Thursday 18 December 2014

No Game New Year: Re-Thinking Role Playing Games


One thing that No Game New Year has taught me: I don’t like Role-playing games as much as I think I do.

To put this into perspective, I have several: Fables 2 and 3, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon’s Dogma, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and Skyrim, Dark Souls, Mass Effect 1 and 2, Fallout 3 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution. And that’s only the ones that definitely count as RPGs. Out of those twelve games, I’ve seen two of them through to the end – Fallout 3 and Fable 2. Of those two, Fallout 3 I completed in the summer of 2013 when I played nothing else for a month, and Fable 2 was a result of many re-starts and ‘coming back to it.’ After a while since I last played it, I did the final third of the game earlier in NGNY.

As for the rest of them, they’re great games,[1] but whenever I attempted a play-through I’d find myself playing for a while, sometimes 10-12 hours into it, and then wanting to play something else. I’d save my game, intending to come back to it later, but I never did. And if I do, I always start the game again, thinking I’ll do it better with a different character.

So, it’s quite rare that I see these games through to the end, and I think their length has a lot to do with it. With some of them requiring 50-100 hours worth of investment just to see the end credits, never mind all the content, it can be a struggle to feel like you’re making progress in the game. Dark Souls is very hard and makes no apology for that, but with the other games, it’s not often I feel like I’ve made a difference or advanced the plot in one session (2-3 hours, for me.) Nothing wrong with that; that’s the way those games are designed, but it feels like I’m trying to paint a wall with an artist’s brush; the sense of achievement from having done a little bit isn’t there.

Contrast this with BattleBlock Theatre. The levels are over in moments, you don’t have to spend ages travelling between each one, and you’ve got an excellent way of keeping track of your progress built in to the game. The same applies to Lego Star Wars, though the levels are longer. Fighting games like Street fighter can be over in 20 minutes if you’re good enough. Even the XCOM games have the gameplay divided up into missions that take 20-30 minutes each, and because of the way those games work, the game itself always progresses whether you win or lose. By the time I turn my Xbox 360 off having played those games, I always feel like I’ve managed something, even if it’s just a little. Consequently I’ve been having a lot more fun with those games than I have with the RPGs, no matter how many different ones I buy.

Maybe that makes me a ‘casual gamer.’ I don’t necessarily like the labelling, but I think this is part of the reason that out of all the so-called ‘next-gen’ consoles, it’s the Wii U that’s piqued my interest so far. Is that console full of ‘casual’ games? Maybe, but it looks like a lot of fun nonetheless, and with the Xbox One and the PS4 apparently forgetting that they are games consoles, I think it might be time to exit the Triple-A market for a while, get a Wii U and have some fun playing games. That’s certainly the plan for next year!

On the other hand, perhaps I should re-assess how I’m playing RPGs. Perhaps not look for ways to advance the plot, and actually have some fun with it. Set some short term goals. Do one or two quests. Clear one level of a dungeon. Try and make it so that by the time I’ve finished, I’ve achieved what I want, even if the game doesn’t necessarily agree. After all, I’ve learned from pen-and-paper RPGs that the games are as fun as you make them.

And perhaps run them alongside a couple of shorter games as well, for when I need a break…

We’ll see.


[1] Apart from Mass Effect 2, which I’ve never played so I don’t know one way or the other.

Sunday 7 December 2014

No Game New Year: Collecting stuff in Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga


Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga is a game I downloaded a couple of years ago for no reason other than I wanted the achievement points for it. This seems pathetic now; I already owned Lego Star Wars and Lego Star Wars 2: The Original Trilogy on the Xbox. I played through the first few bits a year or so ago and had barely touched it since; it’s just been sitting on my Xbox 360 gathering E-dust. Until now…

The Lego series is a bit of a funny one. There are those who say that they’re not true games because they don’t have a fail state, or they’re too easy, or they’re just for “casual players.” Well, it’s true that you don’t fail for dying too many times. For that reason, it’s not usually hard to beat the ‘Campaign’ mode.[1] Such violence as appears in the game is in context and not graphic at all; the worst thing that happens in the game is that Lego pieces fall apart. And it’s also almost the only series of games I’ve played with my girlfriend (although we play Lego Harry Potter, rather than Star Wars,) so it’s absolutely true that the game appeals to casual players.

Well, I’ve got two answers to that:

Zooming through Mos Eisley with Jango Fett?
Don't mind if I do...
The first one is that the challenge in the Lego games is whatever you make of it, pun not intended. If you embrace the collect-em-up nature of the game – which, at their heart, is what the Lego games are – and find all the collectables, characters, gold and red bricks etc, the game is quite challenging, if only because it will take you ages. In my case, this is pretty much the only game I’ve got where I’ve got a hope of 100% completing it and seeing all the content, so that is what I am aiming for. Now, I know you can use Minikit detectors and Power Bricks to help you, but even then, you’ve still got to move your characters into the right places and use the right powers in the right order, etc. There is challenge here – if you can look past beating the story.

The second one is that none of those supposed criticisms are a bad thing. Today’s markets are not patient enough to sit through a whole game where they might have to start all over again if they die three times – I rarely find a campaign mode in a modern action game that would punish you for anything other than forgetting to save.

As for appealing to the casual market, well, why not? For some people – especially younger children – games like Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Space Marine are just not for them. Either they find the violence in such games objectionable, or they’re not mature enough to appreciate it. Take Gears of War, for example. One of the principle actions you can take is to instantly kill an enemy by attacking it with the chainsaw attached to your gun. Most people are capable of making the distinction between this graphic violence in a video game and real life, but my girlfriend doesn’t find it even the slightest bit entertaining, and a younger person would not necessarily appreciate the spectacle – the enemy is dead, either way.

And it’s not just the violence. Graphically, the games are great, if only because of the art style. They looked great in 2005 and are still looking great nearly 10 years later. Does the first Medal of Honor game still look as good as its last iteration? I think not. Also I follow someone’s Youtube channel who has a sister who is disabled. About a year and a half ago she made a video and blog post about how easy modes and casual games can open doors for more players, including her sister. Here’s the blog post: http://icklenellierose.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/accessible-gaming-gaming-with-disability.html

As it is, I’m actually quite enjoying Lego Star Wars right now because it’s one of the few games I’ve bought where it’s OK to just pick it up and have a play, rather than devoting hours to the story or campaign. I’m having a good amount of fun collecting everything, I’m about 60% of the way there now and I’m looking on course to get all the achievements in a game for the first time ever!

I’ll probably still be at it next week, so I’ll talk some more about it then…


[1] A generic term probably mis-applied to Lego games.