RPG, the player expects there to be time for talking, text, and trifles. However, the main point still stands. The atmosphere of the game can still tell a story without having to bog down the pacing.

But what about the mud?!

As well regarded as it is, one of Xenogears‘ faults was the need for exposition at unwieldy periods of the game. Even with the wonderful music by Yasunori Mitsuda, there is only so much that can be done with a still frame when two characters are talking for pages at an instant. This was compounded in the second disc, when it showed how pressed for time Square was. There was very little action, it seemed as though the story was crashing when all the player got was a long, and tedious, monologue for characters whose character growth seemed dubious at that point and seemed to be nothing more than a pretentious attempt at being deep and philosophical.

That being said, telling an effective story does not necessarily need lots of text, voice acting, or flashy production values. Subtlety is a far more effective means of driving a narrative so as to not condescend, nor beat the point over the head, to the player.

Despite Lusipurr’s protestations on the matter; Homeworld is a perfect example of storytelling through atmosphere. The loneliness of space, the sheer isolation at knowing that the player’s ship is the last of a people who had escaped genocide by a ruthless galactic empire, and a haunting rendition of Samuel Barber’s Angus Dei tells a story in one scene that most JPop performers could only hope to match in their whole game.

In short, a story can be told in a far more compelling manner with some proper and well placed set pieces in less than a minute than a half an hour of unskippable dialogue and cutscenes.

This man’s jaw has been stuck like this for years.

Nintendo is in an unusual position. The company began over a century ago when its first available products were cards used for gambling. Which is appropriate, as the kanji used in Nintendo’s name literally means, left in the hands of the gods. Its fortunes allowed it to progress into selling toys, then subsequently, arcade machines akin to claw and model dispensers. Thanks to the business philosophy of Hiroshi Yamauchi, their economically conservative business practices allowed them to move into fields that it otherwise would never have gone.

Then it went into the selling of electronic gaming with the Famicom and history was made. With each generation its systems emphasized affordability and mingled at times with durability. Case in point; see the Game Boy that survived and was still operational after being caught in an explosion in Iraq. Using readily available technology, it enabled Nintendo to create a system that would give the company a guaranteed profit. In addition, it enabled some developers to be able to create excellent and, in some cases, timeless games that existed on the Super Nintendo.

This, and some strong handed, some would say draconian, tactics were used to ensure that Nintendo was able to maintain a competitive edge. The most infamous of these were the Nintendo Seal of Quality that it used on many NES cartridge boxes. In time, it ended up being more for show than an actual show of quality. In spite of these, it allowed Nintendo to remain the uncontested leader in the video game industry, seeing any attempts from competitors Sega, NEC, Atari, 3DO, and SNK to usually end up as either a niche or a failure.

The amazing technicolor bleu cheese wheel!

It was not until the advent of the PlayStation did Nintendo’s seemingly unstoppable force meet its immovable object. The biggest coup d’état was when Squaresoft, long time supporter of Nintendo, defected and began to release exclusives on the competing system with its flagship game Final Fantasy VII, along with a slew of other games that still remain well regarded to this day. Mr. Yamauchi was not pleased, to put it mildly. It would be decades before he would even speak to Square after their many failures of the earlier 2000s, but that is another story for another time.

It should be noted that it was here that Nintendo’s ideas, especially for controllers, began to show up on other systems. Sony emulated the Super NES controller button layout, then the vibrator functions. A trend that Sony and Microsoft continue to this day.

Despite this, Nintendo and the N64 still held its own against the steady, but gaining, momentum of the PlayStation, and the floundering Sega Saturn. Part of this was due to the innovative, if not unusual control design. It would be a staple of Nintendo’s genius, or madness, depending on who is asked, for years to come.

The latest in space wasting technology!

It was not until the next generation did Nintendo realize that it needed to move out of its comfort zone. True, Sega’s Dreamcast had great potential, however, internal problems, lack of funds, and lack of communication between the Japanese and American branches of Sega sunk the system that should have flown. To complicate matters, when computer company Microsoft threw its hat into the ring with the bulky and cumbersome Xbox and Sony’s second iteration of the PlayStation came along; Nintendo found itself facing competition that had more funding from their parent companies, more influence, and more games. Well, games for Sony. There were few games of note on the original Xbox.

