Audio of the Apocalypse

I realize now that during my discussion of the previous two games (Fallout 3 and Prince of Persia)I have neglected to make any mention of the music. I consider this to be a grave offense, as nothing truly shapes a video game experience as much as its music does.

Fallout 3 presents its music in two forms: its original compositions which consist mainly of brooding background songs, or two in-game radio stations that play violin music and 50's era tunes (Butcher Pete) respectively. While the original compositions mesh well with the game I soon turned to the radio stations, as the game was lonely and devastated enough without similar music. The radios on the other hand were soon replaced by iTunes being run in the background. While the songs were engaging enough (I especially enjoyed the juxtaposition of upbeat 50's tunes while blowing apart super mutants), there simply weren't enough songs for the game. Including original compositions I would estimate that there were roughly 50 songs in the game, a respectable number normally, but not wen over half of those songs weren't made for the game itself. The problem is that songs written for video games have much more to do with classical compositions than more modern tunes. You can sit down and enjoy listening to a new pop song, but you can't listen to it over and over again, as it simply isn't designed to be repeated in rapid succession.

A further strike against Fallout 3 is the mind-boggling decision not to give easy access for players to make their own radio station. Previous Bethesda games have made it extremely easy for players to add their own music to the game, and I cannot figure out why they did not continue to do so, especially when there is a radio station system within the game. I mean, what's the point to having radio stations at all when there are only two of them?

With all of these musical woes we also see the narrative being weakened as well. With no music directly tied to the narrative (there are no boss songs, no theme song for the main quest, etc...), and with music playing that often undermines the gravity of scenes within the game, it is no small wonder that players find themselves very distanced from their avatars and the events within the game. Fallout 3 attempts to engage the player by tying an emotional connection to them with their avatar's father, yet many players couldn't care less for him (even if he is voiced by Liam Nieson). Had there been some musical themes (perhaps one of loss that could be tied to the world and the players search for their father, and one for their father himself) I may have formed more of an attachment to the character.

It seems that as Bethesda becomes better and better and making large, free-roaming worlds, they have been getting worse at constructing an interesting and engaging narrative. As Morrowind's music stands unforgettable in my mind, and Oblivion's title theme gets my heart pumping, Fallout 3's music is as dry and forgettable as the wasteland it contains within.

Prince of Persia is the latest in the Prince of Persia line of games (god that sounds stupid). The series started with a single game on the PC where you played as a young prince who was tricked by the vizier and dumped into the palace dungeon. The player was given an hour time limit to make it out of the dungeons and back into the palace to stop the vizier and rescue the princess. Along the way players were treated with some of the finest animations of running and jumping as they ran past falling plates and leapt over yawning chasms. Following this was a sequel that added a number of outdoor areas without changing the rest of the game's story. Following this was the Sands of Time trilogy. The trilogy was a re-imagining of the series. The Prince was now tricked by the vizier into unleashing the sands of time, destroying his kingdom and turning all of his subjects into monsters. The trilogy brought the Prince into the 3-D world and was widely praised for it's smooth controls and clever puzzles. The series continued with the Prince having to fix all of the mistakes caused by the damage he created when he released the sands of time.

Prince of Persia is another re-imagining, thus it's lack of a title identifier aside from Prince of Persia. The Prince is no longer an actual prince, but instead a wise-cracking adventurer whose past we never really learn. There are no sands of time, nor is there a vizier causing trouble. It is with this blank slate that Prince of Persia begins.

The new game begins with our hero, the Prince (not actually a prince), walking around in a sandstorm looking for his donkey. We discover later that this donkey is laden with gold from his latest escapade, a tomb-robbing. As he searches the Prince stumbles over an edge and ends up in a chasm only to immediately run head first into a girl, our new princess, Elika. Elika wastes no time and immediately runs off, telling the Prince not to follow her, whom of course does. Elika is being chased by some guards and her father, who a few scenes later ends up destroying a very bright tree, which we later learn is helping to imprison the dark god Ahriman (from ancient Persian religion, Ahriman is darkness and bad, Ohrmaz is light and good). Elika then gains magic power and the ability to heal lands that have been corrupted by Ahriman's darkness. The Prince and Elika thus set out to heal the fertile grounds (areas of power which help to imprison Ahriman) and keep Ahriman imprisoned.

