3D Gaming Won’t Change the Industry in 2010

Since the beginning of cinematography, creators have constantly attempted to break the perceived fourth-wall in order to bring their audience into the universe they have set out to create. Derived from stereoscopic photography, 3D film, television and computer graphics essentially show the viewer two separate perspectives of the same image in order to create the illusion that the object in fact inhabits the same real-space as the viewer. Full review is after the break:

Originally posted here:
3D Gaming Won’t Change the Industry in 2010

The Nintendo Download: PilotWings! Castlevania! [Wii]

Sensing that it is Christmas, and that Christmas is the time for giving, Nintendo’s weekly download update is this week suitably festive. Not only do American Wii owners get the pleasant surprise of Castlevania The Adventure ReBirth on WiiWare and The Oregon Trail on DSiWare, but PilotWings – the original, Super Nintendo great – is now available on the Virtual Console. First Smash Bros. , now PilotWings…it’s like the Virtual Console is suddenly relevant/appealing again! Here’s the full line-up for this week: WiiWare Castlevania The Adventure ReBirth Publisher: Konami Digital Entertainment Players: 1 ESRB Rating: T (Teen) – Animated Blood, Fantasy Violence Price: 1,000 Wii Points™ Description: Another 100 years have passed since the death of Count Dracula, but his curse has emerged once again within the realms of Transylvania. Play the role of the ultimate gothic hero from the long lineage of vampire hunters, the Belmont clan, and rid the universe of Dracula’s legion of darkness and doom. Based on the classic 1989 original Castlevania: The Adventure, this WiiWare version will allow players of a new generation – and older fans – to experience one of the most popular games within the storied Castlevania timeline from a new perspective. Eat! Fat! FIGHT! Publisher: TECMO Players: 1-2 ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) – Cartoon Violence, Comic Mischief Price: 1,000 Wii Points Description: Forget about being healthy. Here’s a game that celebrates eating, getting fat and fighting. Hold the Wii Remote controller horizontally and tilt it left, right, up or down to perform all kinds of lifts and throws just like in real sumo. There are also hidden moves like suplexes and scrapbusters thrown in for fun. Use all the moves you learn in tournaments around the world to reach the peak of sumo and become a yokozuna. In ONE PLAYER mode, play eating or sparring mini-games to make your wrestler stronger and change his look. You can also use your own Mii™ character’s face on your wrestler. In TWO PLAYER mode, take on another person using default wrestlers or the wrestlers that you have created. (Additional accessories are required for two-player mode and are sold separately.) Chow down, bulk up and fight on to become the strongest sumo wrestler ever. RABBIDS LAB Publisher: Ubisoft Players: 1 ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) – Cartoon Violence Price: 500 Wii Points Description: A raving Rabbid is stuck inside the Wii Remote controller. Come play with him. First, try interacting with him by moving the Wii Remote or pressing the buttons and seeing how much he loves it. Once you’ve gotten to know the crazy guy, it’s time to change his appearance in the Lab. Mess with his head and place seasonal accessories on him, or change his look entirely with the painting module. When you’ve made your raving Rabbid completely unique, you can take a photo and send it in a Wii™ message to show your Wii Friends (broadband Internet connection required). The Magic Obelisk Publisher: GAME ARTS Co., Ltd. Players: 1 ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) – Comic Mischief Price: 500 Wii Points Description: The Magic Obelisk is an action-adventure game in which you become Popo, a light spirit. Your mission is to guide Lukus, a tree spirit, to each stage’s goal while moving only within the shadow. You can help him do this by shining your light near the mysterious magic obelisks, allowing you to create and connect shadows to solve tricks and gimmicks along the way. Join Lukus as he travels through a light-filled realm filled with quirky creatures and spirits, trying to find the perfect spot to become a tree. Experience meaningful encounters and partings, climb hills, cross rivers and traverse a vast desert on your way to the very edge of the world. Virtual Console PilotWings Original platform: Super NES™ Publisher: Nintendo Players: 1 ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) – Mild Violence Price: 800 Wii Points Description: Join the Flight Club to take to the skies and experience a variety of aerial activities. Take off and pilot a biplane through rings along a predetermined flight path, or drift serenely in a hang glider, catching thermal currents to gain altitude. In either case, just be sure to stick the landing. Looking for more speed? Strap on the rocket belt to blast your way around an obstacle course. If that’s not enough, reach maximum velocity as you tackle a skydiving lesson at 3,800 feet. Complete specific objectives within a set time limit to score points (and maybe even a bonus chance) and obtain certification in eight different lessons. Your goals will become more challenging, and weather conditions will make controlling your vehicle more difficult as you progress. If you succeed, you will be rewarded with the opportunity to pilot an attack helicopter on a daring rescue mission. It’s time to earn your wings. Nintendo DSiWare The Oregon Trail Publisher: Gameloft Players: 1 ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) – Comic Mischief, Mild Cartoon Violence, Use of Tobacco Price: 800 Nintendo DSi Points™ Description: Westward, ho! Your favorite pioneering adventure game takes you on an exciting, historic, side-scrolling adventure with your Nintendo DSi™ system. Take the Oregon Trail experience further than ever before with all of the decision-making and problem-solving fun of the original game plus additional challenges. Leave your mark on America’s history. Take a picture of yourself at each landmark with the Nintendo DSi system’s built-in camera. You’ll have your portrait and party’s name printed in the Daily Oregon Trail newspaper in the game. Play eight skill-based mini-games that will impact your resources: Hunting, Fishing, River Crossing, Rafting, Wagon Repairing, Telegraph, Berry Picking and Gold Panning. Random events faced by real pioneers – such as disease, bandits and hitchhikers – and side missions add more excitement to your westward trek. SUDOKU SENSEI Publisher: Hudson Entertainment Players: 1 ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) Price: 500 Nintendo DSi Points Description: Introducing 100 “Super Hard Puzzles” for the hardened sudoku veteran. All puzzles are skillfully designed for a level of satisfaction that computer-generated puzzles just can’t offer. You can play through puzzles to learn about rules and controls in Tutorials mode. Other handy features include Write Mode and Temp Number for an easier, more enjoyable sudoku experience. Glow Artisan Publisher: Powerhead Games Players: 1-2 ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) Price: 500 Nintendo DSi Points Description: Solve mind-bending puzzles in this unique and colorful game. Use your wits and ingenuity to solve more than 100 puzzles and earn more than 300 medals. Play Time Trial, Randomizer and Multiplayer modes for an endless supply of new challenges. Create new puzzles with the built-in editor or use the Nintendo DSi Camera application to turn your photos into puzzles. Master of Illusion™ Express: Psychic Camera Publisher: Nintendo Players: 1 ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) Price: 200 Nintendo DSi Points Description: Master of Illusion Express titles include mind-boggling magic tricks that you perform with your Nintendo DSi system. Learn the illusions, practice them and amaze your friends. Your audience will never look at your Nintendo DSi system the same way again after Master of Illusion Express: Psychic Camera proves that it has psychic powers. Astound others by taking their picture and revealing an item (such as a card, picture, letter or number) that they’re thinking about. Arcade Hoops Basketball Publisher: Skyworks Interactive, Inc. Players: 1 ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) Price: 200 Nintendo DSi Points Description: From Skyworks comes the slickest basketball game for the Nintendo DSi system. See how many baskets you can sink in a fast-moving 45 seconds, using only your stylus and, of course, your lightning-fast hand-eye coordination. Arcade Hoops features your choice of three rockin’ soundtracks, state-of-the-art 3-D graphics and thrilling, high-speed game play for the most fun possible in under a minute. Advanced hoopsters can move on to the progressive level, where a moving basket provides an additional challenge – plus the chance to rack up even more points. For the real pros, there’s 3 Point mode, where speed and accuracy are a must as you shoot “threes” from downtown.