The Nintendo GameCube, as still following the same pattern of affordability and durability, still turned a profit, but could never hope to match the numbers the PlayStation 2 did with games that sold many millions of copies. It did do respectably, but Nintendo still had come to the understanding that they needed to change their tactics if they wished to survive, as previously stated, the Xbox and the PlayStation 2 had parent companies with no vested interest in games. Nintendo was a game company. Plain and simple. If they failed on the game front, they were out of the business.

One of the few that could not figure out how the Wiimote worked.

Thankfully, they were able to capture lightning in a bottle with the Wii. So, for the majority of the Wii’s life, it was the undisputed champion of sales. With the simple use of the Wii Remote, it allowed an even more simple interface to make gaming more accessible. Millions upon millions suffered wait lists to get their hands on it. It expanded the gaming audience like nothing else had done before. The success it earned, however, would not last.

The further into the generation, Sony and Microsoft had corrected their respective courses and had made headway with longer lasting changes that would work for the gaming public. Nintendo, on the other hand, allowed shovelware, the likes that had never been seen since Barbie on the NES, to completely overrun any possible headway dedicated third parties might have been able to build. Add to this frustration that it seemed that only Nintendo games were capable of being sold on the system. Support from developers dried up and Nintendo found their lead evaporating like the dew to the morning sun.

Not dead yet! Maybe? Kinda? Sorta?

As if the gods themselves had withdrawn their favor, Nintendo’s latest system, the Wii U, had squandered the chance to capitalize on the head start it had over Microsoft and Sony with the Xbone and the PS4, both of which had their own problems that could have been taken advantage of. Now, the PS4 and the Xbone have taken a lead over Nintendo and many have been clamoring, wrongly, that Nintendo should cash in their chips and do as Sega does now.

It is ironic to note that both Sony’s and Microsoft’s attempts to copy Nintendo’s tactics with the Wii with the PS Move and the Kinect were met with apathy and downright scorn, respectively. It probably shocked Sony and Microsoft into realizing that copying Nintendo was not in their best interest. Perhaps the other companies have learned what they could and have moved on to develop their own ideas? Of course not. That would be responsible and prudent. Just need to wait for another profitable idea to copy. That is how business works, after all.

Despite all of this, Nintendo still has two advantages that the other two companies do not. Their systems always turned a profit, with the exception of the Wii U, and their characters are easily recognizable.

There would never be a Mario game on a Xbox, nor a Zelda game on a Sony system. And gamers should be grateful for this. Imagine the corporate meddling! The bleak and banal backgrounds comprised of only gun metal grey and dog turd brown! The DLC that gives the option to jump over the pits for the low, low price of two US dollars!

Go Go, Nintendo Rangers?

As previously stated, Nintendo is a gaming company. They make games. Games that have a simple interface, are colorful, and are, above all, fun. Is it ever a wonder why there have been 9 Mario Party games with a 10th on the way? The same can be said for the Mario Kart games. There is also an evergreen quality about Nintendo’s franchises that, even in their less than successful iterations, still hold a place of fondness in the minds, if not hearts of gamers. Barring a few exceptions, of course.

The bottom line is, Nintendo was able to cultivate much of the current innovation from the experiences they crafted back in the NES to today. Dare the people imagine what a world would be like without them? Without Mario?

Gaming, for one thing, would have died out as a fad and the hobby that many enjoy today would have either gone to different paths or not found their voices with the medium. Nintendo has inspired more than one generation of gamers and to think it is time to let it go and move on is akin to madness.

If E3 has proven anything, that Sony and Microsoft can be even more risk averse than Nintendo has with their heterosexual military man-death shooters, allegedly open world man shooters, and murder-death-kill simulators that attempt to be serious while all sporting the same ugly, pasty, and stubble faced white guys that have all the personality of a turnip as they are supposedly located in a power suit of armor the size of a mac truck, stabbing other hideous and nondescript white guys on Planet X!

In conclusion; if Nintendo dies, one of the most important parts, if not the most important part, of the industry dies with it.

One of the pictures Nintendo will not talk about.

Long ago, in the ancient days of the Colecovision, the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Sega Master system, and more, there was always one aspect of gaming that was always a certainty: the game itself would always come in a solid form. The humble cartridge which was the reliable standby, and still is in some cases, made gaming a bit more tangible for the gamer when they were able to take the game with them and use it in another system.

