The Rock Band series is very close to my heart in that it lets me play Livin’ On a Prayer without getting weird stares from my neighbors or the androgynous creature who I’m ashamed to be aroused by. Better yet, I can play it with family and friends without getting a kick in the nuts or a ball to the face, no pun intended.
The charts on rock band two, may it be drums or guitar, are beautiful to look at but there is certainly more to them. An ideology if you will. The colored notes rush down the chart like a graceful falcon floating along a breeze. The notes eagerly await the release from their bindings by the graceful hand of the player. On either side of the approaching are two darkly colored metal locks the hold in the fluctuating, throbbing energy. Breaking the precious energy’s combination lick will be the twitching wrist muscles of anticipating players.
As the delicately colored rectangles pass your combination to the combination lock you strum or hit as you please and send the chains flying down the chart and releasing the energy into a star rating and a score. But the rarity of the colored notes change when the silver steed of the powered notes ride in from Valhalla above. These shining creatures possess the coveted star power energy, releasing these majestic stallions from their rusty steel possessors grants the player an energy boost like no other. The notes grant a fill section where, when the green crash is stricken at the end, will release the star power boost making the wild red, yellow, blue and green wild horses running at you worth even more.
So go forth Rock Band players and play, play, play away. Release the notes from their masters bindings and give them their freedom once more on their rightful place in your score chart. So get the hell off of this computer and rip the shit outta some drum charts. Kick the games ass and FUCK SHIT UP.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Music/Ambience in Video Games
Nothing jumps out of the darkness, crawls on the ceiling, lights shit on fire with it’s mind, or jumps out of a pool of blood in a hallway without a sequence of screeching violin notes in the background. Nothing. And if said crawling, jumping, lighting shit up thing doesn’t do so with the finesse of a concerto cutting their strings with a dull knife, said thing loses a large amount of scare. Said creature could be faceless, nameless, lacking of a tangible understanding of emotion or compassion, and/or visible appendages, but if the concerto doesn’t ring true in the background, said creature loses substance.
For example, you are walking down a dark hallway with a flashlight illuminating your path. Aforementioned creature jumps from a ceiling tile with silence following in his wake and mutters, “roar.” You give the walls a new paint job with his brains and skull without hesitation or fear. Now, imagine you are in said hallway with said flashlight illuminating said path in said scenario. Said creature executes said function and jumps out of said ceiling tile and mutters said phrase. But this time, aforementioned creature is accompanied by a screeching violin/viola/cello concerto. You jump out of your skin and begin shooting wildly at stone walls and all the damn oxygen. You have just relieved yourself of feces, urine, and ejaculatory fluid.
You have just experienced the effect music can have on a seemingly ordinary situation. Well, ordinary for a video game. But then, take into account the music leading up to the aforementioned scenario. A better word for this would be ambience. Ambience could be soothing, calm, and whirring. But ambience could also be loud, screechy, and intensifying. You’re walking down the hall and you hear a subtle piano chord ring out that’s both soothing, and contemplative at the same time. ’Is this building up to something?’ You ask yourself. The piano chord rings out once more, but this time, a quiet bass chord accompanies it. Again, soothing but intensifying. And once more, said ambient noise rings out once more but with a building, and very high, organ note the continues and you walk towards the ceiling tile.
Your eyes begin to water, cold sweat leaks down your cheeks, and the piss is clawing its way out of your bladder. And BAM, he jumps down from the ceiling tile, you scream “FUCK THAT SHIT.” And without thinking another thought you run the hell away back down the hall. The next time you’re playing a game like say… Left 4 Dead (which is more intense than scary), F.E.A.R, Silent Hill 1-4 (5 doesn’t make the list, it’s not a horror game), or Fatal Frame, pay attention to the footsteps, the whirring soundtrack, the blistering screams of lost souls, and the gliding ambience and try not to shit yourself.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Morality in Games
I enjoy blowing shit up. Really, I do. Pigeons are fun to blow up. Buildings, orphanages, hospitals, asylums, homeless shelters, insurgent dens, people, trees, people, people, people, and people. So why make me feel sorry for it? It's like throwing hammers at a retarded heroin addict and calling them cotton balls. It doesn't work.