Along their journey the player can make the Prince stop and talk to Elika, where they'll then a have a quick discussion, revealing more about the land around you or Elika's past. Mind you, I did not say the Prince's. Throughout the game the Prince persistently avoids mentioning anything about his past, with the most we ever learn being that he got the gold from a recent tomb-robbing expedition. Elika meanwhile reveals much about herself: her past, her current thoughts, even some of her deeper insecurities. The writer's do a good job with these little dialogues, with my main complaint being that you can't move while they're occurring, which would have helped to cut down on the tedium of travel times as well as the annoyance of having to choose whether to play the game or learn about the story.

Warning! MASSIVE SPOILERS!!!

As the game progresses we learn that Elika died before the Prince ever arrived, and that the reason her father cut down the tree in the beginning was because he had made a deal with Ahriman to bring her back. At the end of the game, after you have healed all of the lands and sealed Ahriman away again, Elika dies, her life energy being used up to heal the tree that her father cut down. The game then has the player carry her out of the temple to a nearby altar where here mother is entombed. There is then a moment where the Prince looks down at Elika and some sand begins to blow in from the desert. Throughout this scene there is not a word of dialogue, and it is one of the most striking scenes I have played in a while.

Then the writers kill it.

The game then shows the same flashback you've been seeing all game of Elika's farther bargaining with Ahriman, and the Prince makes the same agreement. The player must then go chop down some magic trees and return to Elika. The land is corrupted entirely, everything black and grey, while a black sandstorm erupts from the temple of Ohrmaz where Ahriman is imprisoned. The final scene showsd the Prince carrying Elika out into the corrupted desert with the giant black sandstorm/Ahriman rushing behind and then past him.

I won't say that this is a terrible ending, or that it ruins the game, as it is still a very powerful scene. However the writers missed their golden opportunity by having the ending continue past Elika's death. Say we had the game end where I mentioned (with the Prince having just placed Elika down on the altar), they could have then shown the Prince walking out into the desert, all in perfect silence. This ending leaves Elika dead, unusable (aside from bad plot mechanics) for future games, but we would have learned so much more about the Prince, and had a more powerful main character for future titles. Rather than a wise-cracking adventurer without a history, we could have had a man who guards himself with jokes and witty banter. Never revealing anything about himself or his feelings, lest he get hurt again, as he has been with Elika, and perhaps other women in his past. We have a Prince who just had an amazing adventure (he imprisoned a god!) and yet he cannot tell anyone, for as the sole witness, who would believe him?

Personally I much prefer this ending, leaving us with one well-developed character (who still has a blank past that we can fill in as we need), rather than an incomplete character (the Prince) and a complete, but moderately shallow character (Elika). Either way I must commend the men and women at Ubisoft for making a fantastic game with a story that I enjoyed enough, that even though they failed to achieve greatness (much as with Fallout 3), I still thoroughly enjoyed myself and am looking forward to both their announced epilogue content as well as another play-through of the standard game.

Save The Prince?

I apologize for the wall of text last time. To prevent a similar blob this time I will not be discussing the art or story of Prince of Persia in detail today.

I had a great time playing the new Prince of Persia (the PS3/XBOX360 one as opposed to the original PC title). The art was beautiful, the story was intriguing, and the game mechanics were solid. The running, jumping, and climbing around like a monkey coalesced into one of the most tactile and enjoyable experiences I've had on the PS3. My closest comparison would be to Super Mario Galaxy, where regardless of the content it is fun to just run around aimlessly. When a game feels fun the moment you pick it up, then you know that you are in for a good time, and for the most part Prince of Persia doesn't disappoint.

I say mostly because I encountered a number of instances where what I told the game to do, and what the game decided it wanted me to do, were pretty far from each other. This would be a killing point in some titles, but Prince of Persia manages to dodge this particular bullet with a new, somewhat controversial mechanic.

In most games, when you miss a jump, or fail a block, you die and are forced to restart either from an earlier checkpoint or from an earlier save file. These deaths often mean large amounts of progress are lost, which force players to master game skills in order to avoid them (the stick in the carrot and stick approach). Prince of Persia eschews this by making your magical partner, Elika, save you whenever you would die. This includes missed jumps, enemies snapping your head off, or being sucked into pools of gooey darkness. In reality the game just restarts you back at the last stable platform you were on after your "death", but the designers cloak your deaths with animations of Elika saving you. You lose almost no progress when Elika saves you, and aside from trying to get one trophy, there are no repercussions for Elika saving you. What this meant for me as a player, is that I felt more free to play as fast and as carefree as I liked. I could ignore when I died a cheap death due to the game ignoring my commands or a cheap enemy.

