Dear Valve Software,
Please stop saving me money on games.
Seriously. Stop it.
It's weird really, because when Steam was first released, it was difficult to find someone who was more opposed to the entire concept than me. I liked having the physical copies of my games, I thought that having to download games was bothersome and took way too long, and I hated the fact that I had to be online to play my offline single-player games.
Man, how times have changed.
These days, if it's a PC game and it's not on Steam, I probably won't buy it. All of the old physical copies of games that I loved so much are now backed up on my hard drive. The physical disks gather dust in my closet. I believe that the last boxed PC game that I bought from a store was Fallout 3 (more than two years ago), and I have no idea what the last one before that was. The time spent downloading is still annoying, but for big releases, I'm able to preload the game in order to play it the second it's released. And I don't even have to leave my house! Being online to play my games is no longer an issue for two reasons: first, I am almost never without an internet connection, and second, if I am without an internet connection, Steam has a fully functional offline mode. Steam is wonderful, Steam is simple, and Steam saves me money on games.
Stop it.
I do not need to be spending $90 for a pack that contains every Star Wars game since 1995. Deus Ex: Invisible War was not that good. I do not need to spend $10 on a digital copy just in case I ever want to play it again. I do not need a $5 copy of every new innovative indie game (of which there seem to be hundreds). And for God's sake, I do not have the reserve capital to keep up with your ridiculous sales.
How do you people make money? Honestly. Today on Steam, you can get Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, a game with a Metacritic score of 93%, which cost a full $50 when it was released in 2003, and is to this day one of the finest RPGs ever made, for a meager $2.49. That's ten gumballs from a gumball machine. That's less than half the price of a ticket to a movie. A Big Mac from McDonald's costs more than one of the best games ever. Of course I'm going to buy it.
You can't pass up on deals like that. It's almost unethical to pass up a deal like that. But that's where I get into trouble. Because all of those $2, $5, and $10 purchases add up. I frequently find myself not being able to afford the big blockbuster games because I couldn't pass up the deal on the Space Quest collection. In addition, I don't buy a lot of the big blockbuster games when they come out because I know they'll go on sale at some point. I'm pretty sure I'm the only gamer I know that hasn't played Call of Duty: Black Ops yet because it's still $60 on Steam.
It's relentless too. Just two weeks ago, Steam had a great deal called The Great Steam Treasure Hunt. Every two days there were four new challenges that could be completed through Steam. One usually had to do with something within the program itself, (like have ten friends in the Steam community), one was usually for a blockbuster game (like recruit a companion in Fallout: New Vegas), and the other two were usually for indie games (like get a score of at least 3,770,488 in Beat Hazard). All of the games associated with the challenges were on sale, and every time you completed a challenge, you got one more entry in the raffle. Every two days, Steam gave away five games (the top five games on their wishlists) to twenty people. This went on for two weeks, so a 140 people got five free games. Not terrible odds.
It was fun too. I went in knowing I probably wasn't going to win anything (I didn't), but still did my best to complete as many challenges I could. Of the 28 challenges, I completed 16, and tried out a bunch of great games in the process, some of which I otherwise never would have tried (except Just Cause 2. I did not like that game. It was not worth the $7.50 I paid for it). In the end, I played quite a few new games for the price of one. Not too shabby.
The day the Great Steam Treasure Hunt ended, a new Steam sale started. This time, every day there were thirteen new deals, and for the whole month most of the publisher game bundles were anywhere from 55% to 88% off. The Square Enix/Eidos Complete Pack contains 35 games plus DLC worth a little over $700. Usually, the pack on Steam costs $606. Until January 2, you can get the The Square Enix/Eidos Complete Pack for $75. Again, you can't pass that up. In addition, there's also the eleven indie packs each for $5 that contain 5 games. That's a dollar per game. Right now, you could be playing VVVVVV (which I highly recommend) for the same price as a taco from Taco Bell.
And when you think about it that way, sure. Go ahead. Buy it. Heck, buy all eleven packs, but oops! Now you've spend $55 on 55 indie games that you're never going to play, and you still haven't played Call of Duty: Black Ops.
Argh!
Valve, you have proven to me that you are the master and I am your slave. You do not need to prove it any longer. Please release me from this agony. Please don't make me do stupid things like buy Neverwinter Nights 2 for $10. Please stop saving me money on games.
Sincerely,
Alex Ingraham
P.S. The money that you have made off of me alone should be enough for a new Half-Life game. I'm still waiting, you know.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Stranger in a Strange Land
In July of 2000, PC Gamer, in place of their monthly demo disk, released a CD-ROM containing thirteen classic games from the late eighties and early nineties. Many of the games were not new to me. I had already fallen in love with The Secret of Monkey Island and King's Quest, I had watched my brother play through quite a bit of Descent, and Terminal Velocity was really pretty much the same thing as Fury3. However, there were three games on that disc that I would say truly changed my perspective on gaming: X-COM: UFO Defense, Duke Nukem II, and Ultima I.
I would love to talk about X-COM and Duke Nukem and how they shaped how I think about games today, but that's not what this post is about. This post is about Ultima.
Ultima was not the first Western RPG I ever played. In fact, as I mentioned before, I was pretty well-versed in games by that time. Monkey Island had taught me that video games could make me laugh, Final Fantasy VII had taught me that video games could make me cry, but it wasn't until Ultima that I felt like it impacted me. Before, games were stories about other people, and while I was certainly immersed in some of them, I never felt like I was part of the world. Ultima had this huge world to explore with so many things to see and do. You could steal, and fight, and explore, and go to space, and go back in time, and cast magic, and save princesses, and it all felt like it was something that you were doing. I never referred to The Stranger in third-person. I was the Stranger.
The reason I bring this up is that last Tuesday, I saw Richard Garriott (Lord British; The creator of the Ultima series) speak on a panel called The New World of Gaming hosted by the Rice Alliance at UT. Now, it's been a pretty crazy couple of weeks for me, since the Tuesday before last I saw Neil Gaiman, Adam Savage, Paul and Storm, and the Red vs. Blue guys at W00tstock 2.9, and this weekend I'm going to get to see Billy Dee Williams, Adam West, and Lou Ferrigno at Austin Comic Con [Note: This post was written before I went to Comic-Con, which I can now say was totally awesome.]. However, I have to say that getting a chance to see Lord British in person really takes the cake.
But I really had no idea what I was signing up for.
I went with two friends, neither of whom had played Ultima, but were interested enough to go. They both wore polo shirts and at least semi-nice pants. I wore an over-sized Playstation 3 T-Shirt and a pair of dirty black jeans. For some reason, I thought I would be the one to fit in more. The first thing that we noticed upon arriving was just how many old people there were. Now, granted, Ultima I came out thirty years ago, but even then, the age gap didn't work out. Most of them were also wearing suits. I also found it strange that they would give us vouchers for two free drinks at the bar, though I certainly didn't mind. There was also a buffet included with the price of the ticket ($10 at the door) that had a rather impressive assortment of things to munch on. The vegetable wantons were quite tasty and there were some sort of Italian-fried-cheese-somethings that were absolutely delicious. It was actually while I was eating that I heard a very loud voice directly behind me talking about NASA and space exploration. I didn't really need to turn around to verify that it was, in fact, Lord British standing no more than two feet away from me, but I did anyway.