Owning a cartridge always gave a sense of ownership over the content that was purchased. Or at the very least, a copy of it. That way, the only thing barring a player from being able to use the product was a power outage. While it eventually became expensive for the larger publishers and studios during the Nintendo 64 era, there was a sound logic behind Nintendo’s determined, or bull-headed, others would say, decision to stick with cartridges. Compact Disc technology, when used for the gaming medium, was still a relatively new thing as Sony’s Playstation was able to produce larger games, but the truly good ones that utilized the technology was few and far in between. They were often worth the wait, such as Final Fantasy IX and Xenogears, which defined RPGs for the generation.

It was not until the next generation did the cartridge start to show its age and eventually, with the Nintendo Gamecube, did the publisher jump on board with its own disc based games. However, games still retained the sense of ownership when it was purchased. This was also helpful in creating a second hand market that allowed more players to play these otherwise expensive games at a lower cost. It would also be a source of consternation of larger publishers in the future, but that is neither here nor there and is best elaborated in another article written by one of the site’s other talented writers.

How do cartridge?

This changed during the latter half of the aforementioned generation when Valve Software released the first iteration of their digital distribution platform: Steam. Being a PC only application, it narrowed the possible avenues players would have if they wanted to play the hotly anticipated Half-Life 2. The first public iteration of the platform was less than ideal. In some cases, less than functional. Constant crashes, incompatibilities, and bugs of all shapes and sizes plagued the first versions available to the public. In addition, the first rumblings about Digital Rights Management came to the forefront when players, able to download the games at will, still began to feel as though they never owned the games at all, but simply rented them with the license they have paid for.

Despite the initial drawbacks, it was only a few years after Steam’s release when it entered into profitability. As time passed, more and more publishers and developers sent their games onto the platform due to ease of access, cheaper prices for consumers, and how simple the interface was. This eventually became a means for more independent developers to showcase their wares to a market that would never had the chance to share what they had in the first place.

Gaben: The Patron Saint of Video Games.

On the other hand, it gives as a somewhat unsettling reminder that the games that players have access to is dependent upon the consumer’s ability to access the servers that the games reside on. In some cases, larger games can and will eat up the bandwidth of a consumer’s household, and since not all Internet Service Providers are created equal, some will find their allotted download amount eaten up at a far greater pace than they would have liked.

While Valve has made assurances that the customers who have purchased their games will still have access to the items they have purchased, should Steam ever go under, it still leaves a somewhat foreboding picture. Currently, the debate in the United States senate still rages on as law makers are arguing about the state of a free internet and the internet that the larger ISPs, such as Comcast, would prefer to have that would come at the cost of now defunct Net Neutrality.

As a side note; with the advent of other digital distribution platforms that have tried, and failed, to copy Steam’s success, and attempts by larger publishers to curb used game sales, games with online only components have been part of this disturbing trend. Especially in games that were notably single player in the first place, in both benign and malicious forms. Mass Effect 3, Dead Space 3, Simcity, Diablo 3, Dragon Age: Origins, Starcraft 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City, and the first version of the Xbone are all various examples of required internet connections to play.

A screen that everyone can enjoy!

The first problem hit some consumers worst, as the aforementioned restrictions placed upon them by the ISPs would make it difficult as some would find their internet cutting out at the most inopportune of times. This was compounded by Adam Orth placing his foot within his mouth and enjoying a delicious shoe sandwich when he made comments about why he would want to live in a podunk where internet connections are spotty at best.

The second problem comes in the form of the servers that the publishers and developers own. They are not always going to be up. Want to play Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2? Too bad. They took down the servers back in 2010. Never mind the fact that they still had players. To be fair, the license EA had with the rights owners of the Lord of the Rings franchise had expired and they had no choice. However, for EA not to see this occurring shows an incredible lack of foresight on their part. At the very least, there could have been an alternative means for customers to continue playing the game after the servers go down so as to give means for people who did not have a chance to play it in the first place.

While gaming can exist as it does presently, with lots of digital distribution for games that cannot afford the means to be sold in brick and mortar stores, it does not leave much chance for proper archival for future access. Most of the games that have appeared because of digital distribution can be easily left behind and forgotten. It would not do to allow games such as Braid, Bastion, Super Meat Boy, Cave Story, Terraria, and Minecraft to be so casually left behind when they were instrumental for games that are coming out now and possibly in the future.

The question is; how?

While there are servers out there that can host games like the aforementioned for a long time, being able to do so in perpetuity would be much more difficult due to the costs.