While I criticized this feature when I first began (as I do enjoy punishingly difficult games), I came to realize that this was perhaps the best design decision in the series' history. What would have originally been a slow and tedious process of memorization of paths and then cursing at my PS3 when I invariably screwed up a jump, was instead a joyous and carefree romp. I was free to move fast, make careless mistakes, and laugh them off with my roommate. Furthermore, Elika's saves pulled double duty. Not only did the saves make the game more enjoyable, it also cemented the partnership between Elika and the Prince (your Avatar). The Prince does most of the work in the game, essentially ferrying Elika from area to area so that she may heal the corrupted land. This could have easily resulted in an uneven balance between the characters, and Elika would have appeared more as a damsel in distress rather than an ally against evil. Instead, the Prince is the one who needs saving, and if other players are anything like me, they needed a lot of saving, making Elika a much stronger, more independent character (the developers cement this even more by including dialogue for when Elika saves you a certain number of times).

As I finish this post I realize I barely introduced this game. I apologize for that, however I shall not be editing this post as I have a rather substantial Latin test tomorrow and really do need to go to sleep. I promise to include an introduction of Prince of Persia when I discuss the art and/or story tomorrow.

Falling Out With Fallout 3

I'm not going to be writing a review of Fallout 3, as it has been several months since its release and a simple google search will offer much richer and well-balanced views of the game than what I intend to give you. (Or you could read Michael Abbot's review here) I have many issues with this game, enough that I can speak for several hours without repeating any of my points, so I'll only be describing the three best and worst things of the game starting with the pros.

Also I must warn my readers that there will be SPOILERS throughout my discussion, so take care if you wish to enjoy the game yourself.

Pro #1 - Combat

Fallout 3 greatly improves upon the combat system in Oblivion. One two largest improvements are the addition of firearms to fights, which feel more natural on a computer than sword and bow setups. The second improvement was the VATS system, which allows the player to freeze time, queue up a series of attacks targeted towards specific body parts, and then watch in a cinematic view as the attacks unfolded. The VATS system improved upon the cinematic feel of battle which in a game as pretty as Oblivion or, at times, Fallout 3 is a welcome improvement.

Pro #2 - The Introduction

Fallout 3 has the player start the game as we all started, literally being born as you press the new game button. The game then takes you through a few choice events through your childhood, allowing you to make some decisions that determine your final character as well as influencing the story in minor ways. Finally after spending roughly half an hour growing up with an underground vault as your entire world, you leave, and suddenly there is an entire world out there. The introduction of Fallout 3 is one of the best "leaving the cave" moments I have seen, film or video game.

Pro #3 - The Oasis

Fallout 3 takes place in Washington D.C. 200 years after it has been devastated by nuclear war. As such, it's a dreary wasteland filled with rubble and radiation. This is a pretty (though not all would use that term) picture at first, but over a dozen hours of gameplay it gets pretty old. And then you find the Oasis. The Oasis is secluded area filled with trees and grass and a whole list of other things that you didn't realize you missed until you see them again. This area is strikingly beautiful and when compared to the stark landscape outside it, I felt an immediate desire to protect this place.

Con #1 - Brown

For some bizarre reason Bethesda decided to add a sickly yellow tint over the entire game. The sky, rather than being blue, is yellow, and this makes the entire game (save the Oasis) extremely ugly. Compared to Oblivion, which often made me stop and wonder at the beautiful landscape, this was a pretty big turn-off.

Con #2 - Empty

The game covers something like 22 square miles, if I remember right, within the playable area. Of this there are seven places that you go to for the main plot, roughly six more minor cities with quests, and that's it. Most of the game world is filled with named areas that you can enter and explore (Deathclaw Cavern, National Arms Depot. etc...) with absolutely nothing in them besides some enemies and some items to find. If you follow the main quest there is an entire quarter of the map that you never have to visit at all. Honestly, if you're going to give a player so much room to explore, then give them something to find.

Con #3 - Plot

Where do I start? I could talk about the quests that are blatantly black and white. I could talk about the stilted dialogue, and extremely simple dialogue trees. I could talk about the unnecessary and sometimes confusing references to Fallout 1 and 2 (really two people walked from California to Washington D.C. by themselves in this post-apocalyptic wasteland where I can't take three steps without being attacked by gangs of armed raiders? And for no apparent reason?). I could talk about the fact that none of the characters' dialogue is anything more than skin-deep save one (Moira the shopkeep in Megaton, and that's only if you ask her a specific question). How about the fact that D.C. seems to be in worse shape than the west coast was in Fallout 1 and 2 which supposedly took place something like twenty years prior to Fallout 3). That in 220 years since it was attacked, the biggest group of people in Fallout 3 is fourteen or so people living in a crater surrounded by old airplane siding.