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The Nintendo Download: PilotWings! Castlevania! [Wii]

How Will New Rules Affect In-Flight Gaming? [Tsa]

It’s not a petty concern. Since Friday’s incident en route to Detroit, airlines are ramping up security procedures at the behest of the government, and “approved portable electronic devices” have long been a whipping boy for this sort of thing. Unfortunately, it sounds like they’ll be verboten for international flights inbound to the U.S. While the Transportation Security Administration has issued no formal rules (and, in fact, is being deliberately vague about them ) Gizmodo and several other sources are reporting the ban as fact. Another key detail: for international flights inbound to the U.S., passengers will have to remain in their seats for the last hour of a flight , without access to their carry-on baggage (above or underneath a seat) and without any personal items on their laps. So, better pee up before that final hour, and make sure you’re at a good stopping point in Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines. It’s also unclear how this affects travel within the U.S., but you can bet it will, beginning with long lines as screeners tighten their focus. Other measures either reported or expected include the aforementioned no cabin travel for the last hour of a flight; keeping the cabin lights on for the entire trip; disabling the display of a flight’s progress in the seatback monitors offered on some planes; and generally making sure you resent the experience from check-in to baggage claim. As there are a ton of variables in play here, for U.S. flights and for those in other countries, and as plenty of folks are flying either today or tomorrow – or this time next week – returning from holiday travels, we’re opening up a comment thread here to report what you’ve seen. Especially as it relates to the use of electronic devices. Flying is such an unpleasant process these days, laptops, handhelds and DVD players have become almost indispensable for their diversionary qualities. Plus, some are still under the illusion they can get work done midair. So here, and for future reference, use the hashtags #tsa #flights or #airtravel to talk about what you’ve seen, heard or experienced. You’ll be doing your fellow flying gamers a service.

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How Will New Rules Affect In-Flight Gaming? [Tsa]

How Will New Rules Affect In-Flight Gaming? [Tsa]

It’s not a petty concern. Since Friday’s incident en route to Detroit, airlines are ramping up security procedures at the behest of the government, and “approved portable electronic devices” have long been a whipping boy for this sort of thing. Unfortunately, it sounds like they’ll be verboten for international flights inbound to the U.S. While the Transportation Security Administration has issued no formal rules (and, in fact, is being deliberately vague about them ) Gizmodo and several other sources are reporting the ban as fact. Another key detail: for international flights inbound to the U.S., passengers will have to remain in their seats for the last hour of a flight , without access to their carry-on baggage (above or underneath a seat) and without any personal items on their laps. So, better pee up before that final hour, and make sure you’re at a good stopping point in Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines. It’s also unclear how this affects travel within the U.S., but you can bet it will, beginning with long lines as screeners tighten their focus. Other measures either reported or expected include the aforementioned no cabin travel for the last hour of a flight; keeping the cabin lights on for the entire trip; disabling the display of a flight’s progress in the seatback monitors offered on some planes; and generally making sure you resent the experience from check-in to baggage claim. As there are a ton of variables in play here, for U.S. flights and for those in other countries, and as plenty of folks are flying either today or tomorrow – or this time next week – returning from holiday travels, we’re opening up a comment thread here to report what you’ve seen. Especially as it relates to the use of electronic devices. Flying is such an unpleasant process these days, laptops, handhelds and DVD players have become almost indispensable for their diversionary qualities. Plus, some are still under the illusion they can get work done midair. So here, and for future reference, use the hashtags #tsa #flights or #airtravel to talk about what you’ve seen, heard or experienced. You’ll be doing your fellow flying gamers a service.

