everyday gamer

My first memory of Fl0w was that of a free flash game developed as a part of a college thesis that on the surface seemed to be a variant on the classic game of Snake.   A year later that same flash game would make its way to the Playstation Network, becoming one of the marquee downloadable titles on the Playstation Network and placing developer Jenova Chen and thatgamecompany on the game dev map.  While Fl0w didn’t exactly appeal to me (it seemed more like a tech demo than a game), I did appreciate the fact it was a different sort of ‘emotional’ gaming experience that paved the way for more artsy, bite-sized game experiences on both XBox Live Arcade as well as Playstation Network.

thatgamecompany looks to build on its goal of creating emotional gaming experiences with its next project Flower, a unique game in which the player rocks and tilts the Sixaxis to control the wind and carry petals to unbloomed flowers in the lush landscapes.  While Flower‘s gameplay appears similar to that of a flight simulator, Sony is labeling it as the first in the ‘Zen Gaming’ genre – a calm, low impact, highly relaxing gaming experience that is in stark contrast to the high-impact, intense multimedia experiences that have characterized this console generation thus far.

Flower‘s “chilled-out” almost casual gaming experience might seem a bit too targeted toward hipsters and peace activists.  After all, a game whose entire premise is to fly around collecting petals and make flowers bloom does not a hardcore gaming experience make.  Even so, this sort of emotional experience isn’t readily available in the interactive entertainment medium.  And if Flower succeeds in delivering that emotional experience, then it just may be the closest thing this generation to finally quieting naysayers about video games as a legitimate artform.

Next time:  Sexy Librarian-Goddess of War?  Librarian May Cry?  Hideki Kamiya’s next evolution of the action genre.

I originally intended the forthcoming entry to serve as a bookend to my Best of 2008 series of posts.  Emphasis on intended.  Instead, the past couple of weeks was spent following up on the lives of the former 1up.com folks in the wake of the UGO buyout of the former Ziff-Davis web property.  While following the multitude of new twitter feeds, personal blogs, and podcasts of the former Ziff employees, I came to the stunning realization that I did not have a lot of insight into what new games were coming out in 2009.  Even so, that lack of knowledge isn’t going to stop me today!  I present to you, in no particular order and a month late, my most anticipated games of 2009!

Street Fighter IV - C. Viper vs. Chun Li

Street Fighter IV

I played a hell of a lot of Street Fighter II and Street Fighter II Turbo during the heyday of the SNES era back in the mid 1990s.  I remember being completely stoked for SFII’s “extension” in Super Street Fighter II back in sixth grade,  featuring the debut Fei Long, T. Hawk, Dee Jay, and (gasp, another female) Cammy! With a memorable cast of players and the best competitive play during its time, the Street Fighter II series wound up consuming a significant part of my video game time for the entire console generation.

Then something happened in 1996: the port of Street Fighter Alpha 2 to the SNES.  No Guile?  No Cammy?  No Fei Long?  No thanks!  Even though Alpha 2 is widely considered a good Street Fighter game, there was just something disconcerting not being able to do Cammy’s Cannon Spike or a Thrust Kick in this new incarnation of the series.  My taste in fighters would eventually shift toward the Capcom Vs. fighters (due primarily to the Marvel Comics characters included), leaving the core Street Fighter games to the hardcore and the tournament players.

Capcom recognized that a lot of hardcore Street Fighter II players left during the transition from SF2 to Alpha.  With a less complex, more accessible fighting system and the return of most of the original cast of World Warriors, Capcom hopes to return the lost fans of Street Fighter II back into the fray.  And thus far SFIV looks like  a success, seemingly responsible for a small resurgence of arcade activity in Japan with the hype machine rolling for the home versions as well.  How excited am I for this game?  Let’s just say that it will be the first game that I will be purchasing an arcade stick for: the highly coveted and nigh-sold out Madcatz Tournament Sticks.

Next time: Floating through a field of Flowers.

Just wanted to give fair warning that some of what you might be reading could very easily be considered spoiler territory.  While I’m pretty sure that noone really cares that much, consider this your obligatory spoiler warning.

While there were a good number of exceptional games this year, there was one that stood head and shoulders above the rest.  My game of the year had a compelling enough story to keep me glued to my console for days at a time, prompting an additional playthrough of the game – something that I have not done (interestingly enough) since the previous game in the series.  More importantly, my game of the year progressed the interactive entertainment medium more than any other game this year with its ambitious, envelope pushing design choices and production values.  My game of the year for 2008 was Metal Gear Solid IV: Guns of the Patriots.