I will not discuss any of the above. I'm going to talk about the ending.

***End Game Spoilers***

There I was, ready to start up the water purifying system which will somehow clean up all of the water in the D.C. area so that it's radiation free. All I have to do is go in a sealed room and enter a code, that's it. Sadly the room is filled with a deadly amount of radiation, and despite my perfectly repaired radiation suit and variety of drugs designed to impede the acquisition of radiation in my body and those to flush the rads from my system, I will die if I go into this room. I have options though. I can ask the young warrior-woman with me to sacrifice herself for the good of the people, she would do so willingly, though I would have to live with the guilt for the rest of my life.

Or I could ask the eight foot tall super mutant who's immune to the affects of radiation to walk in, enter the code, and then have tea with me.

So I ask my companion, Fawkes (pictured) if they would do this for me. Now, I should tell you that companions normally have very limited options in what you can say to them when you try to talk to them (pictured), and they really only deal with gameplay aspects, not narrative things. Had Fawkes simply had this menu I would not be so angry at this game. It would have meant that the designers simply forgot that you could have Fawkes with you, or that they were immune to radiation (proven earlier in the game when you first meet/rescue Fawkes). But no, they gave Fawkes a special set of dialogue for this scene, and this scene alone. Fawkes in essence, tells you that this is your destiny. Mind you, Fawkes owes you their (Fawkes' gender is never mentioned, but there are hints that it was a woman, it is now genderless as a mutant) life, and would gladly die for you. Further, Fawkes has never before expressed any knowledge about concepts such as destiny, faith, or hope. At all.

Simply put, Fawkes' character would not ignore this request, and the writer just wanted you to have to kill yourself or the young woman.

Combine this with an epilogue that describes only your final decision (the Fallout series always ended with long descriptions of how your actions impacted each of the communities you met, or didn't meet), and you have lazy writing, bad design, and a lack of respect for tradition all rolled into one terrible package.

It is literally, the worst video game ending I have ever seen.

Regardless, Fallout 3 is an astounding success, selling far too many copies, and is still an above average game. It is fun, technically impressive, and is capable of great beauty. My anger stems wholly from the fact that it could have been so-much more with a better writer and some more time to address some minor issues. I get angry when things get close to being great, not when they are just bad.

Next time I hope to discuss the latest Prince of Persia and its success' and failures. Until then enjoy life!

It Only Looks Like I Left

It seems the last time I posted was on October 28th, 2008, nearly four moths ago. To say that I didn't have time to post during the period between then and now would be no more than an outright lie, and yet that is how it has felt to me. It is not as though I have not felt the desire to write, or that I have nothing I wish to discuss (anyone who has talked with me for more than five minutes since Fallout 3 came out could easily confirm this). Rather I have felt the need to allow the ideas in my head to float about for a while. I needed to spend some time wrapping my mind around how I felt about my life, where I was headed, and what everything really meant to me.

Emo huh?

Jokes aside, I really felt the need to wrap myself up with everything that I had experienced over the prior year and incorporate it into who I am now. I'm trying to refrain from using a cocoon metaphor, mainly because I don't particularly care for butterflies, and yet I feel it offers a close analogy to my thoughts and actions over the past four months. If I am going to use the cocoon metaphor, then I must say that I have not hatched yet, I am still struggling with many ideas, especially concerning my future, but I have at least managed to get my mouth out so that I can communicate (how do butterflies communicate, pheromones?).

With all this having been said I would like to announce my grand re-re-return (how many times have I done this so far?) to the world of online writing, or, though I despise the term, blogging. I have many interesting things to talk about, especially with regards to video games and narrative design and tomorrow I hope to discuss the game that made me stop writing Fallout 3.

Edit: I wasn't going to post any "real" content tonight but I just saw this article over at Kotaku that links to an article at The -Minus World and I had to bring it up. The article shows off 30 stock gaming photos (models pretending to play video games) that fail. This is the kind of stuff that pisses me off the most when I see it in an advertisement or a t.v. show. Really if you're going to haev people pretending to play a video game, is it actually that hard to just go get an actual video game and play it?