So, readers; what would you do?

It was the best of times…

There is an unsettling trend that has been going on in the video game industry. To be fair, it is not limited to video games. It also has shown itself in almost any story telling medium: the need to go back in time after a story has already reached its conclusion.

Reluctant case in point: Mass Effect. A new franchise with an incredible backstory and sandbox to play in. With all its talk of a dynamic story at the whims of the player, it ultimately ended on a sour note when after the many promises of it not ending on an A, B, or C ending by Casey Hudson, it proceeded to do just that. It eventually sparked a large outcry that resulted in an ‘extended ending’ DLC that seemed to be nothing more than an explanation for each ending, due to the shoddy nature of the original endings. While it did explain the endings, it still left a rather sour taste in the mouth of many.

The basic tenants of a story cover starts with an introductions, then follows with rising action, climax, and finally the resolution. Mass Effect followed this structure thusly:

To think 2007 was so long ago.

Introduction: Space, the Final Frontier… that has already been discovered by several dozen other races. Late to the party, eh, humanity? Go sit with the Volus and the Elcor. And do not touch the Quarian. Who knows where they have been.

Rising Action: The Blue Oyster Cult was wrong. One SHOULD fear the Reaper and its many, many buddies, servants, and not too bright allies.

Climax: Should the player do everything they can to ally the races together to defeat the Reapers, the player then chooses one of the three infamous conclusions that rendered all promises of a fulfilling story null and void.

Resolution: The player then watches the same ending three times, with a single color being the difference between each one. Provided they actually chose and not chose to see Casey Hudson throw a fit when the player refuses because the general public is not intelligent enough to appreciate his ‘artistic vision’.

Shepard has Hudson’s ‘artistic integrity’ right here!

The many holes in Mass Effect’s story aside, it did, for all intents and purposes, follow the proper flow of how stories are told. Granted, prospective writers would do well to have an ending in mind almost as soon as the story begins to give the story some direction and avoid the misstep Bioware made.

However, with what little has been spoken concerning Mass Effect 4, there has been rumblings about the story possibly going back into the past, before Mass Effect 1 started, such as the First Contact War, which was a significant event concerning humanity’s entrance into the galactic society. Apparently, those who want to see this happen have not seen the Star Wars Prequel trilogy. There is a reason why Episodes 1, 2, and 3 are not as well received as the original movies. It also goes beyond the many trappings that the abundance of computer generated graphics created, and which still could not make up for the atrocious writing nor Hayden Christensen’s lack of acting ability.

Visit Scenic Thessia.

While on the surface, it is good to see a story expand and see more of it. However, when the story writers go into the past in attempts to dredge up more material than a codex would be more than adequate to explain, it leaves the reader with the bad feeling that it will change nothing, because they already know what is going to happen in the future.

And to be frank, there is only so many times that Bruce Wayne’s motivation for hunting down criminals can be told over and over and over again.

Another pitfall of Presequeling, a term derived from the upcoming Borderlands game; The Pre-Sequel, is that it shows that the writers are being forced to not move forward with a story that is ostensibly finished and seems more like a cynical cash grab than hopes to tell more stories.

As wonderful a villain Handsome Jack was, one playthrough with him behaving like a tantrum throwing middle school boy gets tiresome after the first time.

There was also no need to go back into Gears of War’s past in the aptly named: Judgement, as it was judged to be decidedly mediocre dudebro game that Cliffy B insists, amid much bitching and whining, deserves perfect scores.

A not a gag to be found anywhere

There was no need to make any other games after God of War 3; where Kratos proved himself incapable of self-reflection or character growth, killed everything and everyone in sight and with no one left to kill, killed himself. While not an accurate description of the ending, it does give the general feeling that the story needed to end then and there. No more games. No more stories. Yet, the developers felt the need to make God of War: Ascension, which, like Gears of War: Judgement, proved to be both mediocre and unneeded.

Presequeling at its core, appears to be the result of corporate meddling. The writers do not know where to take their story since it ended, however, the shareholders and the CEO of the company, who probably have little understanding as to how game development works, want to expand the franchise and milk it for as long it can be milked. So, the developers, with their jobs at stake, have to exhume a story from somewhere to keep making more games. Why the past? Why not the future, instead?

Gsrrus Vakarian is forward looking. Learn from him, Bioware.