I'm talking about video games, not real life. Of course, murder is bad, murder illegal. But when a game designer tries desperately for you to feel a connection to your enemy and succeeds greatly you begin to regret certain actions.
For example, I was assigned to kill some old dude in Oblivion. So, naturally, I hid above him in an attic as the game so humbly requested. And by some miracle I could hear the sad sack of bones talking about how empty his life was. I've done this quest enough times to know that this shouldn't be happening, but low and behold it is. Well, since he hates his life, all the more reason to kill him, right? Fucking WRONG.
He goes on about his history, and it it's getting to me. It's like a hardcore blues song with a 30 minute vocal solo of a woman crying over her miscarriage. And naturally, this leads me to question some decisions I have, and am deciding to make. Do I really wanna kill this man? Or should I let him wallow in his sea of sorrow? (Blatant Alice in Chains reference). The little angel on my shoulder says, "well, yeah, taking a life is wrong yo. Says so in that one thing, that bible whatchamacallit." And the devil says, "crush the fuck with a buffalo head." So I take the latter option and cave his skull into his ribcage.
I thoroughly regret such a decision as I'm walking down Burma's main road. And now, every damn time I blow up a house, set a forest fire, run over a pedestrian, grenade tag a locust, reduce something to a bloody pile I question it and wonder what it is I have killed. So, just between me and you, morality sucks ass and screw you Bethesda. Morality in games doesn't work for me, in any way. If it works for, fine, whatever floats your boat.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Replayability in Games and the Tacked-On Experience
There's been a continuing trend in video games that is designed to demonstrate replayability, or in the case of open world games, continued playability. Item collection for achievements or trophies should persuade the player to continue playing the game, no matter how absurd the collectibles may be or how connected, or disconnected, they are from the overall story or narrative of the game.
Video games such as Bioshock, Gears of War 1 & 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, and Crackdown allow the player to collect certain special items at their leisure. Notice that GTA IV and Crackdown are both open world shooters. Gears of War 1 & 2 and Bioshock are rail shooters, albeit providing freedom to a certain degree, but still requiring you to follow a set path to progress.
Collectible items in GOW 1 & 2 include pre-war newspaper clippings, military identification tags called COG tags, journal entries written by soldiers and civilians alike. These items fit the narrative and story of the game, and thus demonstrate purpose to the games emotional, as well as narrative progression.
Bioshock is another good example of these meaningful collectibles. Audio recordings of the residents of Rapture provide a newly formed emotional narrative. Which helps the already solid, haunting feel of the game. After hearing the crazed recordings of the plastic surgeon, and seeing the humanity in him, I didn't look at him the way I would a faceless enemy facilitated by propaganda, I saw his human side. As for the little sisters, nothing compares to the first time you save them or kill them, I guess I'm getting sidetracked by kissing the ass of majesty, I'll get back on it.
Grand Theft Auto IV on the other hand provides somewhat of a tacked-on collectible item, or killable as the case may be. The item, the bird, you're told to find and kill are pigeons. Pigeons do fit the industrial, gritty environment of Grand Theft Auto IV, but how they fit in to Niko Bellics story is a mystery. Well, woopty-fucking-doo. Maybe I missed the scene where a pigeon shit on Niko's head and everyone lived happily ever after in the end. Either way, they seem, to me like a cheap, tacked-on extra that is justified as a means to get your money's worth out of the game.
That's not to say I don't enjoy reducing the flying rats to a cloud of blood and feathers, I do enjoy it, really. But it seems as if these pigeons are meant to distract from the game. Because, at points, I'd rather go off on a pigeon hunting extravaganza rather than find out who facilitated the drop-off of the stolen cocaine on the Snow Storm mission. Which is the thing, it did what it's alleged job was to be, to distract me from the main game and narrative.