It was surreal.
Richard Garriott's was the first name I ever heard connected to gaming. He's really an icon in the gaming world, and most of that is due to his real-world persona. He's grotesquely rich, was the first second-generation astronaut, was the first mainstream video game developer in Austin, owns an awesome mansion with secret rooms, and in 2009 he officiated the first-ever wedding on the zero gravity plane. On top of that, he made Ultima! The man just exudes cool. You can imagine how I felt standing right next to him. I nearly choked on my Italian-fired-cheese-something.
I didn't go up to him because I truly had nothing to say. All I could do was sit by the door to the auditorium and wait for the panel to start. When the panel did start, I discovered that there were three other Austinites joining him, none of whom I had ever heard of. One was an investor, another was the CEO of a social gaming company (the creator of Qrank), and I can't really remember who the other guy was. It didn't take me very long to realize that this panel was not at all what I thought it would be. In his opening statements, Richard Garriott split the video game timeline into three segments. The first was an era single-player games, mostly played by nerdy males in their mom's basements, the second was a shift towards multiplayer games which incorporated a bit more of a mainstream audience, and the new dawning age was one of social casual games like Farmville and Qrank. He talked about the fact that games are "reaching all of humanity" through Facebook and mobile devices, and about how that was where the money was. He said that the "Great Equalization" that everyone was hoping that the Internet would bring about didn't happen, and that the only way to succeed as a gaming company was with capital, superior numbers, and top talent; Not necessarily good game design. "Big companies win," he said.
I was a bit taken aback. This wasn't the Richard Garriott I thought I knew. This wasn't the man who took me to Sosaria, has a dead guy in his basement, and fought off a deranged fan with an uzi. This wasn't Richard Garriott the dreamer. This was someone else.
Now, I'm not a starry-eyed romanticist. I know that if you're going to be successful in business, you need to have some sort of business sense. In addition, I know that you need to follow trends and patterns to see where the money is. In this sense, he's right. Social, casual games are making a lot of people a lot of money. But he's right about another thing too:
Gaming is reaching all of humanity.
Call of Duty: Black Ops sold 5.6 million copies on its launch date. More than 10 million people play World of Warcraft. There is a reality TV show called the Tester about people vying for a video game testing job that is being renewed for a second season. There have been video game weddings, video game proposals, video game museums, video game concerts, and extensive video game-related communities with people of all ages, races, genders, backgrounds, and beliefs. Gaming is finally being accepted as a legitimate art form. This is the era of gaming in which it realizes its true potential. Games are now able to tell their stories and share their experiences with a massive whole new congregation, and the man who could be at the forefront of that wants to make another Farmville?
The rest of the night went on in a similar fashion. Questions were asked by the audience, but none of them were about games. At one point Richard Garriott mentioned that he had never employed a game designer that he felt was better than himself, and it took pretty much all I had not to mutter, "Well, that explains Tabula Rasa."
I hate to sound bitter, and in all actuality, I had a great time. The food was great, I learned a lot, and I got to see a childhood hero in the flesh, even if he was a bit different than I expected. I still have an enormous amount of respect for the man, and if he ever decides to do a repeat of the '94 Descent Into Darkness Adventure at Britannia Manor, I'll be first in line, but if I need someone to help me push the boundaries of gaming, I think I'll ask Edmund McMillen.
I would love to talk about X-COM and Duke Nukem and how they shaped how I think about games today, but that's not what this post is about. This post is about Ultima.
Ultima was not the first Western RPG I ever played. In fact, as I mentioned before, I was pretty well-versed in games by that time. Monkey Island had taught me that video games could make me laugh, Final Fantasy VII had taught me that video games could make me cry, but it wasn't until Ultima that I felt like it impacted me. Before, games were stories about other people, and while I was certainly immersed in some of them, I never felt like I was part of the world. Ultima had this huge world to explore with so many things to see and do. You could steal, and fight, and explore, and go to space, and go back in time, and cast magic, and save princesses, and it all felt like it was something that you were doing. I never referred to The Stranger in third-person. I was the Stranger.
The reason I bring this up is that last Tuesday, I saw Richard Garriott (Lord British; The creator of the Ultima series) speak on a panel called The New World of Gaming hosted by the Rice Alliance at UT. Now, it's been a pretty crazy couple of weeks for me, since the Tuesday before last I saw Neil Gaiman, Adam Savage, Paul and Storm, and the Red vs. Blue guys at W00tstock 2.9, and this weekend I'm going to get to see Billy Dee Williams, Adam West, and Lou Ferrigno at Austin Comic Con [Note: This post was written before I went to Comic-Con, which I can now say was totally awesome.]. However, I have to say that getting a chance to see Lord British in person really takes the cake.
But I really had no idea what I was signing up for.
I went with two friends, neither of whom had played Ultima, but were interested enough to go. They both wore polo shirts and at least semi-nice pants. I wore an over-sized Playstation 3 T-Shirt and a pair of dirty black jeans. For some reason, I thought I would be the one to fit in more. The first thing that we noticed upon arriving was just how many old people there were. Now, granted, Ultima I came out thirty years ago, but even then, the age gap didn't work out. Most of them were also wearing suits. I also found it strange that they would give us vouchers for two free drinks at the bar, though I certainly didn't mind. There was also a buffet included with the price of the ticket ($10 at the door) that had a rather impressive assortment of things to munch on. The vegetable wantons were quite tasty and there were some sort of Italian-fried-cheese-somethings that were absolutely delicious. It was actually while I was eating that I heard a very loud voice directly behind me talking about NASA and space exploration. I didn't really need to turn around to verify that it was, in fact, Lord British standing no more than two feet away from me, but I did anyway.
It was surreal.
Richard Garriott's was the first name I ever heard connected to gaming. He's really an icon in the gaming world, and most of that is due to his real-world persona. He's grotesquely rich, was the first second-generation astronaut, was the first mainstream video game developer in Austin, owns an awesome mansion with secret rooms, and in 2009 he officiated the first-ever wedding on the zero gravity plane. On top of that, he made Ultima! The man just exudes cool. You can imagine how I felt standing right next to him. I nearly choked on my Italian-fired-cheese-something.
I didn't go up to him because I truly had nothing to say. All I could do was sit by the door to the auditorium and wait for the panel to start. When the panel did start, I discovered that there were three other Austinites joining him, none of whom I had ever heard of. One was an investor, another was the CEO of a social gaming company (the creator of Qrank), and I can't really remember who the other guy was. It didn't take me very long to realize that this panel was not at all what I thought it would be. In his opening statements, Richard Garriott split the video game timeline into three segments. The first was an era single-player games, mostly played by nerdy males in their mom's basements, the second was a shift towards multiplayer games which incorporated a bit more of a mainstream audience, and the new dawning age was one of social casual games like Farmville and Qrank. He talked about the fact that games are "reaching all of humanity" through Facebook and mobile devices, and about how that was where the money was. He said that the "Great Equalization" that everyone was hoping that the Internet would bring about didn't happen, and that the only way to succeed as a gaming company was with capital, superior numbers, and top talent; Not necessarily good game design. "Big companies win," he said.
