Picked-up pieces

(Update: Welcome, Slate Gaming Club readers! Scroll down for the bit about Gears of War 2 and Contra.)

Because you can't make fun of defenseless kids all the time, enjoy some scattered musings.

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All you need to know about why Rock Band is better than Guitar Hero can be summed up in five words: "Mission of Burma track pack."

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Which of these is the best joke:

"I can't believe I missed the first three Left Dead games!"

Or: "I can't believe I missed Left 1-3 Dead!"

Or: "Will I know what's going on in Left 4 Dead if I never played Left 3 Dead?"

Or are they all failures? (All based, by the way, on somebody I knew in college who saw a commercial for Cradle 2 the Grave, starring DMX, and said, "I didn't know they made a Cradle the Grave 1!")

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Last weekend I played Call of Duty 4 online for the first time in my life. Within 20 minutes of my joining, someone had called somebody else a "fucking little bitch" en route to mocking him non-stop for the remainder of my time in the game. Sometimes I think I unfairly generalize about the level of discourse in multiplayer video games. Then I, you know, play multiplayer video games.

Sub-musing: Why should it even bother me when a stranger cusses out another stranger during a game? I don't know. But it does.

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I never realized the extent to which games these days are just rip-offs of older games. It was suggested to me that a sequence near the end of BioShock, in which you assemble the pieces of a Big Daddy suit, was directly influenced by the plot of Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest, in which Simon gathered Dracula's body parts in order to put him back together and then destroy him once and for all. Who would have guessed?

Gears of War 2 doesn't even hide its influences. There's an entire sequence that's basically the last level of Contra. It's not just that your squad gets swallowed by a giant worm and has to fight its way out. You have to avoid giant chomping teeth, kind of like this:

Arachnoid parasites leap from the ground and scurry toward you, just like this:

At the end, you must destroy the creature's heart, which bears more than a passing resemblance to this:

The big difference, of course, is that in Contra you were never in danger of drowning in a quickly rising pool of arterial blood. Lack of technology -- or failure of imagination?

(Thanks to this dude for taking so many great Contra screenshots, which I stole with glee.)

True confessions

Random thoughts while trying to figure out why the blogging muse has taken a sabbatical:

-The more I hear the advance buzz about Metal Gear Solid 4, the less I want to play it. Pre-release 10/10s and "game of the year" accolades have become a warning sign. I don't care how good it ends up being, when I'm sitting through a 60-minute cutscene, I'll be thinking: "Is this the game of the decade, like GamePro said?"

-I haven't played Grand Theft Auto IV since filing my review. That would seem to undercut the basis for giving it a 9.0.

-The thought of playing games online with strangers makes me nervous. I try my best to avoid it.

-For all the smart things Nintendo has done in the past few years, I can't figure out why they don't price Wii points on a sliding scale. It's ten bucks for 1,000, twenty bucks for 2,000, thirty bucks for 3,000, and so on. I have 200 points sitting around, and I needed 1,000 to get LostWinds. The game costs 1,000 points. I would like to take advantage of that remaining 200 somehow. If I could have gotten 2,000 points at even a slight discount -- say, $18 -- I probably would have. But there's no incentive to pay more. What are they thinking? They're handicapping their own revenues here, which is not something Nintendo usually likes to do.

-I think if you read between the lines of most of the reviews I write, you won't learn whether the game is good or not. You'll learn whether I was good at it or not.

-I scored Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin too low (8.0).

-I scored Manhunt 2 too high (1.5).

-Sometimes I wonder if I should hold shorter, downloadable games to different standards. Then I remember Portal.

-Which is the most aggravating to follow: video games, politics, or sports? They all come with so many douchebags.

He's totally in my face!

I've gone back and forth about whether I should opine about that Duke Nukem Forever teaser. On one hand, what is there to say about it? DNF the biggest joke in videogame history, and the release of a minute-long video that doesn't seem to show any gameplay hardly inspires confidence. But there was one major difference between my reaction to this teaser and to previous Duke news: I've completely lost interest.