See the article here:
How Will New Rules Affect In-Flight Gaming? [Tsa]

Avatar Movie Review: The Blue Future Of Video Games [Review]

In one of the most roundabout and expensive methods in history, James Cameron’s new movie, Avatar, proposes that those of us who have honed our video game skills in the 21st century could become the world-saving diplomats of the 22nd. Avatar is the $300-million (or so) new movie from the director of Terminator and Titanic, a futuristic amalgamation of Cameron classic Aliens and Kevin Costner white-man-joins-the-Native-Americans movie Dance With Wolves. It is an American movie transparently critical of the United States of America, one that is simple in both good ways and bad. It is beautiful in ways only good, and, yes, in that roundabout way, it says something about the future of video games. The movie occurs midway through the 22nd century, as wheelchair-bound grunt Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) assumes the mission of his deceased brother, shipping out across the universe to the planet Pandora, where a private corporation has enlisted both scientists and a private military to help them obtain a nearly priceless element unironically called Unobtainium. The military forces, led by the scarred and scowling Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) itch to clear the planet’s best site for mining by blasting away the natvies who live on top of it. These natives are the tall, skinny, blue-skinned cat-like Na’vi, who live in the massive tree on that site and are the visual signature of the film. The scientists, led by Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) utilize Avatar technology, enabling Augustine, Sully and others to transport their consciousnesses into artificially-created Na’vi bodies and walk among the natives in the hopes of establishing either an economic trade or peaceful motivation for the Na’vi to move. Early in the film, Sully, in his Na’vi body, is separated from his colleagues, lost to the wild and rescued by a Na’vi chief’s daughter, Neytin (Zoe Saldana). What follows is a film about Sully’s education of life amid the Na’vi, the battles that erupt between humans and natives and a crossroads decision about who is right and with which sides the key players will align. Loved A Beautiful Place: Whether you watch Avatar in digital 3D, as I did, on IMAX or even in the plain old-school way, this is a movie of tropical-vacation beauty. It is an escape, on this planet Pandora, to an imaginative ecology of many-legged horses, helicopter bugs, hammerhead elephants and a variety of magical plant life that is so lovely that the setting alone has motivated me to try the Avatar console game, a game for which no demonstration of gameplay nor review had motivated me to play. If a video game can be my own transport back to this world, I will suffer through the reported mediocrity to see those plants and animals again. This is a dream world and the ultimate Al Gore planet, a combination of a lush green paradise and Internet-like network of natural electricity, a place to which I am eager to return. A Beautiful People: The Na’vi have been created with the reverence many North Americans now have for those tribes that lived between the Atlantic and Pacific before our ancestors and forefathers squeezed them into reservations. (Speaking of which, see our sister site, Io9, for an excellent exploration of the “white guilt” in effect here.) They are also digital marvels, an impossibly lithe but visually believable band of hunters and shamans whose every tradition, from wrangling their versions of horses and hawks to climbing their floating mountains is a thrill to watch. Neytin indoctrinates Sully into many of the aspects of Na’vi culture, nearly all of them a delight to witness. A Video-Game Simple Hero: James Cameron, ever the romantic and skeptic of corporate power, presents in Avatar a love story intermingled with a morally clear struggle between those who would spoil a paradise and those who would not. It’s seldom unclear who it is we should be rooting for, even though it is doubly awkward, watching this movie in the U.S., to realize early that the bad guys are not just the humans but those types of humans who would both violently shove native peoples from their lands but invoke a “shock and awe” military campaign in the interest of securing access to a foreign land’s natural resources. Some of that narrative simplicity is due for valid criticism, but what works well is the blankness of some of Avatar’s characters, particularly Sully himself. Avatar, more successfully than any other film I can recall, embraces the simplicity that characterizes many video games, which infrequently portray emotional depth among its protagonists. Games, I believe, do this as a means of transporting a player more smoothly into their worlds. In games as in Avatar, the lead character often feels less like a real being than like a vessel, even compared to a usually more believably fleshed-out supporting cast. The lead role is left more blank, so we might more easily see ourselves in it. So is the case in this movie, on multiple levels. If Sully’s Na’vi body is the personality-less form through which he can vicariously experience the Na’vi’s world, then his blank personality — he is, like a game character, defined more by his options for mobility (as a human only in a wheelchair, in his case) than his personality — allows him to be a vessel through which a movie viewer can vicariously experience his world. He is, as a movie lead, as blank as a gaming hero, which serves the mission of transporting consciousness into a foreign avatar well in this film, as it does in so many games, from BioShock to Zelda. War With Mech Warriors: When it’s not being an extraordinary documentary for an exotic environment that does not exist, Avatar is a war film. It’s a high-tech, special-effects battle between Na’vi and the machinery of future human war. The battles are incredible, full of natives, animals, planes, space marines and walking mech suits controlled, too, like video games, in this case with their cockpit drivers using gesture control to make their mech fire a gun or throw a punch. The battles are exhilarating, though hopefully you don’t mind rooting for human death at the hands of the natives. The 3D: I’m not sure I was cognizant of it all the time, but watching the movie in 3D appeared to add depth to Avatar’s already extraordinary visuals. This movie, as alluded to above, can feel like a vivid nature documentary and the 3D allows one to further the illusion that we’re in there. It never felt gimmicky, as the movie doesn’t waste much time trying to pretend to throw things out from the screen into your face. Hated Transparently Political: Avatar makes Titanic look subtle. Cameron’s last film was a romance, a disaster movie but also an allegory for the triumph of American self-realized ingenuity over the inherited privilege of old Europe. This movie is a guilty fantasy of Native American resistance against American occupation of the continental U.S. That’s tolerable, as is the light overlay of climate politics that admits that distant Earth, where war has been waged in oil-rich Venezuela and Nigeria, is now devoid of green. But it strains patience to listen to Avatar’s private American military commander promise a “shock and awe” campaign as he vows to “fight terror with terror.” Stopping short of naming Saddam Hussein, the anti-science, bad-guy human commander declares that “our only security is a pre-emptive attack.” I get it. But George W. Bush is not president anymore, and the equivalency of the war in Iraq with terrorism is the kind of blunt politics that I wish the makers of good science fiction would relegate to less sophisticated artists. Rushed Story: Avatar treads much ground in introducing the viewer to so many places and cultural aspects of the Na’vi people. It skips an explanation for most of its science and relies on a sci-fi approach to YouTube to explain some of its plot and characters. That’s fine, but it leads to so much that is unexplained that the movie feels hatcheted and crammed into an acceptable theatrical viewing time in advance of what I expect would be much longer director’s cut. I’m not sure added exposition will improve the movie, though I do hope it plugs a logic hole that opens up two-thirds of the way into the film, when an event occurs that strains belief and that, unless they have a better explanation for it, probably should have spelled the doom for our hero characters right then and there. Avatar is the fantasy of a new world and a revised way America could have or still can affect the old world upon which we live. It’s also a light exploration of the possibilities of gaming, of being in another body and using its form to affect others. At times, in Avatar, doing that by getting in the seat of a mechanical warrior suit, is only a means to the destructive end, a successor to today’s joystick-controlled Predator missiles and other tools of remote high-tech war. But also in Avatar there is the promise that virtually inhabiting other bodies could bring us new cultural insights, could empower us beyond our physical limitations and could enlighten us to a new way of being. These are ideas that are more ancient than video games, more spiritual than a PlayStation, but they are ideas that we gamers have at our fingertips almost every day. Our future could be blue like this, in the happiest of ways. Avatar, the movie, represents a preview of that transformational and transportive possible future. Avatar was written and directed by James Cameron and released by 20th Century Fox on December 18 in the U.S. Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ .

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Avatar Movie Review: The Blue Future Of Video Games [Review]

The FPS: Where Freedom isn’t Free [Weekend Reader]

As game designers become more like film directors, the paths they lay out for players becomes increasingly scripted and, frankly, downright restricted. Still the illusion of freedom persists in this genre. The blog One Dimensional Man deconstructs this kind of design, and comes up with another illusion – the illusion that the game isn’t linear, and how the stage may be skillfully set for that. “Pseudo non-linearity,” is the term the writer coins, and an expert example of it can be found in the opening sequences of Half-Life 2 . I agree that hamfisted mechanisms such as invisible walls sort of break the third wall, and at minimum are things working against immersion. But I’m not sure I ever felt that my freedom to explore anywhere in an FPS was part of the bargain in the first place. Hell, it’s not completely part of the bargain in an open world RPG like Fallout 3. In Grayditch, an entire town, only a few buildings have doors that may be opened. The others have the kind of locked facades the writer calls a design flaw. But we can’t have everything. The key for a designer is knowing what we can have, and then how to discourage or prevent us from needlessly pursuing what we can’t. Freedom Is Dead, And Why It Doesn’t Matter [One Dimensional Man, Dec. 17, 2009] The introduction to Half-Life 2 is a particularly useful archetype. The player (as Gordon Freeman), finds themselves trapped in the dystopian City 17, a living and breathing hell house of fascistic undertones (and a not so subtle reference to the dissolution of the Jewish ghettos in Nazi Germany). After a brief encounter with an old friend (Barney, undercover as one of the faceless Combines) it soon becomes clear that the mission is one of escape. As Gordon Freeman makes his way around the spatially imposing City 17, navigating its various alleys, back roads, and crumbling apartments, the sense of a genuine, living and breathing world is certainly palpable. Other ‘evacuees’ offer small talk, ‘Combine’ guardsman patrol the streets, while sinister public service announcements play on giant, dominating screens. The world conveys a sense of it pre-existing the player’s arrival there, which is really, for all titles that strive for immersion, one of the apogees of virtual design. What one may not be consciously aware of however as they navigate through this dystopian sprawl is that Gordon’s escape route is quite immaculately linear; an effective straight line in the figurative sense. And yet one could be entirely forgiven for thinking this virtual City as fully, spatially unfastened, naked to the whims of electronic exploration. This is due to the creative design principle of pseudo-nonlinearity. City 17 employs several techniques to psychologically re-orientate the player in this way, all operating generally around this one principle. Perhaps most psychologically effective, are the Combine guardsman who ‘dynamically’ operate to cordon off certain parts of City 17’s various stairwells and pathways as Gordon attempts his escape. They are dynamic in the sense that they allow for a passing glimpse of the virtual world outside the player’s immediate field of view, before finally forcing them back en-route (often by way of a hard whack from an electro-truncheon) to be left with only the tantalizing suggestion planted into their own imagination; that of a fluid world that only marginally pre-empts subjectivity. Simultaneously, a colossal barrier to immersion is shattered as the familiar constrictive sense of the ‘developer behind the curtain’ ruthlessly chopping and cutting parts of the world from view is countered by effectively showing the world behind that curtain – if only briefly. This is sufficient however, as in the process an illusion of freedom, or rather of non-linearity, is actively cultivated in the player’s mind; the world becomes actualized, feels more three dimensional, as the artificial barriers to exploration are, in turn, naturalized, effectively reshaped into actors of the story operating against the player. In the process, they are absolved of their essential artifice as agents of linearity. Pseudo-nonlinearity may also be achieved without the aid of such dynamic tools (which, it is worth stating, cannot always be relied upon – owing to the context of plot or narrative) and this is certainly a more common approach to environmental design that one finds. In practice, the fundamentals remain largely unchanged as the principle barrier to exploration must still undergo the same process of naturalization; that is, it must be configured so as to maintain consonance to the inherited semiotic array of both narrative and environment. For instance, in introducing an obstruction into a particular environment, the environment must also be able to passively disclose the ‘story’ of why that obstruction is present there. The closer fidelity is able to be maintained between the obstruction to individual progression and the dynamic motivation to progress (i.e. the narrative) the greater the linearity ‘deficit’ is reduced. To use a common example from modern FPS design: a wrecked car or coach laying across a road or landscape forces the player onto a different path, effectively manipulating them into the appropriate, pre-determined direction. While this form of static obstruction may appear a rather brash imposition and unconscionable artifice, this hinges upon how effectively it is naturalized in respect to its narrative and environmental arrays. By ensuring that it conforms to the animus of these two factors, its symbolic charge as both artifice and bearer of linearity can be effectively neutralized. To put it simply, the narrative should, either directly or indirectly, be able account for why the obstruction is there, while the environment (by means of inference) discloses how it got there. These two environmental operators (static and dynamic) form the basis of environmental design from the principle of pseudo non-linearity. By deploying them, developers are able to mitigate the lingering problems associated with this shift toward a narrowing of exploration in favour of greater control. Of course, the ever-critical gamer will often be able to penetrate the façade, and readily deduce the reality of linearity on display. However, awareness, or pre-awareness should not detract from the overall effect, which like a magic trick, is able to retain much of its prestige despite knowledge of this basic deception. – One Dimensional Man Weekend Reader is Kotaku’s look at the critical thinking in, and of video games. It appears Saturdays at noon. Please take the time to read the full article cited before getting involved in the debate here.