I was a bit taken aback. This wasn't the Richard Garriott I thought I knew. This wasn't the man who took me to Sosaria, has a dead guy in his basement, and fought off a deranged fan with an uzi. This wasn't Richard Garriott the dreamer. This was someone else.
Now, I'm not a starry-eyed romanticist. I know that if you're going to be successful in business, you need to have some sort of business sense. In addition, I know that you need to follow trends and patterns to see where the money is. In this sense, he's right. Social, casual games are making a lot of people a lot of money. But he's right about another thing too:
Gaming is reaching all of humanity.
Call of Duty: Black Ops sold 5.6 million copies on its launch date. More than 10 million people play World of Warcraft. There is a reality TV show called the Tester about people vying for a video game testing job that is being renewed for a second season. There have been video game weddings, video game proposals, video game museums, video game concerts, and extensive video game-related communities with people of all ages, races, genders, backgrounds, and beliefs. Gaming is finally being accepted as a legitimate art form. This is the era of gaming in which it realizes its true potential. Games are now able to tell their stories and share their experiences with a massive whole new congregation, and the man who could be at the forefront of that wants to make another Farmville?
The rest of the night went on in a similar fashion. Questions were asked by the audience, but none of them were about games. At one point Richard Garriott mentioned that he had never employed a game designer that he felt was better than himself, and it took pretty much all I had not to mutter, "Well, that explains Tabula Rasa."
I hate to sound bitter, and in all actuality, I had a great time. The food was great, I learned a lot, and I got to see a childhood hero in the flesh, even if he was a bit different than I expected. I still have an enormous amount of respect for the man, and if he ever decides to do a repeat of the '94 Descent Into Darkness Adventure at Britannia Manor, I'll be first in line, but if I need someone to help me push the boundaries of gaming, I think I'll ask Edmund McMillen.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Bad For Thinking
In light of my previous post, a friend of mine asked me to post the original list of my top ten favorite scary games. Here they are:
10. Amnesia: The Dark Descent
9. System Shock 2
8. F.E.A.R.
7. Aliens versus Predator 2
6. Doom 3
5. Silent Hill 3
4. Half-Life
3. Eternal Darkness - Sanity's Requiem
2. Resident Evil - REmake
1. Silent Hill 2
Note that these are my "favorite scary games," rather than "games that have scared me the most." I found Doom 3 to be a much scarier game than Half-Life, for example, but Half-Life is definitely my favorite of the two.
Aquick anecdote about a game I feel should get an honorable mention:
One of the very first real games I ever played as a kid was Star Wars: Dark Forces, a Doom-style first-person shooter. It was passed on to me (along with the CD-ROM version of the first two Prince of Persia games) by my brother when I was eight. I had never played a first-person shooter before, so it took me a while to even beat the first level, but when I did, I really got into it. In the third level, however, Kyle Katarn (the main character) visits the sewers of Anoat City to track down an Imperial weapons designer. With the exception of a couple of interrogation droids, the only monsters in the level were the dianogas that lived under the water. You couldn't see them, you couldn't go under the water, and the only hint that you had that they were there was the occasional eyeball stalk that would pop out of the murky water to look around. The sewer would be quiet for a while, and then suddenly you would have have this in your face:
To my knowledge, as of today, my mother has only ever played two video games: Dance Dance Revolution (a completely separate, yet fun story) and the third level of Dark Forces. I would stand behind her, facing away from the screen and she would describe her surroundings. It took us a good chunk of the summer, but together, we navigated the labyrinth-like sewer, and while she never actually beat the level herself, she got me close enough that I was able to make a mad dash for the exit.
Of course, Dark Forces isn't a horror game. In fact, while Anoat City is still pretty horrifying to this day (I had to play it in order to take the above screenshot. I won't lie, my heart was racing a bit), the rest of the game is pretty tame. It's for this reason that it only gets an honorable mention, but it has a very special place in my heart.
10. Amnesia: The Dark Descent
9. System Shock 2
8. F.E.A.R.
7. Aliens versus Predator 2
6. Doom 3
5. Silent Hill 3
4. Half-Life
3. Eternal Darkness - Sanity's Requiem
2. Resident Evil - REmake
1. Silent Hill 2
Note that these are my "favorite scary games," rather than "games that have scared me the most." I found Doom 3 to be a much scarier game than Half-Life, for example, but Half-Life is definitely my favorite of the two.
A
One of the very first real games I ever played as a kid was Star Wars: Dark Forces, a Doom-style first-person shooter. It was passed on to me (along with the CD-ROM version of the first two Prince of Persia games) by my brother when I was eight. I had never played a first-person shooter before, so it took me a while to even beat the first level, but when I did, I really got into it. In the third level, however, Kyle Katarn (the main character) visits the sewers of Anoat City to track down an Imperial weapons designer. With the exception of a couple of interrogation droids, the only monsters in the level were the dianogas that lived under the water. You couldn't see them, you couldn't go under the water, and the only hint that you had that they were there was the occasional eyeball stalk that would pop out of the murky water to look around. The sewer would be quiet for a while, and then suddenly you would have have this in your face:
Okay, so kids today may have their Flood and their Locusts, and I'm sure that they all make the dianoga from Dark Forces look laughable today, but to an eight year-old in 1996, this was what terror looked like.
So, I had this problem. I loved the game, and I wanted to continue, but I was too afraid to even start the level, let alone finish it. So I got this brilliant idea: I would get my mother to play it. After all, any other time that I was afraid of something, I would just get Mom to take care of it. I remember quite vividly what it was that I told her to convince her to come upstairs to see Dark Forces. I said, "Hey Mom, have you ever wondered what the monster that dragged Luke under the water in Star Wars looked like?" And my poor, sweet mother who, at the time, was lying on her bed, peacefully reading a book and drinking tea, looked up at me and said, "You know, I always have."
It is one of my most cherished summer memories.
Of course, Dark Forces isn't a horror game. In fact, while Anoat City is still pretty horrifying to this day (I had to play it in order to take the above screenshot. I won't lie, my heart was racing a bit), the rest of the game is pretty tame. It's for this reason that it only gets an honorable mention, but it has a very special place in my heart.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Restless Dreams
Since Halloween was last weekend, I was going to use this post to talk about my top ten favorite horror games and what I think makes them both scary and good. However, after making my list, I discovered that the only thing I had any real interest in talking about was the game at my number one spot: Silent Hill 2.