A possible, and possibly much less story-intensive conclusion to Mass Effect’s transition into Mass Effect 4 would be simply to let the conflict with the Reapers be just put aside and not at all related to plot. If they are determined to know what happened, just let the game say, ‘The Reapers have been defeated! Hooray!’ and never speak another word of it. After all, the galactic politics of the Council on the Citadel, the culture of the Council races and their homeworlds, and the shady slums of Omega are far more fertile grounds for continuing stories than another galaxy wide conflict.

In addition, since it has been stated that Shepard’s story ended with Mass Effect 3, it would be more appropriate to see the Mass Effect sandbox from the perspective of, say, someone who is not a member of the Systems Alliance, or even human for that matter. Will they proceed to create a game akin to Skyrim? Who knows? However, until details are released, there is the chance they could easily mess it up the way the aforementioned games have been ruined.

Stories are meant to go forward, not backward. To go backward to fill in gaps shows a lack of creativity of the writer and a reluctance to show what has happened to the characters after a story has ended. There is nothing stated that one cannot simply let a story be done and move onto another story that can be completely unrelated to the previous story. Why not attempt something new? Create new characters, create new worlds, and new cultures.

In short; stories do not go forward by going backward.

Casual day for Activision’s CEO.

The first thing that often comes to mind when the name Blizzard Entertainment is evoked is the high quality games of Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo. This is true, however, since the early days of LAN parties with the first iterations of StarCraft and the baby steps of Battle.net with Warcraft II, there was enough to satisfy fans of both the gameplay and the story.

As rudimentary as they were, the stories of Diablo, Warcraft, and StarCraft, were handled well enough for the time. Using computers with limited processing capability, it forced the developers to use a minimalist approach to how they chose the story to progress. In Diablo, it was the scrolling text voice overs of the townsfolk, it was the talking heads of the characters between story beats in StarCraft, and in Warcraft II, it was the introductory mission briefing of each level.

And it worked.

The payoff for each game was a prerendered computer generated sequence that was a marvel for the time. Seeing the hero sacrifice himself to seal Diablo in his body to contain the Lord of Terror, the triumph of Tassadar over the Overmind on Auir, and witnessing Khadgar sealing the Dark Portal for good was exhilarating. It would be one of Blizzard’s best traits going forward. They knew how to make a game pay off upon success.

Unfortunately, it was also a trend that would also carry some serious detriments as well.

Blizzard was a game company whose successes had proved to those that waited for their games that it would be worth the wait. The old adage ‘it will be done when it is done’ was the mantra Blizzard often used to explain their games often being delayed. And, without fail, the game would sell millions of copies, as evidenced by Diablo II selling over four million copies back in 2000.

All seemed to be going well for Blizzard, however, in December of 2007, Blizzard merged with Activision and the atmosphere seemed to change, despite vehement denial by the staff that had the bravery to interact with the playerbase.

Don’t let this happen to stories.

With the expanded budget, it gave the the creative development team, led by Chris Metzen, to allow their imaginations to run wild with things they were never able to do when Blizzard was its own entity.

It definitely assisted Blizzard with its recently released World of Warcraft MMO, as it had a much larger budget to work with and with WoW maintaining a lead that most companies would only dream of, Chris Metzen allowed the success to cloud his memory to the times when he was limited to the tiny budgets they were allowed back in the 90s.

The story-telling started to suffer with more recent releases due to a myriad of factors, between incompetence, lack of ‘time’ or interest, and more; World of Warcraft: Cataclysm was the first of many cracks in Blizzard’s writing.

The expansion showcased Deathwing the Destroyer, a gargantuan dragon of immense strength and power, tearing the world asunder and being a catalyst for reigniting the already unstable relations between the Alliance and the Horde, now led by the son of warmonger Grom (of Warcraft III fame), Garrosh Hellscream.

In proper context, it was a waste of storytelling material. Deathwing, back in the earlier lexicon of Warcraft history, often disguised himself as a human to sew discord between the human kingdoms and used subtlety and cunning to execute his plans. In Cataclysm, he was reduced to a boss that the player never interacted with until the final raid tier. Contrast this with the Lich King of the previous expansion, whom the player already knew the story, either through Warcraft III or through the various factions that served him throughout the game’s life. The player knew whom Arthas was and what he wanted to do. The Lich King was a foe to be feared. Deathwing, was just a big, stupid lizard that occasionally set fire to the zone and the player obtained an achievement for ‘stepping into the fire’ and dying.

