Descent Into Madness (Suggs To Be You)

Very rarely do I find games that get to me. This isn’t through a lack of trying; I primarily look for strong and engaging narratives when purchasing games, though very few of them tend to register with me on a mental or emotional level. However, when a video game does get to me, it seems to have to have just as powerful an effect on me than if I was watching the story as a TV show or film, if not more so. Now I don’t mean to sound pretentious when I say that because for something to register with me, I only ask that it have some lasting effect and I don’t instantly forget about it after I’ve finished, which I think we can all agree is the measure of an experience being worthwhile. For example, I would say Psychonauts has registered with me in the same way Monty Python and The Holy Grail has because I haven’t found a game as genuinely hilarious. The tongue-in-cheek, surrealist humour of both of them has definitely had an influence on me as a comedian, yet in terms of mental or emotional resonating with an audience, video gaming as a medium has distinct advantage due to it being an interactive medium; especially when it comes to empathising with a protagonist’s descent into madness.

Just needed to get this joke out of my system. Last one, I promise.

I recently played through Spec Ops: The Line. For those of you who haven’t played it, Spec Ops is a 3^rd person shooter that follows a special operations task force into storm hit Dubai to save any of the remaining survivors and  investigate what happened to the decorated American Platoon of Soldiers, the Damned 33^rd. The game is loosely based on the book Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and is an examination of both the Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder that soldiers can experience in action and how removed actual video games about war are from the real thing. After a few hours of game play, there is an incident that involves white phosphorous that made me as a player feel physically nauseous and incredibly guilty. Why? It was because it was the player who causes the incident. That simple fact alone means that the player is more invested in the narrative. They’re not passive watching it on a TV screen for the main character to deal with as if it was a film. Having watched Apocalypse Now last weekend, a film inspired by Heart of Darkness, the horrors in that didn’t get to me as much as Spec Ops although it is based on nearly identical themes.

The game finds subtle ways to break the fourth wall to remind you what you've done. (Until that moment where all the characters look directly to the camera and call the player a dick.)

From that point onwards, the player watches the main character try to cope with the things he is doing to survive while also trying to comprehend what he has done; thus allowing the main character’s self-awareness to be that of the audience, making them feel guilty about the horrors they are committing. There comes a certain point in the game when the battlefield changes in a sudden flash to look like a hell on earth before transforming back, which is both symbolic as well as representative of the main character has losing a part of his sanity and being scared forever. Needless to say, Spec Ops: The Line got to me.

I find this altering of the pre-established reality as a way representing the main characters diminishing mental state at its most effective in video games because you are able to actively observe it at your own pace. We all remember the Scarecrow sections of Batman: Arkham Asylum for doing this masterfully to give us both an insight into Batman’s psyche and a unique way for him to battle the Scarecrow. For those of you who have played Eternal Darkness, you will recall how well the game was able to mess with the player in a variety of ways when the sanity meter was low and made them think their TV was broken.

World's worst Pic 'n' Mix salesman ever.

Not that all video games get this right. The desert section from Uncharted 3 is a test in patience at best. I find the key to getting this to work effectively is to use it both sparingly and subtlety. The best uses have those moments where the player isn’t sure what they have seen and are able to doubt themselves. It is a good way of re-enforcing a theme or an idea in the games narrative. Of course, not all games need to incorporate this to be a good game or to give a deep and meaningful experience.

I am a firm believer that video games have the potential to have a more powerful effect on the audience than film and TV. While there will always be shining examples of masterful story telling in every medium, watching a character walk through hell on earth and having the choices you actively made be the reason he is there are two completely different experiences altogether (and I know which one will stay with me for the longest). Now I’m going to play some Sly Cooper: Thieves In Time to remind myself there is still joy in the world.

The Ambiguity of Game Trailers: CyberPunk 2077 Trailer Edition

by Ed Colley

Here’s a problem with cinematic game trailers. For those of you who haven’t seen it, here’s a link to the new trailer for CyberPunk 2077. Give it a watch, I’ll wait. Done? Now put aside the very impressive visual aesthetics for a moment. What have you learned about the game itself? Is a real-time-strategy, a first-person-shooter or even a MMORPG? Can you tell me anything about the characters involved? The chances are you can’t if your only information about the game is that trailer. But how come game trailers (and only game trailers) are allowed to get away with this? You couldn’t away with this for a film. Imagine if the trailer for the King’s Speech was just a freeze frame of Colin Firth in his lingerie to a brooding, indie soundtrack. You’d just think it was a poorly cast advert for a strangely named aftershave.