In addition to being my favorite horror game, Silent Hill 2 is present on my short list of greatest games of all time. It tells the story of James Sunderland, a somber, estranged man who has lost his wife to an unspecified incurable disease. Three years after his wife's death, he receives a letter from her, beckoning him to the town of Silent Hill. Upon arriving, James finds the permanently foggy town completely abandoned save for a little girl, two emotionally unstable characters, and hordes of hellish, grotesque monsters. In addition, he finds a woman named Maria who looks exactly like his dead wife, only younger and sexier. Each character is an interesting addition to the roster, wandering around in their own little world and dealing with the emotional baggage that plagues them. It is strongly hinted at throughout the entire game that while Silent Hill is definitely a place where one faces demons, they aren't always the kind that go bump in the night.
There are many things that make Silent Hill 2 special. Here's my top five.
1. James
James' story is one of self-discovery. He has secrets locked away in his mind that he can't bear to remember. Everything in Silent Hill drips with symbolism and insight into his psyche. In fact, even the other characters seem to exist solely to highlight James' story. Learning the truth about Angela and Eddie's pasts gives the player insight into the kinds of people that Silent Hill attracts and makes them question what kind of a character they've been controlling. Each monster is specifically designed to bring out an aspect of James' personality, including the villain that the series is most known for: Pyramid Head. It all comes together to create the most personal story I've ever seen in a game. During the course of the story, you become very connected to James, which is both fascinating and very disturbing. It's particularly interesting because even at the end of the game, we know very little about his life. A short blurb in the Silent Hill 3 strategy guide mentions that he was a clerk, and we know that he took vacations with his wife to Silent Hill, but that's really all we know about his past. And yet, at the end of the game, I felt like I knew everything about him. The game focuses on James so heavily that at times it just feels like a character analysis, and if you've got a character that's interesting enough, that's definitely not a bad thing.
2. Horror
I feel like good horror can make you scared of anything. Silent Hill 2 made me scared of fog, rust, water, sewers, prisons, museums, hospitals, mannequins, nurses, straitjackets, stairs, meat lockers, the dark, and Pyramid Head. That's quite a laundry list for one game. What makes it even more impressive is that Silent Hill 2 does not contain a single scripted pop-out scare in the entire game. Every scare in the game is executed by means of atmosphere, superior design, and a tense, gnawing feeling that the game is messing with your mind. Oh, and Pyramid Head.Towards the end of the game, there's this really long boat ride out to a hotel in the middle of a lake. You control the boat the whole time, and the ride goes on for so long that at first you start thinking that you're missing something. Then, you start thinking that something is going to pop out at you any moment. There's no shadows in the water, no dramatic music, but you feel it, like hot breath on your neck. The ride continues, soundless and static, and you start to grind your teeth, bracing yourself for the coming attack, but none ever comes. When you finally arrive at your destination, you breathe a heavy sigh of relief. Silent Hill spared you this time. Of course, in retrospect, there was nothing in the lake. I KNOW there's nothing in the lake, and yet every time I get through that segment, I feel as if the town itself is letting me go; allowing me to live, so that I can face my demons at the hotel. It's the kind of stuff that stays with you. A while back, I was driving through Houston pretty early on a weekend. I was the only car on the road, and a deep, thick fog hung over the city. I put on the Silent Hill soundtrack and drove right through. It was one of the creepiest things I've ever experienced.
3. Emotional Atmosphere
If I could pick one word to describe Silent Hill 2, it's 'melancholy.' It's a strange departure from most horror, which is tense, adrenaline-driven, and exciting. Silent Hill 2 is slow, sluggish, and feels emotionally draining. James, in particular, drives this feeling forward with an estranged, alienated attitude that really makes it seem like he has nothing to live for. He cares about finding his wife, but never really gets passionate about it. It always feels as though he knows that his wife is dead and that he will never find her, but just can't let it go. I really applaud the designers for their attention to detail in this respect. Everything from the voice acting, to the writing on the walls, to the fact that James doesn't even close his car door when he goes into the town accentuates the feelings of loneliness and despair that the characters all feel. Long before you know the ending, you know it can't go well. There is no light in Silent Hill.
4.Bending the medium
Silent Hill 2 really pushes the gaming medium for all it's worth. It defies convention at every turn. In fact, just as a video game, it's actually kind of terrible. The controls are clunky, there's not a lot of weapon variety, combat is boring, and the pacing is slow. Oddly enough, however, it all seems to work in its favor. In the "Making Of Silent Hill 2" documentary they mention the fact that it takes ten minutes of running down roads just to get into Silent Hill. Then, there's another five minutes before you see the first monster. It was a stylistic choice to make it seem like the town was really, truly isolated. There are very few games that have the guts to withhold combat for fifteen minutes, but they knew that they were taking risks by bending the rules, and it worked. The clunky control scheme and the bad camera actually heighten the tension in scary situations, and the non-conventional story really makes it stand out as one of the best game narratives of all time.
5. Silent Hill
Silent Hill is more than just the name and setting of the game. It's also a main character. It pushes James in the direction he needs to go and guides him down his path of discovery. Sections of the town are often blocked off or completely missing. The town is in control at all times and it makes you feel very small and powerless. For me, one of the things that makes the town so interesting is that while you know that it's powerful and that it attracts a certain type of psychopath, you never really know what it is. Is it a place of punishment or redemption? Does it have a mind of it's own or does it just manifest what's in its occupants' heads? Is it somehow a benign force or does it have true malicious intent? This ambiguity is addressed in the game's six endings. In most games with multiple endings, which ending you receive is based on a decision (sometimes two) that you make in the story. Silent Hill 2, however, gives you an ending based on how you play the game, and it takes in a lot of factors. What you choose to look at, how much time you spend in certain areas, and even how much time you spend with low health all affect the ending you receive. This doesn't just shape the character of James. It changes what the town means to James through every choice he makes.
If you're a gamer who has never played Silent Hill 2, you really owe it to yourself to give it a shot, even if you're not a horror fan. It's one of my favorites, and when Roger Ebert comes knocking on my door to prove him wrong, it's the first thing I'm going to show him.
In addition to being my favorite horror game, Silent Hill 2 is present on my short list of greatest games of all time. It tells the story of James Sunderland, a somber, estranged man who has lost his wife to an unspecified incurable disease. Three years after his wife's death, he receives a letter from her, beckoning him to the town of Silent Hill. Upon arriving, James finds the permanently foggy town completely abandoned save for a little girl, two emotionally unstable characters, and hordes of hellish, grotesque monsters. In addition, he finds a woman named Maria who looks exactly like his dead wife, only younger and sexier. Each character is an interesting addition to the roster, wandering around in their own little world and dealing with the emotional baggage that plagues them. It is strongly hinted at throughout the entire game that while Silent Hill is definitely a place where one faces demons, they aren't always the kind that go bump in the night.
There are many things that make Silent Hill 2 special. Here's my top five.