I don't mean I've lost interest in the game itself, because that ship sailed long ago. I mean the character himself is dead to me. Time has clearly passed Duke Nukem by. It's a little hard to watch. This video is a reminder that Duke is a relic from an era in which "attitude" was everything, and games really were nothing more than masturbatory macho fantasies. (Okay, I'm generalizing a bit.) Bruce Willis makeover or no, Duke Nukem is basically Poochie the Dog at this point.

Really, what response was 3D Realms expecting from this video? "Whoa, Duke is working out and smoking a cigar at the same time? He just doesn't give a fuck!" It's embarrassing. The line at the end about dropping bricks in an alien toilet only seals the deal. Poop jokes? Really? We're on poop jokes in the year 2007?

This guy doesn't care whose toes he steps on!

What's wrong with Guitar Hero III?

Chris Dahlen has a theory:

If you rock hard enough to score an encore, you notice that the crowd is roaring, and then you look over the fence and you see – a cop car! Someone called the cops! Except they’re clapping too! You’re such a hit that even the police don’t have the heart to stop the show. The long-fought war between the pigs and the kids has finally ended. This was the first in a series of wrong notes that left me with a clammy, phony feeling by the end of the career mode...

...Guitar Hero III has no message, no heart, and no edge. It doesn’t make knowing winks about old Boston rock clubs or out-of-town gig traditions; it’s more like a fratboy yell.

I think he's right, although it's not something I ever much thought about. The first Guitar Hero was the indie breakthrough -- a lean, mean labor of love developed in a short time on hardly any budget. Guitar Hero II was like Nevermind -- the shot across the cultural bow that announced the arrival of a major player.

Guitar Hero III? It's bloated, 1977-era Led Zeppelin, buckling under its own weight.

The largesse that allowed Activision to secure so many ostensibly better songs for the series' third installment also, paradoxically, led to the drop in quality. The concern was securing "cool" music and arranging the set lists accordingly, which is why the note charts vary so wildly in quality and difficulty. This was never the case when Harmonix made the game. Their goal was to make you feel like you were playing the song, and if the song was difficult, so be it.

Neversoft seems to have used a different approach. The difficulty isn't grounded in anything organic, and feels arbitrary. There's still a lot in the game for people to like, as evidenced by its massive popularity, but there's no question it's a departure. What happened to Guitar Hero, man? It used to be about the music!

The Year in Review: Best of the Blog

All this week, we'll be recapping the year that was. First up: the best of Insult Swordfighting, 2007.

January: I discovered that Castlevania might just be the best video game series of all time, which permanently shook the foundations upon which my perceptions of reality are based.

March: In response to a Destructoid post called "Why Video Game Reviews Suck," I blamed scoring systems as the reason game reviews suck. Which may not necessarily be true -- it may simply be that people put too much weight on the score and not enough on the content of the review.

April: After spending a little time with the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II, I proceeded to bitch about it. I later determined I had been wrong about everything, and it's just about the greatest thing in the world. (I didn't even realize there were USB ports on the front of the console, but, in my defense, the instruction manual didn't say anything about it.) You even get used to the jagged contour of the X-plorer pretty quickly.

May: While revisiting the awesome 2001 Duke Nukem Forever trailer, I also came across a mind-blowing 2007 trailer that was, for whatever reason, not given adequate press coverage.

June: Manhunt 2 is delayed after big box stores like Target and Wal Mart refuse to sell it. I decry this creeping fascism. Later, after I play the game, I find myself wishing the game were not just banned, but that all existing copies were paved over in the desert next to all those Atari 2600 E.T. cartridges.

August: Accusations of racism in Resident Evil 5 unleash a torrent of actual racism, not to mention sexism, on gaming blogs and message boards across the interweb. I cannot resist throwing a few haymakers. Also in August: a review of the terrific documentary King of Kong, and much about BioShock.