Continue reading here:
The FPS: Where Freedom isn’t Free [Weekend Reader]

The FPS: Where Freedom isn’t Free [Weekend Reader]

As game designers become more like film directors, the paths they lay out for players becomes increasingly scripted and, frankly, downright restricted. Still the illusion of freedom persists in this genre. The blog One Dimensional Man deconstructs this kind of design, and comes up with another illusion – the illusion that the game isn’t linear, and how the stage may be skillfully set for that. “Pseudo non-linearity,” is the term the writer coins, and an expert example of it can be found in the opening sequences of Half-Life 2 . I agree that hamfisted mechanisms such as invisible walls sort of break the third wall, and at minimum are things working against immersion. But I’m not sure I ever felt that my freedom to explore anywhere in an FPS was part of the bargain in the first place. Hell, it’s not completely part of the bargain in an open world RPG like Fallout 3. In Grayditch, an entire town, only a few buildings have doors that may be opened. The others have the kind of locked facades the writer calls a design flaw. But we can’t have everything. The key for a designer is knowing what we can have, and then how to discourage or prevent us from needlessly pursuing what we can’t. Freedom Is Dead, And Why It Doesn’t Matter [One Dimensional Man, Dec. 17, 2009] The introduction to Half-Life 2 is a particularly useful archetype. The player (as Gordon Freeman), finds themselves trapped in the dystopian City 17, a living and breathing hell house of fascistic undertones (and a not so subtle reference to the dissolution of the Jewish ghettos in Nazi Germany). After a brief encounter with an old friend (Barney, undercover as one of the faceless Combines) it soon becomes clear that the mission is one of escape. As Gordon Freeman makes his way around the spatially imposing City 17, navigating its various alleys, back roads, and crumbling apartments, the sense of a genuine, living and breathing world is certainly palpable. Other ‘evacuees’ offer small talk, ‘Combine’ guardsman patrol the streets, while sinister public service announcements play on giant, dominating screens. The world conveys a sense of it pre-existing the player’s arrival there, which is really, for all titles that strive for immersion, one of the apogees of virtual design. What one may not be consciously aware of however as they navigate through this dystopian sprawl is that Gordon’s escape route is quite immaculately linear; an effective straight line in the figurative sense. And yet one could be entirely forgiven for thinking this virtual City as fully, spatially unfastened, naked to the whims of electronic exploration. This is due to the creative design principle of pseudo-nonlinearity. City 17 employs several techniques to psychologically re-orientate the player in this way, all operating generally around this one principle. Perhaps most psychologically effective, are the Combine guardsman who ‘dynamically’ operate to cordon off certain parts of City 17’s various stairwells and pathways as Gordon attempts his escape. They are dynamic in the sense that they allow for a passing glimpse of the virtual world outside the player’s immediate field of view, before finally forcing them back en-route (often by way of a hard whack from an electro-truncheon) to be left with only the tantalizing suggestion planted into their own imagination; that of a fluid world that only marginally pre-empts subjectivity. Simultaneously, a colossal barrier to immersion is shattered as the familiar constrictive sense of the ‘developer behind the curtain’ ruthlessly chopping and cutting parts of the world from view is countered by effectively showing the world behind that curtain – if only briefly. This is sufficient however, as in the process an illusion of freedom, or rather of non-linearity, is actively cultivated in the player’s mind; the world becomes actualized, feels more three dimensional, as the artificial barriers to exploration are, in turn, naturalized, effectively reshaped into actors of the story operating against the player. In the process, they are absolved of their essential artifice as agents of linearity. Pseudo-nonlinearity may also be achieved without the aid of such dynamic tools (which, it is worth stating, cannot always be relied upon – owing to the context of plot or narrative) and this is certainly a more common approach to environmental design that one finds. In practice, the fundamentals remain largely unchanged as the principle barrier to exploration must still undergo the same process of naturalization; that is, it must be configured so as to maintain consonance to the inherited semiotic array of both narrative and environment. For instance, in introducing an obstruction into a particular environment, the environment must also be able to passively disclose the ‘story’ of why that obstruction is present there. The closer fidelity is able to be maintained between the obstruction to individual progression and the dynamic motivation to progress (i.e. the narrative) the greater the linearity ‘deficit’ is reduced. To use a common example from modern FPS design: a wrecked car or coach laying across a road or landscape forces the player onto a different path, effectively manipulating them into the appropriate, pre-determined direction. While this form of static obstruction may appear a rather brash imposition and unconscionable artifice, this hinges upon how effectively it is naturalized in respect to its narrative and environmental arrays. By ensuring that it conforms to the animus of these two factors, its symbolic charge as both artifice and bearer of linearity can be effectively neutralized. To put it simply, the narrative should, either directly or indirectly, be able account for why the obstruction is there, while the environment (by means of inference) discloses how it got there. These two environmental operators (static and dynamic) form the basis of environmental design from the principle of pseudo non-linearity. By deploying them, developers are able to mitigate the lingering problems associated with this shift toward a narrowing of exploration in favour of greater control. Of course, the ever-critical gamer will often be able to penetrate the façade, and readily deduce the reality of linearity on display. However, awareness, or pre-awareness should not detract from the overall effect, which like a magic trick, is able to retain much of its prestige despite knowledge of this basic deception. – One Dimensional Man Weekend Reader is Kotaku’s look at the critical thinking in, and of video games. It appears Saturdays at noon. Please take the time to read the full article cited before getting involved in the debate here.