1. James
James' story is one of self-discovery. He has secrets locked away in his mind that he can't bear to remember. Everything in Silent Hill drips with symbolism and insight into his psyche. In fact, even the other characters seem to exist solely to highlight James' story. Learning the truth about Angela and Eddie's pasts gives the player insight into the kinds of people that Silent Hill attracts and makes them question what kind of a character they've been controlling. Each monster is specifically designed to bring out an aspect of James' personality, including the villain that the series is most known for: Pyramid Head. It all comes together to create the most personal story I've ever seen in a game. During the course of the story, you become very connected to James, which is both fascinating and very disturbing. It's particularly interesting because even at the end of the game, we know very little about his life. A short blurb in the Silent Hill 3 strategy guide mentions that he was a clerk, and we know that he took vacations with his wife to Silent Hill, but that's really all we know about his past. And yet, at the end of the game, I felt like I knew everything about him. The game focuses on James so heavily that at times it just feels like a character analysis, and if you've got a character that's interesting enough, that's definitely not a bad thing.
2. Horror
I feel like good horror can make you scared of anything. Silent Hill 2 made me scared of fog, rust, water, sewers, prisons, museums, hospitals, mannequins, nurses, straitjackets, stairs, meat lockers, the dark, and Pyramid Head. That's quite a laundry list for one game. What makes it even more impressive is that Silent Hill 2 does not contain a single scripted pop-out scare in the entire game. Every scare in the game is executed by means of atmosphere, superior design, and a tense, gnawing feeling that the game is messing with your mind. Oh, and Pyramid Head.Towards the end of the game, there's this really long boat ride out to a hotel in the middle of a lake. You control the boat the whole time, and the ride goes on for so long that at first you start thinking that you're missing something. Then, you start thinking that something is going to pop out at you any moment. There's no shadows in the water, no dramatic music, but you feel it, like hot breath on your neck. The ride continues, soundless and static, and you start to grind your teeth, bracing yourself for the coming attack, but none ever comes. When you finally arrive at your destination, you breathe a heavy sigh of relief. Silent Hill spared you this time. Of course, in retrospect, there was nothing in the lake. I KNOW there's nothing in the lake, and yet every time I get through that segment, I feel as if the town itself is letting me go; allowing me to live, so that I can face my demons at the hotel. It's the kind of stuff that stays with you. A while back, I was driving through Houston pretty early on a weekend. I was the only car on the road, and a deep, thick fog hung over the city. I put on the Silent Hill soundtrack and drove right through. It was one of the creepiest things I've ever experienced.
3. Emotional Atmosphere
If I could pick one word to describe Silent Hill 2, it's 'melancholy.' It's a strange departure from most horror, which is tense, adrenaline-driven, and exciting. Silent Hill 2 is slow, sluggish, and feels emotionally draining. James, in particular, drives this feeling forward with an estranged, alienated attitude that really makes it seem like he has nothing to live for. He cares about finding his wife, but never really gets passionate about it. It always feels as though he knows that his wife is dead and that he will never find her, but just can't let it go. I really applaud the designers for their attention to detail in this respect. Everything from the voice acting, to the writing on the walls, to the fact that James doesn't even close his car door when he goes into the town accentuates the feelings of loneliness and despair that the characters all feel. Long before you know the ending, you know it can't go well. There is no light in Silent Hill.
4.Bending the medium
Silent Hill 2 really pushes the gaming medium for all it's worth. It defies convention at every turn. In fact, just as a video game, it's actually kind of terrible. The controls are clunky, there's not a lot of weapon variety, combat is boring, and the pacing is slow. Oddly enough, however, it all seems to work in its favor. In the "Making Of Silent Hill 2" documentary they mention the fact that it takes ten minutes of running down roads just to get into Silent Hill. Then, there's another five minutes before you see the first monster. It was a stylistic choice to make it seem like the town was really, truly isolated. There are very few games that have the guts to withhold combat for fifteen minutes, but they knew that they were taking risks by bending the rules, and it worked. The clunky control scheme and the bad camera actually heighten the tension in scary situations, and the non-conventional story really makes it stand out as one of the best game narratives of all time.
5. Silent Hill
Silent Hill is more than just the name and setting of the game. It's also a main character. It pushes James in the direction he needs to go and guides him down his path of discovery. Sections of the town are often blocked off or completely missing. The town is in control at all times and it makes you feel very small and powerless. For me, one of the things that makes the town so interesting is that while you know that it's powerful and that it attracts a certain type of psychopath, you never really know what it is. Is it a place of punishment or redemption? Does it have a mind of it's own or does it just manifest what's in its occupants' heads? Is it somehow a benign force or does it have true malicious intent? This ambiguity is addressed in the game's six endings. In most games with multiple endings, which ending you receive is based on a decision (sometimes two) that you make in the story. Silent Hill 2, however, gives you an ending based on how you play the game, and it takes in a lot of factors. What you choose to look at, how much time you spend in certain areas, and even how much time you spend with low health all affect the ending you receive. This doesn't just shape the character of James. It changes what the town means to James through every choice he makes.
If you're a gamer who has never played Silent Hill 2, you really owe it to yourself to give it a shot, even if you're not a horror fan. It's one of my favorites, and when Roger Ebert comes knocking on my door to prove him wrong, it's the first thing I'm going to show him.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Life Finds A Way
A little while back, Telltale Games announced that their next two titles would be licensed from Universal Pictures and that they would be set in the Back to the Future and Jurassic Park universes, respectively. I'm a huge fan of Telltale, so my initial reaction was one of obnoxiously loud excitement. Telltale has made games out Bone (probably one of my favorite comics ever), brought back Sam and Max, and revived the Monkey Island series (certainly my favorite adventure game series ever). I truly believe that Telltale is 90% responsible for the recent resurgence of quality adventure games, and in my mind, they can truly do no wrong. Whose hands would be better to leave two of my favorite movie franchises in?
The more I thought about it, however, the more I started to bite my nails.
Back to the Future is fine. It actually shares a lot with the Monkey Island series in terms of tone. It's funny, it's balances a lighthearted and epic storyline at the same time, and focuses on the characters and their interactions. Therefore, it was no surprise to me that when Telltale finally released this concept art for the new Back to the Future game, it looked genuinely awesome. Jurassic Park, though?
Do me a favor, and take a look at the following image:
Look real hard. These are some of the featured characters from Telltale's biggest franchises. What you have here is a sarcastic Mexican wrestler, two anthropomorphic detectives, a bumbling mighty pirate, a prehistoric animal that feasts on the flesh of living things and strikes fear into the hearts of children across the world, and a goofy inventor who lives with a dog.
One of theses things is not like the others.
It's not that I think that Jurassic Park can't be translated into a video game. After all, there have been many Jurassic Park games running the full range of good, bad, and ugly. What makes me hesitate is that Telltale games (to date) tend to follow the same shtick: Light, episodic, cartoony adventure games with a sense of humor. It's a great shtick and I'm all for branching out, but it seems like they might be a little bit over their heads with this one. So, Telltale, just in case you're a bit stuck, here are five things that I think a good Jurassic Park game should be.