September: Completing Guitar Hero II on hard mode leads to a rumination on the balance between hardcore gameplay and shorter, more "casual" play sessions.

October: Continuing in that vein, thoughts on the episodic model hitting the sweet spot for those who want the hardcore experience but don't have hardcore free time. Also in October: They're playing Halo in church, and the birth of Gamestop.com user-submitted previews.

November: Having now found our theme, and spurred on by a N'Gai Croal post, we also start to question how the definition of value might differ from one person to the next, particularly for the "hardcasual" gamer. Also in November: GameTrailers.com is terrible, Mass Effect stinks, Rock Band is awesome, and Gerstmann gets the boot.

December: Recapping December probably isn't necessary, huh.

Later this week: the best and worst games of 2007, honorable mentions, and year-end superlatives.

Recommended reading

Several smarty-pants writers have convened over at Slate to have a highbrow discussion about the year in games. N'Gai Croal, Stephen Totilo, Chris Suellentrop, and Seth Schiesel are participating in the inaugural year-end "Gaming Club," and if you've been looking for some deeper criticism than where a game plots along the graphics-sound-control axes, it's the place to be. It also provides Totilo another venue in which to advocate for Desktop Tower Defense.

On the Totilo front, I have only recently begun to read the MTV Multiplayer blog, and I like it a lot. It's a group blog that follows the Kotaku/Joystiq/Destructoid formula, but -- how to put this -- is interesting to read. They're currently running a series about women in games that I highly recommend.

One of the dark secrets of the game playing community is the way the prototypical male player really does seem to jealously guard his hobby. It's not exactly a "no girls allowed" club, but any woman in the industry, from Jade Raymond back to Killcreek, is always judged as much by her looks as what she produces. Most men don't have to deal with this. When Jack Tretton says something idiotic about the PS3, the reaction may be rude and crude, but the criticism is aimed squarely at the content of his comments -- not his hair, fashion choices, or inherent frailty. (Cliff Bleszinski is the exception that hilariously proves the rule.)

As always, the solution isn't to preach or moralize, but to provide a dialogue just as MTV Multiplayer is doing. Good stuff.

Like nothing you've ever seen before

You could make a decent argument for the PlayStation 3 at this point. There's a handful of good games in the library, including Ratchet and Clank, Uncharted, and Resistance (even MotorStorm is a better bet since they actually, you know, finished it). $399 is a reasonable enough price considering you also get the Blu Ray player and a free copy of Spider-Man 3. The Xbox 360 is still probably the best choice for most people, but it's no longer a no-brainer (plus, as great as Xbox Live is, not having to pay $50 a year for online play is nice, too).

Not sure how to feel about Sony's latest commercial, though. The current ad campaign has been doing a good job of showcasing the PS3's games, and nothing but the games. Last night I saw one that featured such highly available titles as Burnout Paradise and Metal Gear Solid 4. No, it's not dishonest to advertise a system on the basis of what will eventually be available. But overpromising and underdelivering has been Sony's M.O. with this system since it was announced, and every time you think they've learned their lesson they prove you wrong. Why not focus on what's available now? There's something I want to tell them. Something about birds, hands, and bushes. Can't quite recall it just this second.

In good company

Here's a silly end-of-the-week post. Game|Life ran a bunch of gaming blogs through a readibility tool and posted the results. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most scored at the "junior high level," meaning you need at least a junior high education to understand them. Both Ars Technica and N'Gai Croal's Level Up scored "genius," which must make them feel good.

Insult Swordfighting scored at the "college" level, equal to powerhouse blog Joystiq. I guess I'll take it, even if I haven't blogrolled them yet.

Sometimes it is that simple

Gamasutra is running an excerpt from the book Inside Game Design that features an interview with Guitar Hero dev Rob Kay. There's a lot of interesting stuff there for people who want to know how games are made, but I thought the most interesting part was this almost throwaway bit about Guitar Hero's appeal:

It was pretty fun; the controller really was the kind of magic sauce for what we wanted to do. It's very difficult to make games attractive and accessible, and I'm sure that 90% of what draws people into Guitar Hero is that plastic guitar. They instantly say, "I get it! I pretend to be a guitarist!"