The Metal Gear saga first began in 1987 with the story of a rookie soldier codenamed Solid Snake and his solo infiltration mission into the fortress of Outer Heaven.  Throughout the next 21 years, players lived and died with Snake through multiple releases on multiple gaming systems along with the series’ memorable cast of supporting characters such as Revolver Ocelot and The Boss in exceptionally intricate and often headache-inducing storyline.  The story became so unwieldy as to become a hindrance to itself, prompting series creator Hideo Kojima to make the claim every year that the latest Metal Gear would be his last.  While the statement never actually came to fruition with past games in the series, Mr. Kojima made the claim again with MGS4, as well as turning the main protagonist an elderly man as a consequence of the cloning process that spawned not only him, but his brothers Liquid and Solidus Snake as well.  All throughout, the player is reminded that Old Snake has seen a lot of fighting and his body is tired – his body reminds him of that fact when he quips about his continual back pain or coughs up a lung whilst smoking a cigarette.  The rapid aging of Solid Snake was a symbolic gesture – an allegory of how the player has aged alongside Snake and the confirmation that Metal Gear Solid IV would be the ultimate conclusion of Solid Snake’s story.  Every dangling plot thread, every last bizarre detail over the past 21 years would finally be revealed in this game.  And MGS4 accomplished this in spades.

Every last plotline from the nature of FoxDIE to the Revolver Ocelot’s arm to the etymology of the shibboleth ‘LaLiLuLeLo’ was explained, presented in arguably the most daring gaming narrative ever constructed – a narrative that kept me engaged from start to finish as I hung onto every word of the storyline.  While I freely admit that some of the explanations weren’t as satisfying as they could have been, to finally realize that the story was heading toward its swan song most definitely was.  And while the exposition during some of the cut scenes did run a little bit on the long side, they were by far the best, most engaging cut scenes I have ever seen in any game and they handily kept my full attention.

What’s particularly interesting about the cutscenes in the Metal Gear Solid series is that traditionally they are always done in-engine. This time around, the boundary between pre-rendered cut scene and in-game graphics have been blurred so much that it is actually rather difficult to really tell the difference. Rounding out the technical package is the sound engineering, which is equally impressive as the graphics – MGS4 is the first game that I want to hear in full 5.1 surround sound. The level of technical polish is of the highest calibur – the amount of time spent refining the visuals and the game play really shines through and the game is just an incredible experience because of it.

However, it wasn’t just the fan service or the technical qualifications that made MGS4 rise up above the other games this year – it was also the presentation of the material.  Metal Gear Solid IV represents the convergence of two media that are often at odds with one another in vying for the consumers mind share – film and gaming.  No other game before this does anything quite as daring or ambitious as MGS4 in trying to mesh cinema and gameplay.   Whether it be setpiece moments such as the return to Shadow Moses (which mind you, had me in near tears), and the shocking in-game emulation of the original Metal Gear Solid to the simultaneous split-screen battle with Old Snake fighting off an army Gecko robots and Raiden locked in battle with Vamp atop Metal Gear Rex, to the final crawl to the final room where connect with Old Snake and literally experience all of his pain and suffering, it just goes to show that Guns of the Patriots has truly set a new standard in presentation and that the future is bright for interactive entertainment.

Hideo Kojima, thank you for making my most beloved game in 2008.  I salute you on yet another masterpiece.

P.S. Please make more Metal Gear games!

Difficulty of games is a very interesting to me nowadays. More and more I find that I want to enjoy the gaming experience and not be frustrated in the process of doing so. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I am becoming a casual gamer, but as my life has gotten more busy I find that I would rather see something new in a game and not be languishing on stage for days on end. Even so, there are games that treat difficulty as a badge of honor such as Ninja Gaiden (which berates you mercilessly if you lower the difficulty level) and Halo (which says that the most difficulty level is the real way to play). Some folks find that brand of masochistic behavior fun – I still have mixed feelings in regards to that.

Mega Man 9 was an interesting game in 2008 as it was designed with old school 8-bit graphics as homage to the old days of the NES. Along with the old school graphics came old school gameplay: that is, Capcom made the game incredibly difficult to satisfy fans of the series, oftentimes evoking thoughts that the game was deliberately designed to frustrate you. In fact, I don’t remember the original Mega Man games on the NES ever being this difficult.   And yet, I still had a lot of fun with the game – a testament to solid game design.

Stuff that can kill you here: insta-kill spikes on the ground, a spinning pendulum, and a teleporting robot that shoots stuff.  Yep.

Needless to say, I have not finished Mega Man 9 – I stopped at around the 6th robot master defeated before my interest was diverted elsewhere to another game. This was only after dumping a good eight or so hours dying, breaking controllers, and calling myself an idiot for getting tricked by the game. Perhaps I will finish the game one day.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of in-game advertisement; often times sticks out like a sore thumb and just doesn’t seem appropriate for the environment.  But if there’s one game that did in-game advertisement right this year, it’s Burnout Paradise.  Aside from being the best racing game this year, Burnout also featured real-world billboard advertisements in the busy virtual world of Paradise city.  The best one of the bunch?

‘Nuff said.