A Jurassic Park game should be:
1. Dark and terrifying
Remember that part in Jurassic Park where Robert Muldoon (the Australian guy) is sitting in the bushes trying to line up a shot to kill a Velociraptor and another Velociraptor pops up right beside him and he realizes for two brief seconds that he's been ambushed before he is viciously torn apart and devoured? Remember how afterwards you had to change your underwear, couldn't sleep at night, and to this day are scared to death of the jungle?
Jurassic Park is a scary movie based on a scary book based on a scary group of animals that we'd better be glad can't be resurrected in real life because they would eat us. That's part of what makes it good.
A Jurassic Park game should capture that feeling and run with it. The atmosphere should be tense. We should hear the distant roars of different dinosaurs, find the bodies of their victims, see them dart through the trees, and hope that they're full. When we come face to face with a dinosaur, we should feel like I'm sure Robert Muldoon did after that second raptor popped out: scared out of our minds.
2. An adventure game
As far as I know, there has never been a Jurassic Park adventure game, and I think it's a pretty good idea. First, it gives Telltale a comfortable foundation and an opportunity to experiment with something that they're good at. Second, I feel like there's a lot of unexplored opportunities for puzzles within the Jurassic Park universe. Most adventure game puzzles require communication with other (semi)intelligent beings and interaction with relatively static environments, but Jurassic Park is alive and mostly devoid of human life. I would love to see the dinosaurs be incorporated into puzzles in different ways. In addition, adventure games are usually non-combat. Not having combat would lead to all sorts of interesting and terrifying survival situations. I think a non-combat survival adventure game set in Jurassic Park would be awesome.
3. About characters we care about
I don't necessarily want to rehash characters from previous books and movies, but I do want to care about them. This is one area where I'm sure Telltale can knock it out of the park. Before the Dilophosaurus spit hits the fan, we need to have a good read on each character, their personalities, and their flaws. One of the many reasons that the second and third movies were so terrible was that the characters were all stilted stereotypes that no one could find interesting. Every character in the first movie was developed enough that we had at least one reason that we didn't want them to get eaten by a T-Rex.
One thing that I find interesting about the (mostly terrible) new Jurassic Park comic book is that the main characters are adult versions of Lex and Tim, the kids from the first movie, but they're very different. Lex grows up trying to preserve the island and its scaly inhabitants and tries to protect them from the outside world while Tim tries to keep his grandfather's dream alive by opening a new, much more secure, carnivore-free park. They are constantly at odds, working at every chance to sabotage the other's plans, even though they still love each other.
That's the kind of emotional investment that we need out of a game. We need something besides "let's go back to the island because [insert stupid MacGuffin here]" as a plot.
4. Set on Isla Nublar
Okay, this one is really just a personal thing, but think about the Jurassic Park series for a second. There has been exactly one book, one movie, and one game (possibly two) that have had the words "Jurassic Park" in the title and not been terrible. What do they all have in common? Isla Nublar.
See, there's two islands with dinosaurs on them in the Jurassic Park universe: Isla Nublar (Jurassic Park) and Isla Sorna (Lost World, Jurassic Park III). Isla Sorna is the location of "Site B," a facility where the dinosaurs were allowed to mature before being sent to the park. Every story that has ever taken place on Isla Sorna has been awful. We could speculate that this is because we don't get the feeling of lost security on Isla Sorna or that the lack of human element detracts from the experience. But, seriously? I think the place is cursed, and I don't want to go back there again.
5. Awe-inspiring and breath-taking.
Jurassic Park is not just about watching people get torn up by dinosaurs. It's about trying and failing to control something bigger than you, human beings fighting nature, and ultimately, about life finding a way. These are grandiose themes that should be met with grandiose images. The first few minutes on the island in Jurassic Park make up one of my favorite moments in movie history. The beautiful scenery, the tearfully moving music, and the juxtaposition of human beings to such magnanimous creatures are what separate Jurassic Park from every other creature thriller out there.
You should feel tiny in a Jurassic Park game, like you're part of a bigger world that you couldn't control even if you had the desire to. There should be mountains, waterfalls, and rich jungles full of life. The main character of any good Jurassic Park story is nature itself. Whoever you play as in this game should be out of his/her element, and it should be beautiful.
That's not too much to ask, right?
The more I thought about it, however, the more I started to bite my nails.
Back to the Future is fine. It actually shares a lot with the Monkey Island series in terms of tone. It's funny, it's balances a lighthearted and epic storyline at the same time, and focuses on the characters and their interactions. Therefore, it was no surprise to me that when Telltale finally released this concept art for the new Back to the Future game, it looked genuinely awesome. Jurassic Park, though?
Do me a favor, and take a look at the following image:
Look real hard. These are some of the featured characters from Telltale's biggest franchises. What you have here is a sarcastic Mexican wrestler, two anthropomorphic detectives, a bumbling mighty pirate, a prehistoric animal that feasts on the flesh of living things and strikes fear into the hearts of children across the world, and a goofy inventor who lives with a dog.
One of theses things is not like the others.
It's not that I think that Jurassic Park can't be translated into a video game. After all, there have been many Jurassic Park games running the full range of good, bad, and ugly. What makes me hesitate is that Telltale games (to date) tend to follow the same shtick: Light, episodic, cartoony adventure games with a sense of humor. It's a great shtick and I'm all for branching out, but it seems like they might be a little bit over their heads with this one. So, Telltale, just in case you're a bit stuck, here are five things that I think a good Jurassic Park game should be.
A Jurassic Park game should be:
1. Dark and terrifying
Remember that part in Jurassic Park where Robert Muldoon (the Australian guy) is sitting in the bushes trying to line up a shot to kill a Velociraptor and another Velociraptor pops up right beside him and he realizes for two brief seconds that he's been ambushed before he is viciously torn apart and devoured? Remember how afterwards you had to change your underwear, couldn't sleep at night, and to this day are scared to death of the jungle?
Jurassic Park is a scary movie based on a scary book based on a scary group of animals that we'd better be glad can't be resurrected in real life because they would eat us. That's part of what makes it good.
A Jurassic Park game should capture that feeling and run with it. The atmosphere should be tense. We should hear the distant roars of different dinosaurs, find the bodies of their victims, see them dart through the trees, and hope that they're full. When we come face to face with a dinosaur, we should feel like I'm sure Robert Muldoon did after that second raptor popped out: scared out of our minds.
2. An adventure game
As far as I know, there has never been a Jurassic Park adventure game, and I think it's a pretty good idea. First, it gives Telltale a comfortable foundation and an opportunity to experiment with something that they're good at. Second, I feel like there's a lot of unexplored opportunities for puzzles within the Jurassic Park universe. Most adventure game puzzles require communication with other (semi)intelligent beings and interaction with relatively static environments, but Jurassic Park is alive and mostly devoid of human life. I would love to see the dinosaurs be incorporated into puzzles in different ways. In addition, adventure games are usually non-combat. Not having combat would lead to all sorts of interesting and terrifying survival situations. I think a non-combat survival adventure game set in Jurassic Park would be awesome.