Search result for "The King's Speech". He must really like steam-punk, he's got cogs and everything.

Ambiguous trailers frustrate me. They frustrate me because you come out them feeling as if you know less about them than when you started. However, it frustrates me less if the trailer is also a standout piece cinematography (see the Dead Island trailer for details). The perfume analogy from the first paragraph is apt for this type of cinematic game trailer. It’s a short and vacuous advert which attempts to entice you into a sale without providing any real information. Now there are reasons for this of course. A perfume advert can’t describe a smell to you and hope to maintain its flimsy veil of elegance. In the case of CyberPunk 2077, it’s 3 years from being released so a large portion of the game hasn’t even been designed yet. They don’t even know what they’re selling really. 

"Okay, it's kind of like a really strong orange-y smell with a bit of petrol. There's possibly a Mentos in their too."

Regardless, I feel can’t let this level of ambiguity in marketing go by without calling it out and trying to smugly take it as out of context as possible. So without further ado, here is a list of adverts and trailers that the CyperPunk 2077 trailer could also apply to. Feel free to join in in the comments.

1.       A game where you play as a special police task force that is designed to take down a uprising of robotic, lingerie models.

2.       An advert for bulletproof make-up.

3.       A game in which you play as a freelance news Helicopter trying to film stories in a futuristic city where you get high scores for good composition and framing. Points will be deducted for every news headline which reads “News helicopter crashed again due to the pilot being too concerned about the lighting in his shot to concentrate on flying a god-damn helicopter”.

4.       A game in which the claw from a grab the cuddly toy machine in an arcade becomes sentient, gains human form and goes on a killing spree in search of vengeance for all the cuddly toys that have been cruelly taken from them over the years.

5.       An infomercial that goes along the lines of “Has this ever happened to you? Some bullets just can’t cut it with today's new super-cyborgs. Try Branson’s Bullets. For all your on-the-go cyborg exterminating needs. Also try Branson’s new make-up piercing rounds. ”

Having done some research, CyberPunk 2077 is meant to be an open world RPG from CD Projekt RED, who are most notable for producing the Witcher series. I was surprised to find out that the original CyberPunk game is a moderately successful 80s’s pen and paper RPG. To produce a trailer of such scale and quality for such a widely unknown brand definitely shows dedication. The basic premise follows the citizens of Night City, where humans are able to augment themselves with cyber-technology but at the cost of their humanity. Now that sounds like a good premise.

Don't worry, only 22 years to wait and then Spider-man can sort everything out.  

Developers feel the need to release these early trailers to build more interest and following in the hope of achieving more sales, such is the current state of the gaming industry. The problem remains that they are still tasked with marketing an incomplete and interactive product in a non-interactive medium. Therefore the only remaining features you can show your audience is the world you hope to immerse them in and the human element. Both of these can be demonstrated with strong story telling. If the trailer had shown the horrors of the process of augmentation followed by one citizen's descent into insanity, that would have been more compelling than watching a minute of bullet-time.

Still, those of you looking for irony will say that the trailer got me to research the game in spite of how much it annoyed me, so it has served its purpose.  In which case, aren’t you a clever clogs Mr. Marketing. I hope you enjoy your profitable career writing terrible dialogue for some pretentious perfumes, you ponce. It looks like I’ve been tricked by the internet again. Or in other words, I’ve just been Cyber-Punked.

Too tough to be sneaky - by Edmund Colley

My lack of my new PS3 games has led me to scour my old collection of PS2 games as a source of entertainment and mild nostalgia. In doing so I've been playing through some of my old stealth games. Mainly a game called Stolen, in which you play a Lara Croft like cat burglar as she goes through museums and high-tech facilities while being in denial of her obvious unexplained and unmentioned kleptomania. Her suppression of this plot hole has an adverse effect on that manifests in her behaviour, taking the form of cringe worthy one-liners and need to leave as much DNA at crime scenes as possible. 