See original here:
The FPS: Where Freedom isn’t Free [Weekend Reader]

The FPS: Where Freedom isn’t Free [Weekend Reader]

As game designers become more like film directors, the paths they lay out for players becomes increasingly scripted and, frankly, downright restricted. Still the illusion of freedom persists in this genre. The blog One Dimensional Man deconstructs this kind of design, and comes up with another illusion – the illusion that the game isn’t linear, and how the stage may be skillfully set for that. “Pseudo non-linearity,” is the term the writer coins, and an expert example of it can be found in the opening sequences of Half-Life 2 . I agree that hamfisted mechanisms such as invisible walls sort of break the third wall, and at minimum are things working against immersion. But I’m not sure I ever felt that my freedom to explore anywhere in an FPS was part of the bargain in the first place. Hell, it’s not completely part of the bargain in an open world RPG like Fallout 3. In Grayditch, an entire town, only a few buildings have doors that may be opened. The others have the kind of locked facades the writer calls a design flaw. But we can’t have everything. The key for a designer is knowing what we can have, and then how to discourage or prevent us from needlessly pursuing what we can’t. Freedom Is Dead, And Why It Doesn’t Matter [One Dimensional Man, Dec. 17, 2009] The introduction to Half-Life 2 is a particularly useful archetype. The player (as Gordon Freeman), finds themselves trapped in the dystopian City 17, a living and breathing hell house of fascistic undertones (and a not so subtle reference to the dissolution of the Jewish ghettos in Nazi Germany). After a brief encounter with an old friend (Barney, undercover as one of the faceless Combines) it soon becomes clear that the mission is one of escape. As Gordon Freeman makes his way around the spatially imposing City 17, navigating its various alleys, back roads, and crumbling apartments, the sense of a genuine, living and breathing world is certainly palpable. Other ‘evacuees’ offer small talk, ‘Combine’ guardsman patrol the streets, while sinister public service announcements play on giant, dominating screens. The world conveys a sense of it pre-existing the player’s arrival there, which is really, for all titles that strive for immersion, one of the apogees of virtual design. What one may not be consciously aware of however as they navigate through this dystopian sprawl is that Gordon’s escape route is quite immaculately linear; an effective straight line in the figurative sense. And yet one could be entirely forgiven for thinking this virtual City as fully, spatially unfastened, naked to the whims of electronic exploration. This is due to the creative design principle of pseudo-nonlinearity. City 17 employs several techniques to psychologically re-orientate the player in this way, all operating generally around this one principle. Perhaps most psychologically effective, are the Combine guardsman who ‘dynamically’ operate to cordon off certain parts of City 17’s various stairwells and pathways as Gordon attempts his escape. They are dynamic in the sense that they allow for a passing glimpse of the virtual world outside the player’s immediate field of view, before finally forcing them back en-route (often by way of a hard whack from an electro-truncheon) to be left with only the tantalizing suggestion planted into their own imagination; that of a fluid world that only marginally pre-empts subjectivity. Simultaneously, a colossal barrier to immersion is shattered as the familiar constrictive sense of the ‘developer behind the curtain’ ruthlessly chopping and cutting parts of the world from view is countered by effectively showing the world behind that curtain – if only briefly. This is sufficient however, as in the process an illusion of freedom, or rather of non-linearity, is actively cultivated in the player’s mind; the world becomes actualized, feels more three dimensional, as the artificial barriers to exploration are, in turn, naturalized, effectively reshaped into actors of the story operating against the player. In the process, they are absolved of their essential artifice as agents of linearity. Pseudo-nonlinearity may also be achieved without the aid of such dynamic tools (which, it is worth stating, cannot always be relied upon – owing to the context of plot or narrative) and this is certainly a more common approach to environmental design that one finds. In practice, the fundamentals remain largely unchanged as the principle barrier to exploration must still undergo the same process of naturalization; that is, it must be configured so as to maintain consonance to the inherited semiotic array of both narrative and environment. For instance, in introducing an obstruction into a particular environment, the environment must also be able to passively disclose the ‘story’ of why that obstruction is present there. The closer fidelity is able to be maintained between the obstruction to individual progression and the dynamic motivation to progress (i.e. the narrative) the greater the linearity ‘deficit’ is reduced. To use a common example from modern FPS design: a wrecked car or coach laying across a road or landscape forces the player onto a different path, effectively manipulating them into the appropriate, pre-determined direction. While this form of static obstruction may appear a rather brash imposition and unconscionable artifice, this hinges upon how effectively it is naturalized in respect to its narrative and environmental arrays. By ensuring that it conforms to the animus of these two factors, its symbolic charge as both artifice and bearer of linearity can be effectively neutralized. To put it simply, the narrative should, either directly or indirectly, be able account for why the obstruction is there, while the environment (by means of inference) discloses how it got there. These two environmental operators (static and dynamic) form the basis of environmental design from the principle of pseudo non-linearity. By deploying them, developers are able to mitigate the lingering problems associated with this shift toward a narrowing of exploration in favour of greater control. Of course, the ever-critical gamer will often be able to penetrate the façade, and readily deduce the reality of linearity on display. However, awareness, or pre-awareness should not detract from the overall effect, which like a magic trick, is able to retain much of its prestige despite knowledge of this basic deception. – One Dimensional Man Weekend Reader is Kotaku’s look at the critical thinking in, and of video games. It appears Saturdays at noon. Please take the time to read the full article cited before getting involved in the debate here.