3. About characters we care about
I don't necessarily want to rehash characters from previous books and movies, but I do want to care about them. This is one area where I'm sure Telltale can knock it out of the park. Before the Dilophosaurus spit hits the fan, we need to have a good read on each character, their personalities, and their flaws. One of the many reasons that the second and third movies were so terrible was that the characters were all stilted stereotypes that no one could find interesting. Every character in the first movie was developed enough that we had at least one reason that we didn't want them to get eaten by a T-Rex.
One thing that I find interesting about the (mostly terrible) new Jurassic Park comic book is that the main characters are adult versions of Lex and Tim, the kids from the first movie, but they're very different. Lex grows up trying to preserve the island and its scaly inhabitants and tries to protect them from the outside world while Tim tries to keep his grandfather's dream alive by opening a new, much more secure, carnivore-free park. They are constantly at odds, working at every chance to sabotage the other's plans, even though they still love each other.
That's the kind of emotional investment that we need out of a game. We need something besides "let's go back to the island because [insert stupid MacGuffin here]" as a plot.
4. Set on Isla Nublar
Okay, this one is really just a personal thing, but think about the Jurassic Park series for a second. There has been exactly one book, one movie, and one game (possibly two) that have had the words "Jurassic Park" in the title and not been terrible. What do they all have in common? Isla Nublar.
See, there's two islands with dinosaurs on them in the Jurassic Park universe: Isla Nublar (Jurassic Park) and Isla Sorna (Lost World, Jurassic Park III). Isla Sorna is the location of "Site B," a facility where the dinosaurs were allowed to mature before being sent to the park. Every story that has ever taken place on Isla Sorna has been awful. We could speculate that this is because we don't get the feeling of lost security on Isla Sorna or that the lack of human element detracts from the experience. But, seriously? I think the place is cursed, and I don't want to go back there again.
5. Awe-inspiring and breath-taking.
Jurassic Park is not just about watching people get torn up by dinosaurs. It's about trying and failing to control something bigger than you, human beings fighting nature, and ultimately, about life finding a way. These are grandiose themes that should be met with grandiose images. The first few minutes on the island in Jurassic Park make up one of my favorite moments in movie history. The beautiful scenery, the tearfully moving music, and the juxtaposition of human beings to such magnanimous creatures are what separate Jurassic Park from every other creature thriller out there.
You should feel tiny in a Jurassic Park game, like you're part of a bigger world that you couldn't control even if you had the desire to. There should be mountains, waterfalls, and rich jungles full of life. The main character of any good Jurassic Park story is nature itself. Whoever you play as in this game should be out of his/her element, and it should be beautiful.
That's not too much to ask, right?
Friday, October 15, 2010
My Big Backyard
Minecraft seems to have really hit its stride recently. Despite the lack of any sort of tutorial and looking like the twisted love child of Doom and a Lego set, the game has reported over a million registered players, made buckets of money, and has been praised by some of the biggest guns in the industry in addition to being blogged about, tweeted about, and Rule 34'd. It really looks like Minecraft is the new champion of the independent games industry and real proof that you don't need to look exactly like this to be successful.
For the uninitiated, Minecraft is a first-person sandbox game that revolves around exploration and creation. There's not much I could say that's not covered by this excellent (if cheesy) fanmade trailer, but the basic idea is this: You are stranded in a huge, open world. You can dig, mine, and chop down trees. Every time you destroy a "block" you obtain it as an item. Destroy a tree, you get a block of wood. Destroy some strone, you get a block of stone, etc. You can use these blocks to craft new tools, build buildings, and shape the world as you see fit. This is fun enough, and you quickly get lulled into a false sense of security. Your only real threat is falling off the huge glass castle you just built and your only companions are the friendly wild animals that roam the huge, (randomly-generated!) world, but as night falls, things get a lot more challenging. When the sun goes down, the friendly animals go away. That's when the monsters come out. Now you have to balance creativity and practicality; wanton playtime and survival. During the day, the world is your oyster. At night, it's theirs.
Personally, I was hesitant to get into Minecraft. I was introduced to the game last summer by a co-worker who was acquainted with the game's creator, Notch. I remember being unimpressed by what he told me, as well as his assurances that it was "gonna be huge." I did, however, give it a shot. I started up a game, chopped down a tree, built a rudimentary wooden box around myself and came up with the following syllogism:
1. To beat a game is to overcome all of its obstacles.
2. The only obstacles in the game are the monsters.
3. I am protected from the monsters due to my being in a wooden box.
4. I have beaten the game!
See, my beef with sandbox games comes down to two problems. The first is my attention span. After becoming hooked on a game, I have about a week to do everything that I want to do with it, because after that I will no longer be interested. Thus, open-ended games that require months of dedication and work never appeal to me. I know that I'll just give up on it eventually. The second problem is that I'm really not that creative a person when it comes to sandbox games. I remember when Garry's Mod was first released and my first thought was, "Awesome! I can do whatever I want! ...But I don't know what I want."
I ended up just spawning a car and driving around wishing I was playing a fun game.
With these two problems, it was pretty clear why I was so intent on not enjoying Minecraft. After declaring myself the victor, I put down the game and decided to never play it again. It's a shame that my arrogance and naivete prevented me from being a participant in one of this biggest events in indie game history. It was maybe two weeks later when Valve publicly declared its love for Minecraft on the Team Fortress 2 blog, and the ensuing rush of Minecraft purchases was jaw-dropping. Suddenly, everyone was talking about it. And there I was, grumbling in the corner about how no one was talking about whatever the hell obscure thing I was playing at the time.
It took months for me to come around. It actually all happened relatively quickly. Kotaku had a post (NSFW: language) about some guy who had recreated a lifesize replica of the Enterprise D from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Impressed, I showed it to my roommate, who was not too familiar with the game. I explained to him what I knew: That there was a huge, open, randomly-generated world that you could fight monsters and build things in. He said that that sounded like fun and went back to his room, leaving me to suddenly realize that he was absolutely correct. It DID sound like fun! So, like a nervous moron who tries to get back together with is ex, despite absolute proof that it won't work out, I decided to give Minecraft another shot.
I'm not entirely sure what happened after that because the next thing I remember was having a gargantuan cathedral/fortress with a minecart roller coaster, killing pigs with my diamond sword, and screaming "I NEED IRON! WHERE IS IT!? IS IT IN HERE!? I NEED IT!" while my girlfriend asked me when the last time I had eaten was.
To say that the game is addictive is like saying that Thin Mints are a pretty good cookie. I was seriously glued to the screen in a way that I really haven't been in a long time. I built towers, shrines, roller coasters, mines, houses, greenhouses, aquariums (sadly empty, as there are no fish in the game yet), and a multitude of waterfalls. My castle was particularly impressive with three stories, a basement, an escape tunnel to my old house, and an underground roller coaster that led to my mine. I was in the process of setting up an electrical system that would allow me to use switches and levers to change the direction of my tracks to other parts of my mine when I started looking at the clock and taking longer and longer breaks. Oddly enough, my week-long attention span record had already been broken, but I knew it wouldn't last much longer. Minecraft held my attention for a full two weeks, and there I was with an unfinished roller coaster, a dozen uncompleted dungeons, and so many questions.
