My thoughts on gaming, hardware, problems and fixes, and other various things.

• 19Aug 09

  DLC: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

  DLC has been a controversial topic in the last few years as gamers try to decide whether DLC is a good thing or a bad thing. Gamers are tantalized by the possibility of extending their favorite game experiences, but they're also frustrated at DLC like Bethesda's infamous "Horse Armor." I argue that DLC is a great thing for gaming, but it must be done in a way that adds to a game experience rather than just extending it.

  The Good

  If DLC is really done well, then you should want to play the DLC even more than you want to play the original content. A great example of this is Call of Duty: World at War. I thought that WaW was a mediocre game that fell short of the expectations created by Infinity Ward's CoD games, but the game did have one thing going for it and that was the co-op modes. Realizing that the Nazi Zombie mode was most players' favorite feature, Treyarch made DLC that not only extended the game with more maps for that mode, but also added onto the complexity of Nazi Zombies allowing hardcore players to get a more satisfying experience.

  Rhythm games have also done a good job of using DLC to both add to and extend a gaming experience. Rock Band players start with a good number of tracks that appeal to a wide audience, but players can use the music store to tailor their set list to their own unique tastes. If you're a fan of metal music then you can take your copy of Rock Band and turn it into Metal Band by buying fifty metal tracks. Or you can turn your copy into Classic Rock Band by buying music from The Who and Boston. Rock Band DLC allows people to add their favorite kind of music and therefore add their favorite gaming experiences.

  The Bad

  Mass Effect was a great game because it which allowed you to make decisions throughout the game that impacted the story. The gameplay was fun, but I have better shooter games sitting in my closet than Mass Effect. The reason that people played Mass Effect was for the involving story, so it would stand to reason that any DLC that Bioware released would play off the strength of the story and add an interesting little side quest.

  The "Bring Down the Sky" DLC for Mass Effect failed to add to the game and instead only extended it. It's easy to spot BDtS as filler when you look at some elements of the mission. In BDtS you are repeatedly asked to do several of a simple task, which is almost the definition of filler. The game wants you to go to three survey stations, then activate a few fusion torches, then you go to the main facility and fight a horde of enemies before facing the final boss. There are only two interesting conversations in the entirety of BDtS even though conversations are what makes Mass Effect interesting to begin with.

  BDtS demonstrates the danger in developers doing DLC when they don't understand what made their game good to begin with. Mass Effect had a strong narrative with interesting characters and conversations throughout the game. Bioware has shown that it doesn't mind using classic game theory (e.g. Prisoner's Dilemma) in Knights of the Old Republic and it used a game theory type of situation in BDtS, but they had only one such situation in the entire hour or two of the DLC. Developers need to insist that their DLC is of the same quality as the original game otherwise it will be short on ideas and not add to the original game.

  The Ugly

  Mass Effect's DLC is bad because it added filler and very little of what was good in the game to begin with. Ugly DLC is ugly, because rather than improve the game or just make it longer, it makes the game worse. Making a game worse with DLC is not as difficult a task you might imagine, though it's really only possible in multiplayer games. There are a couple of examples of this, but one of the easiest examples is also one of the oldest.

  Battlefield 2 was a very popular PC game that sold millions of copies, so the developer (DICE) decided to sell expansion packs and DLC. One of the DLC (and the expansion pack) added new weapons that only players who had bought those packs would have. DICE then allowed players of the expansion packs to use these weapons in games with players who didn't have these packs. The result was a slight unbalance in gameplay. It wasn't a huge deal, so there wasn't a whole lot of backlash, but it was poor decision on DICE's part. It's great when DLC adds on to the experience of players, but it should never subtract from the experience of other players. Players should never feel compelled to purchase DLC to be competitive in a game.

  • Posted Aug 19, 2009 9:37 am PT
  • Category: Editorial
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• 24Mar 08

  Rock Band: The Perfect Party Game

  For all the time I spend writing about how party games are destroying games as an art form, but for all my nay-saying and gloomy predictions, I have found Rock Band to be one of the best games I have ever played. It excels at the three elements, making it possibly the best multiplayer game I've played since Super Smash Bros. The combination of a forgiving learning curve with deep challenge, combined with excellent cooperative play makes Rock Band the perfect example of how a party game can be great in its own respect.

  
  A low barrier to entry is one of the most important aspects of a good party game. Rock Band has built a learning curve such that anyone can pick up a controller and make it through a song on their first try. Even my mother who is not a shining example of gaming skill managed to enjoy herself playing the guitar in Rock Band. A low barrier to entry is important to a party game because you have to assume that some people playing it will have never touched a rhythm game before and will need an incredibly easy start. A low barrier to entry doesn't make a great learning curve. It's the challenges that Rock Band has that makes it a truly great party game.

  
  A parabolic learning curve is a must have for just about any great game, but it's essential for a great party game. A low barrier of entry makes a game fun for your friends, but not for you, since there's no depth in a game with a flat learning curve. A parabolic learning curve is necessary for a party game to have depth and consequently greatness. Rock Band has mastered the parabolic learning curve with scalable levels of difficulty ensuring that even hardcore rhythm gamers will have to play the game more than a fair bit in order to master all of the tracks. A casual player can pick up the guitar or drums and play a few tracks on easy or medium, but even an experienced guitar player like myself stumbles on expert tracks and even some hard tracks. The experienced player can turn the difficulty up to expert and have a challenging game while his or her friend is playing on easy and having the same challenge. Because Rock Band can be so difficult on expert and so simple on easy, it's a great game for any group because everyone can tailor the game to their own abilities rather than having some players feel under-challenged, while others are overwhelmed.

