45 minutes

As in: Game Journal

Reading my students' game journals, I got a hankering for some Half-Life 2. I had about 45 minutes free, so I thought I'd try out Lost Coast, the free extra level that Valve distributed a while back. So I go to start it up and learn that the driver for my video card is out of date. I go to the ATi website and download the new driver package, but learn that before I install that, I need to make sure my .net install is up to date. To Windows Update, where I find several updates under "custom" options that will be useful and necessary for the ATi driver installation.

I download and install the Windows Updates. Restart. I download and install the driver updates. Restart. I start up Half-Life 2: Lost Coast and watch the creepy Valve logo guy (who has a valve sticking out of his eye) during the loading screen. Jenny arrives home from work. Time for dinner.

On Cheating and my personal shame

As in: Game Journal

The students for my Game Culture course are required to write a game journal each week, exploring and documenting the experience of playing their assigned game over the semester (an assignment I stole from Laurie). As motivation to get myself to play a game occasionally, I decided to play along, and keep a game journal too. The rub of it is that I tend to be a bit impatient for RPGs. When I sit down to play, I usually have an hour or so, and I generally don't like roaming around trying to figure out what to do. So I cheat.

I don't download cheat codes. I use walkthroughs. If I'm feeling stuck (or just bored), I'll pop open a walkthrough and see what I've missed. My interest here lies in the funny space walkthroughs occupy. If there are multitudinous pleasures in gaming, one must be the puzzle-solving pleasure--one I readily yield for the narrative-in-motion pleasure. But when I do, I feel guilty.

Perhaps I've internalized the processes of game playing. Manovich suggests that the goal of any computer game (or other games for that matter) is to learn the algorithm. By learning to navigate Pac-Man around his little maze, I can win the game. Similarly, learning to manage my radiation-prone avatar in Fallout becomes the goal of the game. The narrative becomes secondary. So perhaps I feel guilty about the walkthrough because I know the algorithm is the goal, and I've executed an end-run on it in exchange for cheap story.

Fallout: week 1

As in: Design , Game Journal , Games , Science Fiction

I just started playing Fallout, the "post-nuclear role playing game" in the vein of Balder's Gate—though I don't know if I'll pick up any group-mates. I haven't played much of it so far, but I'd like to comment a bit on the interface and the opening sequence.

The game opens with a sequence meant to evoke a sort-of nostalgic future. A television in a blasted-out building displays an advertisement for "Vault 13", an under-mountain refuge from atomic war. Then it shows an add for a new car, a "Cryslus." Both ads look like they're straight from the fifties. They use stylized drawings of Dennis-the-Menace-like figures and the car has fins like a classic automobile. At the same time, they evoke the 'prosperous future' the fifties imagined, by adding to the mix an advertisement for a robot and by charging 199,999 for the car.

The interface for the game, similarly, has the look of an old-school science fiction film. Rather than using a digital display like we might expect today, Fallout builds its futuristic machinery from buttons and dials. These clanking, clicking buttons mimic the fifties sci-fi feel, but they also give a tangibility to the game's experience. I've long thought that buttons, levers, and dials make machines feel more 'real' because their very nature (as analog devices) links them physically to the objects they're measuring, or at least it seems to.

These stylistic choices give Fallout the curious effect of being a science-fiction game about the future as conceived by the past. The 1950s-era looks give the game an air of whimsey that offsets the disturbing storyline. I'm keen to see whether these whimsical elements will continue to pop-up throughout the game, or if the dark tone set by the narrative (The future of Earth is a wasteland in the wake of a worldwide atomic war.) will override. The best outcome, I think, would be a mix of the two.

Mogulity

As in: Game Journal

I started playing one of the two games I got with my Christmas money (the other being Stubbs the Zombie). Molyneux's The Movies feels like a well-made sim game so far—not that different than Zoo Tycoon. It has lots of good humor, though, and I can see that the sandbox mode is going to be mucho fun.

I've noticed two things that interest me about the game so far. The first is the intellectual property component of the TOS. As expected, there's a clause saying that everything in the game or produced by the game is the sole property of Activision. Expected, but annoying when the game specifically says you can make your own movies with it. Then the next clause says elements created by individuals for the game remain copyrighted by the creator. So if I make a cool movie using in-game elements, I still own copyright. Cool. But here's the real kicker—I'm prohibited from selling any movies I make (though I can redistribute them) and Activision has the right to take/use/redistribute anything I distribute that I make with the game. It's an interesting line to try to reason out. Nonetheless, I can tell I am going to enjoy the game.

The second thing I noticed is the humor throughout the game. At one point, my screenwriter is in the bathroom and his bubble says he's 'pinching one off.' Yikes. Later, I read some reviews of my studio--Ivory Tower films. I'll admit up front that I'm not so good at selecting the best spots for my buildings, but was this necessary?

I hire good janitors, though.

The messy business of dead bodies

As in: Game Journal

For a normally peaceful person like myself, the stealth aspect of games like No One Lives Forever 2 both attracts and disturbs.

It's attractive in its very realistism: Alias' Sidney Bristow seems much more human when she sneaks in and out than when she's biff-ing and boff-ing her way through dozens of guards, and so does Kate Archer. The original NOLF had the stealth aspect too, but the programming wasn't good enough to allow you to stay stealthy for long. Usually, you snuck around for the first third of the level and then had no choice but to charge in. NOLF2 allows for more opportunities to be sneaky.

But with that added nuance comes added challenges. The guards in NOLF2 are first mystified by dead bodies (often asking their fallen comrades "What happened? Are you okay?") and then becoming alarmed by them. They sound claxons and raise a ruckus when they find a body. Thus, you have no choice but to move them to inconspicuous locations, as depicted.

No One Lives Forever

As in: Game Journal

In the Video Game Culture course I plan to teach next semester, students will be required to write game journals, an idea I got from Laurie. We'll be using Blogger to write our journals, so I thought I'd start keeping a game journal on this blog, both to provide model entries for students and because I know you loyal readers out there care deeply about my gaming.

I recently read about the upcoming FPS Thriller F.E.A.R.. While I wasn't excited by what I saw before, the article in PC Gamer interested me for two reasons: 1) it talked about lots of nifty stuff the game does that makes it worth thinking about and playing and 2) it mentioned that the game was produced by MONOLITH, the company who created No One Lives Forever, a highly entertaining, campy 60s spy game. Having been reminded of NOLF, I decided to start playing NOLF2, which has been sitting on my shelf for some time.

I particularly enjoy funny games. Serious games are fine and dandy, but I prefer to chuckle than cringe. NOLF did that. I was excited to see whether NOLF2 would do the same. Sure enough, the first level features several conversations you can overhear, along with funny notes like this:

It's gonna be great!