Alas, alak, the story cannot hold itself up.

In addition, the revised leveling content, attempting to emphasize the war between the factions, was a lopsided mess. The leveling experience of the Forsaken playable race was a string of victories handed to the Horde on a silver platter due to Dave Kosak’s unsubtle boner for undead elves, where as the supposedly honorable Kalimdor Horde could not decide whether they were noble savages or brutal conquerors. The Alliance questing experience was a rushed mess, cutting off formerly accessible zones, cutting the story mid-tale of the newly playable Alliance leaning Worgen race as part of the Forsaken leveling experience, and forced pop culture references ranging from CSI to Rambo in a most intellectually insulting way. The excuse was that the developers had simply run out of time to give the same amount of care to the Alliance story, but there have been doubts as to this claim, as one only needs to go to Blizzcon to hear whom the developers put their passion into.

And in the biggest display of ego of the likes of David Cage can only dream about, Thrall, one of the primary characters of the franchise since Warcraft III, one of the many characters voiced by Chris Metzen, insists that he be called by his true name, Go’el (in an unsubtle reference to Superman) and the story superimposes him as the only one to take down Deathwing. The end result was a slog of a questline in which the player had to go through the many trite and predictably awful parts of his character. It ultimately presents Thrall as nothing more than a self-insert of Chris Metzen with all the tact of a tidal wave, drowning anyone it touches with how awesome he is.

Let us not kid ourselves: This is what most people played Starcraft for.

Next, came the much anticipated; StarCraft II. Blizzard was under understandable pressure to ensure this was as good as the first, due to the fact that StarCraft in South Korea is a national sport with star players, nationally televised matches, and scandals involving gambling rings. So, they did.

However, the story did not maintain the same level of quality that its predecessor had. The base game, Wings of Liberty, emphasized flawed hero Jim Raynor, pining for his compatriot/love interest, now infested, mass murdering monster, Kerrigan, Queen of Blades and his attempts to restore her humanity through a macguffin. Which also tied into a prophecy, which is a common occurrence in Blizzard games.

The sequel/expansion suffered all the more, being the Zerg campaign and giving the player control of a now de-infested (defested?) Kerrigan as she rounds up the leaderless Zerg Swarm to obtain her revenge against the Emperor of the Terran Dominion; Arcturus Mengsk, murdering innocent and guilty alike in the millions, if not billions, in vain attempts to make the player sympathize with her. This is emphasized as Kerrigan brutally slaughters a group of Protoss colonists, attempting to terraform an ice bound world, and she uses a captured Protoss to murder the rest of her compatriots in a manner that was excessive, even for a setting such as StarCraft.

Finally; in Diablo III, the player is introduced to a new character, Leah, the niece of Diablo story veteran, Deckard Cain. During the game, she recounts her and Deckard’s adventures through the world of Sanctuary. Leah actually becomes the most sympathetic character in the Diablo universe when she tells about her hopes of opening an inn to provide a safe place for travelers in a world as unforgiving as Sanctuary.

The Crusade Against Bad Writing is never ending.

Unfortunately, the story takes a mercilessly dark turn as Leah is set up to be the reincarnation of Diablo himself… or herself, as the model appears to have been redesigned, in the worst possible taste, so that the Lord of Terror appears more feminine. While it is to be expected that the Diablo story was not meant to be all flowers, kittens, and rainbows, (Unless the player goes to Whimseyshire.) it reeks of Blizzard’s attempts of pushing the envelope just for the sake of drama, not for a good story.

Which leads to the conclusion that Chris Metzen and the writing staff at Blizzard are trying too hard, never took the lessons from writing class to heart, or are simply incapable of writing intellectually mature stories. They see the success of George R.R. Martin’s books and foolishly believe that being ‘edgy’, ‘fridging the female’, bigger explosions, and blood for blood’s sake can somehow make up for the lack of character interaction, proper pacing, and actual story development.

Chris Metzen has often stated in interviews that he likes redemption stories, as evidenced in many of Blizzard’s games. He has also admitted that he is a one-trick pony when it comes to writing.

And sadly, it is hard to disbelieve him.