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The FPS: Where Freedom isn’t Free [Weekend Reader]

The FPS: Where Freedom isn’t Free [Weekend Reader]

As game designers become more like film directors, the paths they lay out for players becomes increasingly scripted and, frankly, downright restricted. Still the illusion of freedom persists in this genre. The blog One Dimensional Man deconstructs this kind of design, and comes up with another illusion – the illusion that the game isn’t linear, and how the stage may be skillfully set for that. “Pseudo non-linearity,” is the term the writer coins, and an expert example of it can be found in the opening sequences of Half-Life 2 . I agree that hamfisted mechanisms such as invisible walls sort of break the third wall, and at minimum are things working against immersion. But I’m not sure I ever felt that my freedom to explore anywhere in an FPS was part of the bargain in the first place. Hell, it’s not completely part of the bargain in an open world RPG like Fallout 3. In Grayditch, an entire town, only a few buildings have doors that may be opened. The others have the kind of locked facades the writer calls a design flaw. But we can’t have everything. The key for a designer is knowing what we can have, and then how to discourage or prevent us from needlessly pursuing what we can’t. Freedom Is Dead, And Why It Doesn’t Matter [One Dimensional Man, Dec. 17, 2009] The introduction to Half-Life 2 is a particularly useful archetype. The player (as Gordon Freeman), finds themselves trapped in the dystopian City 17, a living and breathing hell house of fascistic undertones (and a not so subtle reference to the dissolution of the Jewish ghettos in Nazi Germany). After a brief encounter with an old friend (Barney, undercover as one of the faceless Combines) it soon becomes clear that the mission is one of escape. As Gordon Freeman makes his way around the spatially imposing City 17, navigating its various alleys, back roads, and crumbling apartments, the sense of a genuine, living and breathing world is certainly palpable. Other ‘evacuees’ offer small talk, ‘Combine’ guardsman patrol the streets, while sinister public service announcements play on giant, dominating screens. The world conveys a sense of it pre-existing the player’s arrival there, which is really, for all titles that strive for immersion, one of the apogees of virtual design. What one may not be consciously aware of however as they navigate through this dystopian sprawl is that Gordon’s escape route is quite immaculately linear; an effective straight line in the figurative sense. And yet one could be entirely forgiven for thinking this virtual City as fully, spatially unfastened, naked to the whims of electronic exploration. This is due to the creative design principle of pseudo-nonlinearity. City 17 employs several techniques to psychologically re-orientate the player in this way, all operating generally around this one principle. Perhaps most psychologically effective, are the Combine guardsman who ‘dynamically’ operate to cordon off certain parts of City 17’s various stairwells and pathways as Gordon attempts his escape. They are dynamic in the sense that they allow for a passing glimpse of the virtual world outside the player’s immediate field of view, before finally forcing them back en-route (often by way of a hard whack from an electro-truncheon) to be left with only the tantalizing suggestion planted into their own imagination; that of a fluid world that only marginally pre-empts subjectivity. Simultaneously, a colossal barrier to immersion is shattered as the familiar constrictive sense of the ‘developer behind the curtain’ ruthlessly chopping and cutting parts of the world from view is countered by effectively showing the world behind that curtain – if only briefly. This is sufficient however, as in the process an illusion of freedom, or rather of non-linearity, is actively cultivated in the player’s mind; the world becomes actualized, feels more three dimensional, as the artificial barriers to exploration are, in turn, naturalized, effectively reshaped into actors of the story operating against the player. In the process, they are absolved of their essential artifice as agents of linearity. Pseudo-nonlinearity may also be achieved without the aid of such dynamic tools (which, it is worth stating, cannot always be relied upon – owing to the context of plot or narrative) and this is certainly a more common approach to environmental design that one finds. In practice, the fundamentals remain largely unchanged as the principle barrier to exploration must still undergo the same process of naturalization; that is, it must be configured so as to maintain consonance to the inherited semiotic array of both narrative and environment. For instance, in introducing an obstruction into a particular environment, the environment must also be able to passively disclose the ‘story’ of why that obstruction is present there. The closer fidelity is able to be maintained between the obstruction to individual progression and the dynamic motivation to progress (i.e. the narrative) the greater the linearity ‘deficit’ is reduced. To use a common example from modern FPS design: a wrecked car or coach laying across a road or landscape forces the player onto a different path, effectively manipulating them into the appropriate, pre-determined direction. While this form of static obstruction may appear a rather brash imposition and unconscionable artifice, this hinges upon how effectively it is naturalized in respect to its narrative and environmental arrays. By ensuring that it conforms to the animus of these two factors, its symbolic charge as both artifice and bearer of linearity can be effectively neutralized. To put it simply, the narrative should, either directly or indirectly, be able account for why the obstruction is there, while the environment (by means of inference) discloses how it got there. These two environmental operators (static and dynamic) form the basis of environmental design from the principle of pseudo non-linearity. By deploying them, developers are able to mitigate the lingering problems associated with this shift toward a narrowing of exploration in favour of greater control. Of course, the ever-critical gamer will often be able to penetrate the façade, and readily deduce the reality of linearity on display. However, awareness, or pre-awareness should not detract from the overall effect, which like a magic trick, is able to retain much of its prestige despite knowledge of this basic deception. – One Dimensional Man Weekend Reader is Kotaku’s look at the critical thinking in, and of video games. It appears Saturdays at noon. Please take the time to read the full article cited before getting involved in the debate here.