Obviously this is much like what Nintendo was getting at with the Wii, but it can be easy to forget that when non-gamers look at somebody playing a game, they don't see those virtual worlds we get lost in, or the infinite calculations passed back and forth between our brains and the system's. They see some guy holding a remote control and staring into space.

N'Gai speak

You listen.

Since the Gerstmann thing broke, I've been waiting for Mr. Croal to weigh in, as he is so often the most measured and reasonable voice on these matters. Alas, he had seemed to turn his attention to more empirical matters like the Activision-Vivendi merger, which is part of what makes him a real journalist. It is why I respect and fear him in equal measure. But now he does have something to say about the relationship between publicists and media, and as usual it's a doozy.

You stay classy, Eidos

On the heels of the Gamespot controversy, now comes word that Eidos is fabricating review quotes in ads for Kane and Lynch. Actually, fabricating is the wrong word. I'm not sure I have a problem with publishers excerpting preview copy in their ads. Those quotes are barely taken out of context, even if they are talking about an early build of the game. If this practice bothers game critics, perhaps the solution is to stop publishing such fawning previews.

What does bother me is the company slapping fake ratings on there. I can't see any justification for that. But you know, for all the sturm und drang in Blogistan about conflicts of interest in game publications, the same thing happens in Hollywood. Even Earl Dittman hasn't killed the movie industry.

They grow up so fast

Hard to believe it's been a year to the day since I acquired a Wii.

Harder still to believe that they're still going for twice market value on eBay.

Define irony:

Dave Jaffe, lead designer of God of War, bitching about the difficulty of an action-adventure game.

People believe what they want to believe

Since it's "late to the party" day here at Insult Swordfighting, I may as well mention the Jeff Gerstmann/Gamespot/Eidos flap. Briefly, Gerstmann was let go from Gamespot after something like a decade of service, and sources within the company are saying it's because he panned Kane and Lynch: Dead Men, a game that was heavily advertised on the site.

The problem with a controversy like this is that people already believe what they want to believe, and everyone's going to say what they're supposed to say. Unnamed sources will swear up and down that Gerstmann was sacrificed on the altar of ad revenue. And they have. Executives at C-net (Gamespot's parent company) will say that he was fired for reasons unrelated to his Kane and Lynch review. And they have. People who already thought enthusiast publications were corrupt will claim vindication. And they have. I don't know if it's worth discussing until somebody who is willing to be named steps forward with actual information. Otherwise, it's just rumors and speculation. And even if Gerstmann himself comes out and says he was fired to please Eidos, he'd hardly be an objective source.

I will say this: Gerstmann did not pan the game. He gave it a 6.0, which his own site defines as "fair." And if the issue is his tone, as some have suggested, then it's certainly not evident in the review itself. It reads as objective and fair, criticizing what doesn't work and praising what does. It's hard to imagine what else Gerstmann was supposed to do. I'm not a habitual reader of Gamespot, so I can't say anything about the rest of his body of work.

The accusations being levied at C-net are powerful ones, and that means that we have a responsibility to make sure we have proof before accepting them as fact. If they are true, it's a chilling indictment of Gamespot, particularly considering that it has a reputation for being tougher than many sites. I'm not sure how many people count on the big sites for game recommendations in the age of blogs and message boards, truthfully. Probably fewer people today than yesterday.

Note to reviewers: It's broke. Please fix it.

Apologies if this stuff is only entertaining to me, although I'm starting to suspect that it's also amusing to the Metacritic editors. I was poking around for more examples of GameTrailers.com's grammatical pratfalls -- and they are legion -- when I encountered the best example yet of lazy clichés multiplying like Tribbles. The game is Guitar Hero III.

GameTrailers.com gives it an 85, and writes:

Guitar Hero III abides to the "If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it" approach by sticking to the tried-and-true formula established in the first game and honed in the second.