  
  Cooperative play is something that has been attempted, but never quite perfected. Games like Army of Two depend on it, while games like Halo just tack it on. Rock Band is the best example of a cooperative game play experience because players are forced to work together, but aren't misbalanced or confused in the process. How many times have you asked your friend, "Hey, where did you go?", when playing Halo's cooperative mode? That question never comes up in Rock Band since you are kept on a rail called a song, which would be unacceptable in some genres, but this is a rhythm game so that is to be expected. Rock Band might look unorganized in multiplayer games, but there is actually little bits of strategy that make multiplayer games have a learning curve of their own. Since players can choose their own difficulty levels, the question becomes whether to try the song on a harder level or to try to go for a more perfect session on a lower level. Gamers can choose whether they want to challenge themselves or be a safety net to the group. In Rock Band, cooperative play has been perfected so that it accessible for everyone in the group, but challenging for anyone who wants it to be. Gamers can choose what sort of gaming experience they want while all play together and enjoying the camaraderie of the group.

  
  Rock Band's perfect learning curve and cooperative play have helped to change my mind about what a party game can be. Rock Band presents a deep challenge to a hardcore gamer like me and gives my friends and I hours of enjoyment, rocking late into the night. While the Rock Band bundle has a steep asking price, it more than pays for itself with the countless hours of fun that it provides, both as a singleplayer and cooperative game.

  • Posted Mar 24, 2008 6:46 pm PT
  • Category: Editorial
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• 5Feb 08

  Is Longer Better?

  For many years gamers have moaned and groaned when a game was "too short." Throughout the evolution of the video gaming medium, there has always been a stigma attached to shorter games; that these games were rushed or that they aren't as good. Similar to the movie industry in its beginning, the expectation is now that every film will be an epic. While an epic might please some, video games now appeal to a wider audience. An audience that might not have time to play through the newest Final Fantasy game, but instead wants a quick fix or weekend-long experience.

  Several reviewers gave Call of Duty 4 demerits for having a story that was "too short," even sites that are known for their reviews like Gamespot and IGN took off points for the game's length. While the game received universal praise for the great gameplay and story, some reviewers said that the singleplayer experience just wasn't long enough. Never mind the fact that Call of Duty 4 had excellent multiplayer that would last a gamer for months, the singleplayer took less than ten hours to beat.

  When I was younger, I used to look at a game as a value proposition. If I pay $50 for a game, how long will I play it? Because if I play it for 50 hours, I'll be paying $1 for each hour of the experience. Looking back, I realize that that attitude was childish, the value of a game, or any piece of media for that matter, is about the experience not the amount of time it lasts.

  Now that I am older and don't have as much time to play games, I no longer look at buying games by calculating dollars/hour, instead I look at how good a game is and how much it costs. Games like Call of Duty 4 are awesome to me because I can play the whole thing through in a weekend. There's a lot more content to explore in the game past the additional run through, so it's not like I'm done with the game in a weekend, but I could call it quits after that. I have gotten the basic experience and story out of the game, without investing a whole month into it.

  Movies don't last for twenty hours for a good reason. The story just won't stay fresh that long. As video game stories get better, developers are going to find that it's hard to make a good story stretch over an epic length of time. Games like Call of Duty 4 keep the story moving better than games that take weeks to play because the whole story becomes important instead of a few simple checkpoints in the story. For example, the entire story of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time could be summed up by (Spoiler):

  
  

  Link is told to go to the Deku tree. He fights monsters inside the tree and the tree gives him a stone, but then dies. He is told to find other stones, which he does, but first he meets a princess who tells him that an evil man is manipulating the king. Link takes all three of the stones to the Temple of Time, where he is sealed for seven years. When he emerges from the temple the world is horrible. He then frees the six sages, who are in different dungeons of Hyrule. Then he fights Ganondorf, who turns into Ganon. He kills him with the Master Sword and goes back in time.

  That game took quite a bit of time to beat, but in order to understand the story, you need only read a short paragraph. None of the temples mattered at all to the story. I summarized the entire second half of the game in a few sentences. This isn't to say that Ocarina of Time wasn't a blast to play, it's just that the story wasn't concise and the action didn't progress because of the story.

  Call of Duty 4 on the other hand would need about the same amount of space to describe with the same conciseness, yet the game was half as long. The action in the game progressed the story making for a deeper and more meaningful experience. With the exception of a couple out of place levels (like the Spectre Gunship level), the game felt like an action movie. The story wasn't an excuse to have the gameplay, the gameplay was part of the story.

  For people who want a more complete experience and don't have time for an epic, short games make a lot of sense. Short singleplayer isn't necessarily a cause for demerits or malevolence, but often necessary for a well paced game. It's not that short games are more fun and shortness doesn't make a game's story better, but it's easier to write an exciting story that will last for five hours than fifty hours. The future of games is to play the game for the story, not to listen to the story to get to the gameplay.

  • Posted Feb 5, 2008 3:37 pm PT
  • Category: Editorial
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