Dollar Dollar Bills

The words ‘Reality’ and ‘TV’ when used in conjunction with one another, produces the very drugs that poisons the mind and renders the viewer less intelligent than before. Naturally, the pervading train of thought of television producers, directors, and the like, aware that video games are stealing mindshare in droves, have to adapt if they wish to stay relevant. Naturally, television as of late, bereft of soul, conscience, and virtue, seeks other victims to sink their fangs into, like an insatiable vampire, and gamers are, naturally, a worthy and easy target, as video games have matched, and in some ways surpassed, the movie and television industry.

This was met with some initial problems. They could not do much with people playing games, as Twitch.tv already had that market cornered. They could not attempt to do journalism on games, as there are already many channels and avenues on the internet a savvy gamer could turn to in order to acquire news, opinion, and the like.

Finally, they discovered upon a solution. The development process. Show the public how their favorite games were made. It would certainly turn a few heads to get into the creative thinking that creates the entertainment that enthralls millions of gamers on a daily a daily basis. Yet, the chances of getting into those divisions at Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, and the major publishers was never going to happen, as they tend to be rather clandestine and rightfully so.

Yet, the cynical tv producer found a much more satisfying target. The Independent scene. Most likely ignorant of their individual stories, the men in suits at the unnamed television outlet probably only saw them as an easily usable and replaceable resource, as the ones in charge of the project probably had a distant relative that played games that played into the various stereotypes that these men believed they were.

And so, GAME_JAM, with the money of Pepsi Co. to sponsor the event, was born. It would show how, from the indie perspective, how the games that can, in some cases, take on and surpass the AAA budgets of major publishers with naught but grit, dreams, and determination to create a quality product.

In truth, that is one would cynically think this came to be, but it was not. It was, in reality, the brain child of Josh Mattingly and David DeCarmine. The former an Indie Statik writer and the latter the founder of gamer drink Game Jolt.

It was a wonderful idea. Show the youtube audience what it was like for indie developers to work and do something they loved, both the good and the bad. Give those with many ideas and hopes and dreams a taste of what it looks like and, perhaps, some guidance for those who may be unaware of the pitfalls and the difficulties they would inevitably face. Yet, overall, it was supposed to be a look into the work and passion of independent game developers.

It was supposed to be.

However, when the idea had been picked up by two producers of the Polaris network; Aaron Umetani and Jason Serrato, word of it eventually got the attention of major sponsors and placed in the hands of the Maker studios. Most notable of the sponsors, the aforementioned Pepsi Co. Before they could stop it, the GAME_JAM had become less of a documentary look into the workings of indie game development and became more akin to a game show, with four teams, comprised of actual developers and youtube personalities. Eventually, prizes and cash money were involved, the development process was set aside, and then the most important part of any game show involving personalities was needed.

Drama.

The sting is in the drama.

It was not long before the four teams were given scripts on how to behave for the camera, when they were under the initial impression that that the GAME_JAM was meant more as an elaboration of game development. When more and more details of what happened emerged, the indie developers attempted to stick it out, aware that this was the way of things and how the business went.

It was also a display at how little the legal departments of the sponsors understood game development at all, as the contracts were notoriously stringent, even for contracts for something as small as the game jam was supposed to be initially. It also gave them provisions to make things up about the developers for the sake of drama, which, understandably, did not go over well with the people involved.

Thankfully, the developers were able to obtain a bit more leeway in their contracts and it seemed that the game jam could continue as hoped.

Yet, like an M. Knight Shamaylyan film, it could only go downhill from there. At high speed. With a spiked boulder immediately behind.

What the developers found was a color coded set, complete with ubiquitous Mountain Dew bottles and cans everywhere for the mandatory consumption of the developers and internet celebrities of not small repute in attendance.

It almost seemed like a complete opposite of what indie development was supposed to be. It is supposed to be small, intimate, thoughtful, and personal between the people that work there. That way, those involved understand each other, for better or worse, and which enables them to proceed at a, hopefully, smoother pace during development. It creates camaraderie. This, the developers would go on to say, did not at all.

Producers, consultants, and more people, who had no idea what indie game development was about, attempted to force a square peg into a round hole. The developers were ordered to behave in certain ways when it game to the products they sponsored, the deafening tone of the set drowned out any hope of communication, and even if the developers wanted to drink water, since coffee was banned, they had to drink out of an empty Mountain Dew bottle filled with water instead.

And then, like a spark in a trail of blast powder, leading to an overflowing keg of TNT, Matti Lesham appeared.

While he alone was not the reason the GAME_JAM came to a screeching halt, but he was the metaphorical straw that broke the camel’s back. The legal departments of Maker, the developers could handle, and before Lesham came along, they were getting into the swing of things, albeit begrudgingly.