In the very next excerpt, also an 85, Electronic Gaming Monthly writes:

The "ain’t broke, don’t fix" approach is evident.

As is the "short deadline, tired critic" approach.

Not to rip off Magical Wasteland or anything

I was just reading the Metacritic page for Assassin's Creed and came across this gem from GameTrailers.com, which was also flagged a couple weeks ago by Magical Wasteland:

The first half of Assassin’s Creed is a truly clairvoyant experience. You’ve never played anything like it. The sagacious story, incalculable crowd interaction, and unprecedented freedom to traverse the environment how you choose are landmark moments. Over time, repetition rears its ugly head, combat becomes a necessary routine, and dimwitted foes snatch you out of the third crusade and remind you that you’re playing a game. The potential here is undeniable, but there’s been some dust swept under the rug that places a blemish on an otherwise beautiful piece of art.

I cannot even fathom what the author meant by calling it a "clairvoyant experience." Perhaps Assassin's Creed was reading his mind -- sort of a modern Taboo: The Sixth Sense. Also, "sagacious story?" "Incalculable crowd interaction?" I do not think these words mean what the author thinks they mean.

On the cliché tip, check out these consecutive sentences: "A confrontation ensues and Altair ends up on the short end of the stick. Returning to his master with his tail between his legs..."

No wonder there's no byline.

The culprit

A site called Magical Wasteland takes a look at Mass Effect and determines that most of its problems probably stem from a hard ship date -- meaning that the game wasn't necessarily done, but BioWare was committed to a November 20 release. It's a fascinating, measured look at the compromises that often must be made in order to put a product on the shelves (and of course the writer loved the game, despite the problems he elucidates). A few of the writer's observations:

There is no loot other than finding more weapons, and these automatically get better (in a completely linear progression: Assault Rifle I, Assault Rifle II, and so on) as you advance. Because they’re the only thing you can find, you’ll soon have piles of pistols and shotguns, which you can sell for cash to buy– what? The only thing you can buy is more weapons.

Not to mention that you can only carry a limited number of these items, but the game doesn't tell you that. Nor does it tell you how close you are to the limit. So all you can do is sell them, or melt them down into omni-gel.

One of the first things noticeable in Mass Effect is the tremendous amount of texture-popping that goes on as the player enters new areas. Occasionally, even just running from place to place results in a loading message appearing while the disc spins wildly inside. It’s clear that the popping wasn’t something the artists knew in advance to work around, since there are often shots in cutscenes that don’t even last as long as it takes for the texture to pop in: by the time the texture has actually loaded, the camera isn’t even on the object any longer.

This last part really bothered me, even though in theory it's the sort of thing that shouldn't matter. Quite often, a camera angle will shift during a conversation or cutscene and a character will be smooth and featureless, and then suddenly his face will "pop" onto his head. For a game that is so largely driven by conversation and story elements, this is distracting. Like so much of what happens in Mass Effect, it's like a developer shouting at you, "Hey! Don't forget you're just playing a game!"

Playing normally, I got stuck on geometry several times, with no way out but to reload an earlier save. I flipped my supposedly un-flippable Mako vehicle. A step that I had not yet taken was registered as completed in my quest log. None of these bugs severely impacted my ability to enjoy the game, but they do affect the "fit and finish" of the final product.

And here, again, is where I seem to depart from most other people who've played Mass Effect. These things do affect my ability to enjoy the game. I want to get lost in the game. I want to forget I'm even holding a controller. Mass Effect does not allow for that possibility.

There's one other point that this article raises, as well. Given that Mass Effect wasn't even finished when it went gold, it casts some serious doubts on the early reviews. Game Informer magazine, in particular, ran an extremely early review that scored the game a 9.75 -- while still making excuses for patchy AI and a terrible interface.