What did this game do to hook me that other games didn't? Why was it an experience that lasted so much longer for me? More importantly: The fact that I get distracted when there are still so many things left unfinished in a sandbox game usually bothers me. Why didn't it get to me this time? It took me a while to figure it out. I didn't have anything else to do yesterday, so I started up a new game of Minecraft just to play around. I wasn't glued to the screen this time and I was just kind of going through the motions. I was exploring this mountain, looking for a good place to set up camp, when suddenly I turned the corner, and there it was: the tallest, most beautiful in-game waterfall I had ever seen. And I found myself thinking, "You know, that would make an awesome water slide."
That's when I got it. That feeling right there is what makes Minecraft special. It taps into that feeling you get when you're a kid and everything you see has limitless potential. I remember when I was very young, playing in the backyard of our house in upstate New York. To me, every tree was a place we could put a tire swing. Every hill was where I would put my slide if it ever snowed. I remember thinking just how easy it would be to build my own underground fort if only Mom would let me borrow Dad's shovel. Every step further from home was an adventure, every fallen branch was the perfect walking stick. Minecraft sends you back to those times and allows you to carry through. Really, the world of Minecraft is just a big backyard for you to explore, and I really appreciate the opportunity to be able to experience that again.
Now, I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me. It's almost nightfall and I have to harvest some more wood.
I have a water slide to finish.
For the uninitiated, Minecraft is a first-person sandbox game that revolves around exploration and creation. There's not much I could say that's not covered by this excellent (if cheesy) fanmade trailer, but the basic idea is this: You are stranded in a huge, open world. You can dig, mine, and chop down trees. Every time you destroy a "block" you obtain it as an item. Destroy a tree, you get a block of wood. Destroy some strone, you get a block of stone, etc. You can use these blocks to craft new tools, build buildings, and shape the world as you see fit. This is fun enough, and you quickly get lulled into a false sense of security. Your only real threat is falling off the huge glass castle you just built and your only companions are the friendly wild animals that roam the huge, (randomly-generated!) world, but as night falls, things get a lot more challenging. When the sun goes down, the friendly animals go away. That's when the monsters come out. Now you have to balance creativity and practicality; wanton playtime and survival. During the day, the world is your oyster. At night, it's theirs.
Personally, I was hesitant to get into Minecraft. I was introduced to the game last summer by a co-worker who was acquainted with the game's creator, Notch. I remember being unimpressed by what he told me, as well as his assurances that it was "gonna be huge." I did, however, give it a shot. I started up a game, chopped down a tree, built a rudimentary wooden box around myself and came up with the following syllogism:
1. To beat a game is to overcome all of its obstacles.
2. The only obstacles in the game are the monsters.
3. I am protected from the monsters due to my being in a wooden box.
4. I have beaten the game!
See, my beef with sandbox games comes down to two problems. The first is my attention span. After becoming hooked on a game, I have about a week to do everything that I want to do with it, because after that I will no longer be interested. Thus, open-ended games that require months of dedication and work never appeal to me. I know that I'll just give up on it eventually. The second problem is that I'm really not that creative a person when it comes to sandbox games. I remember when Garry's Mod was first released and my first thought was, "Awesome! I can do whatever I want! ...But I don't know what I want."
I ended up just spawning a car and driving around wishing I was playing a fun game.
With these two problems, it was pretty clear why I was so intent on not enjoying Minecraft. After declaring myself the victor, I put down the game and decided to never play it again. It's a shame that my arrogance and naivete prevented me from being a participant in one of this biggest events in indie game history. It was maybe two weeks later when Valve publicly declared its love for Minecraft on the Team Fortress 2 blog, and the ensuing rush of Minecraft purchases was jaw-dropping. Suddenly, everyone was talking about it. And there I was, grumbling in the corner about how no one was talking about whatever the hell obscure thing I was playing at the time.
It took months for me to come around. It actually all happened relatively quickly. Kotaku had a post (NSFW: language) about some guy who had recreated a lifesize replica of the Enterprise D from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Impressed, I showed it to my roommate, who was not too familiar with the game. I explained to him what I knew: That there was a huge, open, randomly-generated world that you could fight monsters and build things in. He said that that sounded like fun and went back to his room, leaving me to suddenly realize that he was absolutely correct. It DID sound like fun! So, like a nervous moron who tries to get back together with is ex, despite absolute proof that it won't work out, I decided to give Minecraft another shot.
I'm not entirely sure what happened after that because the next thing I remember was having a gargantuan cathedral/fortress with a minecart roller coaster, killing pigs with my diamond sword, and screaming "I NEED IRON! WHERE IS IT!? IS IT IN HERE!? I NEED IT!" while my girlfriend asked me when the last time I had eaten was.
To say that the game is addictive is like saying that Thin Mints are a pretty good cookie. I was seriously glued to the screen in a way that I really haven't been in a long time. I built towers, shrines, roller coasters, mines, houses, greenhouses, aquariums (sadly empty, as there are no fish in the game yet), and a multitude of waterfalls. My castle was particularly impressive with three stories, a basement, an escape tunnel to my old house, and an underground roller coaster that led to my mine. I was in the process of setting up an electrical system that would allow me to use switches and levers to change the direction of my tracks to other parts of my mine when I started looking at the clock and taking longer and longer breaks. Oddly enough, my week-long attention span record had already been broken, but I knew it wouldn't last much longer. Minecraft held my attention for a full two weeks, and there I was with an unfinished roller coaster, a dozen uncompleted dungeons, and so many questions.
What did this game do to hook me that other games didn't? Why was it an experience that lasted so much longer for me? More importantly: The fact that I get distracted when there are still so many things left unfinished in a sandbox game usually bothers me. Why didn't it get to me this time? It took me a while to figure it out. I didn't have anything else to do yesterday, so I started up a new game of Minecraft just to play around. I wasn't glued to the screen this time and I was just kind of going through the motions. I was exploring this mountain, looking for a good place to set up camp, when suddenly I turned the corner, and there it was: the tallest, most beautiful in-game waterfall I had ever seen. And I found myself thinking, "You know, that would make an awesome water slide."
That's when I got it. That feeling right there is what makes Minecraft special. It taps into that feeling you get when you're a kid and everything you see has limitless potential. I remember when I was very young, playing in the backyard of our house in upstate New York. To me, every tree was a place we could put a tire swing. Every hill was where I would put my slide if it ever snowed. I remember thinking just how easy it would be to build my own underground fort if only Mom would let me borrow Dad's shovel. Every step further from home was an adventure, every fallen branch was the perfect walking stick. Minecraft sends you back to those times and allows you to carry through. Really, the world of Minecraft is just a big backyard for you to explore, and I really appreciate the opportunity to be able to experience that again.
Now, I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me. It's almost nightfall and I have to harvest some more wood.
I have a water slide to finish.
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