But apparently, this was not good enough for the middle man Pepsi had hired. He then forced demands of the developers that seem odd and out of place. Nerves were frayed, tensions ran high, and when JonTron and Zoe Quinn (internet personality and developer of Depression Quest respectively) attempted to take their differences out of sight of the rest of the teams so they could iron it out, Lesham made the cameras film it.

The inferno reached a peak when Lesham attempted to get a rise out of Zoe Quinn by asking blatantly sexist questions about her and other women’s involvement in game development. It is believed that Lesham was aware of the pointless harassment and death threats she received for making Depression Quest in the first place, but ignored the fact that the human mind can only take so much. Needless to say, she, and her male contemporaries, were not amused.

It was then they solidified against Lesham, despite his half-hearted and weasel like attempts to deflect blame off of himself, and all the developers involved revolted, left the set, and as a result, the GAME_JAM died a painful death. Attempts to get the show back on track was impossible. Matti was fired, but the damage was already done.

In a strange bit of irony, Matti Lesham whose background is in TV, which has the inevitable connection to reality TV, attempted to create division and contention between the developers for the sake of cheap drama, only seemed to galvanize the developers against him.

It also leads to the conclusion that perhaps indie development is better left as it is; private, personal, and passionate. That is how games like Braid, Depression Quest, Don’t Starve, Papers Please, and the Stanley Parable are made, no?

For further reading; see Adriel Wallick’s, Robin Arnott’s, and Zoe Quinn’s observations of the event. Bear in mind, Zoe Quinn is still under contract and so, there is only so much she can say.

Lusipurr.com

What ho, hello thar, greetings, and Friends, Romans, and Countrymen.

My name is Christian ‘Iliya Moroumetz’ Clark. After bribing Lusipurr to let me be his personal chef and thug, he, in his infinite wisdom, mercy, and vision, allowed me to start writing articles for him. All jesting aside, I am honored and humbled that I have the chance to write articles for the site.

Being somewhat older than most gamers, I was around before Nintendo hit the western shores, playing Manhole with the mac, yet, having no idea how it was supposed to work back in the early to mid 80s. I also was large into the stand up arcade games that you younger peoples would hear about. It takes me back; the tacky and discolored carpets, the loud and obnoxious rock blaring out of the speakers, the many pointless lights in attempts to blind you, and the punishingly difficult games meant to be hard to pilfer you of your quarters.

Even as the home consoles from Nintendo came about, I still loved the arcades because that was the only place you could play the Neo-Geo games without shelling out seven hundred dollars. Yet, throughout the years, my love of the stories presented in these game, both home and arcade, despite as minimalist as they were, captured my imagination. It lead to Final Fantasy 2 and 3 for the SNES being some of my favorite games of that generation because Square, at the time, knew how to use so much with so little.

These days, however, on the verge of becoming a chef, or line cook for my internship if you want to be specific, time is not as prevalent as it was in my younger days, however, I use my time to play games that I know I will play and enjoy for the story mostly. It also has made me somewhat jaded on account that most ‘writers’ in videos are not really all that interested in writing good stories, but would rather make a game instead of something to think or remember, much to my consternation.

On the other hand, I am a masochist in some cases. I still play World of Warcraft and Diablo 3. And League of Legends, because a part of me hates myself and wants to wallow in the mud with the unwashed masses.

Not one to stay within a particular genre, I have been getting into a few select shooters that tickle my fancy. And by a few, I mean one; as the Bioshock games, while imperfect, are certainly deeper and more capable of drawing you into their world instead of your run of the mill HETEROSEXUAL MANDEATH 6: FIERY CHAINSAW BLOOD GUN EDITION!

Another aspect of my self-harming tendencies is arguing with people about the merits of storytelling in games and how we need to stop being lazy about them until I am blue and or red in the face.

Outside of games; I am a savant of B grade movies thanks to the immortal Mystery Science Theater 3000, and its spiritual successors; Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic. As previously noted, I am a chef because I love to cook. Also, being a classically trained singer, I still have aspirations to fame and fortune as a world traveling opera performer. Yes, yes, delusions of grandeur, but at least they are grand!

With all that, I hope to raise the level of discourse about a hobby that has been with me through my whole life, before power slamming it through the floor in ways that would make Mayor Mike Haggar proud.