High Dynamic Range Lying

In just about every character-based video game, there is some sort of story, however thin or inconsequential. Some games make the story a movie-style spectacle, while others cleverly tuck story elements into the environment or interactive expository sections of a game. However the method, there is no question that the stories being told are becoming tired and unimaginative.

There’s an old adage that roughly states that every story has already been told. It refers to the archetypical stories that we have all seen at one or another through some medium, whether it be through book, comic, movie or game. This adage, of course, came into being far before the birth of the video game industry. In essence, by the time the industry had matured to the point where cognitive narrative became more essential, their potential audience had already been jaded by decades of both film and literature.

Continue reading ‘Living in Reverse: The Benefit of the Unreliable Narrator’

Inspired by a surprisingly insightful forum thread from last week, I found myself thinking a lot about the consequences and moral weight put on the shoulders of players in games, particularly violent ones. I was lucky enough to spend the last weekend relaxing on the beaches of Okinawa without the distraction of electronics of most kinds, but the crystal blue sea was far too enticing to spend too much time thinking about it.

It was not until I returned to Osaka that I really started to think about murder, violence and aggression in games, and the moral implications therein.

Continue reading ‘Morality in Murder: Giving weight to player actions’

Fans of Kojima Productions’ games have suspected for years that the various games directed by the Metal Gear creator were somehow connected, but for a long time, that connection remained below the surface, hidden only in easter eggs.

With the release of Metal Gear Solid 4 and the Metal Gear Solid 4 Database, Kojima has shown quite a bit of his hand, revealing connections to other games that most uninformed gamers might miss completely.

In this week’s column, we take a look at the World of Kojima, and finally connect the dots that have been milling around in all of our minds for years.

NOTE: Parts of this article will reference later portions of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Those who haven’t finished the game should steer clear from the rest of the article until they have finished the story portion of the game.

Continue reading ‘Bringing it All Together: The World of Kojima’

Western developers and media have been, for the last several years, foretelling the fall of the era of boss battles. In an industry that, in years past, was dominated by a simple level structure, the very designers of these games are turning their back on this tradition in favor of a more asymmetrical and perhaps more beneficial pattern.

Asian developers still bother to design evil and devious boss creatures for their games, sometimes spreading them through the game at a rate higher than a single one in each level. Japanese role playing games are famous for gauntlets of boss fights, while Capcom has become famous over the years for having players replay boss fights later in the adventure.

Continue reading ‘Boss Design: Trial and Punishment’

We hear it all the time from our enthusiast gaming friends. We see it everyday on the gaming forums. We can’t avoid it in the game stores.

“This game has aged badly.”

As if it were a fine wine, gamers talk about older games as if their properties were somehow different in today’s gaming environment than the moment they first jumped onto shelves. These games do not change. Some mold, or break, or crack; but they never age. Electronic media is binary: it works or it does not. Why then do we speak of games as if they each grow thick white beards over time?

Continue reading ‘Old and New: Aging Games and You’