My question is, what was Game Informer reviewing? The Mass Effect in front of them, or the Mass Effect they expected to arrive in stores months later? Were they willing to overlook certain problems to secure the exclusive? Were they willing to furnish a certain minimum score? Do I have any evidence for these assertions? Is that why I'm writing them in an annoying "could it be" style, allowing me to make inflammatory accusations without taking responsibility for them?

The answer to that question, at least, is yes.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here!

First, I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving.

Second, I have never felt more out of step with the public than I do with Mass Effect. The full review will be posted next week, but for now I want to make a couple of observations -- with the help, as always, of Metacritic.

Planet Xbox gave this game a 98, while noting:

Other than the AI issues, graphical glitches, and insanely confusing equipment screen Mass Effect is the perfect video game.

Oh, other than that. How often do you even have to contend with AI, graphics, or the equipment screen? Just, oh, every ten seconds or so. The perfect video game!

A site called Gamer 2.0, scoring Mass Effect a 92, has this caveat:

It may be difficult for some to overlook the new combat system, but once you get a grip on it, and look past the shoddy vehicular combat, you’ll find a game worthy purchasing.

So if you're willing to look past, er, a gigantic component of the game that is horribly and irretrievably broken, you'll find a game "worthy purchasing" [???]. And this excerpt doesn't even mention the menus!

Da Gameboyz [???] observe:

But in the end it really is the gameplay and story that counts here, and Bioware has wonderfully combined both in such a way that any of the minor complaints can be ignored.

The thing about minor complaints is that when there are so many things to complain about, as in Mass Effect, they stop seeming so minor. It's like death by paper cut. How can you enjoy the story when it's such a chore to get from plot point to plot point?

The excerpt from Hardcore Gamer Magazine most accurately captures my feelings, although again their review is largely positive (an 80):

As it is, it's merely very good on several different levels, and is more or less a must-play for RPG fans. It will drive shooter fans completely up the wall, though.

Up the wall and out through the ceiling.

Maybe it's time for some new clichés

Metacritic is an invaluable resource. Even if we agree that game scores are generally inflated, aggregate scores provide an accurate way to compare different games. A ten-point difference in a Metacritic score is definitive and often correct -- consider a score of 89 for Ratchet and Clank Future, and 79 for Heavenly Sword. Will anyone argue that those should be reversed?

There's just one problem. I don't know how painstakingly the Metacritic experts choose their excerpts for each game, but they tend to reflect horribly on game criticism in general. Here's the excerpt from Gametap's review of Ratchet and Clank Future:

It's rare that a game critic feels the way I do about this game, but in all honesty, I find it really difficult to find something that's not to like. The controls feel great. The graphics look great. The score sounds great. The weapon selection alone make me want to play the game over and over again, just to test out all the cool offered.

You've got the useless appeal to authority (Really? A game critic feels this way? Wow!), repetition of a fairly meaningless accolade, and, to top it all off, the grammatical abortion in the last clause. "Cool" is not now and has never been a noun. This stuff wouldn't pass muster in a high-school essay class. Maybe the full review is better; I didn't click through to see.

We're all guilty of employing clichés now and then. It can be unavoidable when you're on deadline. But it's rare that you see two reviewers employ the same cliché to make opposite points about the same game. It happened in the reviews for Uncharted. IGN's review, good for a Metacritic score of 91, declares that "The final sum is far greater than the individual parts." But EGM, doling out a pitiful 85, ruefully admits that "Everything's fun and exhilarating, but it never builds to more than the sum of its parts."

Hilarious, yes, but it speaks to the utility of the site that even such disagreements still contribute to the conclusion that Uncharted is a pretty good game. That's what I like about Metacritic: it's the sum of its parts.

Still interested in BlackSite

Wired's Clive Thompson takes a brief look at BlackSite: Area 51. I've been interested in the game for awhile, but it's going to be drowned out by the season's heavy hitters. It's too bad -- I'd like to support the team that made it. There really should be more games that are politically aware, even if the allusions are as blunt as Thompson makes them sound. But games have to be fun, too, and on that score it doesn't sound like BlackSite fares too well.