The story involves a conspiracy surround an upcoming an election in which "Good Guy McMayor's" sole policy involves bring new treasures and artwork to the city's galleries and museums and "Bad Guy Joe's" policies involve clamping down on the city's extremely high crime rates. Rose tinted glasses much?

Game-play-wise, Stolen is very similar to Metal Gear Solid (cardboard box excluded) in its stealth mechanics, guard tactics and use guns to stun guards and take out security cameras. The stealth mechanics of Stolen are the only really notable point about the game. The game manages to maintain a balance between characters ability and threat of being found that most games fail to meet. Although the protagonist, Anya, has an arsenal of high-tech gadgets and some acrobatic skills, being discovered generally means that retreat and re-strategizing is a better option as confrontation with guards is the fastest way to a game over. In doing so puts an emphasis on the need for stealth and cunning makes for very engaging game-play.

 

Though we all know the correct way to sneak into facility is tip-toeing to Minnie the Moocher. 

This balance is one I find that too many stealth based games seem to miss the mark on. The Assassins Creed series being a long time suffer from this. Personally, I thought the first Assassins Creed has used stealth mechanics best in the franchise as guards were very quick to mark you as an assassin and chases could have you go all the way from one side of the map to the other in an attempt to flee your pursuers. Sneaking into compounds, taking out all of the archers silently and pouncing upon your unsuspecting target was the best tactic as you weren't likely to succeed in a head-on or mad dash approach due to vast amounts of guards surrounding you long enough for your target escape in the struggle. My main issue was that there was no real threat from any opponents. Altair could defeat any number of enemies in open combat if the player was willing to stand still and spam counter until every adversary is defeated one by one (similar to me standing around awkwardly at a New Year's Eve party high 5-ing relatives drunker than I am until they let me leave or at least play guitar hero in the corner).

However, all of the additional mechanics added in the sequels only served to undermine the stealth elements further. The notoriety meter resulted in guards being thoroughly disinterested in Ezio's activities to the point he can run full speed past them, climb a building and jump off it on to the minstrel that had the audacity to ask you for spare change without batting a city guard's eyelid. Even at full notoriety guards weren't as suspicious as in AC1 and at most you'd only have two or three run after you on roof tops. The gun mechanic meant that even high priority targets could be killed from a far without challenge and Ezio could still somehow teleport and have a chat with them before they die. By the time of Revelations, Ezio is the walking arsenal of Italy and in possession more pointy objects stuck to him than on a hedgehog being treated with acupuncture. To top it all off, the addition of large pouches of medicine, our favourite Italian assassin is also gifted with instantly regenerating health. Why would this guy ever need to hide from anyone?

Assassin's Hidden Blade™. Now with hook blade, spatula knife and web shooter attachments. 

In fairness that missions and guard strengths have been changed in Revelations; and to an extent Brotherhood, but neither problem is fully resolved. Missions will force you to go undetected while stalking a target, but it feels rather unnatural like most forced stealth sections in action games do with sections that have you follow a guy and jump in to cover every time he turns around for a second thinking forgot his keys. The guards have been altered to be more aggressive in later games to stop the "counter spamming" but it's still not compensated for the fact you have a gun, crossbow and now an array of explosives to fight people armed with swords. The developers seem to be turning the assassins into acrobatic mercenaries/soldiers rather than skilled infiltrators. By the looks of the trailer, Assassin's Creed 3 seems to put you in the middle of a full sized battle. If you're an assassin and you’re having to hide behind cover from an army of soldiers that can clearly see you, you're doing it wrong. You should be disguised as the targets horse in a pantomime configuration or at least hiding in a nearby bin.

I feel that the perfect balance comes in stealth when the player feels that they have enough abilities to get around the situation, but barely any power to protect them if they are discovered. The looming threat of discovery countered by the feeling of skill and cunning when you satisfyingly duck and weave past enemies is perhaps a metaphor of brains vs. brawn that stealth fans find so appealing. With Assassin's Creed 3 on the horizon, I hope that Ubisoft can put back some of the challenge to being a skilled infiltrator and assassin while continuing a stand-out triple A series.