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The FPS: Where Freedom isn’t Free [Weekend Reader]

2010: The Year Of Better Wii Games? [Wii]

The Wii had a good 2009, thanks to the arrival of Nintendo fan-pleasing releases like Punch-Out!! and New Super Mario Bros. Wii. But 2010 should one-up this year’s showing thanks to Nintendo and third-party publishers. 2010 may get off to a slower start—and we may only get to sample the next Legend of Zelda game for the Wii with our eyes, not our hands—but with a new Metroid, a new Mario and Epic Mickey coming, the rest of the year may be remembered as one with too many good Wii games. Or at least one with variety, interesting third-party support and the year that the Wii Vitality Sensor was released to rave reviews and mind-blowing sales. At the very least, we expect these important Wii games (and Wii Remote add-ons) to make 2010 a better year for Nintendo’s platform than the previous one. Let’s begin… Note: We’ll be looking at every platform’s currently announced and estimated 2010 slate over the course of the rest of the week—and much much more . Metroid: Other M Nintendo and Team Ninja give the Wii its first all-original Metroid game and the freshest since 2007’s Metroid Prime 3, blending side-scrolling action with first-person adventuring. Or is that side-scrolling adventuring and first-person action? It’s penciled in for a 2010 release. Epic Mickey Warren Spector’s dark, spectacular looking adventure could give the Wii the finest Mickey Mouse game since Castle of Illusion, no small feat. Super Mario Galaxy 2 Nintendo turns around a proper Mario sequel with surprising speed, promising a more challenging galactic Mario adventure, now with more Yoshi and a tentative 2010 release date. Red Steel 2 The Wii MotionPlus may get its “killer app,” with Ubisoft’s first-person shooter/slasher combining old west aesthetic with ninja killing. Red Steel 2 should lead a longer list of mature-targeted “core” titles in ‘10. Sin & Punishment 2 Cult favorite Treasure churns out a sequel to the Nintendo 64 classic shooter, a title aimed squarely at the hardcore fan. Will the Wii audience respond? They better, or they truly deserve punishment. Arc Rise Fantasia The Wii gets a dose of traditional fantasy turn-based RPG action, courtesy of Luminous Arc developers imageepoch, a relatively young studio with a solid pedigree. Cave Story The highly anticipated WiiWare version of the freeware PC adventure game was supposed to have been released by now, but we hope the remake will actually make it’s way to the Wii Shopping Channel in 2010. Endless Ocean: Blue World The sequel to Nintendo’s serene underwater adventure hits in the first quarter of 2010, far away from the Nintendo titles we expect to make a much bigger splash. Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon Post-apocalyptic, yes, but Tri-Crescendo’s role-playing game does not feature much in the way of zombies or nuclear wastelands. Instead, expect adventure, puzzle solving and the use of your Wii Remote as a flashlight. Gladiator A.D. High-Voltage, developer of first-person shooter The Conduit, tries its hand at an ancient Roman fighting game. The developer knows how to get peak performance out of the Wii, keeping Gladiator A.D. on our radar. LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 It’s LEGO plus Harry Potter plus Wii. We expect this LEGO adventure game to be like its ancestors: good, but now with more Quidditch. Line Attack Heroes Frankly, we’re not sure what Nintendo’s plans for Line Attack Heroes are, since the company has been silent about it since E3. Maybe the publisher is working a new name for the multiplayer action game. Or at least we hope. Monado: Beginning of the World Monolith Soft’s original role-playing game will likely hit North America before the developer’s Disaster: Day of Crisis. With Baten Kaitos and Xenosaga under their belts, Monado should be on the radar of any Wii owning RPG fan. Monster Hunter Tri Capcom tries to wrangle monster hunting success in the West with the release of the newest Monster Hunter, the action adventure hit that will give you a reason to dust off your Wii Speak microphone. No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle Grasshopper Manufacture sends Travis Touchdown back out to the field for the follow up to the quirky, bloody No More Heroes. Improvements abound, hopefully with Wii MotionPlus support included. Span Smasher Like Line Attack Heroes, Nintendo has been mum on Span Smasher since E3. Players will control the titular Smasher and smash things, a smashing concept from developers Artoon. Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars Capcom’s arcade fighting game comes to the Wii, with a slightly different cast of characters from animation company Tatsunoko and fighting game experts Capcom. The 3D meets 2D brawler features a more simplified fighting system and a potpourri of contestants. The Grinder High Voltage software’s other Wii game planned for 2010 puts tons of enemies on screen, then lets the player kill them. With guns. Tower of Shadow This gorgeous looking puzzle-platformer should be coming to WiiWare sooner before later. Keep an eye out for it. Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll Sega puts the Wii Balance Board to banana grabbing use, asking great balance and patience of Wii owners’ calves to help guide Mimi, Baby, AiAi and GonGon to monkey ball rolling safety. Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing Sega brings its many characters together from franchises as unique as Shenmue, Sonic the Hedgehog and Samba de Amigo, then puts then in karts. They race. Wii Vitality Sensor We’re not sure what to make of Nintendo’s Wii Vitality Sensor add-on, but the E3 announced device could open up new gameplay opportunities for Wii games. That, or we’ll have something new into which we can stick our fingers. And that’s great!

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2010: The Year Of Better Wii Games? [Wii]

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