Crackdowns collectibles don't enhance the almost non-existent story, but they do enhance your characters stats. Agility orbs and secret orbs provide upgrades for your skills of driving, shooting, explosives, agility, and strength skills, but they don't move the story forward.
Collectible items are a good way to institute replayability in games. I know because I've done it more than once in more than a few games and I've enjoyed it, more times than less. But in some cases, GTA IV to name names, pigeon shooting and stunt jumps seem like an afterthought. But with Gears of War and Bioshock, the collectibles seem to be thought out carefully and put in the game for a certain affect, which they execute flawlessly. There are many other games I could mention, and at some point I will. But these are the prime examples of tacked-on and thought-out collectibles.
Then there's side missions. I won't go into it, but they’re always a nice touch to a short game. Just look at Fable II, well, and Fable I. Plenty of side missions and plenty of replayability, take those as examples of a well-structured game. And everything else in this, they are all good, and let's leave it at that.
Video games such as Bioshock, Gears of War 1 & 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, and Crackdown allow the player to collect certain special items at their leisure. Notice that GTA IV and Crackdown are both open world shooters. Gears of War 1 & 2 and Bioshock are rail shooters, albeit providing freedom to a certain degree, but still requiring you to follow a set path to progress.
Collectible items in GOW 1 & 2 include pre-war newspaper clippings, military identification tags called COG tags, journal entries written by soldiers and civilians alike. These items fit the narrative and story of the game, and thus demonstrate purpose to the games emotional, as well as narrative progression.
Bioshock is another good example of these meaningful collectibles. Audio recordings of the residents of Rapture provide a newly formed emotional narrative. Which helps the already solid, haunting feel of the game. After hearing the crazed recordings of the plastic surgeon, and seeing the humanity in him, I didn't look at him the way I would a faceless enemy facilitated by propaganda, I saw his human side. As for the little sisters, nothing compares to the first time you save them or kill them, I guess I'm getting sidetracked by kissing the ass of majesty, I'll get back on it.
Grand Theft Auto IV on the other hand provides somewhat of a tacked-on collectible item, or killable as the case may be. The item, the bird, you're told to find and kill are pigeons. Pigeons do fit the industrial, gritty environment of Grand Theft Auto IV, but how they fit in to Niko Bellics story is a mystery. Well, woopty-fucking-doo. Maybe I missed the scene where a pigeon shit on Niko's head and everyone lived happily ever after in the end. Either way, they seem, to me like a cheap, tacked-on extra that is justified as a means to get your money's worth out of the game.
That's not to say I don't enjoy reducing the flying rats to a cloud of blood and feathers, I do enjoy it, really. But it seems as if these pigeons are meant to distract from the game. Because, at points, I'd rather go off on a pigeon hunting extravaganza rather than find out who facilitated the drop-off of the stolen cocaine on the Snow Storm mission. Which is the thing, it did what it's alleged job was to be, to distract me from the main game and narrative.
Crackdowns collectibles don't enhance the almost non-existent story, but they do enhance your characters stats. Agility orbs and secret orbs provide upgrades for your skills of driving, shooting, explosives, agility, and strength skills, but they don't move the story forward.
Collectible items are a good way to institute replayability in games. I know because I've done it more than once in more than a few games and I've enjoyed it, more times than less. But in some cases, GTA IV to name names, pigeon shooting and stunt jumps seem like an afterthought. But with Gears of War and Bioshock, the collectibles seem to be thought out carefully and put in the game for a certain affect, which they execute flawlessly. There are many other games I could mention, and at some point I will. But these are the prime examples of tacked-on and thought-out collectibles.
Then there's side missions. I won't go into it, but they’re always a nice touch to a short game. Just look at Fable II, well, and Fable I. Plenty of side missions and plenty of replayability, take those as examples of a well-structured game. And everything else in this, they are all good, and let's leave it at that.
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